Tuesday, August 12, 2014

And…yet another post about Robin Williams

Geez - there have been dozens and dozens of posts about Robin Williams today. The most meaningful for me is this one by David Wong at one of my favorite humor sites.

Wong ends his article with this statement: "….this has nothing to do with life circumstances -- you were rich and accomplished and respected and beloved by friends and family, and in the end it meant jack fucking shit." This hit home for me because it was how I always felt about Hubby. Hubby had everything and he "blew it" with his alcoholism. However, I am doing Hubby a bit of a disservice here - Hubby suffered from depression which he attempted to "cure" with alcohol and it killed him.

Why do alcoholics and addicts become alcoholics and addicts? Many reasons I am sure. Some talk about having an "addictive personality". For some (Hubby is a great example of this), it may be sheer stubbornness; this belief that "I am an intelligent person and I DO NOT NEED ANY HELP with my depression - I can fix it myself!" Hubby would never go seek help; he felt that counseling was for "weak people" - not realizing that he was a "weak person" or perhaps knowing that he was and being ashamed of it. Perhaps I was partly responsible for this - I am a rather self-assured, almost outrageously capable person who, I am told, often awes and overwhelms people with my ability to face and overcome adversity (their words, not mine). Maybe Hubby was too ashamed to admit to ME that he needed help; maybe I am the type who did not invite such confessions of weakness. Maybe it is all my fault that he died.

Well, of course not really - we all make choices on how to cope with things and Hubby made his choice and I am not responsible for his choice though maybe I was a contributing factor to his choice. These are the thoughts that plague me still about his addiction and death. These are the thoughts that I imagine are running through the minds of Robin's friends and family. God help them and love them.

Williams' death has sparked this conversation among us even if only for a little while. I guess what I am saying is, there is a fine line between being kind and being an enabler. Many times those of us who live with alcoholics and addicts are so afraid of being enablers that we forget to be kind. But it is so darn hard, isn't it? Because alcoholics and addicts are such damn pains in the asses and they make our lives miserable. It is easy to say "Aw shucks - how awful" about a beloved celebrity like Williams. It is hard to say "Aw shucks - how awful" when you are comforting your child who has been cussed out by his drunken daddy for no reason whatsoever or when you are scrubbing and scrubbing that strange black goo that appears in the toilet every day that an alcoholic uses (what in the heck IS that goo? What in the heck was in Hubby's pee that caused that goo?! But I digress…) or when you are bailing your alcoholic out of jail.

Or when you can't sleep at night because your alcoholic is thrashing and crashing around the house because he can't sleep and is miserable and suddenly there is utter silence and you think, "Ah, at last he has settled down quietly and I can get some rest" (only to discover the next day that he sure did settle down… he fell down and died).

Be kind. Be aware of the contradictions in being kind and try to be ok with that. Because - yeah - your loved one may be the next one who had it all but it "meant jack fucking shit."

2 comments:

  1. Like you, in the aftermath of an alcoholic's death, you ask yourself so many questions. Did I contribute? Could I have talked to him more about it? Helped him more? Understood him more? Instead I think of the ways I would shout or get frustrated with his behaviour or inability to just plain stop drinking. It is hard when in the midst of the crisis, you only have time to bale water out of the boat and don't have the time to steer it to calmer waters.I think Robin William's suicide will help to get the debate started so that there is more help and understanding available to alcoholics.

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  2. Funny you should mention the boat metaphor. I use it often to describe what my situation was. I often tell folks that I was so busy trying to make sure that my family's boat didn't capsize that I failed to notice that one of the occupants had fallen over the side and drowned.

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