I don't think I have much explaining to do on this topic. I apologize if it hits close to home for some people; but my mom was an alcoholic and she passed away 3 years ago after many complications from her illness. With Christmas on the rise, I've been thinking about her more and more... so here are some quotes about alcoholism that I find to be incredibly true.
"Alcoholism: the disease that makes you too selfish to see the havoc you created and care about the people you shattered." "You cannot save everyone. Some people are going to destroy themselves no matter how much you try to help them." “A man who drinks too much on occasion is still the same man as he was sober. An alcoholic, a real alcoholic, is not the same man at all. You can't predict anything about him for sure except that he will be someone you never met before.” "Alcohol is basically for those who wish to be dead, yet lack the courage to kill themselves." "When you have a choice to make and don't make it, that is in itself a choice." "Sorry is not enough. Sometimes, you have to actually change." "Everyone tells you that the alcoholic will hit bottom. What they fail to tell you is that 'bottom' could be the bottom of a grave." "A mistake repeated more than once is a decision."
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Don't judge this post by its title; that's the first thing I'll say before jumping into this topic. Something that's strange to me, is the lack of songs that are written about addiction. I realize that yes, there are a good handful, but I'm going to break down into specifics. I think it's odd that there's so few songs about addiction affecting families through the parents... particularly since "Seventy six million Americans, about 43% of the U.S. adult population, have been exposed to alcoholism in the family. Almost one in five adult Americans (18%) lived with an alcoholic while growing up". What I've noticed in music is that if addiction is covered; it's almost always directed onto the fathers. It's odd to me that even addiction has gender roles and it disgusts me in a way because I actually know more people who have mothers with addiction problems than fathers. That's besides the point though; everyone's experience is different and I just say that about the music industry's personification of addiction. I'd never discredit anyone of their experience with addiction... then again; I'd never wish it upon anyone to experience addiction within their family. It's a horrible thing and it's terrifying. In any case, for any new readers to this blog... my mom was an alcoholic who suffered from addictive personality disorder and multiple eating disorders. She passed away 3 years ago; a result of her poor life decisions and mental illness but most prominently because of her addiction. Prior to that, her addiction split apart my family and I stood witness to everything she did for my entire life; beginning to understand things at 7. This post is semi-inspired by my dad's post from yesterday. He's written numerous posts about my mom, and I have too- I'm sure of you scroll back enough (or go through the carefully organized categories he's put together) you can piece together my life's story. Due to the gender roles that have been slapped onto addiction in pop culture; I've always found it hard finding music that deals with mothers with addictions. However, recently I've been listening to an artist named NF (I believe I've mentioned a few of his songs in previous posts) and I've found 2 of his songs that actually do cover a very similar situation to mine, Upon doing some research; I discovered that the 2 songs I had found were inspired by his own experience as he had lost his mother to an accidental drug overdose. While my mom (thankfully) was never hooked on any hard drugs; the alcohol was bad enough. I honestly do consider alcohol to be a drug, at the end of the day. In any case, I greatly appreciate the two songs because I find them to be quite relatable, even though the lyrics are pretty heavy. If you aren't into rap, at least read the lyrics. I'll leave a link to the songs below. - maddie Miss You - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtRy75dqzGc How Could You Leave Us - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9tqvCYlZSQ
"When watching after yourself, you watch after others. When watching after others, you watch after yourself." That, of course, is a quote by Buddha. The interesting thing about Buddha is that everyone quotes him, but he has no actual writings of his own. In fact, the first sayings written as Buddha's were written about four hundred years after his death.
