Grace was Calling and I Didn't Pick up

Au Revoir, Farewell

2011-04-19T05:30:00.000-07:00

And so we come to the end.

I’ve thought and prayed about this for some time. Since I started this blog, my work has picked up dramatically. As I was leaving for the land on Friday, an editor e-mailed with two assignments needing a quick turn around. With these, I have five stories due by May 15. In December, having so many deadlines at once seemed like a fluke. Now, it’s beginning to feel like the new normal. After two lean years, that’s a huge blessing. But it takes a lot of my time.

My Al-Anon commitments have also increased. When I began blogging, I was just beginning to get involved in service. Today, I have five sponsees, prison service and Alateen commitments in addition to my committed meetings. That’s a blessing, too. Nothing has helped me to grow more in this program than being of service to others.

This blog, too, has helped me grow in recovery. When I was blogging every day, I felt like I was attending a large, dynamic, daily Al-Anon meeting. Picking a topic and sharing on it helped to crystalize my thoughts and sometimes revealed thoughts I didn’t realize I had. Visiting all of your blogs brought other topics to the forefront of my consciousness. Your comments and encouragement have fed me. In many ways, blogging kept me more on the beam than anything else I have done.

But more and more, I struggle to post even once a week. It’s harder still to return visits to all of you who have been kind enough to leave comments. What’s more, I find myself wanting to post on a topic only to remember that I’ve blogged about it before. I have this picture in my head of an old woman staying too late at the party, repeating stories that the other guests have heard too many times, chattering away as one then another of the guests make their excuses and leave. There is art, I think, in knowing when to go home.

There are plenty of other bloggers who are able to keep their blogs fresh year after year and sometimes I think I should be able to do so, too. But my program has taught me that comparing myself to others is not helpful. I am simply not them.

I’ve titled this blog post au revoir rather than goodbye. I do so with a nod to an early college professor of mine, Mr. Cousins, who taught English Literature. He was one of my most frustrating teachers, because no matter how hard I tried I could not get an A in his class. No matter how hard I pored over “Ode to A Grecian Urn” or “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” dissecting each piece of literature line by line, I always missed the nuances.

For the life of me I can’t think of the name of the story I’m thinking of. But I remember clearly the final irony. It was the story’s last words: au revoir. I had taken French and so I thought I understood what the phrase means. I understood it to be synonymous with goodbye. Not so, Mr. Cousins had said. The phrase, more precisely, means until we meet again. And it was that nuance that leant irony to the ending.

And so I say au revoir. Because life is long and much can happen, and for all I know God may have other plans for me. I have seen other bloggers quit only to return a short time later. I don’t believe in closing doors. At least not anymore.

Not long ago, I learned from a fellow classmate that Mr. Cousins had died. I was sorry to hear it. For all my frustrations with him, and they were many, Mr. Cousins got me to think. He taught me things that I remember to this day. And so I titled this post as I did also in the hope that even if I never return to the blogosphere, some little thing I wrote here may have resonated and become a part of your story, too.

The other half of my title is what I hope for you. That whatever life and God as you understand God has in store for you, that you, dear friends, fare well.

The Three-Mile Rest Stop

2011-04-12T07:12:00.001-07:00

This weekend, I very quietly, very privately marked my third Al-Anon birthday.

For me, it’s one of those milestones, like the three-mile rest stop at the Grand Canyon. A place where I allow myself to rest for a few minutes and look back at how far I’ve come before continuing on my way.

The three-mile rest stop is actually a pretty good analogy because whether you are headed up or down, it’s possible to look back and feel you’ve accomplished quite a lot. At the same time, looking ahead, you are reminded of how far you still have to go. And so it is with me today.

I have settled into my hike. The initial effort of placing a body at rest into motion has passed. But I’m not tired yet. Old injuries have not flared up. My joints do not ache. I do not long for an extended rest. I have found my rhythm and it feels good.

This time last year, the going was harder. I hadn’t heard from my daughter for more than a month. Her last e-mail to me was that she was on a waiting list for a homeless shelter and she could see how people turn to prostitution.

My granddaughter was in foster care.

My work had dried up completely. My husband laid off an employee for the first time ever and the future of his business seemed uncertain. An IRS audit was not going well.

It was the first real test of my faith since I’ve been in this program.

It is a testament to this program that I could see God’s hand in all of it.

I was in no position financially to help my daughter as I once would have, even if I thought it was a good idea, which by then I didn’t. And I had no way to reach her. No phone number. No address. I could only send as encouraging a message to her via e-mail as I could muster, and pray. So that’s what I did.

Another month went by. Mothers Day came and went without a word. When I finally did hear from her, she had been sober for 50 days.

At the end of this March, she celebrated her first anniversary in AA. My granddaughter is back home.

As for me, I have so much work that I worry about meeting all my deadlines. My husband worries about hiring. We discovered an accounting error that accounts for the IRS’s concerns and are optimistic about an appeal.

Life is very good. But also very different.

The tough times changed us. We got through the lean times by selling things. We are still selling things. Only now, it feels like we are shedding the things we have outgrown or no longer need.

Our life is in transition. As we spend more and more time up at the land, we find we need less and less. Our city house is emptying, and eventually we will shed that, too.

It’s more than just the material possessions. It’s what they stand for. We are shedding a whole way of living in the world, old patterns of thought and behavior.

A dozen or so years ago, I had this dream of what my life would be. These days, I try not to have such dreams because they lead to expectations. And when I have expectations, I can’t always see the trail God has put before me.

Still. From my perspective of the three-mile rest stop, I look back and recall I had this dream. I was living in New Hampshire, so the setting for my dream was New England. My dream looked like this: I lived in a house I had designed. It was powered by solar panels and water was supplied by a well. Large picture windows looked out over a meadow. There was a barn in which I taught writing. I lived near a small town and supported myself as a writer. I had no debt. I was married and was happy.

At the time, the only part of this dream that was true is that I was living in New England. Today, the only part of the dream that is not true is that I am not living in New England.

True, our barn is an old tin thing that is missing most of its roof. It is not fit for storage, let alone teaching. But I did teach writing for many years so I do not feel unfulfilled on that score.

And our house is not perfect. We made mistakes. We learned along the way. But we built it with our own hands and we love it. To us, it has its own kind of integrity.

The funny thing is that my husband is the last person on earth I would have expected to share this dream of mine. I thought by marrying him I was accepting a very different kind of life. But it seemed the life God had put before me.

So here I am settling into the life I dreamed about all these years ago and it turns out my husband has been the driving force for all of it. And after some initial resistance on my part (yes, unaccountably, it’s true) I’ve climbed happily on board.

Isn’t life funny?

I got into recovery as we started building this house and there are so many parallels. Technobabe once told me of a book called “Building a Home with My Husband.” It was a memoir.

For years, I played with the idea of writing my own. I just didn’t know what story it was I was trying to tell. What the point was. Until now, my life had been all crisis with no resolution. Now, finally, it feels it has begun to take shape and form.

I guess you can say that now I’ve written my memoir. Only I call it my fourth step. I have no desire to publish any of it. But writing is how I make sense of things and I guess I instinctively knew at some lever I had to write out my life to begin to make sense of it.

In the process of taking that step and each step that came after, the path emerged from the mist. I’ve made it through a muddy stretch and found a resting spot with a beautiful view. There is quite a lot of trail ahead. An imposing bit of trail called the devil’s corkscrew is still to come. I know that, but for now it does not matter. I will tackle it when I get there. At this moment, I have taken nourishment and water. I feel rested and ready to move on.

I’ll see you down the trail.

Blind Faith

2011-04-05T08:24:00.000-07:00

At a meeting recently, the chairperson shared this prayer. Several people were familiar with it and what was funny was that every one of those people thought someone they knew in recovery made it up.

It is, nonetheless, a good prayer because it so perfectly captures the fumbling in the dark feeling that we all feel from time to time in recovery. I offer it here as a gift, in the hope that it might give you comfort the next time you feel a little lost:

Dear God,

I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself. And the fact that I think I am following your will noes not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe this: I believe that the desire to please you does, in fact, please you. I hope I have that desire in everything I do. I hope I never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it at the time.

Therefore I will trust you always for though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death, I will not be afraid because I know you will never leave me to face my troubles alone.

Amen

What The Grand Canyon Taught Me About Recovery

2011-03-27T14:08:00.000-07:00

I’ve just completed my last planned hike in the Grand Canyon: my third in the past year.

Each hike was different. I've hiked from the North Rim and the South. I’ve hiked in and out on the same day, camped overnight and stayed in a dormitory at Phantom Ranch.

I’ve hiked in summer when it was over 100 degrees at the bottom, and in spring after snow had fallen the night before on the Rim. I’ve hiked in various levels of fitness. And I've talked to a lot of people about their experiences.

On this trip, it took me eight hours to hike out from Phantom Ranch. That’s a long time to think. And what I thought about was the lessons I had learned and how they apply to my journey in recovery. I call it “12 Steps on the Trail to Serentiy” or “What the Canyon Taught Me About Recovery.”

1. "The Canyon is in charge," a 20-year volunteer told me. "First and foremost, you have to respect that. But it also gives you things to survive. It gives you the river. It gives you shade.”

That reminds me that I’m powerless. There is a power greater than myself who is in charge. But that Higher Power gives me things. It’s up to me to recognize and use those gifts.

2. The journey has been more or less difficult, and more or less enjoyable depending on my level of fitness.

I enjoyed hiking the Grand Canyon much more when I was physically fit. The hike felt less arduous and I was better able to focus on the beauty that surrounded me. When I wasn’t in good shape, all my energy had to go toward getting out with as little damage to myself as I could manage.

In recovery, the same is true of my level of spiritual fitness. The going is easier and more enjoyable when I’m prayed up, meeting’d up, sponsored up.

3. It’s helpful to have a guide. Consult with people who have gone before you.

In recovery, my guide is my sponsor and other longtimers in the program. As my sponsor is fond of saying: “If you want to have what I have, you have to do what I do.”

4. It’s easier if you take the right tools. But remember to use them.

The same volunteer recounted a story about a couple in the advanced stages of heat exhaustion. They had plenty of water, but they hadn’t been drinking it. They were afraid if they used it, they wouldn’t have it when they needed it.

In recovery, my tools include the steps, slogans and Just for Todays. But they don’t do me any good in my backpack. I need to apply them.

5. If you don't want to get trampled, yield the trail to the mules. Try not to step in the piss they deposit in their wake. There will be puddles. Just accept it.

6. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. You can make the journey alone, but it’s easier and more pleasant when you have company.

7. Don't feed the squirrels. When you do, they become aggressive and dependent.

This is also true of doing things for alcoholics and addicts that they should do for themselves.

8. Focus on what’s in front of you. And don't worry about all the things that might go wrong. When things do go wrong, it’s never what you expect.

On this hike, I worried about a foot I had injured recently. My foot was fine. It was my knee that gave me trouble. I could almost hear God laughing. I can't possibly know what's ahead and most of the things I have worried about in my life have never happened. It's better to enjoy what's happening in this moment.

9. When you get discouraged, it’s helpful to glance over your shoulder to see how far you’ve come. Just don’t linger too long. If you’re looking back, you’re not moving forward.

10. The journey is easier and a lot more fun when you stop to rest.

I learned this on my first Canyon hike from a laminated tip sheet at a ranger station. Most hikers are afraid that stopping to rest will slow them down. The opposite is true. Resting for 10 minutes every hour allows your body to clear itself of the waste products that build up in your legs and make them feel tired.

When I read this, the slogan “Easy Does It” came to mind. I realized my habit in hiking, as in all things, was to simply plod through, no matter how tired I felt. I started practicing “Easy Does It” in my daily life. And I found it to be true. Easy got it done. And I enjoyed myself much more.

11. Be courteous to others on the trail and don’t judge others for their path. We’re all doing the best we know how. Insisting on the right of way never made anyone happy.

I learned this lesson on a training hike. I was headed uphill and two young girls were headed down. Being the one headed uphill I kept my head down and stuck to the path I was on, presuming they would yield the right of way. One didn't, but stopped directly in my way. "Excuse me," she said, annoyed. "Uphill has the right of way," I said equally annoyed, and went on my way.

"Sheesh," I heard her say as I passed. "If I'm already on the right side of the trail, where am I supposed to go?"

For a non-hiker, thinking that traffic should stay on the right was a reasonable conclusion. Yet I was annoyed. It bugged me all day. Because I was right, damn it. Wasn't I?

The next day I read an article in the paper about aggressive walkers. The expert quoted talked about those who stuck their heads down and ignored all the other people around them. He talked about others, who held to some belief that there were rules that were supposed to be followed. "Who knows where they get these ideas," he said. It stung. I was wrong and I knew it.

I had spoiled a nice hike and much of the rest of my day thinking about this girl and how right I was. Maybe I ruined hers, too. I could almost hear my sponsor say: "Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?"

12. The undertaking is hard, but it's worth the effort. Be generous in sharing what you’ve learned, especially when you encounter those who are just starting out.

Heading out... of my Mind?

2011-03-22T05:30:00.000-07:00

A friend forwarded this cartoon to me along with a whole bunch of Maxine cartoons. Of course I seized on this one....

I'm off to the bottom of the Grand Canyon for my third story assignment there in less than a year. I injured my foot several weeks ago, and it's better but still not 100 percent. So I haven't trained as I normally would--by hiking. Instead, I've been working on the eliptical trainer because it doesn't bend my foot, which isn't the same. So this trip feels a little mad.

But only a little. Honestly, I think I'm in better shape than when I made my first hike. And I'll pack my tools along with my gear. I'll be taking along my HP, of course. I'll remember Easy Does It. I will save myself from two pests, hurry and indecision. And I won't be afraid to ask for help, if I need it.

Of course, I'm packing Advil and ace wraps, too. So keep me in your thoughts and prayers. I'll return your visits as soon I'm able upon my return. Till then, take good care.

Cunning, Baffling

2011-03-14T22:29:00.000-07:00

Every now and then, someone wanders into the rooms of Al-Anon at the suggestion of a friend, relative or counselor. They didn’t grow up with active alcoholism, but something is wrong and they’re willing to take their friend’s suggestion because they’re not sure what else to do.

For some reason they can relate to many of the people who share. Maybe they feel a little better by the end of the meeting. For whatever reason, they come back. For a long time, they still may not think alcoholism is their problem.

If they come long enough, more is revealed. I have seen this happen. They learn about an alcoholic grandparent who died before they were born, say. Or some equally obscure seeming connection. It hardly seems it could have anything to do with the problem at hand. Or could it?

Alcoholism is a family disease. I heard that for the first time when my mom found her way, briefly, to AA. I had no idea what that meant, and if she explained it to me I don’t recall. Later, when I learned more about alcoholism, I thought it meant that the disease was genetic because it tends to run in families. And that much is true.

I’ve heard it said that alcoholism can skip a generation. And I believe that is true of active alcoholism. But today I don’t believe the disease is dormant in those “skipped” generations. I think it just goes underground.

Al-Anons are good secret keepers. Once, I heard someone share that her husband bought a car that didn’t run and had it towed to their home rather than admit their car had been repossessed. Another’s mom stopped to buy her new clothes on the way to school because none of the ones she owned were clean.

We learn to paint the fence white.

So maybe Grandpa’s drinking was so shameful that it didn’t get discussed. Instead, Mom or Dad, believing that alcohol was to blame for all their problems growing up decided that they would shield their children from the effects of alcoholism by banning alcohol from their home. But even in a sober home, the behaviors remained. Active alcoholism may have been replaced by workaholism, perfectionism, eating disorders or depression.

Even though they wanted nothing more than to do better for their kids, they passed along those isms that are so common in families of alcoholics. But alcohol was never discussed. So the kids grew up knowing something was wrong. They just didn’t know what it was.

Even as an adult child of two alcoholics, I didn’t know what the problem was. I knew I didn’t get “the manual.” I didn’t learn the social skills that “normals” take for granted.

My response to growing up in an alcoholic home was to retreat into myself. I read. I lead an active fantasy life in which I was loved and popular, and my life was perfect. I learned to enjoy my own company.

Though I didn’t develop the compulsion to drink, in my own way, I became emotionally unavailable.

Even knowing about the alcoholism in my family of origin, I didn’t make the connection. I know there was some pattern of failure in my relationships, but I didn’t know what it was. A friend of mine related a “Seinfeld” episode in which Elaine tries to figure out what all her failed relationships have in common and can come up with nothing. They next scene, all her former boyfriends appear together in an AA meeting.

I thought about this. Took inventory. Was sure that wasn’t the case for me. Not all of my failed relationships were with alcoholics. But my friend suggested I attend Al-Anon, and I went. I loved it, but at every meeting I felt compelled to explain that even though I was no longer living with alcoholism I really did belong there because of my childhood. I couldn’t see that alcoholism was behind my current troubles because I thought I had left that behind. Eventually I stopped going.

It took my daughter’s alcoholism and addiction to bring me back to Al-Anon. This time I stayed long enough to discover that all those personality quirks that I thought were just how I was “wired,” were, in fact the result of this disease.

Today, I can see that all my boyfriends may not have been alcoholics, but they were all emotionally unavailable. And they all had alcoholism in their families.

By the time I understood all this, the damage I did as a parent was already done. My daughter did not grow up with active alcoholism, but she was affected by the disease. Even though I wanted more than anything to be a different kind of parent to my daughter, I couldn’t pass on what I never got.

I don’t kid myself that had I found recovery earlier, my daughter would not be an addict/alcoholic. I know I didn’t cause the disease. And I don’t believe I can arrest or eradicate it, even in recovery.

But I can have awareness. I can learn tools. In a sense, I got “the manual” in recovery. I don’t get to decide not to have this disease. I have to accept that. But I can manage my disease just as I might manage diabetes with diet and exercise. I don’t have to lose a limb to this disease. It doesn’t have to kill me.

I can also talk about what I’ve learned. I can share my story so when that bewildered newcomer walks in the door, they don’t have to feel they are the only one who feels the way they do.

I can tell them they belong. I can tell them to keep coming back. Just as I wished someone had told me.

Crazy? Me?

2011-03-08T06:22:00.000-08:00

Here's something my sponsor is fond of saying:

People generally agree that the alcoholic is running full-speed away from reality.

And I'm running full-speed after him (or her).

So I ask you: Which one of us is crazier?

Comparing Apples to Oranges

2011-02-28T05:00:00.000-08:00

The topic of a recent meeting was self-esteem.

The chairperson covered a lot of ground with a number of different readings. But the one I seized on was the trouble with making comparisons. That comparing myself to others contributes to a distorted sense of self.

Seeing myself as “less than” or “greater than” is a bad idea for all sorts of reasons. It’s like comparing apples to oranges. Apples and oranges are both fruits. But they have different properties. Each has its own best use.

An orange would taste terrible sprinkled with cinnamon and baked in a crust. That doesn’t mean the orange is bad. It means I’ve misused it.

Maybe I’m an apple and you’re an orange. There’s little benefit in comparisons because we’re just different, each with our own purpose and best use.

But most importantly, when I compare myself with others, I’ve taken the focus off myself. I’m taking another person’s inventory, and that never leads me anywhere I want to go.

It’s hard, though, not to do it. For me, comparing feels as natural as breathing.

One of the most helpful tools I’ve found to address the issue of comparisons is the 4 Cs inventory.

For six months, I carried a notebook around with me divided into four sections. Every time I found myself Comparing, Condemning, Criticizing or Complaining I had to write it in this notebook under the appropriate tab. I had to do this whether I said it out loud or just thought it.

In doing this, it was important that I did not judge myself or try not to think or feel whatever I was thinking or feeling. I simply was to record it with the detachment of a scientist.

The results were fascinating.

As with any inventory, a picture began to emerge. Patterns became clear. But also, as with every inventory I’ve taken in this program, in the midst of recording I began to change.

The change was not as a result of trying to change my behavior, it seemed to just happen.

Which reminded me of a different type of inventory I did years ago.

I came across the book “Your Money or Your Life.” It was about how to manage personal finances. But the authors didn’t believe in budgets because, they said, they simply don’t work.

We make up a budget, try to stick to it. Inevitably we fail. Then we berate ourselves by heaping on shame and guilt.

It doesn’t work.

There is more to it than this, but the heart of the system was to record every penny I spent. I was not to judge myself or try to change. I was simply to record.

At the end of each month, I would crunch the numbers. I spent this much on food, rent, books, movies, clothes, whatever.

For each of these categories, I had to calculate how many hours of my life I had traded for each of these things and I had to assign each a value. I had to say whether I got so much enjoyment out of that thing, I was willing to invest even more of my life to it. Or if I didn’t find it worth it. Or if it was just about right.

I didn’t do anything with this information. I just kept recording it, month after month.

When I started this process, I was struggling with my finances. I wrote down my expenses on paper. I had housing, a car payment, insurance, childcare. These expenses seemed fixed. I couldn’t see any flexibility.

Yet, when I did this exercise, I found my spending behavior began to change, seemingly without any effort on my part.

Though I wasn’t making much, I starting saving about half of what I earned. I found ways to economize, and the solutions turned out to be things I never considered before.

I planted a garden. Tapped maple trees for syrup. Foraged for wild blueberries. I made almost everything I could from scratch, including business stationery and envelopes using high-quality paper samples the local paper mill gave away. I moved from the city to a rural area, where housing was also less expensive.

I eliminated my childcare expense entirely by working from home. That involved a career change. But it was a change I got the courage to make because I had figured out how to live on very little.

These were my solutions, of course. Different people would find different solutions. That’s the beauty of it. The point wasn’t to get me to believe or behave in a certain way. The point was for me to find my own way. To align my spending with my own values. When I did, I became happier. Literally, my whole life changed.

And that’s why this process reminds me not only of the 4C’s inventory but of the whole process of recovery. It’s not about getting me to adopt a certain belief. It’s about getting me to align my behavior with my own values.

I could not change myself, my thoughts or my feelings through self will any more than I could control my finances by trying to stick to a budget.

But if I took the suggestions and observed my behaviors with the detachment of a scientist, without judging myself, change seemed to come of its own accord. As with the money exercise, I began to behave in ways that were more aligned with my values.

Of course, in recovery, the higher power I call God is involved in my change. But then I believe it was God who lead me to this book when I was ready to hear that message.

When I became willing to give up my self will, solutions came in forms that never occurred to me before.

Recovery has been every bit as life changing as that financial exercise. Today I know I don’t have to worry about how far I’ve come, how far I have to go or how I compare to others.

My internal barometer is stronger. I’m less susceptible to applause and condemnation.

I won’t say I never make those comparisons or that I don’t sometimes feel “less than” or “greater than.” I’m only human.

But when I do, I try not to berate myself or vow to do better. I know that old beating stick doesn’t work.

I just have to remember that if I do my part, if I continue to do the things that I’ve been taught to do in this program, change will come. And it will be easier than I ever imagined.

How Much do I Love Thee? Let Me Tell You...

2011-02-22T06:00:00.000-08:00

The topic of my Valentines Day meeting was love and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

What I have known for a while now is that before I came into this program, I had no idea what love was. I confused love with obsession. And it was all bound up with expectation.

That’s been true of my relationship with my daughter, who is my alcoholic. And it’s been equally true of my romantic relationships.

In terms of my daughter, I thought my constant worry about her and what she was or was not doing was proof of love. I see now that was not love. It was obsession.

That I was willing to do anything—anything—to get her to do what I considered the right thing was further evidence in my mind. But that was expectation.

I had a picture in my head of what a daughter was supposed to be like. All my efforts went into trying to mold her into that image. To get her to do what I wanted her to do.

I can see now that both my obsession and expectation were just forms of self-centeredness because it was all about me.

If I could get my daughter to conform to my standards, than I would feel more comfortable.

If only she… then I could be happy.

If she wouldn’t do whatever it was I wanted, I let her know she had disappointed me. In effect, I withheld my love. I would not have admitted that at the time, because I could not see it myself. But my love was conditional.

One problem with having expectations is that they keep me from seeing what’s in front of me.

My husband is a good example. I had a picture in my mind of the perfect man. I had, in fact, a list.

It was a short list. There were only five items on it. But it was rigorous. And I measured every potential suitor against it. One day, I would meet my perfect “five.” Then my life could begin.

If only… then…

Guided by my list, I had one volatile, obsessive relationship after another.

I've been an excitement junkie since I was a kid, and I loved roller coasters. The bigger, the faster, the scarier the better. And when I got older, I picked the men who would put me on an emotional equivalent. The biggest, fastest, scariest of them were the ones that triggered my grandest obsessions. Those were the men I thought I loved the most.

I hated the lows. But the highs! They were so high! And that stomach-in-your-mouth feeling as the car began to plunge! Oh!

Because I had an expectation of what my perfect man would be, I failed to see the man who would be my husband. He did not possess a single characteristic on my list. He did not put me on the roller coaster. So my heart did not see him.

Though I had not yet found Al-Anon, while I was getting to know my husband I was beginning to experience a spiritual awakening. In a very Al-Anon moment, I threw away my list and prayed for God to send me the man he would have for me.

I opened my heart, and there, clear as day, was my husband.

That isn’t to say that I don’t continue to let expectations get in my way. Only today I can more often see them for what they are.

Take Valentine’s Day. It just so happened to be the day we had scheduled the final inspection on the house we’ve been building. So my husband can be forgiven for being distracted. Still.

There were roadside stands selling mylar balloons. We purposely avoided the restaurant we normally visit at least once each trip on the night we knew they were serving their Valentines menu. When we went to lunch there on Sunday, the owner sent us out a complimentary dessert—for Valentine’s Day.

Even so, on Monday, when my husband got up and found the card I had propped up against his cup, he said, “Oh!” in surprise.

“I didn’t think about it being Valentine’s Day,” he said. “I thought about it being inspection day.”

I had a choice. I could let my expectations about what I thought a husband is supposed to do on Valentines Day fuel my disappointment.

If I had, I might not have thought about the feeling I had just before I got up, when my husband wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in close. And how when he did, I felt safe and loved.

If I had, I would have let that disappointment cast a pall over the much-anticipated day we did, in fact, pass our final inspection on the home we had been working on for the past three years. And isn't building a home together the very essence of love? Is it not way better than a card?

I thought so.

Perhaps because my daughter is my alcoholic, most of my early work in this program involved my relationship with her. I had to learn to detach. I began to see that her choices didn’t have to affect me. I never understood that before.

I thought because I’m her mother, what she does it my business. I thought because she’s my daughter, I’m responsible to “repair” whatever she “breaks.” Every time something went wrong in her life, it made me angry because I thought it was one more thing I had to fix.

It was costly and exhausting, and to my diseased mind it seemed I cared more about her life than she did.

Why couldn’t she just stop screwing things up? Why did she have to keep making things so hard for everyone around her?

I seethed with resentment.

It was only after I understood that I wasn’t responsible for the consequences of her actions that I began to love her unconditionally. For the first time, I could allow her the dignity of making her own choices. Because for the first time, I understood that I also needed to let her accept the full consequences of those choices.

Then I could love her where she was.

Still, my expectations got in the way. A little more than a year ago, I posted on this blog a dilemma I was facing.

My relationship with my daughter felt very one-sided. I was the one to initiate contact. I called on a regular basis just to see how she was. I sent chocolates at Valentines Day. Peeps at Easter. I gave her cards and gifts on birthdays and Christmases.

And I got…. Nothing. No gifts, no cards, no phone calls. Not on my birthday or Christmas or at any other time. Except when something was wrong or she wanted something and I was tired of it.

“I’m thinking of not calling my daughter on a regular basis,” I told my sponsor.

Without a moment’s hesitation, she snapped back, “Well that’s very selfish of you.”

I was shocked and a little stung. “Why?” I finally managed.

“Because calling our kids is what loving parents do.”

Usually, I accept what my sponsor tells me, even if I don’t like it. In this case, I thought she was wrong.

My husband faced the same situation with his son, so he stopped calling and sending cards and gifts. Then his son came around.

I thought he had the right idea.

I put the question to you readers, and got passionate, heart-felt responses both for and against.

Today I see the question differently, and I understand why my sponsor said what she said.

Sometimes our loved ones are sick and not able to give us the things we think we need from them. It’s the old adage of going to the hardware store for bread. But because they aren’t capable of meeting my expectations, it doesn’t let me off the hook. I still need to do the right thing.

