Russell starts out the post with:
"When you love someone who suffers from the disease of addiction you await the phone call. There will be a phone call. The sincere hope is that the call will be from the addict themselves, telling you they've had enough, that they're ready to stop, ready to try something new. Of course though, you fear the other call, the sad nocturnal chime from a friend or relative telling you it's too late, she's gone.So true and so tragic. Later he says:
Frustratingly it's not a call you can ever make it must be received. It is impossible to intervene. "
"All addicts, regardless of the substance or their social status share a consistent and obvious symptom; they're not quite present when you talk to them. They communicate to you through a barely discernible but un-ignorable veil. Whether a homeless smack head troubling you for 50p for a cup of tea or a coked-up, pinstriped exec foaming off about his "speedboat" there is a toxic aura that prevents connection. They have about them the air of elsewhere, that they're looking through you to somewhere else they'd rather be. And of course they are. The priority of any addict is to anaesthetise the pain of living to ease the passage of the day with some purchased relief."The inability to form a connection is so maddening! You love this person and want them to be a part of your life - but the addiction is like a force field surrounding them. Try as you may, it is nearly impossible to penetrate. The addict is the one who chooses to turn it off.
I appreciate Russell's account - because it comes from someone who had been an addict. I can't fully appreciate what that is like and all too often I get so frustrated that I can't help an addicted love one and they can't or won't help themselves.
Hopefully Amy's story will stand as a reminder of how powerful addiction is - that even this talented women who seem to have so many people looking out for her would ultimately succumb to to a tragic end.
"I can't fully appreciate what that is like and all too often I get so frustrated that I can't help an addicted love one and they can't or won't help themselves."
ReplyDeleteI know how you feel. It's very difficult watching someone tumble down the rabbit hole, who either doesn't know how to help themselves, or who refuses to accept help from others.
Jonsi
On Saturday, when I heard the news about Amy Winehouse, I kept repeating the same words all day, every time like the first: "I can't believe it! She was only 27!" The painful irony of her hit song Rehab just hung in the room like a tuning fork stuck on a bad note. Another casualty of the darkness, the emptiness, the hopelessness. Take enough steps away from living and you can take one too many. I am sad for her family and friends, for her daddy who thought she was fine, for another light gone out too soon.
ReplyDeletexo
upsi
As a recovering alcoholic, I can tell you that at first it is an enjoyable release from your pain. You feel happy and I was able to, finally, sleep.
ReplyDeleteBut as you progress, your body builds an immunity to the drug and needs more and more to get the effect you're after, then the physical addiction really kicks in. It's not fun anymore but necessary to get rid of the shaking and feeling of being physically unwell.
Next, the mental obsession kicks in and we no longer process or comprehend what is happening to us although we are in a state of constant misery both physically and emotionally. At this point without a massive wake up in the form of a crisis or intervention many of us are lost.
Waking up in the mornings face down in my own vomit didn't do it for me. The excruciating pain of pancreatitis didn't do it. One night I argued violently with my own daughter about which one of us would have the last drink in the bottle.
I would have given my life for her but wouldn't give her the last drink. Somehow the horror of that scene broke through the fog and I was done!
I've been sober for 31 months.
mulderfan you are an inspiriation of choosing to overcome tough challenges both with your drinking and your parents. Thank you for sharing your insight. My perspective is a little different. I have worked at not being suicidal since I was 13. The darkness in my mind can be so horrific. Choosing to end your life on purpose or by wreckless living the only difference is how others precieve your decent into lifelessness. I can comprehend a desire so powerful to block out living that how you shut your mind becomes secondary to the need to shutoff the internal despair. I hope Amy has found peace. Those around her will have a hard time wrapping their minds around something they may never know the answers to. I am thankful that I finally found my way out of the maze of darkness with help from family, friends and counselors.
ReplyDeleteI have been searching for a blog like yours for some time now. I have been frustrated only finding again and again sites that tell what narcissism IS and not the journey one must take to heal. I have especially found it difficult to find "REAL" children documenting their path since most I found involved the struggles of those married to a Narcissist.
ReplyDeleteI have a blog and haven't touched it in some time despite the amount of readers due to the pain it has inflicted. My mother and siblings do not speak to me or my girls and that blow is the catalyst to my own story, one that I have every intention of having the courage to return, just not yet. I find it has been crucial to have this period of dropping off the earth not in isolation, but in solitude. My writing which was once a private tool for healing has become the knife she wounds me with. But, you have inspired me! I am so grateful for your truth, your anger, your heart, and the courage you have.
I am so happy to read all your posts, which I will religiously! Keep up the hard and beautiful work and if you'd like to visit my own, (I cringe while saying it) http://buddhathepig@wordpress.com. It is almost time to return.