“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. of course, 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 sun shining on my face, and keeping my love strong.
“Praise and an attitude of gratitude are unbeatable stimulators…we increase whatever we extol.” ~Sylvia Stitt Edwards
Our attitude in regard to any situation attracting our attention influences the outcome. Sometimes to our favor, often to our disfavor if our attitude is negative.
Thankfulness toward life guarantees the rewards we desire, the rewards we seek too often from an ungrateful stance. The feeling of gratitude is foreign to many of us. We came to this program feeling worthless, sometimes rejected, frequently depressed. It seemed life had heaped problems in our laps, and so it had. The more we lamented what life “gave us,” the more reasons we were given to lament. We got just what we expected. We still get just what we expect. The difference is that the program has offered us the key to higher expectations. Gratitude for the good in our lives increases the good…”
It’s hard for me to improve upon these words. Except to say that my daughter is still lost to me after 22 years in the world of drugs and all that it accompanies. As she has gone deeper into the weeds of that life, my grief over losing her has transformed itself into a better place, a place that works for me. (read a great Al-Anon book, Opening Our Hearts, Transforming Our Losses, for sale on Amazon).
When my nightmare began all those years ago, I was incredulous that this was happening to my daughter, as though she were any different from all the vulnerable young people out there. She wasn’t and still isn’t. The more I fought to save her, the more my own health and well-being deteriorated. After several years of doing everything I could think of (much of it misguided help), I finally got the message that I was powerless over her disease. And that’s when I started to turn toward the light.
The miracle of all the 12-step programs is assuring us that we have the power to change. I’m only as miserable as I make up my mind to be. In the beginning, I blamed all that misery on my daughter’s poor choices, of course, feeling more victimized than ever. But when I gave up that martyred attitude, and took back my own power, my life started to work better for me. I never stopped loving her and praying for her. But I have two other children, grandchildren, a loving partner… and the list goes on.
Every morning when I wake up, where should I put my focus? Should I fall back into bed and immerse myself in a mother’s endless grief? God knows I’ve wanted to often enough. Or should I focus on those kids and grandkids who need me now?
Early in my diary entries, after my first bone marrow biopsy, I thanked the doctors who approved administering conscious sedation to me during the procedure. I referred to the men and women who didn’t receive it,, most ungenerously, as “screaming meemies,” because presumably they couldn’t tolerate the procedure awake. Now that the clinical trial has reopened, things are moving quickly, and there wasn’t time to schedule conscious sedation this time. But Ativan was approved. So after my blood draw, I went into the procedure suite and waited for the oral sedation to take effect. It didn’t, not at all. Too nervous, I guess.
So, without blinking an eye, I turned over onto my side and let the nurse/practitioner begin her work. It helped me to have a nurse I knew come in and hold my hands, which were getting sweatier by the minute.
“I’m going to give you a few shots of lidocaine, Marilea, so you’ll feel a little pin prick.”
No big deal.
“Now I’m going to go deeper into the tissue with more lidocaine.”
Ouch, that really hurt, a deep ache.
She was coaching me like I was giving birth,
“Deep breaths, Marilea. A deep one into your nose and then exhale out of your mouth.”
“Okay, I’m going to get some liquid aspirate now. Deep breaths.”
“Another deep breath, Marilea. Okay, halfway there. One more puncture.”
I felt a very deep ache in my hip. Moaned a little, kept up the breathing. This part took a while. She was carving a small piece of bone out of my hip and placing it in a wider, hollow needle.
Then it was over. Maybe twenty minutes.
I finished dressing and Gene steadied me as we were leaving. NOW the Ativan kicked in! I slept when I got home, disturbing my sleep cycle. Definitely not worth the trouble. Even if it had put me to sleep in time, the pain would have woken me up. I’ll never elect oral sedation again, and I may forgo conscious sedation as well the next time. It’s a nuisance with scheduling and getting me ready (starvation beforehand, for one). Since I have blood cancer, I know I’ll be getting regular bone marrow biopsies, so I may as well make friends with them.
This journey has taught me many things. And one of them, as I get deeper into the weeds of treatment and all the discomforts, is that I’m tougher than I thought I was. Remember, up until now there has been no need for me to undergo these tests and procedures. But I’m at a new normal now, and more grit will be required of me. For those of you who have been following me on this journey, you know that I’ve been challenged emotionally most of my life. It usually took the form of substance use disorder, but thankfully I’m in recovery from years of that behavior. And right now, when I most need it, my recovery is serving me exceedingly well.
