Note: This is the first time I’ve written about something outside my own personal experience, but it’s been on my mind enough that I felt moved to.
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When Amy Winehouse’s body was found with a blood alcohol content of .4% (five times the DUI level), lying among scattered vodka bottles like so many smoking guns, most of the media and public understood that her death was caused by alcoholism.
Not so with the loss of Robin Williams – also caused by alcoholism, but in a much subtler sense. The press does note that he had checked into rehab a few weeks prior, but his prolonged suspension of active drinking causes them to dismiss his addiction as conquered. It seems to me only my fellow alcoholics are able to intuit the close relationship between his alcoholism, depression, and the unbearableness of being that led him to take his life.
Williams was very open about his 2003 relapse after 20 years’ sobriety. He told Parade:
“One day I walked into a store and saw a little bottle of Jack Daniel’s. And then that voice — I call it the ‘lower power’ — goes, ‘Hey. Just a taste. Just one.’ I drank it, and there was that brief moment of ‘Oh, I’m okay!’ But it escalated so quickly. Within a week I was buying so many bottles I sounded like a wind chime walking down the street. I knew it was really bad one Thanksgiving when I was so drunk they had to take me upstairs.”
A Guardian reporter asked if friend Christopher Reeves’ death was what triggered his relapse.
“No,” he says quietly, “it’s more selfish than that. It’s just literally being afraid. And you think, oh, this will ease the fear. And it doesn’t.” What was he afraid of? “Everything. It’s just a general all-round arggghhh. It’s fearfulness and anxiety.”
He added, about the demise of his second marriage in 2008, years after he’d managed to get sober again:
“You know, I was shameful, and you do stuff that causes disgust, and that’s hard to recover from. You can say, ‘I forgive you’ and all that stuff, but it’s not the same as recovering from it. It’s not coming back.”
If you’re an alcoholic, you don’t just read these words; you identify with them because you’ve lived them. You know that wheedling voice of the “lower power,” that all-pervading fear of existence, and the burden of shame Williams describes. And if you’re like me, you feel tremendous empathy for this man, who had recognized his depression as a spiritual malady linked to his alcoholic disease and had tried his best to combat it by strengthening his spiritual connection in treatment.
According to the press, over the previous year Williams had been shooting movies and shows back to back, maintaining a “manic pace.” To me, this frenzy of activity seems a way of trying desperately to live, to stay engaged in life. My friend Dave McC fought depression in a similar way in the year before his suicide, hiking the Cascade Mountains at a furious pace. But the disease catches up. It gets to us when we’re alone, worming into that inmost chamber of self where no one can reach us – except god. What most pains me and frightens me about Williams’ death is that he knew the solution. He had a program. He was trying to help himself. And yet for reasons we’ll never know, he could not access that “Power which pulls [us] back from the gates of death.”
So often, I want to think of sobriety as a set equation rather than a blessing. That is, I want to believe that if you take certain actions, working the three sides of the triangle by going to meetings, working with a sponsor, and doing service work, then you’re guaranteed a certain result: lasting sobriety. Williams’ death reminds me that’s anything but the case. In fact, it’s all grace. We’re guaranteed nothing. We’re never home free – not even with twenty years’ sobriety and all the talent, intelligence, and accomplishment a person could ask for.
Rather, the fact that I – an alcoholic child of alcoholic children going back many, many diseased generations – write this with 19 years and 7 months’ sobriety is nothing short of miraculous. The fact that you’re reading it with however many days or years you have sober – you, who are also hardwired to drink – is likewise a miracle. Every day that we live in the light of sanity and sobriety is a gift. It’s another day we can be grateful not to find ourselves in that tortuous nightmare of spiritually starving depression that led Williams – knowing alcohol and drugs would not help him – to choose the one-way exit of suicide.
