Osler's Razor

[click on the photo to enlarge it]

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my experiment of going for a month without drinking. If you haven't done this yet, I urge you to read the comments to that post. They were some of the most surprising and moving things I have ever seen on this blog (much more so than any of my own writing). For example, consider this from Ginger Hunter, in discussing alcoholics in her own life:

As with most things, I use a swimming analogy to understand. An addict is like a drowing person. You may or may not be able to help save them, no matter how strong a swimmer you are. If they absolutely do not want help, you only risk your own life in trying.

There must arise in that person a desire, for more, more normality, more health, or maybe for just less harm. All I know to do for a drowing person is be there, ready to assist, and keep fighting for that to happen, while keeping myself afloat and clear of harm. The risk to this is that ultimately you will most likely watch the person you love die.

Or this anonymous comment:
Thank you for your candor, Prof. It is huge to me, because my own mother was an alcoholic. When she came to pick me up at school, she thought no one noticed her drinking.... I know it hurt her when I told people "I don't have a Mom," but that is what I wanted to be true. I just hope that your acquaintance does not have kids.

There was also this note of hope from my old friend Kevin Doyle:
Rather than add to the stories recounted here, I would just like to say that my professional career (primarily in addiction counseling for the past 25 years now), while sometimes frustrating, has been tremendously rewarding because people can and do recover. The hope that exists among recovering people, in groups like Alcoholics Anonmyous, is palpable, real, and inspirational. I "feel the pain" from the other posters, but encourage them not to give up, to keep trying, to consider Al-Anon or ACOA groups, to consider an intervention, but above all to keep at it.


Today marks the successful end of my month without drinking. The results were good: I didn't miss it much, and the routines of my life did not change a bit. My family and friends were understanding and supportive (obviously, I was pretty public about it).

As the stream flows into the river, the river flows to the sea; too many just let the water carry them until they are far from all that they loved and desired and in a place, adrift, they would never have chosen. Every once in a while, we all meet these people, older people, who have children off someplace, unseen, the ties broken, who have a transitory life that seems infused with a bitterness and sadness that envelopes everything. We back away from them, sometimes quickly, because it is not good or rewarding to be near them, but they hardly notice; they are still in the river, floating away, down to the ocean where that one drop will disappear amid all the others, too many to count.