18 Years gone by, the story of an Alcoholic, an Addict and one Beautiful Girl

18 years ago today my daughter Michelle was born, she weighed in at 3lb 10oz and was 4-6 weeks premature. This is post is about her and for her and also about my ex-wife and me.
My ex wife had to have a complete hysterectomy when she was 30 due to endometriosis. We wanted children, my ex desperately, I believe she thought it would fill a void in her life and keep her off the pharmaceutical drugs she was always having a tough time kicking. In 1991 I was stationed at an Air Force base in the high desert of California, one of my trainees found out she was pregnant, she was 19, didn’t know who the father of the baby was, she didn’t want to keep the baby because she understood the baby would interfere with her Air Force career and also her partying. One of my friends suggested we adopt my trainee’s baby and so started the process of making sure the trainee got to her doctor’s appointments and arranging for a private adoption. My ex was present when Michelle was born, and we drove to the hospital every day but one during the approximately 6 weeks she was in the preemie ward. Michelle was a very healthy baby with the exception of having a nasty case of colic, thank God literally that I was sober at the time otherwise that might have been disastrous. I wish I could say Michelle’s birth created a miracle and my ex was freed from her demons but within a month of Mich coming home my ex was in trouble, while Michelle was in the ward I started calling her Michy or Mich and it has stuck ever since, my ex was busted at the Base Exchange for shoplifting and I took her to a rehab in Venture that last for maybe 5 days. What did start to happen was that early on Mich and I started building a strong bond one that has lasted until this very morning for better and worse.
In 1992 after 10 years in the Air Force I got out on buyout program and we moved to Nebraska which is my home, my ex was from England. The first 3 years of living here where uneventful for the most part, it took me a bit to adjust to civilian life and find a job that I could put energy into but it happened. My wife was up and down with her addiction and I was still the primary care taker for Mich. In 1995 my ex had a heart attack due to a weak artery, Mich was in the car with her, they were at a convenience store and Mich was smart enough at 4 to go for help. This event would mark the beginning of the end for my ex and our marriage. My ex would end up having to have open heart surgery to replace a couple of arteries plus she was given a pace maker. My parents helped out as best they could but they lived in Arkansas at the time, so Mich was shuffled around while I was at work. My ex wasn’t able to get physically or mentally well after the surgery, her addiction got worse and so did the depression. In February of 1996, she made her first of 3 suicide attempts in that year, by the time the last one happened in September I had come to the full realization that I didn’t love my wife and that the marriage was unhealthy for Mich and me, in October we moved out and to another town.
I was 9 years sober in 1996, I was a single parent working a full time job and living in a different town away from my recovery support system, even though I admit today that I was having strong problems with my recovery the habit of going to meetings and visiting with my recovery friends was keeping my sober, well maybe dry, there were a lot of underlying resentments building that I didn’t recognize until 11 years down the road. I was doing the best I could for Mich, taking her to school, daycare and the usual, she was well feed thanks to a gift of liking to cook, and she was clean and happy. My ex was sporadic in her visits and also in having Mich spend the night with her but Mich was just happy to spend time with her mother. By the late winter of 1997 I had stopped going to meetings, I was use to taking Mich to meetings with me and in the new town it wasn’t common for young children to attend meetings, hindsight I should have searched around for a meeting that would have accepted us both but I didn’t, no one in the fellowship reached out their hand to me at those meetings and I felt alone, my bad. Somewhere in late winter or early spring of 1997 I started getting thirsty for a beer, now I had enough AA in me to fear buying a six pack of Bud so I opted for a 6 pack of NA beer and guess what I wasn’t struck blind ass stupid drunk, in true alcoholic fashion I started buying the NA beer by the cases since it was cheaper that way, yeah right, hind sight once again. My disease was a few years away from full activation but my ex’s had reached hurricane status, I was called at 4:00am on Mother’s day to come and pick up Mich, my ex was living in the middle of the country in a mobile home with a guy she had hooked up with, she was sick and needed to go to the ER, the sickness was a combo of drugs and beer. In June of that same year I was schedule to go on deployment to Alaska, I had enlisted in the Iowa Air Guard in 1994, my ex was going to have Mich for those 2 weeks and my parents who by now had moved back to Nebraska where going to take care of Mich until her mother picked her up, this was also the start my parents taking care of Mich on occasion and in the end me. My ex never showed up to get Mich, in August I found out my ex was admitted to a mental hospital, then treatment and finally she was put in a halfway house about 30 miles from where we lived. My ex was doing really well at the house and reconnected with Mich, my drinking NA beer was not talked about and things were good for the most part. My drinking was starting to show its first signs of having an effect on Mich though and this was financially, I couldn’t afford new clothes very often, even though I was making decent money, I was also starting a habit of running a few minutes late for work, which I blamed on having to get a 6 year old ready in the morning.
