Sometimes Hope = Nightmares

 Last night I had a dream about my moms drinking. I haven’t had one for a while it seems which is nice that they are getting less and less I don’t know if I told you guys this but I have dreams about my moms drinking a lot whenever she is in rehab or in treatment. I don’t know what it is or why. I guess I also have dreams about it when she is drinking but it seems like when she is getting sober I have more of them. Maybe just the memories coming out or a deep fear that I don’t even recognize yet still have that she will relapse again…

Anyways in this dream it was about her relapsing. In the dream I was on the phone with her, just talking like normal and out of the blue she says "Just to tell you yes I am drinking, I know you probably already know that but I don’t want to lie to you". That is what she says most of the time when she is drinking and I talk on the phone with her but in my dream it was different because in real life I usually know already like I can always tell if my mom has even had one beer over the phone or in person. But in my dream I was totally shocked. I was having a happy conversation with her on the phone and as soon as she said that I felt my heart drop and it felt like big raincloud thunderstorms came in when it was a sunny day outside or something because I was all happy talking to her and then that just hit me like a ton of bricks litterally.

In a past entry I talked about how lately it’s been feeling like there is a wall built up inside of me that I never noticed before until one of the bricks felt like they came out. The wall seemed to be built from all the pain of my moms drinking. It is there to protect me. It is a wall inside of me I built from a very young age and even though her drinking has caused so much pain I have this wall and I don’t know why because I didn’t really feel it’s protection. When I see my mom getting more better than I have ever seen her in her life and I felt that brick loosen as she tells me about her hope and dedication to sobriety I feel a brick lift off and its like a huge weight off of my chest and I can take deeper breaths than I can before it’s like I am so much more calmer from only one brick removed.

Anyways back to the dream. In my dream I was totally shocked and it hit me so hard because it felt like my guard was let down, I had let some of the bricks come out of the wall inside of me and then when I hear that news its like instead of that wall being their to protect me all of the pain can penetrate and I just feel utterly crushed. After on the phone somehow she is at my dads and I am trying to tell her about the brick thing (I have told her this in real life) I am trying to talk some sense into her saying how she was doing so good why is she doing this again. I am telling her about how I finally was letting go of my wall, letting my gaurd down and then she just totally fucks everything up so suddenly. I never expected it. And it gave me the feeling inside like I was right when I had the fear that this could happen ANYDAY. I used to have that fear but I feel it dwindling in real life and in my dream I regret ever thinking that. I think about how it could happen everyday when you least expect it and there she is right now drunk in front of me and she wont listen to a word I say. I am feeling so many emotions I can’t explain, I am screaming at her please listen but she won’t. She leaves somewhere but I don’t follow. After she leaves some people are over at my house and they have alcohol and weed and other drugs and I am so down and depressed and shocked and scared over my moms drinking that we all decide since she did it I might as well too. So I decide to drink and do all these drugs that I never said I would do or do again.

Thats when I woke up and it felt like the brick was back in place over my heart.

My mom was here to pick me up. My alarm was going off on my phone. They were outside waiting for me picking me up for therapy.

I told my mom my dream and just every day she makes me so much more proud but also at the same time scared. The more proud and happy I feel about her dedication to sobriety the more scared I get about what if she relapses and it all starts over again, what if this was all for naught and all just a big lie or phase she is going through. She talks so much about how she loves her treatment and about how she is learning so much everyday. She tells me that she doesn’t bleieve in that one day at a time saying anymore or that saying that you are powerless over alcohol. It makes me so happy to hear things like that. She says that makes it seem like relapse is ok or that if you drink its not your fault. It’s like the total opposite of what she used to be. She used to just have one beer and I would say you could stop now if you wanted to right now. And that is what I said to her in my dream. "You are not powerless remember, not one day at a time, you can put down that beer right now if you wanted to!" but she ignored me. When she was drinking in real life she would always just say "well im an alcoholic I can’t help it.". But with her new view on powerlessness and one day at a time it seems like that is all gone and it just brings so much delight inside of me. She says she doesn’t believe in AA anymore because they promote that so when she gets out of her main treatment which is 3 days a week she is going to start going to the "recovery meetings" they have at my church for alcoholics and such. I am really happy for that because church has helped me so much and I think it can help her too. She is very into making a plan for after she leaves her main treatment. She is going to go to aftercare which is only one day a week instead of 3. She is happy reading and talking about things she has learned. Like I said I don’t know if I’ve said this all before but she said that before treatment she thought I was an adult now and her drinking didn’t really bother me. And now she desrcribes it she said that it affects me in ways that she can’t even put into words. She admits to all of the pain that she has caused and admits to everything she has done now even if she doesnt remember it but we do. She said all drinking has caused in her life is pain and usually is some activity is causing you pain you stop doing it. But she continued for so long and that is why she is an addict. She came into my therapy the other day without me even asking she just HAD to say something to my therapist and I wondered what it was, when we got in there she thanked my therapist so much for being hard on her and told him that he was such a driving force in her getting involved and active in treatment. She said she remembered the first meeting when he was explaining it to her in terms of life and death of me. He said what would you do to save your daughters life. She said anything. He said would you give up alcohol? And this look just came on her face as she said yes like something inside of her just changed that moment. I know it was a long road from there to were she is today but that day I could already see the change in her when she answered that question it was like I could see something inside of her finally understanding. She is so knowledgable and attaining more wisdom everyday though now, she is only 2 months sober and it may not seem like a lot to most people and it has not been the longest she has gone but to me it

seems the longest because this is the farthest she has come in terms of the way she views it and the way she views life in general. Not only am I happy about her sobriety for myself that I can have a sober mother and not have to worry about her all the time, but I am also so happy for her. I just see her future shining. If she has grown this much in 2 month just think what the 1 year mark will look like! I can see her getting a good job, even going back to college, getting teeth, mending or ending the relationship with Gale, controlling her mood better, just becoming a better person overall! I’m just so happy. Such a great ending to an entry that was about a nightmare I had….