Friday, November 27, 2015

Broken Cisterns


Broken Cisterns

"My people have committed two sins: they have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water."  Jeremiah 2:13
While I was taking my religion class this was quoted to us during one lecture and subsequent discussion.  It stayed with me and gave me a lot to think about in terms of addiction and recovery.  In fact many things in the religion class had direct parallels to recovery for me.
In any case,  Jeremiah is saying basically that God came to him and says that His people have turned from Him, something perfect and pure, and tried to take their will back and not listen to the word of God.  God is saying that He is the "spring of living water" but yet His people stopped drinking of the water and instead tried to take their will back by digging cisterns to collect rainwater, stagnant and unhealthy, from broken cisterns that will not sustain them.
Well, for me the parallel to addiction is clear.  By drinking, I was digging my own cistern.  I was drinking stagnant rainwater that could not sustain me.  I think that at first it made sense and tasted good as it filled up.  Over time, however, this stagnant water was a breeding ground for bacteria and parasites but I had long forgotten how to find the spring of living water.  In fact I am not entirely sure if I had ever truly known where it was.
Thankfully there were people who had gone before me on the road to recovery, trudging the road to happy destiny, who led me to the spring.  I began to drink living water and recovered.  The key is to not be tempted to dig a cistern again because it is easier and closer to home than the trudging.
I think when I relapsed I wasn't convinced that the stagnant water was truly full of parasites and bacteria because I could not see them.  Now of course I know the water was infested and I have no need to see the dangers.  I know they are there just as surely as I know there is a higher power looking over me, which I also cannot see.
Ego, self-centeredness, willfulness... They are strange parts of human-nature.  You can argue that like anything, they are good in moderation.  You need your ego for self-protection and preservation, but when it runs riot, it can destroy you.  These aspects of human nature can cause us to turn from the things that are good for us, that sustain us, that keep addicts sober.
There are are no shortcuts on the journey to the spring of living water, but it tastes so much better for the effort.

Saturday, November 21, 2015

Two Wolves


Two Wolves

The following is a Cherokee Legend:
An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life, "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy.  "It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.  One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego."  He continued, "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."  The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"  The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."
When I was in rehab the first time, I heard a speaker in a meeting tell this story.  Even in the fog of detox, I was struck by this legend.  I unfortunately forgot all about it shortly thereafter and did not apply the principle of its wisdom until much later.  What a simple and powerful message.
I know now how to feed the good wolf.  I learned over time what things ground me and keep me sober.  More than that I learned what things pulled me out of myself and into recovery.  There is a big difference between sobriety and recovery.  You can be sober and still hang onto the problems and character defects that made you drink or use.  Recovery is when you are no longer using and are working on clearing away the wreckage to rise above the mess you made of your life and create a new world of serenity and peace.
I know that getting up early and reading a few simple daily reflections and devotionals as well as the passage of the Big Book that I am required to read each day by my sponsor and journaling set the stage for a good and grounded day.  I often then do some writing and it sets my day on the right course... It is the nourishment that the good wolf needs to thrive inside me.  I can't say over the past few months that I have been as diligent in harvesting this lupine nourishment and I found the bad wolf to surface a little too much.  I am back to doing the basics now, however, and it feels good.
These times are frightening.  Wherever you stand politically, you have to recognize that there is a lot of hateful rhetoric being voiced in this country at the moment.  I find that to be alarming, but I find the fact that so many people are responding to and re-voicing such dangerous and xenophobic ideas to be not only abhorrent but terrifying.  I won't claim to be an expert on religion, politics, foreign policy, domestic policy or refugees.  I will claim however to be full of love, tolerance and humanity.  I will claim to strive daily to be the best person that I can be, which includes following some basic tenets of grace, goodness and kindness.  I will claim to know enough about our human history to know that when large numbers of a society start letting   hateful language become acceptable, then we are setting the stage for an apathetic allowance of the de-humanization of others.  We have seen this before and we must examine the past so we do not repeat some of our most criminal, base and shameful behavior.  I want to be proud of our country and it's leaders so I would hope we, as a nation, pull ourselves together and starve the bad wolves.

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

The Bus-Stop


The Bus-Stop

I did something this past weekend that I never in a million years would have thought I would do.  I went to a Christian retreat.  I mentioned before that I had been taking a class on Christianity and it was essentially a Bible class.  I attended because I know precious little about the Christian faith and I was questioning my former indifference to something I don't truly understand.
I have thoroughly enjoyed the class, which is now coming to a close and the retreat was a bit like the graduation weekend.  I wasn't sure that I would attend the weekend when I started the class, but I made a decision early on to go all-in and I am so very glad that I did.
The retreat was held near Lancaster, PA and was on a beautiful campus grounds.  I had thought we would be at a hotel where reservations had been set aside, a bit like attending a convention, but no, this was an entire complex dedicated to such Christian Retreats...  As naive as I am I did not even know that such places existed.
Check-in was Friday night followed by the first sermon.  After the sermon we had time to mingle and discuss what we had just heard.  Saturday morning saw breakfast and another sermon followed by a guided discussion and break, another sermon followed by worship.  I wasn't sure what "worship" meant exactly, but assumed it was time set aside for quite prayer and reflection.  I was wrong but I will get back to that in a moment.  We had lunch and some free time before the final sermon and discussion followed by testimonials and a parting group photo.
The people surrounding me were all so blatantly happy and seemingly at peace.  Everyone I met was very kind and treated me with respect and with honest love and care.  These people all believed so strongly in something I still wrestle to accept.  They are so steadfast in their faith and I almost envy their surety.  They had me very comfortable up until the "worship" portion of the day.
During this timeframe, we all got in small circles and began to pray.  People were praying loudly for one another and this particular group of Christians practiced the "laying of hands" where the person being prayed for was encircled and everyone put their hands on them.  This was so foreign to me and I will admit I was really uncomfortable.  I saw many people in tears from the sheer intensity of the situation.  Now, I am an emotional person and I cry very easily so I was surprised that I did not feel anything but discomfort when it came time for me to be prayed for.  The Pastor came over when he caught me with my head up and eyes open looking around the room.  I felt like a naughty child caught with her hand in the cookie jar.  He came over at that point and asked if he could pray for me.  I was embarrassed but said yes.
He put his hand on my shoulder and proceeded to tell me what he saw as my struggles.  He mentioned several things that resonated with me and all of them fit my current situation in life.  He talked about my concerns for my kids and how he saw me in a maze struggling to find a way out, among other things.  I was so pre-occupied with my discomfort that it wasn't until later that I realized this man does not know me at all... So how did he know I had children?  It gave me chills and pause to think deeply about the experience.
Let me share a quote from Penn Jillette, of the magician duo, Penn and Teller that the pastor read to us during one of the first of the lessons of the class I took.  Penn Jillete is a devout atheist.
"I've always said that I don't respect people who don't proselytize.  I don't respect that at all.  If you believe that there is a heaven and a hell, and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life, and you think that it's not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward - and atheists who think people should'g proselytize and who say just leave me alone and keep your religion to yourself - how much do you have to hate someone to NOT proselytize?  How much do you have to hate somebody to believe everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?  I mean, if I believed, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that a truck is coming at you, and you don't believe that the truck was bearing down on you, there is a certain point where I tackle you."
I ended the week end still not seeing the bus, but feeling as though these people cared and loved me, a stranger, enough to try and tackle me.  It is a powerful thing to have perfect strangers pray so ardently for you, believing they are helping someone they don't know.  I am still unclear on what I believe about Jesus and God, but I am very glad I went and met these beautiful people.  Perhaps this just isn't my bus-stop.