I think we, who are willing to be in this room and undergo personal change, are brave souls.
When I joined Al-Anon, I was in my Fifties, and anxious to save another person I loved. But oh what a joy it’s been to let go of that obsession, which was becoming so shrill and counterproductive.
I was relieved to turn the focus back on myself and learn that my faulty attitudes were the source of my pain, not the people around me.
Regarding the amends steps, it’s possible to overuse them, just as we might exaggerate our negative defects in the 4th step. I’ve done both! That’s why it’s so important to understand the purpose of amends: reaching personal freedom.
These are intended to be hopeful steps, not self-flagellation. Making this list and then acting on it is just another way to weed our garden. My husband’s always reminding me to weed close to what we’re growing, so that nothing interferes with the growth of the plant.
Making amends is not always pretty, and rather than freedom I sometimes look for forgiveness and closure. With my daughter, Annie, she threw them right back in my face. So I knew I was on the wrong track to expect absolution from her, and my sponsor helped me appreciate my efforts and then let them go.
My real reward has been surviving that loss without the need to punish myself for it. Truth is, I’m really not that important! Things happen in life, and it’s not always my fault.
I will ry to keep things in perspective in terms of importance. Keep a clear head and don’t get sidetracked by emotional drama.
For example, if closing the door to the microwave wakes someone up, how important is it? The person we woke up should ask him/herself, “Is it worth having a fight over?” The people most vulnerable to this slogan sometimes just thrive on the drama. Don’t buy into it.
Move on, distract, find a healthier and larger perspective. We can get so bogged down in pettiness that we stop seeing the larger picture. Today I will try to remember what’s most important in my life—getting along with my partner—and do what I must to protect that.
Ironic, isn’t it, that you have become my teacher and not the other way around—teacher of life, teacher of love, and beacon of surrender.
I’m so grateful that you were born, even though at times I’ve felt otherwise. God works in mysterious ways, doesn’t he? Though you haven’t been in my life long, and not always happily, it’s been your very existence that has propelled me into a serenely spiritual life, even happiness. I never would have done the work necessary to reach this place without your inspiration.
You are my child, my teacher. As I’ve stumbled on this rocky path, my thoughts of you have guided me; they guide me still.
All that I’ve become are gifts from you, my daughter: life lessons, trial by fire. How do I honor you?
What is your favorite slogan? Page quotes are from One Day At A Time:
Easy Does It (p. 19, 111, 189, 238, 301) “When we come into Al-Anon, burdened with problems and confusion, we are confronted with a bright light of hope. This may tempt us to try too hard to learn, too quickly, all there is to learn about the program.”
So, take in what you can when you can, at your own pace. Many people leave before the miracle happens because they felt overwhelmed. I’m so very glad I didn’t and stuck around.
This is a recipe for lemonade. But first you’ll need a few lemons. You can’t make this delicious fruit drink without the sour bitterness from the lemon tree. How you get from one to the other is not so complicated. Not if you want to live well.
Gene and I took a camping trip to Orcas Island recently. Probably just to prove to ourselves that we could still do it. Over the past thirty years, we have camped in some of the most horrible conditions imaginable: from near hurricane-force winds in the middle of the night that blew our tent off over our heads; to swarming black flies that sucked the living daylights out of me. But we were much younger then…
The first lemon on this trip was that I absentmindedly booked the 5:55 am ferry out of Anacortes. I must have been asleep when I did that. Wild horses couldn’t have gotten us to a ferry at that hour. So we showed up at 12:35 when I thought we’d be leaving.
“Sorry, but can’t you see the 5:55 am time on this receipt? Go wait in the standby line.”
“Thanks, pal.”
Lemonade? We made it onto the ferry.
The next lemon on our Orcas trip was where we camped. Now, I knew better than to wait to the last minute to make a reservation. So in December of 2023 I secured a spot in Moran State Park on the island. The last one available! I felt so lucky. But I should have known better. Sometimes I think with cotton in my brain. Why was it the very last one available? Because no one else wanted it, dummy. I knew it wasn’t close to the water, yet I didn’t realize how far away it would be to schlep our canoe and kayak into the lake. But site #83 must have easily been the worst site in the whole park. Sandwiched in between many other sites and the restroom, there was naturally a steady stream of people and screaming babies on their way to the bathroom right through our site. So, no privacy. No view. No water.
Lemonade from this lemon? We didn’t have to walk far to pee; and there was trash and a water spout right next to us.
