My father is a recovering alcoholic. It's been a huge issue in our family for years - the booze leads to gambling, the gambling to huge debt, the debt to stress, the stress to more booze, more gambling, more stress, more booze..... it's a horrible cycle that my family has been dealing with for as long as I've been around.
He's been sober for about the past 9 months. I forget what the trigger was, but of course there was a mega rock bottom event that put him into sober mode. There have been so many mega rock bottom events over the years that they have started to slide off my back and I don't even remember or lose sleep over them anymore. Needless to say - whatever happened 9 months ago - it was enough to turn him around and make the best effort at sobriety he's had yet. Of course these things never last.
Sunday we went golfing. My best friend Darren (he's my buddy who is getting married in August - I'm the best man), my dad, my brother, and I hit the course for a nice day of golf. Seems harmless enough - I figured that it would be a typical wholesome day - but of course in the circus of my life and my family, nothing ordinary ever stays that way.
When the drink cart girl came by on the course and we ordered a round of beers (2 each actually) my dad ordered two for himself. That was weird and it surprised me but I didn't know what to say. He's done so well over the past 9 months, it was a great sunny afternoon, I figured he would be able to handle a drink or 2 and not let it get out of hand. We were having such a fun time that I didn't want to turn things sour by lecturing my dad on the golf course. At the end of the day, he can make his own decisions.
Well this decision was a bad one, because he proceeded to drink a lot more on the course, and when we were done we sat down and split two pitchers of beer. He started heckling people who were teeing off and my brother and I should have read the signs at that point but we were both so drunk ourselves that we let it slide.
My dad was supposed to drive, he was clearly drunk, we didn't stop him. His driving was definitely shaky and Darren reccommended that we pull over to a coffee shop, call his fiance, and she could drive the rest of the way. When we got to the coffee shop, I headed to the bathroom while my dad stood in line for coffee. When I came out of the bathroom, there were two police cruisers in the parking lot beside my dad's car. It was parked in a handicapped space and my dad knew that they were coming in for him so he panicked and tried to convince a worker at the coffee shop to take the fall.
"Excuse me - when the police come in you have to tell them that that's your car. It's parked in a handicapped space and you look handicapped."
I'm not sure why she didn't go for it, but he didn't convince her. The cops came in and started questioning him while Darren and I sat at a nearby table and listened in. Apparently another driver called in and reported us as driving erratically, then they followed us to the coffee shop, identified my dad as the driver, and gave their statement. My dad refused to take a breathilizer, he told them that he was not the driver, and they told him he had two options. Give a breath sample, or be arrested for failing to provide a sample.
At this point Darren, my brother, and I didn't know what to do. Go speak to the officers and possibly implicate ourselves since he said he wasn't driving or risk stepping over his story and implicating him further? Or do we just sit and do nothing and watch them take him away? We chose the second route which we think was smartest - no information is safer - but we had to stand there with our coffees while they cuffed my dad, threw him in the back and took him away.
They impounded my dad's car and then Anna (Darren's fiance) showed up and drove us home. We had to call my mom on the ride back and this was her reaction:
"What? Are Darren and Anna staying for dinner? I didn't take anything out of the freezer. What do they like on their pizza?"
It just goes to show you that with my mom unemployed, the house remortgaged already, and no money to their names - being faced with a long expensive drawn out DUI trial is still not enough to shake her from what matters most: pizza toppings. It's pretty ridiculous but it's true. There was nothing any of us could do to change what happened or what will happen, but we needed to eat and that's all we could really focus on in that moment.
These things don't really surprise us anymore since we've been through this and worse in the past - but it still sucks that he was doing so well, we had a great afternoon, and then everything went downhill because of alcohol. Alcohol is the catalyst for drama and bullshit - this blog is becoming a bit of a testament to that.
Cheers.
He's been sober for about the past 9 months. I forget what the trigger was, but of course there was a mega rock bottom event that put him into sober mode. There have been so many mega rock bottom events over the years that they have started to slide off my back and I don't even remember or lose sleep over them anymore. Needless to say - whatever happened 9 months ago - it was enough to turn him around and make the best effort at sobriety he's had yet. Of course these things never last.