Thursday, November 12, 2015

Prison

Prison

I recently got a text from someone I know from AA.  She told me that she was set to go on a prison Committment and needed another person to go with her and would I consider it.  I thought about it and said that I would.  Later in the month she told me that she would not be able to go but that she would put me in touch with another woman who had been doing it for a while.
I contacted this lady and we agreed to meet in the parking lot of a Dunkin Donuts near the prison and go onto the grounds together in one car.  It was dark when I got there and I was getting more and more uncomfortable with my decision to do this.  I had to go into a women's prison with someone I didn't know whom I was meeting in a darkened Dunkin Donuts parking lot... Um... Perhaps not my most thought-out decision.
To my immense relief the lady who pulled up was a petite, grandmotherly type who chatted happily away as we drove the short distance to the gates of the prison compound.  We had to hand over our drivers licenses and were then waved through to the parking lot.  As we headed for a space, I was unnerved by the site of a number of German Shepard guard dogs in runs along the perimeter topped by barbed wire.  The dogs were running the length of the enclosure and barking angrily as we got out of the car.  For some reason this made me think of World War II.
We entered the building and went through a series of checkpoints and searches.  We were not to wear jewelry or open- toed shoes or layers, they even took my elastic hair band.  They found our names on the approved list and we signed in at the last checkpoint and metal detector and were waved down a long corridor with a metal cage-like door at the intersection of two corridors.  There was a metal door at each opening of the hallway making four in all.  It was at this point that I realized that we were not in fact in a women's prison but a co-ed facility.  We were behind this metal door barrier and to our left were a line of male prisoners behind another metal barrier.  I assumed at this point that they would open the door for the prisoners and let them pass closing the next barrier behind them before opening our barrier to let us through, this keeping us separated...  That was not what happened.  They opened both and we were in this small space pretty much together. It was at this point that I noticed that we had no escort and I was starting to sweat.
We made it down the corridor going straight and the men crossed the other way.  We stood in front of a locked door on the left hand side of a long corridor and looked up into a camera waiting for the door to be opened.  We stood there for a solid three or four minutes waiting.  All the while my companion chatted amiably about a nut shop she knew of near where I now worked and how she loved their gift baskets.  She talked away while I eyed yet more male prisoners passing behind us on their way to another section of the prison.  I have not been that uncomfortable in quite some time... Not since passing out condoms under a bridge in North Philadelphia to a community of homeless heroin-addicted men during my practicum.
Finally a female guard opened the door from the other side and escorted us to a room labeled "classroom".  The room was not very large, but had a table at the head of the rom with two chairs and stacks of chairs around the perimeter.  Women started filing in and they were of all shapes, sizes, ages and colors, many of them tattooed.  Again I was really uncomfortable as the guard had left us alone at this point while the women installed the chairs and made a tight circle which included the two of us.
The petite grandmotherly type started the meeting and asked me to speak given that she had been there many times before and her story had been told often.  I nervously began knowing that I come from a privileged background and I was guessing that many of the women in there probably did not.  Nonetheless I told them about my life and the things I believed played into my becoming an alcoholic and about my struggles with trauma, the death of Liam, Frank's cancer bypass surgery and then alcoholism.  I talked to them about my journey into recovery so far and a number of women were crying by the time I was finished which I had not at all expected.
We opened the floor for them to ask questions or just share what they were struggling with.  There were a number of women who had lost children who spoke of how the depression that followed had driven them to use.  There were a number of women who faced leaving prison with little or no support to lean on.  There were a number of women who had experienced the same sort of sexual trauma as I have.  There were a number of women who wanted to know how I had found a way to forgive.  And at the end a very sad, bedraggled woman who was missing several teeth raised her hand with tears running down her cheeks who said in a really quiet voice, "I'm supposed to leave here soon.  I don't want to go.  I'm safe in here and I won't use.  When I leave I have nowhere to go and I just know that I will use again.  I just don't want to leave."  My heart broke.
I realized that even though I was uncomfortable in the setting, that these were just women after all.  They were just women who had had many obstacles in their lives and, who, like me, had made bad decisions.  They were just women and regardless of our different backgrounds we share a common problem.  I was uncomfortable, yes... But will I go back?.. You bet.

Monday, November 9, 2015

The Tsunami

The Tsunami

I have seen many people come out of rehab and expect everything to go back to the way it was.  They think that they have conquered their drinking or drugging and that life will fall back into place.  This is seldom, if ever, the case.
For starters, they have not conquered their addiction, we none of us have.  Even if you have been sober twenty years you haven't conquered addiction... You have merely tamed it for the time being.  If you stop doing the things that keep you sober you will fall right back down the same rabbit hole you clawed your way out of before.  If you stop being honest, if you stop going to meetings, if you are not in fit spiritual condition, you have shown your Achilles Heel.  When an addict becomes complacent and lets down their guard, they are ripe for the picking and the lies addiction tells us become louder in our minds and before they know it they are right back in the slag heap.
Nothing can go back to the way it was, nor should it.  If things go back to the way they were, then the addict and their families are living a delusion.  If the environment that helped create the addiction and the dysfunction is revisited then the problems will simply re-root and start creeping through the family like ivy climbing up the face of a stone building.
Addiction is like a tsunami that crashes upon the shore of a home, it floods and destroys.  When the water recedes there is debris and destruction.  Structures have been torn down and foundations have been rocked.  You can't live among the destruction, it isn't safe and nothing will hold up.  The answer is to clear away the debris and rebuild.  The structures have to be sturdier, built to tsunami grade code.
When I came out of rehab the first time, I tried to live among the muck and muddy depths of what alcoholism had done to myself, my relationships, my husband, my kids and my self-esteem.  It did not work, the whole thing fell apart again.  After my second stint in rehab we all seemed to know we would have to take life back down to the studs and re-build, slowly, steadily and with careful resolve.
I could not clear away my debris until I had done the steps.  Then, and only then could I pick up a hammer and start helping our situation by tapping and molding our new landscape.

Friday, October 16, 2015

Heaven and Hell



Heaven and Hell

 
I recently heard that most people who believe in God or consider themselves spiritual believe there is a heaven, but much fewer of those same people believe in hell.  Im still not sure what I believe in terms of spirituality/religion but as I mentioned a little while ago I am attending a course that introduces me to Christianity.  I figure I cant turn my back on something I know little about nor understand and the course has been fascinating so far. 