During the next couple of years I moved around a bit, my ex ran away from the halfway house with the father of one of the girls there, she moved 250 miles away from us. I got involved/move in with a woman who was mentally abusive to me and physically and mentally abuse to her own 3 girls and sometimes Mich, alcoholism was really kicking in and I am drinking the real stuff by now. This relationship lasted a grueling 9 months, I have since explained what happened and why to Mich and told her it was a big mistake that I was ashamed of, Mich still remembers this period and once in a great while brings it up, usually in the context of her dad and his choices in women. Mich would periodically see her mother for the odd weekend and even spend a month with her, from what I know my ex was up and down during this period but had yet to get really ill again. By this time my folks had worked it out so that I could move to the same town they lived in, I changed jobs, the one I still have today by the grace of God, we settled down in a small town of 700 people where Mich would become a part of, I lived on the fringe of this rural community, only attending school events and hanging out in the bar later on.
The year 2000 rolled in, New Years Eve Mich was with her mom for the holiday and I was at home drinking heavy jamming to Pink Floyd. I picked Mich up from her mom’s on New Year’s day, my ex seemed really down and sad, a few months before she had asked me if she could come and live with us but I said no to her, partially knowing it wasn’t a good thing to do and partially because she didn’t know how much I was drinking and wanted to keep it that way, although I am positive that Mich told her daddy drinks a lot of beer. New Year ’s Day 2000 was the last time Mich or I would see my ex alive, she took her own life in February, and Mich was 7 years old. Over the years Mich has seen different counselors, because I wanted her to come to grip with her mother’s suicide but I know now it affected me way harder than it affected her.
One of my mistakes as a single parent was always over compensating the absence of my ex in Mich’s life. This was done by buying things when I had extra money, giving in to having pet’s I know we couldn’t take care of, lack of discipline, over all giving in to her will, Mich is and has always been a very strong minded and persistent person and I am laid back and lazy so it was always easier to give in than fight. When she was 12 years old I voluntarily put her in foster care because I couldn’t control her, my heavy daily drinking had nothing to do with this at the time so I thought. We were reunited after about 4 months, with the help of family counseling, things went well for a period of time but by the following summer things were back to normal. When she was 13 she started hanging out with other kids, some of them much older than her late at night, I didn’t care because it made her happy, I would later find out this was when she started drinking heavy herself, smoking weed and having sex. By now my alcoholism was full blown, Mich did as she pleased, I would cook and do laundry, kind of clean house mainly kitchen and bathroom plus pick up stuff, the house would eventually start to smell because of a dog we had, I neglected the poor thing, he had fleas and mange really bad, this is one of those sick things in my drinking years I am not proud of at all, I would eventually put the poor guy down out of compassion. What I am trying to say is Mich was starting to be ashamed of me and the house she lived in, she stayed away as much as possible and I was so low down I couldn’t blame her.
