Alcoholism, Superman, and Me

Tonight I went over to a friends house and we cooked some chicken out on the grill. Now being in Texas, there is only one drink of choice for eating food cooked out on the grill, Beer. Eventhough there hundreds of beers to choose from, usually the most common selection is Bud Light. I don't like Bud Light, so for me I drink regular Budweiser. But that's not the point of the story. See because I am unemployed and actually my friend is too, we don't care about drinking on a Thursday night. It's not like we have to wake up in the morning for work. So here we are, me and him kicking back a few cold ones while we ate the yummy grilled chicken. It's still Thursday and I have to drive home, so I only have 3 cervezas. 3 might be many for some, but it's not for me. I feel fine, not even the slightest hint of a buzz. So I call "her." By no means is this a drunken call either. But we talked for a bit and she says she has to go and she will call me back. Which I know she won't. Not because she is inconsiderate, not because she doesn't want too, but because she forgets. So I tell her, "no you won't." She gets a tad offended by this, because I'm pretty much telling her something that I know she won't do, eventhough she said she would. I don't know if I made her mad, I don't know if she thinks I'm drunk, I don't anything at this point. So I start back peddling. I apologize for saying that, but I tell it's true. That she has a bad habit of not calling me back, when she swears she is going to. I guess that just irks me. Don't say something, and not mean it. Don't say you will do something, and not do it. Don't say something, and not even try. Not that she doesn't try, not that she doesn't want to, but too often it seems that way. On top of that her cousins are playing on the phone, hitting the buttons while I'm trying to talk to her. At this point, I say ok, call me back if you want too. No you know what, not if you want too, just do it. We said goodbye, and that was that. And I hate that. I hate when conversations end, and I don't get to say what I really wanted to say. I hate when I don't get to leave on a positive note, because somehow I think that leaving on that type of note is somehow detrimental to our relationship. I think it puts us back two steps, instead of forward. Well either way I didn't feel good when I hung up the phone. And the first thought in my mind was what? To call her back and apologize and try to work it out? Maybe I was a bit buzzing and didn't quite carry the conversation the way I wanted too? I was sticking to fact that she's not good about calling me back, but could I have been a bit more tactful? All this should have came to mind as the first thing, but it didn't. The first thing that came into my mind was: whatever, I'm just going to have another beer. This shocked me for a bit. Why? Because this sounded all too familiar to me. This was not a attitude I normally had. This was not me at all. This was my dad. For those who don't know, when my dad was alive he was a raging alcoholic. For as long as I can remember as a child, he had been one. I remember him building our sandbox when I was maybe 4, out in the hot sun, with a can of Coors Light there next to him. Even though my sister knew him a little different light, for the most part my brother and I only knew him as an alcoholic. His name was Ronald Kent Bell. All the Bell boys having the same RKB initials. But to his buddies, and to our family, he was no more then just Ronnie. Ronnie the drunk. He drank his problems away, and in the process, he lost his family and his self respect. When he couldn't handle the pressure, when he couldn't handle the stress, he found his relief in a bottle and can. That's how he defeated his problems, by defeating himself. So you can imagine my surprise when that thought entered my head. I had this problem before me, and the first thing I thought of was to drink it away. To cover it, to saturate it with as much alcohol that I could find, so that it wouldn't be threatning anymore. But that is Ronnie, and I am not him. Growing up though I guess everyone was nervous about my brother and I. They say because our father was a alcoholic, that we too have a bigger chance of being one. But I for myself, don't believe in that. I understand that the past affects you, I understand that the memories you have from back then can and usually do help form the feelings and behavior you have as an adult. But I don't believe that because my dad was a alcoholic that I will be one too. Was Michael Jordan's dad a basketball player? If he was, was he even half as good as his son? Was Albert Einstein's father a genius? I understand that fathers do have influence on their son's, but there is a limit. Somewhere along the line it comes to a point where the son decides on his own. I hated that about people, how they would say that about me. To me it was like they were already deciding for me, that they were the ones who were sealing my fate. To me, that's not how I work. I decide for me, not some past bad memories of my father. And as I have grown older, I understand my dad more. I understand why he made the choices he did. It was because he couldn't handle it anymore, his addiction was too strong for him, and to him it was easier to just let it all go. He got so deep in his affliction, that the best thing for him to do was to just give in. I personally, don't agree with it, I don't condone it, but what I do, is understand it. I understand his mentality, his desperation. And I refuse that. I refuse to accept that defeat like he did, I refuse to just give up. No matter how down and out I can be, or I have been, I refuse to just give up. I don't know completely why either, it kind of stumps me. So tonight, when I thought that thought, it surprised me, it made me think that maybe he affected me more then I thought. But that's the beauty of the whole situation. No matter what thought came to my mind first, I'm able to make the decision myself. So I decided that was enough beer for tonight. I made the decision to not let myself become like he did, to not travel the same road as he already traveled. If anything, my dad did me a great service. He was by no means the best dad, he wasn't even a good one, but he left me more then I could have ever asked for. He left me his example. How is that a positive you might ask? Just think about it. My dad left me the perfect example of what not to do. He left me a blue print of how alcohol can ruin your life and the lives or those who love you. How many dad's leave their kids that? No amount of money, no heirlooms left behind can ever be more valuable then that. Through my upbringing he has shown me how to yell at your own kids, scream in drunken states, how to through objects in drunken rages, and how to almost kill your own wife. To me, it's valuable. The knowledge that too much of something can lead to all those things, is priceless. The knowledge is priceless. I don't have to discover it myself because I already know the outcome is not worth it.

I guess all in all, to sum it all up I think to the movies. When I was a kid I loved Superman. I remember watching Superman 3, and there is a part in that movie that really hits home. Superman, weighed down by depression, by pressure starts drinking and gets "super" (hehe) drunk. He shuns the people trying to help him, telling them to get away from him and leave him alone. Even his costume is dirty, the "S" faded, his face unshaven and his perfect hair all unkept.


Bad Superman in Bar 


Bad Superman In Junk Yard 

How this reminds me of Ronnie so much. So in his drunken state, filled with anger, he flies over to a junkyard, and because of laced kryptonite somehow seperates himself from his alter ego. So now there are two of him. One is the Drunk Superman, and one is regular Clark Kent. Superman continues to give Clark Kent a massive but whooping, and shoves him in a metal shredder machine. And as he hears Clark's screams he smiles to himself. But just as he walking away, Clark comes bursting out of the compactor and starts to choke the Evil Superman. As he chokes him, the evil superman disappears, only leaving Clark there. At this point as a kid I was confused, he just killed himself? I would wonder. But then it all came to the forefront. Clark, with his clean looks, back to his old self, rips open his shirt revealing the true "S". The clean, the real Superman symbol.


Good Superman Prevails 

He had overcome his worst enemy, that being himself. To me I will always remember that, because it reminds me of the situation of my dad. I can give up, be the evil person I am statistically inclined to be. Or I can choke out that person, make my own decision to not be. Maybe it sounds silly, but to me it made sense back then, and it still does today. I'm fighting the odds, I'm fighting others opinions, I'm fighting myself. And win or lose, I refuse to give up that fight.