Recovery

Going Back To Childhood

Marilea C. Rabasa4 Comments

From Courage To Change, March 22:

“In order to survive in the contradictory and explosive world of alcoholism, many of us learned to ignore our feelings. We lost touch with ourselves without even knowing it.

For example, although I pointed an accusing finger at the alcoholics in my life for deserting me in times of need, I wasn’t a very good friend to myself. In my fear and confusion, I walked away from the little child in me who lived simply, who cried when the cat died and then let it go, who could appreciate a sunset and not want to own it, and who lived one day at a time.

Recovery does not mean that I have to become a different person. It means I need to start being myself again. The lessons I’m learning in Al-Anon are lessons I already know. I just need to remember.

Today’s Reminder:

There is an innocence within me that already knows how to trust my Higher Power, to cherish life while holding it lightly, to live fully and simply in the present moment. I will allow that part of myself to come forward and nourish me as I continue on this journey.

‘It takes a long time to become young.’ Pablo Picasso”

It’s taken a long time in recovery for me to let go of my fears and need to control—and trust again. Loosening my grip on everything, letting go of outcomes, trusting that God has a plan and is a lot smarter than I am—these are a few elements of my recovery that have made my life so much simpler. It’s almost like becoming a child again…

Simplify!

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If I am overwhelmed, I may be trying to do too much. Today I will try to “keep it simple.” “The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”

Another reason to let go…

Split Down The Middle

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I remember so well my friend tearfully sharing at a meeting last year:

“My son is in two parts. I don’t see him anymore. He’s hidden deep inside.”

And I remember looking up at Heaven and thanking God for the education I’ve received in the rooms of recovery. My daughter abuses hard drugs, and she’s not the same person anymore. Before I learned that addiction was a brain disease, I didn’t understand the complete change in Angie’s personality. It bewildered and frightened me, if only because she became so abusive that I was afraid for my own safety.

So…boundaries…I needed to learn how to set and enforce boundaries, without which none of us can enjoy healthy relationships—with addicts or anyone else.

The education I’ve received through the years while living with the addiction of my daughter Angie has provided me with a healthy perspective that I needed to stay strong and persevere.

And I have. Maybe not perfectly, but I’m still here and I look forward to getting up every morning.

God didn’t create all the misery that we read about in the paper. He didn’t designate me to be the mother of an addict. I haven’t been singled out for this tragedy. His purpose in my life is to help me rise above it. And once my eyes were cleared of the tears blinding me, I was able to see that.

I’m very grateful for my ongoing recovery!

The Voice of My Daughter

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“When Angie was in her first psych ward back in October 2007, they used art therapy on the patients. She made me a bead bracelet. ‘These are your favorite colors, Mom,’ she said, carefully placing it on my wrist. I finger those beads now and again, like Greek worry beads, a reminder of the hope I nurtured then. On one of the nights she stayed at my motel, she was out all night while I tossed and turned, wondering where she was. When I awoke, there was the most fragrant smelling flower in a glass of water at my bedside. She had picked it outside of her hotel in Japan Town and left it for me to enjoy in the morning. I still have what’s left of that flower, all dried and brown, another reminder that ‘Joy & Woe are woven fine.’”

from my award-winning memoir, A Mother’s Story: Angie Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, by Maggie C. Romero

“Guilt IsA Terrible Crippler…”

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From Survival to Recovery, p. 25-26:

“Unless recovery is found, blame, guilt, anger, depression, and many other negative attitudes can go on for generations in a family affected by alcoholism…Focusing on ourselves actually allows us to release other people to solve their own problems and frees us to find contentment and even happiness for ourselves.”

We all have different stories of how addiction has touched our lives. In my life, guilt was a constant theme from very early in my childhood, and, as I said in my memoir, “Guilt is a terrible crippler.” It crippled me, especially, when my own child mirrored the addict in me and morphed into a worse and more dysfunctional addict than I ever was. Guilt and self-blame put me at risk in setting and enforcing boundaries, in becoming an enabler, in shielding Angie from the logical consequences of her behavior. In short, guilt kept me from parenting my daughter intelligently and kept me stuck in a hole. Fortunately I found recovery and release from my own guilt, much of it misplaced, which in turn is freeing Angie to live her own life and solve her own problems.

