How a greeting card saved my life
by Mark Bruskiewicz
I was sitting in my living room “celebrating” the finalization of my divorce, drinking a bottle of wine in solitude. I felt alone and miserable.
The day’s mail sat on the table. Seeing an envelope that wasn’t a bill, I picked it up. The envelope contained a card from my father. Stunned, I opened it,
The card said little, way too little, reminding me of how little my father had been in my life. The last time I saw my dad was four years earlier when he went to take a shower to go out to dinner with me and instead he passed out drunk in the bathroom. When the card came I’d had no contact with him since that incident. I did not know if he was alive or dead.
His feeble attempt to communicate angered me in the moment. I drank some more wine and went down the hall where I passed a mirror. In the mirror I saw a reflection that froze me.
I was looking at my father.
I mean, it was me in the mirror. but I looked just like my father.
For the past 15 years, I had stayed stoned on drugs thinking that made me somehow different my from father’s daily abuse of alcohol. My marriage had failed just like my dad’s marriage. I was alone and miserable just like my dad. I was seeing in the mirror where my life was heading if I did not make some changes.
Within minutes I moved with a decisiveness that I had never experienced. I picked up the phone, and I called a friend who was in Alcaholics Anonymnous. I asked if he was going to an AA meeting in the morning. He said he was, so I asked if I could go with him. The next morning at the meeting, I said, “Hello, my name is Mark and I am an alcoholic.”
Since that night on February 13, 1988, I have not had one drink, one joint, one line, one pill, one anything. I have been clean and sober for more than 21 years.
During those 21 years I saw my dad three times. He kept drinking, yet I made my peace with him. On September 3, 2008 he died in Las Vegas of alcoholism. A retired colonel and a decorated Viet Nam veteran, he died in a cheap hotel in Las Vegas surrounded by empty vodka bottles.
I am no longer angry at my father for the feeble note he mailed to me in 1988. That note saved my life.
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Mark Bruskiewicz is a geographer for the state of Washington. He lives in Spakane. “I have a great family with a wonderful wife and two incredible boys. I have a passion for cooking, travel and spiritual growth.” |
– is a deeply personal issue that everyone decides for himself. Sometimes the price is high, sometimes low. But this is not very important for life. Life is an interesting thing. And the price on Viagra – too.
