No Easy Answers

One of my good friends was talking to a sponsee yesterday while I lurked nearby, eavesdropping.  I like the new guy - he mixed heroin with his drinking and took the elevator way, way down, to the street, to utter, abject misery.  The capacity for pain in alcoholics is astounding, especially when you consider that the ostensible reason for drinking and using is to make the pain go away.

"They sound like the philosophy of the man who, having a headache, beats himself in the head with a hammer so he can't feel the ache."  BB p23.

Anyway, he has a young son with a woman who is a heroin addict and has just been released from prison.  He has been living with her mother, a healthy if unsatisfactory arrangement as it allows him to provide a stable environment for the boy and the ready-made babysitter gives him time to go to meetings and try to earn some money.  Now, however, a still-using addict is living there, too.  Sheezus.

This is not always an easy process.  Sometimes we're in situations that don't have simple solutions.  This guy can't just bail out of the circumstances of his life because the drinking threatens his sobriety but if he drinks then the circumstances of his life worsen markedly.  Sometimes all I can do is empathize. I mean what do you say?  Get out of there and let your son fend for himself? 

It can be frustrating.