After due deliberation, my sister said her mother was definitely not an alcoholic. On the other hand, I was fairly certain mine was. Clearly one of us was mistaken because we had the same mother. I decided my sister was wrong. She got married when she was 18 and left home more or less forever, whereas I was stuck there for another 12 years, so what did she know? Yet now that I’m older I think we both may have been right. The women in my family suffer from a medical disorder called Opposite Girl Syndrome. This means we are almost always guaranteed to react in opposite ways to what the medicine bottle says should happen. An RN told me the medical term was Paradoxical, as in that anti-seasickness pill paradoxically made your brain swell up to the size of a basketball. Another common trait among us is a negative reaction to sugar in all its forms. Salt? No problem. We can eat it by the handful, but sugar? Not so much. I thought my mother began using alcohol to cure what ailed her when my sister was born and the doctor told my father to give Ma a full glass of red wine every day to fortify her blood. Seriously, every other year the medical industry decides red wine is good for you, but in 1934 it was extra, extra good because Prohibition had recently been repealed. Once my mother’s blood was sturdy enough to keep her upright, she went back to work again with my father. Whenever he saw her getting fatigued in the afternoon, he would suggest a nice glass of fortifying red wine, per the doctor’s orders. The really inane part of this routine was that my father’s own father was a genuine, ruin the family alcoholic, and as a result my father hated anyone who was what we used to call “a drinker.” The fact that later in life he decided it would be a good idea to buy a saloon is beyond comprehension. From my mother’s point of view, it was my father who encouraged her to drink whenever she got tired, or sad, or sick and tired of my father. However, now that I know more about her wild 1920’s flapper girl history, I suspect she was just waiting for an excuse. You see, alcohol made my mother feel happy. Ma was never a mean drunk. No. She would get very happy, very silly, and in about thirty minutes she would pass out, mostly on a couch, but not always. It was actually pretty funny to watch her, except for when she’d miss the couch, hit the floor, and break a bone. I swear to G-d, I don’t know why this is making me have a fit of the giggles. I was usually the one who had to take care of her. All I can say is that she made everyone else laugh, too, except for Aunt Rose. That’s because when she’d fall down at Aunt Rose’s, she’d have to sleep it off on Rose’s couch for the next two weeks, which put a crimp in Auntie’s play time. Back to the Paradoxical effect. When mixed with the high sugar content of alcoholic beverages, it produced this sequence in Ma: One glass equaled a happy buzz. Two glasses equaled riotous laughter. A thirty minute wait equaled instantaneous sleep, as in drop-on-the-floor snoring. My sister and I suffered the same physical reaction, except we both woke up with sick headaches. It was no fun whatsoever. We couldn’t even stay awake long enough to look sophisticated at our own dinner parties, so we became teetotalers. Ma was different. She woke up refreshed in body and empty of mind. She loved getting buzzed. A stiff drink was her cure for all woes. This began to worry me after my father died and my mother was living alone. Who would know to pick her up and cart her off to the doctor after she fell and broke something? I decided to be the governing voice of reason. Naturally, that didn’t work. She simply started hiding the bottles from me. Then I began the weekly search, retrieve, and pour the contents down the drain method, which left her six free days to buy more bottles and find new hiding places. In frustration, I complained to a best friend who had grown up hauling her father off to bed every time he fell over the back of the couch and landed feet facing the ceiling. I asked her what could I do? She was wiser than me. She said, “Your mother has earned her right to live the way she wants to. It’s not up to you. If she wants to drink, let her.” That’s what I did. I left her alone as far as booze was concerned. I took her to the hospital every time I knew about a fall, but she was getting better about concealing them. “Ma,” I’d ask. “Why are you wearing a kitchen towel like a sling and why is your forearm bent that way?” “I didn’t look where I was going and I tripped over the rug last week.” “Don’t you think we should have a doctor look at it?” “Why bother? My hand still works.” Eventually, after she fell and cracked a few vertebrae, my step-father decided I should be in full charge, not just for medical repairs. That in itself is another story but for now let me tell you what forced Ma to stop drinking. My sister flew into town to help us find a lovely full-care senior facility (now that step-father had bowed out of the scene), or as Ma called it, an old folks’ home. When my sister arrived, mother was three sheets to the wind and couldn’t recognize her elder daughter. Nonetheless, we got her cleaned up and bundled into the car. At the first home, I went ahead to scout the premises. When I immediately returned to the car, my sister asked what I’d learned. I told her, “I learned that they lock the old folks in at night. I couldn’t get in.” That reduced us to gales of laughter. The second home was pretty nice and we almost made it to the exit without revealing our secret, but at the last moment Ma swung from my arm like a monkey on a tree, and lisped at the Matron, “My girs thake good care off me.” So much for place two. I finally got Ma admitted to the prettiest, brand-new place, only blocks from my house. The best part for her was the Wednesday afternoon wine and cheese party. Ma lasted two Wednesdays before she passed out half way into the elevator, with her feet sticking into the hallway and the elevator doors banging on her legs, close-open-close-open. By the time I got there, I recognized her little slipper-shod feet hanging off the end of the gurney in the ambulance. That was the last time the brand new place served wine to the old folks on Wednesdays. After that, we never had to worry about Ma’s drinking. She drifted into full yet happy dementia, and whenever she asked to have a drink we’d tell her she’d just had one…and she believed us.