Acceptance

Acceptance

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment
From Hope For Today, January 18:

“This was the only thought I remembered from my first Al-Anon meeting: We can learn to live at peace with ourselves and others. ‘Live at peace with ourselves and others?’ I wondered. ‘How do people do this?’ From my alcoholic upbringing to my own family and workplace, I had never experienced a peaceful way of life. With myself, I was constantly fighting against the guilt, fear and anger that ruled my life. With others, I was always fighting for some cause or belief, trying to make them see that my position was the right one. Of course I never won, and the wars never ceased.

When I came to Al-Anon, I finally found the peace I desired so much. Al-Anon taught me that the path to peace is accepting the people, places, things, and situations I cannot change. Accepting myself as I am…freed me from my self-inflicted inner judge and jury. Accepting others with the use of the Serenity Prayer allowed me to stop fighting. Acceptance allows God to do what I cannot. Acceptance opens the door for my growth and leads me on my spiritual journey, one day at a time.”

The Cupboards Were Bare

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment
Memoir Excerpt:
“When I called Angie in Richmond, she said they were in the middle of moving to a better apartment and not to come down right away. I guess that bought her a couple of weeks. Short of being in China, she knew she’d have to face me sooner or later.I drove down to see them when school was out: hardly any furniture in this new place. Moving toward a closed door across the room, Angie warned me,

“Don’t go in the bedroom!”

OK, I thought to myself, what’s she hiding now? So I changed the subject.

“I’m starving, Angie, what’s to eat?” I asked.

There was nothing to eat in the whole house. I drove two hours to see her, and after twenty minutes of being polite, she went to vomit in the bathroom and asked me to leave because she was feeling really sick. Uh-huh. Now I was remembering like a bad dream that lost half hour when Angie disappeared in Miami six months earlier. Now I could see with my own eyes what was eating her alive like a nasty virus. Heroin addicts don’t always die from overdoses. Many die from starvation.

I said goodbye, I love you, take care of yourselves. I’d gotten very good at bravely moving forward with my life, doing the next right thing for myself, leaving her to manage by herself, even though I knew she was on a suicide mission. Five years in the Program were starting to sink in. But not fast enough. I would have to grow a lot more hair on my chest before I would be able to let go of trying to save her and surrender to the all-powerful disease that was consuming her.”

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1940769140/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1940769140&li

Drug Den

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

Memoir Excerpt:

“Well, the drug-free honeymoon didn’t last. The trouble with NA meetings is there are often lots of using junkies there just looking for contacts—and new drug buddies. So she made a new friend named Hope, with a house, a car, and lots of heroin. If you were Angie, with enough remorse to sink a ship and equal amounts of shame, this would be just what the doctor ordered.

Hope’s house, I soon discovered, was a small, two-room dump right next to the beltway in Takoma Park, Maryland. I went to visit them before Gene and I left for a backpacking trip in California. I don’t know what it is about drug addicts. Do they need to be surrounded by chaos or are they just hopelessly oblivious? Angie grew up in a tidy home that was cleaned regularly. She never went to bed without a shower. Who was this person?

Two guard dogs, sentinels of this strange domicile, scared me half to death until my daughter pulled them away. There was no path to walk so I climbed over furniture and strewn clothes to find a place to squat.

“Where’s Hope, Angie? I’d like to meet your friend.”

“Oh, she doesn’t feel well, Mom. She needed to sleep this morning.”

This morning, this afternoon, probably all day, I thought to myself. I knew as I sat there in my daughter’s presence exactly where I was and what was going on: Angie and Hope were living in a drug den and they were using drugs. Such clarity—such utter powerlessness. I had a choice right then and there: drag her into my car and kidnap her; or leave her to the life she had chosen. It was 2006, five years into her addiction, and I knew that any intervention on my part would be nothing more than a band-aid on a serious wound unless she, heart and soul, wanted to recover and give up drugs. I was powerless to change her—I was powerless over her addiction.”

 

Was The Teacher Still Teachable?

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment
Memoir Excerpt:

“Her apartment was only two miles away from the condo. I parked on her street and was relieved to see her car, so I knew she was home. Running up the stairs, I tripped over a cat and sent it screeching down the steps. I knocked on her door but there was no answer. I knocked again—again, no answer. Music was playing, so I knew she was home. If she’d answered her phone, I could have told I was coming. But I was determined to see her so I banged on the door.

Finally she came and opened it, a cigarette hanging out of her mouth while she zipped up her jeans. Without waiting for an invitation, I brushed past her and approached the bedroom, but stopped in my tracks. Joe, her boyfriend, was lying on the bed, prostrate, his long legs hanging off the end. He was so out of it I don’t think he knew I was there.

“Mom, come back here,” she hissed, frantically beckoning me back into the living

room where she was standing. “This is not a good time.”

“It’s never a good time, Angie. You’ve been avoiding your father and me, and I

want to know why.”

“Mom, I know you’re worried. Joe’s really trying to kick the stuff, honest. Me

too. We’re detoxing right now. That’s why it’s not a good time.”

 

“Not a good time…” Summer of 2005 was upon us, and Angie had been struggling with serious drug addiction for four years. First it was methamphetamine, then cocaine, and now meth again. There had been two abortions, countless betrayals, one rehab, and brief, blessed periods of sunshine between the clouds, not to mention the accomplishment of earning her college degree. The highs and lows were exhausting me. But I was so sick of it all and frankly really angry with my daughter for not trying harder to work on her own recovery. She had so much going for her; it was such a waste.

“I can’t deal with this, Angie. You know what you need to do, forchrissake—just

do it!” Pausing to take a breath and looking back toward the bedroom, “And get rid of that creep on your bed,” I hammered.

I turned and left the apartment, slamming the door. I was furious—and terrified. It was so overwhelming after all we’d already been through, to be watching her in the middle of another relapse. Had Angie learned nothing from all her suffering so far? And what about me? Was the teacher still teachable?”

 

Acceptance

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

From Courage to Change, May 8:

“While I am responsible for changing what I can, I have to let go of the rest if I want peace of mind. Just for today I will love myself enough to give up a struggle over something that is out of my hands.”

‘By yielding you may obtain victory.’ Ovid