More Shall Be Revealed
Sue Brown
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 Susan Brown
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Chapters
Foreword
How It Was
The High School/College Years
The Good Girl Mask Unravels
The Lewis Water Years
Birthing the Light
Searching for Answers/An Inside Job
More Shall Be Revealed
Still Searching/The Inside Job Continues
Back to the Story
The Plan
As One Door Closes, Another Opens
My Spiritual Experiences Continue
Beginning of the Dark Night
Home and in Denial
Spiritual Healing
The Sanctuary
Psychic Abilities/Spiritual Revelation
What It’s Like Now
More Visitors
My Work Going Forward
Learning to Love Again
Moving Into the Fifth Dimension and Beyond
Afterword
Epilogue
Cover Acknowledgement
Cover Designed by Susan Prout http://www.angeldrawings.com
Susan does Guardian Angel portraits and this is a drawing of one of mine. The message she received when she did the drawing of the wings: “she used her bonds to set herself free from bondage.” How true that it is the telling of our stories that sets us free.
Foreword
My message in writing this book is that healing arrives in ways and in times we do not initially expect nor even perceive; but is always based on the simple fundamentals of love and forgiveness. I have also learned that, for me, there was nothing worse than having my pain ignored and dismissed, swept under the carpet as if it never occurred . . . This happened to me as a child: “Don’t feel that way;” and I perpetuated the pattern during my active alcoholism when I wore many masks so I could portray to the world at large; “I am fine.” I continued, however, to create situations over and over again, even into my sobriety, in which I was victimized, always looking for someone to notice me, to see my pain. . . to see me.
When things were supposed to be getting better for me as I got sober, they continued to fall apart. For a long time, I blamed my character defects and poor decision making on my part. I now look back, though, and see with new eyes; about the gyrations of my crazy life and all the mixed up feelings of ‘not good enough’ and ‘just on the brink of,’ always blaming my alcoholism when things didn’t work out, when perhaps there was a higher reason all along. I now think there was a Divine Plan at work; and that some of the pain and sorrow were meant to be, karmic, if you will, teaching me, above all, to embrace myself first, and then others, with great love and compassion, for after all, isn’t this what it’s all about anyway?
This is my story . . .
Sue B
How It Was
Sometimes I think I was born with a piece or two missing or broken. Whatever the case, I always felt different from other people. From my earliest memories, I remember thinking I stood apart and watched as other people lived their lives. My Father drank and my Mother made do as was the way when I was growing up – there were no talk shows about alcoholism or family dysfunction – no shows like Intervention to show you upclose and personal how people could get help.
My Father was the central controlling figure in all of this; an angry often violent man who used alcohol as his way to vent all the rage and frustration he had boiling inside him at the way his life had turned out, at the way the world was. . .or at least the way he perceived it to be.. . .You see, underneath it all, I think he was horribly disappointed. He was the product of the Second World War and, I have no doubt, that although he drank his way through Europe, that the alcohol still did not give him enough anesthesia to blot out what he had he had seen or, worse, what he had done. . .So, night after night, he drank for release or alternatively. . oblivion. .
One of my earliest childhood memories is of me standing naked right after a bath, immediately behind the closed bathroom door. I am probably about 5 years old. My Mother is trying to hurriedly finish drying me off; suddenly, the door is shoved open just far enough so that Daddy can push his pistol though the crack. That’s all I remember . . .me, my Mother and that gun coming around the crack in the door . . .
When I was much older, I had an opportunity to read some of the letters my Father wrote to my Grandfather when he first went overseas. He just wanted to come home and resume his life of hunting and fishing. . .If there was a vestige there of the man who was later to become my Father, I had been too young and scared to see it; and he certainly wasn’t that interested in me – a daughter. He would later show a little more interest in his two sons – especially the youngest.
My Mother was always thought of as the sane one since she did not drink. If you really think about it, this is a terrific burden to place on someone who, for whatever reason, ends up married to an alcoholic. She had grown up as one of seven kids – 5 brothers and one sister during the depression.
They had a large farm in rural Pennsylvania; and they worked hard, handled their problems on their own, and “made it through.” They were taught to pull their own weight early on, that you “pulled yourself up by your bootstraps, “ you didn’t complain . . .especially if you were a girl . you made do . . .”
I think I have always judged her more harshly than my Father because I expected more of her, after all, she was the responsible one, the one who was to be counted upon and on whose slender shoulders everything literally fell.
And, quite frankly, she was certainly not ready, who could be ready for the onslaught that was our family? Add to this what my Mother had been taught . . these days we would label her co-dependent, in denial etc. etc. . but remember that this was the 50’s going forward. . . yes, my mother believed everything she had been taught. . why wouldn’t she? She lived out in a rural area with no phone, no driver’s license, limited TV access and once a week trips to town for groceries. . .
