Things Not As They Seem

Alcoholics

In my mind, i always used to see alcoholics as people who were completely out of control, who were falling apart in a way that was obvious to anyone who looked at them, however briefly. Not so much anymore though.

While i never really judged alcoholics, thinking that they 'could stop if they just tried hard enough', i never really gave their situations much thought. I never really thought about how someone becomes alcoholic, what their situation must have been like. Now i think that alcohol can be more a vice, often used in times of pain to dull it, take the edge off. Then, at some point, the pain becomes constant - hence the over-drinking. It almost seems reasonable when you look at it that way. Don't worry, i'm not justifying alcoholism, i'm just thinking aloud.

Not every alcoholic beats their children, drives their car into a pole, punches someone out in a bar while they're having a drink at noon. Some carry on there lives quietly, just slowly fading away, their problems unnoticed, unless you have the insight to ask all of the right questions.

Someone i know was like this. I never knew there was a problem. Then, one night when i had a bunch of friends over, i went in to see if she was fine. I found her crying in her room. She told me that she'd been drinking too much, because it was so hard with her husband and she was lonely and everything. She said she was going to stop. That it was making her feel like a failiure with her kids.

Nobody else knew. I hadn't noticed. What do you do in a situation like that? When someone close to you is hurting? It's never been metioned since. We're not the kind of people who talk about that kind of thing. But i've been so watchful since then. I think it's ok now. But it's amazing how blind people are to anything not concerning them directly. I remember walking back to my friends. I didn't say ten words the rest of the night. They didn't notice. I brought it up once, said something about it. Everyone pretended not to hear. It's always the way. People don't like to talk about the difficult things, let alone find ways to fix them.

I think it's important that people look after other people. I know people who have told me to let my friends go off and do something silly, just becuase 'it's not my problem'. Well, when it's something that i think they'll regret later, it is my problem. If they're not looking after themselves, someone else needs to do it. If one of my friends seems down, i'll generally push and push to find out what it is, just so that they don't need to think that they have to deal with it alone.

It's not always the people that you think will be hurting who are. And everything isn't always as it seems. Sometimes you just need to look deeper, to find the underlyinh causes. Don't just judge from first appearances. You wouldn't want people to do the same to you. Would you?

Annie