“Joe’s
Diner – Open 24/7”
be easy,
take your time.
you are coming home.
to yourself.
―
Forgive me friends, for I have been
absent. It has been 15 months since my
last blog post. I have not posted because
I have been incapable of doing so for various reasons, the chief reason was
that I refuse to post when I feel inauthentic.
I have been in and out of “the program” since the end of 2019. Struggling since the DUI and the pandemic as
many of us have. I have been living so
many months in a deep chasm of shame, guilt and remorse since my relapse that
ended my 5 ½ years of sobriety and could never quite get my feet under me
again. Depression followed along with
isolation and a profound betrayal of self and family that carried me through to
July of this year. Then drinking in
front of my children and having them bravely intervene had me back in rehab for
the third time in my life.
I was away for a month and then spent
time in PHP (partial hospitalization program) which is a day camp for mental
health of sorts, stepped down to IOP (Intensive outpatient) and am now in
weekly OP (outpatient therapy). I
started a new job as a therapist in September and love it. I work only with mental health patients as I
ethically feel I can’t treat anyone in drug and alcohol until I have a year or
two under my belt again. I have a new
clan of friends from “the program” whom I met in rehab (something I have never
had before) and I am slowly building things back up again. I finally feel, at 4 plus months of sobriety,
my authentic self again and I therefore can start writing for the blog. This next piece was something I wrote while I
was in treatment.
For those of you who are new to my blog, let me explain what the title is referring to. “Joe” is the name I gave my conception of my higher power. Joe is how I learned to approach God. Joe has a diner in the sky and I can go and have coffee and eggs and talk things through with him and before I had gone back to treatment, I hadn’t visited him for a while…
Joe
is still there. I suppose not
shockingly, he never left. He’s been
waiting patiently for me in his diner in the sky all this time with a cigarette
hanging out the side of his mouth. His
tattoos seem to have changed I notice but as I open the door and step inside,
he is wiping down the counter with a rag and my regular seat is waiting for
me. He greets me with a crinkly,
weather-beaten smile and tells me he missed me as he hands me a mug of coffee
just the way I like it.
His
tattoo on his right arm now reads “Life is Suffering” and the one on the left
says, “Utilize Your Army”. Besides the
tattoos all else is familiar and homey.
We talk about how I am back in treatment for alcoholism for the third
time since 2012. I tell him about how
low I felt when I came in the door. I
say I feel I can’t believe I’m here again.
I unload about the pain I feel, the pain I’ve caused, the confusion, the
shame. I have a Masters for God’s sake…
in this dammed field! How the hell am I
here AGAIN? What do I not get? Joe listens, nods and the cigarette never
produces any smoke or ash and never gets any smaller I notice, but this seems
completely normal.
As
I spend more days in treatment I come back to Joe’s Diner more and more to
visit Joe. I check in with him and let
him know what I am doing, how I am feeling and what I am learning. I never miss a meeting, a lesson, a lecture. I hear many things I have heard before, but I
figure I have to attend and get as much out of it as I can, there must be
something I am not getting, something I am not understanding.
My
mind and heart are shifting from hopeless to seeing glimmers and shards of
light. I’m starting to think that the
mirror I am so good at holding up for others to allow them to see where they
may need to heal and forgive may need to be inverted so I can look at myself
the same way.
I
have endless cups of coffee with Joe and not just a few plates of eggs at the
counter. I tell him about how since I’ve
allowed my mind to settle down peacefully here, during the quiet moments – my first
baby, Liam, who would have turned 18 this year, has flooded my body with
memories both beautiful and soul-rending.
Perhaps it’s because his cousin Vivi, close to the same age, is about to
go off to college, and it’s yet another milestone he never had a chance to
reach. I don’t know but he has washed
over and through me a lot while I have been here in rehab. Joe nods and holds my hand.
I
tell him about the relapse prevention program I am in and about how at first,
though I agreed to do it, I held little hope it would reveal anything to me
about why I continue to relapse. Then I
come back and tell him how it’s actually helping me so much and how I’m
learning a lot about hidden triggers and how I need to learn to ask for help
and about how I have unearthed that at my core I feel unworthy. Joe grins widely at this and reveals a gold
tooth.
Then
I start a trauma workshop. The group is
called, “Phoenix”. My blog is called “Rising
From the Ashes” and I have a phoenix tattooed on my arm. I tell Joe this is quite a coincidence and he
stifles a grin. I keep talking and tell
him I see this as a sign. After the
first session I report back to Joe that I liked it and that the facilitator is
amazing – he’s like a trauma whisperer – a Mr. Rogers for grown-ups.
I have a second session and it’s a psychodrama. We are asked to pick a topic to work on and if anyone wants to volunteer to be the protagonist – this person will be the center of the work. I volunteer with two others and we each give our topics. The group picks mine which is to try and resolve feelings of grief – specifically for me my feelings of grief over Liam’s death as I have some unresolved issues. Somewhere in the darkest forbidden recesses of my mind I have it stored that somehow my body betrayed me and I caused his heart and lung conditions and therefore his ultimate death. This has been an unspoken belief I have been flagellating myself with for the past near 18 years. We go through the psychodrama and at the end I have a conversation with Liam and he with me. I am able to see through his eyes and through the eyes of my other two beautiful children, Dermot and Wren that this is an ugly untruth, and that he knows he was, is and always will be loved. I let it go, like smoke evaporating into the bright blue sky. I tell Joe this and he hugs me hard and long. I linger in his embrace until I walk out the doors of rehab with my back just a little straighter and my head tilted just a little higher.
I wrote all this in rehab. Visiting Joe got me through and allowed me to process throughout my stay. I went from hopeless to being able to see a spark of myself again. I am now home and moving forward slowly. I am now talking to Joe daily. Lots of coffee and conversations later and I am full of hope.
I wanted to wish you all a Happy
Thanksgiving and I would guess that Joe does too.
