We can write about being an eight-year-old child, hurting.
But that doesn’t mean we’re still a hurting eight-year-old child.
Memoir is all about what happens in between.
Memoir Writing
Reconciliation
When I met my partner, Gene, twenty-four years ago, he was an experienced canoeist, and he loved paddling every summer. So I figured I’d better learn fast. One memorable incident was during a trip to Quetico Provincial Park across the Minnesota border in Canada. It was there that I added a chapter to my “Life Lessons” journal.
Gene and I always went canoeing with his friend, Stewart and his wife, Joan. I didn’t like Joan from the beginning. She talked non-stop, endlessly showing off how much she knew about everything. And worst of all, because I can’t even boil a carrot, she was a gourmet cook.
So the two weeks of wilderness paddling and camping were a challenge for me. At the end of one day, we scouted around for a stellar camping site and I showed Joan the one we had found.
“This island sucks,” she sniffed, “Stew and I’ll stay on that one over there,” she informed us, pointing to another one across an inlet.
“Okay,” I chirped. “See you tomorrow.”
I was awakened in the morning by the smell of smoke in the air.
“Gene, get up!” I screamed, looking across the water. “There’s a fire on Stew and Joan’s island!”
We piled into our canoe and raced across the inlet to find them frantically trying to remove the underbrush from the flames. Soon we heard the Canadian Forest Service arriving by helicopter to douse the area. It took twenty-six hours, but they finally extinguished the fire.
Joan had neglected to stamp out her cigarette while she was shitting in the woods, and, well, shit happens.
She was inconsolable. She loved nature and couldn’t bear to see the results of her carelessness.
The Canadians sent a crew of four, two Ojibwa Indians, the ax man and the pump man, an assistant chief and a chief, both White. The cost of the manpower and equipment could have exceeded $12,000 if they hadn’t called off the aerial bomber. It was a particularly dry season that summer in Canada, but they didn’t fine us. We were lucky.
Joan and I had pushed each others’ buttons plenty before that incident. But our esteem for one another began then. I suppose the dark side of our natures enjoys it when our adversaries falter. And I’m no different. But somehow that smug inner smile turned the mirror back onto me, and I didn’t like what I saw.
“Joan Joan, come on,” I insisted, offering her a hug and a shoulder to cry on. “It could easily have been me. I smoke too. Please, don’t be so hard on yourself. It was just a terrible accident.”
She and I hold each other in very high esteem now. This brief confrontation with my darker side opened my heart to appreciating Joan’s good qualities. Maybe it also reminded me how human we all are and how important it is to lift each other up as we pass through life.
Beats bitchin.’
Chasing The Butterfly
From Each Day A New Beginning, July 19:
‘At fifteen, life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice.’—Maya Angelou
“We had to surrender to a power greater than ourselves to get where we are today. And each day, we have to turn to that power for strength and guidance. For us, resistance means struggle—struggle with others as well as an internal struggle.
Serenity isn’t compatible with struggle. We cannot control forces outside of ourselves. We cannot control the actions of our family or our co-workers. We can control our responses to them. And when we choose to surrender our attempts to control, we will find peace and serenity.
That which we abhor, that which we fear, that which we wish to conquer seems suddenly to be gone when we decide to resist no more—to tackle it no more.
The realities of life come to us in mysterious ways. We fight so hard, only to learn that what we need will never be ours until the struggle is forsaken. Surrender brings enlightenment.”
Thank you, Amazon customer, for this wonderful review of my book, A Mother’s Story: Angie Doesn’t Live here Anymore, by Maggie C. Romero (pseudonym):
“One of the most honest and insightful accounts to date of a mother’s struggle to win the battle over her daughter’s addiction. Told in unsparing detail, it takes us step by step through the dark tunnel of despair with all the triumphs and mistakes on the road to recovery. It is an inward journey that reveals three important concepts: understanding the powerlessness of addiction, the willingness to let go and the courage to change. This is not just a recovery book but a riveting story from beginning to end that flies in the face of despair and embraces the strangest paradox of all – absolute surrender in order to win.” ~Claire Demers
There Is No Glory In Martyrdom
“Early in Angie’s illness, I flailed around in denial, sometimes strong, as when I handed her logical consequences for being abusive. I felt like a moth turned into a butterfly then. But I later added, ‘Oh how this butterfly would flutter and die in the years that followed, as I backtracked over and over again, trading in my courage for equal does of martyrdom.’” ~except from A Mother’s Story: Angie Doesn’t Live Here Anymore by Maggie C. Romero
It’s been quite a roller coaster ride these past fifteen years. At first I wouldn’t believe it was really happening. “This sort of thing happens to other people’s children,” I wrote in my memoir. What arrogance! I simply couldn’t accept it.
