It’s almost 6:00 in the morning. I’m sitting on my back deck, coffee to my right, cigarettes to my left, laptop on my lap. One of my doggies is lying to my right, chewing on a rawhide bone and the neighborhood is taking on that beigy-gray color right before one sees the forehead of the son peek over the Eastern horizon. I’ve been up for an hour – ever since I heard the dogs bark, saw the car driving in a staccato semi-circle around my cul-de-sac and saw the man/boy get out of the car in front of my yard and shine a light at my front door. I ran downstairs and my son, once again, was not in his bed. I called his cell immediately where I was automatically directed to voicemail. My heart immediately started to crack through my chest, just as it has done so often these past few years, but my cell phone’s ring stopped the eruption.

“Hey, mom.”

“Where the hell are you? It’s 5:00 in the morning.”

“Yeah, I’m coming home now.”

“Have you been drinking?”

“Had a few beers.”

“I’m coming to get you.”

“No, mom, I can walk. Don’t worry. I’ll be right home.”

I immediately put on some jeans, grabbed the car keys and headed down the road. He wasn’t far away but I had no idea what condition he was in. We just went through this last night when I went to pick him up at 2:30 and he was “shit-faced.” It was the first time I had seen him that drunk – not being able to stand up straight, focus out of whack, words slurring so badly that I couldn’t understand him. On the way home he uttered something like ,”I hate this.” “Hate what?” I asked. “This, you know, the drinking.” But in the next sentence had mumbled something like “Sometimes life sucks and this makes it feel better for a while – I just overdid it a little bit.” I got him to bed and spent the rest of the night/morning torturing myself over the times my mother/husband/friends saw me like that – the part of the drinking where you’ve gone over the edge and you know it and you’re trying to hold it together for those around you and it isn’t working. My son is 22, is a great kid who is trying to find his niche. He will be going to jail next month for a 30 visit due to excessive speeding tickets. He has sold his car, turned in his driver’s license, broken up with his girlfriend, is working at a restaurant and has an uncertain summer (future) ahead of him. He’s not in a great place right now, mainly due to some bad choices he has made.

Yesterday at a meeting I shared about how I felt when I picked him up in a drunken stupor and how it reminded me of myself. I got a lot of help, inspiration and walked away knowing that everyone there could relate to my situation, either from the parent side, the drunken kid side, or from both.

A woman at the meeting was talking about letting go and letting God. She said she had to let go of her 18 year old daughter – really let go. Either you believe that it is in God’s hands or you don’t. Is your Higher Power real or are you just paying her lip service? Are you really willing to completely, I mean COMPLETELY, let it go, or do you keep grabbing some of it back? Do you really believe that you have a Higher Power who is perfectly capable to taking care of these kinds of life events, or are you still a bit hesitant about turning all the crap in your life over to what you say you believe in? I don’t know about you, but I stink at letting it go. Whether it’s my son, my boyfriend, my sister, my friends in an it back before it entirely slips away from my grip. I realize that I suck at the 3^rd step – Ive done the 3^rd step and pay it lip service, but way down in that little corner of my heart, I keep a piece of my will and my life all for myself.

I wish you could be here with me.  I can see the sky beginning to turn that beautiful reddish-yellow gold and the sun is peeking out over the trees. The birds are surrounding me with another one of their chirping symphonies. It is quite here…peaceful. My son his home, safe, in bed, passed out. And I am still holding on to that little remnant of my life that I refuse to hand over to HP.

I’ll just sit here for a while, drink another cup of coffee and listen to the birds.

Till Next Time –

Your Humble Road Warrior