Memory
One day a couple years ago I was going to my mother’s house to spend some time with her. I was off to meet her to go shopping, and to have a fun night. Instead something entirely different happen. I left where I was and started to drive towards where my mom was. I was supposed to be meeting her around 6 o’clock, but she was already waiting for me. I decided to hurry up and get there as soon as it was possible. I was about to get off the highway, but I couldn’t remember the exit that I was suppose to take. So I called up my mother, but she wasn’t any help in giving me directions. I thought nothing of it at the time. I got off an exit and found an open parking spot. As I did my phone started to ring. It looked like my mother was calling, so I picked up the phone. I didn’t hear the voice I was expecting. Instead I heard a guy’s voice. I was a little confused at first, and then I was asked if I was the daughter, and if I could come pick my mom up at the local tavern. They were obviously calling because my mother was intoxicated, and couldn’t legally or safely drive home. Of course I went to the tavern to go pick her up. Being under the drinking age myself I was given some weird looks when I walked in the door, until I asked where my mother was. That’s when I saw her sitting there looking close to sleeping, and all slumped over. I went over and said, “Let’s go.” She mumbled something that I couldn’t understand. Someone was holding her purse and keys for her so she couldn’t get into her car. I told them that I was here to pick her up, and thanked them for watching my mother. They seemed very casual, and like it wasn’t a big deal. It was a big deal though, because they could have easily saved my mother’s life, by not allowing her to drive, and I’m very thankful for that. So surprisingly my mother was able to stand up and start to walk and stumble her way to the door. Once we got outside though I realized that she had no idea what she was doing. She started to walk out into the road, like a little kid, while cars were driving by. It made me very nervous. I quickly pulled her back on to the sidewalk until the road was clear, and we could cross. When I pulled her back she mumbled some stuff, but once again I couldn’t catch a word of it. Soon I had gotten her over to the car without much of a hassle. I got her in, and she had enough sense to put her seat belt on herself. Everything looked to be set in place, so I started to drive home, because we obviously couldn’t go shopping now, not with my mother in the state that she was. On our way home my mom said one thing that I could understand and that was, “What took you so long?” I wasn’t that late meeting her, so I didn’t entirely understand what she meant. Within minutes of me starting the car my mother was asleep, or more likely passed out. The car ride was otherwise uneventful. Once we got home I assumed she would be able to walk inside the house, like she had walked to the car. I was wrong. Once I stopped the car she made no movement towards actually getting out of the car. Soon I was on the other side of the car unbuckling her. I got her unbuckled, and was pulling her up off of the seat. She was standing, and I figured she could keep her balance, but she couldn’t without help, so she fell over face first into the snow. Immediately I tried to pull her up, but she was really heavy, like dead weight. Within a minute or so my mother had puked on the snow. This proved to me that she had been drinking a lot. I had to get her up off the snow, otherwise she would freeze. As I was trying to get her up I heard her say, “Leave me here,” and “I just puked.” This meant that she knew what had just happened, but she didn’t have her right mind about her. While I was trying to get her up into a standing possession she had fallen asleep again. Eventually I got her up off the snow, and I had her arm around my shoulders. She was able to stumble to the door of our house with my help. I got the door open, and then surprisingly she was walking across the floor towards the bathroom. I figured that she was going in there to puke, so I went out to the car to get our purses that I had left out there. When I came back in I went into the bathroom to check on my mother. I had been gone about a whole minute, and expected her on the floor puking. I opened the bathroom door to find my mother sprawled out in the bathtub, with her legs dangling over the side. This had to mean that she had fallen into the tub, and had not purposely gone in. I went over to her to see if she was okay, and once again she was passed out. I decided to call her boyfriend to take care of the situation, because I figured he could handle the problem better than I could. He came over and got her into bed and took care over her the rest of the night while she puked.
This memory is important because it shows a lot of the short term effects of drinking alcohol. Also it shows how you can barely function on your own without the help of other people. Together this tells me that alcohol inhibits you from thinking clearly, and functioning correctly. This event changed me because it gave me a perspective on drinking that I had not seen before. I got to be up close and personal with the effects of drinking, and becoming drunk or intoxicated.