And remembering my daughter on all those special days is just the right thing to do.

It’s what loving mother’s do.

If I were to stop sending cards and gifts in the hope my daughter would “come around,” that’s manipulation.

If I’m disappointed when I send her cards and gifts and she doesn’t reciprocate, that’s expectation. It doesn’t matter whether my expectation is reasonable. If I have an expectation, I have only myself to blame for my disappointment.

What I finally understand is that I have to act lovingly regardless of how the other person responds, or fails to respond. I have to learn to love without expectation. Because that’s what unconditional love means.

Perhaps ironically, just as I’m realizing this, my daughter is beginning to change. Now nearly a year into her own recovery, she calls me on a regular basis. (It turns out, that is her amends to me.) I got a card and some photos this Christmas. And, yes, she called on Valentine’s Day.

At the meeting, the chairperson shared that her husband commutes a great distance every day, and he loves having a clean truck. So whenever she uses the truck, she returns it clean and filled with gas.

It struck me as the perfect example of a loving gesture because it was the opposite of a self-centered act. Cleaning and gassing up the truck gives her no pleasure. But she does it because she imagines it would be the thing he might most appreciate.

If he ever noticed.

He never has. And she hasn't pointed it out.

She put that in the category of “doing someone a good turn and not getting found out.”

I thought that was an interesting interpretation on the Just for Today, and it got me thinking about my own behavior.

My husband loves caramels. So I buy them and mix a few in with the hard candies for him to find every day. But I can’t stand it if he doesn’t say anything. I find a way to not-so-subtly work it into conversation.

When I heard the chairperson share, I realized that I’m still looking for the applause. I want you to recognize and appreciate what I’ve done for you, damn it.

That’s not loving without expectation.

It was disconcerting to me to realize that, as far as I’ve come, I still have a ways to go. And it will require effort, thought and concentration.

So when my husband told me he planned to take a shower in the morning, I got up ahead of him, as I usually do, and turned on the bathroom heater. But what I didn’t do is say, “I got the bathroom nice and warm for you,” as I usually do.

If he noticed, he didn’t mention it.

I just smiled to myself. A small step, maybe, but a start.

My Life, The Soap Opera

2011-02-09T06:00:00.000-08:00

I have a confession.

I haven’t shared this with many people. I’m afraid they’ll judge me, or at least think of me differently.

But I’ve been taught in this program that I should share freely, even those things that are embarrassing, because you never know who in the room might be carrying around that same secret. Getting a secret out in the open diffuses its power.

So here goes:

Every day, for years, I’ve watched a soap opera.

There. I’ve said it.

It started innocently enough. More than 20 years ago when I was in the Navy, just about everyone in the command watched this particular soap opera, in the duty room, at lunchtime.

I don’t know what it was about this particular soap opera, but it enjoyed a loyal following at every base I was ever stationed.

Even my husband, who was stationed on an all-male ship, watched it. And so did all the men in his department. If I ever had to miss an episode, I knew he could fill me in.

The show starred a set of characters I related to. They were about my age and they struggled with the things I did. They felt like my tribe. And I got hooked. Seriously.

At my final duty station, if anyone happened to be working in the conference room where the TV was located during lunch hour when the show was on, I was beside myself. VCRs were brand new, and I didn’t have one. So if I missed the show, it felt like I missed a part of my life.

But then I left the Navy and took other jobs and didn’t watch the show for nearly 20 years. When I went back to freelancing, I thought about it. But I resisted. If I didn’t watch, I wouldn’t get hooked. I held out for two or three years. Then, well, you know.

It was a lot like coming home. All those characters I related to were still there. Only now they were grown and had grown children, just like me. And they were still dealing with the same issues I was. And mostly that was okay.

Until Annie started getting crazy.

When I started going to Al-Anon meetings, I didn’t think there was anything wrong with me. I thought my daughter was the one with the problem. I was fine.

I’ve since learned differently, of course. Today, I can see all the ways alcoholism has affected me. I can see how my life was unmanageable.

But every now and then I can see, for the first time, how things really were.

And that’s where my soap opera comes in.

When I say Annie was getting crazy. I don’t mean it in the casual way people often do. I mean crazy as in headed for the mental hospital.

She had been there before. But she’d been out for a while and seemed to be getting her act together. Sort of. After all this is a soap opera.

Then she got involved with a married man. That’s when she started to lose it. Where Annie is headed would be obvious to anyone watching the show for any more than five minutes. She is certifiable.

So I’m watching all this and I’m thinking….

Oh my God. That’s me.

Not today, thank God. But there was a time when I acted an awful lot like crazy Annie.

I wasn’t having hallucinations or fantasies about stabbing anyone with a pair of scissors. But I recognized the obsession, the temper tantrums, the lightning-fast swings of emotion from one extreme to another.

Annie’s behavior reminded me of one relationship in particular. My daughter was still very young. I had been out of my family of origin for years. There were not even any active alcoholics in my life at the time.

And yet I was acting…. crazy.

It was one of those lightbulb moments.

I realized I don’t need an alcoholic in my life to be crazy. I was perfectly capable of doing that all by myself. And I was insane.

Until I watched crazy Annie and saw myself in her behavior, the phrase “restored to sanity” felt more euphemistic than accurate.

I could readily see and acknowledge my defects of character. I could see that they were the result of this disease.

But I didn’t really believe my behavior was insane.

Until now.

“Once you know something you can’t not know it,” my sponsor is fond of saying.

Now I know.

I feel like Scrooge must have felt, having been visited by the ghosts of his past and future. On the next day, Scrooge decided to do what he must to ensure a better future. And so did I.

The good news is that as long as I continue to do the things I’m taught to do in this program—as long as I continue to pray on my knees, attend meetings, take commitments, sponsor others, work steps, talk with my sponsor—by the grace of God, I can have a daily reprieve from the soap opera that used to be my life.

Or I can choose not to.

I’m a good forgetter. When I start to feel better, it’s easy for me to forget what life was like. I can begin to believe I don’t really need this program.

God is a good reminder. He delivers the perfect message in the perfect medium. Preparing myself to receive the message is up to me.

Al-Anonisms

2011-02-01T06:00:00.000-08:00

Near the end of a recent Big Book study, we talked about Al-Anonisms, those particular defects of character that tend to come with the disease. Those of us who didn’t already have the list were encouraged to write them in our Big Books.

It started off lightheartedly.

“Sarcasm,” the list reader would say.

“Not me!” someone else would say in mock horror.

“That would take us back to denial….”

We all laughed.

But after a while, I started to wonder if this list had an end. It seemed to go on and on. I was getting tired just hearing it all.

Someone else said what I was thinking.

“There’s still about 10 more,” the list reader said.

By the time she was done, the list included nearly 40 isms. I saw myself in most of them. It felt like a lot to have to carry around.

I overheard two women talking on the way out. One said she didn’t think all those things applied to her.

“Then you must be in denial,” the other said in a tone I took to be sarcasm.

They weren’t laughing.

A dear friend said she thought it was all too much. That people were wallowing in their defects.

“How do you even start to tackle all those things?” she asked. “I prefer to focus on what’s good about myself.”

Then she asked me if I thought I was a good person.

The question stumped me. I didn’t know how to answer. I don’t think the presence or absence of these isms makes me a good person or a bad one. They are just the way this disease of alcoholism affected me.

Though I have long been familiar with these defects, I didn’t always attribute them to alcoholism. I thought they were just my temperament, in my genes, the way I was wired.

The realization that my serious nature, for example, was part of this disease was one of the bigger lightbulb moments I have had in this program.

I considered it good news. It meant that humorlessness wasn’t a fixed part of my personality. It meant I could be restored to good humor along with sanity.

To be able to see myself in this list also felt like good news. To me, it represented awareness I didn’t used to have. Without awareness I can’t change, no matter how many years I spend in the program.

I still find the list fascinating, but I no longer feel burdened by it. I have been taught that if I do the things that have been suggested to me in this program, God will do for me what I can’t do for myself.

I’ve also been taught that I don’t get to choose which defects God removes, or when. In the seventh step prayer, the Big Book doesn’t tell my to pray that God remove isms one through 38.

It suggests that I pray that God remove the defects of character that stand in the way of my usefulness to Him and to my fellows.

Pondering this list, I realized I no longer judge myself for my defects. I accept them. Just as I accept that as long as I continue to do what I’ve been taught to do, as long as I attend meetings, pray on my knees, read Al-Anon literature daily, call my sponsor, work steps, take commitments, and sponsor others—I will get better.

But in God’s time.

And in God’s way.

I believe this because I have gotten better.

I get a daily reprieve from some of my defects to the degree that I remain spiritually fit. Some are still with me, but have faded considerably. They are less a default setting and more a response to stress. Others are still very much with me.

But I don’t worry about them.

As with everything in this program, I can only do my part and let go of the outcome.

We are not bad people, my sponsor is fond of saying. We’re just sick people trying to get better.

Here is the list:

Denial
Control
Blame
Expectations
Resentments/anger/rage
Martyrdom
Addiction to excitement, good or bad
Drama queen
Crisis junkie
Obsession
Fear/fear/fear
Intensity
The need to be right
Vindictiveness/mean spiritedness
Low self-worth/self-esteem
People pleasing
Rebelliousness
Perfectionism
Fear of abandonment
Lack of humor
Manipulation
Power pout/silent scorn
Caretaker
Critical
Shame
Judgmental
Self-pity
As soon as… yes, but
Explain, explain, explain
Condemn/compare/complain
Self-centered
Depression
Taking hostages
Sarcasm
Nagging
Minimizing
Believing I know best

Eye Exams and Other Tests

2011-01-19T15:26:00.000-08:00

Hubby and I picked up new glasses the other day. It had been two years. During the recession, we didn’t feel we could afford them, but we couldn’t put it off any longer.

I found myself struggling to read the small type in my daily readers in the morning. Working on building our house up at the land had also taken its toll. There was a spot on my left lens that would not come clean. I wiped and wiped but it would not go, and without my glasses on I couldn’t even see what it was.

So once I got through the December deadlines that kept me so busy, Hubby and I decided it was time to take care of the things we had been neglecting. New glasses were at the top of the list.

The salesman at Eyemasters hooted when he looked at my lenses.

“You’ve had some fun in these!” he said.

Yes, I admitted, I had.

When our glasses came in, we went in to have them fitted. The instant the salesman put them on my face, it was like a veil had lifted. I could see! Everything looked crisp and sharp. I marveled over it all evening. Hubby and I went down to the dock to watch the sunset. I felt like I was seeing everything—t he lake, the birds, my husband—for the first time.

With my new glasses on, I looked at my old lenses. They looked cloudy. There were nicks and scratches. On one corner, a film had started to separate from the glass.

My prescription had changed significantly, but looking at the condition of my lenses, I thought, “No wonder I couldn’t see!”

I won’t be the first to say that joining Al-Anon was like getting a new pair of glasses. Through the lens of Al-Anon, I could see things I simply had not been able to see before. Through the lens of Al-Anon, I understood for the first time how significantly my vision had been distorted.

But my new glasses remind me that I also need to check my Al-Anon lenses from time to time. They, too, get old, scratched and cloudy. I need regular check ups.

In my line of sponsorship that takes the form of an annual inventory.

The idea is not universally accepted, of course. There are those who believe that once you’ve worked the steps, regularly practicing steps 10, 11 and 12 is enough. And I’m not saying they are wrong.

But it doesn’t work for me. I need to take a closer look from time to time, and a second set of eyes from my sponsor.

My second fourth step did, indeed, yield fresh insights. It wasn’t as dramatic as when I got my first pair of glasses. More like a prescription adjustment, where everything felt crisper. Something I’d noted on my first fourth step finally made sense. More was revealed.

“You can’t pass a test you haven’t taken,” I heard someone say recently. My inventory is like an annual eye exam. I can measure my changes and adjust my “prescription.” I can see everything come into a little sharper focus.

Can You Hear Me Now?

2011-01-18T04:11:00.000-08:00

Listen and Learn

That was the topic of a recent Al-Anon meeting.

This particular meeting features a slogan or Just for Today once a month. I appreciated this one because it’s a slogan that doesn’t often get much discussion. And I know my Higher Power is working in my life because this is a tool I need.

I have a listening deficit. I never realized this before, but now I can clearly see it’s part and parcel of my disease.

This particular defect of character was aggravatingly brought to my attention about a dozen years ago. I was dating a guy who used to get furious with me because (he said) I always interrupted him when he was talking.

“I do not,” I said, interrupting him to argue the point.

So every time I interrupted him, he’d point it out to me.

“There,” he’d say. “You just interrupted me again.”

It was infuriating. Probably because he was right. My stock response to someone pointing out a defect of mine was to deny or get angry, or both.

If I ever run into this guy again, I need to thank him because made me acutely aware of when I do this.

For a while.

I’ve caught myself doing it again. A lot.

If I’m honest, I will admit to less than honorable reasons for interrupting someone.

Something the other person said reminds me of something and I’m afraid I might forget it by the time they are finished.

I interrupt because I think I have the answer to some problem. Or I think relating my own experience in this area is very, very important to share.

Or I want to demonstrate how smart/educated/sympathetic/right I am.

The common denominator, of course, is me.

“Selfishness—self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles,” the Big Book says. In my line of sponsorship, we read this section out loud as part of our step work. But we change any references to the alcoholic with “I” and references to “drinking” with “thinking.”

Every time I read this with a sponsee, it rings more true. Every time I read this I’m reminded that my disease is just the flip side of the same malady the alcoholic suffers from. We are really not that much different. Our diseases just manifest themselves differently.

The real trouble with all this self-will run riot is that it’s the opposite of humility, and I need to be humble if I am to get better. For without humility, I am not teachable. If I know everything, if I have all the answers, nothing you can say can have any value to me.

Yet, if there is anything I’ve learned in this program, it’s that you never know who your teacher is going to be.

If I am busy formulating my response while you are speaking, then I’m not hearing you. I’ve missed what you’ve just said. And maybe you’ve said something I needed to hear. But I won’t know that.

Meetings are the perfect place to practice. It strikes me as genius that we must listen without responding until it is our turn to talk. But instead of thinking about what I’m going to share when it’s my turn, I’m going to really try to just listen instead.

Maybe I’ll learn something.

New Year, New Day

2011-01-04T05:48:00.000-08:00

It is New Year’s Day as I write this, though it will be a few days yet before I can post it. Hubby and I have been up at the land since just before Christmas, and we have no internet service here.

It snowed all day Wednesday and into Thursday. If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you know this place is 4 ½ miles on a dirt road. Our closest neighbor is 2 ½ miles away. No one is coming to plow. The only thing to do is wait it out.

We knew the storm was coming, so we went into our little nearest town on Tuesday to make the rounds and pick up odds and ends. We dropped off a contribution at the Book Barn donation box, bought some fresh eggs from a couple we know who have chickens, stopped in at the hardware store, spent $10 for a Black and Decker food processor at the Senior Center Thrift store.

So today we are happily marooned. We have everything we need: plenty of food and firewood and work to do, and that’s what we’re happiest doing these days.

A cold front followed the storm, which has preserved this beautiful winter scene. It was 10 degrees this morning. The cold water in our kitchen sink is not working, which is not good. On the other hand, I’m looking out at icicles three feet long hanging from the porch roof and a pristine blanket of snow, broken only by a few animal tracks.

The clean, white landscape feels just right for a New Year’s Day. I do not go in much for resolutions, but there is something hopeful about a new year. Even my Al-Anon readers, which it seemed to barely acknowledged the holidays are full of talk about clean fresh pages and new beginnings.

And why not? Every day begins fresh with no mistakes in it. Was it Anne of Green Gables who said that? If not, it at least sounds like something she’d say. I’m sure Anne (with an “e”!) was not thinking about recovery, but I am. New Year’s Day reminds me that we live through this day only. Every day in recovery is a fresh start.

But in recovery I also know not to burden myself with expectations for the future. I will make no resolutions. I know I will get busy and overwhelmed and make mistakes. Harsh words will cross my lips. I will have unlofty thoughts. I’m only human. It’s not perfection I’m after. I will forgive myself. Make amends when I need to and move on.

I also love New Year’s Day because it’s an excuse to look back over the year that’s just ended. Take a spot inventory of my life, if you will.

For me, it’s been good year. Even with the economy, Hubby and I have everything we started the year with: our home, our work, each other. God has provided everything we’ve needed and we’ve found a way to do everything we wanted. Our lives have felt rich beyond measure.

Looking back over the blog I’ve kept on our construction, I see that at the beginning of last year, we were just hooking up the kitchen sink and installing propane heat stoves. Our interior walls were pink from newly installed insulation. Now, we're preparing for a final inspection.

After two very difficult years in my industry, I’ve had my best year in a very long time. December was especially hectic, work-wise. I admit I was a little worried about whether I could pull it off. And there was this little thing called Christmas that came with its own demands. Every day, I asked God to set my priorities and to help me focus on what was in front of me and it all got done.

Just a few days ago, my husband told me he thought he was ready to put his employees back on full-time. They’ve been working a reduced schedule for two years now. Not long ago, he thought he’d have to make further cuts.

This year, Hubby and I celebrated eight years of marriage. My daughter is celebrating something like 10 months of sobriety. She’s working a program and getting ready to meet with her sponsor to work her 10th step.

The amends her sponsor assigned her concerning me was to keep in touch. So now she calls regularly just to talk. She’s working and saving money.

In Al-Anon, I began my prison service a year ago, and Alateen service not long after that. Both have been rich and rewarding experiences.

I also became a sponsor to a group of wonderful women, who teach me so much. I gave my first sponsee her one-year chip in December. Now she has a sponsee. It is a wonderful feeling to be the hand of Al-Anon for someone. To watch them grow and then to see them reach out the hand of Al-Anon to someone else. That’s the miracle of this program. That’s how it works.

I have so much to be grateful for. If you’re still reading, I’m grateful for that, too.

Whatever your past year has been, I wish you a New Year of fresh starts, one day at a time.

Feeling Gratitude Fatigued?

2010-11-24T07:08:00.000-08:00

At my Monday night meeting, the topic was gratitude. One member said she was tired of talking about gratitude around Thanksgiving. It was so cliche. She wondered what the opposite of gratitude was. That would be more interesting.

I can see how she could feel that way. Sometimes in the rooms of Al-Anon, I hear some of the most profound truths so often that I start to tune them out. I confess that I sometimes feel that way when I learn that the topic of the meeting is step 1. That's a problem for me because the minute I forget I'm powerless, my life becomes unmanageable. And I'm a good forgetter. I need reminders. So I keep coming back.

I think gratitude can fall into the same trap. We can get gratitude fatigue. Gratitude seems so simple. So obvious. So easy to dismiss.

The next morning, a newspaper article caught my eye. It said studies showed that gratitude improved "psychological, emotional and physical well being."

"Adults who frequently feel grateful have more energy, more optimism, more social connections and more happiness than those who do not," the article said. "They are less likely to be depressed, envious or greedy. They earn more money, sleep more soundly, exercise more regularly and have greater resistance to viral infections."

Many studies have demonstrated these effects. The article went on to say that gratitude is a complex emotion that requires self-reflection, the ability to admit one's dependence and humility. Had they been reading the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous? I had to wonder.

The article went on to say that gratitude also forces people to overcome the "negativity bias," the innate tendency to dwell on problems, annoyances and injustices.

Experts believe about 50 percent of this tendency is innate. That means 50 percent can be learned. And that's the good news.

The other good news is that learning to become more grateful is easy. Unfortunately, I think that's also the problem. It's so easy that it can seem inconsequential.

The newspaper article suggested a number of techniques that are staples of 12-step programs:

Keeping a daily gratitude journal
Sharing a daily gratitude list with others
Stopping to focus on the sounds, smells and sensations around you (meditation)
Reviewing the events and people you were grateful for at the end of the day (daily inventory)

I have done all of these things, and practice most of them on a daily basis. I also assign them to my sponsees. It works for me, and I've seen it work in others--sometimes dramatically.

Here's a new technique I learned from the article: the gratitude visit. Thanking someone in person.

One study found that fourth graders who took a gratitude visit felt better about themselves even two weeks months later. The effect was particularly pronounced among those whose mood was low.

I say this is "new," to me but it's not really. My daughter recently told me an amends her sponsor assigned her involved approaching a policeman or woman and thanking them for their service.

Here's another exercise. Write essay mentally subtracting a major blessing in your life. In a study, college students who did this were subsequently more grateful for that blessing. It's called the "George Baily effect," after the protagonist of "It's a Wonderful Life."

The article warns that expressing gratitude can be used to exert control over the receiver. The antidote? Another 12-step staple: assess your motives.

The article also addressed the phenomenon of "gratitude fatigue." It said when we fall back on "I'm grateful for my dog," we're in gratitude fatigue. To keep it fresh, the article suggested keeping it very specific. "I'm grateful for the way my dog licked my face when I was sad."

On Monday night, our group was small and we finished early. So one of our members pulled out her smart phone and googled the opposite of gratitude. I wish I had been taking notes so I could remember what she found. I tried it and got nothing more interesting than "ungrateful."

I do remember that her list included irritability and discontent, which sounded just about right.

And that brings me to the final point of the article. The opposite of expressing gratitude, using negative or derogatory words, even just to yourself, can darken your mood.

My sponsor gave me a wonderful assignment once. Every time I found myself "condemning, criticizing, complaining or comparing," even to myself, I had to write it down.

It amazed me how often I had to pull out that notebook. Maybe it's human nature. But today I know it's toxic. Every time I do one of those things I'm taking somebody's inventory but my own.

Every time I did that served as a reminder that I can only control the thoughts, behaviors and actions of one person: me. Over everybody else I am powerless.

Thanksgiving has long been my favorite holiday because it has somehow remained pure. It is a national holiday in which we gather to give thanks. There are no gift exchanges. We gather with our families, either biological or intentional, and share a meal to represent the bounty of our lives.

At Monday's meeting, I thought about Thanksgiving, pre-program. How we'd all gather around the table and say what we felt grateful for. How I always struggled with what to say.

Today I believe that gratitude is a muscle. The more I exercise it, the bigger it gets.

So this Thanksgiving I will say that I am grateful I have a program. I'm grateful that it's taught me that I don't have to wait for a national holiday to give thanks. I can give it every day. And I do.

I wish you all a happy Thanksgiving.

The Best of Intentions

2010-11-03T09:31:00.000-07:00

Man makes plans in his heart, but God directs his feet.

A friend said that to me the other day, and I loved it.

He was talking about himself. He had recently been fired from his job, but the date of his departure hadn’t been settled. His replacement was to come Nov. 1. Then he was told his replacement maybe not be available until the end of the year. Could he stay until then?

So my friend made some plans that would carry his position through the end of the year. He was well into it. Things were going well. Then he got the call. His replacement would, indeed, be there on Nov. 1. He had to remind himself:

Man makes plans in his heart, but God directs his feet.

I thought of that when I got home that very day to find an e-mail from our prospective renters. Their financial situation had changed and they could not rent our home. They were very sorry.

We were well into the process of finishing up at the land and moving out by their requested move-in date of Dec. 1. We had hired people to speed up the work on our yet-unfinished house. Held a huge garage sale. Sold two cars, furniture, appliances, artwork. Half our stuff was moved. But…

Man makes plans in his heart, but God directs his feet.

So….

We are still moving. Only now the pressure is off. Now, we can move in furniture after we install floors. We can hang clothes in finished closets.

I figure that these folks lit a fire under us. They knocked us off the fence and got us to tend to details we had been putting off.

We will list our house for rent on Craigslist. We will do our part and leave the rest to God.

We will make plans in our hearts, and let God direct our feet.

Speaking of directing my feet, literally… I have another assignment that involves hiking the Grand Canyon! Apparently, God does not want me to get flabby, either spiritually or physically. He continues to exercise my heart, mind and body. For that, I’m grateful. Left to my own devices, I can be pretty easy on myself. I let myself go.

Thanks to those of you who have stuck with me through this time of infrequent postings. I hope to return a visit soon. Honest.

I noticed that since I’ve been away, some new faces have appeared among my “friends and fellow travelers.” So I’d like to offer a heartfelt welcome to the “newcomers.” I look forward to paying you a visit soon.

Until then, take good care.

Time and Change

2010-09-27T05:49:00.000-07:00

I realized that I promised to post in mid-September and here it is, nearly October. Time gets away.

I completed my three-day backpacking trip of the Grand Canyon. I'm glad to say I felt adequately prepared and enjoyed it very much. Here are a few pics.

Meanwhile, assignments have been raining down on me like manna from heaven.

God's been working in my life in other ways, too. Out of the blue, He delivered us a couple who want to lease our home starting Dec. 1.

Of course, that means we have to somehow get our final inspection up at the land and move all of our stuff by then. But that's okay!!

It wasn't in our time, but then it usually isn't. I've learned to accept God's gifts with gratitude and Thanksgiving. Too many things had to fall into place for this to happen for me to believe this is coincidence. One thing after another fell into place, just like Dominos.

So now, my husband and I are trying to sort through years of accumulation in a too-big house. What goes into the garage sale. What goes on Craig's List. What goes into a box.

And, of course, the deadlines.

So....

I will need you all more than ever in just a couple short months. But for now, I need to focus on the priorities God has set before me.

Thanks to all of you who have stopped by to let me know you're still thinking of me. I hope to visit soon. Meanwhile, be well and take care.

Blog Carnival

2010-08-16T05:44:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone. I just popped in for a minute to tell you that I finished the first of two Grand Canyon hikes. This one was from the North Rim to Roaring Springs. Here are a couple of pictures.

The first is where I stopped to eat my breakfast. The second is Roaring Springs.

Of course, there was an Al-Anon lesson.

At the Ranger station just a half-mile down from Roaring Springs there is a cottonwood-shaded picnic table where hikers can rest and fill up on water. On the table, the rangers have taped little laminated tips.

One was titled: "Sit down and put your feet up." It said that you should stop every half-hour to an hour and sit down. When you do that, it gives your legs the chance to rid themselves of 20-30 percent of the waste products that build up in them. It's these waste products that make your legs feel tired and heavy.

I know those same waste products also make your legs feel sore the next day. The card when on to say that doing this would not slow you down, I'm guessing, because you'd be able to hike with renewed strength.

It felt like my Higher Power was putting in front of me just what I needed to see.

Not just in hiking, but in everything in my life, my strategy was just to power through, no matter how tired I felt. This was another reminder to me that "Easy Does It."

I took that advice, and made it out in the average time of four hours. The next day, my hip joints were stiff and my calves a little sore, but it was very minor. It really did work. I've tried to carry that lesson into my day-to-day life. When I'm tired, I take a break. I get back to my work renewed, and I enjoy my life more.

So now, I'm training for my three-day backpacking trip from the South Rim at the end of the month. Keep me in your prayers.

Meanwhile, I wanted to let you all know about a blog carnival that Shen has coordinated on the topic of 12-step recovery. There's lots of good stuff on it. Please go check it out. Here's the link: http://stepperswisdom.blogspot.com/

I hope to be able to get back to blogging soon, and will stop by for a visit as soon as I am able. Until then, please take good care.

Easy Does It

2010-07-19T05:50:00.001-07:00

When I came into Al-Anon, I grabbed onto some of the slogans fairly easily, but mostly ignored others.

"Easy Does It" was one of the slogans I had to warm to.

It had been my habit to take on too much, power my way through, force solutions.

I didn't realize that trying harder, just made things more difficult.

So today, I try to remind myself that easy often gets it done. I ask God to set my priorities, work on those things and let go of the rest.

I don't usually have trouble with that in summer. The days feel longer and fuller, and the pace of life slows down.

Usually.

This summer, I've been unusually blessed with abundance. I have more writing assignments than I've had in years. Most of them involve travel. We are still working on the house, of course, which means we're away about half of a typical week.

The only time I have to write is when I am home. I have to juggle that with my Al-Anon commitments. And, now, with training for the Grand Canyon.

So it has become harder to find the considerable time it takes me to keep up with my blog. I have been praying and meditating on the situation, and find the answer in the slogan "Easy Does It."

