Hard to do Scott, when you are a codependent. Hard for me to care about myself. I have never really done this.
Yet .... I am. Yet I feel so overwhlemingly for all of you. Funny, isn't it? I am an alcoholic, not a horrible one, by my own diagnosis, but certainly one, nonetheless.
If I could save the world, I would save it. If I could make my life perfect, I would have done it. If I could make my neighbor perfect ... he would be.
And everything I read here is so sad. I read this book I just got, read it in only about three days, "Broken," by William Cope Moyers, son of a "rich man," an influential man, nonetheless. Addicted? You bet. Addicted to crack cocaine and alcohol.
This changes us, you know. It actually changes your brain chemistry. It truly is a PHYSICAL addiction at some point, not just a choice.
Not something that is morally wrong. Not some big lapse in social inability, not a moral weakness, not just being a "schmuck."
Perhaps the reason I say this is because I have always thought this way. When my Dad was a drunk, "of course I would never be an alcoholic." Like him, yet I am.
And why the h*ll should I feel bad? I have hidden in the "shadows" of my addiction for too long. Felt, yes indeed, like a schmuck. Like there is something wrong with me. My friend, my "neighbor," like me associating with so and so made me a bad person.
And you know what? Maybe it doesn't. Just because society thinks I am bad because I have this big "flaw," doesn't mean I am that way.
And that leads me back to my neighbor. How can I cut off someone who I know (just like dear old Dad) is just like me and say they are not "good enough?" They are not worth knowing or associating with because I decide to get sober?
What right do I have to judge them and make them a parayia? (sp?) What right do I have to say I am "better than they are?" And walk away.
All I know is, whether I believe or not (still questionable) is that alcohol really does change your cells in your brain. You may not really be at fault for the addiction that you have.
Maybe I am not. Maybe I am not a "bad person" because of this disease.
Maybe, just maybe it is who I am.