This, I Believe Essay (Or do I?)

I schedule my life around 12 packs of Labatt Blue beer. Drinking nights, hiding car keys, dodging insults and shielding the children are my rituals. Scarlet creeps upon my cheeks at the town recycling plant as I empty the bottles on Saturdays. Oddly enough, I’m a non drinker.

Sure, I drank back in college. I attended regular fraternity parties and even “forced” myself to take the obligatory Sunday night off from binge drinking. But all of that ended with college. I had dreams of becoming a successful journalist and marrying my Prince Charming. Beer was not part of those dreams.

I’ve been married to a bi polar alcoholic for 13 years. He was not a big drinker when I met him in 1996. He has been drinking for seven years. For seven years, I have hid his beer cans from the children, made excuses for his sometimes wild behavior – such as riding his bicycle in the middle of a winter storm down to the convenience store with a backpack to get one more 40 ounce bottle - and accepted the fact that he won’t eat dinner with the family on drinking nights because food absorbs alcohol. Counting beer cans on the counter, carrying 200 pounds of dead weight to bed, watching him urinate in the middle of the hallway, cleaning it up, and gritting my teeth through drunken ramblings have become habits for me.

I have thought about leaving many times. I have even dreamt of a new Prince Charming rescuing my sons and I. But I have talked myself out of it. Those who say it takes more courage to leave haven’t heard the stories of the women in Alanon who recall watching their kids get into cars with their intoxicated ex husbands because it’s their visiting day. They have no idea what it takes to muster the courage to hang in there “one day at a time.”

My widowed grandmother was married to an alcoholic for more than 50 years. Once, he threw a frozen turkey at my grandmother. Recently, she and I spent the day together. I wanted to ask her if it had been worth staying with my grandfather all those years. I looked at the wedding band she still wore and almost brought it up. Something stopped me. Whatever her answer was, I decided, it didn’t matter. She had made her choice and I respected it.

I believe in loyalty, commitment, and stability. I believe in for better or worse marriage vows and an obligation to give my children a two-parent home. I believe in forgiveness and the power of healing. I believe I am doing the right thing. I believe in Grandma’s choice and that, sometimes, it takes more strength to stay than it does to leave.