From a broader perspective as an Near Death Experience survivor, I do believe Williams found not only relief but bliss in leaving his body. For whatever reason, though, we are born into these earthly lives with a sense of mission to carry them out, and a love for the material world that anchors us here for their duration. I’d like to live out mine, certainly. But my sobriety, my faith in a higher power, directions to love and honor others through kindness and service, and the happiness I’ve been granted by pursuing this path all unite to remind me I am never in charge. Certainly, I’m not in charge of my sobriety. I can take the steps I know to nurture it, but the results are out of my hands.
In the end, the loss of this talented, accomplished man who could no longer stand his life reminds me to be grateful for today. I don’t have a lot of the stuff our culture equates with success. But no gifts are more precious than sanity, sobriety, peace of mind, and the strength they grant me to love others freely.
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A Spiritual Evolution 
R.I.P. Mr. Williams and sure hope you’re dancin’ on the other side; sending luv ‘n (((((((((((HUGS))))))))))
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This is beautifully written
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Robin Williams was suffering from Lewy Body Dementia, possibly Parkinson. Lewy Body Dementia causes audio hallucinations. There would be no way to numb this condition with a drink or two as he was an alcoholic. Maybe he’d just had enough. I admire him…
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I’ve experienced three NDE’s in my lifetime, and have had the ability to leave my body consciously since age three. I didn’t always like what I saw when I got out of my body, any more than what I see while in it. As a comedian myself, who’s studied improv, and was also diagnosed with bi-polar, I can’t speak for Robin, but it’s as if our souls are here on a mission to change what we see into something like laughter, and when we realize we can only change things for that one fleeting moment, and that the world doesn’t magically get better, the depression is at it’s most powerful. I’m sure that Robin did feel bliss, to be leaving his body, but for those he left behind, that bliss can only be experienced during dreams, and OBE, and as one who has recently lost those obilities [sic], knowing that my next OBE will probably be my last one, I know that Robin’s body, that allowed him to emote all the characters, and thoughts, that entertained us, might have become his prison. You can’t imprison what he had, and if the world doesn’t want it anymore, what is the role of the comedian anymore? Those that commented that Robin was selfish for killing himself, don’t understand that it’s this world that has become selfish, the so-called ‘fans’ just want someone to entertain them “on-demand’. That’s not what improv is or was, and Robin knew it, and Jonathan Winters knew, and on down the line. There is nothing more depressing than discover that there is only ‘this’ moment, to paraphrase the late Bill Hicks. Enlightening others, is about helping everyone realize that truth, and Robin did his fair share, and yet the world didn’t magically change… and that is the tragedy of his life, because he gave more laughter and joy to others, that you believed for a moment that the world could have magically changed, but it didn’t. I hope Robin is somewhere now that he can be at peace, but away from the selfish, clamoring fans that follow the exit of those of the famed. I hope we all get to try again someday, Robin, and get it done right, thank you for staying as long as did stay…
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Thanks for sharing that. However, I would say that he did (and others do) ‘change the world’ in an infinite number of small ways with every single performance, every single laugh. When a person hears a joke/watches a skit.. understands a punchline.. ‘gets IT’.. and then laughs out loud as a result, they are changed from that moment on. Their outlook on life, their worldview altered ever so slightly. It creates a ripple effect that does.. very gradually.. change all of us and everything, i.e.. the world.
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My world was changed forever by Robin.
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Oh Edwin… Like millions of other “selfish, clamoring fans”, like you, I might add, none still have any clue as to why he killed himself. Why do we pretend to know why others let their spirits go?
When you’re dead, you’re dead. What difference does it make? So you can right a puff piece about out of body and bi-polar. Let the man rip and go have a bowl of cereal instead.
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A Spiritual Evolution was great. I almost drank myself to death. I had been a recovering alcoholic for 4 years until I let anger and resentment take over. A few years later I had a neurosurgeon tell me that I had MS so I threw myself a 10 year pitty party. When you drink a liter of Jack Daniels a day for that long your heart goes to congestive heart failure! I have been clean and sober for 5 1/2 years by the grace of my Higher Power,who I choose to call God. One day at a time.