Have you ever played a game of pass the secret? That's the game where one person starts with a message and then whispers it into the ear of the person sitting to their left. Everyone is in a circle by the way... Well, by the time the "secret" gets back to the original person, the secret is nothing near to what was actually said to begin with! Well, now think about doing that for four hundred years. I am guessing that if any of "his" sayings ever got back to Buddha he would have a Yogi Berra moment. .. "I haven't said half the things they say I said!" Anyway, to get back to the quote, I don't care if Buddha actually said it or not, I believe there is some truth to it. It is particularly true when you are watching after others. Here is a personal example: As many of you know, my wife was an alcoholic, and she drank herself to death. What you might not know is that I am also an alcoholic. I have been sober for seventeen years. When I first met my wife, we both drank. While I drank socially, always with other people, my wife was more of a sneak drinker. So much so, that I didn't even know she had a drinking problem until we were already dating for a couple of weeks! It was at that point that Sharon told me she was an alcoholic and asked me to help her to stop drinking. She asked me, because she did not know how heavily I drank (since I did it mainly on the weekends and occasionally after work). At first I just thought she meant that she drank too much socially, and I told her that in the two weeks that I had known her I only saw her have a couple of drinks. It was at that point that she opened her pocket book and showed me her bottle of vodka. She had a one liter bottle in her pocketbook and it was about halfway gone. She was drinking daily, then, including while she was at work... and I never would have known. At that moment, I promised her that I would help her to quit, and it was then that I had my last drink. That was back in July 1999. Sharon never stopped drinking, even with all of my "help". I literally took hundreds of bottles from her over the years, but it did no good. In 2013, she died of esophageal varices, which was caused by the damage she did to her liver while drinking. To bring it back full circle, in trying to save my wife, I ended up saving myself. (When watching after others, you watch after yourself.} In the end, although I tried my hardest, no one can really save anyone who is caught in an addiction...they must save themselves. BUT, in trying to save Sharon, I ended up saving myself. Sharon and I divorced in 2011 to protect the children. I have raised Maddie alone since she was seven and Ashleigh since the day she came home from the hospital. It pains me that I could not help Sharon. Psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, in patient, out patient, AA... none of it worked with Sharon. It ended up she had addictive personality disorder, but we didn't find that out until it was way too late. I held Sharon for the last six hours of her life after they removed her from life support. She died in my arms. When we first met, I never thought that our last embrace would be in death. I didn't realize how badly she needed help, and I never guessed that I would not be able to give it to her. I was naive, and I felt that if I just stopped drinking myself, I would be able to provide all of the willpower she needed for her to do the same. The other night, someone on Imgur put up a picture of the token they received from AA for being sober for one year. It really touched me, and made me think of Sharon, and myself. I congratulated them, told them how long I had been sober and said "Take it one day at a time, my friend." For those of you who are not afflicted with alcoholism, I can tell you from experience becoming sober is not an easy thing to do. In fact, some never quite make it. Like my wife. Rest in peace Sharon. For those of you still suffering with alcoholism, seek help. AA is a great place to start, and there are in-patient programs that may be of help as well. The following post isn't written by me. In fact, I've found it on Tumblr before- and over the course of the past two weeks it has crossed my dashboard 6 times. Due to this factor, I've decided to post it below... along with the fact that I happen to agree with its message very strongly and it's something I'm very passionate about spreading awareness to.
"I hate alcohol. I hate that it takes control away from those who choose to drink it. I hate that it makes people lose their inhibitions and do things that they never would have done otherwise, go places they never would have gone otherwise, and let people do things to them that will scar them for the rest of their lives. I hate that everyone assumes that if they only drink in moderation it will not affect them. I hate that they don’t realize that it will affect them. Can’t they see that ninety percent of alcoholics started by “drinking in moderation”. I hate that so many of these people never realized that they were no longer drinking in moderation until they ruined their lives, or until they ruined somebody else’s life. I hate that you think that you are only drinking in moderation and that everything will be okay. I hate that those who make the well-thought-out and wise decision to stay away from alcohol are ridiculed and scorned by those who don’t understand that life can be even more fun, relationships more rewarding, and intelligence better fostered without the false promises that alcohol offers. I hate that it has cost us as a society untold billions and trillions in lost wages, and productivity and lives. I hate that it has cost untold millions of lost relationships and lost innocence. I hate that people end up in the Emergency Room because they were driving home to their families and singing along to the radio when out of nowhere somebody locked in the trance of alcohol runs into their car. I hate that wives and even husbands end up in the Emergency Room because they have been abused by spouses who have been drinking again. I hate that children end up in the Emergency Room because they have been abused by parents who have been drinking again. I hate that most of the people who will read this post will be trying to come up with reasons why I am wrong and why alcohol isn’t that bad. I hope that someday we will be able to be honest as a society and let go of the crutch that is alcohol. I hope that someday we will embrace life and learn to love it as it comes to us, without the mind-deadening effects of alcohol, without the body-rotting diseases that come along for the ride, and without the fear and pain and embarrassment that follow behind. I hope that maybe one person who reads this post will stop long enough to truly ponder what I am saying and give up alcohol for a better life." I love this post so much. It contains so much wisdom that so few people understand... and I wish that more did. I lost my mom to alcoholism 3 years ago; and for the 4 years leading up to her death I stood witness to the effects of alcohol. I watched it not only destroy my mom, but I watched it destroy my family. I watched it rip apart trust and to some extent; love. Alcohol terrifies me for how much it can manipulate and control the mind... how harmful it is, and how it's disguised and sold as a social lubricant. I don't know who is responsible for the post above, but if by chance they ever read this post- thank you so much for putting into words what I cannot express. - Maddie A writer that I read daily wrote something that got me thinking today. He wrote "I want to know why you got separated from your spouse. People always say, “It was amicable.” No it wasn’t. Don’t lie. Tell me. Please." Funny that this line hit so close to home for me, since he wasn't really writing about relationships. He was writing about his curiosity and just giving an example of what he finds interesting sometimes.
