white letter revelations

Brandon wrote recently. He's doing his obligatory drug and alcohol classes and shared a bit about that, the lovely recollections of being completely smashed:

"That AOD class is progressing, if slowly. Everyone still likes to debate things completely off topic. I heard parole looks solely at the instructor's comments on your participation, so I try to tell my wildest true stories. We talked about anger, so I talked about the time I blew up my car. She wanted an embarrassing moment, so I told her about the time I pissed down the upstairs wall, fell asleep in a snowbank, forgot where I lived, when I tried to open our front door with a pad-lock key, etc. I could have told her about the time Steve and I were drinking in an abandoned house and I knocked myself unconscious on an exposed, nail-riddled stud. Steve left to get help, forgot where he was and what he was doing, went to Uni-Mart, relieved them of the entire salsa rack without paying, and came back to find me still out on the floor. But hey, this is about me alone..."

Things every parent wants to know...not...and yet, good that he is finally admitting them. Of course we did know about the car and things that happened in the house, or the evidence of them. I keep telling myself it's over. At least that stage of craziness. Tomorrow we go to visit him and the five of us will be together again as a family for the first time in two years.