Drunk Don't Make You Worthless

I fell once when I was in the midst of a crowd. My cane went flying and I went down, my knees and elbows bruised and my embarrassment high. I wasn’t down for long, though. It seemed like a thousand hands reached out to help me up, hand me my cane and steady me as I regained my balance. I gratefully thanked everyone I could see who had helped, brushed myself off and continued to stroll.

What would have happened, however, if I fell and no one reached out to help? Instead of giving me a hand, they simply stood around as I groped for my cane and struggled to my feet. I would have been deeply disappointed in my fellow humans for not helping someone who needed it, I know that, but I would have felt terribly hurt and humiliated. Was I not worth a kind act? Was I not a human like you and worthy of a hand that would reach out and help me?

That’s exactly what I witnessed a couple of weeks ago as I sat at our downtown transit station waiting for my bus to go home. I was tired, my back hurt, my feet hurt, even my hair hurt and all I wanted was to lie down and rest. But across the street a bus pulled up, the wheelchair ramp came down and one of my fellow travelers rolled off. I waved to the man in the wheelchair and he waved back. Just then, however, I saw a woman stumble down the ramp and hit her head hard, and I mean hard, on the ground. She lay there motionless as a crowd began to gather. The bus driver stepped off the bus and placed her purse under her head to cushion her and then began calling his transit director. Everyone else simply continued to stand around her and stare. No one checked her breathing, no one asked if she was OK, no one did anything but talk to each other and stare.

I grabbed my backpack and ran across the street, tossing the bag to the side as I knelt to feel for her breathing. I had been a Hospital Corpsman in the Navy and at least knew the basics. She was unconscious but breathing just fine, though as I brushed her hair back from her face I felt one of the biggest knots on her head I’ve ever felt. Wow! I looked up at the bus driver and asked him to call 911 because this lady just might have a concussion. He said he would and the folks around me began telling me that she had been so drunk she fell off her seat on the bus twice during the ride. I looked up as I listened to this and the disgust was clear in everyone’s face. She was also an Indian and how much that factored in to their disgust and lack of desire to help was certainly a question to ponder.

At that moment she stirred and I asked her if she could hear me and she said she could and started crying and trying to move. I smoothed her hair back and spoke to her gently, asking her to lie still until the paramedics came because she had been hurt. She sobbed that the pain was so bad, so bad, and I continued to stroke her hair and cheek and assure her that I was with her and help was on the way. The paramedics arrived just then and two nice young men rushed up, pulling on their gloves as they prepared to touch her and the crowd made sure they knew that she was ‘drunk as a skunk’ (I’ve actually never seen a drunk skunk, but what do I know?), and had stumbled off the bus. Even the paramedics had a whisper of disgust on their face for just a second, and then their professional faces slid on and they began to work with her. I blessed her silently and asked the nearest bus driver who knew me well from our travels together on his route to help me up. He very willingly did and I struggled to my feet, very grateful for his hand.

He reached out to help me, but other than place the purse under her head had stood around the fallen lady like everyone else. Of course, one of the reasons folks just stood around might have been because they didn’t know what to do. But the obvious looks of disgust on their faces told the closer truth of how they felt about the woman laying sprawled at their feet. Another drunken Indian. Who cares? That’s all they do anyway. Good for nothin’ except building casinos.

Well, I have had a little experience with alcoholism. My mother was an alcoholic and I have had difficulties with it myself. I no longer even care to drink but I remember my mother’s and my own despair that lay beneath the desire to blot out everything with anything alcoholic. For both of us it was a need to hide, to escape from the daily pain of living, to forget for awhile the depression that never seemed to lift. It is a physical addiction, yes, but more importantly it is a disease of the spirit. Until I developed a strong connection to my own God I felt helpless to break out of the pattern of negative beliefs. I’m not religious but I’m deeply spiritual and only when I began to see the God within myself and everyone else did I truly begin to heal.

And, God help me, I felt that same disgust for my own mother. I was too young to understand her unhappiness and despair; I only comprehended that her alcohol was more important than me and my siblings and that when she was drunk she was a staggering, rambling, pathetic figure. It would be many years before I reached the point where I understood exactly what she had gone through and my anger left and my compassion grew from then on.

My mother didn’t reach the point, or not that I’m aware of, anyway, of developing some kind of inner connection with a spiritual source. She also was mentally ill and her poorly treated condition played a large part of her attempt to escape into oblivion. She more or less ended up that way, however, since she developed a condition that in laymen’s terms meant her brains were pickled. She spent her last years in a nursing home and experienced petit mal seizures and continued to deteriorate. She finally died in March of last year and I was so happy for her to finally leave her tired, damaged body. God bless her journey!

I’m no saint. Just ask my family and they will assure you that I’m as human and flawed as the next person! (Sorry, but I had to laugh at this point because I know what kind of numb nut I’ve been and my family knows where the bodies are buried - that’s figuratively, of course.) But my own journeys have taken me down paths that have allowed me to see others in a new light, a light of compassion and sympathy, and most importantly, of love. Everyone deserves at least this most basic of assumptions that we are unique and important in the universe, no matter our circumstances. As one homeless and extremely inebriated man angrily told me, 'just because you're drunk don't make you worthless.' I couldn't agree more. I started this blog to share this with others of like mind and for those who have never considered their fellow beings in this light. I hope it brings you to a different view of yourself as someone deserving of love and that others deserve this too.

May God bless your journey!