fuss with a muss

I need to jump in the shower and rinse off for going to my second day of work at Trader Joe's.  I quit my preschool teaching job on whim last Tuesday.  After 10 years, I couldn't do it any more.  And I miss my OWN, grown children (GC) so much that being with the littles caused me to miss them in an abnormal, big way.  AND, I just couldn't worry about my students' families anymore, especially after watching  the adult children of my sister-in-law (SIL), same ages as my GC, stand around her hospital bed just moments after passing away from liver failure brought on by alcoholism.

The brain is a fuss with a muss of shit.  It was a sobering, sobering experience to watch SIL die.  It was a short time:  one day to say good-bye when she was conscious in the hospital, next day for us home to deal with work, third day back to hospital where she died less than an hour after we arrived.  We were not completely aware of the situation, it's seriousness, earlier.  We knew a little for a while.  We were not sure how to help.  Do we go to her home where she is drinking and sit with her?  She is sick, after all.  This isn't her fault. 

Now that she is gone it seems so simple to say, "Yes, I should have gone there to sit next to her; what harm would it have done?"

Well, that's the thing with addicts, those with substance use disorder.  How do you help, especially if you are trying to stay clean?  Trying to stay clean after years and years of  a cycle of misuse, non-use, overuse, quit.  Then all the brain work needed after quitting.  All that trauma work, deprogramming from organized religion, learning social skills to manage anxiety, processing regret over being a bad parent--endless list.  It takes YEARS.  So, go sit with someone binge drinking and risk being triggered to use again?  What if shit escalated to the point of needing to call the cops?  What if I just sat there and enabled?  Like, how the hell would I have been able to take the beer out of her hand?

And with that, I must get ready for work.