Rating: R, just to be on the safe side.

Disclaimer: No way, no how, no hell does anything remotely close to Gilmore Girls belong to me.

The Chronicles Of…

Rory

Man I really am a terrible mom, I mean how damn self-absorbed do you have to be not to notice that your only child is miserable. God, I'm so sorry Tristan, I failed to keep our son safe.

"And next up is Lorelai Leigh Gilmore", the voice in front says.

Ok here we go I think as I retrace the steps that Shane took mere minutes before, plastering a smile on my face pretending to be happy when that's the last thing I'm. What I wouldn't do for some whiskey right about now rushes through my head and scares the hell out of me considering I'm on a freaking A. A meeting but I pull myself together enough to push the thoughts of alcohol to the back of my mind and go to the mic to start talking.

"Hi everyone. My name is Lorelai Leigh Gilmore and I'm obviously an alcoholic"

The crowd answers back after some murmurs making me realize that sarcasm doesn't work here.

"Okeeej. So I don't know how to say this after Shane's speech, but here it comes I'm his mom, yeah I'm the she devil, who was too busy feeling sorry for herself to notice her son was miserable, in the flesh. Now my road to alcoholism was very different from Shane's. Although I also took my first drink in my teens it took me over a decade to become addicted, but the foundation for my addiction was laid when I first met Shane's father Tristan, who don't get me wrong here was a great guy but he was the one I started drinking with. Hell he even was responsible for me being hanged over on my own graduation. Yes mom I was" I add as I see mom's surprised expression. "So Tristan and I first meet my freshman year at Chilton and he showed me how to live a little and not take life so seriously and ironically enough this happy go lucky guy, who was a commitment phobic turned out be the love of my life and here is the really ironic part my husband. Of course it took stubborn us a marriage obviously and a pregnancy to realize that but we did and then he went and died on me, so to say I was devastated to be left alone with a newborn in a world I didn't really was a part of is the understatement of the year but I coped I really did.

I took Shane to a new town for a fresh start and got us a flat, landed myself a waitress gig and hell even dated a guy or two, granted nothing serious but still I moved on the best way I could. I counted myself lucky to have a trouble free wonderful son by my side and not a sight of the insane life left on the other side of the country, which I strangely enough didn't miss one bit…ok that was a lie in the sense that I did miss one person, my mom, like crazy. Granted we had had a real rift between us during most of my pregnancy but in the end she had really come through for me something I appreciated with all my heart but that sadly enough didn't change the fact that being near her reminded me of something I could never have, my happily ever after with Tristan since she had been with me in the hospital room when the police had come with the news of his death and therefore it became a necessity at the time to cut her out of our lives. And in the process of doing so I had to reveal my inner bitch for the first time and I became really terrible to her, so terrible that she didn't even bother to say good bye when the time came something I completely understood, but I had a plan with the way I was acting and it was to push her as far away as possible so she wouldn't see the pain I was in and guess what it worked. In the end I succeeded in putting an entire continent between us but even though it all had turned out exactly the way I wanted I couldn't help feeling guilty for how I had been. Anyway I think this guilt was the reason why I acted the way I did after the phone call, telling me mom was in a coma, came. In hindsight it was definitely the wrong thing to do but back then all I could think about was that I needed to be there for her and not let her die without knowing how much I loved her, which lead us to start packing the very next day and about a week later being back in Connecticut with everything we owed, overwhelmed and lost.

From day one I could feel something within myself shifting but I thought I could deal with it cuz let's face it I had had a whole lot of experience in the area but as it turned out I failed miserably at my task. I still vividly remember the day I started my drinking because the bad news just kept on hitting me until it all became too much to deal with. The day in question started with my usual visit to mom in the hospital only to firstly have another run in with my dad, who still couldn't accept Shane's existence in my life and secondly having her doctor telling me that after six months in a coma the prognosis of mom waking up was slime to none. Talk about rude awakening huh? After leaving the hospital I just started wandering around downtown Hartford in an attempt to clear my mind but every turn I took held some memory of Tristan and before I knew what happened I found myself at home holding a bottle of Wild Turkey in my hands and at that moment I was just so tired of crying myself to sleep every night, of feeling lonely, lost and overwhelmed, basically you can say I was fed up with everything, so I started drinking and I never really stopped after that. After the relief that first time brought I just wanted more. no craved is a better choice of word, and I found myself living for the Fridays when I could meet my new friend Jack Daniels again. As the days went by everything turned harder to do without something to numb the pain even to and this I'm ashamed to admit to look at my son and the Fridays started to last all week long as I escaped into the darkness where nothing else than getting wasted mattered.

When my mom miraculously recovered I was in too deep to care, which explains how I could get wasted with my teenage son without thinking twice about it. Hell I thought I was the coolest mom ever cuz I let him have parties at home and gave not only him but also his friends as much booze as they needed with only two pieces of advice to offer, one do not get caught and two do not get anyone knocked up. Other than that I let him live his life just as I lived mine and we would meet like two ships in the night sometimes to party with others and sometimes just the two of us drinking together.

Thankfully someone had the guts to make me face my problems and here I'm two months later. Now I don't remember a helluva of a lot of those years but what I do makes me hate myself. I mean I'm the reason for our whole dysfunctional family and I don't have a doubt in my mind that we both would have ended up dead within a couple of years had it not been for that intervention. Right now my first priority is to stay sober, which it's a full time job even more so than I realized at first because just as late as today I had the family pull for a drink and it's been two month since my last one. I naively enough thought that the craving would lessen with time but I have started to realize just why everyone keeps telling me to just take it one day at the time. This life is not something I recommend for anyone; just imagine that never again being able to take a drink at holiday or other celebrations and add the undying craving for said drink and you have any alcoholic's life. I like to finish this off by offering a long overdue apology to my son. I'm really truly sorry for everything I put you through Shane and I hope you someday will find it in your heart to forgive me. That would be all for me thank you"

I step down into the aisle between the rows of chairs only to be met by Shane, who to my surprise pulls me into a hug. We just stand there clinging on to each other like there's no tomorrow, which is the way it feels, when the sweetest words ever spoken reach my ears.

"I forgive you mom", Shane whispers his voice raw with emotion.

TBC

Author's note:

Do you guys want one or two more chapters?