Let me say how much I appreciate all your support and helpful comments. In a way you have become my family out there. You know, I have come to realize that there is often a kernel of truth in even the most outrageous things. She called me "selfish", "pig headed", thinking only of myself. In my drinking years, long ago, I was often that way. Anyone who has this illness tends to be so. It's the alcohol. The body wants it to continue. Needs it to self medicate when the times get tough or even when you feel you need some kind of reward. That's "pig headed", "selfish". And shameful. Yes, we're experts in shame, guilt. We've been there, done that. My wife said she was told the sermon this morning (we didn't attend the service) was about being thankful not only for the good things but also for the hard times we've sometimes had, because the hard times teach us something. Wisdom comes from suffering as the Greeks would say. So we've got a lot to be thankful for because we've suffered. My God (!) how we've suffered and how we've made other people suffer! We've seen the slow decay of self respect, and lived with shame and guilt, if one could call that living. We've seen our very souls corrode and decay.And at times we've seen disaster staring us right in the face and sought refuge in a bottle.
So, knowing nothing of where I've been, of who I am, she was right in a way. I came home, shaking all over, took a beta blocker pill like my doctor said, almost burned a pot making soup and now I feel a little better. Tomorrow we shall have sunshine. Thanksgiving is over.
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"He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our despair, against our own will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God."
Aeschylus-lines 179-182 of the Agamemnon,
W.