An Alcoholic’s Best Thinking

…is a terrible thing.   55 days ago, we picked up Michelle from the ER at Harborview after enduring her second horrific beating in two weeks.  She said she was willing to go to any length and agreed to go to two meetings a day while she stayed with us.  This last week meeting attendance has been close to two per week than per day.

It is said and tragic to watch one of the smartest most talented women I have known to skip the good orderly direction (aka god) of going to 12 step meetings and heading over to church expecting a different result than how it has gone for the last two years (or ten year for that matter).

I am sure church is a wonderful thing for those who it works for.  I envy church-goers their sense of community and wish I too found it there.  Unfortunately, the dogma of religion is a terrible turnoff for me. Buddhist philosophy and mindful meditation work well for me, but I don’t go to temples.

I strongly tend to shut down from ridiculous conflict.  On Monday when I showed Michelle where she was eligible for $800/month in benefits in direct opposition to what she claimed to be quoting from an agency counselor, she started yelling and kept going far longer than what I was willing to participate in.  Since then, I have pretty much shut down in my conversations with her.  My thinking is that if she is not willing to discuss facts about possibly getting $800/month, there is little (no) chance she is going to be willing to discuss more subtle things like how to stay sober.

I don’t need to kick her out.  She will either get it together or get out all on her own in the near future.  Hopefully she will get it together.  I will try to say what I am thinking in a kind and gentle way that hopefully helps both us.  It is not likely I will be able to say anything so profound as to stop an alcoholic from drinking, but it might help her and will help me to own my feelings in a way that prevents me from being as sick as my secrets.

Maybe she can do it the church way. Surely many church people are sober.  I don’t do church and can’t help with that.  I have watched Michelle do church and go out several times.   I do AA and while my track record is not perfect, it is at least 99% sobriety since I went to rehab in May of 1999.

I am grateful that I am able to stay away from my best thinking the vast majority of the time and use good orderly direction to live a life that is mostly serene and happier than how it used to be while having great compassion from those that lose the thought-war with the fatal progressive disease of alcoholism.