I dont think I believed in heaven until Liam died.  So convenient right?  I just could not bear to think that he no longer existed at all and I wanted someone so innocent to be in a better place.  I believed it because I needed to.  Now I believe in an afterlife more firmly and for more solid spiritual reasons rather than sheer desperation.

But what would Heaven be like I wonder?  I dont think it is robed angels with halos sitting on puffy clouds playing harps.  I similarly dont think God is a white-haired man with a staff.  I also dont picture hell as depicted in Dantes Inferno.  I think that if there is an after-life it is likely beyond our imagining, or it could be like the good on earth without the bad or alternately the bad on earth without the good.   I think we catch glimpses of heaven and hell here on earth when we experience joy and despair.  Perhaps Heaven would be like eternal joy and hell would be eternal despair.

Perhaps it is different for each person according to their joy or pain.  When I was in elementary school one of my friends was blind.  She was and is a person full of life and simply differently abled than I am.  I always had fun playing with her and she had such an amazing imagination.  We were in art class once perhaps in second grade or there about and we were supposed to draw a bus.  Now my friend was in the art class as well and asked for the yellow crayon and some others and set about drawing a bus.  I remember thinking, How does she know what a bus looks like?  Well she proceeded to draw, feeling along the lines of her crayon marks as she went.  Her drawing looked nothing like my bus but she drew what she knew of buses from how she perceived them through touch and what I guess she must have been told.  She saw it just as clearly as I did in her own way and it strikes me that her drawing was no less accurate.

The class I am taking impresses me with its approachability.  I dont know that I will end up being a church goer after the course is over, but I will be much more familiar with the Christian concept of God.  Perhaps I will then go on and study Islam, Judaism and Buddhism, who knows.  Just like my friends drawing, other peoples perceptions of God or a higher power are no less accurate just because they are not like my own.

What I have found is that I am thinking much more about spirituality, about being good even when no one is watching, about the complexity of our thoughts and spirits and about why we are all here.  Being in spiritual situations and among other spiritual seekers lifts me up and I rise in my mind like a fledgling.  My wings are still weak and I return to earth quickly but I look up, hopeful.  It will take some time but I hope I learn to stay spiritually aloft and remain to slip between the clouds.

 

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Toys


Toys

 I think back to high school and wonder why I never got in trouble?  I think I had a healthy sense of fear and respect for authority and I seldom questioned things.  But I also was passionate about theatre and I spent so much time rehearsing and studying that there wasn't much time to get in trouble.  Now this is not to say that I was an angel but given my predilection for alcohol, it could have been much worse.
The thing about being passionate about something is that you want to spend your time doing it and it takes you outside yourself.   When you are an addict, being outside yourself is a better place to be.  As they say in the rooms "my best thinking got me here" so wallowing in my own thoughts too much causes me trouble.
This is essentially what the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous talks about in steps ten and twelve.  "Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty resentment and fear.  When these crop up, we ask God (or higher power) at once to remove them. We discuss with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone.  Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone help."
A friend of mine recently posted a link to a story from the CBS evening news about a boy named Jaden in Savannah Georgia.  Jaden is six.  His father died when he was four and this year his mother passed away in her sleep unexpectedly.  He now lives with his Aunt and though he was grieving he told his Aunt that he was tired of seeing everyone so sad all the time.  He asked his aunt to buy some toys, little trinkets that you might find in a bubble gum machine.  He then asked to be taken downtown where he proceeded to approach strangers who were not smiling and give them a toy and make them smile.  He has done this numerous times and wants to keep going. His goal is to make 33,000 people smile.
Now this is a six-year-old orphan...  I saw this clip and was bawling, but aside from the fact that he is an example of love and acceptance and giving, he unknowingly found a way to assuage his own grief.  He says in the clip that he is still sad that his mom died, but by turning his thoughts to others he is getting outside himself where he found it too painful to be.
What if we all did that?  What if we all set aside our self-seeking motives as much as we could and looked outward to see where we could make a difference?  Like the beat of a butterfly wing... Such  a small gesture he is making but what a beautiful impact.  What if we could all be a little bit more like Jaden, the little boy giving away toys expecting nothing more than a smile in return.

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

I have finished revising and tweaking the children's book I wrote for my kids in an effort to explain the diseases of addiction and mental illness from which I suffer.  I have the endorsement of one of the top 7 rehab facilities in the U.S. who are on board to use the book and a companion coloring and activity book in their children's program and also sell them in their bookstore.  There are costs involved that I simply do not have on my own so I created a Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds.  Please check out my project and back me if you like, if not please share with others.  The more we talk about these problems the less stigma will remain and the better armed our children will be as they grow.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/queenwhosavedherself/the-queen-who-saved-herself

Saturday, September 26, 2015

And Now About Religion...


 

And Now About Religion

 

 

I havent written in a while.  I think there are a number of reasons.  One being that life happens and being that I am weak, I got wrapped up in its minutia.  I started to stray from the things that keep me more connected.  I wasnt going to as many meetings, I havent been getting up as early to spend the time I need to in order to remain more in touch with my spiritual side.  It is a dangerous veering to be sure, especially for an alcoholic as it so often leads to relapse. 

But I also have been in a bit more of a listening phase.  I have had my ears open more and my mouth shut more which is necessary from time to time.  I cant write if I dont experience, see, feel and hear.

A few things have inspired me to write, one being the presence of the Pope in our fair city and the other is that I am taking a class.  It is a class I never in a million years would have considered taking and even when I signed myself up I had my doubts.  For those who know me well, I doubt you would have thought I would either.  I am taking a course that is designed to introduce me to Christianity.  Essentially I am going to a Bible study class and I love it. 

I did not grow up knowing much about religion.  I am Church of England by birth and I cant say that my parents ever really emphasized religion at all.  I was born in Saudi Arabia so there were no churches, only Mosques.  My parents did send my brother and I to Sunday School (actually it was called Friday School because the weekends are not Saturday and Sunday in Arabia, they are Thursday and Friday, but that is a different story), but when we reached a certain age we were given the option to sleep in and took it with abandon.  So I knew who Jesus was and I knew a few of the parables but they certainly were never discussed outside of Friday School. 

I was also exposed to the religion of Islam.  I went to school with Muslims and lived among them from birth.  I will tell you there are some things I disagree with in the Islamic faith, but I can say the same for Christianity and Judaism and I do believe that most Muslims, as most Christians and Jews, are good people.  I remember reading on the Facebook page of one of my old friends from Arabia: that most Muslims look at ISIS in the same way that Christians look at the Westboro Baptist Church they are extremists and do not speak for the entire religion.

This class is fascinating to me.  The stories and the thrust of the lessons have moved me.  If the word religion was something that turned me off before I could simply say that I am having a spiritual or philosophical discussion.  I cant say that I will end up being a church goer at the end of this, but I can tell you that my mind is opening in ways it never previously would have and for that I am ever grateful.

