A story of (un) awareness

A few months ago I knew a man, with an alcoholic dependence. His health was bad: he had an advanced alcoholic cirrhosis, two hernias (abdominal and inguinal) inoperable for his heath general conditions, but so big to make him look a monster. He could not walk for an alcoholic neuropathy in the legs and his skin, thin as tissue paper, had bleeding sores. For the intense itching, typical in liver diseases, he had wounds from scratching in whole body. Due to a progressive kidney disease his legs were swollen and exuding continuously. Despite this, he continued to drink.

I want to talk to him because I want to talk about a topic common to all alcoholics and drug addicts: the awareness. Or better: the lack of awareness.

Living with awareness means to see and know, even what we do not want to see and know because it scares us. Means acting on what we see and know.

It means thinking and be happy to use our mind, even when the reality is painful .

Awareness is to have respect for reality, to be curious about what happens inside and outside of us, have an active and open mind and, recognize and correct our mistakes, commit to learn, understand the world around us. It means to feel our bodies and feel our emotions, it means be aware of what behaviors can harm us.

Awareness is enemy of addictions. Every addict knows that the substance that his take is harmful and, for continue to take it, he must first decide to be not aware. It is in fact a free choice: we can choose to be aware or not, we can choose to seek the truth or not.

He had chosen to be not aware.

He expressed this choice by continuing to drink.

All his speeches were clear and continuous expressions of his choice: he said that if his hernias were so large it was because the surgeon had made a mistake when decided that he was not operable. He said that if he could not walking was fault of the nurses which have not been able to rehabilitate him. If his legs were swollen was because the doctors decided a wrong therapy. If his cirrhosis worse was fault of bad luck. If his skin was bleeding the fault was of the mattress.

He seemed convinced of what he said, probably in a sense he was.

But I think that something in his mind spoke with him, though perhaps the voice of awareness was rendered weak from years of life in lies, and in fact sometimes he cried.

He had a gruff character and he was always angry with everyone and everything, even this sign of his self-defense. He never spoke of his sorrow, nor ever complained of the physical pain that he surely felt.

He vented his inability to be aware of who wanted to help him with unwarranted accusations. His daughter was always there to meet his needs and desires even though I have never seen a gesture of affection.

She told me that when she was a child, her father beat her with fists in the head , for no reason, and she remember to see him always drink. Her mother justified him and probably hiding herself in the choice of being not aware.

I knew him when his unawareness was maybe justified : close to death, in a state where he could not go back, why be aware?

Truly I believe that it is never too late: the awareness he would suffer a lot, but would give him a chance to talk, maybe just for once, to himself and his daughter with the voice of truth.

But I can not really know in those hours spent in bed by himself, what were his thoughts. Perhaps, away from the noise of his bad habits, he heard the voice of truth.

I only know that the day he died he was aware. With lucidity and firmness, very rare in these cases, he asked to speak with a priest. He said: "I know I am going to die."

Maybe if he had used the same awareness in life that he had in death, his life and that of his family would have been different.

He now is gone, but left us a lesson to learn. Each of us can grow thanks to the mistakes of others: I have learned how strong can be the defenses of the mind.

I hope that who read can gather from this story a fruit, just a reflection, a suggestion or a help to be aware if he is not.

This is just a story, but it is a story of real life, albeit unaware.