More Mike...

I got a call from Mike's sister last Thursday.

Mike had called me on Monday and asked my opinion about 2 different detoxes. I told him I had no recent direct experience with either place - he could flip a coin.

I asked after his welfare and he said he'd been basically just struggling to the liquor store every day or 2 but, apart from that, hadn't been out of the house for about 3 weeks. He had someone who was willing to drive him to detox (but nowhere else). I wished him well and went on about the rest of my day.

The previous few weeks, he'd stopped taking my calls but I would text him when I would think of him and he'd text back something to the effect of "I'm ok but still not sober". Last March, I had hauled him home and had him spend a week with us (it was the right thing to do then...) to detox him but, the whole time he was at my house, he was using drugs...

So, I was very grateful when his sister charged his cell phone and texted me on Thursday - asking me to call. I did and she said he'd checked himself into the hospital on Monday. Seems to have been God's will in that they immediately put him into a "drug induced coma" (her words - I have no experience or opinion) and that they'd been trying to bring him out but he would get violent and dangerous when they tried to detox him. I can only imagine.

I heard from her again on Sunday that they were planning to put him into the regular ward but when I called her yesterday (via Mike's phone), the latest was that he was still in ICU as a consequence of other medical complications. According to her, they are bending the ICU rules to allow him some visitors so I plan to drop by this afternoon. She has warned me that it's not a pretty sight. I can imagine...

Mike is one of those folks who everybody assumes is just going to get this deal and stay with us for the duration. He has good looks (or did - age and dissipation take their toll) and a winning, puppy-dog personality. He was a few weeks away from having a knee replacement surgery that will improve his quality of life. The only thing he had to do to be able to qualify for this surgery was to stay clean and sober for 6 months. (Someone in medicine finally figured out that joint replacements don't work as well on drunks who stay drunk.)

Yet, he drank. He burned it all down, again...

I love our Big Book where, on page 20, it talks about how others can't understand us:

..."He could stop if he wanted to." "She's such a sweet girl, I should think he'd stop for her sake." "The doctor told him that if he ever drank again it would kill him, but there he is all lit up again."...

That's Mike if I've ever seen one...

Yet, I'm always surprised at how we react inside AA when one of us does what we do. We have all the same propensity with comments like: "...well, he just wasn't working his program..." or maybe "...he just couldn't follow direction..."

Well, maybe it's none of those judgments that would make me more comfortable. Maybe he, like I, just drank because he was an alcoholic? Maybe?

I get that the only difference between Mike and me today (or any day) is God's grace. I'm a big fan of grace. It's the only thing that I've found that can explain both my precious sobriety and Mike's inability to "get" this deal.

And, increasingly, I realize there's no percentage or purpose in trying to figure out why I got something that Mike clearly needs and deserves every bit as much as I do.

Instead , the only reasonable response that I can see for me today is gratitude. For my sobriety.

...and, for Mike...

It's the only basis for hope that I have for either one of us...