Lessons Learned

It had always been part of her life. Her earliest memories involved the smell of booze and a bottle as an accessory in her mother's hand. She had learned early that what came out of the bottles her mother held dear had the power to change everything. It made the difference between a good day and a bad day. When in the hands of the adults around her, it could change lives.

From her earliest memory, those bottles had helped her as she started to learn the rules. The stench of it in the air meant hide; the sight of empty bottles smashed against the wall and the wail of her mother's tears from behind a locked door meant that she should try to make herself take up as little space as possible and hope to not be noticed.

Some nights her mother would leave her alone. She would lock the door and peer out the windows watching for strangers. Turning the TV on, she would secretly flip to TV shows her mother would never let her watch, shows with men with guns who protected people who needed help. She always wondered if someone with a gun could someday come to save her and her mom.

When her mother would wander in the house with a strange man, she could smell the alcohol in the air and on both of their clothes. Those nights she would be sent to her room to play alone, her mother using a false tone that only she recognized the anger in. She could hear her mother in the next room, making noises she didn't like.

Once she had tried to rescue her mother—sure someone was hurting her. Her mother had taken her back to her room and slapped her hard. Her mother screamed at her and told her never, ever, to do that again. Her mother warned her to never to embarrass her more than she did by simply being alive. That was the last time she tried to save her mother. Her first lessons had been those of survival.

When she was seven, she had been sitting cross legged on the floor of her bedroom. Each of her Barbie dolls were shoved into a shoe, each shoe its own tank in an epic battle between good and evil. As she pushed shoes across the floor in an advancing front, she provided the sound effects as missiles in the form of Barbie shoes flew across the battlefield. Suddenly, Ken's shoe exploded under a direct hit from Stacey in Olivia's Nike. As his shoe flew into the air in a spectacular blaze of flames and shoelaces, the door to her bedroom flew open.

"What the hell is the matter with you?" Her mother screamed as she stormed into the room, forcing Olivia to push herself back against the bed. Her mother grabbed her, pulling her to her feet. "Can't I have five minutes where I don't have to listen to you? You're too old for this make believe shit. Can't you just fucking shut up?"

Olivia's feet dangled off the floor as her mother screamed at her the smell of the alcohol coming from her breath. Warm tears fell down her face as she apologized, honestly not sure what she was apologizing for. Her lesson: be silent.

When she was eleven, she knew the drill. She was already responsible for herself and while pulling herself onto the shelf to search the cupboard for food, she found one of her mother's empty bottles. It was already her job to take the bottles to the trash, her mother had rules about when and how they were to be taken out. Once Olivia had tried to drag a whole bag down, one that was too heavy for her and a neighbor had seen her and tried to help. Thinking about it, Olivia shuddered as she recalled her mother's punishment. She blamed Olivia for embarrassing her on purpose. She should have known better. Her lesson that day had been in discretion.

Now Olivia stared into the empty bottle in her hand. It wasn't the first time she had found one, not by far. Instead of throwing it out, she examined it. She sat on the counter and stared at it. Leaning over the sink, she poured water into the bottle and swirled it around. Staring at it through the light of the window, she pushed herself off the counter and wandered down the hall to her bedroom. Sitting on her bed, she took a big gulp from the bottle. Feeling grown up, she turned and looked with anger at the teddy bear on her bed. "Don't you ever shut up?" She yelled at it, pushing it off the bed. She smiled. It felt good to be in charge. That day, she learned that maybe those bottles held control in them after all.

When she was 13, she took a bottle of her mother's vodka from under the bathroom sink. She had so many, Olivia realized she had no idea where they were or how many she had at any one time. Half full bottles littered the house, and at any given moment, Olivia knew she could find more than ten in any given room. Snagging the bottle and heading for the street, she met up with some friends from junior high. In an alley, they cracked the bottle open. All of them congratulated Olivia on her ability to get the booze—one of the girls looked at her with admiration all over her face, "My mother would kill me."

Olivia shrugged, not saying that her mother was too drunk to notice. She was suddenly accepted into this group she had so desperately wanted to belong to. Always alone, she was surrounded by friends. Each of them tasted it, each grimacing as the liquid touched their tongues and burned its way down their throat. Olivia took the bottle and swallowed as much as she could before needing a breath. The burn was intense, but there was a warmth that flushed over her whole body. Maybe this is what she wanted her whole life. Maybe this was the fix. Maybe this was her way out. Out of her life, out of her mind. As they drank more, she could feel it. That day she learned there were some problems that alcohol could fix.

At fifteen her mother caught her sneaking the booze. Alone in her room, she sipped from the bottle, her head resting back against her bed, her headphones blaring in her ears. She thought about feelings she was worried she should never have about a girl on her softball team. She had a boyfriend, a nice enough guy, but when she closed her eyes at night it wasn't his face that danced behind her lids. The alcohol numbed the pain, it took away the thoughts she shouldn't think, and it made everything okay. When she drank, it was okay that she was made up entirely of flaws stitched together only with good intentions. The flaws weren't so ugly anymore and she could almost stand to see them. This was her rebellion. It was a new door opening up to her.

She didn't hear the door move. As her mother pushed into the room she didn't even have time to try to hide the bottle in her hand.

"I knew you'd be drinking my alcohol you bitch." She screamed.

"Fuck you, mom." She said pushing herself to her feet. She had bolted to her window, down the fire escape. Pushing herself to escape her mother's angry charge, she almost made it all the way down. If she hadn't been quite so drunk, she probably wouldn't have fallen those last few feet and wouldn't have had to sit out the rest of the basketball season because of her sprained ankle. Her lesson: alcohol had consequences.

What she made was a close friend. No matter what she felt, when she felt, she had learned a way to handle the feelings. Alcohol gave her an escape that nothing else in her life had. She was never her mother—she never hurt anyone. She just liked the buzz, liked the easy laughter and the feeling of freedom. She liked being about to not feel on command. After all, she knew she was always in control. That's what was most important, that she was always in control