Echoes Between Us - McGarry, Katie Page 0,102
visit with us this week, and this is something we occasionally allow—giving an addict the opportunity to listen to those of us who love someone with an addiction issue.”
I nod my appreciation while sinking in my seat. I’m guessing that this meeting is made to make people like me feel like crap—and I probably deserve it. I settle in and do what I’ve been doing best at these meetings for weeks—I listen.
I listen to stories of loved ones losing jobs, losing friends, losing family, losing their lives. I hurt for them as they talk about years of silence, of arguments, loneliness and isolation. Of money issues, broken homes, and how alcohol becomes a demon that possesses.
“It’s hard for me to stop being an enabler,” Jennifer says. She’s midtwenties-young, and her father has been an alcoholic since she started to walk. From her perspective, he’s a perpetual first-time AA attender. It’s the second meeting where he falls off. “If I don’t take care of him, who else will?”
“But maybe that’s what he needs,” Dr. Martin says in this calm, soft way. “Maybe you need to stop taking care of him.”
“And then what?” Her eyes widen as she challenges him. “At least now he’s somewhat functioning. I get him up, he goes to work, and I bring him his lunch to check in on him to confirm he’s not drinking. He finishes his shift, he comes home and it’s a good day if I can get dinner in him before he opens a beer. It’s an even better day if I can get him showered and shaved before he passes out. If I stop taking care of him, he’d never go to work, he’d never eat and he’d end up on the street alone. I can’t do that.” She hits a hand to her chest. “I love him and I can’t let him be like that.”
“What type of life is that for you?” Dr. Martin asks.
She looks away, wiping at her eyes. “I don’t know how to stop taking care of him. It’s my responsibility. Always my responsibility. Who am I if I stop?”
“The better question,” Dr. Martin says, “is who will you become when you stop living his life and start living yours? The last time I was here you talked about applying for college. Have you done that?”
Jennifer hurriedly brushes at her tears again. “I love him.” She doesn’t answer his question directly, but it’s an answer nonetheless.
“We know you do,” Dr. Martin says. “But remember, we’ve talked about how alcoholism, addiction, is a disease. Unless he experiences the fallout of his actions, unless he hits rock bottom, he might not want to get help. It’s like having cancer and being told you need to have an operation and chemo treatments. Would you go through surgery and chemo unless you knew for a fact you had cancer?”
Jennifer shakes her head.
“Your dad doesn’t honestly realize he has this disease. He has to understand this disease inside him before he understands the path to save his life.”
“I’ve told him!” Jennifer shouts.
“Yes.” Sitting beside her, Denise reaches out and takes Jennifer’s hand. “Just like I told my husband, but some people don’t see the disease until they themselves are forced to stare at the MRI results. I know you feel like you’re helping him, but you’re hurting yourself.”
Jennifer weaves her fingers with Denise’s and with easily thirty years’ difference between them, they’re united, like sisters. There’s silence then, and I’m not sure what’s supposed to fill it. Jennifer has Denise, Denise has Jennifer, and everyone else has taken their turn speaking. But there’s this collective holding of a breath, as if waiting for the fall, and that silence seems to be directed at me.
Maybe it’s not. Maybe I’m tired of being silent. Maybe Knox is right, maybe I need to find my voice. But what do I say? This isn’t my meeting. I’m not the one dealing with someone I love having an addiction. I am the addict. I have no right to talk, no right to share, but it feels like a compulsion, a need for me to speak.
“I remember once, the first wedding anniversary after my mom and dad divorced, my mom went out with friends. It was supposed to be a ‘screw him, the bastard’ party.” My arms are already folded over my chest, but somehow I hug myself tighter. “My mom brought Lucy and me to her friend’s house, and we stayed the night there so my friend’s dad