ADDICT IN HOSPITAL STIRS UP EMOTIONS

I meant to do some research over the last week. I wanted to present some
statistics from local hospitals on overdoses and drug-related emergency room
visits.

How ironic, then, that I wasn't able to, because most of my free time was
spent in the Cardiac Care Unit waiting room at a Knoxville hospital. One of
the guys I sponsor, Mark, has been there since Sunday, when he was taken by
ambulance to the ER because of an overdose.

It's been an exhausting week of watching and waiting and praying and
soul-searching. I've embraced his mother while she stood over Mark's
bedside, weeping softly while a row of machines and computers registered
every feeble heartbeat, every labored breath. We've waited for word from
doctors who always seem too busy to sit and talk and too uncertain to
explain what, exactly, might be wrong and what the prognosis is.

Most troubling of all, I've watched Mark. I've watched him, just below the
horizon of consciousness, struggle against restraints binding his wrists and
ankles, crying out in pain. Watched his body spasm in withdrawal, soaked
with sweat, unexplained injuries swelling and receding over the course of
the past five days.

I've watched. I've prayed, and I've dealt with a turmoil of my own emotions.
I've sought answers where there are none and reassurance when there isn't
any. And almost a week later, the answers haven't come, and the conclusions
I've drawn aren't reassuring in the least.

I feel guilty, although logic tells me I shouldn't. I'm his sponsor, but the
12-step recovery program of which we're both members teaches us that a
sponsor -- a guide through the recovery process, someone who's been off
drugs for a significant amount of time and has experience working the 12
Steps -- is of no use at all unless we reach out.

I feel anger, although my heart tells me I need to focus on compassion. I
want to grab the friend who lies in that hospital bed and shake him. I want
to scream into his face, ``Look at what you've done to yourself!'' I want to
smack him upside the head with a copy of our literature and tell him this is
what happens to addicts who don't stop getting high. I want to act out, to
find the bastards who sold him this poison and go to work on them with a
pair of pliers and a blowtorch.

My mind is a maelstrom, those thoughts swirling around and around like
debris trying to wash down a too-small storm drain. My own internal demons,
those that my own addiction plots and colludes with, rise up and make me
question myself. If only I'd done this ... if only I'd done that. If only.

Beneath it all, the part of my mind recovering from my own addiction seeks
to restore order. When I sit and focus and pray, I feel the presence of God.
I hear the voice of my sponsor. And these things I know:

I am powerless over other people, places and things. I can guide the men I
sponsor and make suggestions that, based on ones suggested to me, might help
them in their recovery. But I can't do the work for them, and I can't
control their actions.

As I'm powerless over Mark, so I am over everyone in active addiction --
including those who sell drugs. Many of my friends in recovery were those
who sold drugs at various times in their past, and I can no more be angry at
those who sold to Mark as I can my friends who sold to others, no matter how
many years ago it was.

Recovery is more than just a hobby, or a momentary distraction, or a fad.
For me, it's a new way of life, one I'm grateful to have found. But even
though I've embraced it, I can't beat it into the heads of those who
haven't. They must come to it in their own time and in their own way.

And ultimately, I know this: Mark made a choice. Nothing forced him to pick
up and use -- no situation, no problem, no personal or financial setback.
Mark wanted to get high, and so he did. And now he fights for his life.

It's a sobering reminder that I face a similar choice, every single day. And
it reminds me that, if I choose to get high again, I face a similar hell
that my dear friend is enduring as I write this. A similar one, or worse.

Just for today, that's enough to keep me clean. And one day, hopefully
sooner rather than later, I pray Mark will find the clarity of mind and
peace and acceptance to make the same decision.

Steve Wildsmith is the Weekend editor for The Daily Times and a recovering
drug addict. His weekly entertainment stories and column appear every Friday
in the Weekend section.