Adam was someone I never should've known in this lifetime. He was straight, about 7 years younger than me, lived all the way across the US, and was <shudder> a Microsoft aficionado. (Yeah, I'm prejudiced. Sue me.) He was a close friend of a new friend of mine in early 2003, someone I'd heard a little bit about, but never thought I'd ever meet myself. But my new friend was headed off on retreat for 10 days, and he was worried - he hadn't heard from Adam in several weeks, and Adam wasn't returning his phone calls.

Adam had been similarly out of touch before. Once it was because he was on a several-day bender, locked in his condo, all but swimming in alcohol and the chaos that ensued whenever he drank too much, utterly out of touch with reality. Other times, his alcoholism went public, and he'd spent time in the company of law enforcement in the city where he lived. He'd managed some periods of sobriety, but as addicts will tell you, although you get keychains or applause for 30, 60, 90 days and more of sobriety, it's really a one-day-at-a-time process. Some days he made it. Other days he didn't.

So our mutual friend hit on a solution. He'd leave his cellphone, voicemail and email access with me, so in the event that Adam checked in - or, God forbid, that other news of his whereabouts arrived - I would receive it. Worst case, I could head up to the retreat center and pull him out if he needed to help his close friend.

Off he went, and I checked his voicemail every couple of days to catch any calls. Of course, hardly anyone called. Most of his friends and family knew he was making this retreat. Only Adam might've missed the message.

Halfway through my friend's retreat, a message came through. "Hey there! Haven't heard from you in awhile - Whazzup?" Adam rambled on for another couple of minutes on the line, sounding as if nothing was up, really. Just a friendly check-in call. Maybe he'd just been busy. He certainly didn't sound like someone with a very serious alcohol problem.

I returned his call, intending to say little more than "Hey, your friend's out of town for about a week more; he'll be in touch when he's back." Instead, we talked for a good forty-five minutes or so. Charming guy, witty conversationalist. He hit on me, I laughed and said "I'm too old and you're too male" - and he laughed and we kept talking. He mentioned a little bit about his "problem with the drink" and told a couple funny stories about my friend from their college days. I told him when I'd be going back to pick up his friend from the retreat. He thanked me for returning the call, and said he'd be in touch with his friend in a week or so.

And then, the next day, another call came into the voicemail. It was Adam, wondering why he hadn't heard back from his friend. As I listened to his voice, I realized that he had no memory whatsoever of our call the day before. None. I did not exist in his reality at all at that moment. His voice sounded shakier, more anxious somehow. I called back, and reintroduced myself, telling him some of what I'd told him the day before. He was subdued, apologetic - nowhere near as lively and cheerful as he'd been the day before.

I was lurching through the aftermath of a couple of trainwrecks in my life, so I told him some of the details of all of that - things I'd not shared with many of my friends, even. We commiserated over how best intentions mean fuck-all when our instincts and fears take over, and talked about our shared uncertainty about whether there really was any sort of 'higher power' that could help us through the messes we'd made of our lives, or whether that was an invention of others. Ultimately, maybe it really didn't matter - as long as it worked, right? I'd pull my life together, he'd stop drinking - and if it took a little fantasy deity to make it work, did it really matter one way or the other what was really 'out there'?

That conversation stuck with him - and stays with me still. So too does an email archive over the intervening four years. I was working as a network geek; he was working with Microsoft products as IT staff. He'd shoot me a note with obscure network issues; I'd send a rant about how crappy Microsoft software was ruining my life. He gave me shit about still using unix for email; when I upgraded to gmail, he sent a note congratulating me for leaving the 1980s. "You can do it, girlfriend. Just wait. You'll be on our side someday. Ha!"

He did stay sober for awhile, even a period of time that stretched well over a year. I gave up alcohol for Lent one year - never saying anything about it to him, and not really thinking much of it, because I've always sort of been a take-it-or-leave-it drinker. So I'd leave it for a couple months. Big deal. I was stunned at the reaction of friends and family, some of whom feared that my discipline indicated that I "had a problem" (loved the endless euphemisms). Others kept a running countdown of the days 'til I could drink again. Still others teased me about it. I'd not drunk for months on end before, never really consciously, just didn't do it, and it was easy. Giving it up this time was hard. I found myself struggling, praying every day to not give in, not break the discipline. Someone pointed out that the Lenten fast doesn't include Sundays, and my heart leaped - I could have a glass of wine the next day! But of course, that wasn't the point for me, so I didn't do it - and that next day was hell.

In the end, I had a glass of wine four days before the end of Lent. I'd left it all under my control, and that just wasn't enough.

When my friend called earlier this year to tell me that Adam had died, I went back and reread all of the email we'd exchanged. (Much easier to archive on unix than via Microsoft Exchange, btw.) I realized how nearly every message had some overt or background subtext about his alcoholism. I thought back to how I'd felt about it then, how I prayed for his recovery, but also saw it as something so big, so huge, so impossible to grasp.

Addiction is an evil, terrible disease. No other illness so directly transcends the behavior / physical health link. It seems so simple at the surface. If drinking too much is harming your health or relationships, then stop drinking. If smoking too much is making you cough and risk lung cancer, by all means - quit smoking. I have a friend who was once addicted to both heroin and cigarettes. She's off heroin, off methadone even - but can't kick the nicotine. She says it's way too hard, way too painful. She knows it will probably kill her. Her youngest child is Kid Pax's age.

