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Writer's pictureMary Balistreri

27 Canes & All the Prisons

Soon after my sister Ann passed away in February 2023,


I found myself with 27 canes in my house. Beautiful canes of every imaginable pattern and color. Canes for walking in style when you have a limp or a leg problem. The majority of the canes had never been used. My nephew, Josh, Ann's primary caregiver, was struggling financially and needed some support, so I thought I would sell them. I did sell a few, but when my hurried problem-solving instincts dissipated, I felt the heat of shame and the gulf of sadness at the resurfacing realization that Ann was an addict. At some point, her addiction turned to buying canes of every color.


How can you forget about someone's addictions? Sometimes it is safer to forget, because remembering or acknowledging is too hurtful, too tragic, too filled with grief. Focus on the good. Fill yourself with positive energy. Redirect negative thoughts. All of that is helpful, it keeps one from wallowing in sadness or grief. And yet, it's not a solution. The grief, sadness, anger, shame stays with you ready to leap out unexpectedly, often when you feel the most free. So, like the other subjects in this blog, I am exorcising the beast by writing about it.


My sister Ann experienced many forms of addiction in her life. Most of the time, I maintained ignorance unless she specifically brought it up. "I'm addicted to buying food," she told me one day more than a decade ago.


"What do you mean?" I asked completely puzzled.


She sighed, exasperated that she had to explain, " Every two weeks, I buy a ton of food and pack the fridge with it. It's more food than Josh and I could ever eat. Then, two weeks later, when I get my paycheck again, we throw out the food that's gone bad and I buy way too much food again."


I remember not knowing what to say. My mind trying to wrap reason around something that is, at it's core, unreasonable. It's a behavior, not a rationale thing. "Why do you think you do that?" I asked.


"I don't know, I just think it's weird," she replied, a bit deflated now. She had this revelation and could not explain the behavior.


Then, I said what I tended to say, "Wow, I am sorry to hear that. I really think you should see a therapist or counsellor or something." To which she would say no, she would never see a therapist. And she never did.


It became a regular cycle of revelation, sharing the revelation with me, and then battling the urge on her own while I let myself forget about it because, after all, she refused to get help.


I was in that forgetful stage after she died while we were cleaning out the house. Josh and Valery, my niece and nephew, shouldered most of that burden. They mentioned one day they had tackled the mound of clothes (an actual mound of things thrown on the floor) and thrown away most of that pile. However, they found many items in her drawers and various locations in their original packaging - never opened, never used, never fitting, but in every color. Her addiction to shopping reared up to make me notice and remember her saying, "I just can't stop shopping for clothes. I buy one in every color. I am addicted to shopping."


I remember about five years ago, Ann called me and told me about her ideas for stories she wanted to write. Her ideas were in the early stages of formation, kernels of things yet to come, pieces asking to be considered, defined, and rebuilt into something tangible. I was wowed by several of them, and the real standout was her idea about the prisons. One of her ex-boyfriends, Anthony, was in prison before and after they dated. He would call occasionally from the pen, "This is the State Penitentiary, will you accept charges for this call from Anthony," the greeting on the phone would say.


"My idea is how people live in all different kinds of prisons. For me, it's my leg and my body (her osteomyelitis). For Anthony, it's a real prison. It would be a bunch of short stories about people living in all different kinds of prisons," she told me.


"That is a great idea, Ann," I responded. "You should start fleshing that one out."


"I don't feel like it. Anyway, I'm not a writer," she said to me, more than once because I brought up the idea as something she could do with her free time after she lost her job.


"Why don't you spend some time on those stories you talked about? I still think the ones about the prisons would be really good," I told her. She wouldn't do it.


Since she passed away, I have been thinking about the prisons. She acknowledged her body as a prison. I thought about my son who is disabled and how he might feel. How my friend Dennis who has Cerebral Palsy might feel.


For so many people, the prison of your body confines you to spaces, keeping you from enjoying things able bodied people take for granted - walking up a single stair to join your friends at the restaurant, hopping in a cab to go somewhere in Chicago, taking a boat ride after climbing down the steep stairs at the dock. We experienced the last one in the list in Disney World trying to take the boat across the lake where our hotel was situated. It was a really cool feature of the hotel. You could take the boat and arrive right at the theme park. My son Owen was a kid of about 10. We were told we could not take his wheelchair on the boat, so the only option was for his dad to pick him up, carry him down the steep stairs to the dock, and set him in the boat, an embarrassment to him at that age. So, he could not go on the boat with all the other kids. The prison of his body and not being able to walk.