So, what went on in our house, stayed there; a secret not to be shared. not even within the church circles in which my Mother began to participate so freely – where I thought you were supposed to be able to get comfort – but where it seemed to be more important to put a “proper face” on things . . .
So, lacking any other rational role model, I, by default, began to absorb my Mother’s thinking like a little sponge and it would be many years later and after much pain before the masks I wore would all begin to unravel . . .
To survive, I learned to live between the real world and my fantasy world. Initially, my fantasy world was the world of books and music. I remember absolutely devouring the Nancy Drew books. Later on, I lived in my music; I sang in the church choir – this was the only thing about the Presbyterian experience which moved me; and I would practice for hours because it would take me out of myself.
As is not uncommon, I stopped singing when I began to drink. Looking back, I think I was always looking for something outside of myself for comfort,.anything to provide that much needed sanctuary from everything going on around me. I needed to escape; to find a safe place beyond the ugliness of what was going on around me . . surely this couldn’t be right . .
To this day, I would much rather lose myself in “fantasy” or illusion than deal with reality but I have acquired tools for staying present when I feel myself drifting away. I believe the psychological term is disassociation.
So, over the years, we suffered in silence and shame – as my Father vented his rage – which seemed to be vast and endless - upon us. I don’t think he ever did or said much in the bars where he drank. He waited until he got home – then he got loud – really loud and violent. .
We had pictures covering up where his fist had gone through the walls. . He never actually hit any of us. . except maybe once or twice and then I think it was more by accident. But there were innumerable threats and grabs and shoves. . best to stay well away. .and just pray for it to be over. . at least, until, next time.
As the oldest, I became vigilant at an early age. I became attuned, or at least I thought I was, to the “signs” that he was either “in” for the evening. .for example, he closed the garage door , he was settled “in,” or he was “restless, irritable and discontented” which were signs, I later learned, that he was thirsty and needed the comfort that he thought only drinking could provide.
Once he was “out,” I would be the one who sat by the window and watched for him to come home so that all of us – my Mother and my sister and I – could hurry to turn out all the lights and go to bed and pretend we were asleep, even if it was some absurdly early hour – so that we would just not be close by when it all began. I look back now and it was like a volcano erupting in the house every two or three days. How do you prepare for that?
And, at the worst, there were the guns. . we never knew where the bullets would go – out the door. . one came zinging up the steps and broke the mirror next to our bed one night – you never really knew. .
I remember the Christmas holidays as being particularly bad times because my Father always got very very drunk on Christmas Eve always ruining Christmas Day. One Christmas, I recall, we didn’t have a tree yet on Christmas Eve; my Father arrived home in his usual state after working a half day, so my sister and I decided to set off out across the fields with a saw to get a tree.
Now, neither my sister nor I could have been more than 11 or 12 and all we could find were scruffy old pine trees too misshapen to be a Christmas tree. The problem, of course, was we were too small to cut down a tree anyway. We ended up at a neighbor’s house; they felt sorry for us, they knew what was going on; so they gave us a tree they had discarded when they had found a better one.
It was one of the ugliest trees we ever had . . .all lopsided and crooked but at least we had accomplished what we set out to do . . . I often think it was this kind of thing that made it difficult later for me to think I couldn’t handle just about everything . . .
There were other times we were helpless to do anything against my Father’s rage . . when the radio went flying out the kitchen window. . .and the contents of my Mother’s sewing cabinet went out the back door because she wouldn’t give him the car keys to go back out to the bars . . .I could go on. . .
One time, my sister and I took a butcher knife upstairs to the bedroom where he had passed out on his stomach . . we actually thought we would kill him . . it had been a really bad night of it . . the yelling. . screaming . . the fear. . .I remember saying . .”we can’t ruin our lives over this . . “ I don’t think we ever really would have done it, but we thought about it. That’s how bad it was.
The only solace we ever had was that he never drank two nights in a row. So, if you paid your “dues” one night, then the next night, you knew you would be ok. . He would be quiet and recovering. . what a way to live. .
This kind of acclimation to the world followed me for many years for I came to believe that all of life was characterized by this sort of “pay your dues, get a brief reprieve” and because I believed it, it was out pictured in my own life. I did not understand that I was a Child of God perfect, whole and complete; and that I did not have to “pay dues” to have a good day or to have something good happen to me.
At about the age of 5, my Mother took me to a Church about which I remember very little except that the “fire and brimstone” concept of an unforgiving judgmental God were imprinted upon me. Later on, while I intellectually rejected these concepts, they were apparently very deeply ingrained in my childhood psyche because they proved to be very difficult to overcome in my life. It took me a very long time to find a loving and forgiving God.
