HOW COULD HE?
My name is Paul and I’m an alcoholic. Those words were the key to a new freedom and a new happiness for me. I gratefully accepting the help I was given by other recovering drunks and took them at their word when they told me I could never drink like other people. The wagon was the only reliable option. You’re taught that right away.
Old Timer: “Fact. The first drink gets you drunk.”
Newcomer: “Uh, okay. Whaddaya mean?”
Old Timer: ” Well think of booze as a deadly train. Ya see, the first drink is the engine and the last drink is the caboose. You’re already dead by the time the caboose runs over you.”
It’s a good analogy. The cowcatcher splats your sobriety all over the walls of the bar, a window breaks in your psyche somewhere and clarity flies out. All that passion for recovery gone in a heartbeat. All that desperate, “I swear I will never do this again if you’ll just let me live.” deal making with the Lord vanishes with the first sip. Because the first sip demands another. Even after twenty-three years.
The hard cold facts of life remain the same. No matter how many times you’ve shared your story, worked your program, thanked the almighty for the extra innings, if you use you lose. Even if you’re earned a certificate in drug counseling, lectured on substance abuse, served on the board of directors of some high muckety muck council of enlightened leaders of the plug in the jug brigade. No matter how many decades you’ve been sober, the rules of the game haven’t changed. For some of us to drink is to die.
You take that first drink and a second looks pretty good. In fact if you’re an alcoholic it’s a must. As for me, I’d be looking for cocaine by the second beer. The phenomena of craving would grab the steering wheel and we’d be off on an adventure that couldn’t possibly end well.
That’s why abstinence is mandatory for people like me. That’s why powerful painkillers like oxycodone are a bad idea for recovering heroin addicts
But they take them. Doctors prescribe them. And for the most part you can’t blame the medical profession. The responsibility is ours.
The amazing thing is that the brightest, most creative, loving and logical people in the world will take that drink. Pop that painkiller. Will ignore their children, careers, countless blessings, walk into a bar and order the drink that’s going to kill them.
I can’t tell you why. I’m sorry. I wish I could. We’re not bad people. We have a disease. A primary, fatal, progressive disease. The cliché is that it’s doing push ups every day we’re sober. My addiction is waiting for me to step into the ring one more time. If I do, booze will kick my ass again.
One drink? Have one and then quit? My sober guide used to tell non-alcoholics an easy way to understand what it’s like to be a drunk trying not to have that second drink. Jerry would suggest, “Take a double dose of laxative and then decide not to have a bowel movement. Let’s see what good your will power does you.”
Addiction is cunning, baffling and powerful. The miracle is that millions of us are recovering. Don’t be astonished when an addict dies. And don’t judge him.
We’ve all been deeply saddened by the death of a remarkable man. A genius. Someone who, for twenty-three years, spoke openly and passionately about his recovery. I’d bet he would go anywhere to share his story if he thought it might help another to recover. It’s the only thing that’s asked of us. We get to keep the miracle by giving it away.
He dove into his art with pure passion. Some say he used the sadness, terrors, and deep pain he’d lived with to color his characters. He worked in ways that made us want nothing more than to see him do it again. That’s gone now.
I never met Phillip Seymour Hoffman. But I knew him. For double decades he enjoyed a freedom he would have found difficult to explain. How do you describe such grace when for years you’ve been unable to make it through a day without a drink or a drug? A day? Hell, an hour. I’m told he loved his sober life and I would think he understood that the demons could rip that from him if he slipped.
Did pills lead him back to the bottle? Or was it the other way around? A drink must have sounded really good. The pressure was building up and what harm could a beer do? That’s the insanity of addiction. He thought he’d have just one. They say he tried to order half of one. And in the end it was heroin.
The substance that killed him isn’t important. That’s not what we should be talking about. The loss of someone so remarkable and bright has turned the public eye on addiction. Let’s use the terrible tragedy as an opportunity to speak up for treatment and education. Jail doesn’t get anybody healthy. Drug court can. And long term, structured rehabilitation.
If you’re “one of us” raise your coffee cup or diet coke and salute his years of sobriety, and his deeds of love and service. Recommit to your own recovery. If you catch yourself staring at that Budweiser sign … Call your sponsor.
Here’s to you, Phil H. We never met but you were a brother. Thank you for all the beauty you brought to the dance. You’ll be missed.
Respectfully, Paul W.
Paul Williams is a singer, songwriter, actor, recovery advocate and has been a fixture on the American cultural scene since the seventies. His book Gratitude and Trust is now available.