JOURNAL ESSAY

May 14, 2001

Mr. Ziggler wants us to write an informal "essay" in our journal about a person that has inspired us. I like to write. I'm sure he thinking of a positive role model like Oprah, Mia Hamm, or my Uncle Wayne who's a pedeatrician. After some serious thought I decided that the person who has inspired me the most is my mother because she's an alcoholic. And this essay will pretty much talk about the bad that goes along with living with my mother and how she has inspired me not to be just like her.

Alright. Here goes nothing I guess.

To begin with, to most people, I probably seem like a regular fifteen year old girl in tenth grade. When I was younger, I thought that all families were made up of a mom, a dad, a daughter, a son, and some sort of pet with a goofy name. I been taking care of my brother Danny since I was nine. That's when Dad left us with nothing but a dirty little house. Even still, that's better than what some people have. Mom had to get a job to support Danny and I. She's had four or five jobs since then I think.

Not too long after my dad left, this guy Dirk moved in and my mom started drinking a lot more. Which was more than she did when she and my dad were together. I know that my dad's mother was an alcoholic too, and I also know that kids of alcoholics have a good chance of being one themselves. (Not me though. No way.) I guess all that's besides the point. Dirk and Mom would stay up all night doing shots of whatever until they passed out. One morning I found them bare naked on the living room floor and covered them with a brown Mexican blanket before Danny saw. You can call me overprotective if you want to. But I had to grow up alot faster than the kids I know at school. It sure isn't easy taking on the mother role when I want to hang out with friends or join an after-school club but I do it for Danny because he's too little to do everything for himself.

I liked Dirk. He didn't swear in front of us like Mom does. He made sure the bills were paid on time (for the most part), and he even tossed around an old football with Danny once in a while. One night Dirk came into my bedroom to talk about Mom. I cried and he hugged me. I know he felt bad for us kids.

"You get drunk too," I said to him.

"Yeah, but I can control myself."

"Can't you make her stop? What if you don't drink with her?"

"I don't all the time. She don't need anyone to drink with her, Erika."

"I wish you could control her."

"I control myself. The alcohol controls her," he said.

Unfortunately, about five months or so after that conversation Dirk left us. Mom made him leave. I heard him yelling at her one night because she was cursing at him because he didn't have any more money to give her. She was calling him all kinds of bad names that she should have been calling herself, really. (Mom has a tendancy to yell and get really mad when she's drunk and can't have her way all the time.) All of sudden, he threw her cheap bottle of vodka against the wall. She tackled him and knocked out his tooth. There was blood all over him and the floor. Danny started crying and hugging my waist but I didn't know what to do so I just stood there like I was frozen, like in a scary movie when the killer is walking toward the victim and the victim can't do anything but stand and scream. I tried to cover his ears is all I could do. Mom walked away like nothing happened. I gave Dirk an old towel to help stop the bleeding. We haven't seen him since.

I learned about alcoholics in Health class last year. It seemed like someone had wrote about my mom in the textbook. What it said was that some alcoholics are happy and carefree. Then there are those like my mom they always make piecrust promises, get violent on occasion, and blame other people or things for their life being crappy. Many alcoholics have jobs and function in society--they don't have to be the stereotypical, bummy slobs on the street corner.

From my own experience, I know I can't control my mom's drinking or cure her. Sometimes I lay in bed and I wish I could turn into a superhero and change things because this stupid disease is effecting the whole family. She doesn't get drunk everyday but I see her drink everyday. Sometimes she can be pleasant and we all get along. But other times, she gets so mad over the most stupidest things that I think she must be going crazy. And there are other times when I want to feel sorry for her when she's crying and being nice to us. That sorry feeling just doesn't come all the time because its too hard to forgive her for being mean and irresponsible.

I won't say I want a normal mother. The Carol Brady kind is not realistic to me anyway. I just want the kind of mother who cares about her kids and herself. For example, the kind that picks me up from school and takes me to the mall to buy new shoes or teaches me how to bake brownies or shows me how to do anything useful really. Mine hardly even speaks to me. And when she does its usually to boss me around.

One night about a year ago Danny and I were cleaning up the kitchen. We heard a car spin wheels on the street then Mom came stumbling through the door. Neither one of us said anything to her because she had promised to be home to make dinner for us. Before she left for work she was excited about it. Then that all changed.

"Can't you say hello to your mother?"

"Hello, Mother," I said to the dishes.

"Look at me! Whodaya think you're talking to?" A drunk lunatic. I thought, as she grabbed my arms and shook me. Then she turned toward Danny and cursed him for looking like our father. Before I could react she shoved my face into the dirty dishwater and mashed my nose into the sink. Danny pushed her away then she started throwing Grandma's crystal animal figurines on the floor, knocking stuff off the counter, and causing a huge mess that Danny and I had to clean up. I cried later about the crystal animals because she smashed them to pieces. Mom knew I really liked those figurines too. I stood there dripping dirty dishwater all on the floor like I was frozen. For example, just like that time with Dirk and his tooth. Even though she's made me so mad and upset over the past however many years, I have never tried to hurt her deliberitely. Talk about growing-up quick. Later that night I saw her on the couch, rocking back and forth, hugging herself. She was mumbling something that sounded like "sorry" but I never got any closer. That was one of those times I kind of wanted to feel sorry for her, but she had physically hurt me and I just couldn't do it.

