My alcoholism [part 2]

I really didn’t drink very much during this time of my life.

That means I actually got hangovers. Brutal hangovers when I did.

That is a far cry from how I ended up in 2017.

This is a picture of a picture that has lived on my fridge (and suffered maybe spaghetti sauce that landed on my nose) from 1997. I could not have been a more proud mother. This Halloween photo was taken before a complete blizzard blew in. The mini-me princess froze her little butt off trick-or-treating. She insisted on this outfit. I managed to get a full ski suit under Batman's costume.

I didn't keep any kind of alcohol at home in these years (through my 20’s). Seriously, I just didn’t. I couldn't afford it anyway.

I would have a beer or 2 at a mixer and that would be it for that night.

I would go “out with the girls” occasionally and then we drank. Oh, yes. We closed the Inferno (ski town bar, now ritzy ski lockers) many times. Back then everyone sort of knew everyone. I don’t remember paying for a drink, ever.

I could barely buy groceries during this time. Anyone remember experiencing a complete panic back when WIC gave you a printed check to take to the store? I’ll never forget grabbing the wrong type of cereal or the wrong size box. There was no app for that back then.

It was like time stood still and people all looked at you quizzically while the checker called for someone to sprint [as quickly as the OSHA poster in the break room would allow while trying to appear fastest] for the correct cereal announced ”for WIC” through the PA for the entire store.

By this time I’d be red in the face and trembling.

That is a panic attack related 100% to not being anywhere near financially sound. Society's judgment is, has been and always will be brutal. The "system" realized this impeding detail and once there was the technology to support it, they addressed it.

Since then there are SNAP cards, as they call it in Colorado for food benefits. No questions, no problems as long as you know your PIN and your available balance.

I was supermom. Never perfect. But I was always there and I always tried.

Being a single mother put me at a constant state of financial need.

That was a big step into emotional debt.

I began to learn that those who helped me had a preset of expectations. Those expectations came in the form of strings that strangle.

By 2011, I decided that I had been pushed too far for too long and I burned that bridge.

I would do all of that time over, just the same as I did. A million times, if I could.

These words are not intended to be a set-up to an excuse for my alcoholism. I am my own worst critic. The risk factors to alcoholism in my life were (in theory) a set-up to the one and only "coping mechanism" I'd likely find.