Throwing in the Towel

Today, after six years of sobriety I almost had a drink because my daughter wouldn't fold the towels in her bathroom the way I wanted her to. I was trying to show her the way everybody with good taste should fold their towels when she told me she didn't want them that way. What??? So I told her to shut up and then she told me to shut up and then I told her no, you shut up and then I yelled at her for not cleaning the litter box and she said she didn't know how and I said that was ridiculous because I had shown her a million times and then I decided I needed vodka. I told my husband I wanted to go to an AA meeting but when I got in the car I seriously debated going to a bar instead. But, I had sweat pants on and I didn't want to go to a bar because I never drank in bars so I decided to go to the meeting and then if I still wanted a drink I would get a bottle on the way home. Good choice. When I arrived at the meeting Veronica* asked me if I would give her a cake for 27 years sober. It made me feel better, but I still thought I was pretty justified in my desire to drink. I was imaging the conversation my friends would have tomorrow:

Karen: Did you hear DeAnne was drinking again?

Peggy: Oh no, what happened?

Karen: Sofie wouldn't fold the towels the way she wanted her to.

Other Karen (with Tennessee accent): Well, can you blame her?

Then they would all shake their heads and feel sorry for me that I have to put up with such insubordination in my own home. About that time I was awakened from my day dream as someone began to share about just getting out of rehab and having to use a walker for a month while she detoxed and that she couldn't hold her head still to wash her hair. She had been sober nine years before she went out. Went out is the term we drunks use to describe drinking again. I started to think that maybe Sofie wasn't so horrible and that it would be pretty unglamorous to begin drinking again over towels. The truth is Sofie wants to do things her own way now and it pisses me off. Teenage girls are difficult, sober Mom's entering menopause are difficult, but not as difficult as drinking Mom's entering menopause. So no vodka for me.

It was so easy to parent my son. If I had told him to fold the towels a certain way he would have said, "What towels?" Exactly. Just the way I like it. He never yelled back at me and he always did what I said. I can't believe I wasted all my drinking years while parenting him. He was so easy. Wait, maybe he was easy because I was drinking.....shit now I am confused.

Alcoholic or not parenting a teen age girl seems to be about knowing when to give up control. She is a good kid and I guess if she wants to live with poorly folded towels that should be her choice. Perhaps someday when she is an adult on her own she will call me and say," Mom you were right! Your method is a much better way to fold towels!" Or maybe not. But, I might sneak into her house and refold every towel in every bathroom and even the ones in her kitchen. Ha! that'll show her.

*Not her real name.**

** Yes it is.