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GHOST OF A TURTLE

January 2008

Vol. 64 No. 8

I paddle my kayak out past Flat Island, where the surf is anything but flat. Whenever I come out here, I reflect on the life and the alcoholic death of my friend, Steve. His funeral was held at Kailua Beach Park, where I launched my kayak.

Out here, past Flat Island, I threw away his many AA coins--several under a year, a couple of one-year coins, and one two-year coin. On that day, like today, the water was a crystal blue and the gentle trade clouds garlanded the distant Koolau Mountain Range. I think, This place is so beautiful; what could make someone want to leave this and take his own life?

If you are reading this magazine, you know why--alcoholic despair. The beauty of the mountains and the sea disappear, and all that is left is that tunnel of darkness carrying us to oblivion. I did not try suicide, myself, but I did think a lot about it in my final drinking days. In his final year, Steve attempted to take his own life a dozen times. Eventually, he succeeded.

A decade or so earlier, when I first met Steve, things were better for him. We celebrated his second year birthday on a job site not far from Kailua Beach. He hired me as a painter when I was in-between jobs, and he helped me learn the trade. Steve's sponsor, my friend and mentor, had recommended me. I was about five years sober. The good life of AA and all the Promises had come true in Steve's life. He married his sweetheart on the beach in Waimanalo. They lived in a romantic little bungalow in Hawaii He became a foreman at the construction company where he worked. Days went by. Years added up. At some point, he drifted away from the program. His sponsor died (sober, from old age) and he never really bonded with anyone else. He needed to take prescription drugs because of an accident and, eventually, he began abusing them. So why not drink?

I had not seen Steve for a few years when I ran into him at Kailua Beach about seven months before he died. At first, I did not recognize him. He was limping across the parking lot. Later, I learned he had suffered a stroke. By that time, Steve had tried to take his own life about a half-dozen times, and his loving wife could not handle it anymore. That morning, he was with a group of clients from a state-run treatment center for the dually diagnosed--addicts and alcoholics with mental illness. I might not have recognized him at all had he not called my name.

"Ed!" he yelled.

"Steve?" I said, trying not to show my shock at his condition.

In addition to the limp he now had from the stroke, he was fresh from a relapse and looked every bit of it. He asked me to be his sponsor, and I reluctantly agreed. Not because I didn't want to help him, but because I didn't know if I could. I figured I could not do him any harm, so I gave him my phone number. I was about twenty-one years sober--old enough to know that if anyone I help gets sober, it is only because God is working through me.

At first, Steve called every day, but after a few weeks, he stopped calling. He disappeared from the treatment center, drank, and tried to commit suicide, again. He called me from the locked ward of a hospital and I brought him cigarettes. Over the next seven months, this became our routine. The only thing that changed were the hospitals, halfway houses, and parks where someone found him and called the ambulance. Each time, the insanity of alcoholism told him it would be different; just one drink would take the edge off. But the depression that ensued brought him to the jumping-off place, and he would take another overdose of pills washed down with a fifth of booze. Each time he came to, we talked about it, and he agreed that it was a miracle he was still alive. He would go to meetings, overwhelmed with gratitude, and share with the group that this time he was going to stay sober. But, after a few days or weeks or months, the insanity of alcoholism would hook him one more time and the cycle would repeat itself.

After one suicide attempt, he was rushed to emergency, pronounced brain-dead by the attending physicians, and kept alive on life-support. His family flew in from the mainland, thinking he was going to die, but he woke up a few days later without any new impairment. When he was released a couple of weeks later, he didn't have a place to stay, so he slept on my couch. We made plans to meet, later that day, at the five o'clock meeting, but he never made it. That afternoon, less than a day after being released from the hospital and despite all his good intentions, Steve picked up the first drink and was off on another run.

Some time later, Steve's ex-wife called me in tears. She said that he had called her, again, and said he was going to commit suicide, but he would not say which park he was in. She wanted me to find him and help him. There are hundreds of parks on the island of Oahu and it is impossible to help someone in a park somewhere. I tried to console her, but I didn't know what to say. The next morning, I read in my morning meditation: "God will show us how to help the alcoholic who still suffers if our own house is in order." Nothing I did or said seemed to help Steve stay sober. I felt like my own house must not be in order; I felt like I had failed God, the program, Steve, and his wife.

Later that day, on my way back from a meeting, I saw him limping across a field in a little league park. I pulled over and went to talk to him. Again, he said he was going to kill himself, and refused to come with me. I called an ambulance, but he refused to go with them, too. The EMTs said that they could not take him unless he asked for help, but that the police could arrest him for threatening suicide. I called the police. The policeman opened Steve's bag and found a half-finished bottle of rum and a dozen pill bottles. Politely, he informed Steve that he could ask for help and go to the hospital in the ambulance or he would be arrested. Steve volunteered for detox.

Once again, Steve called me every day from the hospital and I brought him cigarettes. He was released and went back to meetings for a while, but he was drinking before long.

In between meetings and visits to Steve, I took long swims at Kailua Beach. One day, an injured turtle came right up to me. A fishhook was stuck in his mouth and the line was wrapped around his front left flipper. The turtle was lethargic, so I easily grabbed him and started to swim him to shore where I thought I might get the hook out. But, just as I stood up on the beach, he kicked hard and got away. I thought about how we all come to AA like that turtle--with the hook of alcoholism starving us and preventing us from accepting the very help we desperately need. I thought about Steve caught in the maelstrom of alcoholic despair.

A couple of weeks later, I was walking the beach when I saw something washing up in the surf. It was a turtle, upside down and lifeless in the water. It had a hook in its mouth and fishing line wrapped around its emaciated front left flipper. I stood transfixed, knee-high in the surge of white water. The waves washed the carcass up to me and then, eerily, back out to sea.

Steve got sober one more time. He stayed sober through Christmas and New Year's; we talked and went to meetings and he seemed optimistic about his chances of recovery. Eventually, he stopped calling and then disappeared. A few weeks later, he was found dead in his pick-up truck.

Paddling out, my reflections on my lost friend fade like the ghost of a turtle in the blue water. I catch a few waves without difficulty. After a while, I try to catch another wave and miss. I am tired, my timing is off, and I can't paddle fast enough. A small baby turtle appears in the surf beside me. I think again about Steve, about how he had sobriety, but then lost it. Although he came back over and over again, he could never catch the wave of sobriety again.

The baby turtle, very much alive, comes to the surface again. In the religion of old Hawaii, the aumakua were guardian spirits who often took the form of animals to guide the living. The honu, the sea turtle, symbolized navigation. For me, Steve's story warns of the hidden shoals of alcoholic despair.

I don't know what happens after we die, but I know that Steve's story will always be part of my story, and as long as I am sober, his suffering may help someone else get sober, and it can help save a life. Steve was a guy who took home stray animals and helped stranded motorists. When I reflect on the content of my own character and then compare myself to Steve, I have no idea why I have been able to enjoy the gift of sobriety for so long and why Steve could not stay sober. God knows he tried; God knows I am still unworthy of this gift. Over the years, I have seen some miraculous successes in AA and I have had the benefit of sponsorship from some of the wisest men in the program, but I owe a debt of gratitude to Steve and to other alcoholics, like him, who have paid the ultimate price for just one drink. For as long as I am sober, Steve will carry the message through me.

Ed D.

Hawaii

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