When did we become so judgmental when it comes to addiction? Why do we feel the need to project our personal feelings and beliefs onto people we don't know, and will never know? These people that we sit in judgement of are made up of unique experiences that differ from ours like grains of sand on a beach. They are the product of good families or dysfunctional families. They have been unbelievably abused or have never experienced any pain at the hands of another human being. They have a family that has been affected by addiction in varying degrees--or they never had anyone in their lives who suffered from addiction. They have enormously supportive people in their lives or they don't. They have everything or nothing to live for. What I'm trying to convey here is that addiction doesn't have a "Modus Operandi." Anyone can become an addict. Certainly there are factors that seem to make it more likely, but there are no defining common threads that we can follow that allow us to stop it.
After actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman passed away last Sunday from an overdose of heroin the internet has EXPLODED with bloggers and columnists putting their two-cents in as to what happened, why it happened and what should be done about addiction. I've read scathing judgments about his irresponsibility, that he has young children that he has summarily left behind. He was so talented, so brilliant, think of how much life he had left ahead of him, he was SO YOUNG. How dare he? It's called addiction. It happens everyday. It crosses all racial and socio-economic lines. Old and young. Your level of personal intellect is irrelevant. You can't outsmart addiction. And there's no tried-and-true "cure." Not A.A., not "pull youself up by your bootstraps!" Not some self-help book written by someone who has never experienced addiction who says that addiction isn't a "disease" and that people simply need to take control of their lives to kick it. Some things work for some, other methods for others...and sometimes absolutely nothing seems to work. And guess what? That's okay. It is. Sometimes there is no "saving" an addict. There just isn't. We shouldn't judge them or ourselves for that harsh reality. It just "is."
I know addiction well. I grew up with it. It permeated every aspect of my life during my formative years. It made me question my importance to the addicts in my life. "If they just loved me more than the alcohol and drugs they'd stop using." Addiction made me the woman I am today. It defined me. It's in my DNA. I have lost everyone in my family to addiction in one way or another. Some overdosed, some lingered for 30 years in denial and slow decline. The result was exactly the same. They're gone now and those of us left behind are left to question why it happened and how we could have changed their fate. The guilt for people who love an addict is limitless. Boundless. And irrational.
My sister was an alcoholic from the time she was 14 years old. She used alcohol and drugs as an escape from a terrible family life with parents who were chronic alcoholics. They were the finest examples of alcoholics. They were the kind who never admitted anything was wrong. Well, one did...and the other never would admit they had a problem. It's funny how different people handle addiction. Most are ashamed. I think we can all accept that as a universal truth.
Our mother finally went to Alcoholics Anonymous when I was about seven and Lonnie was fourteen. My father was a high-functioning alcoholic with a high-power career and a wandering eye. His alcoholism was different than my mother's in that he seemed to have the ability to pull himself together when things got ugly. Some people have that skill. Others don't. That's another mystery I'll never unravel. After 28 years of marriage he decided it was easier to embark on a new life rather than stop to pick up the pieces of a family he created, wreaked havoc upon and left splintered in his abusive wake. He married a woman who was more than 20 years younger than my mother. He met her when he was a college professor and she was his student. This left my already mentally and emotionally unstable mother in a terrible state of depression and deepening alcoholism. When she finally made it to her first meeting she had spent some time in different hospitals in an attempt to control her addiction. I remember her taking a drug called "Antabuse." That didn't even stop her. She'd take the medication, continue to drink vodka and become violently ill as a result. She complained about it, but just kept going. We're talking about a woman with a will of iron, though. When my father finally had to admit he was helpless in his attempts to control my mother's alcoholism, he had gone to work having packed every single pair of her shoes into the trunk of his car. This, he thought, would surely stop her from walking the five miles to Raley's supermarket to buy her vodka. It was one of the few times it actually snowed in the idyllic suburban subdivision of El Dorado Hills, California. She walked the five miles barefoot in the freezing snow and got what she needed to feed the beast. It wasn't a wonder he threw his hands up and ran, I suppose. That's one of the things that I've had to come to terms with, that there is really nobody to be angry at or blame when it comes to addiction. It's like a human tsunami that just destroys anything in it's path without regard for rational things. It ignores people's needs or feelings. It doesn't care. It can't. It isn't capable of caring.
At this point I was the only one left with mom. My father had left in pursuit of his new life. My brother had graduated high school, got a job, was supporting himself and had an apartment in Sacramento. My sister who was almost fifteen met a man during one of the numerous occasions she ran away from home, fell in love and moved to San Francisco to be with him. Escape seemed like a pretty great plan, unfortunately it wasn't an option for me. I got to sit and watch the carnage. Surprisingly enough I'm pretty grateful for that now. The lessons I learned were valuable and I'm not sure I would have been able to understand the addiction of people I loved if I hadn't gone through it. I went with my mother to many A.A. meetings in the years that followed. At first I would sit in the kitchen of the church the meetings were held at and draw pictures of horses for a couple of hours. I would overhear the terrible stories that the people sitting around the table would tell, baring their alcoholic souls. There was the woman who would get drunk in bars only to wake up after a black-out naked on park benches. She had taken off her clothes to bundle them under her head for a pillow. Some I remember in great detail, some I don't remember at all, but the horror stories and heartache seemed never ending. People lost families, homes, jobs, friends, happiness and hope. Hearing these tales did two things for me. They scared the living hell out of me, and they also helped me understand that my mother wasn't the only addict in the world. They did terrible things. They hurt the people they loved. They wreaked lives. They couldn't seem to help that. It's not that they didn't want to. They just weren't able to. Eventually I sat at the table with my mother. I made friends with all of the people there. I felt a kinship and an understanding with these alcoholics. I felt acceptance. There were many there who bared their souls in front of me, some that would disappear for months only to drag themselves back looking like warmed-over death. They told stories about falling back into drinking again. They talked about how easy it was, seamless. After hearing them recount over and over about relapsing one thing became really clear: there was no common thread for why they did it. For some it was stress, others were just in a mix of people who encouraged the behavior, yet others had no reason at all. I never was able to understand that completely. I still don't. It just "is." Many didn't have what A.A. referred to as a "Higher Power"--my mom was one of those, and surprisingly there were quite a few who fell into that category. Even though it is frowned on in the A.A. world, they admitted that they were able to find that strength inside themselves. For others that wasn't effective. Some people needed something "more" in order to change their behavior. They needed ritual. Some people seemed to thrive in the "Twelve-Step" program, they appreciated the strictness of the definitions. Others struggled with it. It was all okay, whatever it took. In my mother's A.A. group it seemed a bit more flexible. The point of the matter was staying sober.
