An Irish Curse Broken

My family history is full of interesting characters. I am mostly Irish, English, and have a small bit of French that relates me to Niki de Saint Phalle. I cannot separate St. Patrick’s Day from my mostly Irish blood and I cannot separate my Irish blood from alcoholism. Once we start, we can’t stop. Our minds always trick us into thinking that it will be different this time. Perhaps, sometimes our minds don’t think at all, as taking a drink at the end of the day is as natural as breathing for us. I fortunately have escaped the endless cycle of samsara in my family and have broken the family curse.

I will discuss my freedom from the bondage of booze later, but first I want to provide a little family history. Much of my family came over from Ireland during the potato feminine before Ellis Island. One ancestor even came over because his family wanted him to be a priest and he, like me, had no interest in a life of purity. We landed in Flatbush in Brooklyn, mostly before the Civil War, which we fought in as loyal Union soldiers. We opened Shannon Florist that still stands today across from Green-Wood Cemetery where we are buried in our family plot. We started a pigment factory in Williamsburg and made stuff like the yellow for the paint on paved roads and pencils (they match) among other things. One grandfather turned the pigment factory into a dangerously combustible lab where he manufactured some of the napalm used by the Allies during WW2.

To say my family is versatile and eccentric is an understatement. I recently found out that I now qualify for Daughters of the American Revolution but also for the Associated Daughters of Early American Witches. But that is a story perhaps for another time. I fear that my family still does not know who we are even though we know exactly where we came from. The one thing I do know that we all have in common is alcoholism, whether as a drinker or as the person who loves the drunk. Most people in our society have not escaped the cold fingers of alcoholism as it reaches out and touches just about everyone. Alcoholism is no discriminator.

Like everyone in my family, my outsides did not reflect my insides. I got outstanding grades and academic awards when I was still drinking and held down jobs. I looked totally fine on the outside but emotionally and spiritually had fallen to pieces inside. Drinking is why I woke up in the morning, had the friends I did, why I went to work and made money, and what I looked forward to the most every day. My whole life revolved around drinking. One might say that I lived to drink but eventually booze stopped working.

It was fun at CBGBs and there was glamour in being let loose in downtown Manhattan. I am too young to have experienced the truly gritty and dangerous streets of a bygone NYC but it was still a lot of fun (until it wasn't). To this day, I can ignore the misery drinking caused me at times and spin the story of an exceptionally cool life as a wild child getting away with murder and having the time of her life. Trust me, we start young in the city and do what we please beginning in our tween years. Like most alcoholics, the excitement of the early days turned into the isolation of drinking alone at home. The conviviality of how it all began was gone after only a few raging years for me.

I got sober in college without rehab or help. I had no intervention and did it alone. I want to emphasize that I did this on my own as no one else in my family is sober. I have escaped and broken the family curse by choosing the path of recovery. I enjoy my life today and bring positivity versus darkness in all my affairs. I have a crisp clarity about my world and a fierce grasp on reality that is honest and undistorted. I am not living in a haze of delusions or accepting the false truths that booze created. So, after all this, you now know me a bit better as the woman who you know today. This Irish lass will be spending St. Patrick’s Day with sparkling water and feeling like the luckiest girl on earth to have found her very own freedom and true happiness.

On a lighter note, I've traded my penchant for booze for an obsession with sexual pleasure. I also want to note that I've only been your Mistress stone cold sober as I would never want to dull our experiences in any way or not be 100% for you! Our debauchery is a much better drug of choice for yours truly. So, come get hooked on your Mistress; I am the perfect addiction.

Your Mistress,

Ramona Ryder

P.S. Feel free to drink around me as it doesn't bother me in the slightest. My license to drink has been revoked but you are free to do whatever makes you feel the most comfortable during our time together!