Live and Let Live, I Said

Detached: Not involved by emotion, interests, etc.; aloof; impartial.

I've been trying to sort out my impressions about my father's drinking. Not morbid wallowing in the mud kind of thinking, but thinking none the less. I don't know what else to call it. Reflection? Musing? The paralysis of analysis? I have to be careful I don't over think, which I love to do, but sometimes I have to think things through.

Shorty and I usually come up with this conclusion when we talk about any dysfunction that we can detect in our families: "It's painful." I need to embrace that simple concept more often than I do. Sometimes it's just painful watching someone I love go through something that I don't want them to go through. It's even worse when I'm not able to change the behavior that causes the painful circumstances. I don't know why everyone can't see that I know what they should do.

It's delusional for me to think that things would improve if other people would only make the changes that I recommend. Sometimes I can't stop myself from chiming in, usually with negative results. It's even more laughable when I consider that a lot of the time I'm looking at behavior that others have embraced for years and years and decades. Like I have the power to change that.


While I love my father and I know he loves me we don't have much of a relationship. I don't think he was particularly interested in getting married and having a family. When I was growing up he came home from work, ate dinner, and left for his bowling league, poker game, golf league, volleyball league, softball league, The League of Nations, in league with the devil, beleaguered and haggard. He was very active in his church. It's not that things weren't good, it's just that they weren't . . . anything. He wasn't around. He wasn't involved.

I wonder what it was like for him growing up with an alcoholic father. Probably not much different.

I've been able to work through a lot of these feelings over the years. It has been a slow -- sometimes EXCRUTIATINGLY slow -- process but it has produced some results. I can step back from the drama and make informed decisions. Sometimes I feel like a 911 operator when I take calls. I try to calm down the caller and help them handle the crisis. It doesn't feel like a loved one on the other end. I want to help them solve the crisis. I don't feel the obligation to take the entire weight of the crisis on my own shoulders. I don't buy into the drama any more. "Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts."

My best friend watched his alcoholic father struggle at the end of his life. He had a lot of regret and a lot of fear about dying. He was adrift spiritually and because he had spent most of his life thinking about himself and neglecting others -- with pretty predictable results in his family -- there wasn't a great rallying around of the troops to help ease his passage. No one was behaving maliciously, they were just doing what they had always done. They were a product of their environment. They were practicing what they had been taught. People can't stop on a dime and change like that.

I have to be very careful when I write about others. It's easy to sit up in my ivory tower and take pot shots at other people. I'm all over your flaws; it's my flaws that I can't see. But I need to sort things out from time to time as well. It's not easy facing some of these problems. Sometimes I feel cold and analytical. Calculating. But I know myself how long and hard a process it was to get to this spot. I didn't decide to stop being involved. I learned how painful it was being involved and how to adapt to manage the pain.

It's not always my fault. The solution is always with me, but it's not always my fault. If you walk up and pop me in the nose, that's not a defect on my part. Letting you do it over and over -- that's the defect.