Posted on 09/25/2023 8:53:59 PM PDT by Captain Peter Blood
We all have sad stories to tell occasionally and I have one.
I have a friend I known for well over 40 years and she has always been fun to be around and we have stayed in touch all this time on and off.
Until about a year ago I had no idea she was a committed, hard core, alcoholic. The last two years she had been talking about a decline in her health. She had taken the Covid vaccines and at least one booster and I was fearful this caused her to have some adverse effects.
But the surprise was a year ago when she saw another doctor she had been sent to because her PCP thought she needed to have her Gall Bladder out. In my opinion her PCP is incompetent for not being able to diagnose the fact she had Liver Cancer. The surgeon she saw looked at her test file and saw right away she Stage 4 Liver Cancer and that she needed to get treatment.
It was then she admitted she was a alcoholic to me. Now she had told a few years earlier she had a substance abuse problem and had been addicted to Benadryl and I now think she was drinking during that addiction also.
So she gets help and starts seeing doctors that hopefully can help her. She claimed she had seen the error of her ways and was committed to getting better and hopefully would be able to get on a Liver transplant list.
The thing was she never got any better, in fact she got worse. She could not put any weight on and is now skin and bones at 87 pounds. She claims she has a blood clot on her pancreas and just recently was diagnosed with two ulcer’s and the lining of her stomach has been destroyed by Alcohol abuse.
You see she never quit drinking, even with all she was told she could not do it. Three weeks ago she was in a auto accident, she hit someone from behind and fortunately no one was hurt and only her car had damage.
But the state police were involved because the accident happened on the Interstate. She claimed they did not have a field sobriety test kit, then she refused to take a blood test. Finally she was arrested and compelled to give a urine sample, results of which I don’t know yet.
I have caught her in several lies about the drinking, long story short ,she just never gave up alcohol. She is married and evidently her husband finally found out about it and her attitude was I will go get help at AA.
Sadly I believe we are well past any help from AA or anyone else. I feel she is too far gone and I have no doubt she will go back to drinking, presuming she quits at all.
On top of this I find out she is on Tramadol which is Opiate pain killer. The only reason I can think of for her to be on that is that her body is shutting down slowly and the pain will only get worse.
I frankly can’t see her being able to last for very long in this situation. I give her maybe 6 months, but that may be way too generous. No one knows how these things will go until they happen.
No, we don't just "hang on". We recover, and then we go live our lives, usually lives beyond what we could have ever imagined.
AA offers a program of recovery, a design for living that works. Those who do the work, really work the steps, learn a new way of thinking and living. They become a whole new person. They become able to build a life that makes sense to them -- doesn't have to make sense to anyone else; just between them and God.
Some people do just "hang on", some for years -- that is because they refuse to do the work, refuse to change, refuse this program of action.
It only takes a few months to get through the process the first time. At some point in that process, most people realize that they have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.
Then they show others how to recover as part of their program. And it keeps working, over and over.
If I live to Christmas, it will be 39 years sober for me. It has been a wild adventure for me, but never through those years has alcohol or drugs been a temptation for me.
Stay well, my friend.
Beautifully said. I tried to do it my way in the beginning and drank not too long after leaving rehab. I surrendered, got a sponsor, shut up, listened, did 90/90 and more, and worked the steps. I’ll be 33 years come February. My favorite saying I learned is my tagline.
In the General/Chat forum, on a thread titled Dealing With a Alcoholic, meadsjn wrote: My friend’s grandmother and my loved one never went to Alcoholics Anonymous - I think maybe there is a key there in those AA meetings where they say the quiet part out loud, and then they hang on for dear life. No, we don't just "hang on". We recover, and then we go live our lives, usually lives beyond what we could have ever imagined.
AA offers a program of recovery, a design for living that works. Those who do the work, really work the steps, learn a new way of thinking and living. They become a whole new person. They become able to build a life that makes sense to them -- doesn't have to make sense to anyone else; just between them and God.
Some people do just "hang on", some for years -- that is because they refuse to do the work, refuse to change, refuse this program of action.
It only takes a few months to get through the process the first time. At some point in that process, most people realize that they have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.
Then they show others how to recover as part of their program. And it keeps working, over and over.
If I live to Christmas, it will be 39 years sober for me. It has been a wild adventure for me, but never through those years has alcohol or drugs been a temptation for me.
Stay well, my friend.
Thank you for the post, and giving me a chance to clarify what I meant.
When I wrote 'hang on for dear life' I was thinking of the starting point where those entering AA sometimes talk about not wanting to be there, but not wanting the alternative, being afraid it won't work. I thought of my 25 year old friend roaring like a lion because he hated being sober; he found it painful....at first.
But yes, so very many have recovered and bloomed to become who they wanted to become,shape their lives the way they want, and at the very least for some, to become free free free.
I'm so grateful for your complete recovery and your near 39 years of sobriety!
I know the program works - for decades I've heard people talk about their recovery in church. Knowing it works made it harder for me to accept that my loved one would not even try and watching it destroy their lives. I'm blessed to know many who have enjoyed their sobriety and served as sponsers to others.
God bless you, Meadsjn
The sad fact is that they’ve been lying to themselves. Consider going to Al Anon to better the disease & help you get away from the guilt.
I really don’t have any guilt about this because it’s not my problem. I am disappointed in my friend, and what she has done to herself. If I had gotten the kind of news, she got a year ago I would’ve done everything I could to change my life around. She didn’t do any of that. She kept engaging in the destructive behavior that brought on all her problems. At some point, I probably will confront her about some of these lies not that it will do any good.
That’s good. Lot of family/friends take on the guilt of their loved ones issues so I always recommend Al Anon. My uncle was an abusive drunk & when he and my aunt divorced, she went to AA & even though her kids hated their dad, she was pushing that they maintain a relationship with him because of her time in AA and understanding his disease. I’ll say a prayer for your friend.
Update: My friend says she is doing AA and is now at Step 5 in the 12 Step Program. I wonder about that as I don’t know much about that and how fast someone can advance in this process.
Tonight was Step 5, having her sponsor over and making amends to her husband for what she has done. Still not convinced if she has really quit drinking totally.
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