Alcohol dependency doesn’t just mean drinking a lot. It’s everything that goes along with it. It’s a change in behaviour, it’s having mental health issues, it’s a lack of sleep, it’s having hallucinations, it’s having the shakes, it’s a constant heart wrenching guilt. It’s everything you ever imagined your worst nightmare to be and so much more.
My mum’s drinking got progressively worse during my high school years. I would walk home from school every day wondering what I was coming home to. I was constantly questioning why I wasn’t enough for her to stop drinking. I blamed myself for so long for her drinking.; my biggest mistake growing up was taking it all too personally.
When she relapsed after two years of abstinence and family and friends would say, “It’s not your fault,” and, “You’ve done nothing wrong.” But I would think, “How could you even understand?”
I would feel so much resentment towards people my own age with ‘normal’ mothers – why was I dealt this hand?