Alice in Wonderland

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

My daughter, Angie, has been at many crossroads during the fourteen years of her drug addiction. A few times, she chose wisely and well. Other times, not so wisely. Most of the time, sadly, it was addiction that was making the decisions, and addiction, like cancer, wants to survive. My prayers continue every day that my daughter stays alive long enough to reach that pivotal milestone on the road to recovery.

Memoir Excerpt:

“Alice: ‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’

The Cheshire Cat: ‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.’

Alice: ‘I don’t much care where.’

The Cheshire Cat: ‘Then it doesn’t matter much which way you go.’

Alice: …’So long as I get somewhere.’

The Cheshire Cat: ‘Oh, you’re sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.’”

Breakdown!

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Memoir Excerpt:

“After Angie’s arrest, I felt myself start to dissolve. I was a sugar cube with hot water poured over it, and I was melting. It was January 2008, and I started to feel my insides harden, or soften; I’m not sure which. I could barely swallow food, my taste buds had totally changed, everything in me changed, I couldn’t watch the shows I used to watch. I would lie in bed for hours at a time staring at the wall. I lost a ton of weight. At school, I watched in horror my hands uncontrollably shaking. I would space out in the middle of teaching a lesson. One of my students noticed and asked me if I was OK. What the hell was happening to me?”

I spent the long holiday weekend up in Massachusetts with my mother in her nursing home. “How is Angie?” she queried. Bless her heart, for the past three years we all lied to her, told her that her granddaughter was living in California. How could I break my mother’s heart and tell her the truth? What was the point now of disclosing to my mother truths that would only further break her heart and open a can of worms she wasn’t well enough to deal with? My mother was ninety-eight years old, and was soon to meet her Maker. Leave her to her illusions, we all agreed. During my time with her, I sat on her bed and did the strangest thing: I wrote the first twenty pages of my life story. I felt driven right then and there to write down things I had been putting off for years. It was an incredible adrenaline rush.

Then I flew back to my life and my job and admitted to myself that I was having a nervous breakdown.”

The Courage to Change

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From the blue Nar-Anon pamphlet:

Changing Ourselves

“Addiction is like a chain reaction. It is a disease which affects the addict as well as the family members, friends and co-workers. We try to control, cover up, and take on the responsibilities of the addict. The sickness spreads to those of us who care the most. Eventually, we begin to feel used and unhappy. We worry, lose trust and become angry. The addict blames us and we feel guilty. If only something or someone would change!

When we discover Nar-Anon, we find others with the same feelings and problems. We learn we cannot control the addict or change him. We have become so addicted to the addict that it is difficult to shift the focus back to ourselves. We find that we must let go and turn to faith in a Higher Power. By working the steps, following the traditions and using the tools of the program, we begin, with the love and help of our Higher Power and others, to change ourselves.

As we reach out for help, we become ready to reach out a helping hand and heart to those in need of Nar-Anon. We understand. We do recover. Slowly, new persons emerge. Change is taking place.”

 

Though I have changed and grown through my work in the program, I still love my daughter and am available to help her if she reaches out to me for help. The difference is that I’m a healthier person now and am able to make the tough choices I couldn’t make years ago. I pray she finds the strength to come back to her family. We can’t get back the lost years, but I still have hope, like the warm New Mexican sun shining on me, and keeping my love strong.

“She’s Been What???”

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Memoir Excerpt:

“I guess none of us knew at that point what we were dealing with, but we were soon to find out. In January my birthday came and went without a word from Angie, and I felt that same familiar cloud descending into my carefully protected space threatening my well-being…

Doc called that weekend of the 12th, telling me that Angie and Joe had taken off without a word. I’ll never forget how I felt when he told me this. That same familiar hollowness returned, as if I’d been gutted on the spot. And as to Doc, I was speechless with shame, after all he and his family had done for them. A couple of days later, Angie called from Richmond, asking me to pay for one night in a hotel before they went back to Doc’s to apologize.

They went back to Doc’s all right, but not to apologize.

Doc called to tell me that someone had broken into his house, stolen his credit cards, and taken his truck. Apparently they had been sleeping in the chicken coop, in January, waiting for the best time to make their move. ‘Sleeping in the chicken coop?’ I moaned to myself. Oh, God, what had she come to? He called the police, and they were picked up pretty quickly in Baltimore.

