If you are a parent you can relate to this – it’s 2am – you are sound asleep – your phone rings – it’s the ringtone for one of your children – you panic – you answer – you hold your breath – you don’t sleep anymore that night!  If you happen to fall back asleep you might have bad dreams because the phone call was a nightmare.

Apparently the meme above should apply to our children at all stages of life not just to babies.  The familiar ring woke me up and I quickly grabbed for the phone – my husband was awakened too.  A sobbing Kae on the other end of the line. “Mom? I’m so sorry to call but….” sobbing…harder…Me, “honey what’s wrong?, I can’t understand you – take a deep breath”.

I slide out of bed grab my robe and head down the dark hallway to the living room sofa where I can talk without keeping my husband up.  Kae, “Mom I can’t do this anymore”. Me, “do what?”  By now I am beginning to realize she is pretty plastered.  My heart sinks, again.

She begins the dialogue. “Mom all he wants to do is belittle me and play that f*%king game.  He won’t pay any attention to me.  He won’t come to bed with me.”  Me, ” where are you?” Kae, “in my closet”. Me, “why are you in the closet?”  This is when she clicks me over to FaceTime.  In a way I wish she hadn’t because she looked God awful.  Drunk, red face, swollen eyes, hair looking as if rats lived in it.  It certainly opened my eyes as I’ve never seen her like this – ever!  Even on her worst sick day!  She was in the closet because as it turns out this is where she hid her wine and drank alone.

The conversation never really went anywhere.  It consisted of her saying “mom” a lot and me telling her to take a deep breath and go to bed, that we could talk the next day.  She begged me to stay on the line with her.  We got disconnected…she immediately called back.  We are into about 90 minutes of phone time now.  I answer and tell her not to do FaceTime because it’s dark……it worked for the moment and as I continued to talk to her I switched my phone to text and texted her husband…WHERE ARE YOU?  You need to go check on Kae.

Shortly after that he appears in the closet doorway and she quickly switches back to FaceTime.  So now I can see and hear everything.  He doesn’t seem to care. As he steps into the doorway he says,”What’s going on?” in a sickening sweet voice.  Next he coaxes her to the bed and lays down beside her with his arms crossed across his chest and a look of disgust on his face.  I understand it’s disgusting to see a drunk in action – especially if it’s someone you love.

She stayed on the phone a while longer – fading in and out – until I was able to convince her to hang up and get some sleep.  How do you think I felt?  Helpless, scared, confused for starters.  As I said I’ve never seen this before – not from my daughter or quite honestly anyone else.  This was the phone call that enlightened her Dad and me that what was happening in her life was a serious issue.  Our daughter….our precious daughter….

The next day we did talk and I encouraged her to seek help.  She did seek out a therapist.  You won’t believe what happened the first day she went for counseling after this incident.  I’ll tell you all about it in my next post.