Looking back, these patterns of secrecy and isolation, of falsely believing that we must somehow “make do” because an unforgiving and judgmental God apparently said so, were indelibly imprinted on my impressionable young mind.( I was later told by a professional Energy Healer that my young mind had been unable to distinquish between the screaming in the church and my Father’s screaming; it was one and the same. As a result, a “negative” channel had literally opened in my brain.
She helped me to close it; I had lived with that for most of my life.
My sister Patty was two years younger than me. She didn’t seem to take things to heart the way I did. I liked to read; she preferred to play outside. I was very bossy; and we fought a lot but I think that is typical for sisters two years apart. I was a better student but my sister was very smart; she just was not as interested in getting good grades and being the best as I was.
For some reason, I innately always wanted to be “the best.” I can remember our first grade teacher used to line us up for one reason or another; and she always asked the local preacher’s daughter to lead. I was seriously offended by this at the ripe old age of six because, even then, I had this desire to be “first, ” to excel.
My sister didn’t seem to have this same drive. From the beginning, I would argue a point with my Mother in order to gain ground. My sister, meantime, would quietly do exactly what she wanted when she wanted. If she didn’t get what she wanted, she did not argue. She would get angry, stomp out of the room, and always, always, slam the nearest door. Lots of sighing, eye rolling and door slamming . . .
One day, my Mother sat my sister and I down and asked if we would like an addition to the family. I was about 12; Patty was 10. We both said “no,” we didn’t think so.
Well, nonetheless, my brother Stuart came along in September, 1959 followed closely by a second and final brother Barry in February, 1961. We were finally complete – a textbook case of dysfunction. My Father was ecstatic – he had apparently always wanted boys – he certainly had never shown much interest in my sister and me. But he had always preferred my sister – he had made that very clear.
I remember one time Patty got up early one morning and, apparently not really awake, had fallen down the stairs. We were both still small; I was probably not more than eight or nine; my Father blamed me for not watching Patty, and taking care of her. I burst into tears of frustration and helplessness.
Now, there are some kids who would shrug this off perhaps or get angry at adults. After the tears, I stuffed this down along with the feelings about my First Grade teacher and the guns and all the rest and marched on like a good little girl.
When my brothers came, my sister and I threw away our dolls. We now had real life dolls. Stuart was really cute and reasonably well behaved. He was just a lot of fun. But Barry, now there was another story . . but first the name. .
My understanding is that my Mother was holding out for the name Michael which was the name of my parents’ first child who died after only three days. My Father, on the other hand, was not having any of this and after a few drinks under his belt, insisted on the name Barry.
And that is my understanding of how “Michael” the Second became Barry, the First. Barry was a hand full from the beginning.
Instead of the iron fist approach used on the rest of us, my Father loved and encouraged Barry’s “misbehavior,” . . .Whereas he would have beaten the living s__ out of the rest of us, he thought Barry was funny and cute which, of course, just egged him on. . . .
There are any number of Barry’s ‘transgressions I could recount . . A few I recall vividly are that Barry always had a great disdain for clothing and rarely wore anything unless absolutely forced. We were lucky if he wore “something” ie diaper, anything below the waist. . . He once painted the bathroom in iodine, tried to drown a litter of kittens in the well water, carried a live snake into the living room, and almost put out my Father’s lights once and for all with a Tonka dumb truck aimed at his head.
On the other hand, my brother Stuart, was more thoughtful and less prone to this type of behavior. He tended to be more like me; a little quieter. .more afraid of my Father than Barry, and certainly less likely to test the waters than Barry to see how far he could go without getting in real trouble. Barry, on the other hand, seemed to be fearless. When he would get spanked, which was seldom, he would be defiant, asking for more!
By the mid seventies, my Mother eventually left my Father because he began to take Stuart out with him when he drank – he said he wanted to teach him to be a man meaning he wanted to teach him how to drink. She knew then she had no choice but to leave.
By this time, the Universe had conspired to make leaving possible: my Mother who had started her married life with no drivers license and no job, now had both – in fact, she had gone and gotten her driver’s license when my Father lost his due to a DWI.
The High School/College Years . . .
The feeling of being different, of being an outsider, continued to follow me into high school and then on into college because I had no social skills. High school was really difficult because I could not have anyone come home to our house – you never knew what might be going on. Too risky.
Although most of us in the high school were kids from rural areas, there is always a pecking order and high school is where it becomes really apparent. . who has what, whose family has more money, . . .and while I was always at the top academically, I could not compete socially – or so I thought - in anything that required money . . . so, I always was the ‘wallflower.”
I also had a weight problem in high school which didn’t help; I wasn’t obese; just plump and, of course, that didn’t add to my self confidence. I can remember sitting on the floor of gym class one day when I was about 15 and overhearing 2 girls talking about me; “she has such a pretty face. . .if she would just lose some weight. . .”
