a is for....

In an effort to kick my blogs' poor dead carcass back into life, I thought I might try and do a weekly challenge.

And then, because there are 26 letters in the alphabet, and 26 weeks would give me a neat and tidy 6 months of posts, I thought I'd make it an alphabet challenge.

So the idea is that I'm going to find a topic, and post about it.

And if you'd like to join in, you would be most welcome. All you have to do is link your post back to the comments section. No Linky, even.
{and I would SO appreciate it, I really would}

To start the first week of the new year, I'm going to be totally obvious and kick off with A.
Specifically,

a is for alcohol.

Here's something you may or may not know about me.
I grew up with a dad who drank heavily.
And not nicely.

My earliest memory of him is of an old lady asking my sister and I where Daddy was, and we answered "At the pub." (he was at work)

Many of my memories of him involve drunken fights, smashed furniture, cruel words, careless behaviour.... once I watched with my heart in my mouth as he tottered along a dam wall with my baby brother in his arms, certain he would drop his bundle in more ways than one.

There are things that happened in our house that I cannot speak about to anyone but my sisters. If you haven't lived it, you can't imagine the scars it has left on us all.

We (my sisters and I) all enjoy a drink. As teenagers, we did some silly things, but we grew out of that pretty quickly.
We saw so much and lived such weird lives that we could have had problems with alcohol, but we don't.
And that's not because we're special, or because we did some you-beaut counselling course, or whatever -- we are all just lucky.

We are all married to men who enjoy a drink. But our husbands drink sensibly as well, and we have never had to endure the things my mum did.


My dad completely quit drinking about 17 years ago.

Recently, he started having a nip or two of an evening. When my sister told me, my blood ran cold, and she told me she felt the same. Neither of us has forgotten.

Alcohol is the Boss of too many people, and you don't have to be an alcoholic for it to affect you.

I worry about kids today. The binge drinking I see, the schoolies parties, the expectation that social events are all about getting as smashed as possible, as fast as possible...
how have they gotten the idea that's OK? are we failing as a society? or as individual parents?