The Contest Challenge

Thanks. It's all good now. I've had a lifetime to learn how to deal with those issues Yea, Mom was an alcoholic all throughout my childhood. She finally whipped her drinking about ten years before she died. She still drinked a beer or two every once in a while, but no more bottles upon bottles for days into weeks at a time. Whoo. The things we went through. Then my second to the oldest sister, she was absolutely beautiful. She could have done just about anything just from her looks. That was a sad, sad thing to watch.

There's not really much one can do. You can support them, be there for them, But sometimes, you just have to walk away. One can only do so much. Sadly, when Norma died, just weeks before we got in an argument on the phone because she went back to her exhusband. She had been clean for three years. My last words to her were that he was going to end up killing her, and as long as she was with him, I didn't want anything to do with them. Two weeks later, he shot her up in a motel room and walked out the door. He killed her and got away with it. I tried to tell her that I knew he was going to end up killing her, She knew to take that seriously -- but when love and addiction go hand-and-hand, it usually has a very bad end. Addiction is truly one of the devil's biggest curses. It brings down many good people.

But then on the other side of that, you have people who are living in chronic pain every single day of their life and doctors out there afraid to actually give them daily meds to ease their suffering. It's a double - edged sword. I used to feel bad about taking medicine every day for chronic pain. Then I gave it up for over a year. I don't feel guilty about it anymore.

I hope your ?Cousin? gets her drinking under control. She can start just by walking into an AA meeting. She doesn't have to speak. Just sit in the back and listen and see if it's something she thinks she might can use as a tool. Or if she doesn't want to do that (yet) get her a 12 step program book. She can lay it down and walk past it day after day, but one day she will pick it up and thumb through it -- maybe when she's having a drink Something written inside may click with her. You never know the tiniest ripples can produce huge changes! Be there for her, just don't enable her. And don't worry or make yourself sick doing it! If you ever need to talk, you know where to find me.