As far as the finances, my Father had good prospects at one time as most alcoholics do. His Father had owned a substantial amount of property in Lancaster County as well as several businesses which had made money over time. He still had a well drilling business which he ran with the help of my uncle and cousins; and my Father had been in the business until he left after what I am sure was a disagreement related to his drinking. My Grandfather had given my Father the land to build the house in which we lived. But, as alcoholics do, my Father squandered most of these chances and still ended up working steadily at Aberdeen Proving Ground for many years despite his drinking.
I have never known what he made or brought home. He was tight fisted and gave my Mother just enough to get by. Meantime, he went on expensive deep sea fishing excursions and drank when he wanted. We did go to Ocean City, Md on vacation when my sister and I were small which we loved; and we went to Bush River in the summer again when my sister and I were small but other than that, he did not take us anywhere to speak of.
There was essentially no money for clothes or the things girls want growing up. There was no partnership between he and my Mother as far as planning how to afford something. Basically, it was “ if Ralph, wants it, we get it.”
I remember one time looking in the closet upstairs where my mother kept her clothes. I was probably not more than 11 or 12. There was one dress hanging there.
I have never forgotten that.
High school, for me, was about doing well and moving on. Looking back, it was as if I was moving through in a haze. I sometimes wonder if I was already depressed because I remember a certain lethargy hanging over me. . .dragging through many days . .
There was always a part of me, however, that “knew” something; that although I could not participate now, that my time would come, that I just needed to bide my time and things would turn out for me. I don’t know where this came from; certainly no one had said to me, “Everything is going to be ok.” It was as if I had a deep inner knowing. It would be many, many years before this actually came true for me even in part.
One thing both my sister and I did was, we both liked to “escape” for a week or two
to either my Grandmother’s house or, later on, an Aunt’s house to get away from the drinking. To me, it was heaven.
I usually worked very hard cleaning because I felt I had to justify my presence (always felt that way) but it was worth it, every bit of it. And I think it was even a little bit easier on my Mother having us gone sometimes.
The summer between my junior and senior years I lost a lot of weight so I suddenly became more “popular” and active in school that year . Of course, this didn’t change the home situation but it did change the school one. I became more outgoing and self confident and got the lead in the school musical and determined to do it despite my Father. In fact, I also got chosen for the tennis team but chose to stick with the musical.
I loved it and had a real opportunity to excel.
It worked. My Father showed up only once to pick up my friend and I from rehearsal having had a couple; I knew but she didn’t know a thing.
I graduated from high school and received a small class scholarship awarded to a deserving student to go to college. This made me all the more determined to go despite the fact that I was not getting any support from my Father; and my Mother was concerned about “where was the money coming from,” accompanied with much hand wringing . . .
I could have stayed at home, of course, and gone to a local college as everyone suggested but I insisted on getting away. I think the reasons are obvious. I would have gladly suffered a million deaths by embarrassment rather than continue as I was – under my Father’s thumb and enduring his drinking.
In college, again, I was very shy and saw myself as handicapped by my financial limitations. I did begin to date and found out just how little I knew for a person my age.
While I had certainly not been a sheltered child, I had never been exposed to the “normal” things adolescents do – going out and dating, breaking up – the lines guys give girls . . I was hopelessly naïve and, believe me, when I say, that I got the fast track freshman course in all of this. . .compliments of all the nerdy freshman in the Penn State freshman class that year . .To this day, I don’t know how you can have a series of blind dates which were all the rage then and all of them be disasters.
At one point, I wanted to just come down the elevator, take a look, and then seeing the evening’s “nerd,” just go back up in the elevator.
Now, let me just say, that we were all “growing into our looks” at this time. I had again become plump but I had my “Veronica Lake” hair which was the “in” look and wore a lot of slimming black.
Overall, what this disastrous social scene did do for me was it gave me lots of time to study and get really good grades. What I did not know nor did I appreciate, however, was
that there was someone inside of me besides the “good girl” who made good grades and did the all right things and that person was actually very, very angry and full of unarticulated and unacknowledged resentments.
Because, deep down, that person had been cheated. She had been cheated, first of all, out of a “normal” childhood with a nice, normal “Father Knows Best” Dad, then she didn’t get to go to the prom, and she didn’t have nice clothes, she lived in fear and it went on and on . . . And I/she felt that I was never going to be like everyone else trapped by my Father or the memory of him .. trapped inside my head . . because there I had this endless litany of what I was not .not thin enough . .. . .not good looking enough . .not enough money . . .not enough social skills . . .not good enough to have a nice family . .like everyone else because, you see, I had determined that I/we with all our secrets were the only ones with this horrible problem. . . what had I/we ever done to God to deserve this and this story played in my head like a broken record. . .
. . .not enough . . .not good enough . .
My Father hadn’t helped . . “Be a hairdresser . . .you don’t need to go to college. . .”
