One of my closest friends has been battling addiction to crack over the past three years. His other drug of choice is alcohol. Bill has been in and out of rehab and has been unable to remain sober for longer than 90 days. Mostly he manages four to six weeks sober between multi-day binges. It has been a progressive spiral downward.
On Saturday, I got a phone call from his sister. She was with the extended family for Thanksgiving. Bill was threatening suicide. He hadn't made it to the gathering, binging on crack that weekend instead. The family was three hours away and Bill's sister asked me to make sure he checked into a local hospital's psych ward, something he'd agreed to do over the phone. I went over to his house, and without much difficulty, we went to the hospital.
By Tuesday, he was out, with a change of his anti-depressant medication and a great attitude. That afternoon he was my friend of old. I bought him a tank of gas and a shopping cart of food - he's completely broke - and thought maybe there was hope. Before the night was up, he was back on crack, going off the radar until this morning. He resurfaced, depressed.
This afternoon he called me, furious. His ex-wife had received sole custody of their five children. Three of them are under six years old. There is no question Bill is currently an unfit parent and his ex-wife needs to take care of the kids. When sober, he's a great dad, but not now. Through the phone calls, he just spit venom, mostly toward himself, his ex-wife and the world in general. He hung up on me twice. In one of the phone calls, I didn't get to say a single word. He is completely out of control.
I'm done. I see now that I was an enabler of his addiction on Tuesday, helping him not take responsibility for his life for another day. I can't talk to him. The stress on me is just too much. Bill and his addiction has dominated my life recently and I need to stay away to keep myself healthy.
I may not see him alive again. I hope he finds the bottom of his addiction and gets help before he kills himself, most likely because of the drug use. In the past three years he has had testicular cancer, Bell's palsy and meningitis, among other ailments. I know it's his body giving up. He says he can hear his heart racing when he's on crack. There is also the chance he will intentionally kill himself first, but my intervention Saturday did no good. It's less than a week later and he's in worse shape than before.
I have resigned myself to speaking fondly of Bill at his funeral.
On Saturday, I got a phone call from his sister. She was with the extended family for Thanksgiving. Bill was threatening suicide. He hadn't made it to the gathering, binging on crack that weekend instead. The family was three hours away and Bill's sister asked me to make sure he checked into a local hospital's psych ward, something he'd agreed to do over the phone. I went over to his house, and without much difficulty, we went to the hospital.
By Tuesday, he was out, with a change of his anti-depressant medication and a great attitude. That afternoon he was my friend of old. I bought him a tank of gas and a shopping cart of food - he's completely broke - and thought maybe there was hope. Before the night was up, he was back on crack, going off the radar until this morning. He resurfaced, depressed.
This afternoon he called me, furious. His ex-wife had received sole custody of their five children. Three of them are under six years old. There is no question Bill is currently an unfit parent and his ex-wife needs to take care of the kids. When sober, he's a great dad, but not now. Through the phone calls, he just spit venom, mostly toward himself, his ex-wife and the world in general. He hung up on me twice. In one of the phone calls, I didn't get to say a single word. He is completely out of control.
I'm done. I see now that I was an enabler of his addiction on Tuesday, helping him not take responsibility for his life for another day. I can't talk to him. The stress on me is just too much. Bill and his addiction has dominated my life recently and I need to stay away to keep myself healthy.
I may not see him alive again. I hope he finds the bottom of his addiction and gets help before he kills himself, most likely because of the drug use. In the past three years he has had testicular cancer, Bell's palsy and meningitis, among other ailments. I know it's his body giving up. He says he can hear his heart racing when he's on crack. There is also the chance he will intentionally kill himself first, but my intervention Saturday did no good. It's less than a week later and he's in worse shape than before.
I have resigned myself to speaking fondly of Bill at his funeral.
