Last week an old friend, who I haven’t spoken to in about six years, showed up on my caller ID. Thinking it was a butt dial, I let it go to voicemail. When I called her back, she was hysterical. Turns out, her husband had been arrested for his second DUI, just three weeks after their first child was born.
My friend said she was ready to bail on the marriage; take the baby and run. Picking her husband up from jail, with their newborn in the backseat, was not her idea of acceptable. She wanted to send him away and cut ties forever.
Honestly, if I didn’t have my own DUI history, I probably would have encouraged my friend to get out and protect her own wellbeing. But in my experience, when people shut me out, called me crazy, and left me in exile, it only made the drinking worse. It only reinforced and increased the shame I was already drinking to cover up.
I told my friend people don’t get DUIs out of choice or because they are lacking a moral compass. People get DUIs because they are in PAIN. And there is nothing worse than being shunned and judged and criminalized for that pain.
The people in our lives who are “acting out” the most, are the ones who need us most. If you woke up hungover this morning, I see you, I feel you, I love you. You will always have a friend in me.
While that phone call left me feeling heavy, it also broke me open with compassion. Maybe, if I can show others compassion after their darkest moments, I can also start to do the same for myself after a decade of shameful drunken behavior. We are all in this together.
I seek compassion for myself and others.
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