Recovery

Who Are Our Teachers?

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

Memoir Excerpt:

“My unsent letter to my child:

‘Dear Angie,

Ironic, isn’t it, that you have become my teacher and not the other way around—teacher of life, teacher of love, and beacon of surrender.

I’m so grateful that you were born, even though at times I’ve felt otherwise. God works in mysterious ways, doesn’t he? Though you haven’t been in my life long, and not always happily, it’s been your very existence that has propelled me into a serenely spiritual life, even happiness. I never would have done the work necessary to reach this place without your inspiration.

You are my child, my teacher. As I’ve stumbled on this rocky path, my thoughts of you have guided me; they guide me still.

All that I’ve become are gifts from you, my daughter: life lessons, trial by fire. How do I thank you?

By living well—By loving well—Mom’

‘God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.’ I cannot change the fact that Angie is an addict, and I cannot ‘wish’ her into recovery. I can only love her. And—this catch-22 has taken me most of my life to learn—I can only love her or anyone else in my life with any integrity, if I love and value and respect and cherish myself first.”

Recovery At Its Best

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

My former husband, Angel Miguel Rabasa, died last week in Washington, D.C. He had been ill with cancer and, despite surgery and chemotherapy to slow down its progress, he succumbed on 9/26/16, three days before his 68th birthday. I, along with his children and grandchildren, scrambled to get there from the West Coast. But none of us, including his two sisters from Miami, made it in time. He died surrounded by his wife and other loved ones. I have just two things to share regarding the passing of this good man: first, the early years of our marriage were filled with excitement and colorful stories that will keep our grandchildren entertained for years to come; the second thing, and this is such a blessing, is that the storms we have weathered in recent years have brought us closer together and we have become good friends. Such a gift! I am grateful beyond words for the difference this man has made in my life.

angel-scott-and-me

Accepting Ourselves

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“If we have submerged ourselves in the needs of others we may have lost sight of who we are, our self-esteem and individual rights. Awareness of the futility of doing the same things over and over, trying to control another person, and expecting that one day these actions will work, is freeing if we allow it to be. We are entitled to our own opinions, beliefs, limitations, and strengths. Accepting and loving ourselves for who we are will enable us to grow and change.

The less we try to manage others’ lives, the more effective we become. If we are accepting of others and the things around us, we can simply be ourselves.”

The definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I have accepted that my Higher Power will restore me to sanity. I will cease trying to force solutions and control my daughter. She has her own path and her own Higher Power. And I have mine.

The Courage To Let Go

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

Memoir Excerpt:

    “Angie told me once that that’s why she hated NA meetings: pimps, dealers, and strung-out junkies just itching for their next high often attended them. But in Angie’s case I don’t think that’s true. I think she didn’t go to meetings because she needed to deal with her addiction her way, and not be told by anyone else what to do: CSR—compulsively self-reliant—just like her mother.

Or maybe she just wasn’t ready to embrace recovery at all, a painful possibility I had not yet considered. I was still determined, at that point, to believe that she was going to beat her addiction and that I, of course, would be the glorious savior she would spend the rest of her life thanking, handing me my redemption on a silver platter.

I would finally, thank God, let go of the oppressive burden I was placing on my daughter by demanding she get well so that I could be OK. My mother unconsciously did the same thing with her children: she was a demanding perfectionist, beating back the pain of self-doubt and unworthiness by raising “successful” children. I’m very glad to have found recovery from my dysfunctional upbringing. It has helped to ‘relieve me of the bondage of self’. And most importantly, most importantly of all, my recovery has freed my children.”

Accepting Imperfection

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“When we strive for perfection in ourselves and expect it in others, we may feel we have failed when this doesn’t meet our expectations. This step teaches us to accept each other and ourselves as we are, even if it’s less than we had hoped. We strive only to do our best. This invites us to practice humility in order to begin our progress toward recovery.”

 

True humility is the ability to see myself in relation to God, and this keeps me where I need to be with the people in my life. It has nothing to do with humiliation; it’s maintaining a realistic and balanced perspective of myself. I’ve heard it said that addiction is a disease of relationships, and it certainly has the power to destroy them. When I try to let go of many of my defects and practice humility, my relationships work better. This, I believe, is God working through me.

The Heart To Listen

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The Serenity Prayer (Part 4)

“and Wisdom to know the difference…

“Wisdom is God’s own conversation with me. Often he speaks through books or other people. Wisdom can be found merely by listening to others after I develop the ability to hear it in their words. To recognize Wisdom, I must have compassion for others, which gives me insight rather than knowledge of myself. Facing reality encourages recognition of Wisdom, because Wisdom is always truth.”

Thank God I have the ears to listen when He speaks to me! Not always, of course. And some of the best wisdom I pick up is in the rooms from other members. Opening my heart to listen to others is one of the great rewards of my recovery program. And I NEVER feel alone anymore.

Playing God

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Memoir Excerpt:

 “Recovery in the Program, time and the perspective it brings us, has given me a lot of new information. My own recovery has also graced me with a healthy amount of humility. I used to confuse humility with humiliation. I used to think that admitting my faults would produce shame in me and threaten my self-worth. But in recent years I have a different understanding of this word.

Having taken the Fourth Step (“Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves”), and later the Seventh Step (“Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings”), I began to see myself in a healthier light. I began to see myself in relation to my higher power. I am just a speck in the universe, no more, no less. I’ve been playing God for much of my life. It doesn’t matter any more why; what matters now is that I remain ever mindful of the amount of power I have over others and stop trying to play God with them.”

“Living Well Is The Best Revenge”

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

I’ve received many emails from moms asking me how I cope with the living death of Angie’s heroin addiction. She’s neither dead nor alive. Many of my friends here know the hellish limbo I’m living in, without any resolution or closure. But I have found a way to cope well and move on with my life. This is what I wrote back:

“I put my grief in a back drawer and close it. Then I look at what’s in my front drawers every morning. I have so many wonderful things to be grateful for. Instead of focusing on the problem, I try to keep my mind on the solution. This is how I live. It keeps me humble, grateful, and glad to be alive. I honor Angie’s memory in this way, and I truly believe she would want me to live well and be happy. Blessings to you, Mom.”

 

“Aye, there’s the rub…”

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

The Serenity Prayer (Part 3)

 “Courage to change the things I can…

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.

Others Need Us Too

Marilea C. RabasaLeave a comment

Memoir Excerpt:

“I’ll never forget a friend I had years ago. She was the youngest of three girls in her family. The middle sister had suffered from cancer years before and had died. My friend was ten when her sister died at age fourteen. But it wasn’t the death that traumatized Jillian so much. It was the years of care, heartbreak and obsession with saving her dying child that her mother endured—to the exclusion of her other two girls—that turned Jillian into an angry, rebellious teenager. She did not get her share of mother love, she felt, and to this day she has not forgiven her mother. I should have remembered that story while I was obsessing over Angie.”

I have since made amends to my other children and family members for allowing my daughter’s illness to take up so much emotional energy in my life. And they have forgiven me. It’s so easy for a loving mother to become enmeshed in the life of a troubled child. But I need to remember that there are other people in my life, and I will try to keep a healthy perspective and a sense of balance.