Beautiful post, Mum. I fervently hope your story will have a happy ending.

{{Hugs}}

It is a great sadness to be powerless, and yet a relief, to know you are powerless. Our minds know things our hear cannot comprehend. Better to have a heart with the pain then to feel nothing. In the end, we really know nothing anyway. Hope springs eternal. I will still wish for a happy ending. Doing so feeds my heart.

Hard to read, Mag. I think we talked about this one time. I feel heartless, but I keep coming around to: there is only so much one can do. Mostly that is where you are too, but part of you is wishing so hard for a solution that may not be there. Please do take care of yourself.

I do feel for you, very much.

Your friend,
O.T.

Oh, my goodness, that is a lot of pain, Maggie. Your friend was your solace and comfort, too, and now that's gone. You must have found hidden strengths in yourself to have persevered so! How good that is.
My mum was in a car accident when I was in high school (yes, back when dinosaurs roamed, etc.), and she had some broken cervical vertebrae that went undiagnosed for a decade, but by then the surgery didn't help so much. Docs gave her tons of pain pills, she spent at least one year in bed; my sister and I had to do everything for her and the family; she had a lttle bell to ring for us--God, did she hate it all! She drank more, and even when she could get up and about a bit, her soul was affected. My parents' marriage suffered a lot, who knows what it was really like before that, really?
My dad had a heart attack, got demoted in his company, was sent to San Jose, and they tried to make a life. My mum got a bit weirder, and my dad didn't know how to cope. I flew there several times to help when she was in and out of hospitals. "Lifus interruptus," for me. Powerless to really help, but present, I was, nonetheless.
I guess finally they were separating, but she had me come and drive her to Boulder to live near me, and she tried to commit suicide. With pills. More time in a mental hospital, then another attempt. I took her to Ohio finally to be near her sister, who moved to Florida after a year. My father had just died at 47 of a heart attack off on the east coast with a new woman in his life. That depressed my mum further, of course.
I was married by then, and she consented to come to southwest Colorado to live near us, so I went to Ohio and drove her cross-country again. She and my husband loved each other a lot; we moved her into a little apartment, did all her shopping and cleaning, had meals with her, did whatever we could. But we were working on a farm, and worked long hours, and she resented our time with her being scarce, as she saw it. She had emotional blow-ups at little provocation--it was a tough gig all around.
One night, of course, she took pills again, and died. I won't even try to describe all the emotions I went through, including a vestige of relief. But one big thing I did learn: A person can't provide another with the will to live. Her spirit seemed to be irrevocably broken, and I think even if God or a magic wand could have healed her physical pain, her soul was too damaged to go on. I don't know about all the chemical imbalances, in the 70's maybe no one did. But the only solace I have is that she might have another try in another incarnation, or that she surely is having fun goofin' around wherever her spirit landed...or floated.
I was a bit selfish in being hurt that we weren't enough to live for, or that she'd never be able to grandparent our kids eventually. But that was my just my shite. I had to learn to let her go on her chosen journey; my stars, it was hard.
Anyway, Maggie, just think how strong your core must be! And please, if Diana does in fact take her life, know that nothing you could have done would have helped.
I am so glad you and LisB have each other; it seems like such a warm relationship, and I envy you both, you dears.

Maggie:
You have found a personal angle of repose in AA that has worked for you. That is such a good thing; nonetheless, it does not mean that it is working for your friend, Diana.
Some of the best friends I have ever had were friends I met in AA.
The common purpose, the laughter, the common will to be not only sober but also to be contributing members of society was a goal I could endorse with my whole heart.
Therein, of course, lies the vexing problem: not everyone who goes to AA is willing, or able, to make AA the center of his or her life. It works for you -- and I'm glad it does -- but it may not work for your friend.
The one size fits all framework of AA can be cruel. What about those who want to be sober and/or less depressed who nonetheless find the rigidity of AA too limiting and/or time consuming? What about the insistence in AA that there is one way, the only way, that puts people back on the "right" track?
Maggie, I've been there, done that and I encourage anyone who has found joy in AA to stick to it. Comfort and joy is not to be discounted, under any circumstances.
But some people, Maggie -- perhaps misguided people, or perhaps only more rebellious people, cannot -- as compared to will not -- subsume themselves to a ideal that was written originally for -- dare I say it -- men, in another time, in another set of cultural mores that meant that if they failed, their famillies suffered.
Diana, your friend, may have issues entirely unrelated to my worries about the Program. But whether she does, or she does not, have mercy. Because that is the one flaw in AA I see -- there is no mercy; there is only conformity.
Some people live outside the box of conformity, even to a mindset that is positive, nurturing, supportive, etc..
Maggie -- you love this woman as your friend.
Can you love her outside the box of AA?
That is the question I see.
But there are those who

MaggieTwoShells - I think you're on the right track. The best kind of friend is the one who knows she is powerless over the outcome and yet hangs in there to do what she does have control over in her friend's life. I think acceptance is one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves and others, and yet one of the hardest to actually do. But it sounds like you're doing it!

Maggie -- as important as the commitment to AA is the experience of Alanon. None of us was born in a vacuum; we all come to our true selves (or not) via the predicaments and experiences of those we have loved and probably enabled.
I do not think you are enabling your friend, Diana. Nor should you. But what you might think about doing is commending her to the care of those who speak the language she currently speaks, and not the speak of those from whom she feels -- for whatever reason -- estranged.
Consider this, please, in light of your own life experience: when we are at an ebb, in terms of self-esteem, do we need a "friend" who points out the error of our ways, as he or she sees it? Or do we just need a friend who simply loves us, right or wrong, just the way we are?
If you cannot love your friend, Diana, just the way she is (as compared to having compassion and concern for her) then do both of you a favor: commend her to the care of those who see mutltiple ways for her to regain ground, not just the way that works for you.
Really. If you love her, love her, with all her faults as you see them. Love her enough to give her room to recover, whether by the system that worked for you, or by some other.
I'm preaching, Maggie, and perhaps scolding, although that is not my intent.
You are a good person, a loving person. But there is room under heaven for more than one saving solution, yes?

My heart aches for you, Maggie. But, hopefully you know you have supports here, too. It's not the same at all, but I hope it's enough to draw some strength to keep doing right :)

You have my support and consideration as always Mum.