I've decided to give myself a summer vacation from blogging. My intention is to return to blogging regularly in September, after the Grand Canyon trips and past the deadlines for several stories.

In the meanwhile, I hope to post from time to time, and to visit other blogs as I can.

I hope you all have a great summer. I will keep you all in my thoughts and in my prayers.

God Only Knows....

2010-07-14T09:42:00.001-07:00

My God has a sense of humor.

I know this because whenever I have a problem, the solution He gives me is usually the very last thing I would ever come up with, let alone ask for.

I was reminded of this just the other day. Well actually over the course of a couple of days.

It came in the form of unsolicited story assignments.

But first let me back up and explain a problem I was wrestling with. Well, a couple of problems. Small ones, really. Very small in the scheme of things.

First, I had put on a few pounds. Nothing drastic, but enough that I couldn’t wear half my clothes. I made a few half-hearted attempts at watching what I eat more closely. But if I’m honest, I really didn’t do much about it besides wish they would melt away without any effort on my part.

Secondly, I noticed that I’ve been feeling a little off lately. Not depressed, really. Just a little flat. When I thought about when it started, I realized it was about the time we lost our dog. It didn’t really concern me. I knew that if I kept doing the things I had been taught to do in this program, it would pass.

Then I started getting these assignments. They’d appear in my inbox with the subject line that went something like “another assignment?”

Now, in a recession in which the health of print journalism, and the fortunes of journalists, hung by a thread, these little surprises are like manna from heaven.

Only this was like manna with strings.

The first involved a profile.

Of someone who lived in the Grand Canyon.

Accessible only by mule, helicopter or foot.

I was pretty sure the magazine wasn’t going to pay for the helicopter. Or the mules. I might take the mules anyway because my husband, who usually accompanies me on my travels, is in no condition to hike the Grand Canyon.

I wasn’t sure my pride would allow me to take the mules. The editor of this particular magazine is an old hiking buddy. But I took the assignment. I figured I’d figure it out.

Then the next day I got another offer. This time for a three-day backpacking class. In the Grand Canyon. In August.

I stared for a long time at the e-mail. My options here didn’t involve helicopters or mules, or my husband for that matter. I had been on exactly one backpacking trip and considered myself cured. I had no desire to do it again. That was 10 years ago. On flatter ground. And not in August.

This assignment sounded hard. And hot. Very, very hot.

I stared at the e-mail wondering what excuses I could possibly concoct. Did I really want to turn down unsolicited work in this economy? Really?

Yes. I did.

I could imagine hiking the 10 miles in and out from the cooler north rim to where my profile subject lived. But three days of backpacking from the hotter south rim? To the desert bottom and back?

I admit I felt like a wuss. I don’t know how many of my friends have done rim to rim hikes. But the idea has just never appealed to me. And I hadn’t really been hiking since I hurt my knee a year and a half ago.

At first, it made good sense. Every time I went hiking, my knee hurt again. But honestly? After a while it was pure laziness.

I still exercise every day. But in my air-conditioned home, and not too hard.

I hit the “reply” key. I started to type my regrets.

Then the phone rang.

“What are you doing?” my husband’s voice asked.

“I’m trying to decide how to answer the latest assignment offer,” I said. I told him what it was.

“Well, I can’t do that,” he said. “But I’d support you doing it.”

Damn.

I deleted the message.

I knew it was God. I looked up and told Him that I appreciated the thought, but I was hoping for a softer, easier way.

I looked at the details of the class. It looked doable. I downloaded an equipment list and started to see what I had and what I would need to rent or borrow.

Then I pulled out my hiking boots and packed what I had assembled in a backpack, adding weights to make up for what I was still missing.

I turned the thermostat to 88, put on my boots and pulled on the pack. I got on the elliptical trainer and turned up both the resistance and the incline and exercised harder than I had for a long time.

I swear I could hear God chuckling.

And when I got done, I felt… good.

Really good. My face was red and I was dripping sweat, but my lungs felt clean. I felt energized. The way I always used to feel after a good hike.

This wouldn’t be so bad. After all, we’re talking about one of the seven natural wonders of the world! People pay good money to take the class I’ve been offered! I was getting to take it for free! And people would pay me!

Then there was the whole diet thing. I could eat all sorts of salty, carby things that were usually off my list. The course recommendations included bagels. When was the last time I had one of those?

What was the matter with me? Where was the gratitude?

I took the assignment. Then got down on my knees to thank God for knowing what I needed and giving it to me. Whether I liked it or not.

He's still laughing. I just know it.

Mind the Gap

2010-07-12T07:19:00.000-07:00

Not long after we moved to Arizona, my daughter found a new best friend. Let’s call her Jaime.

Jaime was a quiet, serious girl. I should have liked Jaime better than I did. My daughter was in middle school and failing. Her behavior had become more and more erratic, and it was clear that she had figured out the truth parents like me dread: that I had absolutely no control over anything she did.

In a way, Jaime stepped in to fill the gap. If I set off a rocket inside her room, I could not get my daughter out of bed in time for the school bus. But Jaime did. She’d come over early and coax my daughter out of bed, into her clothes and onto the bus.

And while I knew my daughter would ignore me if I said it was time for Jaime to go home, Jaime never would. So when it got late, I’d tell my daughter loudly enough for Jaime to hear. And she’d leave over my daughter’s protests that she stay.

I should have liked Jaime, but I didn’t. I didn’t like Jaime because my daughter started really slipping about the time she met her. And I didn’t want to admit that it could be my daughter (or me!) who was the problem. Jaime made a convenient and uncomplaining scapegoat.

The other reason I resented Jaime is that her mother never did any of the driving. So one day, I decided that I was done with that. I agreed to drive the girls to the movies one night, only on the condition that Jaime’s mom would drive the next time. All parties agreed and I assumed it was all settled.

Until the night Jaime’s mom was supposed to drive. My daughter had walked over to Jaime’s house, but not long afterward, the two girls turned up at our house with some story that didn’t make any sense. Something about Jaime’s shoe being lost after it fell off the top of the car.

So I marched over to Jaime’s house to get to the bottom of things. I pounded on the door, and Jaime’s mom answered. It was obvious that she was quite drunk.

I don’t know why I hadn’t figured this out before. My mom did the same thing. When I was growing up, she always made excuses for not driving. She said she couldn’t drive me anywhere in the evenings because she didn’t want to change out of her robe. But the truth is that every evening she was drunk.

Once I saw Jaime’s mom, everything made sense: Jaime’s hyper sense of responsibility, her desire to take care of everyone else, her serious nature. Yet she never let on. I imagine she was ashamed.

I was ashamed, too. Jaime was a lot like I was at her age. If anyone should have seen the signs, it should have been me.

My sponsor talks about “the blessing” that every child should receive at birth: Receiving the blessing means to be:

Named
Accepted
Revered
Respected
Cherished
Loved

That doesn’t always happen. I believe all parents want to give their children these things. But sometimes they can’t. They didn’t receive the blessing from their parents, and they can’t give what they don’t have.

Having grown up in an alcoholic home, I didn’t receive the blessing. So I didn’t know how to give it to my own daughter, much less anyone else’s.

Yet, I always wished that, knowing what I knew, I could have been an adult who “stood in the gap” for Jaime.

During Alateen certification training, I was counseled to “check my motives.” I thought I knew what they were. I thought that having grown up in an alcoholic home, I had something to offer these kids. Short of murder, there could be little dysfunction that I could not relate to from my own personal experience. I can relate to having witnessed alcohol and drug abuse, violence and sexual abuse, scuffles with police.

But I realize today that my motives run more deeply than that. I did not subject my daughter to the same conditions I grew up in, but I was not the parent I wanted to be. Even after having made my amends, I regret that I wasn’t able to give my daughter the blessing. God knows I wanted to. I did the best I knew how.

And I can’t think of Jaime without regret.

But this program teaches me that I can’t go back in time. I can’t be the mother I wish I had been. And I can’t be that caring adult for Jaime.

I can only choose how I will behave today.

At some point, I realized that my service in Alateen is less about the kind of parents I had, but the kind of parent I was. It’s a kind of living amends.

By being an Alateen sponsor, I can be an example of the Al-Anon program to these kids. I can stand in the gap for them. And that’s a blessing.

What I Learned from Shamu

2010-07-10T06:36:00.000-07:00

Every now and then I catch myself engaging in old behaviors or thought patterns.

It happened to me recently in the most awful and unexpected way. I was talking to a sponsee who was finding it difficult to reconcile her desires with her partner’s habits.

She admitted that he was making efforts.

I suggested that she thank him from those efforts, and refrain from complaining about how much more he wasn’t doing.

So far, so good. But I didn’t leave it at that.

For some reason, my brain went straight to an article I read in the New York Times several years ago. It appeared in a regular Sunday feature called “Modern Love.” The title of this essay was “What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage.”

I loved this essay, and so did a lot of other people. It became one of the most read and e-mailed articles on nytimes.com. I even sent it to my daughter, who was beginning to have trouble in her marriage.

The gist of the story is that, in the course of writing a book about a school for exotic animal trainers, the writer got the idea that she could use these techniques on her husband.

The writer would be taking notes on how to walk an emu or have a wolf accept you as a pack member, and scribble in the margin: “Try on Scott.”

For example, she wrote about a technique called “approximations.”

“You can’t expect a baboon to learn to flip on command in one session, just as you can’t expect an American husband to begin regularly picking up his dirty socks by praising him once for picking up a single sock,” she wrote.

“With the baboon you first reward a hop, then a bigger hop, than an even bigger hop. With Scott the husband, I began to praise every small act every time: if he drove just a mile an hour slower, tossed one pair of shorts into the hamper, or was on time for anything.”

As I recounted this article with my sponsee (my sponsee!!!), I felt an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach. There was only one word for what I was advising: manipulation.

Ughh! I felt like I had just put my finger to a flame. I couldn’t believe I had just said that. I actually felt a physical revulsion.

“Never mind about that,” I said quickly. “That’s a bad example, and turned my attention to proven Al-Anon principles. Like powerlessness and acceptance.

Just to satisfy my curiosity, I looked up that article and read it again. It was as clever and delightful a read as I remembered, but it was manipulation, pure and simple.

I took my gut reaction to talking about it as a marker of growth. When I first read it, I thought the writer was brilliant.

But rereading the essay, I did find points that seemed perfectly aligned with Al-Anon principles.

Like when she stopped taking her husband’s fault’s personally. In Al-Anon, we call this detachment.

The writer did this by thinking of her husband as an exotic species, which allowed herself a measure of objectivity. Could I imagine my alcoholic as an exotic species? Not so much a stretch.

She also realized that some behaviors were too entrenched, too instinctive, to train away. “You can’t stop a badger from digging, and you can’t stop my husband from losing his keys,” she said. In Al-Anon, we call that acceptance.

One technique seemed right out of the Al-Anon playbook. It was called least reinforcing syndrome (L.R.S.). When her husband used to lose his keys, she’d drop what she was doing and help him hunt, which only made him angrier, and usually resulted in full-blown drama.

The idea behind L.R.S. was to completely ignore behavior that bothered her, under the assumption that by not reinforcing a behavior, either positively or negatively, it would stop.

The next time her husband lost his keys, she kept her mouth shut and continued what she was doing. A few minutes later, he emerged, keys in hand, the storm clouds having passed.

In Al-Anon, this is what we call “dropping the rope.” Our alcoholics are used to engaging us in a certain way. They dangle a rope in front of us, and we dutifully pick it up for a little game of tug of war.

Tug of war only works if there are two parties. When we drop the rope, the game is over.

But that’s where it ends. Because if we are working this program with integrity and allowing the people in our lives the respect they deserve, we don’t get to manipulate. No matter how clever it sounds or how tempting it is.

If we are living this program with integrity, we allow others the dignity to make their own choices.

So what advice did I ultimately give my sponsee? I talked about awareness, acceptance and action.

I have a red coffee cup. I’m aware that red is not my favorite color. I wish it were blue. But no amount of wishing will change my coffee cup from red to blue. I have to accept that.

With that acceptance, I understand that I have certain choices: I can get a new cup, give up coffee, change how I feel about red.

But my choices do not involved changing the color of the cup.

So let’s say the problem is that her partner refuses to pick up his clothes. Her choices are either to figure out how to be okay with clothes on the floor or pick them up herself.

I tell her to ask herself “How Important is It?”

If it’s terribly important, and she must say something, I tell her she can say it once. Then she has to let it go. Any more than once is trying to control.

Shamu lady calls this nagging, and even she recognizes that it generally produces the opposite of the desired effect.

Specifically, I suggested that she not try to force a solution, but keep the focus on how the problem makes her feel and not her partner’s behavior.

“The clutter on the floor makes me feel uncomfortable. Is there something we can do about the situation that would make us both happy?”

In my own marriage, have found this approach to be helpful. My husband doesn’t like to be told what to do. So I present my problem, but not the solution.

Generally, my husband is happy to try to fix it. Often, his solution is different from the one I had in mind, but that’s okay. It generally works. And we both get what we want.

But I also have to accept it if he refuses. I can state my needs. I can ask for help. And he can say no.

That’s what it means to allow people the dignity of making their own choices. If I am living this program with dignity, I have to allow people to make their own decisions and not try to force my will. In every situation.

As for manipulation, I think I’ll leave that to the animal trainers.

Band-aids For My Eyes, Please

2010-07-08T06:35:00.000-07:00

As is our habit on the first week of the month, the topic at my Wednesday meeting was step 7, which reads: “Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.”

Many of the people in our group quipped that they must be getting worse, because they didn’t have any shortcomings when they came through the doors of Al-Anon, but have since picked up a whole bunch.

That’s the thing about this disease. One of its chief symptoms is lack of awareness.

But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

My character defects are coping mechanisms that helped me to survive a bad situation. I think of them like Band-aids. To rip them off before I am ready would be to expose the wound before it is healed.

That’s why God has to be involved. Only He knows when I’m ready and which defects need to be removed.

In the meanwhile, He gives me denial. It’s like a Band-aid for my eyes.

If I’m not ready, I won’t see what’s right in front of me, and nothing you can say will make me see it.

Like the time, years ago now, when a good friend showed me a list of characteristics of adult children of alcoholics. He thought I would relate.

I didn’t.

Honestly. I didn’t think the things on that list applied to me at all.

He got insistent.

“What about this one?” he’d say, pointing out the part about not being able to finish things.

“I finish things,” I replied.

“What about your college degree?” he said, as though that would settle the question.

“I finished my degree,” I said with equal conviction. “It just took me longer.”

He’d pick something else on the list. He’d insist. I’d deny. And it went on like that until he finally gave up.

Because, honestly, I thought I had left the effects of alcoholism behind me when I left home. I thought I had become the captain of my fate. I refused to be ruled by the past.

Just like when I came into the rooms of Al-Anon. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with me. I offered my obsession with my daughter as evidence that I was a good mom, and you couldn’t tell me differently.

I did everything I had done, I said, because I wanted to be sure I had done everything I could to help my daughter. And I meant it. No intervention was too extreme. But that didn’t make me a good mom. It made me crazy. I just couldn’t see it.

But while working my steps, in order, I prayed that God reveal what needed to be revealed, and He did. When I got to step seven, I asked him to remove those shortcomings.

People practice the seventh step in different ways. I’ve heard people say they pick one character defect at a time and pray that God remove it.

I’ve been taught that I don’t get to decide. The seventh step prayer I use comes from the AA Big Book and asks God to remove every single defect of character that stands in the way of my usefulness to Him and to my fellows.

I was surprised by that prayer the first time I read it. As an extraordinarily self-centered person, the first thing I noticed is that it doesn’t say “the character defects that stand in my way.” Nor did it say "the defects of character I want removed."

As turns out to be true with so many things, God's ideas are often different from mine. I have to turn it over.

God has not removed all my defects of character. Some are less prominent, some are still very much with me. Even the ones that are fading lurk right under the surface. I only get a daily reprieve based on my spiritual condition.

Sometimes, I’m reluctant to give up my defects of character because I still get something from them.

All I can do is my part. When I see that I am reluctant, I can pray for willingness. And if I want to continue to grow, I must continue to do the things I’ve been taught in this program: go to meetings, pray on my knees, read Al-Anon literature, take commitments, sponsor others.

I can’t control the pace of my recovery. But I can become entirely ready.

They Don’t Write Books About Recovery, Do They?

2010-07-07T06:59:00.000-07:00

Recovery in Al-Anon, I mean. There’s a well-established recovery genre for addicts and alcoholics. These books tend to be organized in the same way:

There is the pre-recovery period in which the alcoholic or addict faithfully recounts his or her misdeeds and tragedies, and how those misdeeds ruined his or her life.

Then there is a turning point. Sometimes this occurs as a single incident in which the bolt of lightening strikes. More often, as in life, there are a series of incidents in which the light begins to dawn.

The balance of the book chronicles the addict/alcoholic’s recovery. Slow and halting at first, then gaining momentum until the addict’s life is transformed.

These books are terribly appealing, particularly to those of us who have loved ones who suffer from addiction, because they are about redemption. They tell us that change is possible. They give us hope.

Now, you might argue that there is also a whole genre of books written by parents of addicts and alcoholics, and I would agree with you. I just don’t see a lot of recovery in them.

These books also tend to be organized along the same lines. There is the recounting of the addict/alcoholic’s misdeeds. This portion of the book includes the dawning of awareness that there is a problem.

The devastation to the family is recounted in great detail, along with the heroic efforts of the parents to save their child.

Sometimes, the parents find Al-Anon, Naranon or some other support group. They recount feeling understood for perhaps the first time. There is comfort. But there is little change on the part of the parent.

If there is a turning point in the disease, the change occurs in the addict/alcoholic. The redemption at the end does not belong to the parent, but the addict. In the end, the parents’ lives are restored, not because they changed, but because their addict did.

Does that strike anyone but me as the very definition of codependency?

From beginning to end, the focus is not on the parent, but on the addict.

Where’s the recovery in that?

I’d like to read a book in which the change happens in the parents. Where they stop seeing themselves as victims or heroes, but flawed human beings who play a part in their own drama.

I’d like to read a book in which the turning point occurs when the parents see their own part, change their own behavior and chronicle in detail the positive effects that has on the rest of the family, the addict included.

I’d like to read a book where the transformation and redemption belongs to the parents. Where the victory is theirs.

Now that would be a book about recovery.

Dog Gone Shame

2010-07-06T06:03:00.000-07:00

Hubby and I had to say goodbye to our faithful companion over the weekend.

It was completely unexpected. Our dog was 11 1/2, which is not young for a Corgi. He had arthritis and had to take pain medication, and it seemed the vet was constantly giving us astronomical estimates for dental care. But other than that he was healthy and happy.

So when we woke up and found him bloated around the middle and in pain, it was hard to imagine it could be too serious.

We found him that way on Thursday morning. I got up at 5:30 and woke up my husband. We were up at the land, where our dog loved to roam around and hunt lizards. He had been out for a particularly long time the evening before and my husband thought he must have eaten something that didn't agree with him. Our dog will eat anything. Rocks, whatever. He seemed particularly fond of excrement. So anyway, it wasn't too far fetched.

So my husband got up and went looking around a favorite spot where our dog seemed to be hanging out while I called the local vet. Being so early in the morning, I got an after hours message that included the number to an emergency clinic, located about an hour away.

I talked to someone there and described the symptoms. The technician there said it sounded like an emergency and we should bring him in. She told me from the symptoms I described, he might have "flipped" his stomach. It was unusual for a Corgi, but that's what it sounded like.

My husband suggested that if it were an emergency, we should call the local vet's home number, since she was a lot closer. Once I got her on the phone, she told me pretty much the same thing. We needed to go to the emergency clinic, though. This was not a simple procedure. It required special equipment and a team.

"What I tell people in this case," she said, "is that you're looking at a lot of money and a poor prognosis."

So we trundled our poor dog, who was by then lying under the porch and refusing to move, into the van. When he saw the van, he got up and walked to the door, and waited to be loaded.

I struggled with how much to share with my husband, who loves this dog beyond reason. I told him that both parties had told me the same thing. Then I told him what the vet had said.

"I think we should prepare ourselves for the worst possible outcome," I said.

But my husband brushed it off. He was convinced he had just eaten something bad.

We all believe what we need to believe.

When we got to the clinic, they took our dog right in and before we had filled out the paperwork, the technician brought out a consent form for a $500 emergency assessment, including a IV and an X-ray.

My poor husband pressed his case with the receptionist that our dog had probably just eaten something.

"He'll eat anything," my husband pleaded. He tried to give her examples. He wanted to speak to the vet.

The receptionist patiently explained that they believed our dog had flipped his stomach, and they needed the X-ray to confirm that.

Once my husband agreed, we sat down to wait.

"It sounds like we might have a difficult decision to make," he said to me.

"I know," I said. "That's what I was trying to prepare you for."

I told my husband that I thought it was his decision to make. Hubby had bought him as a puppy, and was very attached. I said I was at peace with whatever that was.

I went to the bathroom and kneeled to pray. I prayed that God would wrap my husband in his grace and mercy, and carry him through this.

When I came out, I watched the vet go into a room behind the front counter. He was a young man, wearing blue scrubs. He looked at us with a tense expression as if trying to size us up. A minute later, he invited us in to look at the X-rays.

The stomach had, indeed, flipped. It was sealed off at both ends so that the food inside had begun to ferment, which is what caused the bloating.

He told us, "If your dog is to survive, I need to get him into surgery now."

The surgery would cost several thousand dollars, which, like everything, had to be paid in advance, with no idea what the outcome would be.

"Sometimes," he admitted, they had to put the dog down on the table.

He left us alone for a few minutes, but stressed that we didn't have long to decide.

"Your options are surgery or euthanasia," he said. "There is no medical option."

We sat down side by side on a metal bench. I knew my husband was close to tears, so I didn't want to look at him. I wanted to give him that much privacy.

"He's not a young dog," I offered. "He's had a good life."

My husband nodded. When the vet came back in, my husband said we were thinking about putting him to sleep. "He's had a good life," he said, then broke down.

The vet looked alarmed and uncomfortable.

"Give us a few minutes," I mouthed, and the vet left quickly.

I just sat with my husband, holding his hand and not looking at his face. In a few minutes, he said, "Okay. Let's tell them."

He didn't want to see our dog again, but I did. They asked if I wanted to be there when they gave him the injection, and I said yes, I did.

When they took me back, our dog was lying on a table, his ears drooping to the side, the tip of his tongue just visible.

"Hey, buddy," I said brightly, but he didn't respond at all.

The vet was very kind. He explained that the injection was an overdose of anesthesia. Our dog would simply go to sleep. Then his heart would stop.

I crouched down so I could look into our dog's eyes, and caressed the soft hair of his ears.

"You are such a good boy," I said.

Then the vet gave him the injection, and his head dropped slowly to the side as he went to sleep. I continued to pet him as the vet listened to his heart with a stethoscope. Tears were rolling down my face by then, and in a minute the vet said, "He's gone."

"I'm sorry," he told me as I got up, putting his hand on my back.

We wanted to bury our dog ourselves, so they put him in a white cardboard box with two little flowers taped to the top and carried him to the van for us.

We buried him at the land, where he had been so happy.

It was a very hard day.

The Al-Anon lessons that served me were simply this:

I can experience something difficult, without trying to control the outcome.

I can sit with someone I love and allow them to feel whatever they feel without trying to fix them or make them feel better.

I can live life on life's terms. Life on life's terms means it won't always be easy. There will be difficulty. There will be sorrow. And with the help of my Higher Power, I can walk through it.

Animal Magnetism

2010-06-30T06:16:00.001-07:00

Here’s something I’ve noticed lately. Since I’ve been in recovery, my pets like me better.

I’m not kidding.

My husband has always been the runaway favorite with both of our pets. He got the dog as a puppy before we were married, so there was always that.

But the cat, which was his mother’s, came to live with us after his mother died. I suppose you could say he had a longer history with the cat. But for all intents and purposes, the cat only came into our lives in a meaningful way after we were together.

And, honestly, I didn’t get it.

My mom was the infamous cat lady. Growing up, we had 30 of them. They lived in their own house. A guesthouse we called the “cat house.” It was my hangout. Where I went to watch TV and get away from the craziness in my home. And it was my job to take care of the cats.

So I knew cats. And, besides, I always thought of myself as the nicer of the two of us. My husband will pester that cat to within an inch of her life. She’ll get all huffy and growly, and he still won’t quit poking and yanking at her. And yet, he could hardly sit down without her climbing up into his lap.

But lately, I’ve noticed that’s no longer the case. Our dog no longer favors his “dad.” If I’m upstairs and Hubby is downstairs, he’ll position himself near the stairs where he can keep an eye on us both. And the cat? Now, I can’t sit down without her getting up from Hubby’s lap to sit on mine.

So I started thinking about why that is, and found it had less to do with a change in the animals than a change in me.

I realized I gave the animals a lot more time and attention these days. It used to be that I was too wrapped up in the dramas that were consuming my life to pay a lot of attention to them. I was irritable often, and when I was feeling like that, I was likely to push them away.

Up at the land, I’d get up in the morning to go for a hike that would be too strenuous for our dog, and I’d let him out to do his business and take off alone. When we came home, I wouldn’t pay any attention to the cat until everything was unloaded and unpacked, laundry and mail sorted, dinner made etc. I had work to do. I wouldn’t pay any attention to the cat until I sat down, which often wasn't until just before bed.

I was pleasant enough to our pets and I would never have thought of doing them harm. But, really, there was not much to love about me.

These days, when we go up to the land, I’m much less likely to go on a long hike alone, but grab our dog for a more leisurely walk. When we get home, the first thing I do is call for the cat and give her some love. In general, I’m more aware of our pets. I don’t walk by without acknowledging them in some way. I’m more patient. Kinder.

In truth, I love them more. And now they love me back.

None of this was a conscious effort on my part. It just came with recovery when, as the Big Book promised, I began to lose interest in selfish things and take more interest in my fellows. It spilled over into everything. Even my pets.

As I write this it occurs to me that my daughter might be a little jealous of my new relationship with my pets. Because the truth is that I treated her, and all the other people close to me, in the same way I used to treat my pets.

I didn’t mean to neglect her. But I was always busy. I worked a lot, put myself through school. When I wasn’t doing those things, there were chores: groceries, laundry, bills. I wasn’t likely to take notice when there was so much work to be done.

I got involved in my own dramas. I thought my life as a single parent was hard and I couldn’t see my part in any of it. I was the victim. I was tired and irritable, and in the down times I had, I just wanted quiet and to be left alone.

I didn’t cause my daughter’s addiction. But I did contribute to her dysfunction. And that’s what’s so hard to finally understand. I always thought God gave me a child who was my spiritual sandpaper because she pushed every button I had. Where I craved quiet, she was loud. When I just wanted to disappear into my work or a book, she was always in my face.

I understand now that she was only trying to be seen and heard.

“LOOK AT ME,” her actions screamed. “LISTEN. TO. ME.”

But I didn’t know how to do that. I treated her the way my mother treated me. It was the only thing I knew.

Knowing that makes me sad, but I can’t change it. I can’t go back in time and be a different mother than the one I was. I did the best I knew how. The only thing I can do today is make different choices. I have made my amends to my daughter. But more importantly, I try to be a better mom.

Not by trying to fix her problems or by offering advice about how she should live her life. I used to think that was love. Today, I know that when I help my daughter I hurt her. But by loving her unconditionally.

I never knew how to do that. If she made choices I didn’t agree with, I was not okay with that and I let her know. Today, I allow her the dignity of making her own choices and finding her own solutions.

I also allow her the dignity of accepting the consequences of her choices.

That’s made all the difference. Now that I accept that the consequences of her actions are hers alone, I’m able to love her, without judgment, whatever her choices and circumstances. And yes, it’s true. I love her more. And that’s the miracle of recovery.

Hubby and I are off to the land today. I hope you all have a wonderful 4th of July weekend. Please let me know you stopped by while I was out so I can return the courtesy when I get back. Meanwhile, take good care.

Here's the Thing...

2010-06-29T06:59:00.000-07:00

Some people get into Al-Anon and seem to thrive right away. Others change little, and very slowly. The difference, it seems to me, comes down to one thing: willingness.

At my last Al-Anon birthday celebration, I was surprised to find that my sponsor didn’t see a lot of willingness in me when I came into the program.

