More on not knowing…
Yes, I felt like a real idiot. And I guess I was. But, you know, if one is functioning within a certain paradigm for years and years and it just slowly changes, how to notice? And since the boys and I (and extended family) were just making gradual and almost unconscious adjustments to our lives to cope with and accommodate, it just kind of crept up on us. Especially since because we were a "good wife and kids" that realized that "Daddy needed his space and hobbies", the garage where Daddy drank was not perused very closely.
When I was diagnosed with Hodgkins' Disease, a truly dreadful movie starring Julia Roberts called "Dying Young" had just been released. It was about a cancer patient who was going through chemotherapy. Well, this guy's chemo turned him into a raving lunatic. I remember being absolutely terrified the first time I got chemo because of that stupid movie. And then what actually happened was I was settled into a comfy chair, given some ativan and a marijuana pill to calm me and a dose of zofran to prevent nausea, given a big old syringe of chemo all during which….I slept like a baby. Then went home and snoozed some more with my cat. No drama, no trauma.
Why I tell you this is because I also think that the non-detection of Hubby's alcoholism had a great deal to do with how alcoholics are dealt with in the cinema. We get used to "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" alcoholics and "A Streetcar Named Desire" (yes, my taste in movies tends towards the classics!) alcoholics when oftentimes alcoholics are not all bluster and buffoonery and whiskey smell and wife-beating. They are quiet, depressed people slowly killing themselves in an empty room. That was Hubby. And he was so quiet and so shut away…that we never noticed….
Alcoholics (and I imagine drug abusers too) can find clever ways to hide telltale signs too - in the case of alcoholism, that "reeking of whiskey" smell. Hubby drank those "pretty" malt liquor drinks which satisfied his (always considerable) sweet tooth and smelled like Kool-aid. And he did not keep them in our "drinks fridge" - he had his own private stash in - you guessed it - the "Daddy sanctum" garage.
So - I suppose that there is something I am definitely guilty of in this whole situation - I just didn't pay enough attention. I let myself get so bogged down in coping that I didn't notice that Hubby was going down in flames. This is the one thing I berate myself for and the one thing for which I will apologize to dead Hubby for the rest of my life.
I am a so-so student of cybernetics. For those of you who don't know what cybernetics is, it is a way of "exploring regulatory systems, their structures, constraints, and possibilities" (from Wikipedia). One of the things that interests me the most about cybernetics is the etymology of the name of the discipline. The word comes from a Greek word meaning the "art of steering". At a conference I attended several years ago, one paper explored this meaning further with the illustration of a rowboat that is being steadily steered and guided towards a lighthouse. The boat is blown off course and tossed about occasionally but if the captain keeps his eye on the lighthouse throughout, the boat will eventually make it to its destination. Well, in this case I was so busy keeping my eye on the lighthouse while steering the family boat, that I failed to notice that one of the boat's occupants had fallen into the sea and had drowned.
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