Alcohole

My ex-husband was a total asshole most of the time, but lord have mercy if you added alcohol into the mix, it was dangerous.  Especially if it was liquor. 

He was a horrible person when he drank beer, and I swear he was almost homicidal if he drank liquor.  He claimed he could handle his alcohol if he was drinking beer, and he would usually forgo drinking liquor with knowing how much worse it made him.

He would drink beer, and while I enjoy an occasional beer, I detest the smell of it on someone's breath.  Even more so when they are a smoker, which he was.  And he would ALWAYS get argumentative when he drank, and want to get in my face to argue, so I would end up smelling that stank-ass beer and cigarette breath of his.  NASTY.

And he was a literal finger pointer - he loved to argue and point his bony ass finger IN MY FACE.  I can't tell you how many times I wish I could have just bitten or broken off his finger and shoved it down his throat or up his ass. 

I know, someone who was abused is physically threatening someone - not a good example, but sometimes thinking about him and all I went through just fires me up and the angers renews.  It almost seems like it was just yesterday that I went through all of this with him, but it's been almost 5 years since I've spoken to him or been face to face with him, and our divorce has been final for over 7 years.

I was thinking the other day about how much I would love to just punch the living shit out of him, to just really beat him good.  He actually offered once to let me hit him repeatedly, but I didn't take him up on his offer - I didn't want to stoop to his level.  Nor will I, unless he is in my physical proximity and I feel threatened. 

I want to share the last time he put his hands on me.  It was October 2005, in the morning while I was getting ready for work.  I was sitting in a chair in front of the bathroom mirror, with my makeup bag in my lap.  He walked in, had a few hateful things to say, and he pissed me off, so I proceeded to call him something that ended with "bag of bones" (he was down to 135lbs at 5'11" and was skeletal, like Auschwitz or Dachau victims, and whatever I called him had something to do with him smelling like an ashtray and I do remember ending the phrase with bag of bones).  Somehow, he claims he thought I called him either a bastard or a son-of-a-bitch, both of which were fighting words in his feeble mind, and he open hand smacked me in the temple.

A rage flew over me that had been building since the first time he laid a finger on me in 1995, the full extent of which I had never experienced in my life until that moment.  As I threw my makeup bag in the floor, I yelled "awww HELL no you didn't!!!!", turned around, put my hands around his neck and slammed him backwards into the wall that was about 5 feet behind him.  How his head did not knock a hole in the wall, I do not know, as I slammed him with all my might and held him there, squeezing his neck.  I told him that I was done with him hitting me, and that if he wanted to fight, we were going to fight right now for the last time, and he would be taking a trip backwards down the 11 stairs to the living room, and most likely would leave the house in a body bag or at the very least crippled.  He stood there in absolute shock, unable to fight back, or perhaps afraid to, considering I outweighed him at that point by about 100lbs, and then his son CJ came out of his bedroom to see what the ruckus was.  I told him his father was leaving to go to his doctor's appointment, and that was that. 

James never, ever laid a hand on me again.  I could tell there was one time a few months later that he wanted to, but honestly I think he remembered that day in the bathroom and decided against touching me.  I was surprised that was the end of his physical abuse, and I had been fighting back at him since 2000, the night that ended with him pushing me into a door and causing me to need 5 stitches in my eyebrow.  That is a story for another time.

So folks - can you handle your alcohol?  Or do you turn into an Alcohole?  Ask your drinking buddies if you are a fun drunk, or someone they'd rather not deal with or be around.  You might be surprised.