Active Alcoholism Sucks!!!

Double banger from me today just to get things out of my system and besides work is dead so it is either write a blog post or read stuff from the net, or maybe get PO’d as the pc cheats me in Hearts. Something I failed to mention about my anxiety yesterday is that part of addressing it was writing about it yesterday and also telling a couple of people what was going down, thus not trapping the feelings inside.

You know I really hate alcoholism. I hate what alcohol does to the alcoholic and those involved in the alcoholics life. I know as a Buddhist I am not suppose to hate and most of the time I can abide by the suggestion but in the case of alcoholism there is no disliking about my feelings especially when I see first hand the destruction it causes.

A friend of mine relapsed again. She has had periods of sobriety off and on for 10 years, with the longest stretch being 4 years. Each time she has gone out she has been worse than before, alcoholism is a progressive disease. She crashed last November, lost her good paying job, got busted for DUI, lost her living accommodations and was pretty much a mess. Her sponsor (AA mentor/teacher) let her move in with her, was taking her through the 12 steps of recovery, they were up to step 9. She was getting involved in service work, making at least one meeting a day, hanging out with people in recovery and for the most part doing really well as far as anyone could tell. My friend has a couple of degrees, very intelligent and semi-intellectual, she got a job working at H&R Block for the tax season so come April 15th she was out of a job and couldn’t fine another one due to her past history of alcohol effecting her performance. She has twins who are in the custody of their father a non-alcoholic, the boy is in a group home due to mental issues and discipline troubles and she has a sex parent who lives in another town who she was not suppose to be seeing since he uses alcohol and drugs not to mention that relationships are not advise when you are new in recovery because of messed up emotions and perceptions. None of these things to me are an excuse to drink, a lot of people have these things going on in their lives and don’t pick up a drink or drug to drown the feelings. Over and over again we talk about thinking the drink through, how one drink starts a chain of reactions that lead to destruction, my friend knew all this. She understood the hopelessness of alcoholism, she understood the compulsive nature of alcoholism and how powerful that compulsion is, she had a cell phone full of phone numbers for AA members, she lived with a woman who has been sober 33 years and is still active in recovery, she wasn’t strong spiritually but was getting there, she knew about every tool in the tool kit of recovery, yet she drank again. She is now detoxing, she is now homeless, she is penniless and at the mercy of others, she is a chronic alcoholic who has seen others die from alcoholism yet is sitting on deaths doorstep herself. Not only did she hurt her self she hurt her kids, her family, her sponsor and her friends in recovery, alcoholism much like suicide is a sick selfish and self centered act.

The book Alcoholics Anonymous calls alcohol “cunning, baffling and powerful” and it is. I have seen what happened to my friend happen to others too many times, either with alcohol or drugs and it still blows my mind. How can people lose so much from the poison they are putting in their bodies, knowing they will lose even more the next time they pick up or use and yet do it again and again and again. For some the only bottom is death, I hope this doesn’t happen to my friend, I will always be there for her and so will others. No one really knows what will happen to her now. She has been to rehab at least 3 times and most rehabs won’t take people at short notice. She needs to go to a long term rehab that is more regulated and harsher than the 30 day stay rehabs, but his is just human speculation on my part and those of others. She has chosen her path by her actions and inactions now she must pay the price, karma is what karma is.

It makes me sad that she has picked up again and for what may happen to her. It makes me realize how blessed I truly am to have had the compulsion lifted from me on December 1st 2006. That I have been blessed with the gifts I have, with finding a spiritual path and I am willing to follow it. I am blessed that I am fairly honest about what is going on in my life and let others in, I think my friend was holding too much stuff inside and not letting go of past resentments. Yeah I still think about a drink now and then, but I think it through, that cold six pack leads me back to jail, ruins the beautiful relationship I have with my daughter and granddaughter, it ruins the relationship I have with my mom and my family, it will cause me to be unemployed and homeless, it will ruin the regained trust of old friends and my new ones in recovery. We in recovery always welcome someone back after they have fallen but the fear is they may not make it back in the rooms. I was one of the lucky ones I made it back after 10 years of heavy research but some don’t once again I am blessed. But really all any of us have is this 24 hours we are living in and we need to make the best of it, we need to stay spiritually, mentally and physically fit every minute of those 24 hours.

Blessings be on those have gone back out to live the life of active alcoholism and drug addict.