Having A Hard Time!!

Hi All,

I just can’t seem to make sense of it! I have a very good friend who has two siblings. One she found out starting abusing drugs again after a very long time of being clean. The other seems to, no matter how many times he is helped, go back to his old ways. Addiction is a ruthless and insidious beast that seemingly takes no prisoners. It destroys families, breaks the hearts of friends, and leaves all of its victims broken and helpless, wondering, “were do I go from here”.

The sister in this family is now in rehab. God willing her 7 – 10 day stay will result in some kind of awakening. Hopefully she will come out and continue her recovery. The brother in this family, my former friend, is headed to jail for 96 days. He has truly been given so many chances to “come clean”, so many chances at “life” itself, and time and time again he lies, he cheats, he steels. He throws it all away.

My friend and I have a third friend. The three of us went to high school together, danced at each other’s weddings, celebrated our birthdays together, had our babies together, left our husbands and babies and packed up my camper once a year for some good old fun; we shared all the ups and downs that best friends share. Our third friend’s Birthday is today. She would have been 43 years old. Three years ago she was diagnosed with lung cancer. She died the day before Thanksgiving, 2004.

What I just can’t make sense of here is this: How someone who has been given so many chances at life just throws them all away, and someone so sweat, and kind, and caring as our best friend, who wanted nothing more than to live is dead. It just doesn’t make sense. We cared for our friend as she died. We bathed her, we fed her, we held her hand and told her how much we loved her. We placed her casket ever so carefully into the hearse. We cared for the brother much the same way. We fed him, we cleaned up after him, we held his hand and told him how much we loved him. We drove him ever so carefully to rehab time and time again.

I guess I have lost two friends. I guess the truth is I lost one to addiction long before I lost one to illness. In a sense, I still I have my best friend far more than I still have the brother, even though the brother is the one still on this earth. Truly I am very sad today, and I just can’t seem to stop crying. I miss both of my friends dearly. I can come to terms with my best friends death. Death is a part of life. I cannot however come to terms with this beast we call addiction. It has left me broken, and truly, though I search for the bright side to this, I seem to be to be at a loss to find it.

Donna

Donna,
This is a sad story and I really can't think of anything to say to make you feel better about it.

All you can do is enjoy the memory of your friends and realize that sometimes life isn't fair.

Take Care,
Marcie

Aution
My heart just ached as I read this post. I share your feelings and some of your experiences. I, too, have lost some very close friends at very young ages to cancer. The first was my college roommate who passed of lung cancer at 33. She was pregnant with her second when diagnosed and lost the baby before passing. Less than a year later my cousin was killed in a car crash with three other boys (they were all freshman in high school). They were just young boys having fun - no alcohol involved - just youth and bad judgement. One of my very best friends died a short time after that of pancreatic cancer, leaving behind a husband and two beatuiful girls (7 and 2). We held her delicate hands as she suffered, tried to cheer her, brought her coke slurpies when she could not eat or drink anything else, care for her family, keep her dignity in the face of such a monster (cancer). We buried her just 5 months after the initial diagnosis that knocked her world right from under her feet. Two days later I buried my grandfather. One year later my aunt, who was really my "mom" in this life died suddenly at 51 of a heart attack. My husband was diagnosed with cancer shortly after this and while we were able to save his life with a bone marrow transplant (this took a year and a half as he had many complications), our marriage did not make it (another death of sorts, certainly a loss after 20 years). During this time, I made friends with many who were unbelievable in their bravery and fell in the battle against cancer, leaving young families and stunned parents. I also lost a best friend to AIDS during this ordeal. It was at this time that I began numbing the pain with alcohol. There were more losses to follow - my grandmother, another best friend's daughter (18 years old), my ex father in law (who was an amazing and wonderful man) died of lung cancer (he was not a smoker and a health nut). It all became too much for my caregiver heart to handle and alcohol was the drug of choice. I am now realizing how crazy that really was - to turn to alcohol when God had spared me and left me with my health. How ungrateful could a person be!? My faith is what had brought me through these past ten years and now I was numbing my feelings with alcohol - really turning my back to my faith and God. I have had moments when I have felt so ashamed - when even looking in the mirror was painful. I realized that God had blessed me in so many ways IN SPITE of a horrific childhood and challenging adult life. He had blessed me and I was acting like a spoiled child - taking the easy road to numb the pain and letting everyone around me down. This, after I had been such a rock to so many earlier in my life. Go figure.
Anyway, I am crying as I type this, because I fell your pain, I do. I will pray for you, Donna and your friend who is struggling. I believe that faith is the answer in all of this. We can never know why and even trying can bring craziness to our lives. My husband is a rock when it comes to his faith and his clear vision of life has pulled my from the pit many times these past few years. I know God placed him in my path at that critical time years ago when the pain was just too much to bear and alcohol was calling me to numbness. He always tells me that he is my biggest fan and supports me at every turn. I am so very blessed to have him in my life.
I will be thinking about you, Donna, and pray that you find the clarity you need to accept things and have someone who supports you. Life can be so very painful at times and hard to understand, yet it is a gift. Each and every day a gift.
Please remember that you are not alone!
Blessings
wellseasoned

Hey Donna,

I don't think you have to see a bright side to it. I know you don't think so now, but eventually you will come to terms with it. I have some similar experiences in a way, with addicts, not going to get into it right now, but let me just say that with certain drugs, including alcohol for some, the person is completely overpowered by the substance. The drug is the thing calling all the shots. You know how the Rational guy talks about our beast? Well the beast takes over and before you know it he's making you rob your best friends, your children, your mother, whoever will help him get the next high. It's the same thing as what we're dealing with, just 1000 times more accelerated with certain drugs. They take hold and ...well, we all know the rest.