And let me say this. . from the my earliest memory, I had a clear vision of what I wanted for myself, from the time I was very small, I felt I wanted to be free. . .to be my own person. . .to excel . . . to be first at something . . .remember my being in first grade and wanting to be first in line?
And later, as I got a little older and saw what my Mother was going through, I thought how I couldn’t allow that to happen to me, to be trapped by circumstance, limited by something beyond my control, I meant to have control . . .I could see how important that was!
My goal became to be an independent woman, probably a journalist and writer.
And also, from the beginning, .I had this knowing that everything would turn out. . . .but also, from the beginning, what happened was , I allowed other people to begin to define me, to chip away at what I envisioned, always, they said, “for my own good.” and I gave in to that and to many other things . . .anger. . .fear. . escape . . alcohol . .
And let me tell you. . .when someone, anyone, says those words to you “for your own good:” . . their vision is always, always going to be smaller than your vision or God’s vision is for you; for when I have allowed someone else to define me, they always, always have drawn the picture too small; too confining. . .for my own good, of course. . .of course. . .
And that’s what I have allowed to happen to me . . .over and over and over . .
And, I also had a lot to learn about control . . . and that’s an understatement.
The Good Girl Mask Unravels
So, there I was for the first time, off at a very large university, full of unidentified resentments and anger, agreeable to becoming a teacher for practical reasons . . .but a writer at heart . . .
I think, as they say, I was a disaster in the making. . . although, sadly, I was also young and idealistic. . . very, very impressionable but so full of secrets and unexpressed shame, wanting so very much to be loved and accepted but not really knowing what that meant. . .wanting to please . . one person on the outside. . another on the inside. . .just waiting for that one magic elixir that would ignite the whole thing. . .
I had always said I would never, ever, ever, be like my Father. The thing was. . .when the last part of my senior year rolled around, I could almost taste freedom right around the corner. By this time, I had a straight 4.0 average, the end was in sight.
I had just turned 21, legal drinking age in Pennsylvania . so I felt that perhaps my time had come to finally get out some. .
When I took those first drinks, they were not a problem like his drinking, they were a solution – and, I drank for the effect from the very beginning. The alcohol took me out of myself – I was no longer the “watcher” – I could live; there was now ENOUGH!! I could be like everyone else for awhile!! My God!! Who wouldn’t want to do this? I didn’t hear that tape for awhile, the one that kept saying “Not enough, Not enough . . .”
I thought I had found my freedom at last!!
And this is the secret to alcoholism . . . that first drink did something for me it does not do for other people . . . it is actually a solution rather than a problem. . it becomes a problem but it becomes a problem later. . after there has been a period of fun. . sometimes mixed with problems . . but there is always, always that illusive freedom waiting to be rediscovered. . and that is the secret that non-drinkers and non-alcoholics fail to comprehend – that we addicts will chase that initial feeling – to - as the Big Book of “Alcoholics Anonymous” says “the gates of insanity or death . . .” (Fourth Edition; page 30.)
Actually, I had problems pretty much from the beginning because I always drank to get drunk – there was no social drinking for me – no gearing up period or period of slowly increasing the amount – I loved the effect produced by alcohol – and pills – initially diet pills – and knowing nothing about addiction or the addictive process – I just chased the feelings.
Luckily, I did not start drinking until the very end of my college career or I would have had problems getting through school, but I graduated with honors and went home with my new “arsenal” of problem solvers and anesthetics.
I quickly got sidetracked by my drinking and ended up in Maryland simply because
I didn’t bother to look for a teaching job until the last minute when the only thing I could find was a teaching position in what was then rural Carroll Co, Md. What I found there was a group of students who had been held back for years because they could not acquire basic reading skills and, as the new English teacher for their senior year, I was expected to somehow overcome this deficit and teach them to read! (At that time, Carroll Co had no Special Education.)
Now, understand here, that I am about 22 years old and some of these kids are about the same age! Needless to say, we were quite a combination: 30+ adolescents in adult bodies and one inexperienced teacher and blossoming alcoholic fresh out of college. My student teaching experience on the Main Line of Philadelphia had not prepared me for this. There most of the students had been accelerated and over 80% planned to go on to college.
Things went along rather well considering until it was decided that during the winter semester, there would be a series of “mini courses,” which were meant to enliven the rather dry subject matter being taught. As the youngest and most “hip” teacher, I was to teach a 4 week course on “The History of Rock N Roll.” Of course, the entire student body wanted to sign up.
We finally reduced the classes down to a manageable size and one day, during class, one of the lyrics being played contained a graphic reference which was overheard by the principal who was eavesdropping on the class via the intercom system.
Well, all h. ….broke loose. You have to remember that this was Carroll County in the mid seventies . . . The reaction was absolutely amazing . . . I was treated as a pariah. . .
