Thursday, January 21, 2016

Denial and Defensiveness


 

Denial and Defensiveness

 

 

I had the opportunity to go back to Caron Treatment Centers on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  The counselor that treated me on the relapse unit and I have kept in touch and I have been back a couple of times to speak so it was natural to spend the day in service.

I came a bit early and waited in the patient lounge for the counselor to finish with some phone calls.  The patients had been in a lecture and drifted into the lounge all clamoring for coffee.  Most rehab centers drastically cut down on caffeine and sugar for the patients and this tends to send people into immature desperation.  I introduced myself to people there as they came in and they were curious to figure out who I was and why I was there.  I mentioned the counselor that I was there to meet and one woman asked if I was going to be a part of their 10 am group session and I told her I thought I was.

During that time, one of the assistant counselors came in and I recognized him from my stay previously.  He looked at me and I said hello and that I remembered him.  He said, I thought I recognized you.  Where is your luggage hun?  He thought I was back after another relapse.  I laughed and said that I was most definitely going to be able to leave at the end of the day!

I had the opportunity to observe the patients interact.  One woman was busy managing everyone else as though she were a cruise director rather than a patient.  Her denial was so deep.  It seemed easier for her to direct others and orchestrate rather than be inside her own head where she needed to be doing some serious thinking.

Another few patients were so young it broke my heart.  As younger patients do, they seemed more interested in flirting than in getting better.  They are in a different stage of life than the older patients.  They still think they are invincible, where the older patients are more desperate and more resigned to their fate for the most part.

My counselor came to get me at about 9:45 am and we de-briefed in her office before group.  The idea was for me to share my story and experiences with recovery in a casual fashion, allowing for questions as I went along.  We went into the group room where there were about 18 patients sitting in a circle.  I sat among them and was introduced.

I started with a timeline of struggles that I had had from childhood through alcoholism and relapse.  I talked about being molested and growing up with an alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother.  I talked about meeting Frank and how he had from the beginning been a major part of my focus.  I talked about infertility and Franks cancer along with Liams dramatic birth, his subsequent diseases and ultimate death.  I went on to talk about further infertility and then the birth of both Dermot and Wren.  I talked about gastric bypass surgery and my rapid decline into full-blown alcoholism.  It talked about my first rehab and release to studying to be a certified addiction counselor as well as my relapse and entrance into Caron.  I spoke of my struggles after Caron in moving to the recovery house and the apartment.  I talked about the problems Frank and I had had in trying to reconcile and our ultimate decision to divorce.  I talked about my spiritual journey and the depths that my addiction has brought me down to, the things I did that I can no longer fathom.

There was a lot to say and I held nothing back.  I was rocked by some of their questions and saddened by the grip that addiction still had on their thinking. 

Some were parents like me and concerned their significant others would react as Frank had and ask them not to return home straight away.  I told them that even though I did not see it at the time, the act of not allowing me home at the start ended up being such a huge gift.  I explained that it allowed me time to figure out who I really was and the space to work on myself and my recovery.  They didnt seem to get it

Some other parents were curious about the custody arrangement that Frank and I have right now.  I explained that we have 50-50 custody but that I had made a decision to have the kids remain with Frank during the week so that they have a home base where they feel safe and from where they did not have to shuttle back and forth so much.  I explained that I would go over a few nights a week and we would trade off weekends and that we still plan to do some things together as a family.  One man asked me why I wasnt enforcing my right to have them half the time.  I explained that just because I have the right to have them with me 50% of the time, it didnt mean it was the right thing to do.  I told them that I had to face the fact that throughout all of my comings and goings with addiction since late 2011, Frank has been their constant.  He and his home have been their stability and there is no way I am going to take that away from them.  They didnt seem to get it.

A couple of them pointed out that I had stood by Frank when he had cancer and wasnt I resentful that Frank had not stood by me in my addiction.  I explained that yes they are both diseases but they are vastly different in their natures.  No matter how you cut it, addiction hurts those around you, it destroys trust and really cant be compared in that fashion to cancer.  I also pointed out that it wasnt as though Frank had left me homeless and starving on the street.  I pointed out that he had brought me to Caron and he had paid for me to go to the recovery house and that he had supported me until I got on my feet.  They didnt seem to get it.

Then I was rocked by two patients.  They were hung up on my not being allowed to go home.  They couldnt seem to understand why Frank would not trust me initially.  I explained again that I had driven the kids while I was drunk.  Their response was to say, So what?  I was astounded.  The counselor was astounded as well and minced no words in calling one woman on it.  The woman got very defensive and told the counselor she would not be spoken to like that.  I said to her, What do you mean, So what?  I lost a child.  I held my son in my arms as he died.  I know what it is like to grieve for a child and so does Frank, and then I put our two subsequent children in terrible danger.  I could have killed them.  I could have killed Franks kids!  I tried to explain that Frank had done what my parents should have done when I was a kid.  He protected his kids from danger and I had to come and accept the fact that, at the time, I was that danger.  I tried to explain that they were going to have to come to grips with the fact that they are that danger in their families lives.  They didnt seem to get it.

After the session was over, one man came over and asked me how I talk to my kids about addiction.  I told him that I tell them the truth and that I felt I owed that to them.  He has a son who is 9 and he feels that to talk to his son about his cocaine addiction would scare his son.  I looked him in the eye and told him that his son was not stupid.  His son has seen him at his worst and likely has already been scared.  His son is in a genetic pool that makes is more likely that he himself will become addicted to some substance or another and is therefore in more need than most children of knowledge and education.  His son is in need of open communication.  I suggested gently that perhaps he wasnt really trying to protect his son, but rather protect himself from having to admit to his child that he was sick.