In her introduction at the birthday meeting, she recalled that I said I couldn’t do this and I couldn’t do that, but over time I had done everything she had suggested—except go on a retreat—and she felt that was just a matter of time.

I had to admit what she said was true. I didn’t want to do anything that involved being away from home at night or overnight. That meant no night meetings, no Big Book studies, and no retreats.

I was determined not to let my recovery negatively affect my husband because I didn’t want any pushback. Today, I call this people pleasing. But that’s a topic for another post. And I've made progress but, well, there is the whole retreat thing.

So I can see how she might have seen this as one big “no” on my part.

But I did everything else. I attended the recommended number of meetings every week. I just went to day meetings. I also went to open AA meetings. I prayed on my knees, meditated and read Al-Anon literature every day. I called my sponsor at both prescribed and unscheduled times, and took her advice. I worked my steps as well and as diligently as I was able.

And I felt better.

So while my sponsor saw one big “no,” my insides felt like a giant “yes!”

It didn’t take long, maybe a few months, to feel real progress. I behaved differently. And people noticed.

And now, as a sponsor, I find that my sponsees who are doing best are the ones who are most willing.

When someone tells me they “aren’t there yet” or seem resistant for whatever reason, I tell them to pray for willingness.

I can’t control the pace of my recovery any more than I can control other people. But I can do the necessary groundwork. In my experience, the more I’m willing to do, the faster I’ll feel better.

In Al-Anon, there are no “shoulds” or “musts.” Willingness is the closest thing to a requirement in Al-Anon, and even that is optional.

Willingness isn’t something I can given anyone. All I can do is make suggestions, then “Let Go and Let God.”

There are many, many reasons we say "no" to recovery. At the end of the day, willingness comes down to making a choice. Do I want to remain stuck in the problem or do I want to live in the solution?

I know that if I do what I’ve always done, I’ll get what I’ve always gotten. I also know that pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.

But I have to be willing to do the next right thing.

And that's entirely up to me.

First Things First

2010-06-26T17:32:00.000-07:00

Something I hear often, particularly among newcomers, is that they find it difficult to fit working a program into their already busy lives.

For me, the slogan “First Things First” helps me keep my priorities in order.

“First Things First” is an Al-Anon slogan, but the idea behind it is one of the few principles I retained from my corporate days. The primary thing I took away from all those time management seminars was to do the important things first.

For me, the important things are to tend to my spiritual and physical health. I don’t squeeze them into a full schedule. I build my schedule around them, by doing those things first, and asking God to set my priorities for the rest.

Early in my recovery, a woman at an open AA meeting said she liked to give God the first word. I loved that, and I’ve done it ever since.

In the morning, the first thing I do is get on my knees and pray. I always begin with the Lord’s Prayer, because it's complete in itself. When I pray this prayer, I acknowledge that my Higher Power is God and that I am not, I express a willingness to do His will, I ask Him to give me whatever I need and to guide me. I could easily stop praying right there, and I sometimes do because, really, aside from a short prayer of gratitude and prayers for others, what else is there to say?

From there, I move on to my daily reading of Al-Anon literature. Generally, I spend about 30 minutes each morning between prayer, reading and meditation. But if I only pray the Lord’s Prayer and read the one-page meditation from one of the daily readers, how long would that take? Five minutes? Ten? It’s hard for me to imagine that even the busiest person couldn’t find 10 minutes to do something as important as that to set the tone for the whole day.

Then I exercise for 30 minutes. Exercise not only keeps me healthy, it’s a natural mood booster, it gives me more energy during the day and it helps me sleep better at night. If I turn off my TV, it can also be a kind of moving meditation. I get some of my best insights on the treadmill. On a rushed day, I might exercise for 20 minutes. But I try never to skip it.

By the time I’m done, my husband is up and we sit down to breakfast together. Having done those things, I feel prepared for whatever the day has in store.

My other priorities include meditation and sleep. When I have time, I like to meditate in the morning. But sometimes my head is full of all the things I need to get done and it’s hard to get it to settle down.

Whether I’ve meditated in the morning or not, I like to meditate at the end of the workday. Most of the things that I had to accomplish are behind me then, and my mind is more willing to be still. It helps me to start with a centering prayer, such as the long version of the Serenity Prayer.

When I can, I like to spend at least 20 minutes in meditation. It’s one way I connect to my Higher Power and seek His guidance. Whether or not that comes, it always leaves me feeling refreshed. Then I’m ready to be of service to my family, my sponsees, alateens, prison inmates or the people at my meetings, depending on what’s on my agenda for the evening.

Finally, I make sleep a priority. Because I get up early to do the things I need to do for myself, I also go to bed that much earlier. If I don’t, I find myself needing another slogan: H.A.L.T. If I’m Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired I know can’t function well.

But not before I take five minutes to look back over my day, thank God for the blessings that have come my way and ask myself honestly if I have managed to keep my side of the street clean or if I have an amends I need to make.

It’s been my experience, that when I make time for all these things, my days go more smoothly. I don’t waste time thinking about the past or worrying about the future. Confident that I have the guidance of my Higher Power, I’m able to concentrate on whatever task is before me until God puts something else there.

In the past, I spent a lot of time trying to overcome obstacles that cropped up. Today, I see these obstacles as guidance. I figure, I’m not supposed to do that right now. Rather than try to power my way through, I move on to the next thing.

Of course, for me, giving up trying to control other people and fixing their problems left an astonishing amount of time I didn’t have before.

I hear people at meetings say they find it hard to do these simple things for themselves because it feels selfish. But I know it’s when I do these things that I’m able to be the most service to others. It’s like the oft-recounted airplane analogy. When the masks drop in the cabin, the flight attendant always tells you to put on your mask first. Otherwise, you can’t be of much help to anyone else.

I know there is no cure for my disease. I can only get a daily reprieve based on my spiritual condition. "First Things First" reminds me to do the things I need to do remain spiritually fit.

Above all, when I take time to feed my spirit each day, I’m a nicer, calmer, better person. I’m slower to anger. More quick to forgive. My heart expands along with my gratitude.

For me, the question has become not how can I find the time, but how I cannot.

Funny Thing Redux

2010-06-23T13:32:00.001-07:00

This was not my plan. I had hoped to blog on a different topic today, but the day got away from me, and Hubby and I must depart to the land. So...

I just got home from one of the best meetings I've been to in a long time. The topic was humor, which we almost never get to talk about in an Al-Anon meeting. As one member put it, "What we usually talk about is the opposite of humor."

So true. I've only been to one other meeting on humor in Al-Anon, and it was a meeting in which I had an insight about myself and the effects of this disease. I blogged about it at the time. It was one of my first posts. I didn't have many readers then, and few of them are still around.

So in the tradition of public radio, I offer you this archive edition of "Grace Calling."

Today, there was one thing I heard today that I'd like to add. One woman shared that she had decided to pray for more joy in her life, and the past month was one of the best she'd ever had. The difference? She started saying "yes" to things. In the past, she had always said "no."

It's always up to us.

Or, to quote our "Just for Todays," As Abraham Lincoln said, "Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be."

If you'll be so kind as to let me know you stopped by, I'll return the visit when we get home. Now, without further delay...

Funny Thing

The other day at an Al-Anon meeting the topic was humor.

Normally at a meeting, the inside of my head sounds like a garden party, with various members of my "committee" chiming with with their two cents about what I should share. As I find things to relate to in each successive share, the voices multiply so that by the time my turn comes around there's a veritable din in my head.

The other day, the topic was humor. The response from my committee?

Silence.

I got nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

Humor? What did I have to say about humor?

I thought something would surely come to me as I listened to other shares.

Thing is, most of the people in my group seemed as flummoxed as I was. As we went around the room, one thing did occur to me. Nearly everyone, to a person, confessed to being deadly serious.

There were only two exceptions. Interesting, to me, is that both were also members of a different fellowship. (Does anybody but me think AA meetings are just more fun??) One of those two people confessed that she used humor as a shield to deflect from her feelings.

I never thought of myself as being deadly serious. I've been mostly happy in my life. I'm just not what you'd call lighthearted, fun, devil-may-care. I said this to my sponsor during our weekly call time.

"You're way serious," she said.

My sponsor has always told me the truth. I have no reason not to believe her.

So sitting in that room it occurred to me that maybe, like so many things, my serious nature was not hardwired but an affect of this disease. And if that were true, than restoring me to sanity might also mean restoring me to good humor. It's an intriguing thought. I warmed to it.

Before I came into Al-Anon, I thought I knew myself. I didn't know anything.

I've always believed in an examined life. There are so many things about myself I thought were just "who I am." I accepted this. In Al-Anon, I'm finding out that so many of these things are not "who I am" at all. They are traits I share with so many people in this program. All the "isms" of this disease: perfectionism, the need to control, people pleasing.

Now I see that most of these characteristics were self-defense mechanisms that overshot the mark. The good news is that, with a program, I am beginning to unlearn the old behaviors that now stand in my way.

Will my future self include Funny Girl? Probably not. But I'm guessing she'll be a lot lighter. I can hardly wait to meet her.

What do You Want to Do?

2010-06-22T06:26:00.001-07:00

That’s what I always ask when I get a call from a fellow Al-Anon in a crisis. The call usually begins with a lengthy explanation of their alcoholic’s latest drama, wrapping up with “I don’t know what to do.”

Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of calls from parents of adult children. Usually, the adult child has a housing crisis. Either he or she is living with the parent or about to be evicted from whatever living situation they were in. Usually, the adult child’s situation is the consequence of actions they have taken or choices they have made.

When it comes down to that, I tell the parents that I’m going to give them the Al-Anon response, but it all comes down to this: What are you comfortable with, and what are you willing to do?

The Al-Anon response is very simple. Your adult child is experiencing the consequence of his or her actions. In Al-Anon, I eventually came to believe that it’s best not to get in God’s way by putting a cushion between my loved one and her consequences, no matter how painful. When I do that, I only delay her from making changes in her life. Because if I’m willing to give her an easier alternative, why should she change?

For me, the best answer is to be loving, but not offer a solution. I say something like, “That sounds very hard, honey. I’m so sorry to hear you’re having such a hard time. No. I can’t [let you stay here/give you money/whatever else] But I love you and I know you’re going to figure this out.”

Not every parent is ready to do this. Hence the question. What do you want to do?

Usually, the parent will tell me their adult child has no options. Usually, I point out that their adult child has other options, but has chosen not to exercise them.

One parent told me her newly sober adult son had been offered rehab but “that would be like jail.” His old network of friends were alcoholics, she said, so he couldn’t call them.

I asked if he had been to AA, a ready made support group with a mission, known as the 12th step, to help other alcoholics.

He is an atheist and refuses to go, she said.

I rest my case. What I hear is that the son prefers being homeless to going to rehab, and refuses help that is freely given. That’s a choice.

None of this makes the situation the problem of the parent to fix.

Another parent told me that her town didn’t have a homeless shelter. This is a suburb of one of the largest metro areas in the country. There might not be a homeless shelter in that suburb. That doesn’t mean the metro region isn’t crawling with shelters and half-way houses and social service organizations. But this is how we think. We think our kids will not survive unless we help them. It’s just not true.

So we’re back to the question: What do you want to do? What are you willing to take on?

There are two things I suggest in this situation: Don’t take on anything that will cause you resentment. And don’t set any boundaries you can’t enforce.

Sometimes, allowing an adult child to stay at home for a few days while he or she figures things out can buy both parties some time. The adult child can have a few days to research options, and the parent can have a few days to pray and meditate, attend meetings, talk things over with a sponsor, read literature and do whatever else they need to get some clarity.

But what the parent needs to do, IMHO, does not involve fixing the housing crisis. Even if the adult child is sick or unemployed or both.

I generally don’t recommend allowing adult children to stay under certain conditions (you can stay as long as you do this and/or don’t do that). Things may start out well, but an addict or alcoholic is bound to push those boundaries at some point, and then what are you going to do?

To me, that’s just offering them the rope for that old, familiar game of tug of war. In my case, for my own sanity, I had to drop the rope.

My own experience is that I had to get out of the way completely and let my daughter find her own solutions. When I did, she did. At first, her solutions included finding other enablers. It’s in the nature of addicts and alcoholics to find a “softer, easier way.”

But eventually, those enablers fell away one by one. Only then, when her options were either to change or to face the full consequences of her choices did she choose change.

For me, it was the only truly loving thing I could do.

The Hyena and the Wildebeest

2010-06-21T05:29:00.000-07:00

An article in the paper caught my eye the other day. It was about Ray Dalio, the founder of one of the world's largest hedge funds and the philosophy on which he runs his company.

The firm runs on a set of 295 principles that Mr. Dalio distributed to all his employees. He calls his philosophy hyper-realism, drawing on lessons of the natural world.

One of his most eye-catching principles is "Be the hyena. Attack the Wildebeest... Like the hyenas attacking the wildebeest, successful people might not even know if or how their pursuits of self interest helps society, but it typically does."

Another principle is "There is nothing to fear from truth.... Being truthful is essential to being an independent thinker and obtaining greater understanding of what is right."

Apparently, at Mr. Dalio's company, being truthful "also requires a bit of ruthlessness," according to the article.

One employee admitted he found the truthful policy difficult, because colleagues were encouraged to critique his ideas and drill into his weaknesses. "I would go home defeated every day," he said.

Reading the article, I couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to run a company on Al-Anon principles.

What if, rather than "Be a Hyena," the principle was "Live and Let Live" or "Let Go and Let God."

And I have nothing against the speaking the truth. But what if the guiding principle was "THINK." That before we opened our mouths to speak, we took a minute to think about what we were going to say and asked ourselves if it was not only True but also Honest, Intelligent, Necessary and Kind?

What if no one went home feeling defeated by his or her colleagues?

I'm not sure that company would become one of the world's largest hedge funds. Maybe to be successful on Wall Street requires a bit of the hyena. But maybe making money isn't the most important thing. If we were to run this company on Al-Anon principles, we'd ask ourselves the question, How Important Is It?

My Daddy

2010-06-20T06:06:00.000-07:00

For years, the only real clues I had about my dad came from a handful of thick, black-and-white studio portraits.

I had two favorites. One pictured my grandmother, young and beautiful with scallops of shiny dark hair and milk-white skin with a boy of about six in a sailor suit.

The other showed my grandmother, still young but with the beginnings of crow's feet around her eyes and hair that was beginning to lose its luster next to a young and handsome man wearing an Army uniform with pilot's wings pinned to the breast.

On each of these photos, I had written, with green ink in my best 4-year-old handwriting "my daddy."

As I had never met my dad, those were the images I carried with me. I didn't know much else. I knew he had some connection to Green Bay Wisconsin. I learned later that his father's family emigrated there from Ireland in the mid 19th century and stuck. My grandmother told me he had saved my life by rescuing me from drowning in a pool when I was about a year old.

Later, I learned from my mother that his IQ tested in the genius range, though he only completed high school and worked at manual labor jobs. That he was an alcoholic. That he had put her in the hospital twice.

I have only one picture of them together. It was on the day of my christening. My father was older than my mother, in his late-30s. His hairline was already receding, but he was still handsome. There were cans of Schlitz malt liquor in the foreground.

With so little information, these pictures became the basis of a rich fantasy surrounding my dad.

When I was very young and living with my grandmother, she used to play a song by Harry Belefonte called "Scarlet Ribbons" about a man desperately searching the night to find scarlet ribbons for his daughter's hair. I imagined that was my dad. I believed he wanted to find me, that, like the man in the song, he was out there somewhere scouring the streets at night looking.

Even as I got older, and was returned to my mother, I kept that fantasy. That one day my father would find me and rescue me from my life.

Of course, he never did.

My grandmother took me back to my childhood home of Milwaukee once to see him. My grampy, her second husband, had some sort of bowling event to attend and I came along. We stayed in the Red Carpet Inn. But I never met my dad. I learned later that he had "taken off" two days before our arrival with no explanation.

He died when I was 12 from alcoholism. As my mother put it, he had lung cancer and died during the operation from liver failure. She showed me a recent picture, a Polaroid. It showed a balding, overweight, middle-aged man leaning against a car. It looked nothing like the pictures in my head.

That day, my fantasy of rescue died along with my father.

A few years ago, I decided to find out what I could about my father. I started with his Army records. Much of his records were lost in a fire in the facility where they were kept. But enough remained to give me a glimpse into his life.

From his application, I learned that, as a child, he had a tonsillectomy and the removal of a bit of bone in one ear as the result of an infection. He played softball, basketball and football in high school, though did not excel in any of them. He graduated in 1940 and listed his only hobby as flying.

His enlistment physical noted that he had a deviated septum and a small facial scar.

From his service record, I know that he worked for Douglas Aircraft in Santa Monica, which was then gearing up for World War II. It had recently won a government contract to build warplanes.

In 1942, he enlisted as an aviation cadet. He was 19 and married to his first wife. They had a daughter.

He was honorably discharged in June of the following year to accept a commission. He completed pilot training at various bases and learned to fly the B-26 Maurader. By June 1943, as a second lieutenant, he was qualified for overseas duty. I imagine it was about this time that the portrait with my grandmother was taken.

Then things started to fall apart. He faced two courts martial for being AWOL and was dihonorably discharged after having been AWOL for 37 days, and sentenced to three years of hard labor at Ft. Leavenworth prison.

His divorce became final a few months after he began serving his sentence. The records were lost, so I can only speculate about the reasons.

After his release, he married again. This marriage was brief and childless, and ended in an annulment.

His third marriage was tumultuous and produced two children. His wife, a reputedly beautiful welder in a factory, filed for divorce three times.

When the divorce was eventually finalized, my father had abandoned the family without support two years prior. He didn't even show up for the proceedings.

The divorce papers are telling. In those days, you had to show cause for getting a divorce. His wife had plenty. Court papers say my father drank to excess, disappeared for days at a time and returned spoiling for a fight. He heaped abuses "too vile" to be printed in court documents. There were physical abuses and "acts of cruel and inhuman treatment."

These abuses, the complaint claims, caused his wife to "become nervous and lose weight" and left her "sick and broken in mind and body."

Just a few months after the divorce was final, he got a young woman (my mother) pregnant. She was a young physical therapist. He was 36 and working as a warehouseman for the temporary agency Manpower. They got married.

The marriage didn't last long. But at the end, my mother committed herself to a mental hospital for shock treatments and agreed to my father's suggestion that she sign over custody of me to my grandmother. At the time of the divorce, my grandmother was given legal custody.

My grandmother sounded like a classic Al-Anon. In a letter to her lawyer, my mother describes her as "domineering."

In a letter to my mother, my grandmother describes finding my father and his third wife living in squalor with a sick child, "a cold wind blowing under the door." She bought them a house and a TV.

In a drunken rage, she wrote, my father had smashed the TV. At one point, she found the house trashed and abandoned. His wife had said my father had made such a fool of himself, he was ashamed to face the neighbors.

A clearer picture began to emerge.

My husband wondered why I kept digging.

"Don't you find it depressing?" he wanted to know.

But I didn't. I wanted some answers. Even then, I had romanticized my father. I fancied that I looked like him, was smart like him, inherited his restless gene. I wanted to know who this man was. Now I knew. I could let him, and the fantasy, go.

Of course, I had more to process. Al-Anon helped with that. More than anything, Al-Anon helped me see my father with compassion. Compassion for the shame he must have felt. Compassion that he never found a solution.

Not everyone was meant to be saved. For some reason, I escaped the compulsion to drink. And for some reason, I found my way into a program that has taught me a better way to live than he knew, or my grandmother or my mother. I don't know why God chose me. But I am grateful.

Are You An Al-Anon-aholic?

2010-06-17T06:04:00.000-07:00

Before Al-Anon, I had read checklists for the characteristics of adult children of alcoholics and never particularly saw myself in them. I remember one particularly memorable time when I friend sat me down and made me read a checklist off the back of a book. I was unimpressed.

"What about this?" he kept asking.

"That doesn't describe me," I'd respond.

He tried to insist. It only irritated me. Of course, he was right. That was my denial.

But the other day when I came across a quiz to determine whether I was a workaholic, I was astounded by well I recognized myself in the questions. Here's a sampling.

* I prefer to do most things rather than ask for help
* I overcommit myself by biting off more than I can chew.
* I spend a lot of time mentally planning and thinking about future events while tuning out the here and now.
* I get upset in a situations where I cannot be in control.
* I tend to put myself under self-imposed deadlines.
* I spend more time working than socializing with friends or on hobbies or leisure activities.
* I get upset with myself for making even the smallest mistake.
* I make important decisions before I have all the facts and have a chance to think them through.

As I took the quiz, I couldn't help thinking the quiz might as well have said "Are you an Al-Anon?"

Out of curiosity, I printed out an Al-Anon checklist. There were really only two questions that directly correlated.

* Do you overextend yourself?
* Do you have a need for perfection?

Still.

I held my breath and tried to take the quiz honestly, giving each question a response of 1 (never true) to 4 (always true). I could see that, if not for the program, my scores on each question would be much higher. This quiz would be a kind of "Does Al-Anon work for you?" test.

To my relief, my final score placed me in the category that said "You are probably a hard worker instead of a workaholic. You needn't worry that your work style will negatively affect yourself or others."

Phew. I guess I got my daily reprieve that day, because I know those character defects are still just under the surface.

The reading in "Hope for Today" was particularly pertinent. It said "[My shortcomings] are not magically, completely and irrevocably banished from my life. If this truly were the case, I wouldn't take them back on occasion. However, my Higher Power does separate my defects from me.... The concrete action of setting them aside becomes apparent as I work on the program on a daily basis."

It works if you work it.

BTW, the acronym for this assessment is WART, which struck me as appropriate. It's a kind of inventory of my warts.

I'm going to keep this quiz. I imagine coming across it at some future date. Then I will read the questions and hold my breath, and see how I do on that day.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the suggestions that accompany the article could also have come straight from Al-Anon: Manage expectations, Breathe (as in meditation), Practice mindfulness.

Good advice.

Hubby and I will be practicing just these things up at the land. I hope you all have a great week, and I'll stop in for a visit on our return.

What I Got

2010-06-16T06:01:00.000-07:00

Hearing my sponsee's fifth step on Sunday got me to thinking about the type of Al-Anon I am and what I got from my character defects.

In alcoholic families, different family members take on different roles. Each role plays an important part in keeping the family together. At different times in my life I have been all of them.

When I was very young I was the quiet child, who was no trouble to anyone. As a teenager, I became the wild child, the one who gave the family purpose. As I got older, and especially when my daughter struggled with her own addictions, I became the hero, the fixer, The Doer Of Things That Needed To Be Done.

I've said before that this role left me exhausted and resentful, because control turned out to be an illusion. But I clung to this role because I got something from it.

There's tremendous ego gratification in being the hero. For starters, I was the command post in any crisis. I was always at the center of things, and so all information flowed through me. There's a tremendous feeling of power in that.

I saw myself as the high-functioning person amidst the dysfunction. I got to feel superior.

People I loved came to me for help. And I helped them.

And here's the rub. I was good it. I couldn't fix my daughter, but I was good at finding solutions to the trouble she found herself in. It was a role I grabbed and held onto fiercely, but others were happy to give it to me. I had support and encouragement.

"Get your mother on it," my ex-husband used to say to my daughter. Because I was capable. I swooped in with my checklist and my computer and my cellphone, and we were going to do this thing, whatever I decided it was.

Different players had their own motives for allowing me this role. I imagine my ex-husband was relieved that Things Were Being Taken Care Of, and that he didn't have to do it. My daughter got my undivided attention. In return, I got her gratitude. She owed me one. It was a rush. And I didn't have to think about my own issues.

It was a closed feedback loop. The system fed itself. And that's the problem with character defects. In a way I was the victim of my own success. I got so much from behaving that way. Why would I want to give all of that up?

Only it didn't work. Not really. Nothing really changed. At least not for long.

But the ego! So hard to let it go. I had to pry my fingers off the wheel at first. Before I became willing, life had to bring me to my knees.

At first, surrender felt like raising the white flag on a battlefield. Not so much "I surrender" but rather "I give up!"

In order to give up all I got in this role, I had to replace it with something else. Attending meetings, working the steps, building a relationship with my Higher Power provided those things.

The lure of The Other Way was still strong. But after a while, the siren song of the old ways grew more faint. Slowly, slowly I became entirely ready to have God remove these defects of character. Finally, finally, I started to enjoy the ride.

Attraction

2010-06-15T05:52:00.000-07:00

The prison meeting seemed to have taken a turn last night.

The inmates have really taken responsibility for the meeting. The chairperson actually read a page out of "Courage to Change" and shared on what was in the book instead of trying to find a page that would fit the drama she wanted to share and, failing that, sharing on that drama anyway. We talked about solutions.

The women seemed to listen more intently to what my Al-Anon partner and I had to share.

The one woman who had attended our meeting faithfully is getting out in a few days. There was one meeting in which she was the only one in attendance, and we wondered what would happen to the meeting when she left.

But there was another woman there tonight who attended her sixth meeting and so "earned" her book. I heard her share for the first time. She stepped up and took over the meeting folder. And when another inmate who had sometimes attended was not available, she went and found a newcomer. So we had a little meeting of five: three inmates, plus my Al-Anon partner and me. And it was a good meeting.

The topic was yesterday's reading in "Courage to Change." It was about attraction rather than promotion, and I could have written it. It told my story.

When I was new in Al-Anon, I went through what I call my evangelistic period. I was so delighted to have found a solution, that I wanted to share it with everyone else. My son-in-law used to call regularly during that time begging me to "do something" about my daughter. He thought I had some special power over her. I must have given him that idea. I thought I did, too.

I remember clearly that I was taking an evening class. I came back to my car one night to find my phone beeping to alert me to a missed call. It was my son-in-law. There had been bigger-than-usual drama.

I told him I had been going to Al-Anon. I explained that my daughter was an addict and what he was seeing was addict behavior. I told him that I could not fix it, and either could he. I told him he needed to go to Al-Anon in the most urgent terms. Then I sent him literature.

The next time he called I told him he needed to go to Al-Anon.

I see now that I did that because I was still thought I knew what was best for everyone. I was still trying to control.

Of course it did as much good as telling my daughter that she needed to go to an NA meeting or call her sponsor. My son-in-law never went to Al-Anon, which distressed me just as much.

My sponsor explained gently, "You've told him, now let it go."

That's when she told me the "say it once" rule. I've found that it's usually best for me to keep my opinions to myself. But if I feel I absolutely must say something, I can only say it once. If I say it twice, it's a yellow flag. Three times and I'm definitely trying to control.

What I still didn't understand was the tradition of attraction rather than promotion. I already knew what that looked like, I just didn't realize it.

I had attended several NA meetings with my daughter and was impressed by what I heard. These people seemed grounded and wise.

I didn't think there was anything wrong with me. My daughter was the one with the problem.

But I could see that these people had something I didn't and I wanted what they had. So when my daughter's sponsor suggested I go to Al-Anon, I could hardly wait to go. I understood that if I did, I could have what they had, too.

My daughter didn't stay in NA, but went to Al-Anon and stuck.

The last time my daughter visited, she went to Al-Anon meetings with me. I didn't suggest it. I simply said I was going to a meeting, as I always did on those nights. She wanted to come.

When she left, she told me I was inspiring.

Inspiring.

That was new. She used to tell me in great detail all the ways she didn't want to be like me. I could only hope that one day she'd want what I had.

And eventually, she did. Last I heard, she sober for the first time in a long time, back in NA and AA and "into it." I say last I heard because I don't ask her about it when I talk to her. I leave that between her and God.

That's how it works.

The Poo Problem

2010-06-14T07:34:00.000-07:00

I heard something truly shocking yesterday.

I had called an Al-Anon member who had recently moved here from another state to ask him to be a speaker at my Alateen meeting. We had struck up a conversation in the parking lot on the way to my meeting on Monday night.

He was 19 years sober in AA and had 18 years in Al-Anon. The Alateen sponsors in my group had decided on a mix of AA and Al-Anon speakers and, combining both, he seemed perfect. Then he told me he had been an Alateen sponsor. It felt like a God thing.

