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 Frank’s cancer along with Liam’s 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 didn’t 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 wasn’t 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 didn’t 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 didn’t seem to get it.

A couple of them pointed out that I had stood by Frank when he had cancer and wasn’t 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 can’t be compared in that fashion to cancer.  I also pointed out that it wasn’t 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 didn’t seem to get it.

Then I was rocked by two patients.  They were hung up on my not being allowed to go home.  They couldn’t 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 Frank’s 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 didn’t 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 wasn’t 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 don’t 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 won’t be able to do that until they walk through their own fire.

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 don’t 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 isn’t the same anymore and I think we both want to be happy and don’t 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, Frank’s cancer, Liam’s 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 couldn’t 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 didn’t 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 wouldn’t be coming home until she was better and we didn’t want them to think that I was still sick.  I also didn’t 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 Mommy’s 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 Frank’s lap when Dermot said, “But I don’t 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 didn’t 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 Mommy’s 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 won’t be scars, there will be.  This will become a part of the story of their lives and it is a chapter they didn’t 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 wasn’t about the booze.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.