Live and let die

Sometimes I get surges of energy, and go on a super organizing binge. Today I have been working on documents, just (mostly blank) journals and loose-leaf notes that I stashed away. And I came across a beautiful card that my former sponsee gave to me exactly six months ago on my two year anniversary. She gave me three cards, one was more like a joke card, and another the morning Big Book study group signed.

The last one was so heart-felt, it was amazing just how much so. The cards themselves were also very impressive: they were definitely not from your general gift/card shop! I remember saying to her, how on earth did you find these? And she said, "I take cards and such very seriously." It brought me such pleasure to read that.

A few months ago, she started acting very impulsively. Later her former sponsor, whom she felt pressure to move on from because she had about one month more of sobriety than her guide, said that she was never really sober with all of the medications she was taking, like the pain-killers and the clonazepams. But I beg to differ. To say that someone isn't sober because of taking medication as prescribed by a doctor is as disingenuous as writing-off a failing member as someone who has "outside issues", and therefore can't be helped by the step work. 

I truly believe that she never meant to relapse, but it was that something so dark finally got her. I knew that a slip was tapping her on the shoulder constantly, and finally she turned around and gave in. But she tried. At times she would recognize that my direction was truth, even if she couldn't or wouldn't follow it. And she called me and told me reckless actions that she would be planning to do, as though it was a cry for help. I would implore her to stop, that her actions would only take her back out, but she wouldn't listen, she just couldn't. The pain that she put herself into was more than she could take sober. And when she said that her husband bought tickets for a vacation in the tropics, what could I do? She was so far removed from any support system, she didn't stand a chance.

She would return an active alcoholic, and she would blame me and find a new sponsor. And I would blame myself. That if I was more strict, that if I didn't put our friendship before our step work, that if I wasn't weakened when my crush dated someone else, that if, that if, that if.....

Today I couldn't even read the card. I ripped it up and I threw it out. In it she wrote that I understood her better than anyone, that she could tell me anything and know that I could be trusted, and that God had "great things planned for us."

Did God plan her relapse? I genuinely think not. I believe that we are the masters of our own destinies, that we have the power of choice, once we start to do the work. I believe that I developed the power of choice after I did a thorough fifth step. 

I truly believe in the program. I believe that the grace of God gets us into the rooms, but that when we do the legwork we become empowered to choose good over evil. And I truly believe that even those too who have grave emotional and mental disorders can recover, if they have the capacity to be honest (58). 

My heart breaks for this unfortunate, and for myself losing the first real friend I've had in years. I really think she might die from this disease. I just don't understand her sickness, how it is so severe and how phony she is. But alcohol is a subtle foe, and it's not for me to take her inventory. Let her be judged by her actions, let God be the Judge. Let her live and let die.