But that's not the shocking part. What he said on the phone is that he felt comfortable approaching me in the parking lot because he had seen me at other meetings and found me "friendly and approachable."

That makes three times in recent memory people have referred to me that way. They used those exact words: friendly and approachable.

And that's the shocking part. Because I've never been what people call "friendly and approachable." They've always used other words to describe me. Words like "aloof."

I never meant to be aloof, but that was the pronouncement. It's been one of the constants in my life.

A couple of weeks ago, after I shared on the topic of selfishness, a sponsee told me she couldn't even imagine me being selfish.

I was speechless.

So the question is: Who is the person people are talking about? And what have they done with me?

Change has been a lot on my mind these days. Change used to be another constant in my life. I changed jobs, relationships, cities. I liked to say I was born with track shoes on. I was always running.

These days, I'm as settled as I've ever been. I've lived in this house longer than I've lived anywhere in my life. I've been happily married for years now. But it seems change is still a constant. It's just a different kind of change.

It reminded me of a story I heard recently about a zoo. Seems the zoo had a $60,000 problem. That's how much the landfill charged it to dispose of its poo.

Then someone had the idea to compost the poo. It became a hot commodity. People lined up around the block to get bags of composted zoo poo for their gardens. After deducting expenses, the new poo netted the zoo $20,000.

The problem was utterly transformed from a liability to an asset.

And this is poo we're talking about. Excrement. Waste.

So this is what I was thinking about yesterday. I had spent the afternoon listening to a sponsee's fifth step. As is the tradition in my line of sponsorship, I presented her with the gift of a butterfly to symbolize her shedding of old skin in preparation for spiritual rebirth.

Because that's what the program gives us. New life. The old stuff, our character defects, get thrown on the great compost heap of the program and are transformed into something valuable. The liabilities of our past become our greatest assets.

I can't think of anything more remarkable. Shocking, really.

Let It Begin With Me

2010-06-13T08:34:00.000-07:00

I have been pummeled by this slogan lately, which is usually a sign I need to pay attention. But I can be a little slow on the uptake. Fortunately for me, my God is patient and persistent, and He has a sense of humor.

Here’s a brief recap of my recent history with this slogan. It was the topic of my meeting last Monday night. The next day my sponsor blogged about it. On Wednesday, the meeting topic was slogans, all of them. Participants were invited to talk about whichever slogan spoke to them. Guess what? One of them was “Let it Begin with Me.” Then, this morning, I picked up a current meeting list to give to a sponsee. The slogan on the cover? Well, you know. I don’t need to hit you over the head with it.

But God sometimes has to hit me over the head.

You see, I’ve been praying for some time about what to do about a key relationship in my life. I’ve been wondering if this relationship is still meeting my needs. I’ve been praying about it. Asking for guidance. Then I got it.

A program friend brought up a relationship she wasn’t sure was meeting her needs or her expectations. She had relationship envy. She had been observing the same relationship among some of her other program friends and those relationships seemed better and more satisfying.

Setting aside the problem of comparing her insides with another’s outsides, I reminded her that she was the one who had withdrawn from the relationship in question. I didn’t say “Let it Begin with Me,” but I could have.

Then it hit me. I had answered my own question. Since I wasn’t listening to all of the messages He had been sending me, God put the answer in my own mouth.

I was the one who had withdrawn from the relationship in question. If I didn’t like the current state of affairs, I had to “Let it Begin with Me.”

I looked up the slogan in “How Al-Anon Works” and found it full of fresh meaning. Ironically, I had highlighted the very phrases that were appropriate to my situation. But I’m a great forgetter. Sometimes I need to be reminded.

Here are a few things the book says:

“When we are tempted to blame others for our problems or to justify our own poor behavior by pointing to the poor behavior of others, this slogan reminds us where our focus rightfully belongs…. ‘Let it begin with me’ is a way to change the things we can—especially our own attitudes—instead of waiting for everyone else to change to suit us.

This is like going hungry while waiting for someone who doesn’t cook to make dinner. ‘Let it begin with me’ might suggest that we go ahead and cook for ourselves, go out for dinner, or make plans with someone who cooks. In short, we take responsibility for getting our own needs met.”

So today, I will “Let it Begin with Me.”

Thanks to all of you who left such thoughtful comments concerning memorable posts. I hope to catch up with all of you in the next couple of days.

Wash Your Hands of It

2010-06-09T06:25:00.000-07:00

This isn't Al-Anon, but it's interesting.

I read this recently in The Wall Street Journal. Research has found that when subjects washed their hands after making a difficult moral decision, they felt less guilty about it. A recent study found the same for non-moral decisions. It was a small study, and didn't compare washing hands to other activities with no relation to cleansing. Still.

When I have a difficult decision to make, I always pray and meditate on it until the way seems clear. Then I turn it over to God.

Next time, I'll also "wash my hands of it." I like the idea that the act is symbolic of "cleansing and purifying." And who knows? I might also ward off a cold.

I have a question for regular readers. Is there a past post you've found memorable? I've been asked to submit some posts for an E-zine and find that I'm a poor judge of my own work.

So, without making this seem like a homework assignment, is there something that comes to mind? If so, I hope you'll leave me a comment. Thank you.

Hubby and I are off to the land of no computers. I'll drop in for a return visit when we return. Till then, take good care.

Standing on Ceremony

2010-06-07T13:15:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, I wrote a story about the chief judge of one of the Native tribes in Arizona. He is a remarkable man, a graduate of Stanford and Harvard, and the first in his tribe to have graduated from law school. From the bench, he gained a unique perspective of the tribe’s problems.

He told me that 99.9 percent of the crimes he passed judgment on were the result of alcohol, either directly or indirectly.

"We’re a nation of adult children of alcoholics," he said.

This judge was very interested in Native traditions, especially ceremonies, and developed a court system that would incorporate those elements.

But what stuck with me at a practical level was what he had to say about ceremony. At Stanford, he taught a course on the subject which, he says, basically comes down to four things:

1. Purifying and cleansing
2. Putting things in order
3. Remembering and reconnecting
4. Prayer and meditation

In his class, he encouraged people to create their own ceremony using these elements. He told them not to overthink it. To keep it simple.

Wash the dishes, he said as an example. Then put them away.

When you wash the dishes, you are cleansing and purifying. When you put them away, you are putting things in order, restoring them to their proper place.

A program friend recently lamented that her job mostly consisted of cleaning. She was grateful to have any kind of job, of course, but this didn’t feel very satisfying.

I told her the story about my judge friend and his view of ceremony. I said it had helped me to reframe the way I think about things I need to do.

When I’m doing the dishes and feeling resentful about it, I think of the judge. I remind myself that I can think about it as doing a dirty job I'd rather not do. Or I can think of it as ceremony.

If I think of washing the dishes as ceremony, it changes the way I feel about my task, instantly. It transforms the ordinary into something sacred.

I’m powerless over many of the things I have to do in my life. But I can change the way I think about them. That’s the one thing that's within my power, always.

The Daily Reprieve

2010-06-06T07:12:00.001-07:00

When programs friends or sponsees who have been doing well call at unscheduled hours to say that they are depressed or that obsessive thoughts have returned, I generally start by asking one question:

How’s your prayer life?

The longer I’m in the program the more important this question seems to me. This isn’t a disease we cure. We only get a daily reprieve based on our spiritual condition. And that means exercising our spirit every day.

When I agree to take on new sponsees, here’s what I recommend:

Pray on your knees, at least once a day
Go to two Al-Anon meetings and one open AA meeting every week
Buy one of Al-Anon’s books of daily meditations and read it every day
Practice gratitude, actively, by writing a daily gratitude list

Those are the basics. And when people who have been doing well, suddenly aren’t, I have found they’ve stopped doing one (or several) of these things as regularly as they once did.

There are often good reasons for that. But the result is the same.

It happened to me several months ago during a bout of what may have been the swine flu. I was unable to get out of bed for two weeks. My only prayers were a fevered “God, just take me now.”

I didn’t attend a meeting, read any literature, talk to my sponsor. Then I got a phone call from my daughter with a request that threw me for a loop. She wanted money. It seemed like for a good reason. I didn’t know what to do.

I couldn’t reach my sponsor. My mind started its familiar spin cycle, its obsessive feedback loop. By the time my sponsor called, I had sent money and was agonizing over whether I should send more.

It took her about two seconds for my sponsor to set me straight. She reminded me that the reason my daughter needed money was because she had taken certain actions. What she was experiencing were the consequences of those actions.

Oh, yeah. I thought. Duh.

But without the tools of the program, I couldn’t think about it clearly.

I’ve seen much more dramatic examples from people who have been in the program for much longer. People who work a good program.

A very dear friend fell dramatically off the beam after she stopped praying. She experienced a storm of difficulties and after one particular incident, she just couldn’t pray. Then she started skipping meetings here and there. I visited her after an elective surgery and was surprised to find her completely undone.

Through it all, she could still give good program advice. She had been in the program a long time. She knew Al-Anon chapter and verse. But this is a program of action. Knowing everything about recovery doesn’t do a bit of good without taking the actions we’re taught in this program.

Or as I read in another blog recently, God will put wind in your sails, but he won’t raise the sail.

Another friend admitted that after 16 years in the program, he had to call his sponsor and “turn himself in.” He had lost his faith.

She had him rework step 2. At the same time, he was working with a sponsee on the same step. God makes no mistakes.

He asked himself: What did I do when I was new?

The answer:
I prayed on my knees
I went to meetings
I read Al-Anon literature
I practiced gratitude

He did those things and climbed back on the beam.

Let’s Talk about Sex

2010-06-05T07:52:00.000-07:00

I will begin by saying, in the tradition of public broadcast, that while this post does not contain content of a graphic nature, it does contain themes that may not be suitable for younger readers.

There is no part of our lives in recovery that we do not examine. So eventually, we need to talk about sex.

I’ve just completed my annual fourth step. This one was an AA-style inventory right out of the Big Book.

To be honest, I was a little skeptical that it would reveal anything I hadn’t already dealt with in my first fourth step, which I wrote in narrative form. But I prayed that God would reveal what needed to be revealed, took the action and waited to see what came up.

To my surprise, by putting things in a different format I saw different things. Nowhere was that more apparent than in the part of the inventory the Big Book refers to as “Sex Problems.” (Found on page 69, of course.)

Interestingly, that was the part of the Big Book we read and discussed at my last Big Book study. So it was fresh in my mind as I sat down to my task.

In the first column, I was to review my past conduct and indicate where I was selfish, dishonest or inconsiderate. Where did I unjustifiably arouse jealousy, suspicion or bitterness?

There was no new ground to tread. I had revealed every sordid event in great detail in my first fourth step. But in such a condensed form, a few things stuck out.

The first is that I have behaved very badly. No surprise there. But seeing my behavior in it’s most concentrated form was bracing.

But the real insight I gained is that most of the sex I’ve had in my life, I didn’t enjoy. Rather, I used sex as a tool. I used it to draw men into a relationship with me. I used sex to keep men in relationships and to lure them back when things got bad. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it was spectacularly unsuccessful and just left me filled with shame.

I believe my sexuality was God-given. But that gift became twisted and distorted as a result of sexual abuse at a very early age.

I did things I didn’t want to do, because I thought it would bring me love and allow me to keep it.

Of course, I was trying to fill the God-sized hole I felt with another person. When one person wasn’t enough to fill the hole, I thought more would be the answer. Or doing more or different or more exotic sex acts with the same one. Of course that only filled me with more shame and left a bigger hole.

I just kept digging a deeper, wider hole in a cycle of self-destruction that didn’t stop until I began to feel my first spiritual stirrings. That path eventually led me to Al-Anon and recovery.

I stopped behaving in self-destructive ways. I learned what a healthy relationship looked like. I’ve been blessed with a happy marriage for going on eight years.

But what I didn’t realize until now was this:

Without going into the details that have no place here, I will simply say that God, in his wisdom, took away the one weapon I had deployed in all my relationships. In my marriage, I could not use sex in this way. It simply had no power.

And I was loved and accepted anyway.

What I learned is that love and acceptance are like God’s grace. It’s not something I can earn by doing things I imagine someone else wants me to do. But if I make myself right spiritually, it is a gift that is freely given.

And for that, I thank God.

The Breakfast Club

2010-06-04T06:12:00.001-07:00

I attended my first Alateen meeting last night.

When I walked in, my first thought was "Breakfast Club." There were a couple of kids with gloves with the fingertips cut off. Three of them wore winter hats, one with ear flaps.

Should I mention the temps hit 100 yesterday?

I tried not to stare at one girl, whose side part seemed to originate at about her ear. I kept looking to see how she kept her hair from cascading down her face.

One of the older boys brought his new iPad. Another showed the other Alateen sponsor pictures of his new dog on his cellphone.

After my certification training and my conversation with my sponsor, I had certain expectations. (I cringe to have to write this, but it's true.)

I was surprised to find kids ranging to 8 to 18. There are differing thoughts on this. At the certification training, the Alateen coordinator said that groups are often age segregated, as the things the older kids want to talk about is not always appropriate for the younger ones. She also said the older kids use a fair amount of profanity.

"Don't expect them to behave like adults in an Al-Anon meeting," she said. "They will sit on each other's laps. They will be texting while other people are talking. This will bother no one but you. Don't think they are not also listening."

The Alateen sponsor last night told me that this group used to start the meeting together, then break up into two, age-segregated groups, but they haven't had enough certified sponsors to do this for some time.

But the kids were all respectful. One boy started to say a swear, but caught himself. They all seemed to like and care about each other, and to want to be there. They had voted not to allow texting during the meeting, and the chairperson (an Alateen) enforced the rule.

At the appropriate time, the other Alateen sponsor introduced me and asked me to say a little about myself. I said that I was recently certified as an Alateen sponsor. (At this point, the boy next to me offered me his fist in congratulations, which I bumped with my own.) I said I had grown up in an alcoholic home, that I had been in the program for a couple of years, that my daughter was the reason I was in Al-Anon, that I was happy to be there.

The other sponsor explained that they would get to vote me in.

"You don't have to take what we give you," she said.

"I vote for her," the boy next to me said.

"Well, let's wait until we know she's interested," replied the other Alateen sponsor.

"Are you interested?" a boy sitting across the table wanted to know. His gaze felt intense. The room got quiet.

"Yes," I said. "As a matter of fact I am."

"Okay, then," the boy said, slapping the table. "I vote yes."

Then hands went up around the room and there was a little cheer and they boy next to me said, "There, now you're in. You can't back out of it."

The kids run their own meetings, and the chairperson shared on the topics of laziness and trust. They passed by getting up and hugging the person they were passing to.

There was a lot of giggling and side whispering which, as the Alateen coordinator had said, seemed to bother no one but me. The kids all shared, but one, who asked the other Alateen sponsor if she was allowed to pass. They seemed to talk easily and honestly.

Laziness was the chief topic. They confessed to not doing their homework and barely passing classes as a result, cleaning their rooms by stuffing everything in the closet. One girl said it took her, "seriously" all day to clean her hamster's cage, while it took her mom just an hour. The older kids talked about putting off filing financial aid paperwork, looking into colleges, looking for jobs.

As for trust, more than one kid said, "I trust you guys."

The girl with the side part shared that she had invited a friend to the meeting, whose parents were alcoholics. "It's really fun and awesome," she told her friend. But her friend didn't want to go because "then everybody would know. It was sad."

After all the kids had shared, the other Alateen sponsor shared. Then she passed to me.

She did this with by offering me her fist. I hit her fist with mine, and then we both opened our hands flat, as the kids had taught us to do. We both laughed as we did it.

While I talked, kids looked at the table or their hands or fidgeted with the tassels on their hat. They sneaked sideways glances at me. But they got quiet. I could almost hear the Alateen coordinator say, "Don't think they're not listening."

Then we all shared "happys and crappys," of each. Me included. My happy was that I had been voted in, and they all cheered.

Entirely Ready

2010-06-02T05:49:00.000-07:00

A relative newcomer in Al-Anon once confessed to me her reluctance about steps six and seven.

If God removed her defects of character, she wondered. What would be left of her? Would she be full of holes like a piece of Swiss cheese?

At the time, I confess that I couldn’t relate. Of course you won’t be like a piece of Swiss cheese, I answered. You’ll be the person you’ve always been, just without the character traits that have gotten in your way.

I sailed through step six. I couldn’t wait to humbly ask God to remove my shortcomings. I knew them all too well:

I was controlling, introverted and selfish.

I knew those character defects had started as self-defense mechanisms. I tried to control things because life in the family I grew up in felt so out of control.

I became introverted because I had learned early in my life that I could not count on other people. Life became easier and less painful when I relied only on myself.

I was selfish, because when I was growing up, it felt like there was never enough. There wasn’t enough money or time or love. So I horded these things. I was afraid that if I gave them away, there wouldn’t be enough for me.

I also knew those self-defense mechanisms had overshot the mark. Now, they just got in my way.

Good riddance, I said. I’m ready. Bring on step seven.

But as I got farther into my program and started to gain more insight, I realized that those obvious defects of character were just the beginning. One by one, I began to see how traits that I believed to be at the core of my very nature seemed to have been shaped by this disease.

There was my restlessness and need for constant change.

My serious nature.

My love of quiet and solitude.

Even my love of stories. I was an English major. I became a journalist. One of my greatest pleasures is reading. I couldn’t think of anything that was more central to my nature. But was that innate, or had it been an escape? I couldn’t be sure.

A some point, I made a list of the characteristics I was sure were not shaped by alcoholism. My list included my shoe size, my eye color and my IQ. The rest was pretty much up for debate.

I started to think that newcomer had been more perceptive than I had been.

For the first time, I realized I had no idea who I really was under all those layers. But I did believe that God could restore me.

And I could hardly wait to meet myself.

In the process, what I learned is that God doesn’t remove all my character defects at once. And for everything He took, He left something in its place.

As I became less introverted, I became more loving. As I became less selfish, I became more generous. As I became less controlling, I made room in my life for spontaneity and guidance from my Higher Power.

In every case, God didn’t leave me with holes. He left me whole.

And, no matter where I was in my program, He only removed my defects when I was entirely ready.

Grace Calling

2010-06-02T05:45:00.001-07:00

God came calling the other day.

At least I’m pretty sure it was Him. Sometimes it’s hard to be sure. He takes so many forms.

But I’m pretty sure it was Him, because I had been praying for guidance, and this seemed to be His answer.

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you probably know I recently got certified as an Alateen sponsor. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.

Then Alateen certification training just happened to be held on a Saturday I was going to be in town, which was rare. So I went and got certified.

I knew there was a need—a desperate need—for Alateen sponsors in a couple of groups. The problem was that those groups were held on nights that I’m almost never in town. So I’ve been praying about it, knowing that God would put me where he needed me.

Then last Monday, when I saw my sponsor at a meeting, she said: “Remind me to talk to you about Alateen during our call time.”

So I did.

My sponsor has been an Alateen sponsor for three years, in one of the groups where there is a desperate need. At this point feels she’s probably been there too long. She feels burned out. But she’s unwilling to just walk away.

“I know you’re not usually home on Thursdays,” she began. “But I was wondering if you’d be willing to commit to one week a month.”

I had thought about that myself but I worried how my husband would react, and whether one week a month was enough to forge a meaningful relationship with the kids.

But now I was feeling led.

I agreed to talk with my husband about it. As it happened, I knew this weekend we’d be home, so I could attend the meeting and meet the kids.

She told me the meetings varied between 10 and 20 kids each week.

“I have to tell you, it’s a rowdy group,” she said. “That’s part of the reason we’ve had trouble getting sponsors in there. You definitely have to be able to be willing to be tough with them and tell them to cut the crap.”

Yikes! This was beginning to sound tough.

But I reminded myself that God puts me where he needs me. That I always get more than I give. That God doesn’t choose the equipped, he equips the chosen.

I talked to my husband, and he was supportive.

So tomorrow I will attend my first Alateen meeting.

Pray for me.

With Gratitude (from the Prison)

2010-05-26T14:17:00.000-07:00

I stopped by my local Al-Anon information center to pick up prison books today. The woman who works there was glad I did because it cleared up a mystery. She had been receiving anonymous checks from different parts of the country requesting that they be used for copies of "Courage to Change" for the prison program.

When I first checked with her (before I posted about the books), there were four books. Today there were nine.

Those of you who heeded the call, I thank you. Your donations will make a difference in someone's life.

The Trouble With Paradise

2010-05-26T09:33:00.000-07:00

Lately, I’ve been thinking that my recovery has been going pretty well. My daily gratitude list is long. My inventory of fears is short. Most days, I feel happy and serene. And that’s the problem.

It’s a problem because when things start to go too well, I begin to struggle with humility. Once again I begin to think I’m pretty smart, that I have all the answers. I forget that I didn’t get here under my own power.

I came into this program utterly defeated. Life had humbled me. And that was a blessing. Because only then was I willing to try a new way. Being humbled made me teachable.

I heard someone say once that humility is like a mirage. It shimmers off in the distance. As soon as we think we have reached it, we put out our hand to touch it, and it dissolves before our eyes.

It’s been like that for me.

That same person told a story about a pastor of a church who had been declared the most humble pastor in the country by a selection committee that had combed every corner of the land. The congregation was so excited that it had buttons printed up that said “most humble pastor in the country.”

Sadly, the congregation had to fire the pastor when he showed up the next Sunday wearing the button.

And that’s the problem with humility. As soon as I say I have it, that’s pride and ego speaking. The mirage floats away.

I can only keep working on my intention by reminding myself that I only get a daily reprieve based on my spiritual condition, and by realizing that life will not always feel this way.

I will fall off the beam.

This is not projecting. It’s acceptance. I’ve seen it happen to people with many years in the program. And I’ve watched them climb back up using the tools of the program.

When my sponsor presented me with my chip on my last Al-Anon birthday, she said, “If you talk to Kathy, there’s a serenity about her. Maybe that’s the gift of this age.

“Don’t get used to it.”

I wonder if those times we fall off the beam serve the same purpose as the brokenness so many of us feel when we come into these rooms. It reminds us that we are not in charge. That we do not have all the answers. That we don’t do this under our own power.

Until then, the best way I know to find humility is to get on my knees each morning in prayer. Just the act of prayer is an act of humility, because when I pray to God, I admit that I am not God.

And I pray in the position of humility because thoughts follow actions. If I accept the position of humility often enough, long enough, sincerely enough, the feeling will follow.

One day at a time.

Hubby and I are off to the land later today. I hope you all enjoy your Memorial Day weekend. I’ll drop by when we return.

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

2010-05-25T11:04:00.001-07:00

There are certain places I’ve felt instantly, viscerally at home. That’s how I felt about New England and the small town where I lived. Other places took a while. The deep South was a culture shock to a girl who had grown up in L.A. And the sprawling metropolitan desert city I now inhabit? Well let’s just say it had to grow on me.

The thing is, it has. It’s where I belong.

Today, I also feel that way about my Al-Anon home group. I feel a part of things. I feel accepted. I feel loved. But I didn’t always. It wasn’t the group I wanted to make my home group. It was too far away and too late. I wanted to make a different group my home group. One that was closer and earlier and that I loved immediately and with all my heart.

But God had other plans. I couldn’t attend that group regularly. Taking service commitments would have been problematic. But Monday night? I’m almost always home on a Monday night. And over time, God firmly planted me there.

Looking around the room last night, I realized that I couldn’t leave the group if I wanted to. Scattered about the room, I saw most of my little Al-Anon family, five of my six sponsees. They are there every week. The only one who doesn’t attend this meeting lives out of town. So now I’m like a potted plant, and the thing is I’m thriving where I’ve been planted.

That was in keeping with the topic of last night’s meeting. It was yesterday’s reading from “Courage to Change.” It begins:

“In the words of Oscar Wilde, ‘In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. Of the two, the last is much the worse.’

Translation: My will gets me into trouble…. Maybe that’s why not one of the steps talks about carrying out my will.”

The rest of the reading was about learning to let go of self-will and instead seeking the guidance of a Higher Power.

I can relate to this on so many levels. I’ve been trying to impose my will for as long as I’ve drawn breath. In the AA Big Book, that’s referred to as “self-will run riot.”

But today, I can also see how it’s only gotten me into trouble.

Here’s something I came across on a website about Al-Anon. I was directed there by a blogger, but I can’t remember which one, it’s been so long ago.

This quote from a psychologist who specializes in addiction got my attention:

“I do not insist that the patient or I make a clear connection between the patient’s complaints and the presence of alcoholism. I suggest the patient use AlAnon as part of the diagnostic process and I use the familiar recommendation that the person may decide after attending six meetings whether the program seems to be useful.

“Frequently the most useful information emerges from the patient’s reactions to the AlAnon meetings. A feeling of not belonging is usually connected to the sense of estrangement that is common among alcoholic families. If the patient felt burdened by listening to others at a meeting, it is a telltale sign that this person assumes overwhelming responsibility for someone else’s behavior.”

In other words, feeling you don’t belong is a good sign that you do. Hence the recommendation to attend six meetings.

It reminded me of something I heard someone say at a meeting recently. She said Al-Anon had taught her that the right thing to do was often exactly the opposite of what she wanted to do, or did instinctively.

For me, this means that my will and God’s plans are seldom the same. So I don’t use my feelings as a guide as much as I used to. I didn’t “want” to make my Monday night my home group. But God seemed to have other ideas. The circumstances in my life kept pointing me in that direction. So I stayed.

Today I know that God’s surprises always work out better than my plans. I also know that God always wins. Acceptance just makes it easier for me.

Sometimes that just means doing what’s in front of me, asking for the next right action, until God puts something else there. Then I work on that. I don’t see these unplanned interruptions as unwelcome intrusions anymore. I see then as welcome guidance, and I embrace them.

Fear? So what?

2010-05-24T07:09:00.000-07:00

This was a line in a book I just finished. I don't remember the context. Only the line. It's a great one. And it's just how I feel about fear today.

Before Al-Anon, I had a hard time identifying my feelings. Today, I can identify them as well as what's behind them. Usually, if I drill down far enough, I'll hit a well of fear. And then I can let it go.

"That's just fear," I can tell myself.

In this program, I've heard fear referred to as

False
Expectations
Appear
Real

I like this, because I've found that many of my fears are irrational, and most of the things I feared never happened.

In my fourth step inventory, I identified my fears. Through meditation, I got to know them well. Like the Wizard of Oz, I pulled back the curtain to find a homely little man.

"That's what I've been afraid of all this time?" I wanted to laugh.

Fear lost its power over me.

Now when fear wells up, I can face it down.

"I know you," I tell it. "You don't scare me."

Mostly. And on my best days.

Of course, there are days when I am more fearful than others. And as an Al-Anon, I do have fears that are not irrational. Like the fact that my daughter could die from this disease.

But I'm powerless over that. I can turn it over to God. I can pray for acceptance. I can live my life.

Free of fear.

Sages of the Funny Pages

2010-05-22T14:22:00.000-07:00

Every now and then, I come across a cartoon that really speaks to my recovery.

Early in my recovery it was something in the comic strip, "Get Fuzzy." "Get Fuzzy" is about a comic strip writer and his two pets, a not-too-bright dog named Satchel and an malicious cat named Bucky. My husband and I read it because it reminds us of our own pets.

Anyway, for some reason I didn't cut out the strip that day, but I did write out this line and put it in my copy of the Al-Anon daily reader "One Day at a Time."

"I don't feel it's healthy to keep your faults bottled up inside me." --Bucky Kat

I wrote this down because that's, in essence, what I did. I took on things that did not belong to me, and made them mine.

I saw this cartoon in the paper yesterday.

The crab is saying "Ariel!! What did your father tell you about working with humans?"

Ariel answers, "But they really need my help!"

Meanwhile, oil billows out below and the caption reads "The failure of plan ABCDEFGHIJKLM, with all but the last letter crossed out.

I was Ariel, with my hardhat and my wrench and my toolbox naiively rushing out to fix a problem that was beyond my ability to solve.

The caption could have represented all the "fixes" I did that failed to resolve anything.

Ice crystals always developed in my concrete box.

Today's Reminder in ODAT once again tells me "I will apply the wisdom of the First Step (admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable) not only to my relations with the alcoholic, but to all the people and happenings in my life. I will not attempt to manage or control what is clearly beyond my powers; I will dedicate myself to managing my own life, and only mine."

