Why are we so afraid of death?
Wanting to Die
I’ve prayed for death #p4d many times. I have experienced the horrors of addiction, desperation, hopelessness. My mental illness and addiction have tipped me into the abyss. It was not my time. I came out of a coma after 8 days and felt useless for not even getting suicide right.
This, was not in my hands. I was so disconnected from my Higher Power, flailing around in a self induced hell realm of toxic chemicals. Yet, I was spared. I need you to know that suicide is not a thing a healthy person attempts. We feel nothing of our reality apart from hopelessness and pain.
We honestly believe that we are useless, a burden, insignificant. There is no end to our suffering, we are a waste of air.
Wanting to live
Cancer. An unimaginable suffering. Spending days, weeks, months with a dying cancer patient is a huge honour. The concept of material wealth dims. The concept of time becomes insignificant.
People who know that they are dying, want to give their possessions to those who care for them, family, friends.
Again, wanting to live is not in our hands. Ironically there is a gift in physical and emotional pain. We cannot Savour bliss if we don’t know anything else.
In my dear friend Renate’s case, we fluctuated between denial and acceptance. We spoke about memories. We spoke about perceptions of suffering. Renate experienced extreme, relentless agony as her cancer ravenously devoured her body. Massive quantities of pain medication failed even in her last three days on a morphine Driver. She would suffer episodes of break-through pain, terrifying to watch, even more horrific to experience.
At this point I realized that I am entirely powerless and that everything happens beyond anyone’s control. I fought with my G-d. I challenged him and berated him. This suffering was inhuman. I could do nothing to ease her pain other than hold space and comfort her.
Death comes to us all. We can’t anticipate it. In Renate’s life, she was “gifted” with the diagnosis that she had terminal, stage four melanoma cancer. There is a bitter sweet freedom being clean and sober in the face of impending death. We have been given the tools to examine our lives, make living amends to those we have wronged, and the gift of sobriety connects us to the here and now.
Death and taxes. Glib and trite. Yet true. Renate changed everything about her. She “reinvented herself”. Renate dedicated her life to being of service to others. She worked hard, she took broken and hurting women into her home, and gave them a safe space to heal from their alcoholism and addiction.
Renate volunteered as a counsellor at LifeLine. We would take overnight shifts on the help line. Everything she did was in service of others who were suffering.
I am eternally grateful for her, and blessed to have been with her to the end of life.
She left the world a better place, and this is one of the sweetest gifts of sobriety in recovery.
Rest in Eternal Peace Renate Netzel. Your work here is done. Your legacy of love, tolerance, compassion and healing lives on in every person who knew and loved you.
Auf Wiedersehen meine liebe Renate
Here are some ways to navigate the grieving process without becoming stuck in the sadness of your loss.
Read further about The Five Stages of Grief;
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I think the main purpose of sober living arrangements is to prevent recently treated substance abusers, from falling back into their old habits by removing them from their previous environment, which may have goaded the person into falling back in to the trap of substance abuse.
A major hurdle to sober living is unfortunately the cost associated with it and an all too familiar roadblock to recovery. Many of our insurance companies will cover the cost of drug treatments but seldom do they want to provide the funding for any kind of long term drug treatment. So keep in mind that many full time rehab treatment programs and sober living homes will not be totally covered by your insurance.