I left grateful that I am no longer in denial of what is happening in my life.  I left being able to measure just how far I have come in the nearly two years since I entered the facility.  I left hoping that just one of the patients that I had spoken to will remember what I said at some point along their journey to recovery. Their defensiveness and denial are going to keep them sick.  If they dont learn to accept facts as they are and not look away from the reality of their situation, they are in serious trouble.  I hope for them to have the opportunity to live free of shame and guilt and look the world in the eye.  Bu they wont be able to do that until they walk through their own fire.

Monday, January 18, 2016

The Long Goodbye


 

The Long Goodbye

 

 

We tried.  We really did.  We went to marriage counseling for four long years and we have lived apart for nearly two.  We finally came to the hardest decision and are going to get divorced.

Neither one of us really wanted this, but we both know it was the right thing to do.  Do we still love each other?  Absolutely.  You dont create three gorgeous human beings together and stop loving each other.  But the love we have for one another is so very different that it used to be.  We have known each other for 27 years, have been together for 20 and married for 14, but it just isnt the same anymore and I think we both want to be happy and dont want to be the cause of any more pain for each other.  I want happiness for us both and I think we recognize that that may not be possible being married we are simply better at being friends.

I think you could argue that we have seen an awful lot in our marriage.  We have dealt with my traumatic past, infertility, Franks cancer, Liams heart and lung disease and ultimate death, more infertility and my addiction and perhaps it was all just too much.  I know every family has a lot to deal with but it proved for us to be just too much.

Frank will always be a part of my life.  We will always be friends, perhaps best friends.  He knows me better than anyone else.  We have Dermot and Wren to raise together and I know we are going to be a team and do the best job possible.  We will be parents together and if we are lucky, we will be grand-parents together.

After Thanksgiving we went away for the weekend and talked until we couldnt talk anymore.  We cried and we mourned the end of our story as we thought it would be written.  We came home and started the process of moving forward.  We even sat on the fence for a while, but ultimately I started looking for a house to buy.  I have found one and if all goes well I will move in at the end of January.  It is a house big enough for the kids to each have their own space, but small enough for me to afford and maintain on my salary.

I didnt want for Frank to have to sell the house he and the kids have been living in to divide assets exactly down the middle.  Moving the kids away from the house they have come to know as home and where they feel safe and secure with their grandparents right across the street is just not something I can stomach.  It is a hard sacrifice, but one I was more than willing to make.  The house they are in will remain their home base during the week.  They will not have to move back and forth while they are in school.  I will be there some of the nights of the week to help with homework and have family dinners just like I have been and we will switch back and forth on weekends. There will be Mommy days and Daddy days and days we spend altogether. Frank in turn has made sure that I am financially set with an IRA that I can build upon.

As soon as I began to accept in my heart and my head that we were ending our marriage, I made a decision that we could have the best divorce ever.  There is no reason we have to make this harder for one another or for the kids.  There has been no fighting.  No raised voices and no intentionally harsh words. We are setting an example for the kids that you can navigate a difficult time with grace and dignity.  We are simply loving each other through it.

This single most difficult part of this was sitting down to tell Dermot and Wren about the decision we had made.  We wanted to wait until after Christmas to tell them, and we wanted to tell all the adults in their life first so they could be a support to the kids once they were told.  We talked to the child psychologist they had seen when I went back to rehab in 2014 and asked his advice on how to go about the task and I dreaded talking to them but I have to say it went as well as we could have wished.

I would need to be the one to break the news because from the start we had told them that Mommy wouldnt be coming home until she was better and we didnt want them to think that I was still sick.  I also didnt want them to perceive that this was something that their dad was doing to me.  In point of fact I was the one to verbalize what we both knew needed to happen and ask for a divorce.  So I opened by telling them that I had bought a house but that daddy and I were no longer going to come together and live in the same house.  I told them that in fact we were getting divorced.  Dermot got off my lap and went across the room and faced us.  He said, I am a little sad and a little confused, but mostly I am excited to see Mommys new house!  I told them a bit about it and mentioned my ace-in-the-hole the fact that my new house comes with a hot tub on the back patio!  I had arranged for the realtor to open the house for us that afternoon so we could show the kids.  They asked us questions about the house and seemed excited to be going over.

Wren was processing all this quietly from Franks lap when Dermot said, But I dont like the word divorce.  We asked him why and he told us that when people are getting divorced it usually it means your parents are mad at each other.  I said, Dermot does it look like Daddy and I are mad at each other?  He admitted that it didnt and I told him that divorce was just a word and that I thought we could have the best divorce ever.  He then excitedly exclaimed, Maybe we could have a divorce party!  Like in Mommys hot tub!  Well why not?  God, I love that kid.

We took them over to see the house and they ran through the whole place in delight to the amazement of all the adults and I have never been so relieved in my life.  I am not so naïve as to think that there wont be scars, there will be.  This will become a part of the story of their lives and it is a chapter they didnt ask for, nor did they want.  But we can love them through it just as we are loving each other through it.

So where does that leave me?  It leaves me in a curious place. I am standing in the gloaming, watching this dusk come on in sadness and grief for a life I thought I would be living and letting it go.  I am resting before the dawn of a new day with tears in my eyes, crying not from sadness but from the knowledge that I am going to be okay and indeed knowing that I am going to be happy.

And you know what?  In the end, it wasnt about the booze.