Last night at the "meeting before the meeting" at our local coffee shop, a friend of mine from out of town stopped in.
Boy did he shock the hell out of me.
His roommate, who was his "recovery brother," had 8 years clean and decided earlier this month that he was going to start drinking.
He's using every justification possible, "i used NA to get off of meth; i never had a problem with alcohol." "well the folks in Marshall never call, they don't care about us." "I'm still clean; I just drank."
Someone ran into him not that long ago and he said wasn't happy with the fellowship in Marshall because no one ever calls him. When I heard this (mind you, I'd just called him twice in the last few weeks), I just shook my head: any excuse to not come to a meeting.
Then I hear this.
My thought is that an addict not working a program will blame anyone and everything for the circumstances in their life. It's a two-way street. We had a hard winter and driving conditions were awful for MONTHS, so for them to drive the 35 minutes to Marshall at night was a bit much to do on a regular basis. I understand that. But as addicts make excuses to not come around, we find ourselves trapped in that insane thinking that we can handle "just one."
He's now drinking every weekend. By himself. In the basement.
The clean roommate said that, at 9 years clean, it doesn't bother him to have people drinking around him... until they push it. Then he heard, "this would be so much better if we could both do this."
Well, as soon as July hits, the clean one is moving back to Boston... if not sooner.
It goes to show that this DISEASE is CHRONIC... we are never exempt. Vigilance is always needed. Also, reaching out to others is a two-way street. If no one knows I'm hurting, how can I get help? A simple phonecall to someone I haven't heard from in a while might not always be such a bad idea, either... but I'm not getting all freakin codependent on anyone any time soon if I can have anything to do with it. :)
Yes ,prayers for Jerry B. ,may he get back around to Step 1,emotional acceptance of total admission and surrender,we suffer from "addiction" physical ,mental and spiritual illness permeates all areas of our lives! Like literature tells us we can be prayed over,dipped in oil,practice yoga etc(kind of paraphrased) until ready to take that step of utter defeat ,we can only carry the message...thanks for sharing Amanda!Have a blessed and productive day.
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Our purpose is to remain clean,just for today,and to carry the message of recovery.
for most of us this is life or death theres no room to be dishonest with ourselves and thats why people relapse, there not honest with themselves about there condition, they still find excuses and reason and have reservations.
And he obviously isn't done, I tell them "God Bless You and I hope you make it back before it kills you" and put them in Gods hands.
It is a powerful and cunning disease. Alcohol is a drug--how simple is that? An addict who decide that drinking is okay is fooling himself. For me, I know that drinking a little would lead to drinking more, which would lead to more drinking and then to other drugs.
