Our weekly managers' meeting at work had been relocated to a new venue for the day as part of an HR prescribed in-service. We attended a training session at Road Counseling on Depot Square. This non-profit agency operated group therapy and one-on-one counseling for persons wishing to deal with their alcohol and/or drug addictions.
I remember my sister had been placed with counselors here a few years back, when she was a teenager, as she was going through her early-stages of alcoholism. Before she eventually relapsed, ran away to Boston, lived on the streets, slashed up her arms (more of an SIB behavior than suicide attempt, I think) and lost a few teeth from being mugged; perhaps raped...never got the full story of those years...when she was about 16 through 21 years old.
The session brought up all those memories of my sister's troubled time. And as the instructors explained some of the symptoms to watch for if an employee may be having trouble with alcohol, it was like they were describing me. I was exhibiting every warning sign.
One of the instructors even mentioned that, when she was an active drinker, she had times when she searched frantically under her car seats for loose change so she could scrape together enough coins to equal the purchase price of a cheap bottle of wine. She was broke and about to lose everything, but she'd be damned to not be able to gather up enough to buy her precious wine.
It was like she could see into my soul.
Though the in-service was meant to educate us group home managers to be aware of the warning signs of alcoholism in order to provide proactive assistance to our employees who may be in trouble, I swallowed the bitter pill of realization and admitted to myself that I had a problem.
Unfortunately, after the end of that work day, I had a craving. And despite my admission just hours earlier acknowledging my disease, I caved in, stopped at Minuteman Liquors and well, you can imagine the rest of the story of that night.
At least my subconscious might have remembered my earlier state of mind since, soon after sucking down the last of my cans of beer, I was hugging the side of my toilet.
I knew then...it would be a long, long road.
I remember my sister had been placed with counselors here a few years back, when she was a teenager, as she was going through her early-stages of alcoholism. Before she eventually relapsed, ran away to Boston, lived on the streets, slashed up her arms (more of an SIB behavior than suicide attempt, I think) and lost a few teeth from being mugged; perhaps raped...never got the full story of those years...when she was about 16 through 21 years old.
The session brought up all those memories of my sister's troubled time. And as the instructors explained some of the symptoms to watch for if an employee may be having trouble with alcohol, it was like they were describing me. I was exhibiting every warning sign.
One of the instructors even mentioned that, when she was an active drinker, she had times when she searched frantically under her car seats for loose change so she could scrape together enough coins to equal the purchase price of a cheap bottle of wine. She was broke and about to lose everything, but she'd be damned to not be able to gather up enough to buy her precious wine.
It was like she could see into my soul.
Though the in-service was meant to educate us group home managers to be aware of the warning signs of alcoholism in order to provide proactive assistance to our employees who may be in trouble, I swallowed the bitter pill of realization and admitted to myself that I had a problem.
Unfortunately, after the end of that work day, I had a craving. And despite my admission just hours earlier acknowledging my disease, I caved in, stopped at Minuteman Liquors and well, you can imagine the rest of the story of that night.
At least my subconscious might have remembered my earlier state of mind since, soon after sucking down the last of my cans of beer, I was hugging the side of my toilet.
I knew then...it would be a long, long road.