My poor dad, God bless him, died from early onset, atypical dementia. He deteriorated over the course of 12 years as his brain gradually degenerated. Early onset, atypical Dementia? Lol. Um, no. My Dad was a very sad, broken, severely depressed, dry alcoholic whose spiritual malady began to manifest organically as his brain turned on itself.
What’s the point, you may ask? The point is that whether we are alcoholics or addicts, whether we are parents or spouses, or whether we are just human beings living on earth, we are all faced with the same question:
Are we going to give up?
Really, what could possibly be gained from giving up?
If you’re in the middle of hell, why turn around? There is nothing to be gained by turning back and everything to be gained if we keep going. The lesson my dad taught me was to never give up. He gave up and lived the last ten years of his life in a piss-reeking facility in Belmont, Massachusetts, staring at his navel all day long while shitting his pants and taking out the nursing staff with the most horrendous sewer breath ever known to man.
Trust me, you don’t want to go out that way.
So don’t ever give up on yourself. You can love addicts from a distance by fighting for yourself, for your own soul, and by finding your own strength and wisdom and serenity. Don’t let anything or anyone take you out.
If you do, it is nobody’s fault but your own.
Also see, Never Give Up & Befriend the Darkness.
P.S. I have tons of old posts I never published. They only take a few minutes so I usually write several at a time and then post one of them. What should I do? Publish them? My only hesitation is that they’re old, you know, like, old energetically… but then again, they might be something for you to read while I finish the book…
God, please fill me up today with your wisdom, strength, power and grace…