None of the teachers would speak to me; in fact, most of the kids wouldn’t speak to me because they feared the teachers or their parents . . . The principal kept calling me into his office about the specific lyric . . . It was worse than amazing; it was ludicrous because my job hung in the air as they tried to figure out an appropriate punishment. Meantime, I was expected to do my job as if nothing was wrong.
I was kept in abeyance for about two to three weeks until I finally told my department head that they needed to figure it out or I was leaving. The principal finally decided to put a letter of reprimand in my file which I was to sign. I did so along with my letter of resignation for the following year although I said I would finish the current school year.
I did try to finish out the year but my heart was no longer in it. My drinking was also taking its toll. I was working as a waitress on the weekends; and we partied hard after work. It was harder and harder to make it in on Monday morning.
One Monday I told them I wasn’t coming back. Again. I was completely out of steam. I would know that feeling again but not until much, much later . . .
I have always felt that I let my kids down . . . I should have finished out the year . . .One of the great regrets of my alcoholic career, certainly not the last. . .
I embarked on my waitress career with a vengeance. Now, I could drink the way I wanted! I always said you are never “broke or hungry;” great job!!
It was the mid seventies . . . it seemed as if there were no “rules;” at least in my world. Everyone seemed to be experimenting with something . . . it was easy to get diet pills from a doctor and then why bother with a doctor? I found other ways to get what I needed.
My drinking quickly escalated along with my pill use. . pills were a way to drink more.I developed high blood pressure. . swore off diet pills. . began to drink wine instead of hard liquor and began a years long love affair with Valium or any thing related to it. .
The early days of my drinking were what I refer to as my “out there” years.
I did my drinking in bars, night clubs, you name it. This was the late seventies and early eighties; I was in my early twenties and I was out to make up for lost time, for all those years when I had to sit home because of “good old Dad!” No more goodie two shoes for me; I was going to have a good time if it killed me and it almost did, several times.
My motto was “I’m going to be sorry for the things I’ve done, not the things I haven’t done.” At the end of my drinking, I came to know how prophetic those words would actually be.
I became the polar opposite of what I had been. At least on the outside. I began to drink and run around; and I became quite promiscuous with men. Quite frankly, I didn’t know any better and furthermore I didn’t care. No one had ever explained anything to me about appropriate behavior so I just did what I wanted and I did it when I was drunk which always led me to do the wrong thing. How I lived through this period is beyond me because I ended up with some really unsavory characters. (Of course, now I know that my Higher Power has been in charge all along.)
When I look back, it is as if I am looking at the behavior of another person. Almost as if someone else came into my body and took over and, looking back, I can see it was that part of me, that unarticulated “shadow “side of me, if you will, that had stood by in angry silence for years and years as the good little girl did her thing, got through my Father’s drunken rages, got an education. And now that other person was going to have her “day” so to speak. The alcohol removed the inhibitions so away we went . . .
I was acting out in the most obvious way from all of the years of pain and fear and when I drank, I had this idea that this guy of the moment, whoever he was, would, for awhile, accept me and love me. . and so, I went along . . . that thing of ‘ok, if this is what I need to let you do so I can please you. . ‘.because God knows, I was usually too out of it to get that much out of the sex itself. . and then, the next morning, waking up, and that God- awful instant when you realize that .you have screwed up again. . where the f . . . is my car. .purse. . my clothes. . who is. . ??????
There were a couple of “relationships” or should I say “near relationships” because that is probably as close as we get, or, at least, as I got, when both people are active alcoholics and drinking themselves into oblivion every chance they get. In both cases, I was still working as a waitress and doing both alcohol and pills, especially diet pills AKA speed. They both knew, of course, I drank. They drank too or I would not have been with them. But I don’t know what they knew about the pills to this day.
In both cases, I became pregnant. In the first case, it was due to being young and not being careful. I became deathly ill right away and stayed that way. I continued to work and made the decision to terminate the first pregnancy. I knew in my heart that I was not fit to bring up a child at that point in my life nor was the father. I never told him nor did I ever tell him why I immediately broke off seeing him.
I now know I did a lot to protect my ability to drink. At that time, I had to go to DC to have the abortion. My roommate and I took the train; I was sick all the way down. As soon as it was over, I began to feel better. The feelings came later, much later. Any feelings I had at the time, I made sure I drowned.
The second time, I had protection which failed. The doctors had told me that the IUD was supposed to be 90% + effective. I became the plus or minus 10%. The man I was seeing was separated, not divorced and in no position to take on me or a child. Again, I was very sick and lost 12-15 pounds until we could get enough money together for me to have the procedure.
I was devastated because of what happened and by how the father reacted... He thought I had cheated on him, then he wanted me to keep the child, as if we could manage it. He was not even taking care of the children he had with his current wife . . . he had a son and an infant daughter . . . so I lost a second child and a boyfriend.
