something that troubles me

I guess I should explain, I know a lot of kids. I talk to a lot of them on line, I talk to a lot of them from work, I talk to quite a few from organizations that I've been involved with that worked with kids. So no surprise they feel comfortable talking to me. Here's something that one of my young friends has been telling me about that really bothers me, One of my young friends is drinking. Apparently I'm the only one that knows. I've asked, "How do you get away with it, I know your parents wouldn't want you doing that?" The reply I get is what bugs me. "They Don't Notice......" So it troubles me. This is not a bad, rowdy, troubled teen I'm talking about, this is a good kid, with good grades, goals, who tries to help people around them when they can, and is in general upright and well mannered, The kid in question doesn't even really enjoy drinking that much.

Now here is why it troubles me, I'm an alcoholic. Something I'm pretty comfortable with now that I've accepted it. There are some parallels with my own experience with alcohol I don't like though. It's a pretty well known fact with most of my friends and even some of my family now that I've had a drinking problem on and off for the better part of my adult life. What a lot of them don't know is that I started drinking when I was around twelve or thirteen. It started out as just a lark, merely to satisfy adolescent curiosity. I didn't have the happiest childhood I admit, my parents divorced while I was quite young. It devastated me. My parents both wound up living in separate parts of the country and while I grew up. I moved around a lot. I'm lucky, the moving could have troubled me a lot more, I know a lot of kids it does. I actually liked moving, it presented new opportunities, and I was always a sort of lonely awkward nerd child anyway, so it's not like I really missed my friends. (off the topic of my entry here I do regret not keeping in touch with more of them over the years though) There was a lot of turmoil going on in my youth though, a lot of room for folks to not notice things, including my folks. With all the fussin, fighting, moving around, remarrying and trying to fix there own lives it slipped thought the cracks that I drank nearly everyday. I figured out it made me numb to things like, my dad's disappointment over my grades, my step-mother's machinations at alienating me from my dad, my dad's drinking problems, and the fact he barely knew how to relate to me, my stepfather's drug use, my mom who seemed so much more engrossed in everything but me, and so I drank, and "They didn't Notice". I never let them know how much things bothered me, I wasn't really encouraged to after the divorce, I was brought up being told things like" be tough", "suck it up" and to be obedient and good and fulfill their expectations of me. This isn't because they didn't love me, they just didn't know how to deal with me, and they really did want to prepare me for my adult life. They didn't mean to trap me in feelings of failure, inadequacy, and inconsolable loneliness, but it did happen and it took a long time to get through. Some days I still have to work pretty hard at it.

Part of what really bothers me about all this though, is that even thought there were an awful lot of reasons for them not to notice, there were just as many reasons for them to. After all if I had access to alcohol at that age it was probably readily available in my home.(YES, YES) There's a good deal about me my folks have always chosen to over look in pursuit of it being easier to deal with other problems. Human frailty. It took a while to convince my mom I have a drinking problem as an adult, we've never discussed my troubled youth involving alcohol.

I'm rambling, let me get to my point. I'm worried about my friend. I don't think any one means to ignore the kid, but I think this recent drinking bout is an attempt to get some much needed affection and attention. I fear like me though, no one will notice in time. Like me, my friend comes from a divorced family, struggling with moving around, arguing , trying to redefine themselves, and I know how much room there is to let things slip thought the cracks. So it troubles me. Soon my friend will be old enough to move out into the real world and face all the many challenges adult life has to offer, and I really hope that that challenge will be faced with the help and guidance of friends and loved ones and not with a six pack. I'm just not sure what to do about it.

So I am taking this time to say if you have kids, sometimes it is better to be concerned with letting them know that you want them to have great lives, full of happiness and wonder, and that you want them to share and be open with you, rather than being so uptight about grades, friends, and career choices. After all you never agreed with your parents about everything either. So tell your kids you notice them even if they don't always want to talk to you. Even when they are sullen, snot nosed stuck up teenagers, remind them you love them, and keep in mind they need your love in spite of how hard it is for them to admit that. Peace.