His name is James Altucher, and he regularly lays his thoughts out for all to see. He writes about the good things in his life and the bad, but his writing usually has a point to it. I like that. Well, his quote above got me thinking because after I got my divorce I sometimes told people I didn't know well that our divorce was amicable... It wasn't really. And so, without further ado, I'll tell the story. My wife and I got a divorce in 2011. In a nutshell, our divorce was caused by addiction. My wife and I first started dating in July, 1999. She was 23 and I was 33. We had known each other for a few months prior to starting dating. She had been married, but her husband had died. We started chatting at a party and when we started talking she told me he had died a couple of months prior. We really hit it off and started dating soon after. About two weeks after we started dating, Sharon told me she was an alcoholic and asked me to help her stop. I gave up drinking on that day, and have not had another drink since. My wife, on the other hand, was never able to give up alcohol for any great length of time. In fact, her longest time sober was when my first daughter was born. She stopped for about two years then... the nine months during the pregnancy and an additional 18 months while she was breast feeding. Soon after, her parents came from England to visit her and the stress of the visit, coupled with depression started her drinking again. Over the years, we went to AA meetings, in-patient re-habs, outpatient programs, Psychiatrists psychologists, and to numerous social workers. None of them could do it for her, and she just couldn't do it for herself. Sharon was a sneak drinker, and Madison was young, so she never realized that her mommy had a problem in the early years. By age seven, this was changing. (I worked from home on and off starting in 2001, and then started my own business in 2003, so I was home to make sure Maddie was safe.) Sharon was not a social drinker and had a tendency to drink quickly but heavily when no one was around to see her. She was very hard to catch, and only regular sweeps of our house and property kept some sort of limit on her drinking. Her tolerance was very high, and she could go for long periods where she fooled me into thinking she was sober. Even so, Maddie knew from a very early age that she was not allowed to drive with Mommy. Daddy did the driving whenever Maddie was going out with us. But I digress. In 2009, Sharon and I decided to have another baby. Sharon's drinking had been getting progressively worse and she thought that she would stop if she got pregnant. Maddie was seven, and by this time she already knew about Mommy's drinking problem. Sharon started lying about the drinking to Maddie, something she never thought she would do. It scared her, and she thought that the pregnancy would force her to stop since she would never willingly drink with a baby inside her. Unfortunately, she was unable to stop. At one point, she was found unconscious in the parking lot at our dojo, and we called an ambulance for her. Believe it or not, we thought it was anemia having to do with the pregnancy. In fact, the doctor at the emergency room actually said that is what it was. After speaking to her at the hospital, though, I began to suspect that she had been drinking and I told the nurse to tell the doctor that she was an alcoholic and that I believe she had been drinking. He tested her blood alcohol content and found she had a .42! This is well above the legal limit of .08. The doctor was stunned. He had had a conversation with Sharon and she had been coherent, so he never even thought to check her for alcohol use. He was astounded that she could even talk at that level of inebriation. At that time, he told me he couldn't tell me if there had been any damage to the fetus, but he thought that it was likely. I was crushed! After that Sharon was charged with drunk driving and I plea bargained with the DA before her court appearance. I told him to tell the judge that I would have her plead guilty and that I would pay all fines at the maximum rate as long as he court-ordered that she enter an in-patient rehab facility. Sharon would never willingly go for an in-house program. In fact, I could barely get