Expectations

Healthy Relationships

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

From Healing Within Our Alcoholic Relationships, CAL, p. 16

“Building Healthy Connections

As the experience of our fellow Al-Anon members demonstrates, the more we practice Al-Anon’s spiritual principles in all of our relationships, the more those relationships change. More than that, we change. As we build trust in ourselves and others, we begin to move through our lives with more confidence and less fear. By learning healthy ways to express ourselves and developing the ability to listen, we build connections with others, ourselves, and our Higher Power. In taking responsibility for our own needs, we become better able to see that those needs are met. With a solid spiritual foundation and the loving support of the Al-Anon fellowship, we find ourselves better equipped to be more fully ourselves. We become able to live more fulfilling lives.”

I’ve heard it said that ours is a disease of relationships. And I believe that’s true. Not to oversimplify, but to me the 12 Steps are the key to my becoming a better, healthier person than I was before I discovered them. Just the amends steps, for example. Before recovery, I was often too proud to apologize for something. Now, nothing could keep me from making an amend when it’s called for. And how much healthier my relationships are as a result! Or just the first step, admitting my powerlessness over people, places and things. If, for example, my husband has severe OCD, I don’t have the power to change that. Maybe he can, but I can’t. Instead of endless snarky remarks and frustration, I’ve learned to accept his peculiarities with love and grace. Or the third step, my turning my problems over to my Higher Power. Stop trying to fix everything, Marilea! Ask Him to do what He can, and then let go. You’re not God; stop acting like you were.

My relationships are infinitely healthier now because I’ve incorporated the 12 Steps into my life and my behavior toward others. I always joke that it’s the best therapy around, and it’s free! Grateful I am, and always will be, for Al-Anon and my fellowship of friends. Have a beautiful day, everyone. God Bless!

We’re Good Enough

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

From Each Day A New Beginning, by Karen Casey, December 1:

“’And it isn’t the thing you do, dear, it’s the thing you leave undone which gives you a bit of a heartache at the setting of the sun.’ ~Margaret Sangster”

A quality many of us share, a very human quality, is to expect  near perfection from ourselves, to expect the impossible in all tasks done. I must rejoice for the good I do. Each time I pat myself on the back for a job well done, my confidence grows a little bit more. Recovery is best measured by my emotional and spiritual health, expressed in my apparent confidence and trust in “the process.”

Creeping perfectionism is a strange form of self-sabotage. At first it seems like such a good and healthy attitude. But setting realistic goals and doing my best to achieve them is very different from placing unyielding demands on myself and feeling “less-than” if I fail to meet them.

It all boils down to being honest and knowing myself as I am, not as I think I should be. Knowing myself and coming away liking myself—well, for many of us that’s a process that takes a long time. Holding onto realistic aspirations can be a healthy thing. But demanding perfection of myself and worse, punishing myself when I fall short, is not healthy. It’s a bitter tyrant holding a whip at my back.

Strong language, yes. But not as strong as the sting of that whip on my back. I’m happy to be free of it. I love my recovery fellowship where I’m just one in a community of equals, where I can mess up and they love me anyway. I’ve grown up in the rooms all these years and I’ve learned to love myself, warts and all. This is where I found my humanity. I am truly blessed and happy to be alive, now more than ever as we join hands to strengthen our communities.

Surviving The Slumps

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

Surviving The Slumps

From The Language of Letting Go, by Melody Beattie

“A slump can go on for days. We feel sluggish, unfocused, and sometimes overwhelmed with feelings we can’t sort out. We may not understand what is going on with us. Even our attempts to practice recovery behaviors may not appear to work. We still don’t feel emotionally, mentally, and spiritually as good as we would like.

In a slump, we may find ourselves reverting instinctively to old patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving, even when we know better. We may find ourselves obsessing, even when we know that what we’re doing is obsessing and that it doesn’t work.

We may find ourselves looking frantically for other people to make us feel better, the whole time knowing our happiness and well-being does not lay with others.

We may begin taking things personally that are not our issues, and reacting in ways we’ve learned all too well do not work.

We’re in a slump. It won’t last forever. These periods are normal, even necessary. These are the days to get through. These are the days to focus on recovery behaviors, whether or not the rewards occur immediately. These are sometimes the days to let ourselves be and love ourselves as much as we can.

We don’t have to be ashamed, no matter how long we’ve been recovering. We don’t have to unreasonably expect “more” from ourselves. We don’t ever have to expect ourselves to live life perfectly.

Get through the slump. It will end. Sometimes, a slump can go on for days and then, in the course of an hour, we see ourselves pull out of it and feel better. Sometimes it can last a little longer.

Practice one recovery behavior in one small area, and begin to climb uphill. Soon, the slump will disappear. We can never judge where we will be tomorrow by where we are today.

Today, I will focus on practicing one recovery behavior on one of my issues, trusting that this practice will move me forward. I will remember that acceptance, gratitude, and detachment are a good place to begin.”

Living In The Solution

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

I messaged a friend on Facebook: “Oh, God Bless, Maryann, my heart goes out to you and all of us mothers. I often say on these sites that I’m grieving a living death because Annie, my daughter, is not the person who’s walking in her shoes. She’s split right down the middle. Anyway, we all have different stories, but some parts are so familiar. My recovery is all about finding solutions for myself, and I hope it helps you too. One thing I’ve learned on this difficult journey is to live in the solution, not in the problem. That’s how I’ve learned to be happy. Hugs to you!”

From a Nar-Anon handout: “People like myself whose problems have brought them to the point of despair have come to Nar-Anon to seek advice and find solutions. As soon as they attend the first meeting they feel like they have come home and feel like they are among people who really understand. And fortunate is the newcomer who finds a group that permits such expression. It gives those who have gone before them a way to give encouragement and hope. The newcomer discovers that it is by giving and receiving in our sharing that we are able to heal ourselves, and slowly we are able to regain control of our lives again.

