"No one saves us but ourselves."That's a quote from Buddha. As the second anniversary of my wife's death approaches, I can't help but think that this quote is true. In 1999, when I first started dating my wife, she asked me to please help her to stop drinking. At that moment, I gave up drinking and tried to help her quit too. We went to doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, inpatient programs, outpatient programs, AA meetings, social workers and Alanon meetings (me). She took medicine to break the addiction, I swept the house for bottles, we avoided social gatherings, we fought and we cried. In the end, her drinking killed her.
All of that activity and pain to help her to stop drinking, and yet she never did. It ends up Sharon had addictive personality disorder. While we were constantly battling her alcoholism, the other ten "isms" were always there in the background, uncontrolled and pressuring her back towards drinking to self medicate her pain away. We knew about the anorexia and binge eating, and tried to control those as well. The further she progressed with these conditions (which often appeared when she was not drinking), the more pressure she would feel to drink again. In the end, Sharon needed help to be saved, but none of us could do it for her. Understanding what she had from the beginning might have helped. By the time we found out, her health was already being severely affected. I think physically, we can all be saved by someone else every once in a while. After all, if I was just about to fall off of a cliff and you grabbed my hand and pulled me back, you would have saved me. Right? Well, I don't think that was what Buddha was talking about. I think he meant that spiritually, no one can save you but yourself. That no one can beat back your demons but you. While I can agree with that sentiment, it is heartbreaking to watch people struggle with their demons, particularly when you and they don't know what they are. How do you fight a tidal wave? Even with someone reaching out for you, you are still likely to get swept away. Did Buddha save himself? Who knows! He talked a good talk, but in the end he died...just like Sharon. Did Sharon attain peace before she died? I don't know. I hope so. She died in my arms. I loved Sharon deeply. I hope as she lay there (she was in a coma) she knew she was being held by the one that she loved...and who loved her. There are so many more things I'd like to say here...I just don't know how.
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