A History of Bad Holidays

Here we go, holiday time and all the joys and sorrows that go with it.

We are far away from family and longtime friends (who had become family) because in the summer of 2014, I left the state I’d lived in for more than twenty five years to escape a dangerous and abusive ex. I had sought refuge with friends he didn’t know, moved to an unlisted safe house, and went into a state-run protection program for domestic violence victims, all in a community thousands of miles away. Safe, but mostly isolated.

The Christmas before we moved, I was in the middle of cancer treatments.


December 16, 2013 at 6:06 AM · 
I keep telling myself that all I have to do is one little thing at a time, just put one foot in front of the other, and eventually what needs to get done will get done.
I can’t do any more than that.
My house will be listed for sale today.
While I have faith that everything will work out eventually, I’m feeling pretty beat up, overwhelmed, incompetent, and sick right now.

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You see, in December of 2013, I was in the third phase of life-saving cancer treatments, getting radiation almost daily. Plus I got a chemo infusion every three weeks in a regimen that began in March and would continue through April of the next year. I was in condition to do no more than get to the hospital and back and get into bed. Radiation was weakening me and I was exhausted beyond measure. Legal issues with the ex cost me more money than I had in the bank and because the ex wanted me out of the house to get his money from the sale, I was forced to sell the house the week before Christmas.

If ever there is time to mend a bad relationship with estranged family, it is during a medical crisis. I had prayed for a miracle. Instead, the ex told our children at Thanksgiving just a few weeks before that he would no longer be able to see them for their two weekday after school visits. The truth was that he had continued violating the restraining order and was further restricted from coming to our neighborhood. To see them, he would have had to make other arrangements for transportation, which he chose not to do. Instead, he just quit, went to Mexico on vacation and brought the kids a souvenir. And I took on full-time single parenting along with my cancer treatments and a full time job.

We got an offer on the house within the week. Thankfully, neighbors, friends from church, and coworkers rallied to help us through the next month when we moved to a nearby apartment. But I was overwhelmed with grief, especially for the girls, who deserved better than to be forced out of their home, away from the security of their best friends and surrogate families, while witnessing their skeleton of a mother trying to hold it together.

Flash forward to Christmas 2014, the first year we were in, what I’d call, “hiding,” the children went to visit their dad at Christmas. Court ordered. I was hopeful, especially since there would be other adults around. After the first night, the text messages and calls came nearly hourly that they wanted to leave.

Some information came to me in real time texts, and once on a call so I heard it. Other information leaked out over time in therapy. Dad was drinking and his girlfriend had to coerce beers out of his hands. Dad and an uncle were saying bad things about me in front of them and laughing about it.

Dad peppered them with questions: Where is your house? Where do you go to school? What are the names of the parks in your neighborhood? And said they had to tell him whatever he asked, he was going to find out anyway.

One child called in tears before 7 am, she said he was coming into their room at night and they pretended to be asleep while he went through their things and scrolled through their phones. I also received odd, middle of the night texts from one of the girls’ phones that asked me personal questions about where I was and who was I with.

Instead of trying to do anything resembling holiday festivities that Christmas, I collapsed in exhaustion from years of operating in adrenaline-fueled survival mode. I stayed in bed for days, totally still sometimes in deep sleep, and in tears and fitful dreams the rest of the time. Then I roused myself, in an attempt to control my experience and do one good thing a day, I went for a hike Christmas morning. Alone. The hushed silence in snowfall soothed me and I smiled through my tears as I looped a few miles, filling my lungs with cold, fresh air. I was alive, and with every step, gaining confidence that I could make a good life in this new place.

So here we are today with a fabulous, loving community of friends. Yet holiday gloom strikes again. The tree is up, but not decorated. A few strands of lights are broken, leaving colorless, empty patches. We tried to hang ornaments together after family dinner last night and got as far as bringing boxes up from the basement.

I can’t shake the conversation one of the girls and I had… that she has some pretty hairy memories of Christmas past (way before the word divorce entered the picture). Mostly of people yelling. Drinking and confusion and yelling.

Things would start out beautifully — everyone dressed up in their fancy red dresses with patent leather shoes or new boots, excited to see their cousins at grandma and grandpa’s house for tree decorating and shrimp cocktail. Bowls full of red and green M&Ms were liberally placed around the house and at perfect height for little hands; a rare treat in a household where food was otherwise strictly controlled.

