Dear Cary,
Recently -- within the past couple of months -- I went on a search to find my father. I can count how many times I've seen him in my life and it's only a handful. He's been an alcoholic his whole life and has been in and out of prison.
One of the main reasons for my search was to find my sister that I never met. So I finally reached his cousin, then his sister, then him. When I talked to his sister she said he's living in a homeless treatment facility. So I had to call and leave messages and then he would call me back. We started talking more and more. At first it was a little strange and uncomfortable because I didn't know how to respond or what to talk about, but somewhere within me, I felt something I never felt before. It was like a little space within was filling.
During this time I was having car problems. I actually had one car in the shop and borrowed my grandmother's extra truck and it broke down too. So my dad had experience fixing cars so he volunteered to fix the truck. I went and picked him up and he met one of my daughters (the other one was at her dad's) and he stayed the night and fixed the car the next day. We had a pretty good day. We had a good dinner, and overall good visit. Besides the fact he was hitting on my friends, which was weird and creepy LOL.
But anyway, we continued to talk on the phone more and more. One mistake I made was offering to let him stay at my house when he was done with his treatment. So after a couple of weeks go by the place he was staying at moved his job to a different facility. That's when he came to me and said he would rather stay with me. He said, "I am just getting further from you." Well, I had already offered but knew it was too soon, so I said, "OK, when do you want me to pick you up?" It was like a day or two. Then I went after work to pick him up.
He was with some of his friends he must have met and was completely drunk, not just a little drunk but can't-walk-straight drunk. I was furious. I was so angry that he did that, and I couldn't believe my other daughter was waiting at home to meet him and was so excited and here I have this drunk grandpa? Different things were going through my mind, like how could he do this? How could he do this to my kids? So I said to him, "So you're drunk?" He said, "No, I just had a beer." I said, "NO, you are drunk." He said, "Well, I don't have to be."
I was angry. He went behind a building and I left him there. I felt like punching him. So I went home and thought about why I was so angry. One reason is because that's what he chose his whole life over me. Drinking is the reason I didn't have a dad. So I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that he met us and then still chose to do that. He didn't think to himself, Look at what I've been missing out on.
I figured he would just go back to his facility and maybe call me when he was sober and I haven't talked to him. I left a couple of messages and he hasn't returned my call. I called the facility yesterday and a guy told me that he never came back and he's living on the streets and he's always drunk. Now, in some twisted way, I feel bad. I don't think I should but I do. Should I go find him and try to help him? What should I do?
R
Dear R,
Here I am writing about alcoholism again.
Outrage and sadness arrive fresh daily. How could anyone get used to news in a letter such as yours? How could anyone be unmoved by this tale? How could anyone shrug it off?
There is always hope. But hope is a kind of torture. It deprives us of a tidy exit. It will not let us turn our backs.
He can always try again. Chances are, he will. No matter how many times he goes back to drinking, he can always walk into an AA meeting and be welcome there. Men sometimes try 10, 15, 20 times, drinking, sober, drinking, sober, in and out. The doors of AA are always open to anyone who wants to quit drinking. You don't have to be sober to go there, or clean, or employed, or even awake.
Your father has hurt you deeply. He has not behaved well. He has spent time in prison. Many alcoholics have done this. Yet when we hear their stories, we do not hear the voices of criminals. We do not hear the voices of unfeeling psychopaths. We hear frightened, lonely voices; we hear the voices of small children afraid of the world and uncertain how to proceed. We hear the voices of people who got trapped in something they didn't understand and could not escape, who spent years in agonized struggle against an enemy that kept defeating them through trickery and brute force. We hear the voices of people who wanted to do the right thing, who were drawn to feelings of happiness and contentment, the esteem of their comrades, joy, laughter, ease, success, comfort, fulfillment. But something went wrong.
It tears you up. There's no way around that. And again and again the thought that comes to mind is, We should do something about this! What might that be? Is there anything we can do?
If we are drunks who have recovered, we can do things. We can spend more time in the world of wet drunks, salvaging whom we can. Yes, we can do that. And perhaps part of my outrage is my private knowledge that I am not doing enough, that I could do more. It is difficult work picking drunks up and trying to get them sober. There is no guarantee of success. But what is our outrage for if not to spur us into action?
And what can you do? That's another good question. I wonder if it might help you to work as a volunteer to help other alcoholic men who have lost everything.
How do you arrive at the truth that is big enough and bright enough that you decide to take action? Might this moment be an instance in which your own outrage spurs you to some kind of social action? What if it were possible for you to spare some other son or daughter your particular grief? What if you could help someone else's father sober up and get off the streets? Might that give your soul some cherished respite? Might it bring some feeling of justice to this bleak scene?
We know what we can do and what we cannot do. We can make ourselves available to individuals and to social service agencies to bring a little comfort and possibly recovery to the many alcoholic men and women who live and die on our streets every day. We can learn as much as possible about the effects of alcoholism and take steps where possible to avert its bloom in those who can still turn back. We can advocate for more resources for those agencies and group that seem to have some success. We can advocate for more research into the medical aspects.
What we cannot do is cure it the way we cure an infection with antibiotics, or the way we set a bone so it will heal straight and be as strong as it was before. Perhaps one day a sure cure will be found. Until then, our methods are the well-known ones: the 12 Steps, rehabilitation facilities, medical interventions, psychotherapy, harm reduction, etc.
Alcoholism, like cancer, remains mysterious and resistant.
I'm going on a bit. I know that. I am speaking my own opinions. I am speaking my own outrage born of compassion for you and what you have had to suffer. It makes me mad. It makes me mad and I wish I could fix it. I wish I could take you in my arms and make it better. I wish I could clean up your dad, put him in a suit and send him home to rest up for a few weeks before taking on a new job on the railroad, or in construction, or as a scientist or labor representative or clerical worker or insurance man or mechanic or ship's mate or any of a million other roles the world has waiting, even in a time of high unemployment.
I wish I could fix it but I can't. So it makes me angry. The world shouldn't be like this.
But it is.
So do this for me: Seek solace in those around you. Cry when you need to. Admit that it makes you angry and cry at the gods when you need to. If it helps you to go out and work as a volunteer so that this story is not repeated more often than it has to be, then do so.
One last thing: Embrace this. This is not merely a bad thing that happened to your otherwise perfect life. It is in fact your story. It is what your life is about. It will bring you strength if you face it and allow it to shape your future. So carry it proudly. You are part of a world of people who have seen this and know what it is like, and it is possible, I swear it is possible, to draw strength from this.
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