Today, I still have my toolbox. But I've replaced the tools with those I've acquired in Al-Anon. And the only person I use them on is myself.

Needed: Courage to Change

2010-05-19T06:08:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things about Al-Anon is the Just for Todays.

Since my first Al-Anon meeting, I have thought they contained the recipe for a good life.

The only thing was, how could anyone possibly do those all those things every day? I mean, spending "a quiet half-hour all myself" to relax sounds like heaven. But some days I could barely manage to get dinner on the table, nevermind a quiet half hour.

Then there was this one:

"Just for Today, I will do someone a good turn and not get found out."

That was the one I couldn't get my head around. I wasn't that creative. How could I think of something like that to do every day?

Then, at a meeting, the woman who was delivering a greeting for the newcomers talked about the Just for Todays. She said the suggestion she had been given was to focus on just one of those Just for Todays each day.

"Some days, it's all I can do just to 'be courteous and criticize not one bit,'" I remember her saying.

I was grateful for that bit of advice. But I confess it allowed me to pick and choose the Just for Todays I liked the best.

Doing someone a good turn and not get found out still bedevils me.

If it bedevils you, too, I can offer a suggestion.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know of the Al-Anon service work that I do in the state prison, and you no doubt remember that the meeting I attend struggles with attendance. But that's not the case with all the meetings.

There are six different facilities in the prison, and each of them has an Al-Anon program. Some of them are quite large and growing. The prison coordinator, who is my Al-Anon partner at the meeting I attend, told me they are struggling to fill the demand for books.

At this point, the prison has only authorized the book "Courage to Change."

When they attend Al-Anon meetings, inmates bring an attendance sheet that is signed by the Al-Anon volunteers at the meeting. Once they have attended six meetings, they are given a book.

The only problem is that there haven't been enough book donations to cover the number of inmates who have earned them.

The prison coordinator, who lives in a different district closer to the prison, asked me to coordinate a donation effort in my district. I'm doing that.

But I thought I'd also bring my appeal here.

If you're looking for a way to be of service, that won't cost you much in time or money but that could make a big difference in someone's life, I'd ask you to consider the donation of a new or used "Courage to Change."

My local Al-Anon information center stores the books for the prison program. If you are interested in helping, I'd ask that you send a copy of "Courage to Change" or a check for $12 with a note that you'd like to purchase a copy of "Courage to Change" for the prison. In either case, please be sure to clearly indicate that you intend your donation for the prison program.

Here's the address:

East Valley Al-Anon Information Center 1320E Broadway Rd, Ste #109, Mesa AZ 85204

Thank you.

Hubby and I are off on assignment later today and will be gone for a few days. I hope you all stay well. I'll drop by for a visit when we return.

Spring Cleaning

2010-05-18T06:27:00.000-07:00

Having recently had my birthday, I’m in the process of a new fourth step.

In my line of sponsorship, we do a new fourth step every year, once we finish working the steps.

The first is a narrative fourth step. The second is an AA-style inventory taken straight out of the Big Book. Every year after that, we begin “peeling the onion,” as my sponsor puts it, by taking a focused topic and doing an inventory on that topic.

Doing this second inventory is interesting to me. Having a different format makes me think of things a little differently. Some things I hadn’t addressed directly and straightforwardly in my first fourth step, like my fears. Though they lingered on every page.

But what strikes me most about this time around is how much lighter it feels.

My first inventory felt like that kind of cleaning and organizing that requires months of work in little pieces, moving from room to room to decide what to keep, what to donate, what to throw away.

It felt overwhelming at times. So much had accumulated.

I felt like one of those garage renovation projects you see on TV, where a consultant comes in toting heavy equipment, armed with tips, hooks, plastic boxes and a label maker.

In the thick of things, it gets messy. Stuff is strewn in piles all over the driveway and lawn. It seems things will never get put back together. Then there’s the shot at the end: the floor is clean, the bikes and garden tools are neatly organized and hung up in their places, and the owner drives the car into the garage for the first time in years.

That’s what my first inventory felt like.

This time feels more like a good spring cleaning. There are a few cobwebs. The shelves have gotten dusty. I’ve let some of the junk mail pile up.

But it’s more like a Saturday job. Easily managed with a little help from Mr. Clean. It’s the kind of spring cleaning that makes you feel good, even as you’re doing it.

Then, at the end of the day, you collapse into a chair with your favorite tea, the scent of pine cleaner still in the air. The muscles might feel a little sore. But only a little, and in a good way.

Thanks a Lot!

2010-05-17T06:36:00.001-07:00

“Sponsorship is not placing someone in authority over you; it’s asking someone to hold you accountable.”

I got this definition from Mr. Sponsorpants, and I liked it so much, I wrote it down and taped it to my computer.

Funny thing is how well it works in reverse.

My sponsor used to tell me that one day I’d be blessed with a bug that was attracted to my light. That’s how she described her sponsees, as her little bugs.

I hoped so. I had no idea how well I’d be blessed.

Sponsorship is truly a case of getting back more than I give. It’s a case of getting back what I didn’t know I needed.

I thought about this weekend as I received a gratitude list from a sponsee.

I usually talk about gratitude early on with my sponsees under the category of recommended practices:

Attend two Al-Anon meetings and one open AA or NA meeting a week, pray on your knees at least once a day, read one of Al-Anon’s books of daily meditations each day and practice some form of gratitude every day.

I usually leave the gratitude part open ended. I suggest they might put their gratitude list in a prayer, write it in a journal, post it on the Internet, e-mail it to someone. “Try different things and do what works for you,” I say.

My own method has always been to pray my gratitude list first thing in the morning. I try to limit it to things I’m grateful for for the last 24 hours, to keep from repeating myself. I can always fall back on “that I have a roof over my head, that I have enough to eat, reliable transportation, my husband…” the things I’m grateful for every day. But I try to stretch myself.

It’s worked for me. The more I practice gratitude, the more grateful I become. I begin to see gratitude in everything.

Sometimes, with my sponsees, gratitude is prescriptive. If a sponsee is really down and can’t seem to see anything positive, I usually start asking questions about their gratitude practice.

One sponsee, in particular, was having a problem with her practice. She could never think of anything to put on the list beyond one thing, and it was the same thing every day.

“Is she e-mailing you her list?” my sponsor asked when I talked with her about it. “She needs to be accountable.”

And that’s how it started. She e-mailed me a list. I e-mailed one back.

I e-mailed my list to encourage her and to give her some examples. Perhaps she’d be inspired by something on my list and realize that she, too, was grateful for that.

Funny thing is, the exercise started to affect me in ways I hadn’t envisioned. I never thought I had a problem with gratitude, but sharing my list with someone else brought it to a whole new level.

Gratitude is an intimate thing. If you know what a person is grateful for on a daily basis, you truly know something about their heart. If you share your gratitude with someone else, you begin see the outlines of your own.

I found that the daily contact with my sponsee made me feel closer to her. I knew something about what was happening in her life each and every day. My heart expanded just a little.

So did my gratitude. I found myself noticing things as I went through the day. I was grateful for the bird singing outside my window, for the sharpness of my knife as it flawlessly sliced a tomato. I made mental notes for possible inclusion in my list. But when my sponsee's list came in, I found a whole new list emerged. It’s been fascinating.

So now, I encourage the practice with all my sponsees. With every list I receive, my gratitude expands exponentially.

So today, as I think of gratitude, I realize I am grateful for my sponsees. I'm greateful for their unexpected gifts. I'm grateful for the way they hold me accountable.

Hope for Today

2010-05-15T16:40:00.000-07:00

Up until now, I have studiously avoided Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat, Pray, Love.” It was too much of a sensation. So, like most things that are wildly popular, I viewed it with suspicion. But my stepdaughter insisted, and finally gave me the book. Not to appear rude, I read it. Or I should say, I’m reading it.

Being a blog that chronicles one person's recovery in Al-Anon, I should say upfront that “Eat, Pray, Love” is not Al-Anon conference approved literature. But I found recovery on nearly every page.

That’s one of the blessings of the program, I think. You start to recognize recovery everywhere, even when it goes by another name.

Anyway, I wondered if my stepdaughter knew how well I’d relate to the tale. I don’t think I’m giving too much away. But if you are the last person in America who hasn’t read the book besides me and don’t want to know anything that might possibly spoil it for you, stop reading.

To recap: Woman in her 30s goes through a devastating divorce followed immediately by a passionate, doomed relationship, finds herself in her bathroom on her knees for the first time begging for God’s help. Until this moment, she doesn’t believe in God. She admits to control issues. The word “detachment” leaves her cold. Yet, completely broken, she embarks on a yearlong spiritual journey that includes an ashram in India.

It all sounded eerily familiar.

Except I was in my 40s. Relationship #1 wasn’t a marriage, but close. But there was a tumultuous, doomed rebound relationship, utter brokenness, the desire for answers, and new and sudden belief in God that surprised no one more than me.

Also, while there wasn’t an Ashram in India, there was a fitness spa in Mexico, which, like Gilbert’s journey was financed by a writing assignment. And that’s where my nascent spiritual journey grew legs.

Interestingly, I was attending Al-Anon meetings at the suggestion of a friend. I loved Al-Anon, but I didn’t have an active alcoholic in my life at the time and I hadn’t yet realized that that my problems in relationships had everything to do with the disease of alcoholism.

So I didn’t get a sponsor or work the steps, and I ultimately quit going.

But at this fitness spa, I found beautiful gardens a la “Eat, Pray, Love.” I ate a healthful diet, took daily classes in Yoga and meditation. Participated in a writing workshop. In the evenings, I sat on my casita’s beautiful patio and pondered my life.

It lasted only three days, but I took those new practices home with me. I took more classes in Yoga and meditation. Began to pray regularly, on my knees. Though I wasn’t yet working a program, I read a book about relationships and took the suggestions.

I was willing to try a new way.

Looking back on it now, I see that book as being filled with Al-Anon principles. Listen without interrupting. Don’t jump in to help unless you’re asked. If you are asked for your opinion, give it honestly. If not, keep your mouth shut.

It was the beginning.

And, yes. Like Gilbert, at the end of my nearly yearlong journey I met the man with whom I've been happily married for nearly eight years.

It took another crisis a few years later to bring me to Al-Anon, this time with my daughter. And this time it was obvious that my problem concerned substance abuse. I finally knew I was in the right place.

But before Al-Anon, there were all these other things. The world is full of recovery, when we look.

For all I know, “Eat, Pray, Love” may have inspired a whole movement of spiritual journeys. You never know how seeds get planted, where they will lead, or how they grow.

Sometimes, they even lead into the rooms of Al-Anon.

The Fear Factor, Part 2

2010-05-13T09:25:00.000-07:00

In Al-Anon, we’re taught to get out of God’s way.

What I have come to take as an article of faith is that my alcoholic has her own God and that God is not me. That my daughter’s God has her just where he needs her. That whatever God has arranged in her life is ultimately for her benefit. When I got involved, trying to “help,” I was just getting in God’s way.

When I first came to Al-Anon, I grabbed onto the slogan “Let Go and Let God” like a lifeline. I couldn’t imagine letting go of my daughter to fall into a pit. But I could release her to a loving God. I imagined wrapping her up in a warm, soft blanket and handing her over.

And for the most part, with time and practice, I found peace.

But sometimes fear creeps in. Even now.

When I came into Al-Anon, I thought my daughter surely had reached bottom. Then I watched her situation degrade until it seemed quite dire.

I started to wonder if I shouldn’t be doing something. I began to question whether it was right to do nothing. This is, after all, the worst economy since the Great Depression. Maybe it wasn’t entirely her fault. Maybe she just needed a little help.

Then I remembered all that had come before. All the help she had. All the choices she made. I couldn’t deny that she was where she was as a result of her choices. I also couldn’t deny that every time I “fixed” a crisis, she created another. This wasn’t something I could fix.

In the past month or so, I’ve been aware of a growing anxiety, which is just another name for fear. I believe, absolutely, that fear is simply a lack of faith. So I didn’t work on fear. I worked on faith.

I spent more and more time on my knees. I prayed every prayer I knew: the Lord’s Prayer, the long version of the Serenity Prayer, the prayers for step 3 and 7. The Prayer of St. Frances. The Acceptance Prayer.

I prayed prayers of my own composition. Not for anything specific. I prayed for God’s guidance. I prayed to know his will for me. I prayed the courage to carry that out, whatever it was. I prayed his will be done for my daughter. That he wrap her in His Grace and Mercy.

I got serious about meditation. I took more and longer meditation breaks. I intensified my gratitude practice by moving in from prayers to paper and sharing it with others. I took a daily fear inventory. I wrote my letters to God, per the daily inventory handed down through my line of sponsorship.

Then one day, a woman I hadn’t seen in a while rolled into my Wednesday Al-Anon meeting late. She was pushing a double stroller with two sleeping toddlers. Her hair was tied back carelessly and she wore no makeup. She looked tired. She was a little distracted, making sure the kids were tucked in and comfortable.

This woman is my age, and as far as I knew didn’t have any kids that age, so I imagined that these were her grandkids. When we broke up into groups, she was in mine. She shared that her daughter had overdosed and died just before Thanksgiving. So now she was raising these kids.

She said she was grateful for the Al-Anon program because without it, she never would have had the courage to face this situation.

“I knew people died from this disease,” she said. “I used to say that to other people: People die. But I never thought it would be my daughter."

As she spoke, there was a peacefulness about her. There was acceptance.

As I mentioned, this woman is my age. She also has my name. Her qualifier is her daughter. None of this was lost on me.

I went home and prayed for acceptance.

Then I got a call today from my daughter. She’s in a long-term residential program that provides housing, support in looking for work, and drug and alcohol treatment. She’s been sober for 50 days. Completely sober. No drugs, no alcohol, no psychiatric meds.

"It's been a long time since I've been sober," she admitted.

She has completed parenting classes and is attending the facility's drug and alcohol classes every day in addition to AA and NA meetings. She told me she’s “into it.”

I wanted to cry right there on the phone. Of course, I got down on my knees to send up a prayer of thanks.

I always tell my sponsees that this program is to teach us to be happy whether the alcoholic is drinking or not. Often when we get out of the way, our loves ones find recovery. Sometimes they don’t. We are powerless either way. That's between our loved ones and God.

I accepted the fact that my daughter might always be in the category of “sometimes they don’t.” She still might not. I can’t have any expectations. I only know that this felt like an answer to my prayers.

My fear inventory will be blissfully empty today.

But I know that I only get a daily reprieve based on my spiritual condition. So I will continue to flex those faith and gratitude muscles. I will work on acceptance. No matter what happens.

Hubby and I are off to the land today. I’ll check in with everyone on our return. Meanwhile, take care.

Life is Good

2010-05-12T10:23:00.001-07:00

There’s something about waking up to a nice surprise that sets the tone for the day. So I’m grateful this morning to Shen of Reunited Selves for the honor of this “Life is Good” award. Thank you, Shen.

The award requires that I answer a few questions and pass the award along to other bloggers, so here goes:

1. What would you perfect day consist of?

A quiet, early morning spent in unhurried prayer and meditation. A bit of time spent writing and checking in on blogging friends. Curling up on a comfortable chair in the back yard with a good book. Some time spent with people I enjoy, particularly if it involves good food that I don’t have to cook and dishes that I don’t have to wash, followed by a good night’s sleep in the arms of my husband.

2. How would you describe yourself if you were an item of clothing?

Hmmm. I’ve thought of what kind of a tree or bird I might be, but never an article of clothing. Probably a little, loose-fitting sundress—light, comfortable and informal, meant to wear with flip-flops.

3. What hobbies are you currently working on?

Hobbies? Hey, I’m an Al-Anon. The quiet, serious, haven’t-got-time for hobbies type. So the hobby question remains a stumper, and reminds me that God is not finished with me yet. But here are some things I enjoy: being in nature, walking, reading, writing, meditation and prayer, going to meetings, blogging. If any of those things qualify as hobbies, then they are mine.

4. Walking in the woods in wellies or bare foot on the beach?

Not sure I can answer this. These are two of my favorite things, and they represent two parts of my character.

I grew up in Southern California and joined the Navy because it would mean I always lived near water (though it turns out you can be in the Navy and live nowhere near the ocean). To me, the affect of the ocean is meditative. It also makes me feel small. I am reminded how large and unknowable the world is.

On the other hand, I love the woods at an immediate, primal level. I moved to New England and felt I had found my true “home.” I spent hours in the woods and felt peace there, along with moments of pure, unadulterated joy. Where the ocean felt vast and unapproachable, the forest was personal and close.

5. Have you ever hugged or sang to a tree?

Um. No. Sorry. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love trees.

6. Growing your own veggies or nipping to the supermarket?

One of the fondest memories of my childhood was the year my mother planted a vegetable garden. I don’t remember all we had, but I do remember that we grew corn, tomatoes, squash and green beans. The corn grew in rows along the side of the house, and the other vegetables grew in the flower bed. One night, my mom made dinner of nothing but vegetables. Typical kid, I didn’t even like vegetables, but that was one of the best meals in my memory.

In New Hampshire, I had a vegetable garden and I loved it. Every afternoon, my daughter and I would go out into the garden and pick whatever was ripe, and that’s what we’d have for dinner. My daughter used to eat the green beans raw before we even got to the house.

These days, I don’t really have a spot for a garden. I miss it. But my stepdaughter grows vegetables and shares the bounty with us.

7. Have you found anyone exciting in your family tree?

My grandfather (not by blood, but the only grandfather I knew) was a famous bowler. Hank Marino was inducted into the Bowling Hall of Fame and named the best bowler of the first half of the century.

He came to this country from Sicily when he was 11 and didn’t speak English. He earned enough money working as a barber to open his own shop at age 16. He started bowling because a customer of his owned a bowling alley and Grampy thought it only right to return his patronage. He was entirely self-taught.

About 1940, he built a bowling alley in Santa Monica with two partners, one of whom was the silent film star Harold Lloyd. The façade is considered historic from the standpoint of architecture and has been preserved, though the building was first converted to retail space and then to condos.

Grampy had two sons, who never met until his funeral. Oddly, he called them both “Buddy.”

8. Slap up meal in a posh restaurant or fish 'n' chips from the wrapper?

I love a fine meal, but my most memorable food memories involve humble meals. Top of my list was a Maine restaurant I used to always visit on drives up the coast. You could buy a whole lobster for $6. It was served on a paper place with a garden salad and a baked potato, and diners ate on picnic tables.

A close second were the seasonal drive-up restaurants in New England and the northeast, particularly a place called Jumpin Jacks, in Scotia, New York, where my daughter and I used to get grilled cheese sandwiches and root beer floats.

Also, the little mom and pop ice cream places that were all over New England that made their own ice cream on site. One in Jaffrey, New Hampshire comes to mind.

9. Which element do you most resonate with, Earth, Air, Fire or water?

Water. I am drawn to water of all types: ocean, ponds, lakes, rivers. If there is even a little trickle in the creeks on our land, I like to sit where I can hear it to meditate.

10. Do you believe in fairies?

I don’t know much about fairies, but I do believe in angels. I think angels are those people you have fleeting, unexpected encounters with who give you what you most need at the moment you most need it. Then you never see them again.

Now, I’d like to pass this award on to bloggers who remind me that life is, indeed, good. If you don’t accept awards, please know that my heart is in the right place.

Akannie at Elegant Blessings, because her blog always leaves me feeling that life is good.

Louisey at Letting Go: Recovery in the Sunlight, because she writes so beautifully that even ordinary and difficult things strike me as lovely.

Tammy at Finally Free, who inspires me regularly with utter joyfulness in her faith.

Fear and Loathing

2010-05-11T06:27:00.001-07:00

I was glad to see two more inmates at our prison meeting last night. That made three, so there were at least more inmates than Al-Anon volunteers.

It was a good meeting.

Last month, my Al-Anon partner decided it might help to turn control of the meeting over to the inmates. So she gave a folder to the one inmate who attended our last meeting and that inmate seems to have taken her responsibility seriously.

Apparently, on another Monday, the Al-Anon volunteers didn’t come, so she held the meeting herself, with one other inmate.

It’s a humble beginning. But it’s a beginning. And there’s nothing wrong with humble.

I thought last night’s meeting was a good one. There was discussion on a number of topics, but it seemed that the common thread was fear.

I have heard fear described as a primary emotion, and that strikes me as true.

When I have any number of other emotions—resentment, anger—fear is what’s really at the bottom of all of it.

It makes sense to me that the daily inventory that was handed down through my line of sponsorship involves writing five things I’m grateful for and five things I fear every day, because those are two of the biggest things I struggle with as an Al-Anon, and they work in opposition to each other.

What I’ve come to believe in this program is that fear is simply a lack of faith. Because if I believe that God is in charge, that he knows what’s best for me, and that he has arranged everything in my life for my benefit. More than that, if I believe that he has arranged everything in the lives of everyone I love in the same way… Then I cannot be in fear. The only possible response is gratitude.

So for me, fear and gratitude are opposites, and the key to both is faith.

Faith is the greatest gift I’ve received in this program.

Of course, I didn’t just tell myself that one day and believe it. I’ve found that faith and gratitude are like muscles. They get stronger the more they are exercised. So I exercise them daily. I exercise my gratitude muscle with daily prayers of gratitude and with a written gratitude list.

I exercise my faith on my knees and in meditation. I exercised my faith by behaving as if I believed these things, and I found one day that I did. Because the other thing that I learned in this program is that I have to take actions for the feelings to follow. First, I had to try. Then I believed.

Dear Mom...

2010-05-09T08:19:00.000-07:00

Happy Mother’s Day.

It’s hard to believe how much time has passed since you’ve been gone. Ten years this October. It’s gone by in a blink. So much has changed. I finally got married again. He’s a great guy. You’d really like him. We’ve been married going on eight years now. Can you believe it? I can’t.

We started dating as his own mother was dying of cancer. Maybe he sensed I understood what it was like to lose one’s mother. Even if—maybe especially if—that relationship was complicated. Theirs was. So was ours. But I don’t need to tell you that.

If I have any regrets where you are concerned, it would have to be that I never got to say my amends to you before you died.

I have to say “before you died,” because I did do an amends of sorts.

I had you in my closet, so my Al-Anon sponsor… Did I mentioned that I’ve been going to Al-Anon?… Anyway, my sponsor teased me that I wouldn’t have to do a graveside amends, but I had to take you out of the closet and integrate you into my life. She said I had always kept you in the closet, both in life and in death, and it was time to release you.

She was right, of course.

I was good at holding grudges, and I held mine against you for a long time. I never told you that. I tried my best on Mother’s Day’s and Christmases and other occasions, but I’m sure you knew. I withheld my love.

In your last years, I could see that you loved me, and that you were trying. I thought, “too little, too late.”

I wondered about our mother line. I was having trouble with my own daughter by then. I loved her—still love her—more than words can express, yet she seemed to hate me. I wondered if it were a curse of our family. That we were doomed to love our children and be hated in return.

I know you felt guilty when your own mother died because you weren’t sorry she was dead. You cried a lot about it. I didn’t know until after you had passed that you had refused to go to her funeral, but Uncle Bob insisted and paid for your ticket. Aunt Cleo told me that.

I called her to see if she could fill in some blanks. At some point, I realized I had all these questions, and no one to ask. I don’t even know how you met my dad or why you loved him. I tried to report my life as if I were doing research for a story. I remember you always called Bob and Cleo when you were upset. Or, as Cleo put it, when you were “in your cups.” I had no idea she was a teetotaler. And so judgmental! But there you are.

So you always talked to Bob, not Cleo. And now he’s dead, too.

So is your college roommate, Ann. I was sorry to hear that. She was so very kind to include us in all her family’s Thanksgivings.

So much is lost. I did find some things though. The letter you wrote to your friend, the attorney, to see if you might get custody of me back from Granny. You sounded so hopeful. I read that letter and wanted us to succeed. I believed we could!

There were some letters between you and Granny that told me a lot about both of you. And adoption papers from when Roly adopted me. I have to tell you, some of that stuff made my blood run cold. That a man with his arrest record could be considered a fit parent?

I can see how you could have been blinded by your feelings for him. But the courts? I have to say I just don’t get it. And, of course, I don’t need to remind you how that ended.

But why didn’t you say what happened to me when you divorced him. I know it was your back-up plan. I know that because you took me to court with you, just in case. But he had visitation rights. And he used them, at least once, when you weren’t home. When I saw that, I didn’t understand how you failed to protect me.

But then I got into Al-Anon and everything changed. When I did my fourth step, all those things were there, of course. But these things were overwhelmed by all the loving things you did for me. Even Roly. I could see all the ways he tried to be a loving father. It was only after his disease progressed that things got so bad.

Remember the trip to the Grand Canyon? And the trip we all took to Disneyland? I look at the picture of us in the teacups together. You looked so young in your cats’ eye glasses. We looked like any mother and daughter on the face of the planet. So utterly normal.

Or how about that check you sent me when I was having so much trouble with my daughter? I remember I stood at the mailbox and cried with gratitude.

Anyway, I understood, finally, that you were doing the best you could. I always thought of you as an alcoholic. What I didn’t see was that, even more, you were an untreated Al-Anon. You had been fighting for your life your whole life. You couldn’t give me what I needed because you were fighting to keep your head above water. Just as I did with my daughter.

I see that now. I see my part in everything. I know that I didn’t cause my daughter’s disease, can’t cure it, can’t control it. She comes by it honestly. It runs like a river through both sides of my family. In a way, she didn’t have a chance. But my disease affected her as she was growing up just as yours affected me. That was my part.

I have made my amends to her. But beyond that there’s little I can do. I have to leave her to the other alcoholics/addicts and tend to those I can help, other Al-Anons. There is something I’ve been considering as a living amends: becoming an Alateen sponsor. I can’t go back in time and help my daughter but maybe I can be a positive influence in someone else’s life. Isn’t that a nice idea? I’ve been praying about it.

Meanwhile, I said at the beginning of this letter that I have invited you into my life. You now reside in a lovely Indian pot in the middle of the living room. No one knows you are there, but I think of you at least a dozen times a day, each time I walk by. There is one more thing I plan to do. Remember that trip we were going to take to Michigan so I could see where you grew up? We’re going to do it. I’m going to take you there, then I’m going to set you free.

I love you. I can say that now and mean it, really mean it, from the bottom of my heart.

Love,

Me

Admitted to Another Human Being...

2010-05-06T09:37:00.000-07:00

Not long ago, my husband and I attended the wedding of a dear friend I have known for years but haven’t seen much since she moved to a different part of town.

My friend freely admits that she had no edit button. Whatever is in her head comes tumbling out with the force of a river.

She had had a few glasses of champagne when she cornered my husband.

“You know,” she said. “I used to tell Kathy everything. I told her all my secrets. You know what I got back?”

“No,” my husband said.

“Nothing,” she said. “She told me nothing.”

I was shocked. Was she right? This was one of my closest friends. She had been a bridesmaid at our wedding.

Yet when I thought back, I had to admit she was right.

I didn’t even talk about my secrets when I got together with my buddies from high school at our 30-year reunion. One told me about her drug addict ex-husband (my first love), and how people with guns came to the door looking for money. There was a story about sexual abuse of a daughter at the hands of her second husband. Another woman shared that her daughter had been arrested for meth and her grandchildren were in foster care.

Yet I shared nothing. Not even with these people, who had known me for most of my life, and who were sharing stories I could certainly relate to.

Why?

Because I didn’t want to let people get close enough to see what was inside. And that’s the beauty of the fifth step. I have to tell. I have to let someone in.

The fifth step reads: Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

In a way, writing out my forth step was admitting the truth of my life to myself and God. Saying it out loud was the work of the fifth step.

As much as I’d learned about myself in writing out my fourth step, hearing my words out loud added a different dimension; like proofreading a paper by reading it out loud. Things your mind glossed over suddenly stand out.

But the real value in the fifth step, I think, is that things that are not apparent to me, because I’m too close, are crystal clear to someone else. It’s like getting a fresh set of eyes.

The other value, I think, is that at least one person on the planet—not coincidentally the one I call first for help or advice—knows just about everything about me. She knows my patterns, my self-deceptions, the way I try to wiggle out of owning what belongs to me. So she can see when I’m doing “it” again. Whatever “it” is. It makes me accountable.