I can also tell you that I still dont know where I stand in terms of religion, but I can tell you that I do believe that there is something after death.  I can tell you that in my darkest moments now I no longer feel alone.  I can tell you that I feel as though life here on earth is a pre-cursor to something else.  I dont know which religion speaks to me more, but I plan to explore more than just Christianity.  It seems to me they all have something important to impart and all speak to living well for the sake of living well even when no one is watching.

So Pope Francis is here in Philly tonight and he makes the Catholic faith so much more approachable than anyone else before him in my eyes.  I am not a Catholic obviously but the man speaks to me as he does to the rest of the world.  My maternal grandmother had a thing against Catholics and Irishmen, so it was six months after marrying Frank that I realized she would have turned in her grave to know that I had married an Irish Catholic granted not a practicing one, but still!

I have spoken before about praying and how it truly does work.  I cant say that it works in the way that we as children wish it would.  It doesnt work in terms of God please send me a puppy. God please make Jane like me. God please give me a promotion.  But what it does, when done for the benefit of others is to bring the person praying outside themselves and make them think of others and isnt that a miracle in and of itself?  To turn our thoughts to someone else, to put aside our own fears and desires and think of another can only mean good things.  To think of others instead of ourselves, to bring peace and mercy and faith into the forefront and the more that happens and is spread, then we lessen the strength of evil and pain and suffering.  It is harder to spend time on things that lead us astray when we are concentrating on the well-being of others.

So where does that leave me?  It leaves me listening to Arethra Franklin sing Amazing Grace and waiting to hear what the Pope has to say next.  I love to hear his message because he passes no judgement and loves so completely that is makes my eyes water with joy.  Dermot recently was so happy about something pretty monumental in his little life that he was brought to tears.  He was crying for joy.  The next day he said to me, Mom, you always say that you are crying because you are happy and I never understood that until now, but I get it.  It is like you have so much happy that it leaks out of your eyes.  Waiting to hear more of the message that makes my eyes leak with joy.

Sunday, August 9, 2015

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice?

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice?


The statistics about the plummeting self-esteem among girls as they reach puberty is staggering.  I worry about it being the mother of a singular little girl.  She is staggeringly beautiful, petite, tan, blonde and blue eyed.  She is loving and ever so clever.  She is self-assured in a way that I never was or likely will be and she is so very, very intelligent.  The quote from Shakespeare, "Though she be but little, she is fierce" describes her to a tee.  To be honest I am a little afraid of her, she outsmarts me frequently and her wrath is the stuff of legends.  I don't want her to lose any of that as she sails the stormy seas of adolescence.
Frank worries in the same fashion and he asked her the other day if anyone had ever told her that she could not do something because she was a girl.  She was shocked and annoyed by the question and spit out a staccato "No."  I was proud of her response and the fact that her older brother was also equally stunned by the idea that girls might be told they could not do something.
Frank then turned to me in front of them and said, "Mommy, did anyone tell you that you couldn't do something because you were a girl?"  He knew I had a trove of examples and I shared one for the sake of underlining the point.  I grew up in a very traditional household and under the guidance of some pretty old-fashioned parents.  My parent are both from England and my father was an avid English football fan (soccer).  He passed that passion on to my brother and he coached my brother's intra-mural soccer team.
I adored my dad as a little girl and I wanted to do anything that he loved.  I wanted to play soccer as well but my truly lovely dad told me that "girls don't play soccer honey, they do ballet."  This despite that fact that there were two girls on my brother's team...  So I never played soccer.
I wish I had been more of a Scout Finch and rebelled against the constraints of other people's expectations, but I was little and I didn't.  I also had it in the back of my mind that girls are not supposed to make a fuss, they are supposed to be obedient and quiet and no trouble. Sugar and spice and everything nice.
I was surrounded by messages that told me I was less than.  I was born and raised in Saudi Arabia, a country which I still hold in my heart, but whose record with regard to women is far from stellar.  When we went to restaurants we had to sit behind screens in the "family section."  When we went to Baskin Robbins, we had to order from the window on the street as we were not allowed to enter the shop.  Women are not allowed to drive there and though I knew these things were not the norm in the rest of the world, it affected me.  I remember being told that girls are really not generally good at math, they don't grow up to be engineers, and I believed it.  It is so ironic now given that Wren scores off the charts in math and logic.
My mother told me that decent women never leave the house without a bra or make up on.  Her views ran along the same lines as The Pioneer Woman I think and those things sunk into my unformed brain from the get-go.  I know I spent a good deal of time growing up, not looking men in the eyes because it was not respectful and on some level I deemed it dangerous.
Right now our daughter is fierce and independent and sassy.  Her teachers talk about "leadership skills" which I know is a nice way of saying that she can be pretty bossy.  I have stopped telling her to "be nice" when she gets bossy and instead tell her to remember to be respectful.  I would rather she be bossy than meek, rather she rage than cower, rather she make a big splash than merely wade.
God, I don't want her to carry ANY of what I chose to take in from childhood around in her head.  I want her brain filled with hope, dreams and the knowledge that she is unlimited.  I want her to fly unencumbered by the judgements of others.  I want her to rise as high as she chooses and to live without regret.  I hope we manage to keep her head filled with hope rather than lack of self esteem and honestly I wish the same for our son and my husband and myself.

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Fear and Faith

Fear and Faith


I recently went back to Caron Treatment Center, where I went for treatment in February of 2014.  I have been back a number of times now, once to get my year coin and then for volunteer training and this past time to meet with one of the directors about the idea of publishing a children's book about addiction.  After the meeting I had lunch with some of the therapists who so lovingly helped almost 18 months ago.  After lunch I was honored to be able to sit and speak with the current patients on the relapse unit.
Honored because I was asked and honored because I could provide some hope to people severely beaten down by their disease and mired in regret and shame.  I told them a bit about my journey and answered questions along the way as best I could.  I spoke about recovery and about the state of my marriage and about how to talk to kids about addiction.  When I mentioned that Frank and I had met when I was 15 and I had really never dated anyone else and had thought we would make it through just about anything, one man raised his hand.  He told me that he was in a similar situation as he had met his wife as a teen and they had been married for a long time now.  He said that he just assumed she would always be there and now he is afraid she may actually divorce him.  I completely understood.  I had taken Frank for granted for sure and it just never crossed my mind that he would ever leave me.
He hasn't really left me as we see each other nearly everyday, talk everyday and co-parent quite happily, but we are not together presently and we live apart both hoping we can piece the union back together.  But I well understood how this man felt.  I well understood the fear that grips him as I felt the same after I moved into my apartment and it still creeps in to knock my equilibrium askew from time to time.  I felt unmoored, set adrift to find my own way back to shore and I was terrified.
What I was able to tell him was that once I started exploring spirituality and started working through the steps as they are laid out in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, I started to find faith.  Faith in a higher power, a universal connectedness I had shut myself off to.  Faith in myself as I saw my whole self for the first time and didn't shy away from the full image.  Faith in the good and the bad in myself and the knowledge that the good far outweighs the bad.  Faith that even if Frank and I don't manage to patch up our marriage, that I will still be me and I won't be swallowed up in some black hole of non-existence.  To be sure I will be devastated should that come to pass, but I have faith now that it will not break me.
You see fear and faith cannot coexist.  Once I started to have faith, my fear decreased.  It didn't completely leave, as there are times when fear rears its head, but it does not overwhelm me as it used to, it does not rule my thoughts and actions as it used to, it does not run riot through my life because I have faith.
If you are afraid, find a way to have some faith and your life will be so much more fruitful.

