So, How Was It in Your World Last Week?

I just made a fresh pot of coffee. My daughter found a new breakfast blend. I tried it for the first time yesterday and it was so mellow, not bitter nor acidic. Let me offer you a cup of this perfection. Besides, I need to talk.

What a week! Don't quote me but I think Benjamin Franklin is credited for saying something to the effect that the more children you have, the bigger target you are for misfortune.

If you want to be the eternal optimist, turn that around and say but your chances for great happiness likewise increase! (If it's to do with chances, unless one of mine wins with a chance on the lottery, I won't be holding my breath!)

Hear that, kids? Do you read between the lines that I fully expect to be taken care of in my old age! So, come up with some money! Make successes of your lives. I want to be cared for in the style I want to become accustomed to living in...so spoil me good before you poke me away.

My daughter has made a deal with me of late....she promises to attend Mass with me if I will go to AA's with her! Well, she kept her part of the deal. Then, I had no choice. I reluctantly attended a noon meeting of a local AA group where I was quiet as a mouse. (Yep! Me. Quiet!) Unlike me to keep my mouth closed for any length of time especially if I think I know something about the topic in question. I had nothing to add. I was in foreign territory...I am not even a social drinker much less one who has a problem with alcohol; well, at least, not personally.)

I came away feeling guilty as sin! It was not 30 minutes into the meeting that I felt I knew the pain of every mother of every recovering (or trying to become recovered) alcohol or addict-alcoholic in there. How could so many of us mothers go so horribly wrong as to inflict our off-spring with such a dire affliction? It was an awful experience for me. (I have not told my child.)

I believe they coined a term for people like me. I am the "ENABLER." I am not the addict addicted to the alcohol. I am something worse. I am addicted to the addict.

Therefore, it goes something like this: out of my addiction, I make things possible that I might think are good and innocent but are used by the alcoholic to get further into troubles. I enable my family member to live their sorry lifestyle that can eventually kill them or someone due to alcohol or worse. (Go figure. I am still working on this one! Send me your comments and opinions, please!!)

Where did I fail? Can it be something to do with being oblivious to potential problems?

I have been around alcohol all my life. I had my first drink at age 5. Well, sort of had my first drink...more later. My grandmother was the family imbiber. Her favorite bourbon was Ancient Age. She drank it, she cooked with it. She served it to close friends. We would drive to another parish in Louisiana and she would stock up by the case. This was in the days of what they called "closet drinkers." We lived in a "dry" parish which meant they did not sell alcohol.

I guess she thought her dirty little secret was safe with her 12 year old granddaughter. She would take me shopping in another city close by and after I got all the clothes or toys I wanted, we made a stop off on the way home. It was a place in the countyside. The name of it was The Tree. She would go in and place her order while I sat in the car and marvelled over my "hush-money," I mean, my stack of Little Lulu, Donald Duck and Superman comic books, maybe a new set of Jacks or some other standard, cheap toy that lasted until you got home.

Retraction. Jacks lasted the longest back then. We didn't have the soft plastic version. Ours were all metal. Woe be to the midnight snacker who steps on one and punctures the sole of a bare foot....a muffled cry might be heard in the night. Bloody footprints might be the morning evidence. (You can't find all that blood to wipe up in the dark and you cannot turn the light on when you are the culprit raiding the last of the Tunnel of Fudge cake saved for your father.)

Let's get together next week....for coffee, right here! Meanwhile, have a wonderful time and make every effort to enjoy life with your loved ones while you still can. My prayers go with you! See you soon!