her to go to an AA meeting. She was 7-months pregnant and I figured that an inpatient program was the safest thing for the baby. The judge did even better than that. Not only did he court order the in-patient program (and take her license) but he lowered her fines to the minimum that he could, since I was paying for the in-patient program out of my pocket. Sharon entered a program at Phoenix House in Keene. She did well, and it ended about two weeks before she was due to give birth. Unfortunately, Sharon got drunk again on the first night she was back and fell and broke her ankle. I had swept the house and knew it was clean. She had somehow gotten alcohol in Keene and brought it back with her in her bags from the in-patient facility. The doctor recommended that she have a cesarean birth the next day, to help protect the baby. Ashleigh was born on January 18, 2010, two weeks premature and suffering from alcohol withdrawal. She spent the first nine hours of her life in an oxygen tent. At that point, I felt Sharon was too dangerous to be around the girls and I pressed child neglect charges against her. I brought Ashleigh home alone when she was four days old, and I have raised her and Maddie ever since. At that point, I had no intention of divorcing my wife. Sharon went back into in-house therapy, and we tried to get her drinking under control. At one point, (in July) the courts allowed Sharon to come back to live in our home, but she quickly began drinking again. One night, when I called the police to help me with Sharon, (she eventually passed out right in front of the police man), he recommended that I go in the morning and get an ex-parte separation. This would allow me to continue to live in the home, while limiting her access to it. Without that, the police could not remove her from the home since she was legally allowed to live there and drink. I had her taken to the emergency room that night, and first thing in the morning I hired a lawyer and got an exparte separation. Given the circumstances (the child neglect charges, the history of alcoholism and alcohol related arrests, we were only in front of the judge for five minutes. In all, Sharon's stay in our home lasted about three weeks. We paid for a one-bedroom apartment for Sharon and we continued to see doctors and social workers to try and get her to stop drinking. It was at this point, that one of the psychologists told us that Sharon was actually suffering from Addictive personality disorder. (Sharon had eating disorders that we were trying to deal with and other things as well. After ten years of seeing doctors and psychologists, one finally hit on the fact that all of her compulsions were tied together. Sharon continued to drink and I eventually filed for divorce. Of course, there were other things impacting that decision. It's just none of your business. Two years after our divorce, Sharon drank herself to death. She developed esophageal varacies in 2011, continued to drink. After a two week stay in the hospital in a coma, her life support was removed and she died in my arms. Of course, there is more to the story than that. I write about Sharon from time to time. If you look through the archives, you can likely piece together a lot of the story. Some things I just won't or can't write about though. Sometimes, I wish I didn't know... and sometimes, it is better not to know. So, while the divorce wasn't amicable, in time, we both realized that it was the best thing for our girls. Sometimes we need to think about things other than ourselves. Sharon missed our daughters dearly when she was away from them. But because she could not stop her drinking, it was safest that she did not live with us. With that said, our divorce led to a lot of heartbreak, but was the best thing for our daughters. Now that I have written this, I think it is just best to say that our divorce was painful, and just leave it at that. "“A lot of people get so hung up on what they can't have that they don't think for a second about whether they really want it.” That's a quote by Lionel Shriver. Believe it or not, Lionel is a woman. She was a tomboy when she was younger and decided to change her name from Margaret to Lionel because she thought the more masculine name was more fitting for her.
