Mark Edward Bittle

Mark Edward Bittle
1964-2011
Written by Andrea Peck

Full Disclosure – When I was asked to write Mark’s memorial now, again, after eleven years since his death, I thought what kind of fresh hell is being put upon my heart and soul. I teared up, I tried to forget it. But writing this has been important to me. It brings the enormity of this disease into view.

I tell people, some of you have heart problems in your family or some of you have cancer. My family has the alcoholism and drug addiction. I call it a disease. Some recoil at this term. It’s the one that makes sense to me. It really doesn’t matter what you name it or do not name it. It is the thing that slowly kills all of us who are plagued by it, whether it afflicts us directly or through our family & loved ones. It makes us sick and kills us, whether directly by our destroying our bodies and minds, or indirectly by trying to destroy all that is good in those who love us. It’s an ugly killer of mind, body & soul.  In Mark’s case, alcohol was ever present with alcoholic parents (myself and his father) with Mark’s own addiction and the growing addictions of his brothers and sister. One sister was spared the physical addiction, but never spared the pain she felt in constantly losing and regaining and losing again those that she loved.

So today I’m writing about my beautiful son, Mark. We lost him eleven years ago. Alcohol killed him. It took him little by little on some days and by vast gigantic amounts on other days. We, his family and friends, helplessly watched him disappear into the grip of his addiction to alcohol. We would be left trying to sort through our own feelings about the lies, the hurt feelings, the disappointments that addiction to alcohol or other drugs brings about.  Nothing we did or said seemed to help, or even hurt. The addiction simply swept us all aside, as insignificant, not worthy of consideration.

Then, just as hope was lost, Mark would reach out and try one more time to stay clean and sober. He would be himself: loving, kind, and funny, spreading happiness. We would say “He’s on top of it now. He’s going to make it.” He would work really hard at reaching out for help. He would attend meetings, go to treatment, go to counseling. He would exercise, eat right, attend services. And it paid off. He would again  glow with good health, in spite of having just clawed his way out of the pit of addiction. It had tried to swallow him whole, but he had overcome – one more time. And we would all hope that this is the time, that it would be the time, that time when we wouldn’t live in fear of losing him. Or watch him live in fear of the demons that tore his sanity apart. 

  The worst times were when Mark would vanish and for days and sometimes months, we wouldn’t know if he was dead or alive. Some days it would almost be a relief not to have to look at the ugliness that addiction would bring into our lives. Then, filled with guilt, we would mourn him again, and again. Each time he was gone or lost in his addiction to alcohol, each of those times it was like a death, we were losing him over and over again. The mourning would only stop when he would find his way back to us and try, one more time, to “make it.”Then magically, it would happen, he would reappear,  battered and scarred and wanting to get his life back, wanting the love of his family & friends, wanting to overcome this disease that was eating him alive. Those were the days I lived for.

Mark never quit trying to “make it,” to find the magic that would stop his addiction from pulling him back into the soulless pit where his demons lived.  And to the end, hope remained that this would be the time that we didn’t lose him again.

For two years in Mark’s late teens, I had been unsure whether he was dead or alive. He had disappeared and I grieved heart broken during that time. When he finally made contact, he told me that he was living in a city outside of San Francisco. He was alive and I was ecstatic over it. Never mind that he was seeing faces in the trees and hearing voices. He was alive and that made me so very happy. 

Mark was a happy, loving child - full of life. It was in his early teens that drugs and alcohol took over. He began his fight to get his life back when I brought him home after he had been shot in his legs in a back alley in Los Angeles. He was barely out of his teens. A doctor in a hospital called to see if I knew who he was.  I sent him a one way ticket home. I had a couple of years of sobriety under my belt so I knew there had to be conditions. My condition was that he attend AA or NA daily. He agreed to my terms. When Mark got home to Boise, he stepped off of the bus. skin and bones, on crutches, a bullet still lodged under his kneecap, pants too large for him and held up by a rope and some kind of ragged shirt. I took him home and fed him and gave him time to change his clothes and we went to an NA meeting that day. He loved the meetings, they spoke truth to him. He remained sober and brought others who were being eaten alive by addiction into the fold. He was a miracle. I was ecstatic. 

