Some of us are just barely hanging on. Winter is hard on the northern plains, even in an ordinary year, and this one is not ordinary. But it’s not just weather that casts a pall of doom over our days. We spend more time indoors when possible. Even when out caring for stock, the radio is probably on in the pickup or tractor and the news is not good.
I asked someone recently what’s going on in a certain part of Nebraska. Almost daily, those communities are mentioned on the news for violence, child abuse, robberies, and any number of other sad stories, and this isn’t a metropolitan area. My friend was a law officer in a former life, and he had a quick answer. “Meth. We’d like to think we are different than Chicago, Omaha, and such, but out here we’re in just as deep.”
There are various ways to commit suicide; some slower and more obvious than others. Many involve addiction of some sort. Years ago, a friend made the comment that her husband was digging his grave with his fork. She accepted that there was no way she could prevent it, but the pain was evident in her voice. A majority of us are affected by the addiction practiced by someone we love. Often the family member or friend is so devastated that their actions become as troublesome as those of the addict.
Bills go unpaid, and accounts are overdrawn, because of choices made by the spouse who is a compulsive shopper.
Workaholics tell themselves they’re responsible people who provide well for their families; meanwhile the family is dying for some laughter, loving attention, and the knowledge they matter, and too often the youngsters act out in a manner that affects the whole community. My adult children are still teaching themselves to play because I was too busy working to notice there was no fun in our house. I’ve been in recovery for that addiction for years, but I still tend to complain of not getting much done on any given day. My husband’s reality check is to list every chore I did accomplish, beginning with making the bed, unless he already did that.
Some people can be social drinkers but there’s no clear line when someone crosses into alcoholism. Every addict has just as many excuses as I did with my overwork, and they are masters at making the people who try to intervene believe that things are just fine. If alcohol causes problems with your job, relationships, or finances, it’s a problem. Drugs—well, it’s just weed, not the hard stuff. Yeah, and it’s just beer too, not the hard stuff. That one won’t fly very far.
A so-called friend, back when I did use alcohol, often slipped some extra into my drink because he didn’t think I was getting as drunk as the rest of the group. People who use street drugs run the risk of having something really deadly passed off as their usual choice, but not a lot of them stop their drug habit because of that. “It won’t happen to me” sounds reasonable to all of us, until it does.
A good friend says, “The pain of watching someone destroy themselves and a beautiful family is heartbreaking for those of us who are watching it happen. We know there is a good and decent person in there, and they refuse to do anything different.”