Not much for me to say about Lionel, I have never read any of her material and I didn't know she existed until I read her quote. I liked the quote, though, and it got me thinking. I get hung up sometimes... not so much about what I can't have, but what might have been...which I guess IS the same thing after all. A lot of times, I will be sitting around working or listening to music, and something will inevitably remind me of my wife. A memory will be triggered and I will feel a deep well of sadness as I think of the good times we had at one time or another, and then I miss her. At those times, I fail to remember the problems we had and how her illness impacted the entire family. It's the second part of the quote that really got me to thinking tonight. I heard a song and thought of my wife and really missed her. Then I read the quote and I thought "if my wife was still alive, would I be having those feelings right now?" And to be honest, the answer was no. Not because I didn't love my wife, or because I no longer love her, but because before my wife died, I had divorced her to protect my daughters. My wife's alcoholism was out of control (it ended up killing her) and she could not be around my children without another adult present. I brought my youngest daughter, Ashleigh, home from the hospital when she was four days old, and I have raised her on my own until my Mom came to live with us in 2013. My wife spent some of that time in and out of rehab facilities, but mainly was out on her own drinking. Don't get me wrong, my wife loved our daughters. She was just not physically or mentally able to stop her addiction until it eventually took her life. She died of esophageal varices. Scarring, or cirrhosis of the liver is the most common cause of esophageal varices. This scarring cuts down on blood flowing through the liver. As a result, more blood flows through the veins of the esophagus. The extra blood flow causes the veins in the esophagus to balloon outward. Heavy bleeding can occur if the veins break open. Well, Sharon's veins broke open on at least two occasions. The second one that I know of killed her. Sharon already had a damaged liver when we met in 1999. She died in 2013. Ashleigh was born in January, 2010. Sharon's descent into oblivion really rolled into place in 2009, soon after she had become pregnant with Ashleigh. She couldn't stop drinking during the pregnancy. Although this likely sounds hollow, I did not know the extent of Sharon's drinking and its impact on her until she was already pregnant with Ashleigh. I knew she had still been drinking before we decided to have a second child, but she believed that the pregnancy would force her to quit again, as she did when she was pregnant with Madison. Unfortunately, this time she couldn't do it. To protect the baby, we put Sharon into an in-house rehab program at Phoenix House in Keene while she was pregnant to help keep her sober during her pregnancy. She completed the program, but started drinking immediately after she came out of the program, about two weeks prior to when she was to give birth to Ashleigh. She got drunk and broke her ankle on the first night she was home from the rehab. She had gotten the booze in Keene prior to me picking her up at the rehab facility. When we got home, I never thought to look in her bag she had brought from the facility since I picked her up from the facility, and brought her directly home. My daughter was born two weeks premature and with alcohol withdrawal. They sent me home with her at four days old. She was underweight, and needed to be fed every half an hour for the first two weeks of her life. Somehow, I did it while looking for a nanny to help me with the baby, while also taking care of Madison who was eight, and still somehow doing some work for my business. I literally had no sleep for the first four days. On day four, one of the travelling nurses who visited me to make sure the baby was doing okay, called me back that afternoon and offered to watch the girls for me in my house, while I caught some sleep. She came over, and I slept for eight hours. To this day, I still believe that angels sometimes walk among us, and come to help us in our hour of need. Soon after, I hired a nanny and things improved a little bit. For the next three years, my daughters and I struggled with Sharon's illness, I don't want to go into what we all went through. (By all I include Sharon, because she was suffering as well. She was ill, and she was missing her little girls. The emptiness only added to the stresses that triggered her drinking.) Looking back now, it seems like our days were filled with policemen, ambulances, hospitals, lawyers, doctor's visits, court visits, and of course, drunken interludes by Sharon. To this day, when an ambulance passes us in either Rindge or Jaffrey Maddie and I look at each other. When Sharon was alive, we looked at each other because we wondered if it was Mom being brought to the hospital again (oftentimes, it was). Now, we just look at each other just to silently say we remember. I can no longer see an ambulance without thinking of my wife... even though she has now been dead for three years. So anyway, what about the quote? When the song played tonight, and I thought about my wife, I realize that she is dead and can't come back. I recognize that, yet I still remember our good memories. The bad ones I mentioned above, I try not to think of any more. Yet soon after those good memories hit, I read the above quote and I thought: "If Sharon could come back, just the way she was, would you want her to come back?" And my answer to myself was no, I wouldn't. Because although I have a tendency to remember our good times together, if I think deeper, I remember all of the unhealthy things that my daughters saw and experienced. And I would never want to expose them to that again! Ashleigh was very young then, and barely remembers her Mom. She did not understand any of the bad things that went on, and I'd like to keep it that way until she is older, and inevitably asks me about her Mom. Maddie does remember, though, and I never want to expose her to anything so tragic and psychologically damaging again. To wit, be careful what you sometimes long for, because not everything you might want or miss is good for you or your loved ones around you. Sorry for the long, weird post... But it's what was going through my mind tonight, and sometimes I need to think out an explanation for myself. "We can change what we do, but not who we are." That is a quote from me! Well, I thought it was mine, but it seems two others have thought about it before. At least I found two other references to that quote on the internet. One was on a review to a Kanye West album on some obscure rap website and the other was by a Presbyterian minister on his local website in Jackson Mississippi. An no, I had never read either website before. So it is a quote by me, that happened to be used by two other people but on different subjects. I doubt you would be able to find Wikipedia articles on any of us, so don't bother trying.
