Courage

Deep Water

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

From Each Day A New Beginning, August 6, CAL:

“‘They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm’ ~Dorothy Parker

Variety in experiences is necessary for our continued growth. We mistakenly think that the ‘untroubled’ life would be forever welcome. It’s the deep waves of life that teach us to be better swimmers.”

Ain’t that the truth? But who said I wanted to be a good swimmer?

Well, to follow this metaphor along, before I got into recovery, I was very good at dogpaddling. When I had to face a problem, I paddled around it or avoided the water altogether. I never learned to swim properly. And certainly not well. I lived on the fringes of what I recognize now to be a healthy life, a life filled with honesty, self-care, and love of and service to others. Before recovery, I used avoidance, hiding, dishonesty, and any substance I could get my hands on (food, drugs, alcohol) to numb me for a while so I wouldn’t have to face “life on life’s terms.”

I was so deeply unhappy from a very young age, and so terribly self-absorbed in my own sadness that I failed to recognize what a fortunate life I had had in so many ways. Attitude is everything, and I needed to do some serious work to adjust mine. Recovery has come to me in waves over the past twenty-plus years, and the one thing that grounds me to the core is a deep sense of gratitude.

All of us on this page have experienced the “deep waves” of life that they mention in the reading. I lost my daughter to substance use disorder twenty-three years ago. She may or may not be alive in San Francisco right now. But I haven’t seen her in thirteen years. On the rare occasions that I have heard from her in these lost years, she was not my daughter, not the one I raised. Her personality has completely changed, she has no moral compass, and I imagine that all the years of substance abuse have caused considerable brain damage.

That’s the “deep wave” that has caused me the most heartache. But there are others that I chose to focus on and be an excuse for my own unhappy life. An unhappy childhood, a divorce and three angry kids, estrangement  from my family of origin. Luckily I had found recovery before I got incurable blood cancer or that would have been another excuse to feel sorry for myself.

It’s these “deep waves” that have made me a better swimmer. Life’s challenges, some of them small, some of them overwhelming. I’ve learned to face them like an adult, not like a frightened child. And in doing so, I have given myself another chance at life. How lucky is that? To get a second chance, to make living amends to my remaining kids and grandkids, to try to heal the estrangement in my family, all these “waves” that might have drowned me before I decided to do life differently.

I am one lucky lady. I thank God and my recovery fellowship, all my friends here who I think of as family for the opportunity to live happy, joyous and free. God Bless!

Recovering From Fear

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

From The Forum, November, 2022:

“When I came into Al-Anon at the suggestion of a friend, my life was unmanageable in so many ways. I was unaware that living with alcoholism was involved in my broken relationships, divorce, several addictions, inability to be honest with myself, people pleasing, and other things I had not uncovered yet, either because of denial of lack of discovery.”

“lack of discovery…” Bingo! I feel as though I’d been living in a fog for most of my early life, only I didn’t know it. I didn’t know anything about the family disease that (I now know) was interfering with my well-being.

Where was this article—this enlightenment—when I needed it? As a younger woman I blamed myself and others for everything that was wrong in my life. I understood nothing about the complicated disease of substance use disorder. But twenty years of work in Al-Anon have opened my eyes. The fog has lifted and now I see more clearly. I understand why I internalized so much of the dysfunction that was happening in my family and carried the guilt myself from which there was no relief.

Not until I entered this compassionate fellowship. It is in these rooms that I found forgiveness for my parents and myself, along with critical tools to continue the healing work I was doing. The 12-Steps and the slogans, when practiced, have helped me navigate through my life. And life, itself, is a mixed bag. I’ve had joys, but also incredible sorrows. Using the teaching of Al-Anon as a guide, I’ve learned to be grateful for my blessings. And I’ve learned to accept my sorrows with grace without being destroyed by them. Learning how to put things into healthier perspective has been a gift of the program.

I have been given hope for a better life, and I’ll always be grateful that I opened my mind to some good advice: “Go to a meeting, Marilea. It might be the answer for you.”

It was. And my fears have been replaced by the certainty that all will be well, in God’s plan.

“What You Allow Is What Will Continue”

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

Many of us do it, at first anyway. Sometimes it’s easier to take the path of least resistance. We are so terribly stretched out to begin with. We see our children caught in the vise of substance use disorder, and it’s natural to want to make things easier for them.

I paid off my daughter’s huge debts. Big mistake. And was she grateful? No! “How could you be so stupid, Mom? Now they’ll see that as an admission of guilt!” Oh yes, she knew all the ins and outs of this game she was playing with the law. And I naively thought I was “helping” her. By interfering like that, I was just encouraging her to rely on me bailing her out all the time. When she stole my identity and the credit card agency begged me to call the police, I did nothing, denying her the accountability she deserved. The lesson she might have learned. The chance to look at herself and turn her life around.

Far from being a help to my daughter, I was very much in the way, a big hindrance to her getting better from the disease that was claiming her. I needed to adopt a “hands-off” approach and let life unfold for her logically. The chances are that eventually her unlawful behavior would catch up with her. And she would have to face some consequences. And learn something.

The stakes might be higher this time. She wasn’t caught cheating on a quiz in school and had to get an F as punishment. This time she might be breaking the law and, if caught, might face a harsher penalty. Every parent’s fear, and possibly the only way my daughter would see the need for her  behavior to change.

So I stopped allowing my daughter to use me like an ATM machine, among other things. This is when she cut me out of her life. And whether or not she’s still indulging in the same behavior, at least I’m not encouraging it to continue by making everything easier for her and being over-protective. She has very likely found new sources of money.