At some point, white wine-addled grandma would be upset that the sugar-fueled kids were buzzing around the house. Kids didn’t want to sit still and listen to adult conversation hours before the 7:30 PM dinner. Accusations of how we’d raised such brats would begin to swirl. Grandma would complain that the kids were eating too much candy before dinner. An uncle would remind her that she was the one who put the candy dishes out for them. My husband’s tone would turn stern, angry, and punishing to please his upset mother. I’d try to diffuse things and take the kids outside or to the basement to play, or we’d relent and turn on the TV.

We’d get to a point at dinner where their dad joined the family game of pick-on-somebody. That’s what I called it anyway… Someone would start with a criticism of someone else in the room and then others in the family would pile on. 

"Look who's got cankles now." 
"You're the idiot who failed out of college." 
"I don't understand a thing he says with that accent."

This was fun for them, a big joke, and I, an outsider, just didn’t “get it.” (And actually, I did get it, having been exposed to similarly “funny” relatives in my childhood.) Grandpa, for the most part, and I were quietly complicit in this charade of family camaraderie with it’s blatant fat-shaming, racism, and sibling rivalries.

The dates changed, but the behavior stayed the same.

Back in 2009, the ex had been in and out of 12-step programs, therapies, and medications for a variety of addictions, with bipolar and personality disorder diagnoses, for about five years. He was always, in some way, off the wagon. (He wasn’t supposed to drink any alcohol with his prescription medications. I don’t remember how he justified it and I was probably too tired to argue, enforce, or babysit any more.) He’d lose control after a couple drinks, as if a regulator broke, and would slide quickly into faster, more compulsive drinking. Loud, slack-mouth slurring, lanky body slightly off-balance.

Later, if we were lucky, he would quietly pass out. Most often, he’d level up to becoming verbally critical and controlling, all the while laughing and acting like we were all having a good time. Not fun for me because I knew I’d be in for a fight to get him to stop drinking and go to bed.

The next level of drunk husband was dangerous to me: he’d get angry, sullen, and aggressive. The minute I saw the dark shadow cross his face, I’d feel cold panic deep in my belly. His rage and insecurities would bubble up, especially after his family reminded him of what an embarrassment and failure he was for marrying me, so I’d talk and talk… sports, TV shows, or other nonsense to keep him from folding in on himself, talking long enough for me to get the kids out of the way. Sometimes, he would black out and not remember lying facedown like a corpse in his own piss on the garage floor. He was a foot taller and 80 pounds heavier than me, there was only so much I could do.

Sometimes there was regret and a promise to change afterward and we’d come up with a plan for the next holiday or neighborhood party. Even though he’d agree to not have more than two drinks, he would inevitably slip. So I’d signal, time to go. And no matter what, when we’d try to leave, I’d be met with resistance. Even with a simple excuse like it was time for the kids to go to bed, the arrows would point to me. “She’s so controlling,” someone would loud whisper. “You’re pussy whipped,” a direct challenge to the husband’s manhood that must be defended by telling me we’d stay for just one more drink, or another thirty minutes. “No, now,” I’d say calmly, not smiling, moving swiftly to the door; apparently in full bitch mode.

They had no idea what I’d be dealing with in the coming hours or days after this “fun night out” for the holidays. That maybe he’d make it to work, or not, the next morning. That the kids were confused by this idea of fun, when people were drunk and yelling and insulting each other, made them anxious and unsettled. And the confusing memories still stick with them today.

My family drank, too. A lot. And destructively. Until they didn’t. My mom died from alcohol related organ failure in 2011 and my dad had stopped drinking years before her death in an effort to help both of them get sober and healthy.

When I was a kid, a thick brown liquid on ice was a staple in my dad’s hand. He’d had a few one winter night that we were all in the basement watching TV together. A firetruck showed up at our house, lights blazing and horn blaring as we ran out into the cold street to watch flames leap out of our chimney and onto the roof. Earlier that night my parents had fought about throwing a pizza box into the fireplace. It went in, got stuck and ultimately caught the chimney on fire. The neighbors had thankfully called 911, yet my dad was unperturbed. I was scared and became ever more vigilant about safety, rules, control.

