Before my daughter decided to check herself into rehab we spoke daily.  I don’t mean just one or two times a day I mean sometimes for 2-3 hours at a time during the day and often times another hour or 2 at. night.  I was exhausted! During the last several months before W threw his plate, knife and fork at her and for several weeks after I also found myself having multiple lengthy conversations with him.

See that drawing above?  That’s how the conversations usually felt with both of them.  With Kae it was a guessing game as to her state of soberness.  Many conversations I knew I was speaking with a drunk person, at times it was questionable and occasionally I knew she was sober.  With W, I spent considerable time asking questions that would verify something she’d told me about his behavior, or asking him what he wanted to do about their situation.

A few times I’d get a phone call from my daughter after having spoken to him where she would say, “something you said must’ve clicked because he’s being super nice”.  That never lasted more than a day or two.  When speaking with him he would express how hard it was to deal with an alcoholic (no shit), he’d tell me he just didn’t know what to do, he would divulge occurrences like, “she drank so much at the wedding she fell down”.

My end of the conversation went something like this, “have you gotten rid of all the alcohol in your house?  Are you still smoking pot every day?  Why do’t you go with her to a counselor and seek that help?  Are you talking to your parents about this?  Can you give up drinking to be supportive of her if she quits?  And on and on and on ……..

In hindsight none of my chatter did a bit of good.  In response to my question regarding if he was talking to his own family about the situation his response was always,” they just know about Kae and how much she drinks – they are worried about her”.  SO what this tells me is that he didn’t divulge anything regarding his bad behavior.

After he impaled her with a fork my conversations initially escalated with him but soon began to diminish.  Somehow it didn’t seem right to carry on conversations with a person who hurt my daughter.  At one point he told me, “my parents aren’t involved”.. I responded with, “I wish they would get involved so you’d have some input from them.”  I told him this knowing that I was about to cut off communication with him.  I was sick and tired of hearing all the blame being placed on her – in his eyes it is her fault the fork went through her hand and glass shattered and cut her arms and hands.  Once I realized he wasn’t about to accept responsibility for his own choice to throw the items at her I gave up having conversation with him.

Whew, one down and one to go.  After the incident with the fork for a good 6 or so weeks I spent many days with phone in hand – multitasking.  Making the bed, loading the dishwasher, folding laundry, taking a much needed walk, chopping veggies, getting ready to go to work.  Lucky for me I only work a few hours a week at a non-stressful job.  Most of the time Kae was full of babble – drunk or headed in that direction babble.  I know that many of our conversations were her trying to decipher what the hell was going on in her life and how did she get there.  I was over the lecturing as I knew by now that it did no good.  If anything I’d make a quick comment like, ” well as long as alcohol is involved nothing seems to be going in a good direction”.  It is a mother’s hope that one time – just one – that those words would ignite a fire in her daughter to take herself to a detox facility and check in.

I don’t think it was because of me that she finally went – it simply, finally clicked in her head.  That was what I’d been waiting for, praying for and wishing for.  At this stage W doesn’t even know she went.  I do question – what would he think?  It doesn’t matter though does it?  He’s got his own set of problems.  I am thankful that the lightbulb went off for her!