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Do you mean the book?
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What is DMS?
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Sorry, I meant “what is NDE?”
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Near Death Experience, otherwise known as a “white light experience.” In my case, my heart and breathing stopped for 3+ minutes following a grand mal seizure brought on by ingesting large amounts of lidocaine that had been sold to me as cocaine. Clearly, this was pre-sobriety! 1982, in fact – it’s all in my addiction memoir (see links). Like many people, I went on a journey to the light but was told I had to return – and was *really* pissed about that.
A lil’ NDE mini-documentary I’m in is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgBdf1GqNlA
A good book on NDEs is Evidence of the Afterlife by Jeffrey Long, MD.
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“WE” should change “our” acronym for NDE to VNDE…. Volunteer Near Death Experience….
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Near death experience
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Near Death Experience
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Wow I been waiting for Love to bubble instead of the old discussion every time-people start saying “well “I” would never do that!! All he had to do is call someone. And of course I would never do what he did.” Bullshit! That alone shames robin’s memory to me. I have no judgement of robin. Byron Katie says whatever happens to each person is normal for them that minute. And I have no idea what I would do when that one thing that is too much comes my way. I have been monitoring people’s pulse and mine too since robin died. It is shaking me to my core ! It set off similarities – personally not professionally.
Maybe robin’s death will have more impact than all his movies. Maybe 12 step meetings will get down below the surface “I am sober life is cool.”
I will share myself that decades sober has not removed underlying causes and conditions. I have dark holes still dark. I had period when I was watching u tube of clinics in Switzerland. You bring $10000 and be mentally evaluated and you relax and they give the right syringe and u left your body. And number doing it has doubled.
I told my son idea to have robin party and celebrate his life. Robin-a-thon, watch mork mindy and movies and comedy routines. Appreciate laughter the brought us.
Glad to be involved in this discussion.
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Pingback: Robin W., Alcoholic | Please Hold On
Having It Out With Melancholy by Jane Kenyon . . . http://m.poemhunter.com/poem/having-it-out-with-melancholy/
This poem popped up on my facebook feed just after I sent you a comment. Thought it was lovely, so thought I’d share it here.
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NOTE: I’m camping with my son this weekend, but will post your comment when we get home Monday. Peace.
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Misinformation in the very first sentence of article! “When Amy Winehouse’s body was found with a blood alcohol content of .4% (five times the DUI level),” This surely ruins the credibility of the article. Hire a proofreader!!!
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Dear charlied729 >>>> Criminal Code BAC limit is .08% //// Short Math Class here for you….. 0.08 X 5 = 0.4 ……………. You, charlied729, might want to hire a math tutor.
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Charlie, dear – or you could take the matter up with the New York Times. See para 5. http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/08/second-inquest-confirms-amy-winehouse-died-of-alcohol-poisoning/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0 …And try to be nicer.
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One can never be proven foolish by what someone doesn’t write or say.
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Well put!
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Touched my soul…thank you….I’m sure he is at peace…and laughing :0))
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We only have one day at a time some times 5mins at AT
A time dont don’t gev up
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Everybody is entitled to their own opinion. And i respect your personal feelings & experience re using & sobriety. But you really have no idea what was going thru Robin Williams’ mind & heart the night he checked out. As far as what “the media” chooses to tell us, more often than not, it’s shit to sell advertising.
I felt really sad when i heard Robin died. My youngest brother killed himself after 2 previous attempts , 7 years ago on July 27. He left a note describing his hopeless state of mind. So i know that kind of loss. Robin Williams was in the darkest of places at for him to take his own life. For whatever reason or reasons he wanted the emotional pain to stop. Since Robin didn’t leave a note we’re left to speculate about the exact reason or reasons for his choosing to end his life.
