So Near Too Late

Addiction.

When living with it, I've fought til I was bloody, clawed and spit my way to the edge of a breakdown, been seduced and swept away by the need to lash out and strike back.  And all I ever got for my time and trouble and martyrdom was a migraine, a guilty conscience and a complete loss of faith in reason.  When I was finally free I swore I'd never, ever allow myself to get caught up in it again.  And until last night, I'd pretty much kept to my word - detaching myself from my dear friend Scotty when he crawled into a bottle and died there,  stepping back when our little nurse refused to leave her junkie husband, and being supportive but not enabling of my friend, Kirk, when he deep ended back into drugs and alcohol.  I'm no box of chocolates myself and when his struggle to come to terms and get well turned into a personal attack over an unintended slight, I felt myself about to backslide.  After multiple apologies and an appeal to his sense of reason - all of which were rejected quickly and nastily - I realized that the trap had been sprung and that I'd been sucked in.  It was so near too late that I reacted without thinking, ending the conversation abruptly but as kindly as possible, pulling away before being pulled under.  It was a painful and scary moment, a moment when my own complacency almost did me in and I forgot that you don't argue with sickness - it will use you up.

In my own defense, these things tend to start innocently.

His feelings were hurt by something I'd failed to do - he had what I considered a valid complaint.  I apologized and assured him I'd remedy it, explained that there was a process in place and that it was a work in progress, that it had never been my intention to exclude him.

He became aggressive and accusatory, repeating his charges and expanding them.

I apologized again.

He began to rant.

I apologized a third time.

He launched into a full attack with capitalized curses, saying I'd sold him out for money, that I was a false friend and no better than all the others who'd turned their backs on him.  He demanded to know what he'd done to deserve this ill treatment.

I was on the verge of reminding him about the vicious and malicious on line attacks, about the threats and the menacing, about the bar fight and his subsequent jail term, about how he'd frightened former friends to the point of changing their locks.  And then like a lightning strike, I understood that he was drunk or high or both and had skillfully manipulated me into this argument and back into sickness.  I'd let down my guard and he'd come straight at me - so near too late and I hadn't seen it coming - neither reason nor truth was going to do me any good.  

The following morning there is a not unexpected second attack, full scale, bitter, very hurtful and very final.
I read through the rage and emotional pain, every fiber of my being wanting to protest this rewriting of history and paranoid need to blame.  I feel slandered and abused - just as he intends - and my every urge is to fight back, to engage him and defend myself, to force him to accept responsibility and give up this self pitying, high drama victimhood.  A dry drunk, in many ways, will make you almost long for the drinking days.

The sad truth is that he did this to himself.  I am not responsible for his pain or his outrage and cannot help him find his way.  For my own peace of mind, I decide not to play this old, familiar part - I still remember having a variation of this conversation every day for 13 years - and offer silence instead.  Just because sickness is at the door, I don't have to let it in.  And I damn sure don't have to let it infect me.