If any of you have the time, feel free to put up a Wikipedia piece on me... just try to keep it accurate. That thought kind of reminds me of the movie Full Metal Jacket. There is a scene in that movie where a soldier is being interviewed by a TV reporter and he says that he joined the army because he wanted to be the first boy on his block with a confirmed kill. What craziness. Well, I guess I want to be the first person on my block with a confirmed Wikipedia listing! Anyway, it was after thinking about my last post that made me think about the above quote. When I was younger, I drank heavily and liked to "party". A lot of what I did revolved around drinking, getting a buzz and hanging around places where other people were doing the same thing. Travelling to a city I really knew nothing about to party with people I didn't know seemed exciting... not stupid. Nowadays, when I go to a new city (and its not for business), I am looking for interesting things to visit, and if i meet interesting people along the way, all the better. I am not looking to meet drunks, or partiers though. Instead, I want to meet people with interesting stories or interesting knowledge that they can share. I guess I am the same. Even back when I was just looking to get a buzz, I wanted to be surrounded by interesting people. I wanted to learn new things and get a buzz while doing it. Now, I still want to meet interesting people and learn new things... I have grown, though, and no longer need to chase a buzz to enjoy these different things. The more I look back, the more I see that my drinking was more of a way to break away from the every day and push the frontiers of my mind. Unfortunately, I got trapped into that lifestyle and IT became my regular way of spending the weekend, or an off night etc. With age comes wisdom. For those of us who learned, we still enjoy each other's company, but alcohol and other substances play no part in our lives. For others, my wife, my cousin, my good friend Tommy, they never learned that the substance wasn't necessary... and it killed them. Addiction is a horrible condition and the best way to beat it is to not start testing it. Although there are not a lot of things that I regret about my life, the few that I do, in one way or another inevitably involve alcohol. On the one hand, I have many good friends who I first met while partying and became friends with after we went partying. I have no regrets about meeting these people and adding them to my life. I do regret that I could not do those things back then without the alcohol to make it easier. In essence, I have changed what I do, but I remain who I am. I still find the same things funny, or interesting, I still have the same kinds of thoughts and I still like to do the same things. I am now just able to do them easily, no even easier, without alcohol. I still like to go see bands, walk a quiet trail and go to places I have not been before. Shop for antiques and have quiet, deep conversations. I do them sober now and share them with my daughters. I have changed, yet I am who I am! Who would have thunk it! "No one saves us but ourselves. No one can, and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path." This is a quote from one of my favorites...Buddha. There is not much I can say about Buddha, other than he was a very wise man. Oddly enough, there are no known writings of Buddha. Everything we know about him was written down after his death. In fact, it was about 400 years before anyone had put anything to paper. Given that's the case, I think many of his sayings could be made by his acolytes as well and then just attributed to Buddha. At any rate, it is very hard to tell. What can be told is that he is the spiritual leader of his own religion.
