Corking the Bottle

"Drinking: Suicide for the faint of heart." I watched a movie early this morning called Infamous . It's about Truman Capote's interviews with the murderers of the Clutter family, the basis of the book and movie, In Cold Blood . Capote told killer Perry Smith about his childhood and the suicide of his mother, who took an overdose of pills. Smith said he lost his mother to suicide as well, but her death was from alcohol abuse. "Drinking: Suicide for the faint of heart," Capote said softly. How true! When we drink too much and too often in an attempt to kill some pain, we share a link with someone who commits suicide with pills, a gun, a slash to the wrists, or a leap from a bridge. It's all suicide. But suicide by drinking -- that's the slow, painful way out for the faint of heart.

The desire to live is instinctive. The mass shootings that have become so prevalent leave people diving for cover and spending years healing from the terror. Birds at my feeder out front fly away from me quickly, even though I am the one who lovingly fills their feeder every few days. Instincts tell them people are a threat to their well-being and even to their lives. Drinking alcohol excessively is a threat to our well-being and to our lives. Yet many persist. Some of us eventually sense the danger and fly away. For others, drinking is a way of life -- and of death. Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (12 & 12) describes this contradiction: "When men and women pour so much alcohol into themselves that they destroy their lives, they commit a most unnatural act. Defying their instinctive desire for self-preservation, they seem bent upon self-destruction. They work against their own deepest instinct. As they are humbled by the tremendous beating administered by alcohol, th...

A 10-year-old boy in Louisville committed suicide last week. Apparently he couldn't stand the bullying and saw no other escape. Many with substance abuse problems feel the same way. Alcohol and drugs bully them to the point where they no longer can stand the misery. This was posted to Facebook: The Alcoholic Next Door  shared a  post . Yesterday at 7:35 AM  ·  I'll never forget the first time I actually thought about killing myself. That is a really dark place to be. Alcohol and drugs are powerful and they can really take your mind and body to places you never imagined. I remember feeling really trapped. I didn't want to stop drinking but everything in my life was telling me I needed help. I couldn't process what to do and I'll never forget that thought coming through my head of... maybe it would just be easier if I killed mys elf. Man that's messed up. It's in these moments when you realize how powerful the mind...

I hope this series of blog posts will enable you to recognize some symptoms of relapse. I meant well and tried hard, but I kept relapsing anyway. There was often a nagging little voice telling me to go ahead and try a drink. Maybe this series of blog posts will help you or a loved one break out of the relapse pattern sooner and easier than I did. Terence T. Gorski, co-author of  Staying Sober , identified 11 phases of relapse in his book Staying Sober ( https://www.amazon.com/Terence-T.-Gorski/e/B001JSA9K8 ). I hope you will find this series helpful enough to review again and again -- at once or in parts. An idea might be to checkmark symptoms in the 11 phases to see if you or a loved one is in danger of relapsing. Then take action. Gorski's research involved 118 recovering patients who had four things in common: They completed a 21- or 28-day rehab program; They recognized they could never again safely use alcohol; They intended to remain sober forever through A.A. and ou...