The Inevitable Phone Call

I was just surfing around my usual celebrity gossip websites right now, and I came across a blog post that Russell Brand had done for Amy Winehouse (who just died over the weekend, most likely of a drug overdose). Apparently he knew her, but even more importantly, he used to be an alcoholic and/or drug addict himself before getting sober in his late 20's, so he has a lot of experience in the area of addiction.

I admit that Amy Winehouse is not someone I've ever paid much attention to outside of following her insane drug-addled escapades over the past few years on the celebrity gossip sites. Her death over the weekend was not the least bit surprising, but still quite sad nonetheless.  It brings to mind all the people I've known closely, and also just known about (friends of friends, other celebs, etc.), who have followed this exact same downward spiral.

Anywho I stumbled across Russell's blog via a different article I was reading; here's the blog post: http://www.russellbrand.tv/2011/07/for-amy/  He isn't the best writer in the sense of proper grammar usage and punctuation, but he gets his point across pretty well nonetheless.  The part of the blog post that really stuck out to me was the first part:

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"When you love someone who suffers from the disease of addiction you await the phone call. There will be a phone call. The sincere hope is that the call will be from the addict themselves, telling you they’ve had enough, that they’re ready to stop, ready to try something new. Of course though, you fear the other call, the sad nocturnal chime from a friend or relative telling you it’s too late, she’s gone."

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Man, SO true.  I can most definitely relate to this, as unfortunately MANY other people out there can as well.  Probably a majority of the general population can relate to this to some extent, from one or more people they've been close to in their lives.  For us - It was Teresa in 1997.  Arden in 2006.  Carole in 2007.  Pat in 2009 (his may have been suicide, but it was certainly a direct result of his hopelessly debilitating and relentless drug addiction).

And sadly, I'm sure we'll experience a few more before our lives are through.  I'm hard pressed to think of any so far that have involved the "happy" phone call and happy ending.  Maybe a couple which were friends of friends, but it seems like our close family members and close friends with drug addictions have all ended in the worst possible way so far (with the inevitable call you always dread).  You spend years trying to help the person ... staging interventions ... trying every tactic in the book ... but ultimately you are completely powerless in the entire situation.  It's only the addict himself/herself who can control how it ends up. 

And eventually, you WILL wind up on the other end of that phone call ... you better just hope that by some miracle it's the happy one and not the dreaded one.