In 2005 I got my first DUI and managed to keep it a secret, oh yeah by then my parents had moved away because it was breaking their hearts to see the mess my life had become and what I was doing to Mich and how powerless they were to help. Eleven months after my first DUI I got my second and tried really hard to keep it a secret, I was driving illegally with no insurance, I was sentenced to 5 days in jail and worked out a way for my niece to have Mich stay there, my niece who is now in recovery also was one of the few who know about all that was going on and tried to keep my secrets. June 20th 2006, I was suppose to take Mich to Sioux City Iowa meet up with a kid she had met online and his mother, they were going to go to Minnesota for the WARP tour concert, here is the sickness of an alcoholic my friends, I did not know the kid or the mother and was letting my 15 year old daughter go with them for 2 days. My car had a major breakdown the night before we were supposed to leave and I couldn’t find another vehicle to take. Mich was devastated, I was actually going to put her on a bus but my niece talked some sense into me about sending her up there with people unknown and the chances of never seeing her again. Mich hated me that day, she hated what I had become, she hated the broken promises and lies, she lay on her floor all day long and cried, she eventually took an overdose and was rushed to the emergency room. I lost custody of her that night. Over the rest of the summer she was in foster care, we worked with a counselor and family advisor, Mich hated my drinking but I couldn’t quit. She came home in August so she could start school under the condition that we would work on things, she was resentful and the house was filled with negative energy. In November I was arrested for a second time for issuing a bad check, this was the second time Mich had to watch her dad taken from her house in handcuffs , not something you want people to witness in small town America. It was while lying in that jail cell that I know I had to get help, I was ashamed of what I was doing to Mich, I was tired of playing games with my probation officer, I just fucking tired of the alcoholic game in general. I know there was no way I could quit on my own with just the help of AA this time, I was too far gone and needed to be in a secure environment and away from my daily routine, from work, from family and the rest. My mom, my oldest sister and Mich all took me to treatment on November 29th 2006 and thanks to a lot of different elements not the least being my Higher Power, I have not had drink since.
I wish it was all roses and sunshine for Mich once I returned home from treatment but the damage was done and she would have to suffer the consequences of her actions and the repercussions of being a child of an alcoholic. Spring of 2007 she was caught with tequila at school, put on probation for minor in possession, this was her second one, and she got in trouble at a party the year prior towards the end of my drinking. She was still a ward of the state but living at home. September of 2007 she was busted again for minor in possession of alcohol and disturbing the peace. I was still in the habit of letting her do her own thing on weekends because I felt sorry for her and she was also a professional by then at manipulating me, my problem not hers. This time the judge came down hard on both of us. Mich was removed from the home and sent to a girl’s group home 100 miles away, it was at the group home that she found out she was pregnant and would have to move again because the home wasn’t set up for pregnant girls. The pregnancy was a blessing in disguise, even though Mich hated the idea of moving to Lincoln it was the best thing that could happen for both of us. It was in this home that we started to bond again. I would drive down there every other Friday, attend counseling sessions with her, by the way this counselor was the first in a list of counselors that was able to connect with her, we would go to an AA meeting after counseling then out to eat, sometimes with people in recovery sometimes on our own. Mich accepted her own alcoholism, she started helping the other girls in the home becoming a role model and confidant. We learned to talk to each other openly, I started learning to say no without guilt. She started to respect me again, thanks to my own recovery. On July 4th Mich gave birth to a healthy baby girl who you all know is Angel. In August Mich was accepted in to an independent living program and returned home. Mich has had relapse but as far I as I can tell she hasn’t started drinking on a regular bases, her commitment to Angel is too great for this right now. She doesn’t go to meetings anymore, her time is spent with her boyfriend and other friends, I stay out of her life in this aspect. She has enough knowledge about her disease and recovery that hopefully if she ever finds herself in trouble she will get help.
Not everything in the last 18 years has been a mess. In my drinking I supported her by going to school events, even if it was after having a few beers. I supported and even encouraged her individuality, I bought her punk rock music when she showed an interest in it, turned her on to Ramones, the Clash, Dead Kennedy’s, Blackflag, Iggy and others, in fact she stole a bunch of my stuff both punk and some classic rock and didn’t care. I taught her about being tolerant to those who have different views than ours, I instilled a sense of equality in her so she doesn’t care what the color of a person’s skin is, sexual orientation, religious beliefs or lifestyle. Like her old man she does share a rabid dislike for bigots and hypocrites. We have done camping trips and road trips. The promises say “we will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it” I live by this when it comes to my life with my daughter. I understand my mistakes and acknowledge them, I know that if I start drinking again I will only create more damage and this time the damage will include Angel, I don’t stay sober for them but they are part of my thought process when I think the drink through on those odd days when an ice cold beer sounds good.
My beautiful little girls turns 18 today and I am grateful I am alive, clean and sober and can celebrate the day with her. I am grateful we have a strong relationship today considering all we have been through together. I am sad my ex choose the ultimate act of selfishness to deal with her disease and is missing this glorious day, I hope she found some peace.