Secure Your Mask

Sometimes it is difficult for me to remember that this disease is absolutely lethal.  Interestingly enough, it is rare that I see someone someone take it to the end, dying in a hospice, liver shot to hell, with emphysema or COPD topping it all off.  No, usually it is a quick heart attack, car accident, overdose, suicide, or perhaps a violent end from being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  The point is that alcoholism WILL kill you, if you don't stop drinking.  And even then, down the road, liver or pancreatic cancer, kidney failure, or any other number of ugly chronic conditions can put you down.  These are the things I need to remember.  I may make it to tomorrow, but maybe not.  And if I do, what am I lopping off the back end?  Thanks for the memories.

A while back, I abandoned Christianity and began studying Buddhism.  The basic tenet of Buddhism can be summed up as 'do no harm.'  That, I must always keep in the forefront, includes harm to myself.  That is the less obvious part, but the most important.  If I am taking care of me, I am likely taking care of you, or at least doing you no harm.  I remember contemplating an instructional placard near the automatic oxygen while sitting in an airplane.  "Place the mask securely over yourself, then assist the other person you are traveling with."  Counter-intuitive at first, until you realize that this simple act of self-hygiene is the only way that I can be able to assist others.  A great metaphor for life.  Take care of yourself, sweep your own side of the street, then you can help others.  If you don't, you can't.  Period.

As alcoholics, we turn this upside down.  It is the nature of the disease, and hard to comprehend.  But, in recovery, we can learn that the only way we can truly be of service is to 'secure our mask first.'