Al-Anon

Yup, it's been a long time since any of you have heard from me. It's been a long, strange road. This week, I took a very good friend of mine to rehab. That was after I took her to the ER because she was so drunk she tried, initially, to go up to the room she'd been in the month before for severe pancreatitis, and then she tried to triage herself. She was also very affectionate, which is neither here nor there except she does happen to be a lesbian, and I kept trying to tell the ER staff and security that her actual girlfriend was, in fact, on the way.

So, from ER to the local (crappy) rehab facility and then a few days til we were able to take her to a detox facility in TN that has a rehab/retreat facility that we intended her to attend. She's at her final rehab destination now, theoretically, and she seems way more ok with it than the rest of us are or could have even imagined that she would be.

But the real point of this blog is to say that Al-Anon saved me. It didn't save my life. Another friend, an ex, an almost inappropriate friend, helped save my life this summer, but Al-Anon saved ME.

This summer, the guy I've been seeing for the past (almost) three year and have had a serious, monogamous, real, Facebook official, head-over-heels in love type relationship with for the last two years and I broke up. He would say, and he wouldn't technically be wrong, that I broke up with him, but I would say that he left me because he didn't fight for me when I told him to leave. I have learned since then that that is unhealthy behavior. And insane.

There's been a lot the past three years. I knew I was in love with this man before we ever connected. I knew I was meant to be with this man the very first time we connected. And I know, every day, that this is the man God created for me and for whom God created me since shortly after that. So losing that was just not an option.

From the beginning, he told me he was an alcoholic (even though he's been sober for years). From the beginning, he encouraged me to go to Al-Anon (even though he's been sober for years). And from the beginning, I've resented this idea that I needed any kind of help (because he's been sober for years!).

But Al-Anon has saved me. It has saved me in so many ways that, today, I cannot get into the details about because I would go on and on and on and we don't have time for that today, but I will give you insights here and there along the way...

The point here is... My life is better. I'm even slightly less neurotic. And the most wonderful part is that I actually think I've helped someone else, and that's the most incredible thing I can ever do.

If someone you love is addicted to drugs or alcohol, and you feel like you're going crazy, or your friends are telling you you're crazy, or you feel out of control, find Al-Anon. It will help. Keep going back. It works if you work it.