Well I had a fun Thanksgiving too. Heading back to La Hacienda in a few weeks for family week. It's interesting that at the time I went over the ledge and crashed, there was no real substance abuse to speak of in my family. My dad drank some scotch most nights but it wasn't a problem. No crazy uncles really, or at least not any related by blood. And then in just the past couple years it has cropped up in a few different places.
I'll call the currently affected member a cousin. She had gone for treatment a few months back but it hadn't seemed to have stuck. She was supposed to bring her elderly parents up to Austin (bad idea, but not my circus) the day before thanksgiving and nobody could get ahold of her all morning. Finally someone got the mom on the phone and she was still in bed at 1. We arranged a car and had a friend get over to the house to get everyone into the car, and as best as we can tell there was no more imbibing on the trip up from Houston and she was still fucking blasted.
Anyways, I got to be point person because wife and i are sober and I helped get her set up and dropped off at La Ha. Kinda fun to go back there, I'm looking forward to going again. I've talked to her and her husband and he sister since she's been down there, she's doing much better, and feedback from everyone is how much different this place is than where she went previously. It makes sense but it sounds like the other place was essentially a house where they took them in a van to an IOP in a strip center.
Wife and I were just talking about our time there and trying to remember all the characters. It is interesting how many of those people are dead. And just even in my own feelings the casualness of remembering different people we haven't kept up with at all that we both agree are probably dead.