My (Old) Achilles Heel

Guilt has been a huge stumbling block for some of us in recovery. This is true because it keeps us stuck in the problem rather than in the solution.

I, too, have struggled with multiple addictions. So when my daughter mirrored my behavior, I was stunned to see her becoming a worse version of myself. The heartache was so real, and so deep, that I carried the responsibility for it. And that miscalculation crippled my judgment in numerous ways, ways in which I knew better. But I was still stuck in the problem.

Gratefully, I’ve become more educated about substance use disorder. It’s a brain disease with many moving parts, both physical and emotional, and with the cooperation of the user, it is highly treatable. But full recovery rests there, in the hands of the suffering addict. There is much we in the family can do to help and encourage, ways to show love and support without drowning ourselves. But we do not have the power to cure our loved one.

I am so heartened by what I’m learning about SUD recovery. More family involvement, love and support can make all the difference to a struggling family member. It encourages me a great deal to see substance use awareness moving in a more positive direction. Someday shame and stigma will be relics of the past, and SUD sufferers will be treated more effectively, with intelligence and compassion.

And guilt, one of the most useless and harmful emotions there is, will be kicked to the curb.

The Many Faces of Gratitude

Though nothing can restore the years we’ve lost with Annie, I feel more and more able to embrace the life around me and revel in the gifts I’ve been given. On my gratitude list this morning: “I thought the rose bush was dead, but a little more water and it’s come back.”  Simple things—

How is it possible for me to be grateful, even, to Annie, whose illness brought me into the rooms of 12-Step recovery? How is this possible?

My unsent letter to my child:

Dear Annie,

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 honor you?

By living well—By loving well.

Mom

I Am a Child of God, and I am Worthy

From Each Day A New Beginning, CAL, November 2:

“Love is a gift we’ve been given by our Creator. The fact of our existence guarantees that we deserve it. As our recognition of this grows, so does our self-love and our ability to love others…High self-esteem and stable self-worth were not our legacies before finding this program…Had we understood that we were loved, in all the years of our youth, perhaps we’d not have struggled so in the pain of alienation.”

This vignette, entitled “Grace,” from my award-winning memoir, Stepping Stones: A Memoir of Addiction, Loss, and Transformation, affirms my realization that I am a child of God, worthy of love:  

    “While working… back in 1972, I spent a lot of time at a particular thrift shop… Making only about six thousand dollars a year, I was grateful to have acquired a taste for secondhand merchandise.

For twenty dollars, I bought a large print of Maxfield Par­rish’s most famous painting, Daybreak, mounted in a handsome frame. Something stirred in me as I spotted the alluring blues in an obscure corner of the shop where someone had placed the painting. It has held a prominent place over every bed I’ve slept in since that year.

I am the woman lying on the floor of the temple, one arm casually framing her face, shielding it from the sun. Columns support the temple, and there are leaves, water, rocks, and moun­tains in the background, painted in tranquil shades of blue.

Bending over me is a young undressed girl. I am in conversa­tion with her. My face feels warm and I’m smiling. The setting in this picture is one of absolute calm, beauty, and serenity.

That has been my ever-present wish: to be as watched over and cared for, as it appears that woman was.

All my life, though I wasn’t always awake and aware of it, I have been.” @2020Marilea C.Rabasa

God, in all His magnificence, has always loved me.

Out Of My Mouth

My sponsor often scolded me when I put myself down, even slightly. Until I got into recovery, low self-regard followed me most of my life. I had some bad habits that needed correcting. If I had a hard time accepting myself, how could I expect anyone else to?

Thank goodness I found the rooms of recovery before I grew too old to reap the rewards! The twelve steps, when practiced with the help of my sponsor, have brought miracles of transformation into my life. I’m so grateful that I’ve remained teachable and not too set in my ways.

I, along with millions of others in our fellowship, have found the courage to change. We only get one chance to go around the block, and it’s never too late to try to do better. My life and relationships have grown richer and more rewarding as a result.

There was a time in my life when genuine joy was a foreign concept to me. Now, upon waking, each day is a new beginning, a chance to check my attitudes, my words, and my behavior.

The three A’s: awareness, acceptance, and action. Each night before my head hits the pillow, if I’m following my program, then I know I’ve done the best that I could do. I especially need to watch what I say because words can’t be taken back and they often do much harm. So, I try to be mindful that my words reflect the best in me.

Other people can be mirrors for us, and if I pay attention, I learn through my every interaction with others what is working and what is not. My program offers an endless array of guidelines to help me make the most of my life.

My joyfulness, on any given day, springs from that.

Mindfulness

From SESH, June 27: T.H.I.N.K.

Am I thoughtful?

Am I honest?

Are my words intelligent?

Are they necessary?

Am I kind?