Wish there was an easy answer to the whole thing, but I don't know of one. So sorry you lost your friend. And I hope the rehab & the jail stint will get these two to make the right choices. Wishing you peace no matter what they choose.

Deirdre

P.S. Do you want to post this on the GD board? Might get more responses from people who understand...? It really is heartbreaking to deal with. WS, thanks for sharing your story too...

Donna
Hope you are feeling better.
Sending warm thoughts and prayers your way.
wellseasoned

Dear Donna-
I hadn't seen this post before I posted on our daily check-in, so I hadn't heard the whole story...nor did I realize that it was your friend who was the addict, for some reason I thought it was your friend's son....

It really is all so sad. As I said on my post earlier I spoke for quite a while on Saturday to a women whose son is a heroin addict--he, too, had stolen from her and from friends and other members of the family.... And now he is jail... She has had to move on with her life and give her energy to her two other sons. As she said (without bitterness): "I guess 2 out of 3 isn't so bad..." I was taken aback when I heard her, but I later realized that this was exactly the right attitude. She's done all she can for him and now the others deserve her attention. Perhaps we have to think of our friends in a similar way...we just have to let them go and concentrate on the ones who deserve us...

I am so, so sorry about the loss of your friend to cancer (and all your losses too, WS). The way life turns out is totally inexplicable....and not at all "fair" in any sense of the word that we can understand. I sometimes manage to have hope that it IS understandable on some other level, which I am simply incapable of grasping from my limited perspective. What I DO know, however, is that we are responsible for doing the best we can for ourselves and others...and sometimes the best we can do for others is to let them go.

In the meantime, like WS says, we must count our blessings... they really are more numerous than we can know and certainly more numerous than we can appreciate when we're feeling so beaten up by life....

Actually, it for times like this that the original "Serenity Prayer" was written by the German theologian Reinhold Niebuhr before the outbreak of World War II (yes, the same poem that was eventually co-opted and mutilated by AA...)

I don't know your religious tradition, but this has been helpful to me despite my humanist/agnostic leanings....

The Serenity Prayer
written by Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971)

Original, unabridged version

God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as He did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.

susan

Susan
I love the Serenity Prayer. Thank you for reminding me of it.
God bless
wellseasoned

Donna,
Life is so strange,sad,horrific,beautiful,glorious,wonderful and confusing at the same time.So many things don't make any sense.
You have certainly been through a lot witnessing all of this.It must be very painful. You must have grown in wisdon through all of it because all of you words on this site are so helpful and comforting.Seeing the inexplicable makes us understand we are so helpless in many ways.You gathered the strength to get control over your own situation and in doing so have helped so many of us here at MYO.
I know you will get through this hard time and I will pray that your friends recovery will go well this time.
Janet

I have been so busy that I have not even stopped to read this.

Thank you ALL for your kind words and thoughts! They have given me much comfort and much to think about. I have stopped crying because I simply have no tears left. You are right Susan, I have given all I can to these people and now it is time to move on and see if they can come to terms with their own addictions in their own rights.

Deirdre, I do wish there was an easy answer but I know there isn't. I do hate that beast and every pusher out there that feeds it!

WS, is it any wonder you had a hard time putting on your own cape to try and save yourself with all that you have been through! Good God woman!! I hope you are continuing to find strength through this site and the people here, and that you are coming to realize you need to take care of yourself as well!!

Thanks again for your support!!

Donna

Donna,

I am so sorry to hear that you have been having such sadness in your life this month. Guess there are other reasons to keep up with the board.

Addiction is a terrible thing. My family grew up with other families, and I shared friends with my brothers. Two families in particular had addiction issues. In one, two girls from that family have passed (both well before 40) and other sibs are in jail due to drunk driving offenses.

The other family, even sadder. The older brother was an alcoholic who managed to clean himself up. He stayed clean for more than a decade. Then, his mother was diagnosed with cancer. After her passing, he went back to drinking. He was killed in an accidental house fire - found on the floor steps away from the door. Knowing how much he loved his dogs - we figured he had been trying to round up his beloved animals. The other brother, also addicted - has never really been able to clean up. In fact, I don't even know what he is on now - was crack, for sure pot, but I am betting meth or somekind of speed. Poor boy (42) hugs me and all I can feel is bones. I am so sad for his sister, who has confided that she fears she will burying her other brother within the year.

I am so sad to hear that you and your friends have lost so much to addiction, and illness. No one should ever apologize for their feelings and I was horribly down today.
Still am, really. Yet, reading this has brought me a little sense of how small my problems are - I am here and I am well.

For that - thank you for sharing your story. I am glad that you took the time to express your feelings because anyone who read your post must surely feel more appreciative of how special life is - and how blessed we really are. I'm not the religious type, but blessed is the best word I can think of.

I am keeping you in my thoughts,
Pansy