Wandering Along the Path: RIght Speech

The history of my family includes quite a lot of alcohol abuse.  In my thirties, I went to AL ANON religiously.  Hearing others speak at the meetings was healing.  I also went to a few AA meetings to hear the abuser side of the disfunction.  So when my brother, an alcoholic from age sixteen, courageously got sober after decades of abuse, I was proud of him.  When, years later, he referred one time to making amends to me, I was startled, because I was still waiting for him to make amends, and longing for him to hear my side of the disfunction.  How he'd scared my children, followed us like a stalker when we moved, said many cruel things  and acted contemptuous of me. 

I was stunned, because his idea of amends meant he forgave himself, without any curiousity about what he'd actually done to me.  I had believed, from attending AA meetings, that  I was supposed to fit in there somewhere in the process. 

Now I can understand how hard it is to tell another something painful, and I might have to work up to it by trying out what I wanted to say to a friend and get their feedback first.  Presumably, my brother had an AA sponsor.  But shutting me out of the process left me as wounded as before, with no healing really possible.  It is not surprising to me that a few years later he stopped communicating all together.  I made him uncomfortable, not because I ever brought up what he'd done when he was a drunk, but because I was waiting.  Still waiting.

Right speech involves allowing the other person to respond to you.  If you can't bear it right then, take a rain check.  Say, "I'm embarassed and ashamed that I hurt you, but I'm not strong enough to hear what I did yet."  Then the other person gets to hear at least an acknowledgement of harm having been done.  Bringing up a painful subject to shut it down is cruel. 

If that is what would have happened to my brother, he would have been set back in some way by hearing how it affected me and my family, then, of course, first of all, I wish him to remain sober.

But our connection was broken.  Words do harm.  Controlling the words does harm.  Sometimes the truth is we cannot move on in silence.  We remain stuck.  And in pain.  It is sometimes necessary to say the words.

As Yvonne Rand says, if it's ten years or fifty years later, say it.  Whenever you are able to, try.