What I’ve Been Up To

WARNING: This is not a happy, go-lucky post. I talk about love, death, loss, and alcoholism.

As I was turning my life upside down this last year, I fell in love with a ridiculously handsome man who lived in Portland. He was a doting father, amazing cook, bit of a neat freak, and an alcoholic. Since I’m an alcoholic, that wasn’t a deal breaker. 

I thought we had all the time in the world to continue to get to know each other, keep falling in love, and build a life together. But then in October, his health started declining and didn’t stop. He told me he had stage-four lung cancer, and that it had spread to his liver, stomach, and bladder. He decided not to do chemo because it was too far gone. 

So I looked at what I had control over in my life. I couldn’t control his cancer, I couldn’t control his choice, but I could control where I lived. So after fall semester, I terminated my contract with the University of Oregon, left Eugene, and moved back to Portland so we could spend whatever time he still had together. 

Three weeks after I landed in Portland, his house of cards came crashing down. Turns out he wasn’t sober, and was active in his disease. He lied to me our entire relationship. He lied about the nature of his relationship with his kids, that I was his only woman, and what was killing him. There was no cancer. He was drinking himself to death and his liver was shutting down. I told him that I hoped he had finally hit bottom and wished him luck and left.

But, despite all this, I still cared and worried about his physical health, so kept reaching out. 

I talked to him last Friday on the phone. We texted Saturday. I sent him a podcast on Sunday, I know he read the text, but he didn’t respond. I didn’t hear from him Monday, which was a little unusual but not unheard of.

I was at the climbing gym late Monday night and a wave came over me as I was belaying my friend. I knew something was wrong. But I told myself I was overreacting, and that he was fine. And even if he wasn’t fine, there wasn’t anything I could do. 

Tuesday morning, I couldn’t shake the feeling. So I texted him and asked him to just let me know that he was okay. No response. I kept myself distracted all day, trying to convince myself I was being silly, that I was overreacting, that he was fine. I drafted texts to his sister in LA to see if she had heard from him, but couldn’t convince myself to send them.

At 8 pm on Tuesday night, his sister texted me and asked me to go over and see if he was okay because it had been two days since she had heard from him. 

I went over. He didn’t answer the door. I had returned his key two weeks ago, so, with his sister’s blessing, I called the cops for a welfare check. They arrived, asked all the questions. They called the maintenance man I had met a few months before. The officers kept me in the lobby of the apartment building when they entered his apartment.

A few minutes later, they told me he was dead. Exactly one month to the day that our relationship fell apart, he was gone.  

I hate this disease. Alcohol is “cunning, baffling, and powerful.” It’s the only disease our mind tries to convince us we don’t have.

I am part of the “no matter what club.” I don’t drink no matter what. Because if I do, I will die. But right now? Of course I want to drink. I want to numb. To not feel all this pain, all this loss. But to live is to feel. To love is to lose. And so I grieve, I rage, I mourn.

He was a good man, who was so far gone to this disease. I loved him. I love him. I will miss him terribly. And I’m so grateful for his family for bringing me in as we mourn and grieve this loss. 

Take care of yourselves and hold your loved ones tight. But know that there is only so much you can do. You can’t help someone who doesn’t want it.

And if you ever have a questions about alcoholism or AA, please feel reach out to me, or anyone. There are a lot of us out here.