Sunday we went golfing. My best friend Darren (he's my buddy who is getting married in August - I'm the best man), my dad, my brother, and I hit the course for a nice day of golf. Seems harmless enough - I figured that it would be a typical wholesome day - but of course in the circus of my life and my family, nothing ordinary ever stays that way.
When the drink cart girl came by on the course and we ordered a round of beers (2 each actually) my dad ordered two for himself. That was weird and it surprised me but I didn't know what to say. He's done so well over the past 9 months, it was a great sunny afternoon, I figured he would be able to handle a drink or 2 and not let it get out of hand. We were having such a fun time that I didn't want to turn things sour by lecturing my dad on the golf course. At the end of the day, he can make his own decisions.
Well this decision was a bad one, because he proceeded to drink a lot more on the course, and when we were done we sat down and split two pitchers of beer. He started heckling people who were teeing off and my brother and I should have read the signs at that point but we were both so drunk ourselves that we let it slide.
My dad was supposed to drive, he was clearly drunk, we didn't stop him. His driving was definitely shaky and Darren reccommended that we pull over to a coffee shop, call his fiance, and she could drive the rest of the way. When we got to the coffee shop, I headed to the bathroom while my dad stood in line for coffee. When I came out of the bathroom, there were two police cruisers in the parking lot beside my dad's car. It was parked in a handicapped space and my dad knew that they were coming in for him so he panicked and tried to convince a worker at the coffee shop to take the fall.
"Excuse me - when the police come in you have to tell them that that's your car. It's parked in a handicapped space and you look handicapped."
I'm not sure why she didn't go for it, but he didn't convince her. The cops came in and started questioning him while Darren and I sat at a nearby table and listened in. Apparently another driver called in and reported us as driving erratically, then they followed us to the coffee shop, identified my dad as the driver, and gave their statement. My dad refused to take a breathilizer, he told them that he was not the driver, and they told him he had two options. Give a breath sample, or be arrested for failing to provide a sample.
At this point Darren, my brother, and I didn't know what to do. Go speak to the officers and possibly implicate ourselves since he said he wasn't driving or risk stepping over his story and implicating him further? Or do we just sit and do nothing and watch them take him away? We chose the second route which we think was smartest - no information is safer - but we had to stand there with our coffees while they cuffed my dad, threw him in the back and took him away.
They impounded my dad's car and then Anna (Darren's fiance) showed up and drove us home. We had to call my mom on the ride back and this was her reaction:
"What? Are Darren and Anna staying for dinner? I didn't take anything out of the freezer. What do they like on their pizza?"
It just goes to show you that with my mom unemployed, the house remortgaged already, and no money to their names - being faced with a long expensive drawn out DUI trial is still not enough to shake her from what matters most: pizza toppings. It's pretty ridiculous but it's true. There was nothing any of us could do to change what happened or what will happen, but we needed to eat and that's all we could really focus on in that moment.
These things don't really surprise us anymore since we've been through this and worse in the past - but it still sucks that he was doing so well, we had a great afternoon, and then everything went downhill because of alcohol. Alcohol is the catalyst for drama and bullshit - this blog is becoming a bit of a testament to that.
Cheers.
4 comments:
indeed...
Bummer... I hope your dad is alright. Cheer to another drink! ;-)
I think I know how you feel, my dad is quite similar. My mom always complains that he drinks too much. Its cool that he drinks, the bad part comes when he doesn't stop drinking and he can barely talk, but yet he keep rambling about the dumbest stuff. Its one thing when Myself or my friends gets that shitfaced every once in a while, but its another thing when a 48 year old guy does it every weekend. Now that I say that, I may be exaggerating a little bit, he just likes to have to good of a time somtimes. He doesn't gamble or anything like that so I guess thats good. but I can definitley relate a little and see where your coming from. Later man
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