And my secrets no longer seem so big or so awful. They are right sized. I can live with them. I can even share.

Hubby and I are off to the land. I'll be catching up on your blogs when we return. Meanwhile, take care.

When Someone Else is My Problem…

2010-05-05T10:56:00.000-07:00

“Why should I pick up the phone and burden someone else with my troubles?” one woman asked in the middle of our last Big Book study. After all, the speaker reasoned, “I already know that I just need to get over myself.”

The speaker talked for several minutes about being raised to be self-sufficient and non-complaining. It was the way she was taught. She was 61 and had operated like this all of her life. Picking up the phone went against everything she had ever believed or known.

“Just like if someone asks how I am,” she continued. “What benefit is there in saying I’ve had a really crummy day?”

“You call someone to get it up and out,” our most senior member explained.

When something is in your head, it can grow and fester. You don’t tell anyone about it because you think it’s nothing. Then before you know it, it can grow into a huge resentment. It happens so gradually that you don’t realize how big it’s become until you can’t see around it.

It happened to her, she said. After seven years of recovery, a tiny resentment grew until it nearly knocked her out of the program.

The idea is to reason things out with someone else in the program, to vent to someone who understands—so you don’t have to vent to the person whose behavior is causing you grief.

We were still talking about that on the way home. My car mates thought it was important not to stuff feelings down. By why not address them to the source?

“Because when someone else is my problem, my problem is me,” I said.

“So are you taking responsibility for what happened?”

“No,” I said. “I’m only taking responsibility for my part.”

“Well, what about the other person?”

“I’m powerless over the other person,” I said. “I can’t control what they do or think. I can only control how I feel about it and the choices I make as a result.”

It felt confusion hanging in the silence that followed. I wanted to explain by way of example. Because I had my own resentment tale.

Before Al-Anon, a member of my husband’s family moved into town. She and I had always gotten along well, but when she was living just a couple of miles away, little things started to get under my skin. They seemed like no big deal. Bringing them up would sound petty. But they grew and festered. Just like the woman at the Big Book study, pretty soon my resentment got so big it was all I could see. Just the mention of this person got me agitated, and she was around almost constantly.

I started complaining to my husband, who was understandably distraught. Eventually, we agreed that I had to do something. I had to address this. Get it up and out.

I wrote down what I wanted to say, making it as kind as possible and making it about me, not her. I rehearsed it with my husband. We invited her to dinner.

After dinner, I swallowed hard and delivered my spiel. I thought it went very well. She seemed to take it well. New boundaries were set. Things got better.

Then I got into Al-Anon. The incident came up in my fourth step. Because I still harbored a resentment, this family member came up in my eighth step. I had a resentment, yes, I said, but I didn’t believe I owed this family member an amends. I had, after all, been gallant and noble in all my dealings with her, despite my feelings. We had to have that unfortunate conversation, but I delivered it as kindly as possible.

My sponsor was having none of it. I had to make an amends.

I didn’t agree, but did as I was told. I hadn’t gotten half-way though before this family member stopped me.

“You know me,” she said. “I’m like a duck. Things like that roll right off my back.”

Only she was crying as she said this and ran out of the room.

I was stunned. I had hurt her. I had no idea.

A few days later, I finished my amends. As is required of me, I listened to her response without comment. She brought up that conversation. Only she remembered it differently. My words sounded twisted around and decidedly unkind.

It didn’t matter that I felt she had taken what I said the wrong way. The point wasn't what I said. The point is that’s what she heard. I was filled with compassion. We hugged. It was the beginning of a new relationship for us.

The point, though, is that the problem was never with her. She triggered something inside me that made me react that way. The issues were mine to resolve.

“When someone else is my problem, my problem is with me.”

Today, I know there are tools I could use to cure my resentment. I could have resolved my problem with out involving the people I loved.
Instead, I caused harm to two key relationships in my life unnecessarily.

But when we know better, we do better.

Today, I try to remember to T.H.I.N.K. before I speak. I ask myself is what I’m about to say Thoughtful, Honest, Intelligent, Necessary and Kind.

I don’t usually have much trouble with THIK. It’s the Necessary part that gets me every time. Is what I want to say really necessary? Will it help or just make matters worse?

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

2010-05-04T06:32:00.000-07:00

At last night's Big Book study, we were reading the chapter titled "Into Action."

Laura, who is the senior member of our line of sponsorship, stopped the reader at the line on page 76: "Faith without works is dead."

"What does that mean to you?" she asked.

Many people talked about taking action, doing the next right thing, going to meetings, praying on their knees. The actions we are taught to take in recovery.

The way I've always understood the phrase is service. That we can't keep what we have unless we give it away.

"To me, this phrase is all about God and the rowboat," Laura said.

She imagined her life as rowing her way along in a rowboat, with God in the back guiding her. Sometimes the waters were smooth, sometimes they were choppy. Through it all she rowed. God was always there to tell her which way to turn.

Sometimes she asked God if she could steer.

"He's always willing to let me steer," she said. "But he never rows the boat. If I drop the oars, I'm dead in the water."

We have to keep rowing the boat, she said. If we're not sure what to do, we should do whatever is in front of us.

Laura talked about a woman who used to say that if the phone didn't ring, she'd make the bed, because that's what was in front of her. And if the phone still didn't ring, she'd take a shower. Then go to work. She'd just keep doing the next thing that was in front of her to do until God put something else in her path.

"If I keep taking the next right action, the path will be clear," Laura said. "I just have to keep taking action."

That's why she thought the title of the chapter was perfect, "Into Action." Because our recovery is all about the actions we take.

I couldn't help but remember what a friend who first introduced me to Al-Anon used to say: If you pray to God that you need a hole in the ground, you better bring along a shovel.

Forced Sterilization?

2010-05-03T07:09:00.001-07:00

While my husband and I were on our trip recently, our host had the television tuned to a national news program. I don't remember which one. What I do remember was the topic: forced sterilization of drug addicts.

The advocate was someone who had adopted two or three kids of drug addicts. She felt right in her position because she had given these kids loving homes. Those who were critical, she said, had not done the same. She seemed to suggest that unless people had done so, they were in no position to criticize.

I'm not sure what to say about this, other than to note it here. On the one hand, it's true that addicts sometimes have lots of kids who end up in the foster care system. It does seem terribly unfair to these innocent kids.

But who am I to decide? I am not God.

I am grateful for those loving people who can give special needs kids a loving home. A very close friend adopted three special needs kids. A man in my Al-Anon home group adopted two. In both cases, there were drugs and alcohol involved. These aren't easy kids to raise. They need a lot of love to have a fighting chance. It takes a special kind of person.

I read a memoir about a girl who grew up in the foster care system. The title is "Three Little Words." It broke my heart.

Here's where my writerly instincts tell me I'm supposed to say something wise. Present a solution. Suggest some nugget of Al-Anon wisdom. But when I search my toolbox, I find I can offer nothing but prayers.

Mileposts on the Road to Recovery

2010-05-02T06:02:00.000-07:00

I shared last time that my sponsor said my marriage had improved since I’d been in Al-Anon.

I wonder if my husband, who is not my alcoholic, would agree entirely. Or if he misses the woman who agreed to his every whim and wouldn’t dream of inconveniencing him.

Three weeks ago, my husband sliced off a piece of his thumb with a table saw. Since then, he’s been somewhat handicapped, with this thumb in various states of bandages and splints.

Simple things are sometimes difficult. The other day, he fumbled with the buttons on his shirt and finally gave up in exasperation and asked for help.

“Geez, ” he said, standing in the closet with his shirt open and his arms at his sides. “Seems like there was a time I wouldn’t have to ask.”

I laughed.

“It’s my training,” I explained. “One of my character defects is jumping in to help when I haven’t been asked. I've been working hard to change that."

“Oh,” he said with a slight eye roll. “It's an Al-Anon thing.”

Which is the same thing he said when I let him drive 20 miles past his freeway exit because he was talking on his cellphone and ignored me when I asked if he had missed his turnoff.”

“I wish you had been more insistent,” he said, finally.

“I knew you’d figure it out,” I said.

On the other hand, I’m sure he doesn’t miss the money I spent on lawyers and counselors and various other remedies for my alcoholic. Nor does he miss my jumping on a plane at every new crisis, or brooding at home when I wasn’t there.

I’m sure he doesn’t miss the resentment I no doubt radiated when I agreed to things I didn’t want to do, just because he did.

I know I'm less judgmental. I'm more willing to listen to others without jumping in to "correct" them.

After only six months in Al-Anon, my husband looked at me over breakfast and said: “You’ve really changed.” And it seemed he meant it in a good way.

Speaking of mileposts, this is my 100th post. Who knew I had so much to say?

In All Our Affairs

2010-04-29T07:05:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was the day my Wednesday group celebrates birthdays, so I celebrated “officially” and got my chip.

In our line of sponsorship, the sponsor introduces the sponsee, talks about their year from the sponsor’s perspective and gives the sponsee a word or phrase he or she feels represents that year.

My phrase was “in all our affairs.” That’s what my sponsor told me I had done. I had practiced these principles in all my affairs.

She said my marriage had improved because I was learning to say what I wanted and needed for myself. My relationship with my daughter had been transformed. She talked about my service work.

She said she thought it was a quiet year. Not much had happened. Just life on life’s terms. There was, she said, a calmness about me, which she thought might be a gift of the second year. “Don’t get used to it,” she said with a laugh.

I always believe I have an idea about what’s happening on my insides. And it’s always interesting to me to hear what that looks like on my outsides. Call it feedback. Like checking your hair in a mirror.

When my birthday came around, I thought about my year. I wondered what word my sponsor would give me. I like her word. It felt right to me.

But those aren’t the words that rolled around in my own head when I thought about my year. The words I thought of were faith and service. At the meeting I talked about service and how I had benefited from it. I did that because I thought that maybe there was someone who, like me, was skeptical about the claim that I would benefit more from service than those I had helped.

I was wrong.

That claim was absolutely true.

But the thing that most changed in me, I think, was faith.

I was happy to hear my sponsor say that she noticed a calmness about me, because that’s how I feel. Though, for me, it didn’t feel like an uneventful year.

My husband and I have faced what felt to me like pretty major things. We struggled to keep the doors of our family business open. Our incomes from the company and my work plummeted. My daughter’s situation is as bad as it’s ever been.

Here’s the difference. I didn’t freak out. It made me smile to hear my sponsor say that it had been a smooth year because while she is aware of everything I just mentioned, I didn’t seem to get that upset. Hence, she assumed things were not really that dire.

That’s faith.

It’s the greatest gift I’ve received in this program.

I believe that God has directed my life. That everything in it is just as it’s supposed to be. That he’s arranged everything for my benefit. I can only respond with gratitude.

Someone at a meeting shared a saying they had seen taped to their sponsor’s computer. It said: “If you pray, why worry? If you worry, why pray?”

For the last several months, I have doubled the time I spend on my knees in prayer and in meditation and it has made all the difference.

BTW, here are a few things I have taped up on my computer:

“If you don’t hear the voice of God, it’s because you are controlling the conversation” —from Epiphany, on her blog “My Road as I Travel It”

“Resentments are when things didn’t go my way in the past.
Anger is when things aren’t going my way now.
Fear is when I think things won’t go my way in the future.”
—from Kim A, on her blog “One Day at a Time”

“Sponsorship is not placing someone in authority over you; it’s asking someone to hold you accountable.”
—Mr. Sponsorpants

“Go placidly among the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be one good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they, too, have their story.”
—Max Ehrmann, “Desiderata,” from ODAT

It doesn’t escape me that three of four of these came from blogs.

I started this blog as part of my 12th step work. To carry the message. To be of service. Of all the service work I’ve done, I think I’ve benefited from this blog more than anything else. That’s because there’s a tremendous recovery community here online. It’s like attending a great, big meeting every day.

You’ve all taught me so much. I am truly grateful. Thank you for being such an integral part of my journey.

Hubby and I are on our way to the land later today. Take good care and I’ll see you in a few days.

I Accept

2010-04-28T06:27:00.001-07:00

I have an Al-Anon friend who wants to leave her husband. When she was new in the program, I told her that I’d always been taught not to make any decisions for at least six months to give the program time to work.

The other day, she told me that it had been six months and her husband still hadn’t changed.

I wondered if we’d been sitting in the same rooms.

The six months wasn’t to see if your husband would change, I told her. The six months was to see if you would.

She was as genuinely surprised at my answer as I was at her statement.

She had been sitting in the rooms of Al-Anon for six months and what she heard were all the stories about how loved ones had changed as the Al-Anons changed their attitudes and behaviors.

I agreed that sometimes that happened. Sometimes it didn’t. It didn’t matter.

The whole point of Al-Anon was to learn to be happy whether the alcoholic is drinking or not. Really the whole point is to learn to be happy no matter what anyone in your life is doing, or not.

I said I’d heard the same stories she had. I’d also heard people share that their husbands hadn’t changed one bit.

“But what are their marriages like?” my friend wanted to know.

“I don’t know,” I said. I imagine their marriages are all sorts of ways. Only they have learned to accept what they had.

The three As (awareness, acceptance, action) had just been the topic of the most recent meeting we attended together. The reading had to do with the tendency to move directly from awareness to action without reaching acceptance. It felt custom tailored to my friend’s situation.

The way I understand the concept is that once I become aware of something, I must learn to accept it before I take action. Acceptance then frees me to make choices. I don’t spend time trying to change things I’m powerless over. Instead, I can work on the only things I can change: my own thoughts and actions.

I repeated a share I thought put it well.

I have a red coffee cup. I wish it were black, but nothing I can do will ever make it black. So I have to accept that it is what it is. My coffee cup is red.

Accepting that knowledge gives me freedom, because I don’t spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to make my cup black. Instead, I can focus on the choices that I do have. I can change the way I feel about red. I can use a different cup.

“Not all marriages can be saved or should be,” I told my friend. “That’s a personal decision. Only you can decide that. But if you’re in Al-Anon with the expectation of changing your husband, you’re only setting yourself up for disappointment. Remember, expectations are only premeditated resentments.”

I asked my friend if she had ever seen the acceptance prayer. She hadn’t, so I gave it to her. Here it is:

Acceptance Prayer

God, acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place or thing or situation—some fact of my life—unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in your world by mistake. Until I can accept my Al-Anonism, I can not stay sane; unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitude. Amen

On the Verge

2010-04-27T09:50:00.000-07:00

I’ve had this feeling lately like I’m on the verge of some new understanding. Or maybe it's insanity. My head swirls with half-formed thoughts. Things I read and see and experience feel connected and important, somehow, but I can’t seem to connect the dots. A figure appears in the mist. I squint, but the thing remains blurry and unrecognizable.

It’s not a very comfortable feeling. It reminds me of being in labor and being turned away repeatedly from the hospital because for hours my labor failed to progress. I’m here. I’m uncomfortable. Can we just get this thing over with already?

But babies and spiritual awakenings tend to follow their own schedule. It reminds me that I am powerless. Even over my own body and mind. Sigh.

All I can do in either case is to relax and focus on my breathing.

Rehab for the Rest of Us

2010-04-26T06:09:00.000-07:00

In the height of my insanity with this disease, I used to have a fantasy. The fantasy is that I would get to go to a mental hospital or jail. I thought I would at least get some rest. I would have time to read and journal and work on myself.

It's sick, I know. But I didn't get into Al-Anon as a result of my good mental health.

At the time, I was in graduate school, working full time, a single parent and trying to control every aspect of my daughter's life. She wasn't cooperating and my efforts left me exhausted and stressed and resentful.

Of course, it was an inside job. I did it to myself.

I got a program call last night that reminded me of those days. The Al-Anon friend who called me was very much in the same situation. I have known this person for some time. Her sponsor has given her the assignment to call other people in the program and we have talked several times, though I had no idea that we had this in common. Either did she. It's amazing how God directs us to the right people.

I reminded her about the adage of the oxygen mask. When the oxygen mask drops, the flight attendant always tells you to put yours on first. Because if you don't take care of yourself, you're no good to anyone else. I also reminded her about HALT. It was 8 o'clock and she hadn't had dinner. And she was tired.

By the end of the call, I hope she felt better. I know that she was crying when she called and we shared a laugh or two by the time she hung up.

She told me she wanted to look into whether her insurance would pay for a place for her to go to work on herself, like the alcoholic goes to rehab. I shared my fantasy with her.

It would be wonderful to have a place like that. I've never found that place.

Someone once asked me what I would do if I won the lottery. Beyond buying some land, building my dream house, and spending my life doing only work I really enjoyed, I could never imagine what else to do.

But now I think if I had a big pot of money, I would build a place for Al-Anons to go and "detox" and rest and get a good start in recovery. It would be rehab for the rest of us.

For Your Viewing Pleasure

2010-04-21T06:28:00.001-07:00

Hubby and I are glad to be back from a journey of more than 1,000 miles. I'm looking forward to some rest.

Meanwhile, tonight, I'm looking forward to "When Love is Not Enough," Lois W.'s story. It airs tonight on CBS.

I have benefited from generations of Al-Anons who came before me. Lois had to make it up as she went along. I owe her a huge debt of gratitude.

Wishing you all a rest-filled Sunday.

The Language of Recovery

2010-04-21T06:28:00.000-07:00

It’s increasingly clear to me that those of us in recovery speak a common language. To me, it’s like mathematics. It cuts across all cultural boundaries and is recognizable to anyone who understands it.

Looking back at some of the people I’ve known, I recognize now that they were in recovery. Sometimes, it’s obvious what fellowship they likely belonged to. Sometimes, I have no idea. But the language is unmistakable.

I think back to a yoga teacher I had early in recovery. My husband and I were on a combination vacation/work assignment in the Costa Rica rainforest. It was a remote location. There were no meetings. But there was yoga, and I was the only guest who signed up. Every day, twice a day, I’d meet with this resort’s yoga instructor and we’d do yoga and meditate and he’d talk recovery to me. I still think of him as an angel God sent to me to help me get through that time.

In the yoga instructor’s case, he told me he had come back from Vietnam using drugs and alcohol. He couldn’t just stop using. He needed to replace his addiction with something more positive. At the time, I thought he was talking about yoga. And that was probably part of it. But now I see that he was talking about program.

A guy I used to date talked a lot about doing things “because he wanted to” or “because it was the right thing to do.” He was not sober, so I presume his program did not involve drugs or alcohol. But it was program language nonetheless.

And so my ears perked up listening to an interview with Michael J. Fox. Here’s what he said that got my attention:

“…I think your happiness grows in direct proportion to your acceptance and in inverse proportion to your expectations. It’s just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other. Doing the next right thing.”

Program language.

I may be the last person on the planet who didn’t know Fox was in recovery, but I’ve never been good at following celebrities. So I Googled the topic and found that Fox started drinking excessively after he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. He found help from “an ever widening circle of friends, all of whom prefer to remain anonymous.”

In the past, I would have thought what Fox said was profound. That he was wise. That I wished I could possess whatever wisdom and serenity he had. The difference is that today I know I can.

Hubby and I are off on assignment. Back in a few days. I'll catch up on our return. Meanwhile, take good care.

The Straight and Narrow

2010-04-19T07:08:00.001-07:00

My husband and I were talking about Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson this weekend.

We've always had a soft spot for Mickelson. He's a local boy.

What we were talking about his how Tiger was so appealing on the surface. So trim and clean cut, with that dazzling, perfect smile. Mickelson, on the other hand, usually looks like he needs a haircut and could maybe lose a few pounds.

We had just finished watching "Sense and Sensibility" and I was thinking how Jane Austen's books always had one character who was genuinely good, and another who had the appearance of goodness. Think of Wickham and Mr. Darcy in "Pride and Prejudice." People were always taken in by the character with the appearance. Eventually, that character is revealed as a cad, and good triumphs.

Of course those are novels. But I couldn't help but think they apply to Woods and Mickelson, particularly after watching the tear roll down Mickelson's face at the end of the Masters, and the tender way he hugged his wife.

One blogger posted his photo with the caption: "This is what love looks like."

Of course, we don't ever really know celebrities. We just feel we do. And Tiger has sought recovery. Redemption is one of our favorite story lines. I hope Tiger truly finds recovery.

Here's what recovery has meant for me. The road narrows. It starts out wide, with lots of twists and turns and detours. After a while the road straightens. Lanes end. The way becomes clear. There is only one direction. The questions narrow to one: What is the right thing to do? The answers become increasingly clear.

Not always. There's still rain and fog that clouds visibility. But the road is there. Straight and true. And if we are patient and cautious enough to wait for the storm to clear, we can stay between the lines.

In the Stars?

2010-04-18T08:31:00.000-07:00

I attended Alateen certification training yesterday.

As an adult child of an alcoholic, service in Alateen is something that's been on my heart since I started exploring service opportunities a year ago. But I didn't have enough time in the program to qualify.

Since then, I've taken service commitments in my home group, begun my service work in the state prison and taken on three sponsees. I believed I was pretty well committed.

But I also believe in being open to guidance from my Higher Power, and I know that what He has planned for me is seldom what I have planned.

Last week, the area Alateen coordinator announced the training this Saturday and I had just passed my second year in the program (the length of time required to qualify). I'm almost never in town on a Saturday, but there I was, with plans to be in town on a Saturday.

So I attended the training and submitted my references and required documentation for certification.

I don't know what I will do with this. There are two meetings desperately seeking Alateen sponsors, and both are on nights I'm seldom in town.

So while I'm waiting for my certification to be processed, I will pray on this.

I'm not big on Horoscopes since I've learned to rely more on God, but just for fun, I clipped the horoscope on my birthday this year.

It says: "...As you study and take in many experiences, you have the sense that you don't yet know how to apply what you've learned. Hold tight. Your purpose is more obvious in the spring. A door opens to your life's work in April..."

All By Myself

2010-04-16T13:51:00.001-07:00

When I was in my early teens, my mother’s boyfriend told me I was aloof.

I was horrified to hear that. I didn’t want to appear aloof. I desperately wanted to be popular. But I felt socially awkward. I didn’t feel like I fit in.

When I got older, I decided that I preferred to be alone. It was easier than being with people. Being with other people wore me out. Trying to think of things to say was exhausting. I longed to escape to a mountaintop or a book or just to be alone with my own thoughts.

At the same time, I was lonely. I had a rich fantasy life that revolved around a mysterious soul mate, who would one day discover the beautiful person I was inside and love me and make me feel whole.

My soul mate would be handsome and wear sweaters. He and I would drink coffee at the edge of the lake a sunrise, take long walks through the woods in fall, read the Sunday paper on lazy Sunday mornings. We never had to talk.

In Al-Anon, I discovered that I’m not alone in this. Many of my fellow Al-Anons, particularly those who grew up in the disease, have what we often refer to as “a tendency to isolate.”

It’s not very mysterious. Like most of my character defects this tendency began as a self-defense mechanism. If I don’t let you get close, you won’t hurt me. If I don’t let you inside, you’ll never know how hollow and rotten it is in there.

So my relationships were a combination of holding you at arm’s length or creating just enough drama to keep you there. Until I got too scared and I blew the whole thing up. Because if I was the one to leave, you couldn’t leave me.

Not long ago, my husband and I attended the wedding of a friend I have known for maybe a dozen years. She was a bridesmaid at our wedding. She told my husband that she used to pour her guts out to me.

“Do you know what I got back?” she asked. “Nothing. I got nothing. Kathy never told me a thing.”

What she said shocked me, but I had to admit it was true. I gave nothing away. Not even to my closest friends.

I took that with me into Al-Anon, and hung on to it for a long time. People would say they found friendships and love in the program. I didn’t know what they meant. I found help, yes. But that magical feeling of fraternity eluded me.

Until I got involved.

I put off service work until I got to step 12. I am, after all, a commitment-phobe. I didn’t mind helping, I just didn’t want to commit to it.

Silly me.

Once I took a service commitment, everything changed. My schedule had changed and the meeting that I would be most likely to attend regularly was a new meeting for me. But it was clear it should be my home group, so I started there.

I started with set up, because I’m compulsively early and because it would give me something to do. I wouldn’t have to talk to anybody. Only when people saw me setting up, they’d ask me questions because I looked like I knew something. So I’d try to be useful.

Next, I decided to really push my boundaries and be a greeter. Of course, I felt shy and awkward, but I remembered how the greeters in my former home group hugged everyone that came in. I remembered how that made me feel, and decided I would do the same.

I’m not afraid to admit I was more than a little nervous about it. My new home group wasn’t a huggy bunch. But I called people by name and hugged them and, to my surprise and delight, they responded warmly. Before long, they were hugging me.

Each time service commitments came up, I picked something different. Before long, the group representative was asking my opinion about things. I realized I finally felt a part of things. Each Monday night, I walked in and felt welcome by people who really did seem to care about me.

Of course, faith played a part. As I started to fill up that God-sized whole with my higher power and stopped trying to fill it with another person, I naturally lost interest in selfish things, just as the Big Book promised. I became interested in other people. I sought out the newcomers. I tried to be useful. Like everything else, that new attitude has bled into the rest of my life, and what a difference it’s made.

Worshiping (Near) the Porcelain Throne

2010-04-15T06:30:00.000-07:00

I have an image of people all over the world, on their knees, in the… bathroom.

Before I joined Al-Anon, I never had any idea how much worship takes place there, but it seems to be prevalent. A near epidemic.

The first person I ever heard talk about praying in the bathroom was my sponsor. She has two children and a husband in her home, and sometimes a sick mother. So there’s very little privacy. She said it’s the only place she can be alone and close the door.

Her prayer partner calls her every morning at 6 a.m. and she goes to the bathroom and drops to her knees.

Since she told me that, it seems like I’ve heard a million variations on that theme. Well, at least several.

Usually, I hear that in an open AA meeting. In a time of crisis, at work, in a bar, the speaker heads for the bathroom and falls to their knees.

I believe in praying on my knees. It’s a gesture of humility. In fact the whole idea of prayer is a gesture of humility. It is an admission that there is a God and that it is not me.

I confess that I, too, have begun praying in the bathroom. Not at home. There, I like to pray at the edge of a bed. But when I help out at our family owned business. I’ve become accustomed to a short, lunchtime prayer break and it avoids the possibility of interruption and awkward explanation.

It’s a manufacturing facility, so the bathroom is not nice. But it’s at least a one-hole affair, with little squares of carpet on the floor. And I know who uses it.

I’m still a little creeped out about the idea of resting my knees on the floor of a public bathroom in someplace like a bar. I think that’s a real act of faith.

Just saying.

Searching and Fearless

2010-04-14T14:42:00.001-07:00

When my sponsor started working with me, she told me that recovery was a process of discovery and that sometimes there was pain involved, as old wounds were opened and examined, but there would also be healing and growth.

I believed her about the healing and growth. But not about the pain.

I had always believed in the examined life. I kept a journal. For several years, I had been in the process of writing a memoir. It was one of those things I felt compelled to do, though I didn’t know why. I wanted to write it urgently, but found it difficult to find the time. I kept getting stalled.

I looked forward to my fourth step, though I expected it to be mostly an exercise of putting down what I already knew. I thought I knew myself. I knew my strengths and I knew my weaknesses. I imagined my fourth step would be a matter of creating a kind of balance sheet and examining it.

I even tried it on my own, before I had a sponsor, but I didn’t know if what I had done was “right” or “finished” any more than I knew if I had actually “worked” steps 1, 2 and 3. I realized needed a sponsor.

Turns out, there are many ways to work a fourth step. As I read and heard about different methods, I wondered what my assignment would be. I had heard that some did it by writing about their lives. I thought how wonderful that would be. Then I got my assignment.

It was this: Write down all your memories and key moments. Write what happened and how you felt about it.

I couldn’t believe it. It was the assignment I had been waiting for someone to give me all my life. Now I not only had permission to write my life story. It was an assignment. If I wanted to progress through the steps, I had to do it.

But I had to start from the beginning. I couldn’t use anything I’d already done, and I had to write everything pen to paper. No computers.

So I set out to write my life story in earnest. As I wrote, it was like reliving my life. Miraculous things started to happen. People from my past started popping up unexpectedly, out of nowhere, at just the right time in my narrative journey.