The price I’ve paid? I haven’t seen her in 13 years. My Higher Power is protecting me from the guilt—and longing to seduce her back into my life, no matter the cost.

And her Higher Power is there for her as well, ready to help her whenever she asks for it.

I sleep well at night now, knowing that our fates are in God’s capable hands.

The Importance Of Being Earnest (I Mean, Honest)

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“Fifth Step Prayer:

Higher Power,

My inventory has shown me who I am, yet I ask for Your help

in admitting my wrongs to another person and to You.

Assure me, and be with me, in this Step,

for without this step I cannot progress in my recovery.

With Your help, I can do this and I will do it.”

 I’ve stopped the blame game. Admitting my defects to God and another human being has been critical in my recovery. Denial is like a dark cave: we hide there, from ourselves and others, and without any light it’s not easy to see the truth.

I’ve struggled with substance use disorder my whole life, but until I told someone about it, brought it into the light, it wasn’t real to me, and I could continue on the merry-go-round of denial.

But when I told someone else, I couldn’t pretend anymore. Sharing with someone else makes me accountable. Admitting our defects to others shines a light on who we really are. Then, and only then, do we have the opportunity, through God’s help and the support of others, to work on our defects and our recovery. 

P.S. It’s also kinda necessary to know who we are, and admit who we are, before we can love who we are and accept who we are!

Free To Be Me

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment
Five Steps

From Each Day A New Beginning, May 24:

“…When we share ourselves fully with one another, share our monsters with one another, they no longer dominate us. They seek the dark recesses of our minds, and when we shine the light on them, they recoil. The program offers us an eternal light.”

This quote is a great way to end the month of May, our Fifth Step month, when we share with God and another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. For me, taking the fifth step has been liberating. No more lies and pretending, which is an exhausting habit. Now I’m free to be me in all my humanity and imperfection. It’s so much easier to live in complete honesty. It has opened the door to much healthier relationships, tears, sometimes change, but always a new brand of integrity that is delightful to experience. Life is good. I’m so grateful for my ongoing recovery.

Just For Today

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

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.

“We Are All Broken. That’s How The Light Gets In.”

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

“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

The Wind In My Sails

Marilea C. Rabasa1 Comment

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.

Lighting Candles In Greece: Lessons In Faith

Marilea C. Rabasa1 Comment

I was on the tour boat in the caldera of Santorini and we were approaching Oia at the end of the day, hopeful to catch the sunset from that end of the island. Oia, and most of the towns on Santorini, looked like horizontal white jewels, sparkling against the sun’s rays, perched atop this rock in the Mediterranean. It was a stunning sight and can only be appreciated like this from down below.

We disembarked and decided to forego the smelly donkey ride up to the city, deciding to walk up. I was immediately drawn to the Church of Panagia Platsani. After entering the cathedral, I went right to the candles and lit one for my estranged daughter, Annie. I found this to be wonderful nourishment for my soul. The cynical me said, “Oh well, another money maker.”  But the believer in me said, “Listen to me, God. I’m talking to you now. This is my prayer.”

I’ve heard it said that prayer is talking to God, and meditation is listening to Him. I did a lot of praying in Greece, in many Greek Orthodox churches. I spent a tidy sum of money, money I could have invested in souvenirs. But I chose to invest in prayer in the country where I began to lose my daughter thirty-five years ago.

“Losing my daughter…” We learn so much by craning our necks and looking backwards. We gain so much clarity through hindsight.

It’s very hard, this practice of letting go, and the faith I’ve been gradually acquiring these past many years has been a lifeline. It’s kept me from permanently free falling into despair—that black hole of uselessness—as I’ve been letting go of having Annie in my life. Only a mother can know the glue that binds her to her child, and all mothers must let go of their children. “They come through you,” Kahlil Gibran says, “yet they belong not to you.”

Letting go is a constant discipline for all of us. But letting go when your child will be coming back is one thing. Letting go when they’re gone—that’s something else. My girl has a brain disease and has been pumping her body with substances that have caused a lot of brain damage. It’s a very cruel thief, substance abuse. It robs you of yourself. My daughter Annie no longer resides in that body.

So I light candles in the country where circumstances threw her into a tailspin of depression. Her parents divorced and she rarely saw her father afterwards. Annie got through adolescence adequately, but she was a grenade waiting to explode. When she was twenty-one and a college graduate, she plunged into the dark world of drug addiction and has remained in that never-never land ever since—that fantasy world where what you want never comes and so you need to get more…

My faith has come to me, not like a burning bush, but in increments over my own years of recovery from this.

Gratitude

Marilea C. Rabasa2 Comments

I’ve dreamed many dreams that never came true.

I’ve seen them vanish at dawn.

But I’ve realized enough of my dreams, thank God,

To make me want to dream on.

I’ve prayed many prayers when no answers came,

Though I waited patient and long,

But answers came to enough of my prayers

To make me keep praying on.

I’ve trusted many a friend that failed

And left me to weep alone,

But I’ve found enough of my friends true blue

To make me keep trusting on.

I’ve sown many seeds that fell by the way

For the birds to feed upon,

But I’ve held enough golden sheaves in my hands

To make me keep sowing on.

I’ve drained the cup of disappointment and pain,

And gone many days without song,

But I’ve sipped enough nectar from the roses of life

To make me want to live on.

~~ Author Unknown ~~