I know

I know that you are in trouble, even if you don't.

I know you are too young to remember consciously the effect that alcohol had on our family in the early years. For me it is the mere shadow of a memory. It floats on my periphery, elusive and yet menacing like a nightmare you cannot recall. Perhaps this gap in your memory is the reason why you have no knowledge, or care of how your behaviour is hurting yourself or those around you.

I know that you look up to those I have introduced you to, that you are trying, to emulate them. Your illness has glorified them, and their lives, it has hidden from you the dark truths of their lives, the sad look in their eyes. I will live with the guilt the rest of my life; even if I know on some level that you do not need an excuse for your behaviour.

I know that you are more the disease today than the person I knew only a short year ago, that I have known my whole life. I see you fading away, and I miss you Terribly.

I know that you may not realize any of this for years to come, if at all, that I could beg, plead and scream for you to stop only to realize that my words may as well not have existed at all, that the disease would rip them from my lips and throw them to the wind to be sure they never reached you.


Unfortunately this is the only understanding I can muster for you right now. And this understanding does little to quell the sadness, the guilt, the anger, and the overwhelming helplessness that has settled over me.


Good-bye, and good luck.

I love you.