Those who are effected by alcohol because they are the responsibility of an alcoholic? How’s that for a non sequitur? I’m talking about the children and pets who are under the thumb of someone under the thumb of alcohol…
In the photo above you see a guilty Fiona dripping in Georgia mountain mud – she does not have brindle markings. What the photo does not show clearly, is her mud-soaked undercarriage, or the spatters along her sides (like she has wheelwells without mud flaps). Georgia mud is black treacle and impervious to water.
This is not typical of Fiona. She is desperate to please me, but she’s a dog and the disgusting, dank bottom of a dry pond was irresistible, I guess. In order to clean Fiona, I had to carry her from the porch, across the great room and up a set of stairs to the only bathroom with a tub. Carrying Fiona is like carrying a warm, 50 pound cement block with unruly appendages.
The bathroom is tiny and the floor is slippery. When we were done, Fiona was spotless, but my clothes, hair, towels, rug and bathtub were covered in a thin gruel of diluted dirt. I tell you this story, because I handled it with relative good grace. I took responsibility. I even laughed.
I can’t even imagine what I would have done if Fiona had dared to be doglike in my old drinking days. I might have hit her. I would have wanted to SEND HER BACK. In the final days of my disease, I was not equipped to take responsibility for an innocent charge.
Reuters says, more than one in 10 U.S. children live with an alcoholic parent and are at increased risk of developing a host of health problems of their own.
1 IN 10.
The NIH finds that cruelty to animals is significantly associated with alcohol use disorders.
Excessive alcohol makes you tired, intolerant, self-centered and irresponsible.
This morning I’m thinking of all the innocents…