During my time with this man, my family and I suffered another devastating blow. My sister Patty was almost killed in an automobile accident. Since the accident occurred in Pennsylvania and I was in Maryland, I was not contacted right away. Patty was first taken to the local hospital but her injuries were so serious that she was immediately transported to Chester County Hospital where they were equipped, at the time, to handle her.
What we later learned is that she suffered a traumatic brain injury as a result of going through the windshield of the car. Her head literally bounced on the road. They told us that one more bounce would have killed her. There was no apparent reason for the driver of the car to have run off the road.
I knew the driver. In fact, I knew her history intimately. And I always felt that my sister was with her because I had spent a lot of time drinking and drugging with her and my sister thought it would be “cool” to do it too.
The driver loved, absolutely loved paper acid. She went everywhere on it.
Most people just thought she stared a lot. I knew better. The year was 1974.
Patty received the best care available but the year was still 1974 and there was just not as much known or as much insight into traumatic brain injuries and the mental deficits they create as there is today. Because she seemed normal as time went on, it was assumed first by the doctors and then by my more than willing Mother, that Patty had returned to normal.
But, as time went on, it became apparent, that Patty was not herself. She was forgetful, more intensely angry than before; and she had mental lapses which led to what amounted to basically a breakdown in her ability to live independently. She got fired from jobs, did not pay her bills, and squandered money on things she did not need. It was finally decided that she would live with my Mother on a full time basis, taking her young son Richard with her.
I blamed myself. I always thought that Patty would not have known the driver if not for me . . ......so I continued to drink. . .the vicious cycle of wanting to blot out the memory of my unhappiness by that next drink. . .
My life by this time was a stream of men, the next bar, thinking maybe this time it would be different . . . and for awhile, things went along. An endless stream of bars, nightclubs, men, hangovers, near misses with the police . . .
I mean, we drank through everything and I mean everything. . one snowy night, I was driving my roommate’s car in heavy snow coming home late and drunk, of course, and broke the axle of her car. Another night, I hit the median on the same road, blew out two tires, went down to the gas station at the corner; and the police dropped off what remained of my tires. Another night, we were out in one of the hurricanes, forget which one, but when they dropped me off, I was standing in water up to my knees.
This, of course, does not include, the 3 DWI arrests I had or the numerous stops and warnings because, at the time I was drinking and driving, the laws were not as stringent as they are today.
When I got my last DWI, the arresting officer told me, “Next time, bring your toothbrush.”
All of this in just 6 or 7 years of drinking.
One night, this guy and I were out in his car, both wasted; we had ‘fallen asleep.’ I woke up about 3AM, got in my own car and drove the short distance to where I was then living in an apartment. As I went to open the door to get out, someone put a knife to my throat, slid something over my eyes, grabbed the steering wheel from me and drove off to what I later learned was a deserted parking lot of a high rise apartment building. His intentions were clear.
I was instantly sober. I didn’t have time to think beyond the moment. I made up a story about having a disease. He relented before the worst happened . . . not a very good rapist…thank you, God . . . he ran away. I got back to the apartment and called the police. After this episode, I began to consider that my drinking needed to change. Not that I needed to stop drinking, mind you, but maybe, just maybe, I needed to not be as “out there” as I had been.
So much had happened to me in the years since I had started to drink.
Maybe something needed to change. And what commenced is what my alcoholic mind conjured up as a plan.
First of all, I would get a “serious” job. I would give up my career as a waitress.
By this time, I had had two knee operations so this was absolutely necessary anyway.
Secondly, I would stop running around to night clubs and bars looking for men. I would find one man and settle down; I did not want to get married after the example of my parents but I did want to mend my ways with men.
Thus began the second phase of my drinking which lasted for about seventeen years. I call this my experimentation phase: my attempt to find a way to drink like a lady . . . this meant trying to slow down but usually consuming vast quantities of alcohol. and then later on, the pills . . .
I have had a lot of time to analyze this period; I now see with stark clarity how all the elements of my “story” came together to form the “perfect storm,” the result of my well intentioned plan . . .
The Lewis/Water Years
I met Donald one night at what was then the old Pine Ridge Inn on York Road.
It was 1976 and I was then working for an insurance agency on Washington Blvd in south Baltimore owned by B Green, the grocery warehouse.
Donald and I immediately hit it off; after all, we had something in common – drinking. Much later that night, we ended up taking Donald back to his apartment on Harford Road because he was too drunk to drive . . .something that was to become all too familiar over the coming years . . . rescuing Donald.
I became very good at it from the beginning – rescuing Donald, that is. I remember one time we were sitting in the car not too long after we met and Donald said to me “you know, what I need is a nurse. Do you want to be my nurse?” I kind of laughed; and said “Sure!” Little did I know what I was getting myself in for!