But when she was living with me and stealing anything that wasn’t nailed down, it was hard to ignore. So for a while I got tough, even told her to live elsewhere more than once. But addicts are, if nothing else, resourceful.
I often write that deep pockets are dangerous, enabling us to be generous and feel good about it. I was able to put Angie through rehab four times, but one time would have been enough to teach her the tools of recovery. For recovery to be successful, whether it’s once or ten times, the addict has to be ready. I was just buying time, trying to keep her off the streets long enough to get sick and tired of being sick and tired.
In the program there’s a wry saying: “Sit there. Don’t do anything.” And so I was the one who was getting sick and tired. I stopped doing anything, mostly because it didn’t really matter what I did. Angie was a runaway train, and I couldn’t stop her in the grips of addiction.
I stopped trying to control a situation that was clearly out of my control. I stopped obsessing and enabling. I started focusing on other people in my life who deserved my attention. I learned to practice gratitude for all I have. And though my changed attitude hasn’t brought my daughter back, it has shown me how to live better.
“We don’t always get what we want in life. But to make the best of what we have is the only way to be happy.” ~Jenny Jerome Churchill
The Healing Power Of Writing
My friend from Virginia writes me that he took my book to his son who is serving a six-month sentence in jail. Justin was so moved by the book that he has decided to write his own story. I am happy to have been a source of inspiration for him, because just the act of writing my story was healing for me. Likewise, it could prove to be the catharsis Justin needs to finally face his demons and walk away from drugs.
David Sheff’s (Beautiful Boy, Clean) son, Nick, wrote his own gripping tale, Tweak, and it was very successful.
We all have a story to tell. And even though we’re not all famous authors, our stories have value to those of us walking down the painful road of addiction. I hope Justin and many other addicts out there write down what’s in their heart. More of us need to get these stories into bookstores. The shame and stigma of addiction will fade in time if we all come out of the shadows and tell our truth.
Writing A Healing Memoir
My memoir about my daughter is a graphically honest portrayal of addiction at its worst. And Angie is still alive, so I was a little fearful of publicity and pictures. But not anymore. Many readers have asked me “What would you do if Angie saw this book someday? Wouldn’t you be horrified?” My answer is this: “No, not at all. The book is not a condemnation of Angie. It is a celebration of life and love.”
In the Introduction, I showcase Angie as she was before addiction corrupted her. She was a beautiful child, young woman, a talented gymnast, writer, artist, and college graduate. And most of all she was a loving and thoughtful daughter to her father and me.
The rest of the book is a portrait of the horrors of addiction and what it does to a young woman with her whole life ahead of her. Once addiction took over, this person was no longer my daughter Angie. And I make that clear in the final chapters, how parents must learn to separate their children from the addicts they become in order to keep loving them and deal effectively with this cruel disease.
Enabling Is Not Helping
From Thirty-One Days in Naranon, Day 6:
“It was difficult for me to understand enabling and to realize that instead of helping the addict to get better, I was really helping him to continue to use. Enabling was what I used to do by loaning him the car, covering his bad checks, replacing the things he “lost,” making excuses for the things he did wrong, and hosting his parties. I thought that by being kind and helpful, everything would be okay.
It was the Nar-Anon program and group members who opened my eyes. It felt good to learn that by enabling the addict, I was performing tasks for which he was responsible. It didn’t matter what my reason for enabling him was, I was preventing him from suffering the consequences of his own actions.”
In my memoir, I wrote, “Years later in one of my support groups in New Mexico, a friend shared how she had to lock everything up in her house. She’d lock the jewelry here, the silver there. She had a different key for everything place, and one time she was so flummoxed by her son that she lost all her keys! We laughed together at that one, grateful that we could still laugh. This is what it comes to for many of us parents. We erect walls to protect ourselves, keeping the addicts out. And then, of course, we feel guilty about doing that.”
In the rooms I’ve heard many times: “What we allow will continue.” So I don’t allow Angie to abuse our relationship anymore. We are no longer dependent on each other. I’m on my journey and she must follow her own path. At this fork in the road, when parents stop making life easy for their addict, many of them are forced to see themselves more honestly and attempt recovery. Many succeed.
This was a very difficult choice for me, but I was drowning in my codependence. I needed to pay attention to the rest of my life and let go of Angie. As I have found peace on my spiritual path, I pray she will too someday.
