My dad was an alcoholic. I remember times when his friends would bring him home from the lake so drunk he could barley walk. Could you imagine the embarrassment for a young teenage girl to have to drag her inebriated father out of a car, and into the house knowing all the neighbors were watching? Every afternoon, whether sunny or stormy my father would head straight for the lake right after work. He never made pit stops at home to check on his two children, he never called, he never did anything. He left work and drove directly to the boat docks never caring for who or what he left behind. Nothing else was on his mind other than getting to that one specific place and getting drunk. He did know just when to come home, usually around 9:15 P.M. Sneaking in before my mom would come home from work. Usually he gave himself just enough time to take off his shoes and pass out on top of his bed before she came up stairs.
             My mom never said much, she just tried to keep the "family" together. She was what you call the enabler. She suffered inside but tried to make everything function smoothly on the outside. Not ignoring the problem, but not being able to identify it even though it was as plain as day. She thought the major source of their marital problems were because of the lack of the relationship between her and my dad. This was partially true, but she didn't know the source of the problems or how they came to be. Why didn't they even speak anymore? They behaved like two polarized people living in one house.
             Through her frustration she tried every endless possibility to work things out with him: going to seminars, reading books, and trying to talk things out. But my father was living in his own fantasy world and there was no getting through to him.
             She thought she could keep my brother and I from ever knowing what was happening, but we already knew. Her personality was changing; she grew incr
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