“Regardless of cause, history, or contributing factors, feeling guilty about your past role in the development of a teenager’s problem behavior will risk sabotaging your parenting goals. For a more focused relationship with your teenager,
Recognize guilt as negative self-talk that is normal, but that can be managed and stopped.
Acknowledge that a desire for relief from guilt places you at risk for changing the rules, boundaries, and standards that you want followed.
Seek professional counseling or other support to help you act more consistently and proactively, feel better about tough choices, and be less encumbered by what happened in the past.”
Feeling better about tough choices was always my Waterloo. But now I say over and over again that I did the best I could with what I knew. Now that I know better, I can do better. Repeat this mantra over and over again until you believe it.
Humor Being able to laugh out loud—at myself most of all—keeping things in perspective—is so critical, and you can’t do that by living in a bubble. I was stuck in a hole of depression, but recovery has offered me a way out.
I had to force myself out of isolation and start talking more to people. I always came away learning something and even feeling less depressed because I wasn’t alone. I learned not to take myself and my problems so seriously and smile more. The program helps me to stay focused on the solution and not the problem. The solution offers me relief because I don’t have to fix everything. What a revelation!
Learning to let go of control and determining what, in fact, is uncontrollable was a milestone for me. Remaining open to joy and beauty, and always feeling gratitude in my heart for my blessings.
The Bad Stuff When tragedy strikes us we are tested in new ways. I was bankrupt spiritually and was not equipped to deal with life’s challenges. Fortunately I picked up some important survival skills later in my life:
Gratitude: There is always something for us to be grateful for, if only the weather. Where depression and dysfunction used to be in my headspace, it’s been replaced with a new default mode. I like to keep things simple. Instead of bemoaning what I have lost, I focus on all that is left. Suffering and martyrdom had diminished my ability to live well, and I have abolished them from my life.
Acceptance and faith: If I can’t change it, whatever it is, I will accept it with as much grace as I can muster. And follow this with confidence in God’s plan,
Humor: Oh, laugh about it, Marilea. You and your problems are not that important!
From Each Day A New Beginning, July 3: “Finding humor in a situation, any situation, prevents us from succumbing to feelings of powerlessness. Feeling powerless, behaving as victims, came easily for many of us before we chose this program and the Twelve Steps to live by. Choosing a humorous response, opting to laugh at our situation, at any point in time, keeps our personal power where it belongs—with ourselves.”
A movie came out a few years ago, “Drive,” and what I remember about it is the background song by Riz Ortolani. I love the words and the meaning behind them.
“My daughter had been hijacked by a devastating disease, and it was stealing my daughter away from herself. We couldn’t help but be swept up in the tumultuous sea of change in my beautiful daughter. She was morphing into a drug-addled stranger.
A new anxiety was building up in me and I developed insomnia. My doctor prescribed a mild sedative, Ambien, to help me get to sleep at night, but it wasn’t always effective as I tossed and turned in bed. If Gene was with me, he didn’t get enough rest either. We were both red-eyed and fatigued on many mornings, but we went to work anyway. My work ethic rubbed off on my partner.
Somehow Annie managed to graduate from George Mason University in 2004 in spite of the methamphetamine and cocaine abuse. She crashed on the sofa in my basement, on and off, oblivious to my attempts to help and support her. She was perilously hooked on those two drugs.
“Annie, what is this white stuff in a bowl on the dryer?” I asked, suspecting the worst, and furious.
“Oh, fuck off, Mom. And don’t you ever dare to touch my stuff again!” she responded with fire in her eyes. That’s right, offense is the best defense.
Was I just a nuisance to her, or was I now the villain in her eyes? I told her to sleep elsewhere and then started going to recovery meetings for families of substance users. But it was difficult for me to grasp most of the concepts in the program. I was, at that point in my life, incapable of admitting that I was powerless over Annie’s disease. Facing that reality was counterintuitive for me. It seemed like I’d be abandoning any attempts to save my own child. After all, had I not been a poor model for her with my own deceptions regarding substance use disorder? With so much self-blame, how could I decide I was powerless now to help her?
There was much for me to learn about substance use disorder: how to properly treat it; how to survive it.
And in trying to survive one of a parent’s worst nightmares, my gratitude to Gene for dedicating every day to helping me get through it…what can I say?
“Normally my sponsor would recommend a gratitude list when I felt low, but one day, when I complained about a family situation, he suggested that I list all the things I was unhappy about. Several days later my depression had passed, and when I told my sponsor about the terrific day I was having, he suggested a gratitude list. He thought it might help me to refer to it the next time I felt blue. That made sense to me, so I complied.
When I went to put this new list in the drawer where I keep my papers, I noticed the earlier list and read it once more. To my surprise, my list of grievances was almost identical to my gratitude list—the same people, same house, same life. Nothing about my circumstances had changed except the way I felt about them. For the first time I truly understood how much my attitude dictates the way I experience the world.
Today’s Reminder:
Today I recognize how powerful my mind can be. I can’t always feel good, and I have no interest in whitewashing my difficulties by pasting a smile on my face. But I recognize that I am constantly making choices about how how I perceive my world. With the help of Al-Anon and my friends in the fellowship, I can make these choices more consciously and more actively than ever before.”
