You Don't Understand

A news article reports that a 26-year-old woman, whose son was killed in an accident she caused while driving under the influence, left his graveside funeral service and went to a bar to drink, rather than returning to jail. Why is there surprise that a drunk drinks? Why are we shocked when drunk drivers cause deadly accidents? The addiction is the problem: the method of addiction varies, but an addict's life is controlled by uncontrollable dependency on addictive substances. Once the substance abuse becomes the person, there is no life. Death becomes inevitable - either for the addict or for someone who shares time/space with the addict.

My friend is an alcoholic who is also addicted to prescription pain medication. She is an absolute master at doctor-shopping and knows how to space out her appointments and present her symptoms to get prescriptions for highly addictive drugs that she washes down with booze. If the drug is on the top ten list of most addictive, she has it. She self-medicates, mixing pills and booze as she tries to anesthetize the symptoms of a life that has deteriorated to desperation.

I grew up with alcoholism, and it isn’t pretty either for the drunk or for the people who have to deal with the drunk. When most alcoholics aren’t drinking, they can be great friends, but when the addiction wins, the spiral toward complete collapse can pick up family, friends, and innocent bystanders in the blink of an eye. I’ve confronted my friend several times, being explicit in my observations of her drunken ramblings, stumbling falls, and inability to function either personally or professionally. I’ve recommended that she commit herself to a treatment facility before it’s too late, but perhaps it’s already too late.

Her response is always the same: you don’t understand.

She's an addict who cannot acknowledge her addiction, and if there is no problem, there is no need for treatment. She tells me about her pain, the real physical pain and the imaginary pain that combine to make her life intolerable. She has reasons for needing the pain pills: the shoulder pain, the neck pain, the back pain, the arm pain, the wrist pain, the hand pain, the hip pain, the knee pain, and she has pills for all of them. She is stumbling and falling, causing more pain and bruising. Her life is defined by pain that she no longer can endure nor mask with medication or alcohol.

Recently, there have been many phone calls, the rambling incoherent cry for help that marks the descent into desperation. This time, it’s not the extreme physical pain, nor the debilitating depression that follows increasing dependency on the pills to blot out the reality that her life sucks. This time, it’s triggered by her husband, who no longer will accept nor deal with the death spiral. This time, I called him and left a message because he won’t answer his phone: he has distanced himself from the self-destruction and issued the ultimatum that she has 30 days to vacate the home they share – and he doesn’t care where she goes or what she does. This time, he will not give her money to relocate or help her in that process because he knows all too well that the money will be spent either on booze or her daughter, whose bills she’s paid since I’ve known her. This time, he says her daughter can step up and be part of the solution, rather than the problem.

Whereas most of us grow up in dysfunctional families in one way or another, addicts fuel the dysfunction for themselves and the people who occupy the planet with them. Whether it's a tough love strategy aimed at shocking her into getting help or simply his own frustration at being unable either to help her or to live with her, her husband has the clock ticking and she has come completely undone.

Last night, she called to share her plan. She’s going to take all of her money out of her retirement fund, pay off the mortgage and second on the home she owns that is occupied by her daughter and family, and then commit suicide. Physically, she’s always in pain, so she cannot continue to work; mentally, she’s convinced herself that where she is right now is a place she neither can control nor change; and emotionally, she’s determined that the world will be better off without her. There is no listening to reason because she’s incoherent 24/7, stumbling through her words and her world, all the while being watched by her 12-year-old grandson, a high-functioning autistic child who lives with her.

After last night’s call, I left the message on her husband’s phone: please help her. Whether she means to die or not, she’s taking pill after pill after pill, desperate to find anything that finally will make the pain go away. She is no longer rational nor capable of reasoning, and, perhaps, the end result is a foregone conclusion. I called back for 2 hours last night, but the phone was busy. I doubt it was her husband talking to her because he’s made it clear that he no longer is responsible for her life – or her death.

I’m expecting the call I don't want to answer. It may not come today; it may not come tomorrow; but it will come.

NOTE: her husband called to thank me for caring, but also to warn me not to care too much as there is little anyone can do until she takes the first step. He also warned me that she wants to move in with me as she feels that I can deal with her problems in a manner that will help her to stop drinking, drugging, and destroying her life. I told him that I've been there, done that - and it doesn't work for me or for the addict!

I had an opportunity to express my concern about the suicide strategy, but he says he's heard it all before and if he thought she would harm herself or anyone else, he'd step in and have her committed for observation. He says their g'son knows what's going on and he knows either to get out of the way or protect himself, especially by not getting into a car when his g'ma is acting "goofy." I'm not so sure I agree on this point, but the family is trying to handle the problem, so I can let go of it.