His friend, comedian Rob Scheider, speculated that a medication that RW was taking for Parkinson’s disease was a factor.
In the end we don’t know for sure. Only that “the lower power” that wants to kill us dead, scored another addict/alcoholic and left a family, friends, and many of us with a huge hole in our hearts. And i truly hope & pray that Robin Williams is relieved of the emotional & mental torture that compelled him to choose that sad solution.
Godspeed Robin and thanks for all the laughs and tears that you shared with us. This life is short. One day at a time.
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Most people are not aware that Robin had recently been diagnosed with Lewey Body Disease, a horrible affliction which has no cure, that with a full understanding of what was to come would cause most people to “check out” instead of suffering & becoming a burden to loved ones possibly for several years. Add that to his history of depression & it’s truly no wonder.
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Thank you so much for adding this. As you say, it’s truly no wonder
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I myself have 26 years clean and sober,by the grace of God. Thank you for writing this about Robin William and the diseased of alcoholism. I believe all alcoholic suffter from depression, some not so bad others real bad (like myself).Thanks to loving God!
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The key ingredient: the 2003 relapse. I’m guessing, but do not know, that was the fork in the road, which eventually led to the suicide. I’m guessing, but do not know, that Robin W. suffered from the same affliction that Bill W. did, and that he could not simply be a member of A.A. He always had to “be” somebody, and nobody could give him the gift of anonymity. Consequently, he suffocated, eventually, through the bondage of self. Maybe, just maybe, had he not relapsed in 2003, he’d be alive today. Let us all consider that ourselves, that it be best, today, to not take that drink or drug.
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Unless you live it you don’t know. My heart goes out to Robin and everyone else who tried to fix their worlds, only to give up when it wouldn’t happen. I
Cannot imagine what he went through before he made his decision. I hope he knows how much we love him. I am grateful that I got to see him perform.
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Yes! You are s-o-o correct. Robin’s overabundance of talent was a lucky stroke for mankind, but in the end, fatal to him. For the overabundance of talent brought with it a propensity to addiction to substances used to numb our anxieties. Over time, the anxieties a-l-w-a-y-s win. It is s-a-d but it is the truth. Unfortunately, it is part of being human
J. J. Hill.
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Alcoholism and God’s failure to reach Robin when he needed it most ended his miracle. If only Robin was in charge of his sobriety if only he didn’t run out of grace if only he had gone to a meeting or called his sponsor. So sad.
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Your interpretation of how a man or woman comes to a point on their journey suggests a lack of action required to receive a gift. Do I have that right? I ask you to examine your own belief systems and see how they play out in your own life. Judgement, condemnation and perfectionism seem to be your way of interpreting what will always remain a mystery.
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Charles – I kinda doubt this commenter finished reading the blog since it says pretty much the opposite, yet he makes no mention of disagrement.
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I find your thinking to be so very sad. I don’t know what your experience is that brought you to think this way but I hope that you will seek different experiences. Experiences that will bring you joy. Often they don’t come easy or quick. This is not the mind and heart set that so many of us find or remaining sober would be misery instead of joy. We don’t know that God failed to reach Robin. Intensly talented people sacrifice great amounts of themselves. Robin surely did. Maybe he just said “God I’m tired. I made them laugh. I opened their hearts. I gave them all you gave me. I showed them how to be humble and happy regardless of wealth and fame. I showed them that we are all vulnerable to somethings more – but to many things in the overall picture. I hid nothing. i gave it all. Can I stop now?” We don’t know whether this was a sad loss or a joyous reunion. I’ve read these posts off and on since this was posted. I’ve heard every guess, conjecture, flat statements of “truth”, analyzing, indictment of AA, religion – so many “expert opinions”. I am astounded at the arrogance that any of us should; for one moment, think we can analyze or even understand what goes on between God and any of us on the road to those last moments and surely not in those last moments. I’m not positive of many things but I just don’t believe for one moment that Robin “ran out of Grace”. We don’t know what happend in that room. It’s none of our business.
