Day Two

There are so many things I have lost to alcohol. Friends, respect of my family, hope for my future. But on August 15, 2009 something happened that I never thought would. That afternoon my sister picked me up from detox where I'd spent five days and took me to my parent's house where I have been living for the past nine months. A Department of Children and Families social worker met me there and gave me two options: say goodbye to my children as they were packed up to foster care or sign over temporary guardianship of them to my mother. I signed. And while she listed all the conditions such as my not being allowed to me alone with my own children, I tapped my foot impatiently because I knew I just needed one more binge. My parents had thrown me out, I was not allowed to stay there. But when they heard I would join my brother and sister early the next morning to go to Atlanta for a few weeks, my mom said in that case just spend the night here. A mom is always a mom, after all. But I didn't. I couldn't. The need for a drink was overwhelming and I had already decided in detox that I was going to drink. Alcohol was threatening to take my children away and there I was the very day I signed the papers, holed up in a hotel room with a twelve-pack of Heiniken. Baffling, no? I sometimes force myself to create a picture in my mind: A bottle of beer on one side, my children on the other....which do I want more? I always say my children but so far that hasn't stopped me from drinking.