Some would leave and never come back. In the years that followed we would hear about their passing. It was just the reality. I remember that people in that A.A. crowd were never judgmental about that. I suppose they saw enough of themselves in the ones who "failed" that it gave them a certain humility about it all. I learned so much from those people about addiction, forgiveness and understanding. I also took away lessons that I wouldn't fully realize until nearly forty years later. The cold fact that sometimes nothing helps. Those of us who are left behind demanding answers are assured of one thing. We won't get them.
My sister Lonnie saw most of the same things I did as a kid, we all witnessed alcoholism close-up and firsthand. She wasn't privy to the Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. I wonder sometimes if that would have given her better insight of what would lay ahead for her. That's one of the beautiful things about the legacy of being unable to save someone you love from addiction--you constantly wonder, "if I had just done/said this, maybe they'd still be alive?" It's something that took me years to get past. I still fight it. If I'd just worked harder, loved her more she'd still be here. I could have saved her. She was my constant companion as a child. She was the person who could make me laugh no matter how ugly our reality was. She and I clung to each other in the turmoil of the dysfunction in our family. Together we could make sense of it all. For years we would talk everyday on the phone, we'd share everything. Well, not everything. She would never admit that she was an alcoholic. EVER. Even when she was hospitalized because she had blown out her pancreas. It was just something that happened to people, she'd say. Even though she drank a twelve-pack of beer every single night of the week. Every night. For thirty years. When she'd visit the first thing she'd do was visit the grocery store and make sure our fridge was fully stocked with beer because we would never have any. I was terrified of the stuff. I kept it out of my life.
It's so hard to encompass thirty years of experience in this small writing. Thirty years of trying, crying my eyes out and ultimately building up walls of protection from what I knew in my heart would be the ultimate outcome. I cherished my sister. We went through incredible difficulties, and we also had some of the most memorable, beautiful experiences of my life together. So many conflicted feelings here. The whole family knew she had problems, that she was an alcoholic. My mother and I would talk about it, my father and I would talk about it. We'd discuss attempting an intervention. She had married the man she ran away with when she was fifteen. He was also in deep denial about my sister's alcoholism. He was an alcoholic, too. He was controlling. We were told by both of them that there were no problems, "nothing to see here, move along." Even after her pancreatitis became full-blown, requiring repeated hospital stays she would never budge. It wasn't alcoholism. Nope. I told her how much I loved her, continued to confront her with the truth for years and STILL she would not respond. I told her over and over that if she ever needed me I would be right there to help her, that together we could make it through. Nothing. She would often call me while she was drunk, pouring out her pain. She would never talk about the root of the problem. It was like watching someone you love drowning while you are standing there witnessing it safely from the shore. You just stand there helplessly. There is absolutely no way I can let you know how that feels. Unless you've experienced that utter heartbreak firsthand there's no way to explain it. This affected everyone in her life who was watching as her beautiful soul disappeared while we stood by and watched it leave. Powerless.
I lost my sister a little over a year ago. She had a massive stroke and only survived a couple of months after that happened. She eventually passed away because her entire body, ravaged by chronic alcoholism, just broke down and gave up. It was a horribly painful way to die. I told her how much I loved her while she was lying in that hospital bed. When she died I spent countless days crying about her leaving this earth, something I knew in my heart was going to happen eventually. I was inconsolable. The finality of her dying was more than I could bear. I tripped back over years and years of conversations and actions. All the things that I could have done differently. I was angry at her, myself, my parents, her husband. SOMEONE failed her. SOMETHING could have been done. But it couldn't have been and wasn't. It just "was." That's what I was left with after it was all over. Sometimes there's just nothing you can do. It doesn't mean we failed, or that we didn't love that person with all our heart. We do. We just can't control addiction. The home-truth I came to was that we do all we can, we can continue to be honest with the addicts in our lives, even if it drives them away. But we can't save them. We also need to protect ourselves, take care of ourselves and understand when we've done the best we can and can do no more. Don't be angry at yourself or the addict. Have empathy for them and their situation even if they've seemingly used up all your generosity of spirit. Continue to love them, and tell them you love them--often and without hesitation. Tomorrow they may be gone. You can't know what should have been done. Nobody does. You don't have the answers to fix the addiction problem, it's not one-size-fits-all. If it was we would have solved this problem a long time ago. No "cures," no basic human attribute like "strong will" or having "something to live for" will cure addiction. Sometimes we just lose them, and there wasn't a damned thing we could do. I think that might be a hardest thing we have to face. Everyone in my family is gone now, and all I can do is learn from all this pain. Something good came from all of it. I understand. And I learned I can't save someone no matter how much I love them. And that's okay.
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