Recovery of the Spirit
From Hope For Today: September 5:
“…In Step Four I realized I was stuck in the past. My daily thoughts were usually about plans for the next day, week, or even month. I always anticipated tomorrow to the point where it became my today. I’d get so caught up in what I was going to do that I often wasn’t aware of what I was doing now.
After realizing this character defect and asking my Higher Power to remove it, each day I have is usually better than the one before. I give thanks for the little joys in each day. I still make plans, but I don’t let my thoughts erase the present. Anticipation is sweet, but not at the cost of today.
When I look back on this in the context of alcoholism, I understand why I behaved as I did. With all the awful happenings at home, there were many todays I didn’t want to experience. As a child, I had limited options, so the best way to escape was to flee into the possibility of a better tomorrow. I have different choices now. I know enjoying my day and doing the right thing for myself and my Higher Power is the best plan for an even better tomorrow.
Thought For The Day: Just for today I choose to enjoy all this day has to offer. If I don’t like the offering, I’ll ask my Higher Power to help me adjust my attitude.”
This reading ends with something that I have found to be true: attitude is everything. My daughter, whose disease brought me into the rooms, is still lost to the disease that claimed her 23 years ago. And for too many years I ignored the tools of the program and saw my life as a tragedy. But after much work and recovery of my own, I’ve learned to adjust my perspective.
Yes, my daughter is lost to me, but there are other people in my life who need me. I have another daughter who’s getting married, and I rejoice in that. I have a son and grandchildren who live nearby and it makes me happy when I see them and how well they are.
My life is varied, with friends and other family members, a sister with whom I’ve reconciled and I rejoice in that. I can distance my heart and mind just far enough from my grief over Annie to take pleasure in my blessings. I don’t obsess over my loss nor define myself by it. It’s part of the fabric of my life, good and bad, happy and sad, just like everyone else.
What my recovery program has enabled me to do is keep Annie in my heart, but focus on all that remains.
Roadblocks:
Lifelines:
“This journey of mine, this parenting journey, would involve going two steps forward sometimes and then three steps backward. It was not vertical progress I was making, but it was progress. And strangely, the more I kept the focus on myself and striving to be happy, the easier it was to let go of my child. I knew I had paid my dues, and I feared no one’s judgment, least of all God’s.
I’ve railed at God many, many times during these twenty-three years of joy and pain, this God they speak of at Twelve-Step meetings. How many times had I sinned in my life? Many, more than I want to remember. And so the child in me had been sure, earlier on, that I was being punished for all of them. It was my karmic payback. “What goes around comes around,” etc. Indeed, for all of my life, before my breakdown, I had no faith in anything or anyone other than myself. I grew up very lonely and isolated, and if there was a god, he wasn’t paying any attention to me. So I learned to be very independent and self-reliant.
But when I finally found myself on my knees, I felt broken and whole at the same time: broken because my MO for dealing with my problems hadn’t been working; and whole because I finally let myself believe in something outside of myself to strengthen me, to fill in the gaps that were missing in me, and to help me cope. I was starting to develop and cling to a faith that assured me that I was not being punished and that I would be OK in the end, no matter what happened to my daughter. And I realized that fighting her battles for her was not only a waste of time; it was also useless and of questionable value.
My energies, spent though they were, would be better directed toward reclaiming my own life, which had been sorely compromised in the fight to save my daughter. And in reclaiming my own life, I was bidding for my redemption, long overdue, but just within my reach. This was my journey now, I knew it; I sadly accepted it. I wanted us to be connected but we weren’t. I wanted her struggle to be our struggle, but it wasn’t. I wanted to save her life but I couldn’t. I could only save my own. And I’d keep working at it—or this relentless disease would claim two more victims instead of one.” ~Angie Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, by Maggie Romero, 2014
I’ve received many emails from moms asking me how I cope with the living death of Annie’s substance use disorder.. She’s neither dead nor alive. Many of my friends here know the hellish limbo I’m living in, without any resolution or closure. But I have found a way to cope well and move on with my life. This is what I wrote back:
“I put my grief in a back drawer and close it. Then I look at what’s in my front drawers every morning. I have so many wonderful things to be grateful for. Instead of focusing on the problem, I try to keep my mind on the solution. This is how I live. It keeps me humble, grateful, and glad to be alive. I honor my daughter’s memory in this way, and I truly believe she would want me to live well and be happy. Blessings to you, Mom.”
