Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid.......

When you are in a 12 step program or self help group, there brings on a colorful cast of characters one will meet. Again, you will always manage to find someone more fucked up than yourself. Parenting conversations always tends to top the list. As in any new group, the more you open the door, the more bizarre the shit gets.

An interesting difference between those one meets in recovery programs verses persons met outside recovery programs is the blatancy of personal issues quickly disclosed. The tolerance threshold for such issues is also completely different. Imagine you are having coffee with a person you socialize with at a recovery group or from another social setting such as the gym. During the conversation, this relative stranger blurts out they like to utilize kitchen utensils for sexual anal stimulation. For the non-recovery situation, the normal individual finds an immediate excuse to get the hell away from the person. They likely will even change their work out schedule to avoid this person in the future. Taking it a step further, they will give this person a nickname, share it with others at the gym, who all will now call him Kitchen Aid Kevin behind his back. In the contrasting dynamics of recovery social disclosure, such a statement is not a big deal. It may even be blurted out while asking to pass the Equal. Generally, the response back would be something such as “wow, you must have been really fucked up to do that”. There might even be those who would proudly disclose something even more bizarre in an attempt to top the others story.

Even though I am on the recovery side of many social interactions, I still believe the old cliche “somethings are better left unsaid”. This takes me back to the topic of fucked up parenting. A woman I will call Pat, since I wouldn't use her real name and for the life of me cannot remember it, was someone who missed the cliche along the road. I met Pat in a recovery program about five years ago. She was always well accessorized, educated, and smoked which made us an instant chatty Cathy match. I only knew Pat for no longer than two weeks. People in recovery groups come and go quickly.

A topic during one of our conversations was ways we hid alcohol so we always had access to it. This is a normal, basic topic for us alcoholics. However, I still deem Pat the reigning master of this skill. When those of us in recovery get on such topics, they are generally not discussed with gleaming pride, nor are they in great remorse. The tone is generally as if you are chatting about something you read in the Wall Street Journal. During Pat's major boozing days, she told me of how she mixed her drinks in baby bottles, packed them in the diaper bag, or hid them under the baby in its carrier. She never did say if she was also packing formula in case the kid was thirsty, but did tell me she always had enough bottles packed to keep her sauced no matter where she went. Already being well socialized into recovery conversation, my first response was to ask her what she was drinking. The whole idea of her endangering her kids lives really wasn't a concern.

You have to admit, Pat was pretty genius while at the same time being fucked up than me Here you have the average well put together soccer Mom driving down the road in her mini van, reaching in the diaper bag for the kids bottle, then swigging down straight vodka as if she is testing the baby's formula. Or, take if she was at your home for a play date. She takes the baby and diaper bag in another room so she can change the kid, in the process she downs some gin from another formula bottle. No one is the wiser. Suddenly when she is slurring her words, or falls face down on the floor, folks will claim they never saw her drinking and don't understand how she got trashed. Even had Pat never told me this story and I were present, I would have gone straight to the diaper bag and bottles. I still do wonder how she never fucked up and gave the kid the wrong bottle.