Alcohol Savior

Throughout most of my teenage years, I suffered from verbal, physical, and mental abuse as well as homelessness. Currently I am homeless again and I have more positive hope than ever before that I'm going to swim to the top of this deep blue sea whilst surrounded by great white sharks. My mother is a recovering, severe, alcoholic. She's been drinking since her adolescent years and it's almost as if alcoholism was passed along as a family tradition. Knowing that fact, I know that I too could easily become the version of my mother that I hated.

Initially, my mother's downfall started with the breakup of her 16 year relationship with my ex step father. Though they never married, I only knew him as "daddy" and until this day I call him daddy. We were living in Fall River, MA. My mom, daddy, and two younger sisters Maritza and Mayra-liz. Mayra-liz was one years old at time, Maritza was twelve years old, and I was 14. I remember seeing the last day daddy let my mom abuse him as he walked out of the bathroom with his hat slapped over his eyes after a stretch of loud physical commotion. Afterwards he left, to Georgia. He left his family behind and I became my mother's new punching bag. That is when we moved in with my mother's mom. Abuelita or Wella for short. Shortly afterwards, Wella died and my mom faced homelessness for the first time with her daughters. My mom didn't handle any of these traumatic back to back events well at all and became a severe alcoholic who is now recovering because of my youngest sister being taken away by DCF. She has since been sober for a year and has been my boulder through my current struggles and tribulations. 

Life has literally come full circle. It is thanks to my mother's mistakes that I can healthily choose how not to follow in her same footsteps even when given the same circumstances. Currently I am going through divorce and as mentioned before I am also homeless again. I, like my mom was, am a homeless mother going through a difficult breakup. I could easily give into an addiction like alcoholism, but instead I am using it as a motivation. That is why I've enrolled myself back into college. I'd rather setup a better future for my sons then to sit around and feel sorry for myself. Although I do have days where I want to end my life and days where I doubt myself; but I look at my kids and I see that I would be a bigger failure if I took any sort of step back.

 My mother may not have always been there for me then, but she is there for me now; more than anyone in my life ever has been. She's been my support financially and emotionally even though she too has a lot on her plate with trying to get custody of my sister back and sleeping in a room she pays rent for. However, somehow, she makes a way even when me or my ex husband can't afford diapers she will find a way to get me some. When I'm crying late at night she picks up the phone and keeps me grounded, and she plans for ways on making the future better, and we together, learned how to speak positive things into existence. There is power in words. Part of that power has allowed me to be where I am today even though it is certainly not my final destination.