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Thanks, Lynn. You found the words to express what I felt. Reviewing my reply I see where I asked,” Do I have that right?”. A different question might have been, “Do I understand you to say….” I am astounded that this guy actually wrote, then posted such a slanderous and prideful set of beliefs that keep a person in everlasting ignorance. Peace to you, Lynn.
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My writing reflects snapshots of points of view along my journey, not my current orientation. They are often indicative of moods associated with the chronic depression that accompanies C-PTSD. It’s part of my therapy to write in the style I often feel moved to explore. I can see my growth when I look back at the stop I made and wrote. Some comments indicate it resonates with where some fellow travelers as they move along life’s highway or, possibly in others, a place they haven’t been yet and choose to be grateful for the warning signs and avoid certain exit ramps.
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Lynn, this is not reflective of my life today. It was an aspect of my journey though life unaware and misdiagnosed of the ADHD that developed in my childhood coupled with PTSD.
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Thanks Lynn,but I have plenty of joy myself and Chet all I ever want to do is astound you. Thanks. Please help me find the slander. Alcohol (ism) didn’t kill RW. But your judgment and condemnation surely are killing me. With laughter.
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I am somewhat astounded. “Alcoholism didn’t kill RW”. Did he tell you that? You have that first hand? I was not trying to either judge or condemn you. I was simply pointing out that none of us know … unless you have a direct source that we don’t know about. There were so many judgements and statements made in the form of comments after this article was written. The writer wasn’t writing for purposes of factual statements or debate. She was simply writing what she felt. That is different from drawing conclusions and stating them as facts when there is no proof. The judgements made as comments to this article simply have no foundation. The statements in so many of the comments are not supportable by fact. They are observations, feelings and opinions – no different from those of the writer. I still contend that none of us truly know, that it’s unlikely we ever will and; most importantly, that it is between Robin and God or whatever force Robin perceived as God … or no force at at all should that of been his position and that either way; it is none of our business. I hope you rest in peace Robin. Finally. … but it is highly unlikely any of us will ever know if he does or doesn’t and that; also, is none of our business.
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^ What Lynn said. Because if I truly knew what killed RW, I’d be dead. From suicide.
Otherwise, I’m speculating from the vantage point of a safe shore – i.e. idly guessing. But I can empathize without knowing or explaining.
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You’re certainly smarter than me.
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Wow. Thank you!!
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As a recovering alcoholic myself, this poem is the best way, I have found, to describe the disease.
I’M YOUR DISEASE
I hate meetings. I hate Higher Power. I hate anyone who has a program. To all who come in contact with me, I wish you death and suffering.
Allow me to introduce myself: I ‘m your disease of alcoholism and drug addiction. Cunning, baffling and powerful, that’s me. I have killed millions and I am pleased. I love to catch you with the element of surprise. I love pretending I’m your friend and lover. I’ve given you comfort, have I not? Wasn’t I there when you were lonely? When you wanted to die, didn’t you call on me? I Was There. I love to make you hurt. I make you so numb you can neither hurt nor cry. You can’t feel anything at all; this is true glory. I will give you instant gratification and I all I ask of you is long term suffering.
I’ve been there for you always. When things were going right in your life you invited me. You said you didn’t deserve these good things and I was the only one who would agree with you. Together we were able to destroy all good things in your life.
People don’t take me seriously. They take strokes, cancer, heart attacks seriously, even diabetes they take seriously. Fools they are, they don’t know that without my help these things would not be made possible.
I’m such a hated disease and yet I don’t come uninvited. You choose to have me. So many have chosen me over reality and peace.
The more you hate me, the more I hate all of you who have a 12 Step Program. Your Program, your meetings, your Higher Power…all weaken me and I can’ function in the manner I am a accustomed to.