Speaking of our boats, of all the beautiful places in Washington State to camp, we chose this state park because of all the lakes. I had recently bought a kayak and wanted to try it out in calm waters. Well, life happens, doesn’t it? My bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome acted up so violently last May that I had to have both hands surgically repaired. One in June and the second one in July, a week before our trip. Needless to say, I had no working hands to paddle either Gene’s canoe or my kayak. Terrible timing.
Lemonade? If we had taken the boats, it would have been much more physical labor that we were definitely not up to right then. And I chose to let my hands heal over proving myself in my kayak. A healthy choice.
Back to the campsite. Our tent that Gene hastily stuffed into its sack had several broken poles, so we couldn’t put it together. The backup tent was another conundrum for us. But Gene jerry-rigged its raising with a couple of walking sticks. It’s the same tent we used in Yosemite in 2006. And small. We didn’t mind practically sleeping on top of one another back then. But we do now.
Lemonade? Gene gallantly offered,
“I think I’d rather sleep out in the open air anyway, under the stars. Haven’t done this since Ely in 1999.”
God Bless Him!
Honestly, how long has it been since we last car camped? Maybe six years? We were so out of practice that we forgot how to pack the food in the cooler. Safely. I dutifully made lots of sandwiches beforehand so we’d had plenty of ready food to eat. Wrapped each one in plastic to protect them. Oh no! At every gas station we went to, Gene got a bag of ice and all those ice cubes cascaded down into the bottom of the cooler where I had packed our sandwiches. A day into the trip I went to get some of those sandwiches for lunch. A wet and soggy mess. I ate my peanut butter one anyway because I hate to waste food. Or maybe to self-punish. But Gene couldn’t stomach ham and cheese on soaking wet bread.
Lemonade? I relearned how to pack an ice chest. And we had plenty of good backup food to eat. Plus, Eastsound was close with great restaurants. We ate well the whole time.
I frequently get night sweats with my cancer. Annoying in my bed at home, they were a real pain in my sleeping bag. I awoke in the night to a soaking bag up around my head and neck. But, as always, I went back to sleep. Then during the night it had dried out but left a hard, crusty film on the lining of my bag. I asked Gene about it, and he said,
“It’s probably dried sodium that left your body.”
Lemonade: so that’s why I have low sodium counts in my bloodwork even though I eat enough salt every day to fill a salt shaker! Mystery solved.
For comfort, we brought two camp chairs. Gene’s broke as soon as he sat in it. My fault for leaving it outside all winter. I threw it in the trash.
Lemonade? I sat in the remaining one. Gene sat in the car, happily dozing much of the time.
Lemon: I have a case of my second memoir, Stepping Stones, that I’ve run out of places to unload. Women’s prisons are next on my list. Lemonade: I brought a few to Darvill’s in Eastsound to donate. He accepted them and will consider stocking my title. Just pass ‘em around. There’s good spiritual healing to be found in the pages.
And so I come to the end of my recipe(s) for lemonade. And it’s fitting that I end on a spiritual note. Because to reach a happy conclusion when life throws lemons at us requires some semblance of positive rationale-building. For every one of those lemons I could have whined and thrown myself into fits of hand-wringing and anxiety. I’m quite capable of doing that. But to what end? An attitude and camping experience far more bitter than most lemons taste. So…my choice these days—Gene has always had an even temperament, except when he doesn’t—is to put a positive spin on whatever was happening. A worthy challenge.
Why? Because turning lemons into delicious, sweet lemonade beats walking around with my lips pursed from sucking on sour lemons. And we did prove to ourselves that we could still go camping, as ill and infirm as we are now. Gene is still nursing a broken foot. And I’m bone-tired from lymphoma. But we did it and survived, proud that we still could.
We only get one spin around the race track. Might as well try to make it a happy one. Beats bitchin’!
“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than success, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company…a church…a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past…we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude…I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you…we are in charge of our attitudes.”
“I’m so grateful I found a way out of sadness, a way to take care of myself each day, and a relationship with the God of my understanding, who will never abandon me. The pain I’ve felt in the past is equal to the measure of joy I feel now.”
That’s quite a mouthful. Whoever wrote those words in “The Forum” is saying that somewhere between despair and happiness she or he did some work, found some answers. For me, anyway, I entered into a state of grace. I quite deliberately let go of my pain, which served no further purpose in my life. The lessons it taught me have been learned. I’ve put my sadness in a back drawer—and replaced it with positive thoughts that keep me motivated to reclaim my life, my remaining loved ones, and keep my heart ticking.
