The room was abnormally
sullen for a bright, crisp October late afternoon. Friend's faces were long and ashen, many streaked with
tears. Conversations were spoken in hushed
whispers. Feet shuffled, an occasional paper rustled. Coffee was poured in
silence.
There were only a few minutes to go before the
meeting was to begin. I grabbed an ashtray and a soda, then took a seat in the front row.
"What the hell happened here?" I wondered to myself. Little hand on the 6, big hand on the 12... The chairperson rang the bell. The announcement was made. One of our beloved fellow members had died. Details were sketchy, but the cause appeared to be
suicide.
Stan was a gifted young man with a compassionate
soul and a guarded, but devilish sense of humor. He was a few years younger than me. Besides our common bond of alcoholism, he too, suffered from severe
manic-depression and
PTSD. Each disease by itself is a daunting challenge, but together they create a viscious cycle. Addiction and mental illness feed upon one another and the result can be fatal.
Stan was very close with my old
sponsor, Gail. She knew the hell that Stan and I lived through, respectively. She, like many others that evening, began to share her
grief with the room. The look on her normally pleasant, round face was one of mixed anger, bewilderment and fear. Then her gaze landed on me. I shifted nervously in my seat, wiping my eyes. "... and Chris, don't
you dare kill yourself!" Gail demanded.
Had she been picking up snippets of my thoughts? Sure, I was upset. Stan was dead. The dude called it quits whether or not anyone else agreed with his decision. The hell with the people who loved him. The ultimate selfish deed could not be undone. I was pissed at Stan, but at the same time I was jealous... he was free. His
demons couldn't plague him any more. Free, selfish, dead bastard. How dare he succeed at something at which I have failed! But still...
I didn't respond for Gail's or anyone's benefit but my own. It was only 18 months earlier that my old cherished sponsor, Tommy, passed down my "sentence" before he died. His simple words have been the only thing that keeps me going at times. "Chris," he chided, "you've got
no business robbing
'God' of a servant." If only Stan and countless others had been bestowed this same mixed blessing.
Perseverance isn't for wimps, but noone has to weather life's storms alone. Stan's death was a waste, but
he did not die in vain.