That time in the kitchen was the first incident like that. There's been a couple more pretty similar like when Danny hurt his arm playing baseball. Instead of comforting him, she told him to be a man. (If she hadn't been drinking I don't think she would have said that.) I pushed him into the bathroom, filled up the sink with cold water, added some ice, and made him soak his arm for twenty minutes. I'm not sure how I knew to do that, but I did. Mom really made me mad. She didn't even care that he was hurt. That sucks big time.

Furthermore, it's stuff like that that makes my mom so inspirational. My mom works six hours a day, five days a week at a coffee shop a few blocks away. I guess she makes pretty good money. Even there I'm sure she sneaks whatever cheap liquor she has into her tea. She won't drink coffee because she says it's bad for the body. When the bills need to be paid, there's always her checkbook and a note on the table telling me to deposit the money and pay the bills. I must be fair and say that now my mom makes sure there's enough money for food and bills. Two years ago, my Uncle Wayne had to bail us out of hot water almost every month.

Grandma asked me once if I wanted to live with her and Poppy in St. Louis, but I told her that I couldn't do that. She sends me money to buy Danny new clothes when he needs them, school supplies, and what she calls odds and ends. Also, Uncle Wayne drops by every other month or so to talk with Mom. He's my mom's brother Uncle Wayne also takes Danny twice a season to watch the Phillies play. That's something Danny looks forward to all year long.

I used to wonder why my family members don't force my mom to get help.

"We've all tried," Uncle Wayne told me during a visit. "She doesn't want to hear anything we have to say. Tells us to stay out of it. She says, I pay the bills. Those kids don't starve. I'm sorry, Erika."

I asked why he keeps trying. He asked why I didn't move to St. Louis.

"Because I love her," I whispered.

"Me too."

"She's not drunk all the time and when she's not, I really like being around her. She's a good cook. And she and I get all dressed up in her good clothes sometimes and put on tons of make-up. That's fun."

"Sounds like it, kid," Uncle Wayne said and he hugged me.

"It just seems like she hates us more than she loves us."

"Don't question whether or not she loves you, Erika. Your dad was no good for her or anyone else. It's too bad that she let herself get sucked into all of this. Now she can't get out."

"And that's her fault," I said.

"Yes. That's her fault."

Believe me when I say that I have asked my mom to get help, but it's like she doesn't even hear what I'm saying. It makes no sense to me--maybe it makes sense to her, I don't know. She won't even try to help herself. Mom has her up days and down days, but most of the time she hardly notices my existence. For example, when she's sobber and home then she's usually watching television or talking on the phone. If she ever asks about school I tell her what's going on, but she seems bored with what I'm saying. That makes me study harder so I can stop thinking about her and her problems because I have a life to live myself. And I want it to be a better life than the one she has.

Basically, I am a fifteen year old with no real social life. I hang out with friends from school once in a while on the weekends. A lot of the time they just want to drink some beer. I hate that. I'm not about to tell them about my mom though because I would be humilliated. Sometimes I stick around a party and not drink anything with alcohol. It scares me. My friends think that I'm allergic to alcohol because that's what I told them to get out of being pressured to drink. To add to that, I'd really rather not start killing any brain cells at fifteen. AND I don't want to end up like my mother or like Dean Davis--he's paralyzed from the waist down from driving drunk after Rob Green's party last month. Unfortunately, he killed a married couple that had a three-month-old baby girl with them. It was horrible.

Danny and I cannot have friends come to the house. Danny wants his little friends to spend the night and make sleeping bag forts and be a nine year old boy. He can't. I can't have any friends over to listen to CDs or watch movies. It feels like our lives are being put on hold because of something my mom doesn't want to give up. We aren't able to lead normal lives because we have an alcoholic mother. Maybe if my dad wasn't an alcoholic too then Mom wouldn't be the way she is. And because he left her with us on her own, she's very angry. That's what I think, anyway. Poppy never liked my dad because he feels like my dad dragged my mom down the tubes. That's kind of what Uncle Wayne said too. I just can't understand why my mom doesn't want to help herself get better. I hear her crying pretty often. Mumbling to herself, saying sorry about this and that. This just doesn't make any sense. Sometimes I go to her and let her hug me and pat my hair down and sometimes I just let her feel alone. (She's the cheese–she stands alone.) However, I do want to hug her back and really love to be with her, but she makes that too hard and I get pushed away then I feel bad so I go read something or do my homework over again.

In addition, it's not fair. I could leave Danny to fend for himself. I could worry about my mother until I make myself sick. However, that would cause my grades to fall and I will not let her sickness ruin my future. Someone has to be responsible. When Mom's crying and screaming and tearing things apart I clean up her mess. And now Danny seems to be turning into a neat freak. For example, goes around the house with a dust cloth when he comes home from school. He makes sure everything is in place for when Mom gets home. Maybe he thinks that'll help her somehow me, I'm either studying or reading something. I try to make sure that she's up in time to get to work. Sometimes she drinks so much she cannot get up on time and has to go in late. As a result, that's how she got fired from her other jobs.

When school gets out in a few months, I'll be working at the community center. Being a day camp counselor for five weeks should be fun and Danny gets to attend the camp for free. We both like that idea. Plus, I'll be making $6.50 an hour so that's pretty good money for a six hour day playing games with fourth and fifth graders.

To conclude, when I told Mom about the job she actually smiled then told me to make sure I kept the house clean. I rolled my eyes, but not so she could see. And she even drove me to Wal-Mart so I could get some new khaki shorts and two red tee shirts. Of course, when we got home, she made herself a drink. My mom may not be a good role model, but she's a great inspiration.