As lifeless as she looked, her eyes were open. Smothered underwater in a baby pool on the back porch, I ran to her aid thinking she was no longer alive. Fortunately, she was still breathing and I cautiously dragged her out of the water. Tears streamed down my face as I shook her limp body in an attempt to bring her to consciousness. As a fourth grader, this was a horrendous experience, however, several other of my mother’s drunken episodes were just as terrifying.
My mother’s alcoholism made her threatening and belligerent, which often made me despondent. I would come home every day dreading what I might encounter. She would frequently be either aggressive and incoherent or unconscious. On the rare days she was sober, I celebrated having an affectionate and supportive role model.
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Her disease was my disease. I would walk down the hallways and see people whispering and blatantly looking or pointing in my direction. Maybe they were talking about my mother being arrested last night, the number of times she had been thrown in jail and went to rehabilitation centers, or even how often she had been caught drunk driving. Fortunately, they did not know about the time I painfully watched my mother get tasered by the police. Watching her drop to the ground in my backyard like a shot deer, fracturing her wrist as she fell, was an event that will forever be ingrained in my memory. While others at school fretted about fitting in, I was constantly anxious about what was awaiting me at home. Beyond just worrying about my mother being drunk, I was always unsure of what condition she would be in when I got home from school. Would I have to take care of her and clean up her vomit or would I need to avoid her while she barraged me with screaming insults through my locked bedroom door? Remarks such as, “You worthless daughter” still haunt