Whereto, Persephone?

Memoir Excerpt:

“Then, two weeks into her stay in rehab, on another beautiful day, I went to see her so we could go for a walk. I knocked on the door:

“Hi, can you tell Angie her mother’s here?”

“Excuse me, let me go find the director.”

“Thanks, I’ll wait out here.”

Looking stricken, the director greeted me at the door. “Mrs. Romero? I’m sorry, but Angie isn’t here. She just packed her suitcase and left. We don’t know where she went.”

“What? You just let her leave? Why didn’t you call me?” I yelled.

“Mrs. Romero, her stay here was voluntary,” she answered. “She could leave any time she wanted. And we had no authorization to call you. She’s not a minor. I’m sorry.”

Numb with pain, worry and disappointment, I turned around and made it back to my car. Funny thing about getting kicked in the stomach multiple times. You stop feeling the pain of it. Numbness sets in and somehow, if you’re lucky, you get from Point A to Point B without any serious damage. So instead of feeling the pain of losing her yet again, I felt an incredible sense of relief. I told my friends in the Program that it felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders, that I was “finally off the hook.” If ever I was to accept that I was powerless over her and her addiction, it was now. I was free of her and the worry and the anxiety and even some of the guilt. I didn’t know whether she was dead or alive, but I felt free and unencumbered for the first time in months. Isn’t that strange?”

 

 

Wings

From Hope For Today, October 16:

“One winter afternoon a friend and I took a stroll along a frozen lake. The lake was covered with a thin sheet of ice, but it showed cracks in some places where the ducks had been busily swimming. Most of the ducks were in a large area of open water, but two of them were in a smaller area that was separated by a barrier of ice. One of them tried repeatedly to get to the other side. She frantically tried to scramble over the thin wall of ice, but it broke under her weight as soon as she approached it. The duck didn’t give up, however, and continued her crazy ice dance.

At first my friend and I burst out laughing at the hilarity of the duck’s antics. Before too long I grew philosophical. The duck’s situation seemed strangely familiar. How often had I tried in vain to be happy by always using the same unsuitable means, much like the duck that had forgotten she could fly over the wall of ice! What constitutes the “wings” that I have forgotten?

In Al-Anon I have the opportunity to mend my “wings” or even to fashion a new pair if I choose. ‘This program has shown me that I have choices. I could stay the way I was, or I could change.’”

 

Change is critical for all of us, addicts and non-addicts like, in order to cope with addiction and learn to live well. “It’s the best revenge!”

Split in Two

Memoir Excerpt:

“Oh, God, no, this wasn’t happening. THIS WAS NOT HAPPENING! I don’t know this person. Something has taken over her body and transformed her. Angie, my Angie, no longer resides in this walking corpse, this skeleton. She doesn’t live here anymore.’

I poured Angie into my car and took her to the psych ward. While she was there, Gene sat with her at one or two in-house meetings. Xavier and I soldiered in to see her every single day, with her favorite food, and smiles, and earnest talk about how she could start over any time she chose to. On one such visit, I asked her about the contents of her suitcases.

‘It’s all perfectly legal, Mom.’

Collecting myself and keeping calm, I asked myself, if I was living on another planet, or was what she was doing illegal? No matter. It didn’t matter to me because this person who was glibly telling me this was not the person I had raised. This person had no moral compass whatsoever. And from this moment forward I knew that I was dealing with a split personality: two people, my Angie, and this hair-brained addict. I wanted to kill the addict, murder her in her sleep, and watch my Angie rise like a phoenix from the ashes.”