Now I must lie here quietly. You don’t see me but I am growing. Bigger than ever. When you only exist, I may live. When you live, I only exist. But I am here…And until we meet again, if we ever meet again…
I WISH YOU DEATH AND SUFFERING.
anonymous
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Pingback: Off the Beam | A Spiritual Evolution
Dont know if I’ve ever related to a description of alcoholism like this… I can so relate … This has been my experience..
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Right on the money here my friend!!
Chris E.
Sobriety Date 7/24/99
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I have been sober since October 30, 1987, which happened to be the same day that Joseph Campbell died.
I go to AA and practice the 12 steps. But to say he died of “alcoholism,” is nothing more than repeating what has been told to us for so long. Alcoholism is not any different than any other form of shame. It is just that we were the first identified patients of the shame that has taken a stronghold in this culture. I, and I suspect many others suffer from, deep seated emotional conflicts that persist below the level of consciousness. (See page 79-80 of 12 by 12.)
Robin William died with no illegal drugs in his system or any alcohol. I vehemently disagree with even the concept of my disease waiting for me or wanting me dead. That is a lot of power to give to something that many other people suffer with also. It is a straw man to set up to say if we drink that we failed. Bull. We drink because the pain is overwhelming, just like many use drugs, food, TV, gambling, cigarettes,etc.
Alcoholics are not unique in any way. The dis-ease we suffer with is part of the bigger human condition in this space and time. I am tired of people conveniently pigeonholing our behavior as some sort of justification that makes us different than others. Balderdash.
Until you have suffered from true debilitating depression, you cant empathize. If you cant empathize it is all pure conjecture.
Thanks
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I have heard from AA speakers; it doesn’t matter how many years you have in the program, it matters what you are doing in this moment. True for me. When I make the decision on a daily basis to ask for HPs help & turn everything over, pray & meditate (even for a few minutes), I get what I need for my spiritual care.
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I understand being “suicidally sober” with double digit sobriety. I had done the spiritual work years before but failed to “continue to take personal inventory…” and that caught up with me. I was attending the “fellowship” meetings but was not working the “program” of the steps. I did not want to drink but I wanted to die at 10 yrs sober. I luckily grabbed ahold of another sponsor and the same information from the big book that had worked before and got busy clearing away all that was blocking me from connecting to my higher power. I know I am not guaranteed sobriety or serenity so I keep doing the work to keep getting the results.
RIP Robin. May we one day meet on the Broadest Highway there is.
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He was also diagnosed with Lewy bodies Dementia as well as Parkinson’s. He was tormented with delusional paranoia. Three years prior he underwent open heart surgery and was not able to fully recover from depression. It is well known that he also suffered from Bipolar Disorder. His last few movies did not do as well as planned and then relationship issues in his marriage were strained. Of course this information is from all of the media from this past year. It is a horrible tragedy. He touched so many lives with his fantastic humor. He passing remains such a loss for so many.
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He simply made the supreme sacrifice rather than continue to fight. The pain whether real or imagined was too great to bear, a condition not limited to those of us with alcholism, yet perhaps more pronounced. Who amoungst us has not wished for a end to the struggle at least once? Even if only a fleeting thought. I have. I identify. I understand. I tried, and lived against my every effort. So I cleaned up my act, and changed, and grew, and keep growing. It doesn’t mean it never hurts, or I’m never afraid, or that I’m not still a little mad that he quit, and took all that he was from us. But I’m also sad for the part of us, he took with him, because he quit. But after all, we have free will, so, he had the right.
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I’m not an expert, but I do suffer from depression. I also had a brother who suffered from both mental illness and was also an alcoholic. My brother had a 12-year program going at the time if his suicide. While I suffer from depression and I’m not an alcoholic, I truly believe all bets are off when it comes to depression. While I agree, it is vital to work the program, I do not believe for a minute that the program saves those with true dual diagnosis. In fact I belive that the program adds additional guilt for those suffering from both. The only thing that helps contribute to the act itself, is being drunk gives one a fall sense of courage. So I don’t give credence to the idea that Robin’s death should be au
tomically assumed that his disease of alcoholics is responsible for his death.