From “The Forum,” October, 2014:
“Before I came to Al-Anon, when I was figuring out if I was okay, I had a mental checklist: is my daughter okay, is my son okay, and is my husband okay? If I could answer yes to all of those, then I knew I was okay. When I could no longer deny that my teenage son had a big problem with substance use disorder, I was no longer able to feel okay, because he wasn’t okay. I had it backwards.
In Al-Anon, I’m learning how to be okay without first checking in with my loved ones to see if they are okay, If they aren’t, maybe I can say or do something helpful; maybe not. I will still be okay. The action I take is much more likely to be effective if I am acting or speaking from a place of serenity. And with serenity I can begin to let go of the outcome, knowing I have done all I can and that I am powerless over the rest.”
All I can add to these wise words is another saying I’ve picked up along the way: “Deal from strength.” So often in life our actions, and more often reactions, are born out of fear. When my daughter robbed me, I was afraid that if I had her arrested she would be scarred forever, when in fact it might have taught her a valuable lesson about consequences. This is an example of enabling at its worst. My fear governed that very poor decision. Now, through the wisdom I have learned in the rooms, I do things differently. I make choices, not out of fear, but based on what I feel is right. I deal from the strength of my convictions. Then I can let go of outcomes and be at peace with myself.
From Courage to Change, March 14:
“One beautiful day, a man sat down under a tree, not noticing it was full of pigeons. Shortly, the pigeons did what pigeons do best. The man shouted at the pigeons as he stormed away, resenting the pigeons as well as the offending material. But then he realized that the pigeons were merely doing what pigeons do, just because they’re pigeons and not because he was there.
Active alcoholics are people who drink. They don’t drink because of you or me, but because they are alcoholics. No matter what I do, I will not change this fact, not with guilt, shouting, begging, distracting, hiding money or bottles or keys, lying, threatening, or reasoning. I didn’t cause alcoholism. I can’t control it. And I can’t cure it. I can continue to struggle and lose. Or I can accept that I am powerless over alcohol and alcoholism, and let Al-Anon help me to redirect the energy I’ve spent on fighting this disease into recovering from its effects.
It’s not easy to watch someone I love continue to drink, but I can do nothing to stop them. If I can see how unmanageable my life has become, I can admit that I am powerless over this disease. Then I can really begin to make my life better.”
My recovery has been, among other things, about redirecting my energy into a positive force for my loved ones and me. Before I learned the tools of recovery, though I appeared to be content and successful, I was deeply troubled and unhappy on the inside. Then, when my daughter became a substance abuser, it all boiled to the surface. I love my daughter very much, and I would have done anything in my power to save her.
There’s that word “power” that we hear so much in the rooms. And that’s good because power and ego so often go together, and I’ve had to learn to let go of both of them. I spent several years trying to save her, but I made many mistakes and in the end was not able to influence her choices. Just like the pigeons, she’s gonna do what she has to do. I can only love her and be strong for her if and when she goes into recovery. I am, therefore, concentrating on saving myself. And if it weren’t for my daughter, I probably wouldn’t even be doing that. Beauty is often born out of loss. I still have a heart that can love—and the eyes to enjoy the beautiful sunsets here in Puget Sound!
I wrote a few words on this topic ten years ago, just a few words, a very few words. And I am amazed at how much more I have to say on the topic a decade later. In my recovery program, they tell us to “keep coming back.” This is why, and I’m so glad that I did.
First of all, I forced myself, gradually, to open my closed mind and really listen to what others had to say. I had to reach rock bottom, sad to say, in order to be able to do this. I had to be so broken and miserable that I was desperate to try anything new. Because “my best thinking had gotten me into the rooms.” And what does that say about my “best” thinking. To put it charitably, it was propelling me toward continual unhappiness and frustration. My life simply wasn’t working for me, and I knew that something or someone had to change. ME!
Recognizing this required a lot of letting go and surrender: of my arrogance, ego, self-will, need to control, self-reliance and stubbornness. I was finally on my knees, the student at last ready for the teacher.
I lost nothing by surrendering these things I had been a slave to for most of my life. And what did I gain? A lot more wind in my sails, the God-given, grace-filled capacity to dig deep and find the goodness and humanity that had been buried for so long behind a wall of anger and self-righteousness.
What a relief, what freedom I am enjoying, to be sailing on an open sea with my sails full of power, the wind behind me, looking forward with faith to a bright future.
“If you have made mistakes, even serious mistakes, you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call “failure” is not the falling down, but the staying down.”
