~written by Toby Drews, author, “Getting Them Sober”
Posted with permission.

“We almost totally believe the ”show” that the still-drinking alcoholic puts on
to get us to do what he wants”

This happened to me around 40 years ago—a few years after I started attending family-recovery meetings.

A few of us family members went to a treatment center at a nearby hospital, to tell our stories to the visiting families. One woman seemed inconsolable.  She could not stop crying as she told us about her 25-year-old son who had one leg.  She told us how he could not walk; how he crawled around to do anything, pulling himself up to eat at the table.

She said she just could not ”deprive” him of anything he wanted—he was so very disabled. She said he was in this hospital treatment center, but it was one of many, and he usually drank right away after he got out. And she said she could not stop the excessive caretaking of him so that he might feel the consequences of his disease and have a chance to get and stay sober.

Well, we all heard a great noise in the next room. Now, that next-door room was where the new guys were having a group session.  And there was a small window in the door that separated our room from that room.  So we all curiously peered through that little window.

The mother of the disabled son looked through the window with us.  She paled at what she saw.

Her son was holding his prosthetic leg and hopping fast across the room with the leg in his arms, laughing and joking. The guys were all taking bets on how fast he could go.

THANK GOD SHE WAS AT THAT WINDOW.
_____________________________________________________

Get the help you need today.
“Why Don’t They Just Quit? What families and friends need to know about addiction and recovery”

> Paperback

> Audio Book CD (6 hrs. 54 min.) (LISTEN TO SAMPLE)

> Kindle

> Audible Audio (6 hrs. 54 min.) Download

______________________________________________________
Still-Drinking Alcoholic Still-Drinking Alcoholic Still-Drinking Alcoholic