As an alcoholic and addict that has recovered, and has put countless hours into my journey from the depths of despair to a whole new outlook on life, I sometimes think the hardest part of living this way is the fact that I cannot save everybody.  I cannot just tell them what I have learned and make them believe in it.  No matter how much I love someone or how badly I want to fix their life for them, in the big picture I have absolutely no control over anything except for myself (and even that “control” is sometimes very obviously an illusion).  It is heartbreaking, every time.

Recently, someone from my old life called me up about a mutual friend of ours – let’s call him Bob.  I’ve known Bob for decades, he used to be a big part of my life, and I love him like a brother.  Bob has been an active alcoholic as long as I’ve known him, teetering on the brink of uncontrollable destruction at all times.  Our mutual friend called because he was really worried about Bob; lately, he looks worse, and everyone is worried about his health.  We’re not getting any younger, and it appears that the years of abuse are finally taking their toll on his body.  Bob knows he’s an alcoholic, he freely admits it whenever it comes up, and he says that he wants to stop drinking, but he has his own plan of tapering and moderation to get himself there all by himself.  When anyone confronts him with their worries or offers any kind of help or solution, other than the one he has decided will work and he can do all by himself, he gets angry and stops listening.  He will not accept help from anyone, and how dare you suggest that he needs it!

For my part, I’ve talked to several people who are worried about Bob and tried to give them my take on how to handle the situation and what worked for me when I was in the boat that Bob is in now.  So far, it has come to nothing.  Bob just gets mad and shuts them out.  Egomaniac that I am, I truly believe that I could fix this, if I can only figure out exactly how to go about it.  And people pleaser that I am, how to do it without stepping on toes or looking like a fool in the process.  Everything in me wants to jump in my car and fly downriver and confront my dear friend face to face, force him to accept my help and my solution.  I just want to save him from himself; I have the answers, and I just need to force him to listen to them.  He’d listen to me, after all, even if he won’t listen to anyone else.

It is a horrific place to live, that boat of misery that I know Bob is in right now, that I remember so vividly from some five years ago.  I desperately wanted something different for my life, but just couldn’t figure it out.  I wanted to stop drinking so badly, but I couldn’t actually stop drinking – there was an inexplicable compulsion that seemed to drive me back to the bottle time and time again, no matter how much I didn’t want it.  The dark and twisty feelings deep in my soul were unbearable.  I was ashamed.  How weak and stupid and bad did one have to be to have so little control over themselves?  I didn’t want anyone to know how bad I was.  How could anyone possibly tolerate, let alone love or respect, someone as deplorable as me?  I was angry and confused and afraid all the time, and forcing myself to act like everything was fine and I was oh-so-happy so that no one could suspect what was really going on.  I felt trapped by myself, and alone in my fight against myself.  I had to do this alone, by myself.  Who else could possibly understand what I was going through, or how to solve my problems?  No one had ever felt or acted the way I did in those moments!  And if anyone knew how horrible I was, they would despise me.  Brené Brown says that the opposite of addiction is connection; addiction isisolation.  She is not wrong.

They say everyone has to hit their own rock bottom before they can begin to climb out of the hole they have dug.  They have to come to a moment where they are so full of despair and desperation that they will literally do anything.  It’s different for everyone, when and where their bottom is, how they get to it, how they decide they can’t take it anymore.  My bottom happened sometime in a blackout, when all my self-made blocks were gone, and I finally reached out to someone for help.  When I came to, the process that led to my return to rehab was already in motion, and I stayed semi-sedated until it was so far along that the shame of stopping it was worse than the shame of continuing.

Hitting my own personal point of desperation, the depths of my hell, was a gift.  When I had nothing left to lose, even internally, I was able to put myself out there and be vulnerable in a way I couldn’t before that.  In the end, it allowed me to start the long, hard climb back into life.  And it gave me the strength and experience to be able to help other people that are going through the same thing, or something similar.  Because I’ve been to hell and back and survived, and eventually thrived, someone still in hell might trust me enough to help them, without judgement or pity.  If this idiot (me) could come through it, well, surely anyone can!

So what do I do now?  I know that Bob needs help, that it is unlikely that he can do this on his own.  The distinction I make to myself is that a heavy drinker could stop if they would, while and true alcoholic would stop if they could.  In other words, and in my own experience, a true alcoholic cannot climb out of their hole on their own, they need help.  So I ask myself again, what do I do now?  How do I help Bob, who I love so dearly?  How do I show him that he doesn’t have to do this on his own, that he probably cannot do this on his own, and no one is disparaging him by offering their hand?  How do I save him?

The only answer I have is that I do not know.  I do not know what I could or should do, nor if there is anything I could or should do at all.  I know that I cannot save everyone, no matter how much I want to or how much I love them.  I know that no one can make anyone else get or stay sober, that the strength and desire must come from within themselves.  I know that Bob has to take the first and hardest step of accepting help and stepping out of his isolation, and that no one can make him do that.  And then he probably has to do a bunch more really stupid work and confront his stupid feelings and be willing to pursue stupid growth.  And this this stupid idiot (me, again) knows I can’t give him the desire to do it all, but I want to.  I want to give Bob the joyous freedom I’ve found over the last five years.  I want to fucking help him.  But as usual, acceptance is the answer to my stupid problems – I must accept reality no matter how much I hate it.  And the reality is that I cannot save everybody, and I absolutely cannot save someone who doesn’t want to save themselves.

But the beautiful thing is that it doesn’t stop me from wishing and hoping, nor from helping other people who dowant help getting and staying sober.  And I do not know everything.  I cannot know everything, no one can, and that gives me hope too!  Because as much as I really think that I have all the answers, and if my friend doesn’t take them then he is doomed, I do not know.  There are as many kinds of addict, and as many paths to recovery, as there are addicts in the world – it is a deeply personal, individual thing.  The path I took worked for me, and I know many people who trod a similar path and succeeded, but who am I to say that it is the right path for anyone else?  Who am I to say that my answers are the answers??

The thing I was missing at the end of my old, sad life was hope.  I did not believe that anyone would understand, or that anyone could help me, or that there was any hope for me or my situation – but when I finally got to the point where I didn’t have the energy to hold my walls up anymore, when I let them start to crack, hope shone through those cracks.  Just a drop at first, but the more I’ve opened up to other people, and the more I talk to them about my thoughts and fears today, the easier it is for me to see that there is alwayshope.  For everyone.  In every situation.  So I don’t give up, and I hope you don’t either.