My dear buddy from high school committed suicide recently. Yes another friend decided that life was no longer worth getting up for. What is amazing to me is that he had all of the things that one could hope for but it still was not enough to be gripped by and controlled by his past. I know his family history and the only thing I can say is if you are violent towards your children and you abuse them, you are going to create a pattern in your child that could very well lead to what my friend did. His PTSD was as deep as mine and the effect of it on him was evident back then to me. I was not aware that the effects of the trauma that we incurred were being manifested in our addictions. He and I had drinking good beer and smoking and growing pot in common. That was how we got relief from the depression and anxiety we both lived with.
What happened for me afterwards surprised me to say the least. I went into a deep, deep grief. I couldnt believe it since I hadnt seen my friend in about 30 years. Once I got sober all of my friends who I sought relief from the psychological pain with fell by the wayside, except one. The grief was as deep as any grief I’ve experienced except for the loss of my daughter and my profession.
I was chatting with a friend of mine who grew up in Calistoga who I learned of my friend’s suicide from. She didnt know him like I did, but she knew him. Calistoga was a small town after all. She mentioned that she felt like I was also grieving my childhood as well as the loss of my friend. It is surprising that I still feel pain about a time of my life I had thought I had “resolved.” 
So it is Friday and I can tell I am coming out of it a little. It is not gone. I am sad as I sit here writing this at a local coffee shop. It is snowing so much that I have no phone signal at my house so I have no internet at my house.
I am also working the steps in ACA with a couple of men. What I am learning by doing this, again, is that the intensity and level of suffering is the best relief I can hope for. I don’t think I will ever be rid of the deep seated emotional conflicts that persist below the level of consciousness, that they will ever be gone. I can only hope that their influence over me lessens.
I am only writing because my shame does not want me to write about my suffering, that my life is manageable. But I have learned, sometimes the hardest way I could learn, that my life is unmanageable and only the Ggods can restore me to sanity.
123 RV, SA, WC, BN, KG, RW, TM
1 am further reminded that the sins of the father are passed on to the son and if we do not help him not carry them, we only add on to the sins and make their lives more burdensome and darker.
Bless all of us who have to carry this darkness. More than anything please let all of those who suffer like that get relief and not have to carry that burden for all of their days. My friend was two days older than I am and needless to say he carried his burden his whole life and it finally caught up to him and he could not run from it. Damn it!
I Dont Want To Talk About It 