Triumph Over Despair
Thank you, Amazon customer, for this 5-Star review of my recovery memoir, A Mother’s Story: Angie Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, by Maggie C. Romero
“This very well crafted tale delves into the misery of hard drug addiction, not simply from the addict’s perspective, but from the point of view of those who go to great lengths to help the user. Ms. Romero writes exceptionally well, and the unfolding tale of her recovery is positively gripping. She conveys the wrenching pain of a parent living through her child’s descent into the horrors of progressive, ultimately rampaging addiction. Every effort to help Angie eventually yields more despair, but the author survives to triumph over heartbreak.”
“Never, Ever Give Up Hope”
I feel very honored to be a guest on Carol Graham’s Radio Show, “Never, Ever Give Up Hope.” It was such a pleasure to talk about my memoir with Carol, who has overcome many personal challenges, and has written about them in her own book, Battered Hope.
Our conversation shines a light on my daughter Angie before she became ill with drug addiction, which only emphasizes the tragedy and cruelty of the disease that is claiming so many of our young people. But the memoir is primarily my story where I gradually weave my own recovery into the pages even as I’ve watched my daughter falter. Carol and I share the same philosophy: that no matter what life throws our way, we can learn to deal with it and live well and happily.
She has become a good friend. I look forward to continuing my story in my next memoir—a lighter, humorous collection of stories from my travels and escapades—and talking with her again.
The interview has gone live. You can listen to it on her website: http://neverevergiveuphopenet.blogspot.ca/2016/04/love-and-redemption-overcoming-guilt.html
You can also find it on Apple i-Tunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/love-redemption-overcoming/id1014754680?i=365336143&mt=2
Or listen to the Stitcher podcast:
http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/never-ever-give-up-hope?refid=stpr
I hope you will enjoy, share, and review these downloads and invite your friends to do the same. I think it’s important to continue the conversation around addiction so it will lose its stigma and someday be viewed with the same compassion as other chronic illnesses.
The Healing Memoir
It was a pleasure to listen to John Evans on Friday’s NAMW Teleseminar. My recovery memoir exemplified a number of the kinds of writing he talked about in the interview with Linda Joy Myers: writing for healing and transformation; affirmative writing; legacy writing; and transactional writing.
A Mother’s Story: Angie Doesn’t Live Here Anymore began as an attempt to heal from the pain of my daughter’s drug addiction. But as I dug deeper into those dark places he referred to, I uncovered many more truths about myself that I was ready to expose and come to terms with. This isn’t automatic for many memoir writers; indeed, this is often that terrifying place where the writing process stops and they back away, hoping to revisit another time. Readiness comes at a different time and place for all of us, but I’m glad I was prepared to do the work that led to self-discovery and change. The cathartic process of typing ten hours a day for two years until my hands ached with arthritis proved to be a worthwhile effort. The grief around my daughter and my family of origin ceased to be a crippling force in my life, and I’ve truly been able to move on. Anger and depression left me, forgiveness (of self and others) came easily, and most importantly, acceptance of things as they are—without resistance— became my mantra.
Shedding the negativity that had imprisoned me for so many years leads me to another kind of writing that John Evans talked about: affirmative writing. In a way, my whole memoir, from beginning to end, stands under the light-filled umbrella of my recovery. I injected the positive change in me into every chapter as I looked back on my life—not with anger, sadness, and guilt—but with a fresh perspective. Gratitude, understanding, love and acceptance of what is are so much easier to carry. And they’re the big takeaway from my story. It started out in a very dark place, but as the memoir expanded, thankfully, “the light got in.”
John also talked about legacy writing. How do we want people to think about us, and how do we want to be remembered? This brings me to the last type of writing he discussed: transactional writing. This is “getting down to business,” where we address issues on the page with someone else. But the other people we’re talking to need to be listening!
In my case, my siblings have not read the memoir because they fear the opening of old wounds. This is a reflection of where they are in their own healing process. Also, and John mentioned this in his own experience, siblings often have very different memories growing up in the same home. My brother, sister and I are all five years apart, and this was the case with us. Clearly, we’re not all on the same page, and there’s much more healing to be done in my family. But at the same time, some key people in my life haven’t heard my message. When I asked John about this, he assured me that the business was between my text and me—therein lies the benefit. That may be true. Many strangers have read my story and now they know me intimately and even understand me somewhat. But it’s my family that I wanted to know and understand me differently. Perhaps that’s work destined for another place down the road.
So for me alone writing my memoir was a tremendously healing endeavor, and I have indeed found myself transformed by undertaking such an arduous task. This work, to use John’s words, “has helped me move beyond what I thought I couldn’t get over.” I would wish that same clarity and transcendence for all of us!