Friday, July 17, 2015

Dueling Co-Dependency

Dueling Co-dependents

I am constantly amazed by how different my children's personalities are.  I Wren's personality is much more like Frank's and Dermot favors me... Poor kid.  The other weekend was a prime example of how similar we are and how we are both so co-dependent.
I came over to the house in the morning so that Frank could go to a seminar.  I knew that he was low on groceries and was waiting for a grocery delivery so I brought over a treat for breakfast for the kids.  I went to Dunkin Donuts and ordered egg wraps and picked the donuts Frank thought they would like and some milk.
Well when I got home we discovered that they had gotten Dermot's egg wrap wrong and that he did not indeed like the donut I had picked.  Wren was perfectly happy with hers and, as she sometimes does, seemed to delight in her breakfast just a little too in his face.
Now Dermot is a passionate fellow.  He can be joy personified about 80% of the time but that other 20% can be pretty hairy.  He is also one of those rare kids who does not like ketchup or cheese and isn't really a big fan of chocolate so his fast food orders often come to us wrong.  Normally I remember to check them, but I had forgotten and his sandwich had cheese.  He really got upset and was angry about how unfair it was that Wren got her breakfast but one didn't get the right one.
I was on the porch and could hear his tantrum.  Frank was talking to him and offered to make him something else but Dermot wasn't able to calm down and accept that yet.  As I listened I got more and more uncomfortable.  I felt sorry for him, I felt guilty and I wanted to fix it.  I went inside and said to Frank that I would go back and get the sand which he wanted and Frank urged me not to.  As we discussed it, Dermot came in the room and got even more upset because he didn't want me to go back and spend more money because that would make HIM feel guilty.  It was a comedy of errors.
I felt guilty, he felt guilty.  It was like dueling banjos of co-dependency!  I laughed and said something like, "Dermot, we are as bad as each other!"  So I took him in the kitchen and offered again to make him breakfast.  He had calmed down by then and we made him something else together.
I worry sometimes that I did this to him either through genetics or by the chaos my addiction has wrought on the family.  I realize however that I can't get stuck in that kind of thinking and instead do just what I did, laugh about it so as to lessen the strength of it, and show Dermot that there are healthy ways to solve problems.

Thursday, June 18, 2015

No Taboos

No Taboos


I recently spoke at a rehab to a group of women.  I go once a month with my sponsor to this rehab and hold a speaker meeting for the women there.  I drive about an hour and a half and my sponsor drives about two hours just to hold the meeting and talk.  After, we meet for dinner with my sponsor's husband who speaks to the men at the same time.  It is one of the highlights of my month.
Why do we drive so far just to hold a meeting each month?  We do so because to speak to these women is a reminder.  It is a cautionary tale.  I see the ladies there and they are downcast, saddened, desperate and feeble of spirit and I used to be one of them.  I don't want to join their ranks again, so I drive from work and talk to them.
This past month, after telling them a little bit of my story, a woman raised her hand to ask me a question.  She said she had children about the age of my own and wanted to know if I thought she should tell them the truth about where she was and why she was there.
I told her she should decide that for herself, but that I didn't think that lying to the kids was a good idea.  Frank and I have been honest with the kids from the start and I think it has been a wise decision.
First of all, children are little people who deserve respect and understanding.  They may be little but they are not stupid.  They have seen me at my worst and been unwitting players in the tragic odyssey of my addiction and recovery  They know what has gone on.  They may not have had words for it, but they knew, they were there and they saw.  I don't think that lying to them would do any good and it would have been disrespectful.
I think there is a way to be truthful and open by using words, analogies and terms they can understand.  It has also been important for Frank and I to present a united front from the start, agreeing to no taboos.  Any question the kids have had has been answered slowly and thoughtfully and without reserve.  At first these questions felt jarring to me and made my stomach clench, but over time there has been a comfort in them.  Somehow being that open and genuine with them about this part of my life and history has brought us closer together. Being honest and open with the kids about the struggle and everything surrounding it makes us all stronger.  It also opened the door to other important discussions such as sexual abuse and depression to name a few.  These are heavy topics to be sure, but I firmly believe that the more the kids know, the safer and better armed they will be.
The rehab I went to last had a children's program that both kids attended.  I cannot speak more highly of the program and what it did to help the kids, particularly Dermot.  It explained the terms and reassured them that nothing was their fault.  Dermot got so much out of it that he asked to give a little presentation about addiction to his class and did.  He talked to them about it and how it is a disease and how his mom has it.  I was so proud of him for that.  If there is one way of breaking down the stigma surrounding the disease, it is to bring understanding and acceptance to it from the start.  It also cemented my resolve to no longer be anonymous about my alcoholism.  There was no hiding it after that!
To be sure it isn't easy to walk into their school at times and be "that mom", the alcoholic separated from her husband and not living with her kids.  It isn't easy, but to not walk in would be  letting the kids down and I don't want to be in a position to do that again, my disease has done that enough already.

Friday, June 5, 2015

A Fractured Mind?

A Fractured Mind?


So, guess what?  I am mentally ill.  I have been diagnosed throughout my adult life with an increasing list to check off on health forms.

Dysthymia
Major Depressive Disorder
Anxiety Disorder
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Co-occurring Mental and Addictive Disorders

