Sometimes Sorry Doesn’t Seem Like Enough

 BY: Marc McMahon

Hey there, how are you doing today? Glad you had a minute to chat with me. Most people who tell me to give them a ring if I ever need any help with my recovery. Are saying it more out of formality than a true desire to want to hear about my problems and then offer advice as to what they think the best way to handle them may be. Or at least, that’s how it seems to me anyways. I am glad you are one of the people who meant it because I need to talk, or maybe vent, or even rant may be the proper adjective to describe it.

As you may recall from some of our previous conversations I have been at this recovery thing a long, long, time, almost 22 years now. In that time frame, I have only been able to string together more than a year of consecutive clean time once. That is ok actually, it had taken me up until about 8 years ago to be able to even get 6 months of continuous sobriety, so things are improving as time goes on.

It has never been for lack of desire to want to quit, or for a lack of effort, or time spent working my program. As a matter of fact, out of all the times, I have sought help for my addiction I have been self-referred. I always put myself in treatment, never have I been court ordered or forced into going to get help. Hell no, I was a miserable disaster in my addiction and I wanted to quit, bad!

I Always Gave My All

My desire to quit has always been very apparent to everyone around me too. I would venture to say that not at any time during one of my inpatient alcohol rehab attempts would you have found a person to say anything other than he is going to do it this time, I think he has finally found what he has been missing, myself included. This last time I thought for sure  I had finally put all the pieces to my recovery puzzle together well enough that they might just stay that way for an extended period of time. The only person who was wise enough to still have a healthy bit of doubt left in their mind was probably just my mother.

Not for any reason other than she had been watching me try my damnedest year after year but continue to fail. Moms have an uncanny, intuition into things, especially into the hearts and souls of their children. Moms are able to see things going on within their children that no one else can. My mom could see the demons that ran loose inside my soul, long before I ever even knew they were there. With that being said my mother has always hoped and prayed for my recovery to stick. She knew the monster I was up against, the one that I still am at war with today.

I Am So Sorry

Ya know writing that brings tears to my eyes, and this is not at all how I had anticipated this article to go but welcome to my Recovery, Unsensored. It seems my soul has something to say! I could not imagine what it would be like to be the mother of an addict. Not just a kid who uses drugs and has been in a little trouble because of them. But to a kid who was completely consumed by his disease on more than one occasion to the point of screaming at his mom at the top of his lungs ” I fucking hate you” As he is laying in his bed at the hospital just about dead because of the MRSA infection that was ravaging his body from the inside out.

All because she was worried that he might die and wanted to make sure that she was at least able to see him before that unfortunate event possibly occurred. Before the demons, she so helplessly watched consume her eldest child, stole from her the very breath that she had given to her firstborn. Heartbreaking,  I could not imagine having to be the mom of a child like that.

  Mom, I am so sorry I hurt you like that! I love you so much! 

With that being said it really casts a spotlight on the fact that I could have very easily died with those being the last words that ever came out of my God forsaken mouth. I sit here and I tell you these things as my heart is literally crushed thinking how that would have made her feel. Thinking about how I would have felt spending all of the eternity, wishing I had one more chance to take those words back. Just one more chance to tell the one who my heart desires to know the most that, I love her, that I have always loved her, that I miss her more than anyone has ever been missed before.

I am going to go out on a limb here and I hope nobody takes offense to this in anyway but I want to offer these tears that I now cry, and this voice that I am so blessed to be able to still have and lend them to all of those who never had this opportunity. To lend my voice and these tears to all of those who struggled so valiantly with their disease but still lost the fight.

I want to give all of them, my brothers and my sisters the chance to tell their Moms how they really feel if they were not able to before. I know that there are many of my fallen comrades who if given the chance to be able to say just four more words, that they would be these.

Mommy, I Love You!

About The Author:

Marc is a 48-year-old Author, Speaker, and Soldier in a war to loosen the grasp that Substance Abuse has on our society. He is a Father, Son, and friend to all those seeking refuge from this incorrigible disease. Marc resides in the beautiful Pacific Northwest where he enjoys, writing, hiking, and kicking the disease of addiction in the teeth, every chance he gets. As Marc always likes to say, “be blessed, my friends!”