For a friend who has died

"Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything is needed? For it is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don't know what part of ourselves to give or, more often that not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them-we can love completely without complete understanding."
A River Runs Through It

Got word from my sister today that her best friend, who was also a friend of mine, had died. She had just turned 40. When you hear news like this a million questions go through your mind. How did it happen? What happened? Was it an accident? Suicide? We want some explanation as to how this happens because it doesn’t make sense to us. Young people aren’t supposed to die, and when they do, we also for a second consider our own mortality.

So in talking with my sister I learned that her friend had essentially drank herself to death. She had been drinking secretly for years, and finally her organs had shut down and her heart had eventually stopped.

This was devastating news for my sister in more ways than one. Losing your best friend at such a young age is awful enough, but losing them to something that could have been prevented hurts even worse. You wonder, what could I have done? Did I miss a sign? A cry for help? You think constantly of all of the things you might have said or done to help, but it’s simply just too late.

Which leads me to the quote at the beginning of this entry. Why is it that we are so often unable to lend assistance to the people closest to us who seem to be in so much pain? Does our fear of intrusion prevent us from asking the right questions? Should we be able to intuit people’s internal pain and find these things?

Ultimately I think the answer is no to all of these things. Often a great deal of guilt comes along when someone close to us self-destructs, but ultimately we are all responsible for our own lives. I think so much of our external problems start with some internal disruption going on inside our troubled hearts and minds. Many of us can fake our way through a day, and yes I speak from a great deal of experience on this. But ultimately we have to resolve these inner conflicts if we want to live the life we know we’re capable of.

So I think a lot about my friend who died today. The stories in this book have all been success stories so far, but it would be unrealistic to suggest that everyone gets over feeling second best in their lives. Some of us need to escape this feeling, and drift towards addictive behavior. We need a respite from these feelings, and often something like alcohol or overeating provides some temporary relief.

The problem with this solution is that the thing that provides relief is also what keeps the door locked on our self-awareness. Addictive behavior also leads to self-loathing, which then further reinforces the original feelings of inferiority. This is a vicious cycle that becomes deeply habituated and very difficult to extract yourself from.

So I think about my friend and how she must have felt as she continued to drink massive amounts of liquor even as her body was failing. She was one of the funniest, sweetest, women I’ve ever met, but somehow what was going on in her internal world was just too difficult to face. Sometimes this looks like boredom, but I also think it can be deeply rooted in the substitute pattern. Our idle time is painful in part because we haven’t found a sufficient level of challenge in our lives to induce creative solutions. We have in a sense “settled’ for a life that is less than we were capable of, and this is very difficult to face. So we fashion an escape. For some it can be wandering the world, while others find they can find the same journey is available in a bottle of Vodka in the comfort of their own living rooms.

So perhaps there are levels of inferiority that vary widely from person to person. That has been my experience as a therapist. The psychologist Alfred Adler said ‘The greater the feeling of inferiority that has been experienced, the more powerful is the urge to conquest and the more violent the emotional agitation.” This also seems relevant to a discussion of addiction, as the emotional agitation in some cases becomes too difficult to bear for even short periods of time.

So in my overwhelming sadness for my friend, I think about what could have possibly happened to alter her life course. My wish was she could have gotten into some kind of therapy, and at least begun a dialogue about what her inner world was like. Hopefully she may have found a gentle and supportive therapist to work with her on this. I know therapy works because I have personally experienced it. All of us, every one of, at times feels very alone in this world, and therapy can be one place where you have someone unequivocally and totally devoted to you. In a sense this is more intimate than a marriage, a parental relationship, perhaps even the relationship between a person and their clergy. If you feel like my friend did, or if aspects of her story seem familiar to you, please think about making that call. Sometimes even a glimmer of hope is enough of a catalyst to begin the process of change, and any good therapist will help you in your journey to find and develop this sense of hope.