I love this acronym because it shows how emotions can collide with rational thinking. It also shows that even when we are being rational, we sometimes say the wrong thing. As a writer, I’m aware of the power of words—how they can persuade, or repel, how they can win friends, or lose them. I’ve done them all! When I get too emotional, I’m sure to say the wrong thing. Experience has taught me to use this acronym to weigh carefully what comes out of my mouth. To ask myself if what I say is necessary, or am I just spouting off, releasing steam like Old Faithful in Yellowstone? Am I being honest, or are my words brutal and tactless? Do I care how my words might affect the other person? Am I so emotional, in the moment, that my words might appear unintelligible? And most of all, do my words demonstrate kindness towards the other person?

Of all those terms, kindness for me is the most far-reaching and important. No matter what happens to us in our lives, no matter how deeply we are humbled by our circumstances and shortcomings, if we can remain kind in the face of everything, then that says a lot about our character.

“Thoughts become words. Choose the good ones!”

Staying Out Of The Weeds

Before I went into recovery, I was pretty lost. On the outside, my life seemed to be rolling along well. But on the inside, I was insecure and sad. I dealt with these feelings in unhealthy ways, but didn’t feel much pressure to change them. I never missed a day of work, and I appeared to be fine. But appearances can be deceiving. Nothing had yet occurred to call my choices into question. Nothing had happened yet to push me out of my complacency.

But when my middle child fell victim to substance use disorder, after I had tried and failed over and over again to help her, I broke. The carefully manicured life I had been living was a treasured glass from my cupboard, smashed onto the kitchen floor. Many little shards, and some big ones. I cut my fingers cleaning it up.

My recovery fellowship comes with a philosophy that teaches me many different things. And one of those things is to forgive myself and others for the transgressions we inevitably commit in our lives. Our common humanity dovetails at every meeting I go to, where we encourage ourselves to face our defects, let them go, and move on.

For years, I held on to mine to punish myself for my part in Annie’s disease, and most importantly, for failing to “save” her. I have learned, gratefully, that my daughter suffers from substance use disorder, as do I, and I could no more save her from it than if she’d had diabetes. I simply don’t have that power.

So I try to stay away from martyrdom and self-pity, because neither of those feelings will help Annie get well, and they hurt me a great deal. That’s where the weeds are. They muddy the waters; they keep me angry and sad. When I steer clear of them, it takes some of the sting out of losing my daughter. I can more easily open my heart to what remains in my life.

The miracle of my recovery is that, like a gentle breeze blowing away the clutter of remorse, my eyes can see my life through another lens now, one full of gratitude, humor and love. The fruits of my recovery rest on these three things.

“We forget that the depths teach us how to better appreciate the heights.”

Love Them Like It’s Your Last Day Together

                                  

At the end of the day, all that matters is love. All we have control over is how we share our love. And instead of counting our losses, at the end of the day, all that can never be taken away from us is our love.

In this month that celebrates all matters of the heart, I am happy to celebrate all the loved ones in my life—most especially my daughter Annie. She is lost to me at the moment, but I can still love her as totally and purely as when she came into the world forty-one years ago.

Parents struggle and wage a horrendous war against substance use disorder as we watch our children caught in the web of it. We experience so many conflicting feelings, from hush-hush shame to rage against all the pushers of the world. In my powerlessness and frustration I wanted to lash out against my loved one and tell her to “snap out of it!” Often we retreat to the seemingly safe harbors of enabling and protecting our children from the dire consequences of their drug-induced behavior. I’ve been to all those places and back again. At first I was so joined at the hip to Annie that I didn’t know where she ended and I began.

About a decade ago, I did find out. And I learned that I needed to detach and let her follow her own path. Nineteen years in recovery rooms have given me some important tools and guidance. In educating myself about substance use disorder, I learned that it is a brain disease. My daughter didn’t choose this life; she’s sick. When I accept this, I realize there is no room in my heart for a number of feelings that get in the way of my better self—judgment, resentment, fear and guilt. Those four feelings are destroyers of the peace and serenity we all deserve. None of us is perfect, but I can say with certainty that I did my best with what I had. Most of the parents I know are good, well-intentioned people. And many of them are drowning in the sadness of losing a child to this cruel disease. I understand them. Some days I felt so overwhelmed that I buried myself in grief. If I lived in a bubble, or on the moon, I could isolate myself, cover myself in a cloak of sadness and who would care?

But over time I have found myself empowered by something stronger than sorrow. There are other voices that I need to listen to. Many voices are my loved ones, but not all. When I forget to put out seeds, my Steller’s jay protests loudly. My deer family, bold and fearless, come right up to my deck. Sunrises slowly transform the Olympics into drizzling ice cream cones as I peer out of my window. Voiceless, maybe, but it’s a sight to behold.

Love is more powerful than any other emotion, and that is the only feeling I am left with, the only one I experience with Annie. In this way I know, though I’m human and have been through the gamut of all the above emotions, that I have done my best to reach my daughter. And whether or not I’ve been successful, I can rest easy knowing that she knows, if nothing else, that she is loved.

