But it feels like a big deal....

I just feel the only power I have is setting a good example.
Geri Halliwell

Sigh...saying "it is no big deal" , I am discovering, is a heck of a lot different than "feeling" like it is no big deal.  My 'charge' made his choice this morning as I stood in the doorway pleading with him.  He turned and walked away from the little I could offer him. And it felt like a "very big deal."

I can stay calm and centered in the most trying of situations.  Yesterday, for example, D. had an accident taking the lawn tractor off the back of the truck, sustaining an injury that could have used at least a half dozen sutures. He came to the door bleeding heavily over everything.  His shoes were literally full of blood.  I saw the amount of bleeding and instead of panicking,  I zipped into presence without even so much as a conscious breath.  I calmly assessed and  organized the emergency treatment and within ten minutes everything was stopped and cleaned up  without a trace of blood anywhere. (He refused to go for sutures or a tetanus  so we may have to deal with an infection in the future which is another story lol.  [And it is all story :)])

I didn't stay calm this morning, however.  Even though I have been conceptualizing the possibility of this, I felt like someone punched me in the stomach and my mind just pulled me into story so fast.  "He is going to die.  He is choosing death.  Why is he doing this to himself...to all of us who sat by his bedside for three months? Poor him, poor D. and poor 'me.'" I went from 'poor me' to 'bad me' very quickly. " I didn't do enough.  I didn't say the right thing.  I didn't do the right thing.  I shoulda...We could of...etc etc etc"  I slipped away from calm presence and I reacted.

Watching addiction take those I care about away is an ego trigger for me.  I have watched it so many times, and it doesn't get easier. I try to fix it .  I try to control it.  I realize I can't. I lose it.  Sometimes I watch as the people I love come back from it and sometimes I watch as they don't. And it has absolutely nothing to do with me!

I feel more  powerless and more  helpless to addiction than I do to anything else in 'my' life, I think.  Even when my body is bent over, when the chest pain is taking my breath away I still feel I have some control or at least more than I do here.

  I guess addiction is one of my greatest teachers. That is why it keeps showing up in my life through other people.  So I can watch it maybe, observe it...Man...that sound so crazy.  As if I am saying everyone suffers that tremendous strangling effect just to teach me something.  That is not what I mean.

I just mean I am meant to observe it and learn from it...for whatever reason.  What am I learning?  That I know absolutely nothing when it comes to witnessing this level of unconsciousness in others.  I don't know what to say.  I don't know what to do.  I do not know what is the best approach and do not know what is the worse.  I am no help and thankfully I am no hindrance to recovering the life of the addicted. I must do as I tell them they must do...surrender to it and leave it all up to God.  I have to get out of the way.

Hmmm!  I pray and I hope.  That is all I an do besides work on my own consciousness.  If I can attain and maintain sober, substance or habitual behavior free peace in my own life, my presence, my example will be the greatest thing  I can offer to those so inflicted.

All is well.