Recently, someone I love very much decided to admit himself for inpatient alcohol treatment. He said that he just could not stop drinking on his own, and he felt that the only real hope for him was to seek inpatient treatment. Since he is a health care provider, he must submit to at least 60 days of inpatient treatment. This means that he says goodbye to his spouse, children, and friends – of whom I am one – for 2 months.
To me, this sounds like an eternity. To him, too, especially since it is the gateway to his living without alcohol for the rest of his life. Alcohol has been his friend, his confidante, his solace and his co-celebrant for the better part of 15 years, and that will not be an easy goodbye.
I feel my own longing and missing him in advance of his leaving. His spouse shows herself as strong and together, despite the pain that I know is searing her insides. She has prayed for the day when he would seek treatment and finally, fully enter recovery. She has also feared it, not knowing who he would be when he left alcohol behind.
What do I say to all of us? How do we all deal with the pain of this gracefully? And how do we open ourselves to the many lessons of this difficult time in our shared lives?
I hear within me the phrase, “arms wide open.” It repeats itself again and again, insisting that I listen. What does it mean?
As I contemplate this throughout the day, I come to the awareness that it is instructing me and all of us to stand with our arms wide open and let the emotion of this experience blow through us like a breeze. I envision us opaque, like soft cotton fabric hung to dry in the fresh air. The feelings are like that, sometimes gentle and flowing, sometimes strong gusts of air that whip the fabric back and forth in unexpected bursts. In all cases, the fabric eventually returns to peaceful stillness once the breeze dies down.
And we must greet and receive each other through this process with our arms and hearts wide open. My friend, especially, must receive himself with his heart and his arms wide open, extending to himself the same compassion with which he has received so many others throughout his life. Loving himself, he will grow and he will heal. Loving each other, so will we all.