‘Change your thoughts and you change your world.’ Norman Vincent Peale
I can make an effort to be grateful instead of sad. It’s a conscious choice—because I want to be happy.
“Enough is enough when the hurt inflicted is greater than the lesson learned.”
I felt that, because I was the mother of an addicted child, I just had to put up with things. But underneath that martyred attitude was a shaky self-esteem that whispered to me, “This is what you deserve. It’s your fault.”
When I recognized the truth of that, I became willing to take up the yoke and start working on myself. After many years of working the steps and arriving at a place of self-love, I no longer hear those voices. I’ve gotten my life back, and concentrate on what I can control in my life.
I give thanks, multitudes of thanks, for what I’ve been given. I’m finally able to celebrate myself. And I’m grateful to my daughter for getting me into recovery.
God Bless Us, Mamas. We do the best we can! Everyone reading this: buy yourself a rose today!
“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.
“…What I had overlooked in Step Two was the word ‘Power.’ The day I started placing my attention on that Power instead of on insanity, I began to see miracles in my life. One such miracle was my ability to talk about my fears in Al-Anon meetings. Other miracles included taking the Twelve Steps that lead me to serenity, and engaging in the process of forgiving and healing.”
It has taken many years of hearing Step Two read at meetings for me to really hear the word ‘Power.’ Now I realize how much more awesome my Higher Power is than this disease. Instead of dwelling in fear—and listening to my worst instincts—today I am striving to pass on the miracles of recovery to my children and grandchildren. If we keep doing this then, maybe not in
my lifetime but in theirs, we will see a change in how substance use disorder is treated around the world.
When my ego is involved and there’s a calculated risk, I’m going to be gutsy, not courageous. It takes guts to ski a steep trail; I alone will be rewarded. Courage is different. There is always a parenthesis of fear in Courage; the risk becomes minor. This parenthesis remains a void of fear until it is filled by God. There is no ego in a courageous act. Courage can ask for help. It is often something done for someone else, or it may be something I am not attracted to doing at all. I may lose by doing it. The courageous act is often the unpopular choice, to do or not to do. The results are seldom only mine. It requires more of me than I want to think I can do, alone. After it is finished, gratitude to someone or something is usually in order. Courage requires a moral strength not of myself. This strength is given by faith.”
EGO—Easing God Out—is my enemy in many ways. It makes me willful and arrogant. It’s the great separator—of me from people, of me from God. When I let God back in again, my life and my relationships seem to work better. And God has always given me the courage to do what is difficult in relation to my daughter. My faith in Him has given me the strength to do what I believe is right, regardless of the consequences. I believe things are unfolding as they are meant to. When I surrender to this belief, I am at peace.
Many people are not strong enough to battle the terrible force of substance use disorder on their own. Application of the Twelve Steps had proven successful over and over again since they were put together by a couple of alcoholics and their friends back in the late 1930’s. Substance abusers need help; some say they need spiritual help. Our society is full of naysayers—skeptics who eschew these programs that are found in every major city across the country, and in big cities, in many of the churches, meeting three or four times a day. There’s a reason for the popularity of Twelve-Step programs: they work for many people. So I promised myself I would try harder now. My daughter was worth it. My daughter was worth it?
There is no one place on this journey to pinpoint where I discovered that I was worth it. I knew what a flawed human being I was. I was aware of my mistakes along the way—big ones and little ones.
But as I was starting to embrace the principles found in these Twelve Steps I was reacquainting myself over and over again with my own humanity and feeling my self-worth solidify with roots into the earth. None of this growth in me would have occurred if my daughter’s illness hadn’t pushed me onto this path. And I would always—still—reckon with the survivor guilt that has challenged my right to be happy while my daughter still struggles with this cruel disease.
There are many who view Twelve-Step groups as cultish and unattractive. There’s such a powerful stigma in our society against substance use disorder in all its forms that, I suppose, families of substance abusers suffer from guilt by association. Early on in my recovery my sister once said that it must be nice to have “those people” to talk to. But as she’s watched me grow and change these past few years I think she’s developed a healthy respect for the Program.
To this day, though, she has never discussed with me the dark side of our father, the alcoholic. Maybe she never saw his dark side, as I did. To her, he was the best father in the world, and I have no need to invade that sacred place where she holds him in her heart. In fact, I agree with her. He was a very loving man who passed on many gifts to his children and grandchildren. Yes, he was sick, and he died too young because of it. But just as I have forgiven my mother for any ways she may have hurt me so have I lovingly accepted my father’s illness. And in learning to forgive my parents and others who have wounded me in my life, it has become easier for me to forgive myself for my own shortcomings and the part they played in hurting my own children.
I, being a substance abuser, a daughter of one and a parent of one, have found myself quite at home among these seekers of peace and serenity. I’ve been in the right place for twenty-three years now, and I cannot begin to tell you the gratitude I feel for the wisdom in this simple program that has helped me to look forward to the sun coming up every day—and to embrace my life in its entirety.