“Blame Is For God And Small Children”

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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 addictions my whole life, but until I told someone about them, brought them into the light, they weren’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 the, 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!

Suffering Is Optional

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From Hope for Today, January 30:

“The alcoholic was obsessed with alcohol, and I was obsessed with the alcoholic. I watched, monitored, controlled, and exercised my need to feel hurt. I felt self-pity, embarrassment, superiority, resentment, and anger. All of these took obsessive turns filling my mind and heart. I wondered why I indulged in these draining behaviors and emotions, which only resulted in further misery for me.

In Al-Anon I began to realize that wretchedness and gloom, though familiar and comfortable to an extent, were optional. Serenity is possible with changes in my attitude, expectations and responses. Today I want to exercise my option to be happy, to feel calm and good.”

I indulged in these draining behaviors because I was sick too, a fact that many of us find very hard to accept. Joining this recovery fellowship has been a real education for me, as I gradually learned that loving an addict and/or living with him/her has taken a powerful toll on me in ways that I often couldn’t see. What may have appeared to be healthy coping mechanisms when I was a child—trying to control the chaos around me, for example—has become a losing battle when I’ve tried to take control of the addict I love. “My life had become unmanageable…” Yes, when I needed pills to go to sleep. Yes, when I couldn’t afford many things for myself because I was giving money to my addict. Yes, when  I took responsibility for the tragedy of addiction, isolating myself behind a curtain of shame, like a bad person, certain that God was punishing me.

Now, I sleep at night. Now, I sometimes treat myself to things. Now, I don’t feel responsible or ashamed. Now, I know I’m a good person. Sometimes bad things happen to good people.

And therein lies much of my happiness: acceptance of what is and faith that things are unfolding as they are meant to. My Higher Power, far from punishing me, walks with me always. I just have to offer Him my hand.

What Do You Mean, Accept?

Marilea C. Rabasa2 Comments

From Hope for Today, February 3:

“How ready and willing am I to invite the transforming power of acceptance into my will and my life?

‘Al-Anon offers us a new beginning…We can learn to accept ourselves and become willing to change our attitudes for the better.’”

On the topic of addiction, there are a myriad of things to accept—or not accept. I recognize that this topic invites debate. But I believe that addiction is a brain disease, and accepting this as true has simplified my life a great deal.

It has enabled me, for one thing, to take the first step in my recovery program, admitting my powerlessness over addiction. I’m powerless over all illnesses. I can assist my loved one to get help, but I can’t wave a magic want and wish her illness to go away. Just like a diabetic, my daughter Angie needs to take her medicine if she wants to manage her illness and stay healthy.

So, this is my truth. Avoiding it and continuing to deny, judge, control, and enable only add to the sorrow and suffering I’m already going through. For me, acceptance and faith go hand in hand, and practicing them both on a daily basis lightens my load a great deal and improves the quality of my life.

Loosen Your Grip!

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From From Survival To Recovery, page 268:

“Living fully requires enough trust to release our manipulative, tight-fisted control of life, for only then can we accept the guidance of a Power greater than ourselves. For adult children of alcoholics, our damaged, devastated trust has to be healed and nurtured bit by bit until we feel safe enough to truly let go and let God. Trust does not come from reading a book, however inspired, but from experiencing new relationships in which we are trusted and we can learn to trust those around us…If we willingly surrender ourselves to the spiritual discipline of the Twelve Steps, our lives will be transformed…Though we may never be perfect, continued spiritual progress will reveal to us our enormous potential…We will laugh more. Fear will be replaced by faith, and gratitude will come naturally as we realize that our Higher Power is doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves…”

“We will laugh more.”  How can I, beset by depression and instability for many of my early years, come to revisit my life now from another perspective? How have I learned how to laugh and see the comedy in things? What has enabled me at last to live well and be happy?

Being in the rooms.

But I hasten to add that we can learn the same tools elsewhere: the tools of letting go and accepting what we can’t change; the tool of gratitude (a big one—half the world is starving; I have enough food and a roof over my head); the tool of detachment and understanding our personal boundaries in relation to our addict.

I might have been luckier, like many of you out there, and learned these tools in a happy, functioning family when I was growing up. But I didn’t; I learned them later.

And it’s never too late to learn how to be happy.