All these doings keep a person separate from other people. Like an actual prison - the confinement of the space of the cell, the denial of activities that free people enjoy, the chance to mix with the rest of society.


Ann braved talking about the prison of her body, but did not touch the prison of addiction. A difference in her brain making her become addicted to drugs first, then to buying food, then to shopping for clothes and lingerie, and other behaviors she may never have admitted to experiencing. Addiction is battling your body and your mind each day to prevent behaviors that are damaging to yourself.


What chance did she have against drugs? It started when she was in the hospital the first time for the osteomyelitis infection that had settled in her femur. She was just a kid - maybe 12 or 13. She experienced constant pain, so she went home with prescriptions for drugs, narcotics of every kind. The treatments - none of which worked, by the way - caused more pain. Hundreds of needles stuck into her knee/thigh with hopes of dumping medicine directly into the infected bone. Better give her a pain med before you do that. Better give her another one after you do that. In fact, why not send a whole pack home with her, you know, just in case. It was the 1970s. We did not question doctors much. They were expected to know best and do best.


The treat after the treatment for Ann was a stop at McDonald's. She ordered two plain cheeseburgers - with nothing on them because she was afraid of all condiments, that's a different story - a small fry and a coke. I wondered why she seemed kind of out of things after the treatment. She seldom ate her meal which caused my mom to fuss and worry. I did not realize until she told me years later, "Duh! Mary! I was high. Totally stoned on those pain meds. I wish I had them right now."


Signs that someone is an alcoholic or addict of some sort? I remember I attended an Al-Anon meeting with Ann after she left her first husband who was an alcoholic. One of the things they said that stuck with me was "if you want to find the alcoholic, look at the behaviors of the people around them. It is easier to find the codependent people. "


Signs of codependency include (according to the EverydayHealth website):

  • Difficulty making decisions in a relationship

  • Difficulty identifying your feelings

  • Difficulty communicating in a relationship

  • Valuing the approval of others more than valuing yourself


Lacking trust in yourself and having poor self-esteem

  • Having fears of abandonment or an obsessive need for approval

  • Having an exaggerated sense of responsibility for the actions of others - Bingo!

Once I saw the codependent behavior in myself, I started to unpack the rest of it. My sister was an addict. She had an addictive personality. When she tried to move away from pain killers, her addiction would also move.


That explained the 27 canes in my living room and the 13 unused bras, all too small for her, we found after Ann passed. It also explained why I felt responsible for getting rid of those items to help other people


(we donated the bras to a women's shelter) or to raise a few bucks for Josh. I always felt responsible for Ann.


And, Ann told me many t



imes that she lived in prisons - the prison of her body, the prison of addiction, the prison of her dark world, the prison of her circumstances. And, the prison of her thoughts and feelings about herself, "I can't get another job, look at me. I'm too fat. Who would hire me?"


The prison of hopelessness. Ann rallied so many times in her life. She pulled herself up physically, emotionally, and intellectually to rally forward and improve her life, to become a CPA, and to take care of her kids.


Psychological symptoms of addiction (according to Priory's website):

  • Mood swings

  • Increased temper

  • Tiredness

  • Defensiveness

  • Agitation

  • Poor judgement

  • Memory problems

  • Diminished self-esteem and self-worth

  • Feelings of hopelessness - Bingo!

What a heavy load to carry! People will say, "Well, they (fill in a name) should just stop drinking, or go see a therapist, or go to a treatment program, or stop lying and stealing to get their hands on drugs." It's not that simple. If it were, the world would have very few addicts.


I know there is a solution for people with addictions. I know there are programs that work and people who help


. Those people are angels to me - just like the people who take care of my mom in her assisted living home are angels. Another prison - Alzheimers.


As I think and feel my way through this particular blog post, I remember the time when Ann called me and said cheerfully, "You know that song Happy? It's from a movie. The singer is Pharrell - the guy with the hat. Well, I decided that no matter what happens, I'm going to be happy. I made it my ringtone. Even though Vernon (her second husband) has brain cancer and I'm sicker and old and decrepit, what's the point of being sad? I'm going to be happy."


"Wow, I'm so proud of you for doing that!" I replied. I was proud. It took fortitude to change your outlook. It lasted fairly long, too. Then, the reality of life broke her again and brought her down again.


Today, I am acknowledging this grief that has been part of me since Ann first became ill when I was seven years old. The loss of childhood. The loss of my best friend to illness and addiction. The loss of myself to codependency. I acknowledge you GRIEF. I see you and I hear you.












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