This is what they call a breakthrough.

Intake.
I hate the initial intake before seeing a psychiatrist to get a steady medicine regime.  Today, it's talking to a psychologist who is fresh out of school, all but glowing with the desire to help.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not ungrateful.  I just see this as merely a business transaction.  I need my anti-depressants, and she needs to make a difference.  I answer the standard questions, and when the interview is finally wrapped up, and my appointment scheduled, she asks me about my twins. 

I throw her a bone, tell her they're two, and briefly mention that my fiancé calls me 'the fun parent.'

"You know, having the kind of childhood you did, it's common to want to make up for that, by giving your children the things you missed out on."

That sentence, how she cut through and saw something about myself that I never realized, hit me right in the heart.

--

It stays with me the whole day.  I turn it over in my mind, try to find out why that sentence hits a tender place in my heart, and makes me blink back tears.

I think about my twins, one boy, one girl, the absolute best of both worlds.

Bath time, and I blow bubbles while they play with their toys.

Taking them out on the weekend, to the park, to the splash pad, sunscreen smelling like the sweetest perfume on their skin.

Waking them up early on Saturday morning to get ready for a trip, or a prize, or whatever it is I've planned the week before.

--

It isn't until today that I realized what an impact those words have on me.  I went from almost nightly drinking, to making it a weekend thing.  Then, just a one day thing.  Sometimes Friday, sometimes not.

It's as if those words made the craving less.

Whatever it was, I've started participating in life more.  More chances, more changes.  More trips with the kids for ice cream, and swimming.

More sweet moments, less hiding my sober mind from the things I can't face.

--

I don't know if I can ever be truly free from the abusive relationship with alcohol that I have, but this seems to be a period of remission.  The love of my children, the ability to speak about the past, and clean the infection of my soul by (painfully) remembering past hurts and wounds; I'd like to say that this is the end of my addiction.

Each day, I live a little bit more.  I'm less afraid, and more willing to open myself up to failure as a means to success, than to hide within myself, drinking and brooding.

I see how beautiful my children are, what promise they have, and it brings tears to my eyes.  It also fills me with a joy so big, there are no words. 

Love is the strongest (and strangest) drug of all.  It's also the only thing in this world worth building a life on.
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