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...

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.

"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.

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.