Note from Rick: This began as a private email. I decided to publish it in the hope that it would help someone else. Please comment and forward to someone you think would be helped by these words.
My old and 
friend – my little brother – my soul brother in the struggle
I can only assume from your silence that you are in some phase of working out the darker angels in your nature. Let me assure you again that I’ve got mine – and am in no way judging you – though I am observing what is happening to you and the choices you are making – from an enlightened place.
Being an addict myself – and battling addiction – and the restless nature – lust – anger – and whatever sorrow and pain leaves us with – I know that I understand craziness in a way that civilians do not.
To stand in a place where we can see the right thing to do – and the wrong thing – so clearly – and somehow choose the wrong thing – then cope with the consequences and pain of having it our way – is a bizarre human reality – that brings us confusion about ourselves – and shatters hope that one day things can be better.
After more than a decade of sobriety – relapse – treatment – fresh starts – and long periods of brilliant clarity – only to find that every night you spend alone you get drunk again – has built a case in your head that you will never change the truth about yourself – the one that no one else knows.
The secrecy and shame build inside us and the dark nature builds an airtight case against us – until we just say “what’s the use?”
To know that you can’t keep drinking and that you can’t stop - is the point of entry for recovery – or total destruction. To discover and admit this after 10 years is a scary thought and I don’t know how you are maintaining your balance – getting your work done?
Moving out of your home and into a hotel – leaving the safety and accountability of your wife and children conjures up images from the movie “Leaving Las Vegas” or worse yet “Barflies” – and reminds me of Charles Stanley’s illustration of “the bell.”
The Bell
Close to God, we hear His voice clearly, like a bell. But, the further we get from him by our own choices the more distant and thin the sound of the bell. There is a point where we can take ourselves so far away that the sound disappears altoghter and it is here that we are just helpless bait for the evil that bell was protecting us from.
I’ve exhausted all my clever illustrations on you, to tie yourself to your sponsor – even for one night – vs going to a hotel alone – when you and I both knew that your plan to hit a bar after your first AA meeting “post-move-out” was bare ass crazy.
And, my training about my own co-dependent nature tells me that I must distance myself from you while you willfully and recklessly choose to throw yourself off high cliffs. Partly because I am wasting my time, partly because it makes me angry, partly because it isn’t helping you and partly because not enabling you with empathy will hasten your consequences – where you’ll either pull out and recover – or die.
As we both know – there are no long term alcoholic strategies of success. If you are an alcoholic you have 3 fates – death (car wreck, health, etc), prison (see part 1 and add the financial consequences that put people in jail etc) or sobriety.
Every moment of every day you choose one of these three with your actions – regardless of the lie you tell yourself about how well you are managing this – or that today wasn’t so bad.
I need you to know that you CAN beat this, restore the things that are broken, and live free and healthy. You may have bought into a lie that says it’s hopeless. It is not. Maybe I’m the only guy telling you this, but I wanted you to hear it.
As pilots know, regardless of how stormy it is on the runway, it is “clear on top.” See you there.
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