The policeman who arrested them told me that Angie tried to get away, screaming, “I’ll kill myself if you arrest me!” They were both taken to the jail in Baltimore. Joe was locked up on the spot for grand larceny/car theft; Angie was released to the psych ward in a nearby hospital. She had no priors and got off the hook. The very sympathetic policeman who arrested my daughter gave all this information to me over the phone. It was a Tuesday night, and I needed to get to my parents’ Al-Anon meeting. I was leading that night. I’ll never forget how I was feeling: hollow again, but wooden; it was almost surreal, sort of an out of body experience.

This wasn’t happening! My daughter was getting arrested? I kept saying to myself.

“Mrs. Romero? Mrs. Romero? Are you still there?” the policeman

asked.

Then he advised me, “Let it go, Mrs. Romero. There’s nothing you can do for her now. Let the legal system handle her.”

Sure, but they’d have to find her first.

I didn’t have time to go into rescue mode. After one day in her second psych ward, she called a friend who lived in Baltimore to come get her out. Poor, hapless friend, she had no idea that she was releasing Angie to the wind. This time my girl truly was gone with the wind: no word—no contact—nothing. “

 

Weathering The Storms

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From Each Day is a New Beginning, May 16:

‘It is only the women whose eyes have been washed clear with tears who get the broad vision that makes them little sisters to all the world’—Dorothy Dix

“The storms in our lives benefit us like the storms that hit our towns and homes and wash clean the air we breathe. Our storms bring to the surface the issues that plague us…Recovery is a whole series of storms, storms that help to sprout new growth and storms that flush clean our own clogged drains. The peace that comes after a storm is worth singing about.”

Growing up surrounded by addiction and falling prey to the disease myself, I was in the veritable forest, unable to see the trees. My deep and overriding love for my daughter forced me to open my eyes and see what was right in front of me. I took a large leap toward healing myself so that I could be well enough to enjoy all my blessings. As I conclude in the final chapter of my memoir, “What could be a better testament to Angie, to all her gifts and possibilities, than to go forward with my life savoring every moment?” Many friends in Al-Anon have expressed gratitude to their addict/alcoholic for getting them into the rooms of recovery— these same friends who, like me, deeply mourn the lost years with our loved one—but who, also like me, refuse to offer another victim up to the altar of addiction. We have made it through the storm, and have found that we have something to sing about.

Slow Suicide

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Memoir Excerpt:

“Lately I’ve been reading a few books on suicide: Jill Bialosky’s query into her sister’s suicide; and Judy Collins’ heartfelt story about the addiction and suicide of her only child, Clark. Both of these authors consulted with the late Dr. Edwin S. Shneidman, a well-known suicidologist. His word, “psychache,” resonated with me. From watching Angie grow into the addict she has become as an adult, I can see how that term would apply to her. If ever there was an aching psyche, it was hers, so in pain and so unable to express that pain effectively to those she loved. I often feel that drug addiction and the pain that accompanies it is a form of suicide, slow and relentless, if left untreated.

My father made attempts here and there to give up gin and tobacco. When he had his gall bladder removed the nurses made him cough into a bag, and he was so disgusted with what came up that he stopped smoking for a while. But he never completely set aside his self-destructive behavior. It was like an old friend who reminded him of what he’d often felt as a child from an uncaring, abusive father: “You’re not good enough, not important enough.” As a young man working in the family business, he met and fell in love with my mother, who spent a good part of their marriage echoing his father’s disappointment in him. Where do the seeds of addiction take root? It’s the old chicken and the egg confusion. Was my father predestined to become an alcoholic? Or was he made one by the emotional abuse he endured? And if the latter is true, then how and when was I an emotional abuser of my own daughter?

But Twelve-Step recovery gently steers us away from questions like that; we can’t go back and do things over. And I’m only human. I sometimes ask myself what I did wrong or what I missed seeing. Then I remember that addiction is a disease: “I didn’t cause it, I can’t control it, and I can’t cure it.” And like a gentle breeze blowing away the clutter of remorse, I let go of those thoughts and embrace my life again, free of responsibility.

