There is a person I have known in the fellowship since about 1999.  I met him at a meeting one night.  He asked me to help him.  It turned out he had been around the fellowship since the mid 80's.  Has been in and out of detox and treatment more times than you can count.  He has managed to string together no more than about a year of sobriety at a time.

He knows the books and the literature inside and out.  He can quote practically anything you want.  But, he never knows how to apply it to himself and he really does not understand it.

He freely admits he wants his wife to take care of him and me to tell him how to get sober.

I would work with him for awhile, then he would disappear.  A month or more would go by  and he would call me from detox to tell me about how he almost died again.

He lost several good jobs.  His wife stayed married to him, but she has power of attorney and so on, all the legal stuff taken care of.

His wife is a good woman of faith who has never had anything to do with Al-Anon.  She always says her faith gets her through.

His kids are pretty well estranged from him on certain levels.  They care, but, they cannot watch him killing himself.

Physically and mentally he was once very healthy, but, in the last few years he has developed diabetes, probably from his drinking.  He has a seizure condition.  He is diagnosed as depressed.  And, just generally he has gone from a man who was hale and hearty to skin and bones.

In all truthfulness I was the last person who would talk to him.  Everyone else he had known would not have anything to do with him.  That includes inside and outside the fellowship.

Last week he called me again drunk.  We talked for awhile and I suggested some things for him to do.  He talked a little about ending it all.

The next day he called me again, sober this time and we talked some more.  I made some further suggestions for him.  He was still talking about ending it all.

He called later that night.  He had gotten drunk again.  Even though his wife and his daughter took his car keys away so he could not drive he got a locksmith to come out to his house and make him a new set of keys (cost him $160).  He got in the car drunk drove about 10 miles to a motel and got a room to hide out from his family.  He said it was okay for him to drive drunk because he was careful and did not get into any accidents

His wife and daughter found out where he was and went there and took the car back.

He called me the next day drunk and very angry because his wife "stole" his car and denied him of the right to drive his car.  No reasoning could get him to see the folly of it all.

Then when he sobered up he refused to talk to his wife, to come back home, primarily because he still felt she stole his car, denied him his right to drive and now made it so he could not get to meetings because he did not have his car.

He began writing poems which he read to me on the phone.  Then started on what he referred to as his Forrest Gump phase, going out and walking long distances to clear his head and make sense of it all.  At least that is what he told me.

He called me yesterday drunk again and told me to let his wife know he was fine and he was going to find a way to get sober.

Later last night and early this morning I talked to his wife.  She told me that she, her daughter and son in law went out to the motel he was staying in to get him out of there.  He had a gun which he fired trying to kill himself.  They took him to the ER in a local hospital.  He is highly depressed.  And, probably very near a wet brain.  They also say he may be in the end stages of alcoholism, whatever that is.

I tell you all, all of this to ask that if you can see it in your heart just say a prayer for this guy, please.  I think we all have an idea of what this is all about.  At least I do.  So, please just say a prayer.

tmd