INHOSPITABLE BEHAVIORS

INHOSPITABLE BEHAVIORS

Early sobriety is a delicate period not for the temperance itself but for all of the mental anguish that goes along with the circumstance that had driven us to drink. And even though the reasons we give for drinking are rarely justified, we have a history of involving others in our stories and our misfortunes often become theirs by default.

 Our loves, hates, families, jobs, children and fortunes are the hostages and sometimes the fallout of our inhospitable behaviors. And the toll taken upon our emotional well being may even have dire and mortal consequences if we misstep in our recovery.

It is not unusual for us to be suffering from post detoxification depression, a depression often severe enough to warrant treatment which may have been true clinical depression masked by the drug or alcohol abuse. Or the abuse, having depleted normal endogenous neurotransmitters may cause a post detox rebound depression that only time will heal. It is difficult at times to tell the difference between the two conditions.

But just being alcoholics and drug addicts predisposes to lability in the emotional department and our responses to stress are out of proportion to that of normal people. We can and do respond to routine life stresses at the extremes with greater tendencies toward suicidal behavior, overly histrionic acting out and deeper depressions than people without this handicap.

And like the clinically depressed person who, having started  medical treatment, emerges from the inertness of the psychomotor retardation of the depression and therefore is at greater risk for suicidal follow through, the alcoholic, finally released from the bondage of the dulling action of the alcohol may find he can actually act on his greatest despairs and take his own life.

So when the moderator asked if anyone had a burning desire to share and A’s hand crept up, all eyes turned upon his sad and drawn face. It looked pale, and pained and he was close to tears. And he said…

“I had to break up with my girlfriend of fifteen years; and I know that many of you think that doesn’t carry the emotional weight of a marriage. But I sit here and tell you that after two marriages and a fifteen year relationship there are certainly a lot of emotional ties there that won’t easily be dissolved.”

“And I was so depressed that I did not even want to drink at first. I did not even want a drug. I just wanted to die!... Die! And then my anger really took over and in a rage I destroyed every picture on the walls of the house; all this while talking to my sponsor on the phone.”

So what do you say in this situation? Don’t drink and go to meetings? That kind of pabulum seems inappropriately flippant. The type of readymade puffery that you would tell a resistant drunk who does not want to put the work in to stay sober and is just complaining about how hard it is to stay away from a drink.

No, you have to convince the person that this acute phase is a  difficult phase and the dread, fear and loneliness that he feels takes times to scab over. And yes there is scarring; scarring that is nature’s way of reminding us that the damage done at that site requires special tending. Scars do not heal as strongly as the tissue that they replace so that repeated insults at that site are subject to easier and earlier damage, so attention must be paid.

But healing does take place if you take the time to care for yourself.

When I first got sober, I knew that I could never drink again. But I did not know how I was going to get my life back together again. With no work and thus no income and having been  thrown out of my house, my marriage was, as far as I knew, unretrieveable. I was frightened, depressed, and bewildered. For me, it was as bleak as it could get.  And that prospect did not improve for more than a year and a half.

For months I keened for my former life and not seeing any other way out often sought comfort in the notion that if all else failed I could do myself in. And I guess that the fact that I did not drink was a measure of how  well I worked my program and kept the suicidal impulses at bay.

What did improve with time, however, was the way I decided to look upon my life.  And at first I had to decide that life was worth living in the first place. All else was a side issue and from that decision all other matters emanated.

For there was nothing I could do about my marriage. It might or might not improve and I could not do anything about it no matter how badly I chose to feel about it. Or I could choose to try to let the feeling simmer down; to get control over those feelings and see if they could be viewed in a more positive light.

By my will I could do nothing. I could only learn to live a better life not repeating the same mistakes again. I began to understand the panorama of my marriage and my part as the drunken director of that spectacle. And I began to understand the concept of powerlessness and acceptance.

 But I had to want to live first, just as the first stop for my friend  today has to be to want, to need, to live.

And in the paroxysm of his acute “break up”, like me, he does not know at this point whether this is a permanent situation. And to try to convince him of this may just be an unavailing endeavor.  At this emotional nadir he is too raw, too early, too sensitive, too uncertain about this situation.  Perspective is best left to more discerning minds. Minds less preoccupied by untamed energies of passion and hurt.

Perceptive sponsors and friends in the program can help such an agitated mind to stay clear of any irreversible decisions. Habitual practices to instill some calm into one’s daily life will introduce important rituals whether they initially have any personal meaning or not. Performing prayer and meditation may not, at first, seem to have purpose to the undirected life. But with practice comes serenity and peace.

We don’t have to be cornered into Butch Cassidy decisions, either to shoot yourself or to go out in a blaze of glory. There are other choices, less dramatically terminal with the added benefit that you can live to ponder your decisions another day.

And the more that one chooses to live, the more opportunities to learn how to live present themselves. So that one can learn to distill joy from grief, hope from despair and love from the misperception of an indifferent universe. 

© res 11/8/11