Proof that I am the relatively sane one in my family

At least on my dad's side. Which is a huge mess of alcoholism and, well, isn't that enough? They say you have a 50% chance of becoming an alcoholic if you are the child of one, and I thank God that I have thus far managed to avoid that pitfall. I'm screwed up enough without adding drink to it.

Somewhere along the way my parents must have done something right, because I think that my dad is the only one without at least one alcoholic child who hasn't had some massive screw up in their lives.

For example, one of my cousins? Left her husband for another cousin. As in our first cousin. Flew off to Ireland and they lasted all of 3 weeks. Then she moved to England, met and married some guy who beat her, sponsored him to live in Canada, and they were over within 5 months. She was engaged last year to someone, split up with him, and got married to someone else this past Christmas.

Her brother? Massive alcoholic from the time he was a teenager.

Yesterday my dad called me to let me know that another cousin had gone into rehab. This is the same cousin, who if you were reading me last April, called me and asked if she could stay with me as her husband had videotaped her throwing an alarm clock at her, which had landed her a night in jail and a restraining order.

I called my mum to see if she had heard and yes, J had called her the day before. Turns out that she and her husband were arguing, just arguing, no violence involved, and he called the social worker and she recommended calling the police. When the police arrived, J was once again carted off to jail where she spent another night. Because of this, they have lost their son for 3 months (he is staying with J's sister, which is an odd choice I think...another totally dysfunctional person.) I shouldn't say their, for B is actually just J's child. I don't doubt that her husband loves him though, so I think involving the police in this was cutting off his nose to spite his face.

I know that J is far from perfect but she loves her son, and she is in a relationship that she should have left when all this happened last year. She screwed up by putting his name onto her house and now he won't leave. She has been off of work since before all this even happened because of stress related issues and I am sure she worries about how she would make it on her own. Her parents are not supportive, to the point that last year, she stayed with my mum when she was not allowed in her house. (Actually, she wasn't even allowed into the town in which she lives, she had to stay in the city.)

When she gets out of rehab, she is more than likely going to stay with my mum again. My mum will try and convince her to take a loss on the house, just to get this guy out of her life. This may mean my mum ends up with J and her son for quite some time.

Even though my life and relationship are not perfect I'm pretty thankful that they are not THAT bad.

And that somehow I managaed to avoid that gene that has affected so many of my cousins.

My mother would just say that this is proof that the English blood is stronger than the Irish.