WARNING! My Story is Long and Fairly Cynical
I was born when I was just a young kid. And yes, there will be more bad jokes to come. Anyway, I suffer a minor birth defect because, even though my mom was a nurse and knew Alcohol would have negative effects on a child, she figured "Well, Pot isn't alcohol" and smoked away.
Despite the alcohol and pot use, my early life was fairly normal. It wasn't until I was six or so where shit really hit the fan. She would disappear for several days and drug and booze binges, leaving use with verbally and physically abusive babysitters. She came in one night, demanding money from my dad. She reached into his pocket, and my dad pushed her away. She left, and came back with Bruises, and used this as evidence to get a restraining order. This lead to my mother and father getting seperated. Which PROBABLY should have happened sooner.
Anyway, this mean that we would end up with our baby sitters for long stretches of time, until My Dad finally put the foot down and moved his ass back in and kicked them out. It didn't hurt that we'd been calling him every night, and he would come home every night.... How was my mom going to even notice.
Things improved slightly, considering we didn't have abusive babysitters. We just had a drunk and coked up mother would steal our bikes, our video games, and our allowances for drug money. She also gave birth to the fourth child, who was born premature as all hell (as in, he almost set the record for earliest premature birth to survive) and addicted to coke.
I should point out that I was blissfully ignorant. I knew something was wrong. I didn't know what. I knew that I was eight or nine and cooking dinner for the entire family.
My Mom came out about in a few years later, but would claim she's heading out to meetings. Because how dare we question that? Of course, I would follow her into the Ghetto on my bike. That's why I'm such a good biker. Because I didn't "Ride half a mile to school". I was busting ass chasing cars into the ghetto. I wonder how I turned out so fat.....
Anyway, things hit a point where she couldn't lie. She had left my little sister with drug dealers as COLLATERAL for drugs she used,but didn't pay for. This should have been one of those great "Hey, we should call the police on this bitch" moments, but we didn't do jack.
Really, it just went on like this. Though she did make a few good efforts at being sober. During this time she met my stepdad. I have to give my Dad credit. He knew the marriage was over, so he just accepted that fact that his wife DID find a good guy. And we also felt bad for the poor sap.
ANYWAY, she finally became Sober in the year 2000, which is the second point where shit hit the fan. See, because of this life I was living my brain sort of retreated. You know how some people will become just like their family members in these situations? Well, that was NOT me. In fact, I decided that "Fuck that, I'm better than all of you." and became hilariously moralistic, but also crude, mean, and arrogant. Also depressed. That's the key.
Because instead of realizing I had a shit life, they put me on meds. And I spent time in and out of hospitals. Thing is, I'm off the meds and living a normal life now. Happily eve after? Hell no.
You see, my mother feels this need to make up for all the things she has done in the past. But Me and my siblings are adults, living our own lives now. So she tries to force problems on to us for her to solve. She's spent years trying to get me legally declared as Disabled, much to my Dad and Stepmom's dismay. She has tried to keep me from getting jobs, to the point of walking into some of my job interviews.
Meanwhile, she spends all day and night on the phone with fellow Recovery people. My brother voluntarily checked himself into rehab, my younger one. He's still in High School. Which is great, but it shouldn't have happened. Because what happened was, my mother is blissfully ignorant of the things that go on with him and my sister. She lives religiously according to AA Guidelines, yet spends more time with the big book than her family.
As far as I'm concerned, AA is just another addiction. It's unhealthy. I recall hearing my mother on the phone telling somebody that "You say your sober, but you aren't until you really start believing in the program." So, what, it's a goddamn cult now?