We don't really know how to deal with addiction as a culture. Of course, part of the great American story is that any boy with the right connections, a Daddy in the oil business, and the right people around him can grow up to become Preznit. So he has a little issue with the drink and has wrapped a few cars around trees, missed National Guard training, and otherwise made a spectacle of himself a few times? No problem. He can simply stop drinking, and all is well. Instead of crashing a car, he can crash a country or two, all without need for a single drop of spirits. He's the Preznit, now, and if he can do it, so can we all.

Well, maybe it worked for him, but I'd be hard-pressed to advise that as a recovery plan. For people I know who struggle with addiction, every day is a gift - and a challenge. I had a coworker several years ago who could rarely go out and do things with us, because she organized her entire life around going to AA meetings each day. I remember gossiping most snarkily about how she'd replaced one addictive behavior with another one.

Who in the hell was I to judge? We were all immortal then. I couldn't comprehend the idea that her silly, obnoxious behavior when she was drinking wasn't just a threat to her job and dignity, but to her existence as well. I always thought she was more in control than that, and that she knew how to stop before it got dangerous.

In some sense, I was right. She did know how to stop - she had to make her AA meeting the center of her life. It was all that kept that spot from being claimed by Chardonnay. But all too often, even if we intellectually know that addiction is physiological or psychological, that it is an illness, not a character flaw - we can still catch ourselves saying "but if only..."

But if only Adam - who was extremely bright, a graduate of a highly-competitive college, sharp, articulate - lousy taste in operating systems but brilliant with computers nonetheless - if only he could've made the choice to go to a meeting instead of picking up a bottle. But if only he might've stayed longer in rehab, or might've moved out here to start over (which he'd considered), but if only but if only but if only...

But if only addiction wasn't so pernicious, so intransigent. But if only the world were different. But if...

They're endless circles, and for any of us who have had friends or family who are addicts, or who struggle with addictions ourselves, the "but if only" spiral can kill the soul, kill the relationship, kill any chance of recovery. The whole "but if only" question presupposes that somehow we are in control. Adam did not always drink, but ultimately he could not control his drinking.

Two weeks ago, an automated message from American Greetings landed in my work inbox. Adam's birthday was coming up - time to pick and schedule this year's card. It was all I could do, tears streaming down my face as I sat in my office, to not delete the message. I looked at the email - "Suggested eCards to Send" - I wanted to click that link, I wanted so badly to see what they'd suggest based on what I'd sent him for the past four years.

There's no "I'm so sorry that you died" card. Nor is there an "Alcoholism is a goddamned fucking unfair nightmare that kept you from getting a 32nd birthday card from me, and I can't tell you how pissed off I am about that right now - because you're not around anymore." selection. Or a card reading "I really wish I had understood all of this better then. I don't know that it would've changed a single thing, but I wish I had understood."

My little parish has a significant number of people who are living life a day at a time, taking their recovery one step by one step. Each day is a new decision to recognize that they're not in control of this illness that not only makes them crave alcohol, meth, heroin, food, sex - any number of things. Each day is a new recognition that it's the grace of God and the support of each other that grants one more day of sobriety. We talk about addictions, depression, confusion, sorrow, and our failings there - and we also share our joys. I've learned so much about how all of us - whether we might be considered addicts or not - are made more whole when we can take a very simple step - opening our hearts and lives, and admitting that we're not perfect, that we're not fully in control of everything around us. It sounds so very simple ... but if only...

I do understand so much more now than I did when I met Adam - and maybe not even mostly about addictions. I understand how my own illusion of being in control leads me into pretty dark places. I understand how my ability to get through this 'life' thing is very much contingent upon realizing that I need to be in touch with a power greater than myself to not spiral down into an abyss. I can take or leave alcohol and don't do drugs stronger than a double americano, but the idea that I can run my life on my own has taken me places I'd rather not have gone. Such a view may be rewarded well in the fast-paced corporate world where I work, and it's helped me be fairly successful there. That doesn't mean at all that it's an ideal way to be a human being in relation with others in this world, though.

George W. Bush claims to have defeated his alcoholism by stopping drinking. For his sake (and the rest of ours), I pray that he's right. I do know people who've successfully done that, but they've all hit the point of realizing that there is something in the universe greater than just themselves. Maybe it's the power of love, maybe it's the stillness of a forest at dawn, maybe it's the might of the ocean at the Oregon Coast - certainly not all subscribe to any idea of "God". But they do see something bigger than their own life, and they recognize how very precious each day of that life can be.

There's nothing that would make me happier right now than to pull up that email from American Greetings and pick a card to send to Adam - and know that he'd be checking mail later to receive it. Instead y'all get me writing about him tonight. I still can't say that I understand it all, but I do know that I'm grateful for all I learned and was given by the journey of this one pilgrim who briefly opened a door into his own life, and shared a small bit of mine.

Tonight's prayer* is an adaptation of "The Serenity Prayer" (Niebuhr).

Grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as Christ did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that all things will be made right
if I surrender my will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy forever.

Pax & Amen.

(*meditate, hold in good and active thought)