I've just been marvelling about how crazy it is for a society, possibly community, to have a problem that many of it's participants use a sort of 'societally sanctioned very long term suicide'.
We have all lost people to this no doubt! One example of mine is I have a 30 year old friend who lives out of town whom I have exactly zilch control over who drinks very heavily. But that might not be a problem, more recently it seems like I don't know the guy THAT well (i.e. he could have stopped and I wouldn't know!), but every time he has come to my area in the past five years he has been very hungover.
If it is a problem, he certainly isn't going to get any encouragement to stop from anyone he knows. It is a very "societally accepted" drug, and for some reason if someone is younger that makes it all OK.
That song by the Fray... How to save a life. Talks about the feeling of not being able to do anything.
Or he'll say he's just not the same
And you'll begin to wonder why you came
It's just something that bothers me a bit so wanted to start a thread as a sounding board for people who are in trouble, suspect trouble, or were lost to these substances.
Alanon adresses all of this. The first step of the 12 steps is about admitting powerlessness. Im a recovering alcoholic with a couple years of sobriety. I have two close family members who are active alcoholics. I cant say enough about the 12 steps.
My father was a terrible alcoholic, the kind that had vodka shots in the morning before he went to work. He was a functional alcoholic, but by night time, he'd be stinking drunk, mad and angry. He'd terrorize the whole family and cause horrible scenes, most of which he didn't remember doing.
He would never go to Alanon (we tried). His friends were all alcoholics too and he preferred them to being with the family. We were happy when he was away.
My mom didn't drink and my siblings and I never abused alcohol. I think he drank because he had undiagnosed PTSD after serving in the Navy. He fought in the Korean war. Back then, they really knew nothing about PTSD.
In the end, there is no way to help someone that doesn't want to be helped. Kudos to you, Libra Noir for going to Alanon. It takes a strong person to do that. Once you take the first step you've fought half the battle IMO.
Wow, I did not notice Libra Noir had said 'recovering alcoholic' until Jo mentioned it... Well done but... I remember you said you are 37 with Pluto in late Libra... So you must have started young!
There are so many nuances with these substances. There are a lot of people that are otherwise capable, sometimes very capable, for whom the substances are clearly having a deleterious effect but these also we cannot have an effect on.
As you mentioned PTSD, perhaps alcohol is just the manifestation a lot of the time of other traumas! Rather than it being the problem it is the 'problem we see'.
My father died a horribly painful death and although it was not the alcohol per sey. As he was dying it became clear how incredibly addicted to the stuff he was when he was trying to get more of it when machines were supporting his organs. Also... Unpleasant fact, if you drink enough your liver begins to be able to clear morphene out of your system almost immediately so morphene does not work!
It felt weird to talk about the subject but not mention that.
The friend I mentioned is a very capable person and is attending classes, working, has friends and a girlfriend and is intellectually aware, so the alcohol might not be effecting him BUT, he is very often hung over and I think it harkens back to my father how intensely upset I get about people drinking to obvious detriment. If I saw him more often the anger would bubble over and I would talk to him more about it. I have mentioned it.
That though is not the only intense thing happening at the moment, I say to bring some perspective that I am not actually too upset about this it is just a thing. I don't know how I find some of these situations it is perhaps karmic but, like Libra said 'valley of the shadow of death'. I am not in the 'valley of the shadow of death' however, there are a lot of intense things that require my attention.
Libra Noir said
Alanon adresses all of this. The first step of the 12 steps is about admitting powerlessness. Im a recovering alcoholic with a couple years of sobriety. I have two close family members who are active alcoholics. I cant say enough about the 12 steps.
Im actually in AA and alanon is for family of alcoholics. Same steps though.