Then, one day while he was riding his bike, an ambulance hit him. Yes I did say ambulance. It was a bit of comedy in a slew of errors that followed. He had a bad concussion and he was bruised and battered. So as soon as the danger passed from the concussion, he was back on his bike, riding to meetings.. 

Then came the surgery to get the bullet out from under his knee cap. Of course there would be pain medication. He seemed to make it over that worry as well. Pain medicine can be a trigger for alcoholics. He did fine. The world was a happy place around Mark. He was loved and he gave love.

I can’t remember what happened. Maybe nothing happened. But one day Mark didn’t come home. Then more days like that. And he showed up here and there, drinking with old friends who still drank and partied.  

This was to begin a lifelong pattern. Beautiful, wonderful times when my son came back to us. He would do all he could to stay sober. Meetings, church, marriage, treatment, hospitals. Whatever it took, he would try it. Life would be full of happiness for awhile only to be destroyed by his alcoholism. He lost his marriage and the love of his daughter. And before it was over, alcohol took one of his legs. On a binge, he decided to ride his motorcycle on a trip. He wrecked and a doctor at a hospital in Boise called me and told me my son had just lost his leg in a motorcycle accident. Mark and I discussed the need for him to become sober so he wouldn’t lose any more body parts. He did ok for awhile.

But the cycle continued and he became distraught. His brother, you know him as Drifter, gave him hope. A program called Church on the Street in Phoenix. Drifter had found help from his addictions there and Mark left to join him. And it worked for a long time. Mark was happy. He had brothers who suffered from the same affliction while he was living there. He felt loved. He read the bible and filled out workbooks and became filled with the spirit. Mark had found a home. Then this same program gave Mark an impossible job. Write up and report his brothers when he saw them do infractions of the rules. Mark tried to do the job perfectly. In doing so, he lost his brothers love and he lost his sobriety.

There were fewer times after that when the grip of his addiction to alcohol lost it’s grip on Mark. More times going to the church programs, going to treatment at the hospitals, going to meetings, trying, trying trying. Sometimes succeeding for awhile, more than often not. He was broken in body, mind and spirit. In the end a hospital overdosed Mark on his medications. He was in treatment for alcohol, about to be released when it happened. He had died in his sleep. For him, no more pain, no more trying. For us, it was an indescribably deep loss. We never again could hope to hear his voice and delight in the funny ways he could say things that would make us laugh. I like to think he is happy, joyous and free now and that he rests in the arms of a God that loves him and knew how hard he tried.

(The below is from Mark’s Memorial in 2o11)

Mark had both an elegance & complexity about him. He had that perfect light inside that kept trying to shine out & let the world know that he was full of love. No matter what his outsides displayed to the world, the light was stronger. You just had to love him. 

He wrote down his thoughts often. Some of them so dark that they weighed you down like the weight of a giant anvil. Other thoughts so beautiful that they filled your soul.

He always let people know he loved them with his words in ways that most of us struggle to bring to the surface but find difficult to say because we aren't that used to bearing our souls...  And in that way he was courageous because he didn't mind bearing his soul when he was feeling up to it.

There were those other times, of course, when the dark would take over & we wouldn't hear from him for long periods of time. When we would worry whether he was still alive & hope just to see him one more time.  But we always knew we would see him when the darkness in him was over & he would become alive again.

This darkness is different. Final... at least in this worldly dimension. But still I feel his presence in my life & the hope that this worldly finality will at last be ended and I will see my son again. Mark... I miss you so much. I miss your phone calls and your voice, I miss your thoughts and ideas, I miss your love for me. I know you are safe in God's loving arms, but I am selfish. I want you to be here. I love you.

Mark had flying dreams. He always said that when he had these dreams that he felt happy & free & knew it would be a good day. They lifted him up. That is how I see him now. Flying. Happy Joyous & Free.