"Some Alcoholics Are Not Anonymous"

The first time I laid eyes on Chuck he was playing in the yard of one of my neighbors on Holland Street. I watched him out the window of my living room and finally got up enough nerve to go outside and cross the street to where he was. I must have been about six years old and he was the same age. I asked if he wanted to play. He said yes. And we were friends for life.

Later I learned that he was the grandson of the lady who lived catty-cornered from our house. He visited her a lot and so we got the chance to play together a lot. He also was twelve days older than I was so we were in the same grade when we started school. We went through grammar school and high school together, and even ended up attending the same college.

After I met Chuck and became friends with him, I learned both of his parents were alcoholics. It wasn't something he told me with shame. It was just something that existed in his life and if I was going to be his best friend I needed to know. I also found out later it was not something he shared with very many people.

If ever anyone had a hellacious childhood it was Chuck. His parents were smart, likeable people when they were sober; but they were verbally abusive and neglectful when they weren't. And they weren't sober most of the time. Chuck loved them, protected them, and parented them as much as he could, and strangely enough he never complained about them.

One thing I knew about Chuck, and I knew a lot about him, was that he would never drink. And he didn't. All through high school, all through college, I don't think he ever took a single drink. I could certainly understand why. Alcohol had ruined his parents' lives and it surely wasn't going to ruin his.

After college Chuck became wildly successful as well he should have. He was a brilliant man and was at the top of his field. He had a wife, two children, and more money than he had ever expected to have. It was a perfect world, maybe too perfect. I don't think Chuck knew how to live in a perfect world. He would call me often and talk about how he just didn't think it would last.

After he had been married several years and after his two children had been born, I was visiting Chuck and he offered me a drink. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I was stunned and told him so. He laughed and said it was okay because he could handle it. And he did handle the effects of it. I don't think I ever saw him drunk; but man oh man did I see him drink.

He died in his mid-fifties. I don't know what the actual cause of death was determined to be but it was evident that alcohol played a prominent role. He left behind a widow, two children and a grandchild. He also left a friend who misses him to this day.

Chuck's death made me angry at him. I raged about his stupidity in drinking. I scoffed at arguments that it was a hereditary thing. Chuck was so strong willed that I knew he could have resisted it if he had wanted to do so.

Chuck has been dead for five years. I learned today that his son has also died. I also learned his son was an alcoholic. Learning something like that can make you change your opinion about heredity. Perhaps there was a weakness that flowed through the veins of Chuck's family. Chuck's son was in his early thirties when he died.

I am glad Chuck wasn't alive when his son's death happened. It would have killed him.

 

 

 

 

 

©2004 Jackie K. Cooper

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