“Courage means to keep working a relationship, to continue seeking solutions to difficult problems, and to stay focused during stressful periods.”
~Denis Waitley
I used to think that Ellie was one of the most courageous and brave women I knew… but I have begun to realize that she is a coward, or more accurately, whatever her addictions have turned her into is a coward. She doesn’t have the strength or courage to face the truth. That is why she hides behind the drugs and alcohol as she has done for the last year.
“Conscience is the root of all true courage; if a man would be brave let him obey his conscience.”
~James Freeman Clarke
She used to follow her conscience and was one of the most honest and good people I knew. She was a devout Catholic and believed in God and doing what was right. Clearly, her addictions have caused all that to be abandoned. She has lied about people she loves. She has prostituted herself for drugs and alcohol—trading sex for the things her addictions crave. She has given up caring about the people she loves.
I really do not know who she is anymore, but she is clearly not the woman I love or the woman that loves me. I do not know who the drug-addicted alcoholic that occupies her body is—and nor do I care to ever learn who they are.
I have followed my conscience and done everything I could to try and help the amazing woman I love get help. It has cost me—physically, emotionally, financially and socially. But, if I had to do it all over again, I would because I love her and it is what was necessary because of that love.
“What you hear repeatedly you will eventually believe.”
~Mike Murdock
I think this is especially true of lies. If Ellie persists in telling the lies she started telling last summer after I confronted her about her drinking, eventually she will believe them. In some ways, I think that would really truly destroy the amazing woman I love more completely than anything else. If her addictions can force her to lie to herself and destroy the core of honesty that was so integral to who Ellie was, then there truly is nothing left of her.
I still believe that my beloved Ellie is there, hidden under her addictions. I believe this because she has never lied to me directly. While she has told her family, her friends, the people she works with and goes to school with the lies she has been saying—she has never said them to me. Instead, she has refused to speak to me, write me or communicate with me directly in any way since June 29th last summer. I think part of her needs to be able to say that she has never broken faith with me or lied to me because she loves me and knows I am the one person she can trust above all others.
Neither has she ever denied what I have written. She has never said I have lied about what I have said—on this blog, on social networking media websites or to her friends and family. She has even admitted that much, if not all, of what I’ve said it true. But, she still can’t admit that she has a problem with drugs and alcohol.
“Sooner or later, false thinking brings wrong conduct.”
~Julian S. Huxley
Of course, Ellie’s addictions and lies have led her to give up her morals and effectively prostitute herself for much of the last half of 2011. She was dating Jarrod, who was supplying her with drugs and alcohol in exchange for sex. Jarrod was using her and had no commitment to Ellie, regardless of what Ellie’s addictions convinced her was the case. As soon as he tired of her, he threw her away like trash.
She deserves better, but has brought such treatment on herself because she has chosen to be with people who will treat her that way. If she really cared about herself, she would have heeded my advice and surrounded herself with people who make her want to be a better person than she would be without them in her life. Instead, she has done the exact opposite and surrounded herself with people who encourage her addictions and make her so much less than she should be.
She has been driving drunk or high for much of the last year. She has been committing felonies by using her two fake IDs to purchase alcohol. She has been buying and using marijuana. All of this is wrong, and I am sure that deep inside, where my Ellie is fighting to survive, she knows it.
I think the shame of her behavior is yet one more reason she hides behind and tries to lose herself in drugs and alcohol. If she had the strength and courage to stop drinking, smoking weed, and doing the other base things her addictions make her do, she would have so much less to be ashamed of.
“You don’t develop courage by being in happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.”
~Barbara de Angelis
Maybe what she is going through is what she needs to develop the courage she has to have to fight her addictions. She has never really ever faced true adversity and difficult times that I know of. I just pray that she gains the courage she needs to fight her addictions before the experiences and adversities she will face in the process can destroy her.
“It doesn’t matter what we do until we accept ourselves. Once we accept ourselves, it doesn’t matter what we do.”
~Charly Heavenrich
I think she has to learn to love herself before anything she does will really mean anything to her. Right now, she is too insecure and has too many self-doubts to love and accept herself for who she is. She is allowing those insecurities and self-doubts feed her addictions and give them the strength they need to break down the amazing woman I love.
If she loved herself and accepted herself for who she is supposed to be, she would have the strength and the courage to fight her addictions.
“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”
~Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
She has lost trust in herself. Her insecurities and self-doubts will not let her trust herself or love herself. She doesn’t realize what an amazing person she truly is. I wish she could see herself through my eyes for a day—I think she would realize that her self-doubts and insecurities are baseless demons caused by how her father, Ian, Jarrod and other people in her life have treated her. They never loved her the way I do—nor did they have any reason to.
“Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.”
~Buddha
It is no wonder she is miserable… she is destroying her health, thinking that drugs and alcohol can give her happiness and being unfaithful to herself and the person she loves most. Even her most recent photos pretty clearly show this.