― Mary Pickford
Those who die young are denied so many opportunities: the chance to live out their lives fully, often making mistakes, hopefully learning from them, and growing into more mature, evolved people. Eventually, if we’re lucky, we arrive at an age of wisdom when we can pass on learned lessons to others.
Learning to live well is a skill that many of us aspire to, especially as we grow older. Some of us are aware of the wreckage we left behind if we were burdened with demons like alcoholism or other forms of addiction.
Since I was a teenager, I struggled with various forms of it: eating disorders and amphetamines, which I craved because they relieved me of my depression, the underlying cause of my misery.
I, nevertheless, proceeded through life doing what my parents expected of me: marry a suitable guy and raise children. My husband, children and I lived a privileged life in the Foreign Service. But I wanted a career, and my husband did not approve. Rather than work it out for the sake of us all, I insisted on a divorce and moved back to Virginia with our children.
And so continued a period of years where I received great satisfaction in the classroom. But I was a far less successful parent. The kids were hurting badly, but did well enough on the surface for me to rationalize their pain.
Annie, my middle child, however, turned to drugs when she had barely graduated from college, and has been in and out of that hellish life for twenty-three years. Hence, the wreckage I spoke of.
During my years of teaching, I met the man I’ve been with for thirty-one years. Both high school teachers, we weren’t looking for love, but love found us. I eventually traded my food obsession with alcohol and embarked on thirty years of drinking. Ironically, Gene was a recovered alcoholic, but he knew better than to try and stop me, that the desire to stop had to come from me. I was a functional alcoholic, but not at all healthy spiritually.
My real work was soon to begin.
Yet I needed to learn to let go of Annie. “Let go or be dragged,” they say.
I needed a change of scenery, so Gene and I left Virginia and moved to New Mexico. We enjoyed a decade of living in “the land of enchantment.” But Annie was still floundering, and I stepped up my drinking. I couldn’t bear the pain of losing her.
My son and his wife helped me to wake up.
“Mom, please move up here so you can be closer to the children and watch them grow up.”
I bought a home on Camano Island, an hour north of Seattle where my son had moved. Life was good. I had begun publishing memoirs while still living in Albuquerque, and the catharsis I needed to begin the healing process had begun.
Spending many weekends down in Seattle at my son’s house, I was regularly drinking in his basement. I was not ready to work on myself and give up my thirty-year habit. Then one day he and his wife confronted me.
We sat down together, and he minced no words:
“Mom, we know what you’re doing in the basement. All our vodka bottles are empty.”
Immediate shock, humiliation, and the realization that I had not been fooling them all these years.
I said very little, just that I was so sorry that I’d been behaving so recklessly. And from that day I’ve never thought about drinking alcohol. At last, this student was ready for the teacher, happy that I’ve remained teachable. I had to believe that I was worth the effort to stop drinking.
It’s a fortunate person who has evolved enough to realize that he needs to change in order to live his best life. I am one of those fortunate adults.
Starting over after a long life of substance abuse isn’t as daunting as it sounds. I feel blessed, on the contrary, to have a second chance at life, living sober and reaping all the accompanying rewards.
This is personal transformation at its best. Gratitude fills my heart every day as I move forward, doing the next right thing.
From “The Forum,” August 2015, p. 15:
“Going to meetings helped me understand the first step, which I consider the cornerstone of the program. I cannot repay Al-Anon enough for what it has done for me. One thing I did from the very beginning was to serve the fellowship. Service strengthened my recovery and gave me a chance to pay forward what I’ve received.
My loved one has been in and out of sobriety for the more than 20 years since I joined the program, and whether my loved one was sober or not, I never gave up, slackened my attendance, or service to Al-Anon. Today I can accept that my life is important and that I have a choice to continue obsessing or get on with my life. I accept that alcoholism is a disease and Al-Anon helps me to face the disease and not let it get me down. I feel alive because of Al-Anon. Working the Twelve Steps led me to a spiritual life that gives me much peace and joy.”
Lifelines are all around to help us cope with life’s challenges. Exercise, good nutrition, gardening—the list is endless. Fortunately there are many outlets to choose from, and I’ve used all of the above. But the tools—life lessons—that I’ve learned in several 12-Step fellowships have changed me as well as the way that I relate to other people. I’ve heard it said that alcoholism is a disease of relationships, and whether that’s true or not I can certainly see the improvement in how I behave with others. That, in turn, has made me a happier person. So this has been my lifeline, because working the program has made such a big difference in my life.