Addictions

When I was a kid my mother’s younger brother Sammy was a guy to look up to. A marine during world war II, a foreman in an auto plant after the war, a decent house in a nice neighborhood, wife, two kids. He was a big happy friendly guy who was fun to be with.

On social occasions drinks were usually available and he had his share along with everybody else. When he and my father played golf every week they routinely had a few beers in the clubhouse afterward. We always had beer in the refrigerator and liquor in a cupboard somewhere. Nothing seemed out of place to me. Adult smoking and drinking was normal.

Later as a young adult I noticed that Sammy was drinking more than the rest of us. He drank before work, during lunch and after the shift. He had drinks in the car on the way home. When he showed up at our house for a family visit he brought his own bottle in case we ran out. He always had some alcohol in him.

If anybody mentioned it he was defensive. Insisted he could handle it and didn’t like being interfered with. Unfortunately that didn’t fly when he was under the influence at work. They eventually fired him.

As an unemployed man his drinking became continuous. I have no idea what his thoughts were but I watched him lose his marriage, home, family, and eventually his life. He died in a cheap motel room at age forty nine. None of what appeared to be the good things in his life seemed to have meaning for him. Only booze.

My father took a different path but ended up in the same place. He kept his drinking under control until retirement at age sixty four. After that he started having a beer to wash down his pills in the morning, more beer with lunch. Cocktail hour at the same local bar every afternoon. More drinks at home after dinner. He was under the influence continuously until he fell asleep in front of the TV.

He ate less and less. Just smoked and drank. He lost his health, went broke. His second wife left him, he moved in with us until he could no longer function. When his medical needs got beyond what we could handle he was hospitalized until he died. Like Sammy, dad seemed to reach a point where nothing mattered to him except alcohol and cigarettes.

My first wedding was in November, 1961. My best man had been my good friend since seventh grade. He followed the pattern with drugs and alcohol until his death at about age fifty two. In addition to those three men I have personally known five people over the years who have either died or seriously altered their lives because of substance abuse.

Addictions to food, sex, gambling, hoarding and a host of other things are all over the TV and internet too. I don’t know what percentage of us have the addict disease but it has evaded a cure throughout my lifetime. It stays with us because a constant percentage of us choose to do it.

I can imagine the loud voices arguing that people don’t choose to destroy their lives. They don’t wish to lose their health and relationships. They don’t want to become so dependent on habits that nothing else matters and that is true but step by step they do it anyway.

Alcohol, other drugs, food, gambling, sex, etc. under reasonable control are fine. Those things don’t ruin us. Addicts are either unable to moderate their habits, choose not to, or deny the problem until the cure becomes less desirable than the disease. Maybe some specific mental or physical condition is necessary, maybe not. There continue to be more questions than answers.

There is no shortage of information. We all hear about the dangers. Why is a constant percentage of us still suffering? Like a whirlpool that keeps drowning swimmers some just don’t believe the obvious. The danger is exaggerated? Can’t happen to me? I can’t resist it? It’s my life and I’ll do what I want with it? This is pleasure, not suffering? Probably those thoughts and many more.

Those affected by the addictions of others can’t cure the disease. We reach a point where there is nothing left to say they haven’t heard or do that we haven’t tried. We either put up with it or withdraw. No good choices.

It’s not hopeless it is just out of our hands. In the end addicts decide their own fate and we can only watch.