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Very insightful & well-written piece. It gives you a different perspective on a commonly misunderstood disease and beloved person. Rip RW
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As an ex-wife of an alcoholic, it pains me every day to see and hear stories such as the one of Robin Williams. That nothing could grab hold and pull him from the hollow darkness he felt each day. I wish there was that one smile, word, touch, prayer…….that could have helped him or so many others. Your article was honest and heartfelt. Praise your higher power every day you get out of bed and touch the floor! It’s a new day, we need to be grateful and we need grace!
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if thinking his alcoholism triggered his suicide helps you with your struggles or battles then good for you, but he was also recently diagnosed with Louis Body Dimentia which is a horribly mentally torturous disease that I lost my father in law to. There is more to his fear and anguish than you or I can speculate. Peace be with you.
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Thank you, Cheryl.
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I really enjoyed this. If you are interested, go to newtonstake.wordpress.com and click on the Him link on the side of the page. One of my methods of dealing with my disease was giving Him a name and a face.
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I only saw “her.” But I do recognize “his” voice. Thx for that!
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Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
I long felt empathy for how Robin needed to be loved. It never seemed enough, or he didn’t seem as he could be acceptable as him.
There was a story I read about a journalist who was dining a a cafe, and he was invited by Robin to join him. And he told of a sweet, lonely man who just wanted, and enjoyed connection. Robin was brilliant, especially when you were able to see his scars, Garp, Hunting, What Dreams May Come.
But ‘people’ wanted Diubtfire, they miss his pain in that movie. I wish people would accept witnessing the inner pain of others. So We don’t have to cover it with forced joviality, and Jack. For many of of life is extremely difficult. Staying sober today is work, and the question of why often is being screamed in our ear by the lower power.
Just a few more hours, and hope that something goes right tomorrow.
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Beautifully put.
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Sobriety is a gift. It may somehow appear as something we earn since without works is dead and true emotional sobriety manifests itself in selfless action but the component of gratitude based upon a knowledge that God has extended a gift of life is essential.
Sobriety without this attitude is doomed to failure in the long run. A form of religion based on self reliance without power.
Rejecting the gift – turning away from God has its consequences . Dr. Bob said it best in the last paragraph of his story. It is truly sad to lose a talented human being like Robin but it will continue to occur with and science will not invent any pill to substitute for gratitude to our Creator.
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Very true! – but we don’t know what Robin felt or prayed. I’ve known times of darkness when, try as I might, I could not “find” my gratitude – or my HP. I imagine this is only a tiny sliver of what he suffered, especially as time since I wrote this has revealed he battled many co-related illnesses. He was trying and reaching – going to Hazeldon for help, doing all he could humanly do. Compassion for this, for defeat despite valiant effort, is what my piece expresses.
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Spectacular! True! I relate! I’m one of “them” too
Thank you
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In my experience chances are best when I am involved as suggested by the 12 step program. I am human and i must be able to have a group or at least a sponsor I can get honest with or who can hold me accountable. If not I’m a lost soul. God bless !
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I believe what you wrote was very moving and hopefully helpful to many people, but for future blogs, I recommend not to use a famous person to get your point across when you may not have the correct facts. I know that would make it easier but it can also hurt his family and his memory.
There are so many things that he did, such as make certain that anywhere he worked, a large percent of the people working at the event or show were people that needed jobs and not people who were already employed. What he gave through charity, helping people that he didn’t know….please think about who you might be affecting.
We all suffer for many reasons. But as you can see from the link above, there is much more.
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Thank you.