In my adult life, my parents lived a few hours away from us, so we had limited exposure. Our holiday visits were less fraught for a number of reasons: It was an informal environment, people weren’t fighting, all seven of the grandkids were allowed and encouraged to run amok. We spent a lot of time cooking together and talking. We’d play Spoons and cards. But Nana would take “naps” and quietly slip away to her room, while Papa and the uncles would fry a turkey or crash on a couch during a football game, their snoring drowning out the cheers on TV. Cousins lived nearby and there was always a dog to play with or a skateboard to ride. Here, the kids and I always had a place to retreat to in a guest bedroom to be alone.

Whether loud and aggressive or quiet and retreating, the drinking still had an impact on all of us and how we navigated our relationships and our holiday time together.

One year we decided to tweak things — no alcohol at the children’s birthday parties. We told our families in advance, we aren’t serving and please don’t bring any. I was told that grandma railed and said a slew of expletives about me and my newly sober parents.

It was our fault that they couldn’t have any fun.
What would they do if they couldn’t drink?
We were terrible hosts.
They’d sneak some into the garage if they couldn’t drink in the house and spend the party outside, in the cold.

For this brief moment in time, my husband supported our plan and said fine, don’t come. Grandma said she wouldn’t. But in the end, she did and all his family did, along with mine. And no one drank alcohol or got loud or said insulting things. We just had fun and laughed and enjoyed small talk and watched the girls play and blow out candles and eat cake. The grandparents even hugged each other goodbye, and us, too. I am choked up a bit just thinking about this… what a gift it was to have time together, unencumbered by alcohol.

Drinking is a thing our culture says brings people together, makes them happy, beautiful, desirable, interesting, fun. Yet I can’t think of one good thing that alcohol actually does for an individual or a community. Not one good thing.

This “social lubricant” alters a person, it clouds thinking and reduces inhibitions, and people change behaviors and do things they wouldn’t do otherwise. Drinking alcohol is the root behavior of every sexual assault and dangerous situation I’ve experienced in my life. It has morphed people I love into monstrous versions of themselves. It slowly erodes a person’s sense of self and it numbs them from reality. Occasional happy hour becomes a weekly date for day drinking with book club. Our culture supports the social trope that people need a reprieve from their children, jobs, problems. Face reality? No way, it’s wine thirty. Want to sound cultured, smart? Let’s talk about new citrus trends in craft brews, spend our Saturday at the countryside winery with lawn games. And in the worst cases, it alienates people from family, jobs, and friends as it takes over and becomes the primary relationship in one’s life.

Alcohol kills, contributing to 2.8 million deaths per year.

And this… these broken pieces of life’s ever-evolving puzzle… cancer, being forced out of our home, confusing memories of alcohol-infused family time… is why we struggle with holidays.

We grieve the people we’ve lost to alcoholism directly, those who were killed by drunk drivers, those who took their own lives. We struggle to reconcile the abhorrent behavior of people we love who think they’ve got drinking under control but actually don’t. We mourn the dream of a close-knit family, the loss of a home in a loving community, and time together to celebrate the season. This holiday conundrum is the price I pay to live freely and in relative peace; to be in a location away from direct abuse and criminal behavior.

I recognize and understand all too well the root traumas that manifest in addictions of all kinds. I relate to the people who cope with their anxieties and depressions and fears and buried pain by numbing with whatever is easy and close at hand.

I drank in my early teens and had one too many close calls with an end point. So I choose other coping mechanisms (physical activities, nature, art) and therapies (brainspotting, somatic therapy). Surprisingly, I’m not totally against alcohol or drugs, I just believe that when someone’s relationship with their addiction damages their life and their relationships, then it is a problem.

I pray for healing and wellness in every person, every single person who feels the need to take a brain, body, or consciousness altering substance to numb their existence, to binge shop or eat, or disconnect in any other way that further hurts or alienates. If you aren’t safe with your situation or partner, please let someone know. We aren’t alone in our struggles and challenges; there is someone out there who understands and can listen or help.

Resources, here are some places to start:

This holiday season I wish you internal peace over the illusion of external perfection, the presence of human connection over presents, and love, always. Thank you for being.