I spent some time with a few friends on Saturday for a nice barbecue. While I was there, I was informed that one of the women I know in recovery is trying so very hard to save a few people from their addictions. I inquired further on how she was attempting to do this and was informed that she was essentially dragging people that are still active addicts to AA meetings. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years in my own recovery it’s the fact that the only person I can save from any addiction is myself.
Al-Anon was founded on this very principle. A very long time ago there was a woman named Lois Wilson who discovered that even with a lot of love and compassion, she couldn’t prevent her husband Bill from drinking. When Bill began the program of Alcoholics Anonymous with Dr. Bob Smith, she began organizing her own meetings with the wives of the husbands that Bill was trying to get sober with. It was during those meetings that the principles of Al-Anon were established.
Even though I had heard long before I ever went to my first Al-Anon meeting that I could only save myself from an addiction, it took me years of still trying to do so with active alcoholics and addicts to figure that out. The first person I was presented this lesson with was with my mother. No matter how hard I tried to love her, educate her, take her to a meeting, or get her to therapy, she refused all my attempts to helping her. She eventually died from her addiction. My sister did the same behaviors with my father to no avail as well. He too died from the disease. Over the years that passed once I found sobriety, I got into relationships with many people, all of whom suffered from some form of an addiction. With each, I did my best to try to save them from their living hell. Some of them I repeated the same behaviors that I did with my mother. Like my mother, none of them ever got better either. Some of them I even tried to pay off much of their debts thinking that would help. Within a short amount of time they were back in debt again and just as sick from their addictions, if not worse. The list goes on of the amount of people I exerted tons and tons of effort on to try to get them on a path of recovery from their own addictions. I was never successful with any of them.
The sad reality for anyone that suffers from an addiction is that their only hope for recovery from their disease comes from when they are truly ready and willing to do the work to heal. Many people back in my college days tried their best to show me how much of an alcoholic and addict I really was. I just scoffed at them and continued on my tragic ways. During many of my sobriety years I was also severely addicted and codependent on most of the men I chased after and got into relationships with. So many tried to get me to see this as well. I only ignored those people’s attempts and continued to do what I felt was best for me, which at the time was to stay in those addictions.
It took me hitting rock bottom with every addiction I ever suffered from to seek the path of recovery from it. I had a rock bottom with alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, sex, love, caffeine, chocolate, and a bunch of other things too. For all those people that tried to intervene and save me from any one of them, the only thing they were successful in doing was prolonging the inevitable. Sometimes the best thing for someone to do that is trying to help an active addict is to walk out of their lives and detach with love so that they can spiral downward and hit their rock bottom all on their own. Trying to fix an addict’s messes or pamper them with a lot of love and compassion even when they are terribly mean does nothing other than keep them thinking what their doing is ok.
After too many years of ups and downs, vast amounts of dollars lost, and a lot of headaches and heartaches, I finally realized I couldn’t save anyone except myself. The best thing I do today for those still suffering from any addiction is to keep myself open to helping them if they may ever approach me for it. And until they do, I know the only other thing I can do is pray to God that they may hit their rock bottom without dying from their addictions like my parent’s did. It is only at rock bottom where anyone can truly begin to find their way to recovery, just like I and so many others have already done.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson