Cause and Effect

The voice on the telephone was tentative, almost timid and though she sounded shaky I could hear an undercurrent of determination and strength. I recognized her name at once - when she had married my ex-husband her picture had been in the paper - a slight, darkhaired girl, considerably younger than her new husband and with the same name as his daughter from his first marriage. At the time, it had struck me as curious, but now, hearing her voice and her words, it seemed sinister and twisted. She told me a story of love at first sight followed very soon by marriage which turned almost instantly to emotional and physical abuse. She had had him charged with assault and battery, gotten a restraining order, had him jailed. He had threatened her children and beaten her, raped her in a drunken rage, broken her jaw and attacked her oldest child with a knife. She'd filed for divorce while he was in jail and when he was released he'd fled, she thought maybe back to his first wife but she wasn't sure.

She sounded young and fearful, broken and lost and guilty and I could hear myself in her words. I had no idea why she had sought me out or what she expected of me so I just listened with resignation and sadness but no real surprise. The litany of abuse and violence was painfully familiar - she was confused and hurt, searching desperately for answers and explanations of what had gone wrong, why she hadn't seen it coming, what she had done to bring it all about. She needed to understand how she could possibly have made such a mistake in judgement, where had she not paid attention, how to get over putting herself and her children at risk. Every question she asked I had asked myself a dozen times over only to discover that there are no answers because there is no logic in addiction, no cause and effect, no fault to assign, only victims. I tried to explain this to her but could tell she wasn't ready so I simply suggested she find an Al Anon group and give it a try. She thanked me and hung up in tears.

In a funny kind of way, the idea that we can actually drive someone to drink or drug is prideful if tempting. Truth is that none of us have that kind of power - I learned early on that the why's of alcoholism are meaningless, that no matter where we lived, how money money we earned, how good life was, no matter how irrational it seemed, no matter what the exuse was, a drunk will drink. There simply are no rational equations to be found in a disease that manifests itself through behavior, where a relapse is a symptom, where there is no cure. We like to put blame in its proper place and move on. We don't demand that cancer explain itself, don't imagine that we can treat it with love or by covering it up and we don't blame its victims yet we can be quick to condemn an addict for his choice to drink, as if it really were a choice. Free will isn't much of a weapon against illness, especially an illness we often suspect is self-inflicted. Cough up blood and we'll rush to your side - cough up a curse and we'll spit in your face and demand an apology.

I hope she found her answers and some peace of mind. I hope she knows that it wasn't her fault and that she couldn't have saved him, only herself.