Venting

It's no secret that my sister is an addict. It's something I've had in my life since she was a  teenager. Going from drug programs to stints in  jail. There were years with her being a functioning addict but I knew better than to try and have a conversation after dark. Her voice would grow louder, her tone more cutting, interrupting and talking over me if it were on the phone, in person she was clingy and too close or angry and running away.

The worst for me was never knowing what to expect. Cross that ...it's now knowing what to expect and never being proved wrong.

As a teenager there was hope that she would out grow her bad behaviors. When she became a mother there was that hope again.and again as she became a grandmother..Always trying to look for the positive and hope she'd "wake up" and be normal one day. The curse of my rose colored glasses.

We've had years that we talked almost every day and years that our conversations were scattered from weeks to months between conversation. I think she has always known that push come to shove I would be there for her. Foolishly I thought the same about her. I saw how wrong I was when our father died.

I think what makes me the most angry (besides everything) is that she pushes people away, drinks and keeps us out of her thoughts. It doesn't bother her that no one calls, or visits or invites her to family things because she has pushed those feelings away with drinking. My dad once explained to me that she will call and wreck havoc on our worlds with the latest crisis and we will be up all night thinking of ways to help her , while she is getting her drink on and sleeping only to not remember any of it the next day while we wake up sleep deprived and still worrying about her.

It's been a few weeks now since she has called, in the middle of the night with a drunken crisis. I have not called her to check in, she has not called me. I don't even know if she remembers the call. I still worry when I hear the police helicopters over head, and still check  the arrest reports from time to time but my worry as she's gotten older is that she will have a stroke or drink herself to death. I think her boyfriend would call us but I really don't know. I'm not sure what I'd do if i got that call.

I wish I had the ability to just put her out of my mind and not think or worry so much about the life she is wasting. I have always had such a strong bond with her...I could sense when things were  wrong, she often sounded amazed when I'd call just when she needed me. I've tried to tone those feelings down and not tune in but with doing that I feel a loss.