The Woman Who Knew Too Much

If you are as seriously alcoholic as we were, we believe there is no middle-of-the-road solution. We were in a position where life was becoming impossible, and if we had passed into the region from which there is no return through human aid, we had but two alternatives: One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could; and the other, to accept spiritual help. This we did because we honestly wanted to, and were willing to make the effort. - Alcoholics Anonymous


In late March , I started getting calls from a woman whenever I was assigned to answer the local AA hotline. She became a familiar voice, averaging a call to me about every other day. I feel like I got to know her fairly well over the course of the next few weeks. I'll call her "Leslie."

When Leslie first called, she said she was staying in a motel and needed to get to a meeting, but had no transportation. I had a woman call her to arrange a ride, but by then Leslie was no longer interested. The next day Leslie called back, and the story repeated itself.

A few days later, Leslie was back on the phone, telling me that she had been sober for twelve days and had detoxed herself in a motel room. She bragged about having a master's degree. She said she had been a substance abuse counselor several years ago. She did not realize that she was talking to the same guy who had answered the phone on her previous calls. Some folks seem to think they are dialing an enormous call center when they call the local hotline. I told Leslie that if she had been drinking as constantly and heavily as she indicated, that withdrawal from alcohol should be medically supervised. She said she had been sober for thirteen days, and detoxing was the hardest thing she had ever done. Did I tell you that she sounded quite drunk during this conversation?

"A minute ago you told me that you had been sober twelve days, and now it's thirteen," I said. "You haven't been sober for three hours. In fact, you're drunk now."

Leslie broke down in tears and said I was right. I told her she needed help, and that we could provide the help she needed. She said she would get a pen to write down some meetings, and then she hung up on me.

I'm shortening these conversations, because they tend to go around & around in circles with an alcoholic in their cups, but she continued to call the AA hotline several times each week. Her moods varied; sometimes she seemed filled with hope and ready to accept help, and other times she would be in complete despair. I was brutally honest with her about the disease, but encouraging about her chances if she stopped trying to recover on her own. She would reach out for a helping hand, and then bat it away.

With her permission, I gave Leslie's name and number to K, one of our volunteers who is like a friendly badger when it comes to helping the alcoholic who still suffers. It seemed that we would take two steps forward followed by a step or two back. K was finally able to take her to a meeting, and Leslie drank before K picked her up.

One Saturday at the beginning of May, Leslie called and asked me "How does a person with a master's degree get this bad?" I told her that if she wanted to know the source of her problems, she should look in a mirror. "Be quiet, and listen to me. Sympathy will kill an alcoholic. Your ego is the only thing preventing you from recovery," I said, "and you keep playing with a disease that has three outcomes: you will end up in jail, you will be institutionalized, or you will die. Those are your choices without help, because you cannot fight this disease alone. You want to be special. You are not special, you are not unique, you are not different. It doesn't matter how many degrees you have, you are a drunk. You are not better than or different from all of the other drunks walking this earth.

"I will tell you how you can be special. Out of one hundred hopeless drunks roaming around out there, only ten will make it to Alcoholics Anonymous. Out of those ten, only one will surrender their ego and recover. If you want to be special, then start your recovery. Start returning K's calls and let her help you get to meetings. There is a beautiful world out here for you to enjoy. We want to help you live the life of contentment that is waiting for you. You deserve it, and you can do this." I didn't make any of this up. I used the collective knowledge of thousands before me who have recovered from the misery of alcoholism to lead happy, useful lives.

I got a couple of calls from Leslie the following week. She still was not willing to make any changes, but a spark of something (hope? survival instinct?) kept her picking up the phone to call AA. "If nothing changes, nothing changes," I thought to myself. "Surely I've used that line on her." I kept trying to think of what I could say that might make a difference. I prayed for Leslie each day and asked for guidance.

On Friday the 8th, as I was preparing to close the office, K called me. She had talked to Leslie that morning and arranged to give her a ride to a meeting that evening. Just before calling me, K had dialed Leslie's number to tell her she was on her way to pick her up. A police officer answered the phone and asked K about her relationship to Leslie, and K explained that she was trying to help her. He told K that Leslie was dead.

How many people like Leslie have we lost to this disease? We may never be able to calculate the number. Only a percentage are directly attributed to alcoholism. The CDC reports over 21,000 alcohol-induced deaths in 2005 (excluding accidents & homicide), plus nearly 13,000 alcohol liver disease deaths in that same year. But there are other deaths influenced by alcohol but listed as suicide, heart failure, fire, vehicle accident, drowning, injury, diabetes, anemia, and other reasons that are not included in these CDC statistics.

Leslie was an intelligent, accomplished woman who could not accept her current circumstances. She was unwilling to surrender her self-will so that she could be helped. Her distant past as a substance abuse counselor gave her all the answers she needed, or so she thought. If she had accepted her situation and subdued her pride, she may have later been able to share her experience, strength and hope to help others recover.

Alcoholism plays a cat-and-mouse game with its victims. It bats us around and wounds us, and then sits back and watches us prior to the next assault. Some of us are fooled into thinking we still have control of our situation, instead of realizing that this mouse is dead without outside help. The cat always wins unless a power greater than its claws steps in.

The recovery poster at the top of this post is the work of my good friend Scott, and you may see more of his work by clicking here. Thanks, Scott!