At the end of the day.

Other Voices Are Calling Me

Most of us have experienced the pain of substance use disorder, either directly or indirectly. It’s everywhere in our society, and addiction in all its forms has the power to take away our happiness and wellbeing. My daughter Annie has scrambled in and out of the rabbit hole for over nineteen years, and much of the time I was in it with her. But I’ve learned to let go of a disease and its ensuing consequences that I have no control over. Yes, let go.

Once the tears dried and I could open my eyes, I looked around to see what was left from all the chaos and devastation: a job I liked, flowers blooming, other family members, good health, enough money to be comfortable, friends who cared and didn’t judge me. The list went on. These little girls are my great joy, and if I didn’t have them I hope I could try to celebrate something else—anything else—in my life, even though some days the grief is overwhelming. Time passes too quickly, and before I know it, mine is up. Life is too precious to waste.

My years in the recovery rooms have taught me grace, and the courage to embrace all of my life—the good, the bad, and the ugly—as an expression of God’s will for me. I’m blessed to be part of a spiritual program that teaches me that painful lesson, despite my loss—or maybe, when I look at this picture, because of it.

Empathy Starts Here

                                                                

Pity the poor fly. Its brain is pretty miniscule and not capable of making decisions that might lead it to its final flight.

Have you ever wondered what they were thinking flying through our open doors and/or windows? Well, they weren’t thinking; remember, they’re just flies. They had just spent a lovely day outside, gobbling up insects, laying eggs on piles of compost, and just frittering away their time, wondering what to do next.

“Oh, there’s an open door,” they venture excitedly, “maybe there’s more food through that door.”

“Nope, not a good choice,” we implore, as we flail around trying to whisk them back outside. But too late for some. They get lost in the curtains, the laundry room, the bathrooms. They do tend to linger around windows as they wistfully wonder how to get back out into the open air. Yet they have no idea how to accomplish that.

“Oh, look at all those ants…” precursors of a thought, their jaws watering at the sight of all the insects through the living room window. My son leaves the doors open sometimes, just so that they can escape the doom that awaits them.

But then more just come in.

Oh, pity those poor flies. They’re not suicidal. That would require some forethought, and they don’t think at all, remember. They just like to eat bugs. And poop. And make more flies. One place to do all that seems just like any other one.

Wrong! Inside most reasonably well-kept houses there are not a lot of bugs. So there they sit, or flit from room to room, vainly scrounging around for some edible bugs, while they slowly lose their energy, utterly bewildered by it all.

Finally, unable to carry on and fly, these lost and confused insects drop down onto the floor where I find them, usually near the windows—those glass barriers that kept them from swooping down and devouring all those ants. One by one I pick them up and take them outside, where they become dinner for other insects.

The Gift Of Life

From Each Day A New Beginning, Conference Approved Literature, November 7:

“’…we will be victorious if we have not forgotten how to learn.’ ~Rosa Luxemburg

For most of us the struggle was long, painful and lonely to the place we are now. But survive we have, and survive we will. The times we thought we could go no further are only dimly recalled…Step by Step, we are learning to handle our problems, build relationships based on honesty, and choose responsible behavior.”

Probably the most important factor in my recovery is the ability to remain teachable. We can become set in our ways, “you can’t teach an old dog…,” and older people sometimes can be resistant to change. This is all fine for those of us who have a life without serious challenges.

And then there are the rest of us.

My years in recovery have, out of necessity, showed me how to open my mind and heart in an effort to be forever teachable, to be always willing to learn the lessons that life puts before me. Without such flexibility and the willingness to view things differently, to let go of ideas and patterns that were bad for me, I would still be stuck in a life that was fundamentally unhappy. I say “fundamentally” because on the outside many things looked good. But on the inside, I was screaming.

Eighteen years ago, I entered the rooms of recovery out of a desperate desire to save my daughter. But after years of trying, I ultimately couldn’t provide her with the magic bullet to free her of her substance use disorder. That magic bullet doesn’t exist. My daughter has and always has had the power to recover. That’s one of the many things I learned in the rooms. And, over time, as I learned to turn the mirror back on myself, I have learned to face a number of things that were getting in the way of my own capacity to live well.

What I’ve learned was that life is a gift, and nowhere has that been made clearer to me than by watching my loved one throwing it away. My first instinct, of course, was to put myself between Annie and her bad choices. But that only made me sick and forced me into early retirement. That was my bottom.

Well, at the bottom I had two choices: either stay there—or lift myself up. I’m happy that I chose to keep on living. There are other people in my life who rely on me, other ways I can try to be of service. I’m not the first adult child out there, not the first parent to lose a child to this cruel disease. There are millions of us out there, a vast community of equals reaching out to help one another. And we do, right here sharing with one another, a daily reminder that we are not alone.