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You say that you don’t “have alot” of the things that culture equates with success” but you have a wonderful insight into this terrible malady and by sharing it you show you have something many do not…. A capacity to understand and articulate the challenge and the possible solutions to help others win their day to day struggle. Thank you for you.
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Thank you so much, Rick! I needed to hear that today. YOU have the capacity to reach out in kindness.
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Thanks for the article. I’m an al-anon. I have been married to 3 alcoholics. Alchol effects not only the alcoholics but the ones that love them. Your perspective helps me to better understand the disease.
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Wonderfully written. Thank you!
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Thank you.
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16 years + years in recovery. This is extremely well written. Thank you – for writing it, for sharing it. Bang on.
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My thought I have not once heard and it is the Robin Williams was newly diagnosed with Parkinson disease and was on medication for it. I have had patients in this same condition who told me if experiencING hallucinations on these medications. I do believe with Robins fears these hallucinations wou l d push Robin over the edge!
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This says it all.
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Dr. Wayne Dyers’ philosophy about “Simplifying” our lives, and Eckart Tolles’ “Power of Now”, has helped me tremendously in dealing with my addictions! In the “rooms”, I share my thoughts and feelings of this disease of “more”, with like-minded people, where I found I can keep it (life) simple. For me…I have found that life is an incredible gift, if I chose to view it from that perspective. The Steps brought me around to realizing that if I am to be true to myself, I must realize the incredible yet insidious power of my Addictions, and that thru prayer and meditation and sharing and caring with my fellow human beings. The slogan “Keep it Simple” is an incredibly powerful suggestion! If you too are a seeker…consider this path.
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Does AA still give the help it is intended to give? It’s a crap shoot now whether a newcomer falls into a group where they are shown the gravity of their condition + situation….and then shown the 12 steps as a program of recovery by a whole bunch of people using them. IF the sufferer is not running active parallel addictions (which need to be addressed), there can still be underlying situations like sexual abuse in childhood which often reside in the subconscious and wreak havoc from there. Also physical, genetic, environmental and psychological contributing factors. “A.A.’s Twelve Steps are a group of principles, spiritual in their nature, which, if practiced as a way of life, can expel the obsession to drink and enable the sufferer to become happily and usefully whole.” (12+12 Foreward p.15).In 28 years,I’ve been dismayed to see how the rich and famous are treated in AA meetings. An actor was asked to autograph someone’s Big Book; he got offended and stormed out. Wasted a great opportunity to explain how important it is to treat everyone with the same respect. And who can these people confide in? Someone who “understands and is not affected”. Who might that be? When money changes hands, things can get off. Joe (Joe and Charlie) said that fewer and fewer people know how to take a person through steps 1, 2 and 3. We just send them to rehab and let them deal with it. I didn’t know this man or what he got to try, or didn’t. I cannot make a pronouncement there. I do know that when we stop praying and working with others,(not attending meetings and making coffee) we are heading back beyond human aid. the 12th Step says that as a result of working all 12 steps, I will be changed; I will have this to offer to another; I will be able to practice these changes in my life and finally live with myself, among others and with a Presence that was within me the whole time. All I need to start is: to be an alcoholic, to be desperate enough to try anything.
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I wanted to add that AA will do what AA does, but additional factors can affect everything so there’s no point in speculating. A man I’ve known for all of his 27 sober years chose to take his own life because he could no longer live with his untreatable degenative physical condition. He chose the day of his 60th birthday. He came to see me 2 months before to ask how to organize a memorial service.When I realized that it was for him, I was stunned. It was his call. I never walked a mile in his mocassins, as the expression goes. Many gathered on the day he requested. His light had burned so brightly. We honored that light.
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According to the autopsy report Robin Williams was suffering from un-diagnosed Lewy body dementia – a very rare form that causes vivid halucinations and which fully accounted for his wierd behavour in the hours leading up to and including his suicide. It wasn’t the disease of alcoholism that killed him and reporting it as such belittles Mr William’s recovery.
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