Alcoholism and My Friend, Robert
November 6, 2009 by Standing on Truth
Filed under Christianity
This weekend marks a special birthday to me. It would have been the birthday of a long-time friend of mine. He died nearly two years ago of an enlarged heart. He was only 40 years old.
About 14 years ago, I was an aspiring writer whose passion was poetry. I had ventured downtown to an ecclectic coffee shop to observe people, be inspired, and write poem after poem into the late night. I did this often. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who came here for good coffee and inspiration. Robert lived a few streets over in a worn-down apartment building and his only mode of transportation was his own two feet. He walked in to this coffee shop that evening with a sketchpad and his drawing pencils. He literally bounced a little when he walked, he had such a spring in his step. We struck up a conversation and although I’m fairly confident I didn’t share my poetry with him that night (I was rather shy about my work), he showed me his amazing drawings. Although his types of drawings were not what you would consider beautiful or serene (he sketched monsters and villians, much like you would find in a comic book), there was no denying his incredible talent, and the detail he put into each sketch showed an unbelievable patience and skill.
We became good friends from that night on. He spent Thanksgiving with my family one year and we would go to concerts and movies together often. But more often than not we would meet in our favorite coffee spot and talk the night away or attend a poetry slam together. He was a kindred spirit. He was also a man deeply entrenched in alcoholism.
Drinking was the one stable constant in his life–his trusted friend that he turned to more than anything or anyone else. As much as I tried to “rescue” him, I was in school at the time and couldn’t be with him 24 hours a day. He did not have family nearby, and his drinking alienated him from others.
I remember one morning my roommate woke me up at 3am. A nurse from the hospital downtown was on the phone. Robert, in a drunken stupor, has been picked up by the police for stumbling through the streets and falling down, injuring himself. He had requested they call me. I will never forget the drive from the hospital to his apartment that early morning. It was as if I were a priest and Robert were a parishioner. He was confessing, through tears and regret, the secret years of his life that he wasted by drinking, the relationships that were ruined, and the unforgiveable (to him) things he had done during his dances with the drink. I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen a man that broken, that raw, and that honest. Maybe that was a cry for help.
Yet his drinking continued. As a sober man, Robert was sincere, decent, intelligent, and caring. He would give a person the shirt off of his back at the first hint that they needed it. He had a heart of compassion and love. It was painful to watch his nightly drunkenness turn to depression and despair, and in hindsight I myself feel pain when I think of the times I innocently had a drink with him. I know now that I missed many an opportunity, and no doubt simply enabled his behavior.
Although I spoke to him about my faith–he knew that I was saved by grace–and although I let him know that he could be too, Robert was not a believer. After he moved out of state, I sent him a Bible and a clearly outlined salvation message, but in all the years I knew him, I stopped short of knocking down his door, intervening in his life (for his alcoholism) or following up with him as to why he was rejecting Jesus. I can only assume that he continued to deny Jesus the opportunity to come into his life, even up until his life was over. I pray that I’m wrong.
I vacillate between the deep regret that haunts me over what I should have done for Robert, and the small hope that lives inside that maybe, in one of his darker moments, he remembered what I shared with him and made a decision for Christ that saved his eternal life. Nevertheless, there will never be another person that can take the place of Robert in my life, and I hope and pray that there is never another opportunity wasted for me to be bolder for Christ.
And so this weekend, I remember Robert fondly. And I also remember The Great Commission, and recommit myself daily to my purpose in this life.
“Go then and make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:19).