In any case, whatever she chose to do now, I needed to leave her alone to do it. I knew better than to scream and wail in the night to God and all the graces that protected the innocent to save my daughter. Whatever the roots of addiction are, whatever holes were missing in her that this opportunistic disease filled in, I didn’t have the power to combat them. And I just had to let go of the struggle, or I would disappear down that rabbit hole with her.”

 

About Addiction

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From the blue Nar-Anon pamphlet:

                                                                          About Addiction

“We have learned that addiction is an illness. It is a physical, mental, and spiritual disease that affects every area of life. It can be arrested but never cured. We have found that compulsive use of drugs does not indicate a lack of affection for the family. It is not a matter of love, but of illness. The addicts’ inability to control their use of drugs is a symptom of the disease of addiction. Even when they know what will happen when they take the first drink, pill or fix, they will do so. This is the “insanity” we speak of in regard to this disease. Only complete abstinence from the use of drugs, including alcohol, can arrest this disease. No one can prevent the addicts’ use of drugs. When we accept that addiction is a disease, and that we are powerless over it, we become ready to learn a better way to live.”

These words reinforce my belief that when my daughter is under the influence of drugs, she ceases to be the person I raised. It’s all a matter of degree, of course, and we don’t all experience the same extremities of behavior with our children. But in Angie’s case, there is little resemblance to the wonderful, talented young woman I knew. And though I have no power over the change in her, it does give me some peace to know that it wasn’t her choice to leave her family. Rather that—and so many other bad choices—is just one of the difficult roads onto which drug addiction leads many of our children. We can only hope and pray that they’ll find their way back home.

Dancing in the Rain

Marilea C. Rabasa2 Comments

Dancing in the Rain

The road to my spiritual life began when I was a young child growing up in an alcoholic family. But I didn’t start to walk down this road until halfway through my life when my daughter fell ill with drug addiction.

I was very unhappy growing up. It’s a classic story of family dysfunction that many of us have experienced as children. But back then I didn’t have Alateen to go to. My father was never treated and died prematurely because of his illness. I, too, was untreated for the effects of alcoholism, and grew into an adult child.

Well, many of us know how rocky that road is: low self-esteem, intense self-judgment, inflated sense of responsibility, people pleasing and loss of integrity, and above all, the need to control. I carried all of these defects and more into my role as a mother to my sick daughter, and predictably the situation only got worse.

I was a very hard sell on the first three steps of Al-Anon, and my stubbornness cost me my health and my career. But once I did let go of my self-reliance, my whole life changed for the better. The Serenity Prayer has been my mantra every day. I’ve learned to let go of what I can’t change. I don’t have the power to free Angie of her disease, but I can work hard to be healed from my own. This is where I’ve focused my work in the program.

My daughter has gone up and down on this roller coaster for fourteen years, and right now she’s in a very bad place. But that has only tested me more. My faith grows stronger every day when I release my daughter with love to her higher power, and I am able to firmly trust in mine.

Friends of mine ask me, “How do you do that? You make it sound so simple!” I tell them, “First of all getting here hasn’t been simple. It’s the result of years of poisoning my most important relationships with the defects I talked about earlier. I knew I had to change in order to be happy. Secondly, I fill my heart with faith-based unconditional acceptance of whatever happens in my life. It’s my choice.

Somewhere in the readings, someone wrote ‘Pain is not in acceptance or surrender; it’s in resistance.’ It’s much more painless to just let go and have faith that things are unfolding as they are meant to. There’s a reason that HP is running the show the way he is. I just have to get out of the way; I’m not in charge. I also read somewhere the difference between submission and surrender: submission is: I’ll do this if I get XYZ; surrender, on the other hand, is unconditional acceptance of what I get. Well, the latter is easier because I’m not holding my breath waiting for the outcome. I just let go – and have faith. Again, it’s a very conscious choice.

We all have different stories. What has blessed me about a spiritual life is that I can always look within myself and find peace regardless of the storms raging around me. I’m learning how to dance in the rain.

 

The Voice of Recovery

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Mother's Day 2009_0001Mother's Day 2009

In 2009, Angie went into recovery for quite a while, and it was a blessed period in our lives. This is the Mother’s Day card she sent me that year, and how it pulls on my heartstrings now! I will never give up hoping that she gets her life back someday, and I will always love my daughter very much.