There’s a unique pain in losing someone we love to alcoholism (or any addiction) because it feels like the thing that took them away from us was a cross between insanity, suicide, and disease.
Insanity, because denial is a primary symptom of alcoholism, the loved one remaining fixated on their next drink in the face of clear evidence that it’s killing them. They insist they’re okay, that we’re being overly dramatic in saying they’ll die, that they’ll definitely drink less in the future.
Suicide, because it is they themselves that administer their poison, they themselves who get it and choose to swallow it again and again.
Disease because, to anyone who knows anything about alcoholism, we can see how they perfectly fit the symptomatology that has killed so many, destroyed so many lives, brought about so much unhappiness and desecration of everything inspiring, wise, or respect-worthy in people with the same condition.
AA works because, when we see OUR OWN symptoms replicated in OTHERS, we begin to realize they are symptoms, not lifestyle choices. And if we’re open-minded, we accept that we’re in the grips of something far more powerful than willpower, resolve, or a slew of solemn oaths.
Those of you who’ve been following this blog more than a decade might recall this post from 2015, when I discovered my boyfriend, who I knew had relapsed, was unfaithful. (Duh…) Those having followed since 2023 might recall this post about his death.
This week, I finally finished a video tribute to him. It’s 15 minutes, very personal, pretty woo-woo, and undeniably mushy. No recipe for how to get sober; just a tragic example of what can happen if we don’t. Remember, after retirement (which he’d looked forward to for all his working life), Gerard drank only beer and believed he was safe.
Despite what I know of Al-Anon, my heart still aches whenever I see his last text asking if we could talk. I said no, and I can’t help wondering whether, had I said yes, I could have magically saved him. I said no because A) I was in an AA meeting, B) my sponsor, who is also my Al-Anon sponsor, was sitting right next to me and, just by her expression, indicated talking to a drunk person would help nothing, and C) I knew it would pain me to hear a loved one I’d respected so deeply slurring his words while sloppy drunk.
But what if? What if I’d said the magic words and changed his course?
It helps me to think of his daughter, who, in her mid-20s, flew four times from Virginia out to Seattle, rented cars, and ferried to his home on remote Whidbey Island, trying again and again to get her dad sober. The two of them were close; she was the apple of his eye. Saying goodbye at the end of her last visit, after he’d refused to go back into treatment, she said, “I’m scared this might be the last time I see you.” He waved aside her words saying, “I’m fine.”
I could not have done more than she did. Only his higher power could have. She and I believe that, having binge-drunk from age 11 when his mother suffered a catastrophic stroke, he damaged his brain in a way that made socializing extra stressful. AA meetings were like running a social gamut, so he could accept no help from his fellows.
Alone, he had no brakes, no defense, no way out.
A Spiritual Evolution 