I hope the above list does not grow any longer.  It baffles me that when I was in active addiction I checked myself into a psych ward in order to try and stop drinking because it was easier for me to admit to mental instability than it was to admit to being an alcoholic.  Now in recovery, and once again in control of myself, I find it harder to say that I am mentally ill, but I am.  I suppose that it is just one more of the paradoxes in my life... At least I'm not boring.
Stigma goes a long way in stopping people from getting help.  I am in the unique position of no longer having secrets and therefore there really isn't any point in carrying the weight of shame.  I do still feel it at times, but it is no longer so heavy, but why do we do that to ourselves?  I mean why do we place shame around illnesses of the mind when 25% of the adult US population has some form of mental disorder?  That is a staggering statistic and of course cites only those who have been diagnosed, there are, I suspect so many more that go undiagnosed, in part due to the stigma.
I went on the NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) site to get that statistic and a few others.  About 6% of that same adult population lives with major depressive disorder and about 5% of the adult US population has co-occurring mental and addictive disorders.  Suicide is a more common cause of death than homicide and 90% of those who die by suicide have some kind of mental disorder.  According to all these statistics, pretty much everyone in this country has been touched by mental illness in one way or another, so why don't we talk about it more?
Do I seem weak for telling people that I have these illnesses or does my admittance and vulnerability make me stronger?  I would argue that I am much stronger for facing myself and admitting to being just who I am.  I value the fact that I am now working with what I've got rather than battling myself to pretend I am something different, as I used to.  It was a battle I had no hope of winning.  I was improperly armed and had no strategy.  Now I am and I do.
I grew up in a household rife with mental illness.  My mother was terribly ill.  Not being a doctor I can only hazard a guess that she had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, actually I know that one for sure, but also with some form of anxiety and depression and possibly borderline personality disorder.  It was a different time and a different culture and we never spoke about the problems outside the family and she never got any help.  I know what it is like to be inside my own head, I can only imagine the hell it was to live inside hers.  Thinking of her in that way eases the pain of growing up under the tyranny of her diseases.  I wish there had been a chance for her to address some of her problems because she would have had a much more fruitful and happy life and perhaps we, as a family, could have as well.
My life now is a good one.  It does not look like what I thought it would or should, but I am happy most of the time.  I still struggle with feelings of depression and anxiety and also with cravings for mind altering substances.  Yes I still struggle, but I also have more knowledge now, and no longer shy from seeking help.
I may still struggle in life and likely will till I die but I am better armed and I have so many things to be grateful for and so many things to be happy about.  I am the mother of two extraordinary children who charm the world around them.  I am also the mother to a beautiful soul no longer with us but whose presence in my life made me a better person.  I am the wife of a singular man who has rode the roller coaster of life with me in one form or another for going on 26 years now.  I am a contributing member of society, I have incredible friends whose loyalty is humbling and I am a singer.  I am also a writer who is blessed to know that what I am writing is affecting people in a positive way.
This list far overshadows the list of diagnoses at the top.

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Rising is now featured elsewhere

Proud to announce that Rising From The Ashes is now being featured on Renew - addiction and recovery resource site at www.reneweveryday.com

Friday, May 22, 2015

Upgrading Your Dashboard


Upgrading Your Dashboard

I have a friend from the recovery house that I love to pieces.  She is so willing to examine herself and so eager to figure out why and how she ticks the way she does and that willingness to self-examine will get her farther in recovery than most things.
At one point when we were both still living at the recovery house together she went to visit her mother for the weekend.  She had been so excited to go and we had to earn points to have such overnight visits so I knew she had worked hard to get the privilege.
I saw her return and she looked somewhat deflated and asked her how it had gone.  She told me about the weekend and was sad.  She said it had not gone very well and that she and her mother had fought.  She described the conflict and what had led up to it and we talked it through for a while.  She said that her mother could push her buttons like no one else and that she was mad at herself for allowing herself to be so bothered by it.
She is so self-aware that she saw it as a learning experience and I was impressed that she could see a lesson in the interaction.  I try to see the lesson in every situation as well and try hard to concentrate on what I can get from every stumble along the way.  It may take me a few days to see the lesson, but there is a way to turn every challenge around and see it from a different angle and step work has taught me that.
It occurred to me then that we all have buttons and we all have people who can find them faster and push them harder than others.  Spend a day with my children and you will learn that Dermot has some buttons that only Wren can find and push!  I certainly have them and though I deeply love my button pushers, I get frustrated with myself when I allow them to be pushed.
What if there was a way to upgrade your dashboard?  I know that when using computer platforms at work, older versions are replaced with newer and buttons we used to use are rendered obsolete once the dashboard has been upgraded.  If I could learn to do that on a regular basis I would be so much more serene.  If I upgrade my dashboard, then my button pushers can't push my buttons if they no longer exist or have been replaced with new ones.
It will require a great deal of personal work, but I do think it is possible and it is something I continue to work on.
If people push your buttons maybe you need to upgrade your dashboard...

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Chaos

Chaos

It occurs to me that chaos is central to addictions of all sorts.  When I was actively drinking or drugging I was seeking substances to ease the chaos in my mind.  I had thoughts and emotions I thought I could not cope with and therefore I tried to numb myself.  It worked for a while until it didn't and took an ugly turn.  But in my wake the chaos I was deferring crashed down on my loved ones.
I still have the chaos in my mind, I still have thoughts and emotions that feel so large I am not sure I will ever overcome, but I am learning to sit with them and not let them consume me.  It isn't easy and it certainly isn't fun, but over time I have come to know that they WILL pass.  They are not set in stone, they are transient, they come in like a fog that I cannot see through, but it moves on in much the same way.  If I can sit still while seemingly lost in the mist and simply listen without wandering, it passes over me and I find myself on familiar ground when it dissipates.  If I panic and wander in the mist desperately trying to escape, I get deeper and deeper in it and the fog lasts so much longer.  I will come out far from home, confused and exhausted.
I have seen many people in recovery flail around once they get sober because they are so used to the chaos that they can't quite let it go.  It is like another addiction in and of itself.  I understand that as I started out addicted to food, had gastric bypass surgery and became an alcoholic.  Now I am in recovery from alcohol and have gained weight so I know all about trading one addiction for another.  But this phenomenon of craving chaos to distract from dealing with life as it is, is a trend I have noticed all around me.
People caught in this chaotic whirlwind stop drinking and doing drugs and some will turn to food.  Some will turn to exercise, some will turn to unhealthy means of losing weight, like purging, binging, starving, laxatives...  Some will go boy or girl crazy and embark on bed crawling or delving into relationships that are not healthy.  Some gamble, some shoplift, all on a quest to run from their feelings and thoughts.
I have noticed also that for family members the lack of chaos can be disorienting also.  Perhaps it is because they have been forced to live in a state of adrenaline and worry for so long that sometimes they can't get out of that state.  Some classic co-dependents will continue to rescue when it is unhealthy to do so, or they will continue to try and solve problems that are no longer there.  I think that people who are living life in the role of hero have often been doing so for a long time and it is a form of addiction for them as well.  Who would not want to be the hero and come out looking pristine in every situation?  I wonder if it is not a way of avoiding how they feel about themselves in much the same way that substances are a way for others to avoid the same.  The whole cycle is disturbing to be a part of and equally disturbing to watch.
What is the solution?  I am not entirely sure, as I clearly have not solved the problem for myself completely, but I do know that accepting myself for who I am is a step in the right direction.  I know that sitting with feelings that used to cause me to run is a step in the right direction.  I know that avoiding situations or people that used to add to the chaos is a step in the right direction.  Living life somewhere in the middle of graph is so much better than the low or high end.  If I am in the high end, spiking near the top, I have so much farther to fall, and if I live at the bottom I will never feel joy, so middle of the road is the place to be, without the chaos.