“The greatest weakness of most humans is their hesitancy to tell others how much they love them while they are still alive.”
~Orlando A. Battista
I’ve told Ellie how much I love her and continue to do so regularly. I do not know whether she is still reading what I write, but if she is, there should be no doubts about what she means to me and how much I care for her.
Ellie wants to major in business management, so this quote by Andrew Carnegie is rather fitting.
“There is no use whatever trying to help people who do not help themselves. You cannot push anyone up a ladder unless he be willing to climb himself.”
~Andrew Carnegie
This is especially for drug addicts and alcoholics, like Ellie. Until they realize have a problem and seek help for themselves, nothing can be done for them. This is where Ellie has been for the last eleven months. She started drinking and smoking marijuana heavily at the end of last May and it has affected her very badly, even if she isn’t willing to admit it to herself.
“Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don’t fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgement, repeated every day.”
~Jim Rohn
By Jim Rohn’s definition, Ellie is a failure. I would have to agree. If she continues on the path she is currently on, she will find out the hard way how big a failure she can become. The woman I love is ambitious and had set goals and dreams for herself. Most of those goals and dreams will wither and perish if she remains the drug-addicted alcoholic she has become.
“Man’s power of choice enables him to think like an angel or a devil, a king or a slave. Whatever he chooses, mind will create and manifest.”
~Frederick Bailes
One thing I think Ellie has forgotten is that God gave Man free will and true free will can be a curse. Free will allow her to choose to go where God’s Grace can not protect her, since it was not God’s Will that got her there.
Right now, she has chosen to remain the drug-addicted alcoholic shadow of who God meant her to be. I seriously doubt that she will succeed in all the dreams, hopes and goals that she used to tell me about during the conversations we had long through the night while she is a drug-addicted alcoholic. I doubt she will really ever know the success she is capable of unless she chooses to become more than the drug-addicted alcoholic she has been for most of the past year.
I am speaking from experience, as I let years pass by me after my twin brother’s death—where I was alive, but not living life. It took good friends, like Hyoshin, Adrienne, and Brad to help me realize that. I do not think that Ellie has any such good friends in her life as most of the “friends” she has right now are part of her problems.
“The best things in life are never rationed. Friendship, loyalty and love. They do not require coupons.”
~George T. Hewitt
I have never stinted on these, especially for Ellie and her family. I have been there for Ellie’s parents for 30 years and for Ellie all of her life. I still am whether they are willing to recognize that fact or not—despite the horrific things that she and her family have done.
Years ago, her parents, particularly Ellie’s mother, asked me to become Ellie’s friend, confidante, mentor and protector. I promised them I would, and I still hold to that promise I made them.
“What we can do for another is the test of powers. What we can suffer for is the test of love.”
~Bishop Westcott
I think I have passed both tests this past year. I have done all I can for my beloved Irish rose. I can do nothing else for her but pray, and I do that daily. I have suffered for my beloved Ellie because I love her enough to fight for her—even when she herself is not willing to fight for herself. So, I walked away from her nearly four months ago.
I keep writing to her on this blog and some of the social media websites, hoping that she is still reading what I have written. I want her to know that even though I have walked away from her I have not given up on her—I still love her and believe in her. If she should realize she has a problem with alcohol and drugs and start on her long road to recovery—I will walk it with her—if she makes her amends; asks me to be there; and shows me that she is as committed to having me there as I have been to her this last year.
After all, it was Ellie who once wrote me and said:
i definitly still want to be friends Danny! please please pleeease never think otherwise despite what my actions have been saying. sorry im a shitzophrenic mess but im really just tryimg to sort thigs out. please understand.
I have always understood this and never given up on her. I have been faithful and loyal to my friend who became the woman I love most. I have not listened to what her addictions have said—only to what she herself has said. I hope she realizes this and comes back to her true self and to my life—the one she wanted to share last June when she talked of the Asians with freckles that she adores.
All endings are also beginnings, even if we don’t know it at the time.
If this is true, and there is a new beginning here, I hope that it is with an Ellie that is whole and healthy. If it is not with Ellie and the new beginning means that Ellie will no longer be a part of my life ever again—then I hope the door that opens now is one with something worth all the pain and sorrow I have been through with Ellie.
In any case, I pray that she finally realizes that she is ill and seeks help. I hope that she returns to being who God meant her to be. I will continue to pray for my beautiful Irish rose Ellie, as I have been doing for most of the past year.
May God watch over my beloved Ellie. God bless her and protect her, even from herself. May God grant her the strength, courage, and will to fight her illness and return to being her true self. May God grant her the wisdom to see the truth—both about her illness and about us.
Wherever Ellie is, I hope that she is safe, I hope she gets well, and most of all, I hope she finally remembers how much I truly love her.