Believe me, if a guy said those words or anything even resembling them to me now, I would run for the hills. But I was young and inexperienced, what could happen? It would be an adventure. . . I forgot to mention that this guy, when he was conscious, was absolutely hysterically funny, witty and charming. And, to my mind, very attractive in a different sort of way.
He wasn’t your usual Brooks Brothers type . . . he was his own person . . .and I had become enough of a rebel to like that . . .and I also still did not believe that I was good enough for any “conventional” type of guy what with my drinking and all of my not good enough’s so here was this guy. . unconventional . . . interesting. . .
I knew there was money somewhere because he would have wads stashed around his apartment which we often frantically searched for the morning after when he couldn’t remember where he had put maybe $600 or $1000.
He started calling me regularly. By this time, I was living with a roommate in Reisterstown in an apartment and anxious to leave this situation.
Donald’s drinking, from the outset, was different from mine. I had established a pattern which enabled me to hold a job – in other words, I got loaded, I sobered up, went to work, I functioned, I started over.
Donald, on the other hand, was a binge drinker. He would drink for several days straight during which time all activity except drinking absolutely ceased, except mischief and mayhem. This was followed, as I was to learn all too well, by the “recovery period.” This would last anywhere from a few days to 2-3 weeks until the next binge at which time the cycle repeated.
During the recovery period, there were stages. The first stage was the “tapering off” stage where he would sip beer and try to gag down some food, probably broth of some kind. He really liked oyster stew from Freddie’s across the street. (Donald never ate when he drank so this meant that however long the binge was, he had not eaten.)
The recovery period was also the time to take inventory of what had happened during the binge. One time I came over after one of them to find him hiding under a cap. (I wasn’t always present during these fiascos; I learned that much.) I asked him what in the world he was doing??
He had apparently allowed some woman to give him a perm; and his hair was all done up in kinky curls and he thought if he wore the cap I wouldn’t see his hair! He thought it would wash out . . . he had already washed his hair about ten times with no change in the kinks. He finally had to have them cut out.
Once he got through the early sipping and broth stage of recovery, he would start on solid food. Usually, once he got to this stage, he was starting to feel better; and he would go across the alley way to the hardware store his parents owned next door, take whatever they had to say about what he either had or had not done during the spree; and then his mother would give him a nice hot home cooked meal to take back to his apartment. On his way out, after his Father went back up front, his Mother would then slip him a $50 or so to tide him over.
This is where I came in. I didn’t have much money at this time at all. So I liked to be around for the recovery stages which meant food and money. But, unfortunately, it took me awhile to realize that I could not participate in the drinking sprees.
Oh, like any true blue alcoholic, I tried in the beginning. And what happened is, I ultimately got fired from my job at the insurance agency because I arrived drunk, fell off my chair . . . dead giveaway . . . my office was immediately over the office of the Controller who heard the thump!
I also had my sister in the car on Reisterstown Road coming home one morning, tried to make a right from the left hand lane, and hit another car.
No one was injured but it was then I knew I could not do what Donald did. I knew I needed to change my drinking pattern once again. You see, as I have described, Donald had enablers. I did not. No one was handing me home cooked meals or $50 when I was short. I had to make it on my own.
Looking back, I was very blessed. Just like my Father, I had almost squandered an
opportunity of a lifetime . . . I had answered an ad in the newspaper for a management trainee and was supposed to call someone back but got sidetracked by a drinking spree over at Donald’s apartment. I had left the number at my place. Donald’s words to me were “Don’t rush home; you’re probably not going to get it anyway.” Ah, the voice of encouragement!!
I had already taken another job at an insurance agency which was going to pay the bills but which I knew was going to be boring and which really had no future. I was only 27. I wanted something more. Finally. I went home and called the manager of the finance company and after three interviews, I was hired. So, I took the job at the finance company and let the insurance agency know I would not be taking the job.
Donald always made fun of me because one day it was raining; and I had no rain coat. First, he did it really to make fun of me; later he did it to show how far I had come. For a long time, Donald had mixed emotions about me getting ahead. He would say things like “I made you what you are;” “I taught you everything you know;” and he did teach me a lot. Donald was very street smart which was something I was not. He was a real “wheeler-dealer;” he was selling used cars by the time I met him or trying to I should say.
Prior to my meeting him, he had been a rising young businessman. He had started out young working with his father laying brick and quickly left that to play around and then got into sales where he was a natural. He had started an appliance business in the 60’s which grew to be quite large selling on installments which was relatively new for the time and would have remained lucrative had Donald spent less time at the race track and the bars and more time tending to the business.
When that business failed along with his marriage and his immediate prospects, Donald took a vacation. By the time I met him, the vacation had lasted 12 years. He told me he was rich. I was naïve and gullible. The $50’s kept coming. His Father was worth a lot of money, he said. So, we just kept rolling along. I was funded by my company. He was funded by his mother at the hardware store.