But still more fortunate is the newcomer who finds a group that does not allow such unburdening to continue meeting after meeting. There is work to be done; Nar-Anon is not a sounding board for continually reviewing our miseries, but a way to learn how to detach ourselves from them.

A Recovery reminder:

I will learn by listening, by reading all the Nar-Anon literature as well as all good books on the subject of substance use disorder, by working and trying to live the 12 Steps. The more I read and study the more knowledge I receive. Knowledge is power, and I will be able to help myself as well as others.”

The Rewards of Humility

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

From Healing Within Our Alcoholic Relationships, CAL, p. 22

“Step Seven: Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings

  1. Am I really ready to have my shortcomings removed, or do I cling to some of my favorite ones—those I think are justified by circumstances?
  2. Do I know they cannot be removed until I am ready, and that while I have any reservations, I cannot be ready to be helped toward my goal of a full, serene life?
  3. Have I reached a point of being truly humble?
  4. Is it only my mind that is ready, or do I truly wish, from my heart, to learn how to live a better life?
  5. Unassuming as the tone of this step appears, can I see it as an instrument of power that can change my life?
  6. How soon will I learn to put it to use?”

All of these questions are good food for thought. On the first one, I am an expert at self-justification! Aren’t we all? J On #2, my readiness is critical to all parts of my recovery. If I really believe that I can’t get through the day without checking in with Annie “one last time,” then I’m not ready to have my stubbornness and denial removed—my belief that her recovery depends on my reaching out to her over and over again, regardless of her  continued lack of responses. For #3, I think that my continual failure to get what I want through my own devices has humbled me. I’m grateful for that. For #4, yes I truly wish to live a better life. And when I follow the Steps and guidelines in my recovery program, a better life is my reward.  

Accept The New Me

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

My work in my recovery program has helped me to minimize my defects, to grow and change into a better person, easier to like and to live with. The people in my life have been familiar with one person, and now they are confronted with someone different, someone better: perhaps nicer, kinder, more anything that we couldn’t muster before. This can be disorienting. And it may be difficult to trust the change they see.

Please—trust it. Give us a chance to change into better people. We will all benefit from this, won’t we?

“Thoughts Become Things, Choose Wisely”

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

A simple mantra, but very true. We’ve all heard about “self-talk,” both positive and negative. Negative self-talk is common for those of us who struggle with self-esteem. “Oh I’ll never win that contest, so I’m not gonna bother trying.” It’s not just laziness that forms such an attitude. It’s also the absolute certainty that I’m not gonna win. And to avoid the disappointment of losing, I feel it’s better to not even try. How many times have I been there? Too many to count.

Positive self-talk, on the other hand, says: “What have I got to lose? Nothing! And maybe, just maybe, I’ll be good enough to win.” I guess a healthier perspective would be something like: “Look, winning or losing a contest isn’t everything. If I win, that means my work was better than the other contestants’ entries. And if I lose it means that other entries were better than mine. But it doesn’t mean that mine was bad, It’s important to really believe that. There was just stiff competition.”

In my recovery program, making comparisons is discouraged. We are operating on a level playing field. We learn to accept ourselves as we are, warts and all. Unlike the contest above, we recognize that we are all equals. And when we tell ourselves that, we cease feeling inferior to anyone else. We all have defects and strengths. We work on our defects in the program, to minimize them, and to build on our strengths.

As we learn to do that, to make these self-affirmations, we are building up our self-confidence, and positive self-talk comes to us more frequently. These thoughts become part of our makeup. They solidify and become things we can rely on. So since thoughts can become real things in our lives, we learn to choose the good ones.

Denial

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“No, not my daughter. She’s had such a privileged life, was given so many advantages, this couldn’t be happening to her.”

This is what I told myself for a long time. I simply couldn’t believe that my daughter would throw her life away like this. “This sort of thing happens to other people’s children.” Well, I got rid of that arrogance very quickly. Her behavior was undeniably that of a full-blown substance abuser, deep in the disease. This was the child I had raised, not other people’s children.

She stole everything that wasn’t nailed down in the house. When she said we must have been robbed, I believed her and called the police. I swallowed her lies hook, line and sinker. When she stole my identity, twice, the credit card company called me and encouraged me to call the authorities. I blew them off and said I would take care of it. I did nothing, afraid of the consequences she would face. I lacked the courage to do the right thing.

Those consequences might have taught her a lesson. But by helping her to avoid them, she was  emboldened to do more. This is what my denial had wrought; my daughter was a runaway train, having abandoned the moral code I taught all my kids when they were little, caught in the grip of a cruel disease that had claimed her for 23 years. Maybe if I had faced the truth early on, things would have been different. Or maybe not. I needed to accept the fact that my part in her disease was insignificant.

I don’t beat myself up with guilt anymore. I, too, have been in recovery for 23 years. And I have learned something important in the rooms: I did the best I could with what I knew at the time. I have since learned a lot and I know more, about denial, enabling, and preventing my child from facing the consequences of her actions.

 Yes, this is one of my many mantras: “I did the best I could with what I knew at the time.”

No more guilt. Just love and compassion for the both of us. Amen to that.

“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.

Boundaries

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

Boundaries do not have to be angry walls that shut other people out. They are a form of assertion and self-affirmation. In the spirit of friendship.

They tell people: “This is what I need in my life, and I need you to acknowledge and respect it. When you do, things will work well in our relationship. But if you don’t, if you cross lines and disrespect my boundaries, our relationship might break down and stop working. I will probably exit the relationship out of self-respect.”

Boundaries are not there for others. They are there for our self-regard—to benefit us.