chatty.. i can well remember being one of those you mention in your post (april 30/05). I had just been introduced to the world of 'pubs'as they were called here. Had just met my future in laws who i didn't realize were hard core alcohalics.

A few years later when my mother in law was 62, we got a phone call to 'come down here and do something about her'. By then she was drinking her whiskey through a bent straw, needed a walker, had trouble using a fork, wouldn't wash. My husband had to undress her and carry her to the bath tub. While bathing her, i wanted to either crack her head on the back of the tub, or hold it under the water. I hated the woman, and wasn't sorry when she died the following spring.

But a few years after her death, i gradually learned she had secrets. And my thinking towards her changed.

I learned that apart from being married to a vulgar drinker, apart from being the daughter of a woman who found fault with everything, and who 'never touch a drop of drink'.

She had had a daughter before being married.
Her two sons never knew about this half sister.

Pregnant, not married ? I knew what that made her in the eyes of the world during her young years, and ever after. Not able to reveal the secret,
not ever to speak of her little girl. Her husband later revealed to me that he had paid '100' for each of the two abortions she had after they married.

When our first daughter was born, she came staggering into the hospital with my husband and said "finally i have my little girl"

At that point i thought, no way lady, this little girl is no relation to you.

But then, later on, it made sense.
I came to believe, she began drinking to escape,
her hurt, her shame, her world. And then finally she could not escape from alcohal. And i wish i could tell her i am sorry.