I know, I know. Here I go again, but when you love someone who struggles with addiction you are on their ride, and when you follow this blog, you’re a guest rider. One minute things are okay, the next you’re blogging about contradictory and confusing feelings as you ride the hill back down….again. Regardless of how I feel, I won’t let myself forget how it must feel for them, but for me it has started to feel like the good times, the calm times, or sober windows, are just one ski lift ride away from the next downhill race.
It’s hard to not start believing that maybe, this is just the way things will continue for the next fifteen years.
Do you believe that some people will never change?
Do you believe some people can’t change or maybe it is that they simply don’t want to?
I was a person who people often spoke of as being inherently fucked up; a person who a lot of people assumed would “never get her shit together.” Here I am, and my shit’s still not together. I am sober, happy, healthy, and alive, but I find a lot of comfort in knowing that your shit isn’t together either. Really, if we are honest, we are all messy and complex beings. None of us know what we are doing. Although, years ago I would have most certainly bet against myself if someone would have asked me if I thought I would ever lead a stable or healthy life and here we are.
So, of course, I am a die-hard believer in people. I know people can and do change. They do it all the time. I know a lot of these kinds of people. They are everywhere.
Trust me.
Or the hashtag #recoveryposse….
Or the annual She Recovers conventions….
Or the documentaries chronicling thousands, even millions who have changed…
So, can people change? Hard yes.
Does everyone want to change? No.
Are there people who want change, but can’t? Yes.
Admittedly this is where I find myself really struggling with why.
I know that some people simply don’t want to change, and that is their decision. I get it.
But then we all know people who have tried. Dozens and dozens of times. What about the people who are tired, who are spiritually depleted, who are emotionally exhausted, and physically beaten down, but still continue on the path of destruction and isolation, despite feeling desperate for freedom? The people ensnared by the grips of active addiction?
What then?
What about them?
Why don’t they respond to treatment or interventions or love or help?
Why?
Why do some of us die with seeping, open wounds enslaved to the things we hate?
Why are some of us free, but still fully aware of the blessing of our freedom from the chains?
When you love someone or know someone who is still struggling it is really hard to face the realities of this dark monstrous disorder.
Sometimes, you have to consider that while recovery is possible for anyone and everyone, we also have to consider that there are people who don’t get to experience the gift of recovery.
We won’t get a logical explanation as to why.
Sometimes we have to consider that a person we love will fight, struggle, maybe win a few battles, but ultimately lose the war. They won’t ever fully know what it feels like to be free here on this earth.
We won’t get to know why.
Do I believe that my loved one wants to change?
Absolutely.
I have heard them talk about it extensively.
I have listened to hopes, dreams, goals, worries, and their regret.
I have looked into sober, tired, eyes of a person who really doesn’t know what to do next or who to be next.
I believe they think that they can’t hack it or that they aren’t worth it, or that they don’t deserve it, and I hate that for them.
Often being bogged down by deeply rooted shame and a disbelief in our own capabilities is what is keeps change just out of our grasp.
It keeps us from embracing the unknown in a world that we don’t feel like we belong in but we want to know about so badly.
Nothing inside of me wants to believe that my loved one will suffer a fate that so many other loving, caring, amazing, souls who ultimately lost the war waged within them.
It’s a really odd place to be, accepting that someone might not ever be able to rest. While I will always hold onto hope and cling to the idea that change is always possible for anyone who is still breathing, I am finding that I also have to face the possibility that a person I love might not make it. Or maybe it will be that they won’t die prematurely from it. Maybe they will continue to cycle through over and over and over again until they reach an old age.
Either way, that isn’t living. There isn’t peace there. No rest. Nothing real.
I know in my heart that doesn’t mean that they don’t want it. I know that won’t mean that they didn’t try. I know that it won’t be a reflection of their worth or how deserving they were. It is just something I will have to accept and a question of why I won’t have an answer to.
Just reflecting. It is hard to stuff these thoughts and feelings inside.
I know a lot of you out there understand where I am coming from, and I really appreciate your love and support.
If you are reading this and you are struggling, please know and believe that I am rooting for you, and I want you to know that it is never too late to begin again.
I mean that. It doesn’t matter if you are twenty, fifty, or beyond. I am always here if you need me and I will do what I can to help.