Come On Mom, Admit it!

"So Mom. What do people do when they are drunk?"

"Oh, they act silly, and do things they don't usually do; they also can't do some things that they usually can do, like drive a car or walk in a straight line. Sometimes they talk funny, like they can't really pronounce words..they might laugh more than they usually do...stuff like that."

"Has dad ever been drunk?"

(Hmmm....how might Rick want me to anwer that one, I wonder.)

"Have you ever been drunk?"

(OK, dodged the Rick question, caught my own...) "Yes, honey, I have been."

"What did you do when you were drunk?"

"Oh, I think I just went to sleep."

"No, I mean what silly things did you do???"

"Oh, I don't really know, sweetie; it was awhile ago."

pause

"Well, are you still an alcoholic?"

* * *

And here was a golden opportunity to talk about things that fall in the shades of gray category; what is OK for one person might make another person sick. What is bad for the goose might be good for the gander. We've had similar conversations about how we love people who smoke and yet we still tell the kids not to smoke; we love people with tattoos and yet we still tell the kids not to get one. We love all kinds of people, and who they are is different from what they do.

Thank God we are not sums of our bad habits, or I would be in seriously bad shape.