Monday, February 1, 2010

Life Gives Us What We Need

Once in awhile my husband and I will watch an episode of "Intervention". Now in case you've never watched the show, it's a sort of reality series on A&E about people with drug and alcohol addictions. These addicts have usually hit rock bottom and are on a collision course with disaster. The addict is told they are being featured in a documentary about addiction (true) only at the end they are met with a room full of friends and family members and they face an intervention. They are offered free in-patient treatment and sometimes codependent, enabling family members are also offered treatment. It doesn't always have a happy ending. Sometimes they agree to treatment and succeed, but more often than not, they go to treatment and later relapse. I think it's very interesting that the codependent family members will usually turn down the offer for free treatment. That goes way back to Codependent 101 which says "I don't need help. It's THEM who has the problem, not ME!".

So the other night we ended up watching two episodes, back to back. We didn't set out to watch the show, we were just flipping channels and landed there. As it turned out, we both needed it.

This may sound strange to some people, but sometimes watching that show can be quite emotional and a little exhausting for the both of us. When I hear the way the addict manipulates and controls their family members, I get mad. When I see the hopelessness in the faces of the people who want so much to help, I get sad. When I see the ones who relapse and fail, I get a reality check. Tonight I want to focus on the first episode we watched.

There was a very sweet man about our age, who ultimately lost his wife and two children. Alcohol had consumed him. This was probably the most gut wrenching episode I've ever seen because the family was so "normal". They weren't white trash, they weren't dirty, they were a family just like mine. The worst part was when his 10 year old son cried and cried because he missed his dad. After a greuling intervention (the worst I've seen) the man agreed to go to rehab, where he stayed for 80 days. That was when he found out he had espophogeal cancer and they sent him home. He lived three weeks. Alcohol won that battle, it would appear.

Believe me when I say my husband and I were both sobbing when we saw the young son say that even though the intervention was a horrible experience, it was worth it because his dad did not die a drunk. He was sober when he died.

Alcoholism is a terrible disease. It ruins lives and it kills people. Sometimes people in recovery need to be reminded of that. At that particular time, my husband needed to see that episode. The next one would be for me.

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