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

"Helping"

"Helping"

Counselors and therapists and those who try to help the addicted heal will always tell you that addiction is not only a disease but also a family disease.  The first time I heard that addiction was a disease, I, like many others wasn't sure that I bought it and I certainly didn't buy the concept that the family had an illness as well.  Over the course of living in recovery I have come to accept both.
As I have said before, I knew once I had relapsed and driven the kids while I was drunk, that I was desperately sick.  I had a disease because I would never in my right mind have put my children in danger.  Frank and I have lost a child and I know the value of life on a level that is deeply ingrained, so I can now say, yes, I have a disease and it is deadly.
But the family members of the addicted?  How are they sick?  They are the ones trying to do the right thing and help, so I don't get it and it seems unfair to label the ones who have suffered the slings and arrows of our self-centered and reckless actions.  The addicted leave rubble in their wake and the family is left to clean it up so why would be say they are also sick?
Now I understand.  There is a chaos in the lives of these families.  Parents and spouses of people in active addiction are stuck in a cycle of attempting to maintain some semblance of normalcy amidst the chaos.  They are on point 24 hours a day living on adrenalin trying to save us from ourselves and protect us from danger and pain and the very real possibility of death.
If an addict/alcoholic is blessed enough to embark on a life in recovery, the family members are certainly happy, but understandably wary.  One of the most common side effects of addiction in a family is the loss of trust.  How do the heroes in the situation learn to trust again?  I don't have an answer to that and sometimes it isn't possible to rebuild but I do get that it is a massive and seemingly unsolvable problem.
What I now see certainly to some level within my own family units but also on a larger level among the families of the people that I know in recovery is that the family members find it so hard to drop their guard and they often try solving problems they should never and been responsible for or that are no longer there.  It is possible for the families to become addicted to the chaos as well.  If you live so long in a state of war, how do you re-integrate into life as a civilian again?
I think this may be harder for the parents of addicted children.  How do you detach with love and allow your child to sort things out on their own if in the past their own thinking led them down a path of destruction?  How do they relax and now allow this person to assume the helm once again?  I can say from the view point of the more commonly labeled "patient" in the situation, it can hamper the process of recovery and it is often attempting to solve problems that are no longer there.
During their loved one's active use, parents and spouses have often enabled their loved ones and enabling an addict is only making it worse.  It is contributing to the problem and in some cases it is akin to signing their death warrant.
How can seemingly helpful behavior be destructive?  How can you go from seeing yourself as a hero to being told you are a part of the problem and not be shattered?  It is a paradox like so many others surrounding this disease.  Many family members will balk at being told this reality and simple refuse to accept it.  I have heard many parents on family weekends at rehab say emphatically and with bluster that they will always be there and do everything that they can for their child.  They will wear this statement like a mantle and say it like a battle cry.  But if they and the addict could step back and take a look at the situation from a distance what would they see?  They might see a shell of a person in, say in their thirties, without a job, without a relationship because their significant other has had enough.  The addict may have lost custody of children.  Their parents have swept in a picked up the pieces, are paying their bills, giving them a place to live, doing their laundry and even giving them money for drugs and alcohol because the addict will be sick and intolerable without them.  When the addict acts out and goes on a binge, the parents drop everything and sweep the city looking for this adult runaway and worrying themselves sick only to have the addict return and cycle through this insanity over and over again.
 In so many of these cases I wish the addict could see how pathetic their behavior really is and I wish the family could see how futile and harmful the "helping" really is.  The bravest actions would be for the addict to face themselves and begin to take responsibility for themselves, seeking the professional help they really need and frankly grow up.  The even braver thing lies at the feet of the families.  They must learn a nearly impossibly counter-intuitive act of detaching with love.  The family will ask but what if they fall again?  What if they become homeless?  What if they get hurt or they die?  The fact is that the addicts are already dying, they are just dying more slowly and the family members "helping"them are doing just that, they are helping them to die.  It is awful to write and it is awful to read but it is true.  The only thing to be done is guide the addict to professional help and if they don't opt to go then the family has to stop "helping" so they are forced to hit bottom and no longer have any options.  It is all part of this sad and insidious, emotionally and mentally charged, fatal disease.
I just hope for family members to find peace and to learn to take care of themselves as that is the strongest and bravest thing that they can do.

Monday, May 11, 2015

The Slaking

The Slaking

The other week in a meeting the discussion surrounded steps 8 and 9.  For those of you who are not familiar with the twelve steps, steps 8 and 9 are as follows:
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
As we went around the room sharing, I got, as I often do, a true sense of peace and a feeling of my own thoughts rearranging inside my head.  I think we go to a chiropractor for adjustments and alignments to set our bodies right after days of walking through the world.  Going to these types of meetings for me seems to do the same thing for my thoughts.  They unkink and my mind gets a much-needed alignment. It makes the path forward for the week clearer and more straightforward.
When it came to my turn to share I remembered my previous attempt at the steps a couple of years ago now and I spoke about that to the group.  Previous to my drinking relapse, I had a number of sponsors.  Each one held to the belief that you had to wait a year on steps 1, 2 and 3 before commencing with the rest.  I did not want to wait, I wanted to start working, doing something, sorting myself out.  I kept moving on to different sponsors because I could not connect with them, would relapse on them, or was simply searching for someone I was comfortable enough with to lead me through the process.
I had one who was willing enough to abandon the idea of waiting a year to move forward on the steps and I asked her to take me through step four and beyond.  She had hesitated but I pushed because I was still thirsty, so, so thirsty and I knew we had to do something other than sit in this abhorrent wanting.
I pushed and prodded my way through to step eight in a haphazard and somewhat half hearted way.  I was willing to go only so far in my work.  Only so far in my admittance, I could only glance at myself in the mirror, only catching glimpses of the good and glimpses of the bad.  I only wanted to shed some light, only admit to so much.  We all know how well that worked...
After going back to rehab and on to a recovery house, I stumbled upon this group of people  whose method of going through the steps is all-encompassing.  It is impressive in its thoroughness and viewed from this other side, seems nearly insurmountable.  The group method is clever though as the work is parsed out, offering only pieces of the process, so, as they say, you eat the elephant one bite at a time.  By the time you get to step nine, you look back and can't quite believe you have accomplished quite so much self-examination.  You have looked your true self in the eye and have accepted the whole, the good, the bad and the ugly.
A wonderful thing then happens, you get to meet yourself.  You no longer live in regret because you are now willing to and have begun to admit your faults to those around you.  You can hold your head up higher because there simply isn't anything left to hide and you can move forward with a lighter step and the thirst has been slaked.
Now I won't pretend the thirst does not crop up for me from time to time.  It does.  Not often and not very strongly, but my old thinking can take over for moments here and there.  The difference now is that I remember what I have to lose and I remember the pain of regret.  The pain of regret and remorse and sorrow is stronger when you have cleared it all out and begun to live in a genuine fashion.  If I were to drink again, it would feel good for but a handful of minutes and then I would again have let down my children, flushed the marriage Frank and I are fighting to save, disappointed all who care about me and lost myself.  I would lose the Fiona I have only just begun to befriend.  I would lose the Fiona who is an example to my children, the Fiona Frank might just fall in love with again.
The Fiona, slaked, desires to continue to rise so much more that to live thirsty and afraid among the ashes.

