A few weeks ago I posted about my alcoholic sister who was hospitalized due to her drinking and had to have emergency surgery to save her life. Many slicers posted both thoughtful and supportive posts to me about my sister and I'm sorry I haven't responded until now. It's been a messy time.
She spent a month in rehab after the surgery to regain mobility, and her strength. Her debilitating physical condition going into the emergency surgery factored heavily. Her surgeon told her never to drink again.
She was released to go home three weeks ago and has resumed drinking.
I hate to be cliche and trite but I'm learning how to hold the dark, and the light. I feel like I'm walking on the moon. I just flew to visit her for 48 hours, reshuffled my own schedule, to effectively say "good-bye" to her.
What can you say, what can you do, when someone thinks so little of themselves (if anything at all) that they want to drink themselves to death? I said everything I thought of, and my heart felt better, but I knew it made no difference. I knew it fell on deaf ears. She drinks every day. I found at least a dozen boxes of box wine under her bathroom sink.
Locked up in an apartment all day, full of empty boxes and hefty trash bags knotted tightly, but somehow managing to do her work online (it's a MYSTERY).
As I sit by the gate waiting for my flight I wonder. What makes a person check out? What is so broken inside of her that she would rather drink, be drunk, and just sit inside her apartment all day? It makes me so sad to even type this.
But I must.
The pain of the story that you struggle to tell . . . your story of living with bewilderment and grief is devastating. As your understanding of what is ahead continues to be revealed, may the act of writing offer community during this heartbreaking time.
ReplyDeleteYou totally get it, Jackie.
DeleteOh Morna, I'm glad you wrote this. It is heartbreaking, but I'm glad you had the courage to write. I can't seem to think of a healing thing to say. It just is so sad with no real good answers. Just know I am here in a kitchen in New Jersey sitting with you in sadness. Keep writing.
ReplyDeleteYou posted a response, Joanne and I found it very healing.
DeleteI am so sorry you are going through this. The best thing you can do now is to take care of yourself. I think you've already come to the painful conclusion that you will not be able to change her. Keep writing.
ReplyDeleteOh, that childhood photo, and then your writing. I am so sorry. It does remind us that many children will grow to have addictions. I do believe every family has some experience. Perhaps all that is left is compassion.
ReplyDeleteThank you Fran- very, very true!
DeleteOver the years, when I pass someone sitting on the sidewalk or standing on a street corner, holding a cardboard sign on which they’ve written words designed to get your sympathy and your money, I always give what I can.
ReplyDeleteWhen I’ve been with a friend, they usually ask me why I’m doing that? “Don’t you know they will use that money to buy booze or drugs? Don’t you realize that you’re helping them drink themselves to death?”
“I don’t believe that”, I reply. “I believe I’m actually helping them to stay alive.”
So terribly broken by the trauma they endured, often in childhood, sometimes in the military, it’s the only way they know how to get through another day. It’s the only way they have to numb their terrible suffering.
In a perfect world, everyone would have access to a skilled therapist trained in Trauma Counselling and Complex PTSD.
In a perfect world this help would come early, before they become trapped in the addiction that both soothes and further complicates their suffering.
Before COVID, the person I was about to walk past, the person begging on a downtown street, was just a teenager. I asked if I could buy him a meal. Once inside the fast food restaurant, I asked him, “When was the last time you got a hug”? He said he couldn’t remember. “May I give you a hug?” He opened his arms wide, in a way that a very young child might, and we shared a hug.
When his food arrived, I paid for it and left. I’ll never know which of us benefited more from that encounter.
Thank- Miriam for ur very thoughtful and heartfelt connection
DeleteThis is brave writing, the kind that cuts to the bone, the kind most writers are afraid to ink the page with. It’s truth, it’s real, it’s painful. I’m so sorry!
ReplyDeleteThank u Kimberly- it’s cathartic
DeleteI'm so sorry.
ReplyDeleteThank you
DeleteThank- you Becky- esp for your kind words
ReplyDeleteMorna - my heart aches for you as well as for your sister. I am especially struck by the brokenness inside a person who's in the grip of such a vicious, merciless addiction, plus - this may sound strange - the brilliance of a person who somehow manages to keep working despite it (the mystery"). I commend your courage in your approach and in writing about this. I wish you much ongoing strength - and to your sister also, that, somehow even now, she can break free.
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