To get back to the quote, the first line really stands out to me. I have seen this one in action both in regards to me, and my wife, among others. No one can save you unless you want to be saved. When I first met my wife, we dated for about two weeks before she told me she was an alcoholic. At that point, she asked me for help in stopping. The problem was, she didn't really want to stop. She was using the alcohol to self medicate herself from some of her other anxieties and addictions. My wife had addictive personality disorder. She struggled with anorexia, binge eating, compulsive buying, hoarding, jealousy, gambling and other behaviors. It was both sad and scary. We did not know that all of these behaviors were tied together. We tried to battle the alcoholism and the anorexia, and I always found it a good sign when she ate heartily (it wasn't). It oftentimes led to binge eating when I wasn't around, and eventually to depression as she gained weight. This inevitably led back to drinking as she tried to regulate her mood or her appetite with the booze. I could not save her... although I naively tried. I didn't know the extent of her problems and I did not know or believe that she had to do it on her own. I swept the house for bottles, took her to doctors and psychologists, social workers and AA meetings. Nothing worked. I was often told that she had to hit bottom to be helped. That is a large crock of bull. The bottom for my wife was when she died. By that time she had lost her husband, her family, and her happiness. No one saves us but ourselves... it is so true. But don't be afraid to be there for someone and to bring them to people and places where they may be able to learn how to save themselves. It is one thing to have to save yourself... but it might be impossible to do if you are never given hints on how to do it. When my wife (then my girlfriend) asked me to help her to stop drinking back in August of 1999, she helped me to save myself. You see, I too was an active alcoholic at that time. I was functional, and more of a heavy binge drinker (weekends mainly), but I had been drinking fairly regularly since my preteens and I put myself into AA when I was nineteen while in college. I was sober on my 21st birthday, but eventually went back to drinking because I felt my social life was suffering without the drinking. I was bored with drinking by the time I was 33, but doing it anyway. I was looking for a reason to stop, and Sharon inadvertently gave me that reason. I have not had a drop of alcohol in nearly seventeen years. And with God's help, I will not have any for the rest of my life. In the end, although I could not save my wife, I ended up saving myself by trying to help her. Sadly, I feel that back then I did not care enough about myself to save myself, but because I cared so much for her, I saved myself to help make it easier to save her. I didn't realize back then that that is what I was doing. I don't think Sharon ever realized it. Since, as Buddha says, "No one can save us but ourselves", maybe it is a good idea if we are having trouble saving ourselves to find something or someone we value more than ourselves to save... as long as in saving it/them we have to save ourselves as well. I know it sounds odd. But it seems to have saved me seventeen years ago. Possibly, if I had suggested that idea to my wife back then, it might have saved her as well. I don't know. And I don't think I ever will know. All I can say is that I am here now. I somehow saved myself way back then. And with the grace of God I will continue to do so... One day at a time. I have expressed my hatred for this subject before; but I feel the need to write about it again to stress its importance. So many people walk around feeling that they know everything there is to know about addiction. I've been told by people before "alcohol can't harm you unless you abuse it".... I disagree. An addiction is an addiction; whether you abuse it or not. As long as you're drinking regularly... you're addicted. It doesn't matter if you 'abuse' it or not. Abusing it just makes the case worse. IT. IS. STILL. ADDICTION.
I have also had friends say "you can't get addicted from one beer" and other dumb shit along those lines. Well guess what, genius? How do you think addictions start? Do you think you take one sip of beer and become a full-blown alcoholic? No. It takes time. The more you do it, the worse it gets. It doesn't start full-blown. Just like anything else, it has to grow... and to grow it has to be fed. This is the exact reason that I refuse to ever consume alcohol or drugs of any type. All it takes is one... and then I could potentially be ruining my life. Addiction runs in my family, particularly to drugs and alcohol. This means that I myself am susceptible to becoming easily addicted. I watched it ruin my mom's life and I've watched it ruin the lives of people in my family and I do not wish to follow in their footsteps... I know that it is possible to live a happy and healthy life WITHOUT alcohol or drugs being involved. I try to distance myself from those who include it in their lifestyle simply for my own health. I cannot stand to see people drink, even though I do unfortunately have to witness it from time to time and jokes about it making it seem like it's no big deal make me physically ill. Do not tell me addiction is nothing to worry about. Do not tell me to "just get over it". Do not tell me things could be worse. Do not tell me that it doesn't matter. Do not tell me that it is normal. And do NOT tell me that it is acceptable and a part of society today. That is bullshit. Addictions end lives. I know that too well. Don't be stupid. ~Maddie |
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