Russian Roulette- A Click Away From Addiction

At approximately 6:00 pm on Tuesday the 28th of April I was called out of work by the EMT squad to pick up my children from my ex-husband Dave's care. Dave had had a severe seizure in the parking lot of Stop and Shop as a result of his attempts to detoxify from alcohol with no supervision. There were plenty of witnesses, 4 EMTs, 3 bystanders, one who works at the middle school. He had been drying out so that he could see his children. I came to the scene and found him covered in blood, surrounded by pools of red on the concrete where his face had smashed down. A mangled nose and forehead had taken the full force of the fall from his 5'11" height.

Meanwhile his children, ages 14, 12, and 11 had seen the seizure in its entirety. By all accounts, it was a sight that would make a strong adult cringe. They were visibly shaken. I thought to myself, 'tomorrow I will try to undo the damage of seeing such a sight- but I am not sure it is possible.' I took the younger two to their aunts, but the older one would not leave his dad's side. We picked up Dave's mom and spent three hours in the hospital, where I could not convince this 80+ year old woman to leave her youngest son.

Sadly, my oldest son had grown up well beyond his years in those moments. In the car, he put all attention on brother and sister. Later it was on grandmom, and dad. I thought to myself, 'he will hold out to have his own meltdown until tomorrow morning, when he will come to me too exhausted to go school.' He lay awake in his bed that night- reliving the scene again and again in his mind. Then he came to me in the morning. Everything was predictable. It always is with Codependency. I was reliving the scene myself at 1:18 in the morning. You don't stop loving someone, even though you divorce them. And you never get cured from Codependency, Second Hand Addiction, and the disease of caring for others more than for yourself.

This scene strikes at the core of what I call Second Hand Addiction. An ex wife goes with her ex husband to the hospital. A frail, elderly mother stays by her son's side all night long so that he won't leave the hospital when he wakes up. She actually causes him to leave prematurely because she is his only way out. He has no money, no keys, no equilibrium. But she will walk him out and take him home, out of her love for him. Then we have a son who has to grow up quick. He is witness to such scenes over and again. But still he won't leave the bedside because he has seen the best of his father, and loves that best. Mom has seen this too, and ex-wife. And so they are all stuck.

I knew that night that the thing you do for an addict in order to help him is not to help him. But I went to the hospital and stayed too long anyway. Then I spent two days trying to heal the heartbreak. Then I spent another week trying to keep Dave from driving his children. He was determined to drive them, seizures or no seizures. His alcoholic brain is so altered from constant use that he does not see that his very love and need to see his children could kill them. Then in Dave's eyes I became his enemy. And so I spent another week getting nasty emails and phone messages, trying to talk sanity into his craziness. My daughter, God bless her for a maturity well beyond her years, then sacrificed her school vocal concert. She loves to sing more than anything- but mom was working and she knew if she told dad he would drive them over to the school. She also knew that if I got someone else to drive her, he would fight with that person, and then drive them over to the school. The only answer was not to tell him. And so he sat all night in sweet oblivion, not knowing the pain he had just caused his beloved only daughter, and wondering why she was melancholy.

And I tell you truly that I know the heart and soul of Dave, and it is a good one.

Think of the person that you love and admire the most and then picture them doing the types of things that Dave does. The picture does not add up. So it is with those of us who love an addict. The picture does not add up to the person we know is there. We try to hate them- but we can't. We know who they are and it just doesn't make any sense.

There is no real cure for addiction. There is no real cure for substance abuse. The best we can hope to do is get them off the drug. Then we have to pray that they stay off of it. If we can get addicted people off the drug, and if they can stay off it, then they can become some of our greatest role models for living. But the trick is to get them off and keep them off long enough to get them thinking straight. And that's one heck of a trick .

There is no real cure for addiction.

An addict in recovery will always wonder if he or she will fall into that deep dark hole again. If he does, he will take his loved ones with him, because there is no real cure for what they have either. So an addict's life will have to be pristine. No guilt, no shame, no malice, no resentments. Any of these could cause a relapse. Hence a successful recovering addict is a role model. Because he knows he can't fall like the rest of us. He doesn't have the luxury of falling.

It has been said that drinking and drugging is like holding a loaded gun up to your head, playing Russian Roulette. The lone bullet in the gun is marked 'addiction-a lifetime of heartache for you and everyone around you.' We play and play and play that game, a society of risk-takers. And a lot of people get shot.

Personally, I don't drink anymore. I never thought much of gambling with my life.

Lorelei F. is a speaker, writer, and registered educational consultant specializing in the topic of SECOND HAND ADDICTION. You can visit her blog at: http://secondhandaddiction.blogspot.com/