Love and Alcohol Collide

Love and Alcohol Collide



My grandfather loved me so much, he had himself committed.

The feeling was definitely mutual. Grandpa had been my earliest and only father figure from the time I was born. My Coast Guard father was still deployed as World War II ground to a victorious halt. And since my mother was only two weeks beyond her 20th birthday, she was still very much the Daddy’s Girl, spoiled, indulged and protected.

Under the circumstances, we all lived in one house so that Grandpa could take care of his girls. In a way, I became more like a second and much younger daughter than a granddaughter, and he became the center of my universe.

It wasn’t until I was about four that I was able to understand the brief bursts of tension in the household. There were a lot of furtive glances between my mother and grandmother. Sometimes I noticed they would be anxious to keep me from getting too physically close to Grandpa, especially on the days that he would come home from work with a very red nose.

Eventually, it became impossible to keep the truth from me, an obnoxiously precocious smartass who missed nothing. Grandpa was an alcoholic and it was getting worse.

In a post I wrote many weeks ago, I described the horror of an alcohol-fueled family incident that very easily could have resulted in my sister, our cousins and me witnessing the death of my mother at her father’s hand. There was violence a lot of the time, but usually not in front of us kids. It would be the bruises on my beautiful grandmother’s arms and sometimes her face and neck that would tip me off.

By the time I reached age 11, much about our lives had changed. I had a little sister, 2 ½ years younger. My mother had divorced my father and remarried, divorced again and remarried again. We had moved into a tiny coach house apartment exactly one block away from my grandparents.

My body and mind had also changed dramatically. I had already begun to menstruate a year earlier and my extra slender body had started to blossom. I was becoming conscious of the concept of *image,* primarily because it was of the utmost importance to my mother. Family matters were not discussed outside the family. Ever. Grandpa’s “little problem” was most definitely a family matter and it was one that I was desperate to keep away from my young friends. Back then, being a drunk was considered a weakness of character. It evoked shame.

The next-door neighbors had a set of fraternal twin girls who were about a year older than I was. I thought they were the luckiest kids in the world. They still had their original mother and father living in their house. Their mother lavished them with stylish shoes and clothing; she took them shopping every single weekend. I have never been one to envy anyone, but if I were going to, it might have been the twins.

One sweltering summer day the four of us decided to cool off by turning on the lawn sprinkler and running through it in our bathing suits. We had spent an hour or so romping in the twins’ front yard and were now just standing around talking. Two boys who were classmates of the twins at the public school happened to be walking by and stopped to talk.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Grandpa come staggering up the front walk toward us.

“Hi, Grandpa. What are you doing here?” I murmured as I tried to cut him off and meet him half way.

“Where’s your mother? I need fifty cents to go to the liquor store.” He was quite drunk already.

“Well, she’s not home from work yet. It’s only 5 o’clock.” Grandpa took a step back and looked at me as if for the first time.

“What the hell are you doing out here in your bathing suit entertaining these knuckleheads? Get in the house and put some clothes on.”

Mortified, I did as I was told after mumbling an embarrassed apology to my friends and vowing mentally to never step foot out of my house again. As I passed by my beloved grandfather I hissed, “Don’t you ever speak to me again, Grandpa. You have embarrassed me in front of my friends and I will never forgive you for it. I hate you.”

The next day Granny called and asked that my mother come to their house immediately. When she got there she found a tearful Grandpa sitting in his usual kitchen chair with his head in his hands.

“Daddy, what’s the matter?” Mama asked.

“Punkin told me she would never speak to me again. She said she hates me. I don’t blame her, but I can’t bear to think I have hurt that child. She is my heart and you know that. I want you to take me somewhere. Right now. Take me to Manteno.”

Manteno, Illinois was the location of the state psychiatric hospital*, the place where people went in those days to “dry out.” Within the hour Mama was behind the wheel of her parents’ Buick Roadmaster driving her miserable father to be committed to six weeks of in-hospital treatment for alcoholism.

This was 1955. There were none of today’s techniques for using drugs to ease a patient off the alcohol without suffering excruciating withdrawal symptoms. He endured it all, and six weeks later I accompanied my mother on the two-hour drive to Manteno to take him back home.

The man who walked out of that hospital was a complete stranger to me. Oh, he looked a lot like Grandpa, but he wasn’t the man I had known since birth. This man was walking straight and tall. He had gained a few pounds and his color was rosy and fresh. He seemed shy and quiet. And his eyes filled with tears when I ran to him and jumped into his arms.

It was autumn by the time Grandpa came home. Always my favorite time of year, fall gave me many opportunities to spend time with my *new* grandfather. While raking and burning leaves, we talked about everything imaginable. And every chance he got, he apologized to me for anything he had said and done while he was drinking.

As today’s experts know to expect, Grandpa relapsed during the Christmas holidays. Peer pressure at work caused him to make the fateful decision to have “just one drink.” The result was dire.

The second time Grandpa went to Manteno, he had to be transported in an ambulance. Since his relapse, the amount of alcohol he consumed had increased almost two-fold. One sad day he went into delirium tremens – DTs – slapping himself wildly while screaming that bugs were crawling all over him. I was devastated.

Another six weeks passed and we repeated the same journey to retrieve our fallen hero. He had reached hero status for all of us who were amazed at his determination to stay sober and to make amends for all the things we told him he did because he remembered none of it.

There was no need for a third trip to Manteno. For the next 20 years this gentle man of steel remained sober in his recovery. He was the gentlest, most generous and loving husband, father and grandfather for the rest of his life.

Sometimes he would listen to our stories about his past behavior and cry from shame. He showered my long-suffering grandmother with anything and everything she ever thought she wanted, and he treated her like the queen that she was.

He had fought the fight and won. He did it because of me. His courage becomes more impressive to me every day of my life. He is my hero.



*Manteno State Hospital closed in 1985