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Hi everyone, I know I don't post often anymore, but I still read your posts at least daily (and sometimes twice daily). My life has been amazingly better and my AH has been in recovery for almost a year now. His sobriety date is the 11th, so we are almost there.
When he was in the worst place imaginable for him with his alcoholism, he reached out to a man I knew from work, who had agreed to help him if he should reach out on his on. I simply provided the name and he did not make the contact until several months after I gave it.
This man had been in AA for many, many years. He had an issue though with relapse on occasion and very freely admitted that when he had a relapse, he could not stop and always had to go "off" to detox to get straight.
When my husband reached out, he was in very very bad shape. This gentleman met him at a location and just talked to him. Then he went with him to a meeting at a spot to which he did not usually go. For several weeks or even months, he took the time to check on my husband regularly and helped him acclimate into his home AA group. It even turned out that they eventually had the same sponsor.
Though ever thankful for his help, this gentleman and my husband were not the kind of men who found companionship easy with each other because their personalities were just so different. They genuinely liked each other and were quite companionable, but not close friends in the way you would imagine.
Yesterday, my husband advised me he was going to try very hard to make it home in time to go to a meeting (he travels weekly) and just as he came in, he told me he had received a phone call from his sponsor. The gentleman who had offered him help and a chance at living in sobriety had called the police and told them to come get him so his family would not find him, then hung up the phone and shot himself (resulting in his death). It is all so very sad to me!
This is the man who gave of himself to help another alcoholic come to recovery, yet he could stand living with himself no longer. I do not know his specific reasons for doing what he did. He had been absent from many meetings and I know my husband had reached out to him several times. I know he had reached his retirement and was finally reaping the rewards of a long and arduous career, was very much loved by his wife, who had divorced him one time due to alcoholism, but remarried him later when he was in solid recovery. I know he loved her, his children, and his grandchildren to distraction. This I know because he shared it with me personally. I feel so for these people, yet I have never met them.
I do not even know how to respond to such a thing. I realize he was somehow lost. I also realize he must have felt things were just too hard to try again, but I am so saddened by this event that I can't get it out of my head.
Please don't feel for me in this situation, it is for his family I ask for prayer, and for the many many people he must have been able to influence by his willingness to help others find the recovery he simply could not maintain for himself.
For those who don't believe alcoholism is fatal, this is but one example of exactly how fatal it is. He was well liked in the community, lived a very comfortable lifestyle with a lovely, large family and yet he could not save himself from this disease and from the very issues that drove him to take his own life rather than to face another day.
Alcoholism is deadly and is no joke. It kills every day, be it on the highways, in our homes, or by our own hands. I pray for peace for those who knew this man and for him to be remembered not for taking his own life, but for the life he gave to others by bringing them the gift of AA.
-- Edited by Doingmybest on Thursday 31st of March 2016 09:05:27 AM
It's lovely that you've honored his memory and appreciated the service he gave to your husband and others. It sounds as though his life touched many people in a positive way.
I hope everyone involved will recover from this tragedy and find hope again.
I'm also glad to hear that things have been otherwise positive for your family.
(((doingmybest)))
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If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see? (Lewis Caroll)
((DoingmyBest))) This is indeed a dreadful disease that can be arrested but never cured.The positive aspect of this life experience,to me, is that this man was able to use his program to point the way for others to find recovery, as he did. His final actions are a painful reminder that this is indeed a one day at a time program that must be supported by using tools and attending meetings. His painful example may serve as a deterrent to others who may be considering lessening their program.
(((Doingmybest))) - in times like this, I used to dwell on the why. I no longer do, I just have to trust that no matter how awful, ugly, painful the reality is, God has a bigger plan.
As one who has been around recovery a long while, this happens more often than I wish. In my area, we've lost 6 to suicide just this year. It happens and it's well beyond anything I can/could ever, ever understand.
Prayers for peace for all involved. Healing thoughts sent your way!
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Practice the PAUSE...Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you are about to react harshly and you will avoid doing and saying things you will later regret. ~~~~ Lori Deschene
Hi doing my best this is the reality of alcoholism it can be fatal. My ABF who I am seperated from has been in and out of recovery. When drinking he is not there when dry he is not there alcoholism is when he found a hp and worked the programme steps sponsor it was his medicine and he was here. I could not do this for him. Today I have a sponsor I am doing the steps and I do my spiritual work every day prayer and mediation I am awake I am here but if I stop I become mentally ill absent this is alcoholisms affect on me.
Mt ex is not in recovery I am letting go and letting god changing the things I can. I am worried for my ex but powerless it's so painful my heart and prayers go out to him and his family hugs Tracy xxx
Hi all. My hubby came home from his meeting tonight with some additional information. Of course, all is always rumor because none of us were actually there.
Apparently he had been considering this for a couple of weeks and wrote letters to his grandsons and then made the call to the deputy. While they were in route, he shot himself in the chest (which doesn't surprise me simply because alcoholics are often very conscious of their faces and also because he was in criminal justice employment for so many years). Shooting himself in the chest was the quickest way in his own mind I am sure.
Visitation was apparently today and the funeral is tomorrow. It is just so sad and yet so surreal. It sickens me to think that he could think of no other way out.
In the last two weeks, my best friend's husband has nearly died (likely overdose on meds), a other friend of hers did overdose and was thankfully resuscitated, this man has died with alcoholism and possible drug addiction, and another lady here in our small town has overdosed as well. She had just finished her RN degree and for some reason she and her husband split up. She loved him desperately and became overwhelmed. It is just horrible that so many people are embroiled in addiction and can find no way out.
I thank God that my husband has found AA and that I have found AlAnon as well. Without these programs, I simply do not know where we would be by now.
Peace to each and every one here. You are not alone and we are all in this together. Please don't give up on yourselves or the people who love you (or who you love). You may certainly need to detach and even to remove yourself and/or your children from the far reaching arms of this disease, but know we are all right here with you and everyone here feels your pain.
Great examples of the truth of this disease--- It is progressive and fatal. Alanon has given me the tools to face life with courage, serenity and wisdom, without projecting to the future but with acceptance of life on life's terms.
This is how my AH's dad died. And probably why I am here now - first day here.
He planned his funeral, paid for cremation, and killed himself. Called the police to come find him before the kids did. My husband was an 'adult' when this happened at 23 years old, but I'm sure you all can relate that once you hit 18 you think you're an adult. As time goes by you realize, I wasn't an adult at 23, 33, 43, etc.. You are constantly learning, falling, getting up, and doing it all over again.
I am so sorry that this was your experience. It's awful to think that this could be any one of our stories...
