Beautiful Dying [excerpt]

“Jacko, you think you’ve had enough?” He asks while pouring two fingers of Wellers on top of the fresh ice cubes he just dropped into my glass. I follow the dark amber liquid as it cascades over the crystal cubes; I didn’t like that he picked up the ice with his fingers instead of a scoop, but I don’t say anything. I don’t like that he calls me Jacko, no one else does, it’s not my name. But again, I don’t say anything. Ice with fingers, names that don’t belong—those are unimportant things, things that don’t matter anymore. Not when your falling away and fading out.

“It’s a beautiful thing.” I say again, lighting a fresh smoke with the glowing end of the dying one. I’ve been a smoker for more years than I can recall, but I’ve never chained-smoked, until tonight. There’s probably a Freudian diagnosis buried in there somewhere—but I don’t really care.

“What’s beautiful, Jacko?” Micky smiles while pulling a draught of cold beer for another suffering patron. Counting Micky, six other people, strangers without faces, have found Finnegan’s Rock on this cold Saturday night. Five years ago, the place would have been packed wall to wall with millennials spilling drinks, telling lies and dancing to the sounds of the night. Not anymore.  People move on. They want louder music, cheaper booze, more chances.

Available in paperback Beautiful Dying by J Hirtle 

Hug Your Addict...Later

Today, Dayton’s mayor opined that opiates are a “natural disaster.” Two days ago, a “Commission” asked the President to declare opioid addiction a “national emergency”. The American Society of Addiction Medicine reported more than 20 million people suffer from addiction to opiates. They conveniently omit that the suffering is self-imposed. By my unscientific reckoning, I calculate this would result in more than 60 million people being effected by the sycophantic muck every addict leaves in their wake. Husbands, wives, children. Mothers of the addict. Fathers of the addict. Every day they dodge the slime carelessly flung by the addict's every move.

Because the addict is family.

Millions of family members must deal with the addicted because it is the right thing to do. But so many are doing it the wrong way. Just as the media overflows with stories focusing on the woeful addict and how sad their condition is, placing blame on anybody except the addict, family members are secondary in the struggles of the addicted. And that is wrong.

These family members, I pause here remembering also the stout heart friends of the addict, alter their own lives in hopes of changing the life of the drug abuser. To carry-on, these saints must come to realize putting themselves first is not a sin nor an act of selfishness—it is a necessity!  Their love for the addict will become obligation by taking a secondary role. Their servant’s heart will instead bleed the pain of a slave. A slave to the obligation. A slave to the addict. The sacrifices made will become forfeitures forgotten.

Hug your addict but not until you have put yourself first.

I learned this lesson the hard way. For years I chased the hopeless dream of one day hugging a drug-free wife. I consistently made too many addict-first decisions. My day of realization came when I recognized I was losing everything...because of something I had already lost—myself.

My transformation came through God. My conversations with Him didn’t require choosing words carefully so as not to offend or provide an ill-perceived reason for her to go numb. If you are living with an addict and have come to a crossroad where one sign reads “Them” and the other reads “You” know it is time to take the high road. Yours.

Some who read this may not choose the same path I did, a path forged by God. I pray that you would, but if there is another path you prefer which leads to recognizing the foremost importance of being true to yourself before the addict, then take it. Take it with no hesitation, with no regret with no looking back. You will be stronger. You will survive.

Then, hug your addict.

You can read my story at

http://www.amazon.com/Going-Numb-Jim-Hirtle-ebook/dp/B00U49091M/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1448837662&sr=1-1&keywords=going+numb+j+hirtle