One Day at a Time

Alcoholics Anonymous uses the slogan "one day at a time." Any alcoholic will tell you it means that they can't plan to be sober for the rest of their lives, but they can plan to be sober today. And so they try every day to wake up, and just for that very day, they plan to be sober.
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I think the slogan has a different meaning. Well, not a different meaning so much as a different audience. I think the slogan was meant for those whose lives are affected by alcoholics. I think it means that you should not plan ahead, because quite likely, the drunk in your life is going to fuck up those plans.
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I met my ex-husband when I was 19 and he was 22. Actually, that's not totally true; I met him when I was in grade 2. My dad used to take the bus home from work and because he worked shift work, sometimes his walk home from the bus stop coincided with my walk home from school. There I was happily chatting away with my dad when suddenly he took off at a full run. I looked ahead to see my dad pull some blond boy off my brother. They were fighting, and though that should have been all the warning I needed, I married him anyway...only, like, a long time after that.
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X had had some problems with drugs and alcohol in the past, but had sobered up when he was 19. Just when the rest of us were really starting to get into drinking, he sobered up. That would take an impressive amount of willpower to watch your friends drink almost constantly while you stayed sober. But he did it, and he was happy, and he married the girl of his dreams, and he had two little boys, and a home, and the whole American dream.
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And then 13 years after he sobered up, he stopped choosing to be sober. And he drank and shot cocaine into his arm, and did all the hard drugs that people die from. And months later, when my naivety was destroyed and I stopped believing that that smell was mouthwash and that the reason he was home late was because they asked him to stay late at work and that all of the elaborate stories were true, I kicked him out. And it took over four years for him to choose to be sober again.
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And the two little boys didn't understand where there dad was, only that he didn't come around much. And that was ok, because he was so much fun when he was around and there was not doubt, from anyone even remotely close to any of them, that he loved those boys.
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In that last six and a half years, since he sobered up, the boys have gotten to know their dad a little better. And they still have so much fun with him. And he still loves them so much. And they've started to stay overnight at his house; he even has bedrooms there that are just for them. And we have all become really comfortable with the arrangements. And in the last year or so, I've even started saying nice things about him. I think I finally forgave him for fucking up our lives.
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About a month ago, he started choosing not to be sober again...
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But this time, those boys are not so easily placated with stories of how much their dad loves them. This time they're old enough to understand what's happening to their dad. They're old enough to understand that their parent, who claims to love them, has chosen drugs and alcohol over them. And it hurts them. And I'm helpless to make that hurt go away. I'm absolutely powerless to change the situation for them and my heart is so shattered because of their hurt that I'm barely keeping it together.

I want to be positive and say that one day at a time we'll get through this. One day at a time this will become easier for them. One day at a time they'll forget to be angry at him. I want to be positive, but right now I'm having just a little trouble doing that.

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