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

EnChroma Glasses

EnChroma Glasses

I saw an advert for these glasses the other day on the internet and my interest was peaked enough to click in and watch the commercial.  These glasses have been developed by an off shoot of a paint company and are for people with color blindness.  I don't understand the technology behind them but the lenses in the glasses do what the eye does not in a person with color blindness and enables them to see colors as others do.
I thought these were pretty cool until I saw the response of people with color blindness when they tried them on and then I thought they were really cool.  I know it was a commercial, but the reactions were priceless.  These people were stunned and excited and awed by the prism of colors they had heard tell of but never experienced before and it made me think...
I feel as though I have constructed something like these glasses for myself by going through the steps and by working on myself.  I don't ever think I have ever had a clear vision of myself until now.  I have always put too much stock in what other people have said, in what other people think, in what I think they will say, on what I think they think and it has all been so distorting.
I have tried over the years to mold myself into what I thought I was supposed to be, how I thought I was supposed to act, how I was supposed to look.  It is no surprise that I was unsuccessful and unhappy.  It felt like trying to put pantyhose on when you are wet.  It is a futile attempt, you will struggle and the hose will snag and you aren't going to look pretty when it's over.
I have found that being true to myself is the trick.  I have started to do what I feel is right and not what I don't.  Sometimes doing what I think is right for me does not always fall in line with what others think I should do and I am strong enough now to see that that is alright.  In order to be my true self means that sometimes others will be frustrated and disappointed, but I am living without regrets.  I move forward not intending any harm, taking responsibility and being honest.  Sometimes my level of honesty doesn't always serve me well in all circumstances either, but I know that if I don't tell my truth, I will start to get a distorted view of myself again and that is something. I can't afford.
I have built my own set of EnChroma glasses over time and I know how brave I am, how strong I am, how wise I am, how well-intentioned and kind I am.  I also know how damaged I was, how wrong I was, how badly I handled things in the past.  These new glasses of mine balance all these things and allow me to see who I am now much more clearly.
Growing up I saw myself through my parents eyes and didn't like what they saw so I tried to change, to fix the image.  In school I did the same when I saw myself through the eyes of my peers.  When Frank and I married, I saw myself through his eyes and knew his vision of me had me on a pedestal so high I could not achieve it's elevation.  Addiction brought me down in his eyes and I now have to be careful not to look at myself through his eyes because he is still angry and afraid and his vision of me right now is not always nice, nor is it balanced.
What I take away from this is that I have to concentrate on simply looking at myself through my own eyes and if that means I need to wear a pair of spiritual glasses, then so be it.  When I wear those glasses I see sides to myself I knew were always there but I could never before bring into focus.  The range of hues I see in myself is staggering and the pictures I can paint are now limitless.

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Keep Talking

Keep Talking

Our marriage counselor has been pushing us lately to make decisions.  He is wanting more results and wants us to make clear to each other what our intentions are and what we are willing to do.  I won't go into all the details, but we have a few sticking points that are stymying our diving into my moving home.  None of them are small and none of them are easy and all of them are exhausting.
The facts are that there is a history there that contains both good and bad.  We can trigger each other like nobody's business.  There is an understandable lack of trust as a direct result of my actions during addiction.  There is a lot of fear surrounding my not being able to promise there will be no relapse.
This is one of the major sticking points for sure.  I want to be able to promise that with all my heart but would be lying if I did.  I can no more promise that I won't relapse than I can that I won't get some other disease in the future, and I know for those not exposed to addiction, that is hard to understand.  I CAN promise that I will do everything in my power, and I am, not to relapse, to live a more righteous life, to be spiritually sound and connected and to strive to be the best I can be, all of which slakes the thirst I have for falling back on my old ways of escape.  I CAN say that I have no desire to escape today, that I love myself today and that I have no need nor want for mind altering substances and I was never able to say that before.  I CAN say that I do desire to come home a stronger and more equal partner to a man I both love and admire.  I CAN say that I desire to do so only when we can take a leap of faith and that I don't want to lose myself in the process.
I do lose hope sometimes.  I do find it hard to keep going over and over what has happened and examine all the feelings that crop up for us both.  It is exhausting to go to marriage counseling week after week.  There are days I want to throw in the towel and give up.
The other night when I was tucking Dermot into bed he asked me when I was coming home.  I told him that I couldn't answer that question yet but that Daddy and I were talking all that through. Dermot looked up at me and said, "I guess driving us needs to come first and then moving in.  Well keep talking Mom.  Talk for six hours at a time if you have to, but just keep talking."
So when the marriage counselor gave us an assignment on discernment that he uses to make major life decisions which is a faith based praying model, I looked at it.  It took me a few weeks but I looked at it.  I wrote about it for myself.  I meditated on it last night.  I asked Joe for what he thought I should do and he basically told me as he wiped down the diner counter that "The kid has more sense than the both of you put together."
So for all our sakes and perhaps Dermot in particular, I plan to just keep talking no matter how hard, how tiring.  There is history of bad and good in our story, but it is the good I plan to highlight going forward and that good contains Dermot and Wren and we owe them this fight.

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

A Most Noble Pyramid Scheme

A Most Noble Pyramid Scheme

Lest anyone think that I am spiritually sound every single moment of the day, let me assure you that I struggle to do the right thing often.  I have that voice in my head that tells me to just be lazy and not do the chore ahead that needs to be done.  I have that voice in my head that says I deserve to take time off from the things that keep me moving forward in a more healthy way.  I have that voice in my head that whispers lies and promises titillating oases of ego-stroking self-indulgences.  I used to listen to that voice and that voice alone.
That voice is still there and I have to make a conscious effort to tune it out.  I have to change the channel and find one which promises redemption rather than indulgence.  The music is sweeter and softer, but the song is beautiful and longer-lasting.
There are days when I am tired and I don't want to go to a meeting or meet a person from the program for coffee or drive to a rehab and speak.  I used to cave and not go, sitting instead in glorious self-indulgence and trying to enjoy the stolen time but all the while wallowing in guilt.
Now, when, in those moments of pause, I consider not doing what it right, I see the links in the chain.  I see the person whom I have agreed to meet for coffee, I see the people in the chairs in the rehab sitting and waiting, I see my sponsor's face and the faces of those who have offered their hands down and back to pull me up and forward and I get it and I go and I never regret it.  I never regret making the meeting or the coffee or the session or the reading or the speaking.  I do regret those times that I bail out of my responsibilities.
It strikes me that it is all a pyramid scheme of the most noble kind.  I am a link in a chain of goodness and I have to keep my link strong.  My sponsee needs my time and energy and patience.  My fellow meeting makers need me as much as I need them.  There are days I listen and gain from the wisdom imparted and there are days I impart that wisdom and there are people there who may need to hear what I have to say just as I need to hear their pearls.
Even my sponsor needs my participation.  In giving she is receiving.  The more she is able to give, the stronger her recovery.  Her husband said to me once as we wrestling over paying a diner bill that he would let me this time because he had learned early on that you need to "share in the blessings".  In that comment he wasn't really talking about the food bill, he was speaking on a grander level.  You can't always be the giver nor can you always be the receiver.  You have to allow others the gift of giving as well, it is as valuable a stance as receiving.
So I will give and receive, strengthen my link and participate in this wonderful spiritual ponzi scheme!