I discovered holes in my memory. Big holes. I realized I had lost a whole year of my life in which I remembered virtually nothing. The people that came back into my life helped fill in the holes.

At one point it felt overwhelming. My 30-year high school reunion was also coming up. At meetings, people talked about living in the present, but I felt stuck in my past and mired in regret. I cried a lot. I wondered if I were going crazy. I thought, I came to Al-Anon to heal and I’m falling apart.

At the same time, wonderful things happened. I began my fourth step with huge resentments. Resentments against my mother, my father, my step-father, my former mother-in-law, my ex-husband… it was a long list. But when I wrote about key events, I saw them differently.

I began to realize I carried around a certain narrative of my life. My version of what happened. But as I wrote, I saw my part. I saw where I had been naïve. I understood some things for the first time.

I saw my father and my step-father, “real” alcoholics as defined by the Big Book, as very sick people struggling with their disease. I recognized my mother for the first time as an adult child of an alcoholic and an untreated Al-Anon, who was struggling just to save herself. In addition to the bad times, what came up were all the loving things they did. In short, I saw a group of people who were doing the best they could. Me included.

By the end, I realized I wasn’t mad at anyone. I felt I had carried these grudges under false pretenses. I could let them go. And I did.

In my line of sponsorship, we work a fourth step every year. So, having recently had my second birthday, I’ll soon be getting a new fourth-step assignment from my sponsor. This time, it will be an AA Big Book-style fourth step. People who have shared about doing their inventory both ways have told me that this method revealed some things their first inventory didn’t address.

This time, I’m going into it without expectation, only curiosity and openness about the new lessons the experience may teach me.

The Smallest Meeting on Earth

2010-04-13T06:14:00.000-07:00

There was only one inmate at our prison meeting last night. My partner and I officially outnumbered her.

This was only my second prison meeting, but my partner has attended this meeting for a year and a half and said that meeting has struggled with attendance the whole time. If things do not improve, she will cancel the meeting.

My partner, who is the Al-Anon prison volunteer coordinator, thought that maybe it would help to turn the program there over to the inmates. We wouldn't run the meetings. We would just attend. It would give them a feeling of ownership.

With that in mind, she put together a folder and presented it to the one inmate who was there last night. She told the inmate she was in charge.

My partner asked the inmate if she expected to be there for a while. The inmate shook her head no. She was getting released in June.

This may be the shortest volunteer assignment I've ever had.

I've always said my God has a sense of humor. I'm sure more will be revealed.

The Home Keys

2010-04-11T13:44:00.000-07:00

Someone asked me today if I knew what the letters F and J, and the number 5 have in common.

Automatically, I imagined where those letters fell on the keyboard. I could easily picture F and J. They were located where I’d put my index fingers on the keyboard to prepare to type or to rest.

The five would be approximately two rows above my left index finger, though it did not feel as familiar as F and J. I never felt as proficient with numbers. I can touch-type well enough, but numbers still make me want to look.

I didn’t come up with the answer, but I was on the right track. F, J and the number five, all have a little raised bump on the key. The little bumps anchor the home keys. Those are the keys along the center row that a typist uses to get his or her bearings.

Once you learn to type by touch, the home keys are centering. They tell you where you are. You can type in pitch blackness, as long as you know where the home keys are. But if you somehow got off base, your typing would look like some sort of code. It would be unintelligible.

The first typing class I ever took was the summer between junior high and high school. It was the first year I was allowed to stay home. My mom worked during the day, so every summer of my life up until that point I attended YMCA day camp. So this year marked a rite of passage.

But even though my mom had deemed that I was responsible enough to be home alone, she didn’t want me to hang around the house all summer. Hence summer school. I took two classes: marching band and typing.

Marching band was held at 7:30 in the morning. Typing directly afterward. I can still picture the room, with a green chalkboard, polished oak floors and those classroom windows that opened from a hinge along the bottom. The tall windows had to be opened with a long pole.

Being summer the windows were always open. It was still morning, so the sun filtered in through the trees outside with that soft light that holds the promise of the day. It was warm, by then, but not too hot, and I could hear cars pass by on the street outside.

The classroom was set up with rows of typewriters, all manual. I sat near the back of the room, half-way to the windows. The teacher’s typewriter stood on a stand at the front of the class, where she would demonstrate the rhythm of whatever we were practicing. How our typing should sound. Along with the sound, there was a way that typing should feel.

I tried hard at typing, even practicing at home. But I had trouble. My strokes were anything but rhythmic. My fingers never seemed to go where I wanted them to. I had trouble remembering where the keys were. I made a lot of mistakes.

One day, a film crew visited our class. I don’t remember what it was about, whether it was a news piece on summer school or a documentary. The crew walked up and down the rows, pausing at each student. I don’t know whether they were recording video or just sound. But I do remember how scared I felt when they stopped beside me.

I plodded along at first, my heart beating more loudly in my ears as the seconds ticked by. The crew didn’t seem to be moving along. I started to panic. I was aware of how unrhythmic my typing sounded. I kept hitting two keys at once, jamming up the keyboard. My face grew hot.

I couldn’t bear to look at the page. I was sure it was riddled with errors. My hands began to shake. I decided to fake it. I started typing quickly and rhythmically, hitting the letters in no particular sequence. It might not make any sense, but it sounded better. I could only hope that there was no video. Then the crew moved on to the next student and I practically melted in a puddle on the floor.

I took several more typing classes, but typing was always a challenge for me. Ironically, my first job out of high school was as a secretary.

I was hired as a favor to my mom. It was a done deal, only I performed so poorly on my typing test, that the human resources representative left the room to make a phone call—no doubt to my future employers to ask if they were serious. She returned a few minutes later and gave me another chance. Even then, I barely squeaked by at 40 words per minute, with three mistakes. Remedial by any professional standard.

But over the years, I have become more proficient. It’s easier on the computer. I still make mistakes, but they are correctly more easily, and without the impossible-to-disguise evidence of Liquid Paper, correct-o-type or eraser smudges.

But more than anything, I’ve truly become familiar with the keyboard. I place my fingers on the home keys as naturally as I take a breath. It’s been a matter of years of experience, doing the same things over and over. It’s become second nature.

I couldn’t help thinking about this during the discussion of the home keys, and how like recovery it is. It’s awkward at first. When I’m under pressure, I am tempted to go off in a flurry of activity that—while it might sound good to someone who doesn’t have video—makes absolutely no sense to anyone who has eyes.

But today when I get flustered, I can always stop and put my fingers back on the home keys. In recovery, for me, they are the fist three steps. To paraphrase: I am powerless; I can’t do it but my Higher Power can; I think I’ll let Him.

They have become my touchstones. These days, I can even find them in the dark.

A Compass to Guide Me

2010-04-10T09:08:00.000-07:00

The other night, over dinner with another couple, the topic of foreclosures came up. Specifically, the latest trend: that people who are underwater but not in financial distress are walking away from their homes.

I had just had a conversation about this that morning. A trusted spiritual adviser confessed he didn’t get it. How people could sign a contract, then decide not to live up to it. People were fickle, he concluded. When things were good, everyone jumped on the bandwagon. But when things went south, they jumped ship and tried to distance themselves from commitments they made. I had agreed wholeheartedly.

That exchange was still fresh in my mind, so I said, “I know. I don’t get that.”

I was surprised when the husband of the other couple defended the practice. He called it “strategic foreclosure.” He asked with all the shenanigans the banks were getting away with, why I wouldn’t do it.

“Why would what the banks do have any bearing on my decision to pay my mortgage?” I asked.

Our friend went on to say that there are experts who advocate walking away as the smartest financial decision. The ding on a person’s credit wasn’t all that bad these days because there were so many people who had foreclosures, he said. He argued that the value of my own home was affected by what the banks did. He wanted me to feel as outraged as he did.

“Why should we feel bad about sticking it to the banks?” he wanted to know.

What I wanted to say is that dishonesty and manipulation work against my recovery. I wanted to tell him about the exercise with the folded paper. How if I put what someone had done to me on one side, and what I had done as a result on the other, then tore the paper in half and threw away the first side, what I would be left with is what I had done. I thought about the amends I would have to make.

I didn’t say this. From my experience, it doesn’t help to talk recovery to someone who doesn’t want what I have.

I agreed that what happened affected everyone, us included. But I pointed out that we paid a fair market price for our house and got a good rate on a 30-year fixed loan. No one took advantage of us. The market had changed, yes. And that sucked. But that was reality. I accepted that.

In truth, we’d like to sell our house and live up at the land. But that just wasn’t in the cards for us right now. I felt fortunate that we weren’t among those who need to sell.

My husband threw in the fact that people walking away from their mortgages would just make the situation worse for everyone.

The more we talked, the more agitated our friend got.

I shrugged and said it just wasn’t something we were going to do. My husband asked about dessert. With relief, we moved on to other topics.

A few days later I saw the wife. She was in bad humor. I asked what was wrong.

“I just have some decisions to make,” she said.

I said I was sorry and to let me know if there was anything I could do.

Eventually, it came out. She said that she and her husband had their house appraised and it was worth half of what they paid for it. I took from it that they were considering a “strategic foreclosure.”

“Why is that a problem for you?” I asked.

She looked at me as if I were crazy. “It will never be worth what I owe,” she said.

“Of course it will,” I said.

“Not as soon as people are saying,” she answered. “Not for years.”

I admitted that the situation sucked for people who had to sell their houses in this market, and I was grateful I wasn’t one of them.

“Are you planning to leave?” I asked.

She just looked at me glumly. I dropped it.

Then her phone rang. I heard her say that their massage therapist was coming over that night. She said they got in-home massages once a month, which cost them no more than they would pay for a dinner out and a nice bottle of wine.

Listening to her, I began feeling judgmental and self-righteous. And I realized that works against my recovery, every bit as much as dishonesty and manipulation.

So I decided to think about this couple differently. Instead, of judging them, I decided to view them with compassion. I decided to feel compassion for their distress they felt and for the consequences they may face for the choices that were theirs to make.

At the same time, I felt grateful that I have a program that teaches me to accept what is. That my husband and I can still afford to pay our mortgage and choose to do so. That we will not have to sustain a diminished credit rating or make an amends in the future. I felt grateful for a home I love, regardless of whether any appraiser sees the value in it or not.

Happy Birthday to ME!

2010-04-08T06:14:00.000-07:00

Two years ago, I walked into my first Al-Anon meeting.

The night before, I had returned from my last "rescue." My daughter had found her way into the rooms of a different fellowship and recognized that her life had become unmanageable.

I spent a week taking her to different meetings. People would ask me if I was the mother. They would ask me if I was in recovery.

"Oh, no," I'd say. "I'm just here to support my daughter."

I was horrified to think they would think I needed recovery. I didn't think I had anything to recover from. I wasn't the one with the problem.

They smiled and nodded. They were very kind.

But I wanted what they had.

I remember feeling a little scared the first meeting I attended with my daughter. I watched these people file into the room. They looked hard and life worn to me. But the most amazing things came out of their mouths. I could hardly wait to go to the next meeting.

It was my daughter's sponsor who gently suggested that I try Al-Anon.

"You won't have to attend your daughter's meetings," she said. "You can work your own program."

I got off the plane and downloaded a meeting list. The next day I attended my first meeting. I still attend that meeting. It's one of my committed meetings and the one at which I will celebrate my birthday later this month.

My daughter never attended another meeting on her own.

But when I visit or when she visits me, I still attend Al-Anon meetings. She always chooses to come along.

The last time she was here, she told me she thinks I'm inspiring.

Who knows? Maybe one day she'll want what I have.

If You Don't Believe I'm Right, Just Ask Me

2010-04-07T09:39:00.001-07:00

I want to be right all the time. It’s a well-known, well-documented symptom of my disease, closely related to trying to control.

I know this about myself. I accept it. Most of the time, I can see what I’m doing and let it go.

But not yesterday.

Some time ago, I mentioned to my husband that I heard a reference to the movie Hoosiers as it related to Butler University. My husband thought it was odd, because Hoosiers was about a high school basketball team.

“Are you sure?” I asked. “There’s more than one classic basketball movie, I said. Maybe you’re confusing them.”

“No,” he said. He was adamant. I thought he must be wrong, but I let it go.

Then yesterday morning, I heard another reference on NPR. I knew I was on dangerous ground but I couldn’t help myself. I brought it up again.

“I know,” my husband said. “I read something similar in the paper yesterday. I can’t believe how all these news organizations keep getting it wrong.”

I bit my tongue. For a moment. I couldn’t seem to help myself.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yes,” he answered adamantly. By now I was sure he was wrong. All those journalists couldn’t keep misstating such a basic fact. I’m a journalist. I know how it works. Not that I think we never make mistakes. We do. But there are always legions of people to point that out. Corrections are run. The record is set straight. Mistakes in a high-profile story just don’t keep getting reprinted.

“Let’s check it out,” I said.

This is meant to sound something like scientific inquiry. But really it’s a cover line for me saying: “Let me show you how wrong you are.” It fools no one. Not even me. Certainly not my husband.

So I Googled Hoosiers. Those of you who already know the answer to this question are undoubtedly laughing your butts off right now.

I was.... Wwwwrrrrong.

There. I got it out. I was wrong. Phew.

That’s right. Hoosiers is about a high school basketball team. The connection is they won their state championship at the gym where Butler plays and the movie recreation was filmed there.

So there you have it. My demons are still with me. Only today I can laugh about it.

H.A.L.T.

2010-04-06T05:31:00.000-07:00

I didn’t have a good day yesterday. I was crabby. People got on my nerves. I was anything but serene.

My husband also seemed to be generally irritated. But he had a good excuse. He cut off part of his thumb off on Saturday. Not only was he in pain, he spent the day trying to negotiate the insurance companies and doctors’ offices trying to get a referral to a hand surgeon. He had reason to be grouchy.

Not me. I was baffled. I was prayed up, having devoted extra time to prayer and meditation in the past few weeks. I had been attending meetings, calling my sponsor, doing my daily readings, all the things I had been taught. Just yesterday, I was thinking how wonderfully calm I felt. What happened?

The answer finally occurred to me when I got home and went upstairs to meditate. I could hardly wait. I got comfortable, closed my eyes--then it hit me.

I was tired. I was tired and I failed to H.A.L.T.

Both managers at our family-owned business are out for a few days. One on a planned vacation, the other to attend a family funeral. So my husband and I had to go in earlier and leave later than usual.

I went to bed an hour early to get up an hour early. Only I couldn’t get to sleep, and I slept badly all night.

So I started out tired. I didn't want to be up early. I didn't want to be there at all. What I really wanted to spend time doing was work on some story assignments. Since we would be at the shop longer than usual, I packed a bag with my writing work.

Then I grimly went about everything that had to be done. I was on a mission, determined to do everything that needed to get done for the company as quickly as possible so I could do what I wanted to do. And I wouldn’t rest until I did it.

I didn’t take breaks. I took only enough time to eat a rushed lunch before getting back to work.

It was old behavior.

Only because I was tired, because I refused to take any breaks, I made mistakes. The work took me an hour longer than it should have. By the end of the day I was frustrated and exhausted. I never got to do the work I wanted to do.

I couldn’t wait to get home to meditate, knowing the relief I would feel. Almost as soon as I closed my eyes, it hit me. I needed to H.A.L.T.

H.A.L.T. tells me that when I feel agitated, I should stop and ask myself if I am Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired, and then remedy the situation.

I couldn’t take a nap, but I could have taken it easy. I should have taken the breaks that all the other staff are required to take. Ten minutes spent in the car in prayer and meditation would have done myself wonders, as it did when I finally got home.

I did not spend the day in acceptance. But thinking about the work I wanted to be doing instead of the work I was doing, I robbed myself of any joy that was in it. It was an inside job.

Last night, I went to a meeting. The topic? H.A.L.T.! The facilitator chose a reading from yesterday’s Hope for Today. I had read the same reading that morning. It was exactly what I needed to get through the day. God had given me exactly what I needed, exactly when I needed it. Only I wasn’t present enough to receive the message.

Sometimes, God has to hit me over the head before I can hear him.

Our Butterfly Story

2010-04-04T11:39:00.001-07:00

Easter Sunday has special significance to me. In just a few days I will celebrate my Al-Anon birthday, when I mark the day I found my way into this program.

That my Al-Anon birthday falls in this season of rebirth and resurrection is not lost on me. Nothing in my life has changed me more.

That said, I can find no better story to tell on Easter than that of "Our Butterfly Story."

The following excerpt comes from a piece I read aloud with my sponsor at the completion of my fifth step. After I read it, my sponsor presented me with a gift of a butterfly necklace to symbolize my spiritual rebirth. I wear it today as a reminder.

Our Butterfly Story

"... We in AA and Al-Anon have much in common with the butterfly, and many use it as a symbol. There are many reasons for this. Long before the time of Christ, the butterfly was a symbol of resurrection and eternal life. Most of us feel that in the program, we have found "new life" indeed... and the butterfly is a visual aid to remind us tat we no longer think, feel or act as we once did. We were trapped in a cocoon of darkness, and have wrestled our way into the sunlight. The butterfly denotes both gaiety and happiness--chasing after them is fruitless for like the butterfly, they flit away. But if we become still and "at one' with God, sometimes one will light upon our shoulder...

"...The butterfly is on earth a very short time, but it spends its time flying from flower to flower, taking pollen from one and giving it to the other, making sure that each shares life with the other... and seeking to make the world more beautiful after it is gone than when it came... that's what you and I are trying to do..."

May your heart be transformed, and your life filled with beauty.

Happy Easter.

Dear God...

2010-03-31T07:09:00.000-07:00

On Monday, I attended the Big Book study for the extended Al-Anon family known as my line of sponsorship.

It was a little different this time. We had been asked to complete a writing assignment that had been passed down through many layers of sponsors at the beginning of the new year. Laura, my great, grandsponsor who runs the meeting, had asked us to have our writing assignments finished by this meeting. There were three parts. Here was the assignment:

Our lives can become so clutted (yes, this is the word as it came to me) with useless, out of date junk… really without us realizing it is happening. If we don’t take the time and effort to clear away and clean up, we run out of room and become frustrated with the whole mess.

How much time and effort are you taking in your spiritual life to get rid of this junk?

What are your frustrations right now?

That was then (2009). This is now (2010). What are you dragging into 2010 that you need to clean up and leave behind you?

Laura shared what she wrote in response to the first question, which she took to mean: what is the state of your spiritual maintenance? She admitted that she was bad at taking time for herself. That she tended to put other people first. That she knew she needed to change that equation.

After that, people shared spontaneously about their spiritual practices. Laura wrote down things that stood out to her.

Some things that were on her list were:
Making an appointment with myself
Giving God the first word
Many people mentioned Yoga
Prayer partners came up more than once, which fell under the category of being accountable to someone else

Then we went around the room and people shared one thing that was frustrating us.

We went around the room again, and people shared one thing they were dragging in to the new year that they wanted to leave behind.

The exercise was surprisingly emotional. Tissue packets were pulled out and tossed around. More than one woman said, “I don’t know where that came from.”

At the end, Laura explained that the point of the exercise was to encourage us to take time for our spiritual lives. If we wanted to, we could draw freely upon the practices of others that we had heard.

Then she gave us another assignment, also passed down:

Every day:

Write down five things I’m fearful of or need help with

Write five things I’m grateful for (separate from whatever we are doing in terms of a daily gratitude list)

Write a short letter to God—by hand—not on the computer.

Laura said we should undertake this with compassion for ourselves and understand that no one expected that we would do this perfectly.

I confess I haven’t started this yet. But I thought it would make an interesting written record of what was in my life, my mind and my heart. A record of my spiritual progress.

It struck me that we got this assignment around the new year, which is traditionally a time for new beginnings and resolutions. And we were discussing them just before Easter, which is a time of renewal.

So maybe this is a good time to start. It feels like a big commitment. Wish me well.

If any of you feel moved to do the same, I'd love to hear about it and how it's going for you.

Meanwhile, hubby and I are off to the land. I'll see you in a few days.

Open Wide

2010-03-29T21:59:00.001-07:00

I love metaphors. I can’t resist them, even when they feel a little bit tortured. So I couldn’t help thinking about Al-Anon at my last visit to the dentist.

I know, I know. Work with me people.

I used to hate the dentist. My teeth might as well be made of steel. But my gums are made of kryptonite.

It’s partly hereditary. My mother struggled with her gums, too. She lost her first tooth to gum disease when she was pregnant with me (I’ve learned to live with that). She had false teeth by the time she was 60.

So I’ve been at war with my gums all my life.

Mostly, my dentist is pleased with me when I do what I’ve been taught. When I brush my teeth for at least two minutes twice a day and floss at least once.

I know that when I do these things my numbers (indicating the state of my gums) will improve.

Over the years, adding the right tools made a big difference. It would not be overstating the case to say the Sonicare toothbrush changed my life. My hygienist tried to convince me for years to get one, but I didn’t have the money. I finally solved the dilemma by asking for one as a gift. Now, I’d beg on the street corner if I had to for a Sonicare.

So my numbers got better and the lectures got fewer. It helps that I’m the type of Al-Anon who finds comfort in routine. Brush, floss, Listerine. Check, check, check.

But then that wasn’t enough.

I knew there was something more I could do. There was another tool at my disposal: interdental brushes that would get at the wider gaps between my back teeth. I knew they worked because as an experiment, I tried once to use them in addition to my regular brushing and flossing and the results were dramatic.

Then I stopped.

Why? I was resistant. I thought, for Heaven’s sake, brushing with a Sonicare for the requisite two minutes, flossing not once, but twice a day, rinsing (for the full 30 seconds!) with Listerine should be enough. It should. There was only so much I was willing to do. And at least I still had all my teeth.

The last time I went to the dentist, my hygienist started talking to me about increasing my visits to three times a year. She invoked the dreaded periodontal surgery option if I didn’t comply.

I didn’t want to do either. So I decided to try the less painful option. I pulled out the interdentals and used them faithfully.

My numbers went down. My hygienist and dentist beamed at me. There was no more talk of seeing each other more often. There was much “keep up the good work” and similar sentiments.

So how is this like Al-Anon?

1. I have a chronic, progressive disease from which I will never be cured.
2. I can, however, enjoy a daily reprieve based on my spiritual maintenance, which means doing the things I’ve been taught on a daily basis.
3. Things go easier when I use the right tools.
4. Sometimes what I think something ought to be enough, isn’t. I need to be willing to go to any lengths for my recovery. Or face more painful consequences.

Keeping it Simple

2010-03-29T06:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I made good use of the Al-Anon slogan Keep it Simple.

We had invited my stepdaughter and son-in-law over for dinner to celebrate his birthday. We asked the birthday boy what he wanted for dinner. His requested menu was simple: grilled pork chops, green beans and whipped sweet potatoes. What threw me was what my stepdaughter said he wanted for dessert: pineapple upside-down cake.

I had never made a pineapple upside down cake, so I had no idea what was involved, except that I had an idea that it somehow involved pineapples and inversion.

To quote an Al-Anon acquaintance: I can complicate a ball bearing. So the old me would have tried to make things as difficult as possible.

It would not have mattered that he said not to go to any trouble. Or that we had spent several days doing construction on our house before attending a dinner on Saturday night followed by a long drive home and getting to bed in the wee hours the night before.

Nor would it have mattered that that it was Sunday, a day I reserve to rest.

No. I would have picked the most complicated recipe I could find. I might have decided that we also needed to have jalapeno poppers to start, even though they have told us that they are trying to lose weight and aren’t much into appetizers these days.

I would have insisted that we drive to the store across town that has the best jalapenos instead of going to the market in our neighborhood. I would have spent the afternoon making a cake, and deseeding and stuffing 44 jalapenos, refusing all offers for help.

The old me would also have spent every minute in the kitchen thinking of the book I’d rather be reading. If my stepdaughter and son-in-law passed on the poppers, pleading calories, I would have resented it. After all I had done for them.

Instead, I left my husband with the breakfast dishes (something else the old me never would have done) and went upstairs to research recipes. There was one that involved making a caramel sauce and a cake from scratch. And there was one that involved cubed butter, sprinkled brown sugar and (gasp!) a box of yellow cake mix.

I chose the cake mix. I asked my husband if he would mind going to the store, the one on the corner. He didn’t mind at all.

We had a nice, relaxing dinner. The cake was a big hit. During the day, I got to read some of that book. My husband and I took a short nap, and spent time visiting with some neighbors we hadn’t seen for a while. I enjoyed our dinner and didn’t feel drained.

I didn't miss the old me at all.

By George, I Think She's Got It!

2010-03-28T06:49:00.001-07:00

Remember my sponsee who needed to have some fun? If you missed that post, you can find it here.

I saw her at the meeting we both attend a couple of days later and asked her how the night she was so worried about went.

It went fine, she said.

Downstairs where her husband and his buddies were playing pool, nothing got broken. No drunken brawls broke out. The house did not burn down.

Upstairs, she watched two movies, ate her ice cream and had a perfectly lovely time. Over the weekend, she also went to the gym and spent an enjoyable day with the hiking club she had just joined.

The meeting centered on a reading from Courage to Change. It had to do with trying to control everything, including the pace of our recovery. Lots of people talked about surrender, prayer, those sorts of things.

When it was my sponsee’s turn, she said she was going to go in a little different direction. There was some little bit about self-care in the reading and she seized on that.

She said it used to be that she’d plan her weekends by making a list of all the chores that needed to be done: water the plants, do the grocery shopping. Now, she thinks about the things she’d like to do and plans her weekend around that. The chores still get done. They just get done around the things she most wants to do.

Wow, I thought. She’s really getting it.

When we had our conversation about her husband’s pool party, she said it was like he was rebelling. She took it personally, as we tend to do. She assumed it was all about her.

Sometimes that’s true. When we begin to detach, sometimes the alcoholic tries to pull us back in by acting out. But most of the time, what our alcoholics do has nothing to do with us. They are just trying to live their lives. The trouble is that we are trying to live their lives, too.

I know that was true of me with my daughter. The way I got over my obsession with what she was doing was to get busy with my own life and leave her to hers. That’s what I think my sponsee is learning, and I couldn’t be happier for her.

Let it Rain

2010-03-24T06:27:00.000-07:00

Later today, hubby and I will head up to the land. We live in the desert and the house we’re building is at a higher elevation, in pinyon pine country. On the way, we pass through a pristine patch of desert, which is gloriously awash in color from golden Mexican poppies, purple lupine and slender stalks of orange globe mallow.

These spring wildflowers are as fickle as a cat. They need just the right conditions to flourish. Specifically, they need a lot of winter rain. We’ve been in a drought for years, so spectacular wildflowers have not been in great abundance, until now.

I couldn’t resist the analogy. The wildflowers bloom, not in spite of the storms, but because of then. Without the rain, the desert would be brown and dry. Not dead, but dormant. It’s the storms that bring it to life.

I can’t help but think that my own life is generous and abundant, not in spite of the storms, but because of them. Bread is not bread unless it has passed though the oven. Yeast may make the dough rise, but without heat, it remains a blobby, gooey mess.

I have been formed by fire. Al-Anon teaches me that I have choices about how I can feel about that. My program teaches me that while pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. I can let the hard times throw me into despair or I can embrace them.

I’ve prayed the acceptance prayer a lot lately. It begins, “Acceptance is the answer to my serenity today.” Denying reality is the very definition of insanity. I can’t change what is, but I can change how I feel about it. I can rest easy knowing that there are no mistakes in my God’s universe and that everything is as it should be. Wherever God has put me is the right place. The people He has put in front of me are the right people. I may not always find pleasure in my current situation, but there is wisdom. I can be grateful for the lesson. I can be grateful for the rain.

Thank you all for your comments on yesterday’s post. I couldn’t help but notice how many people admitted to being serious. I believe that a serious nature is another effect of this disease, as common as the desire to control. I wrote about it here. The good news for me is that if that is true, then “being restored to sanity” can also mean being restored to light heartedness.

See you in a few days. Meanwhile, take it easy.

Get a Life. Seriously.

2010-03-23T06:46:00.000-07:00

I got to give some pleasant direction to a sponsee the other day: HAVE SOME FUN!

She was upset because her husband was having some friends over to play pool. He stocked the whole refrigerator with beer. He bought a bottle of whiskey. She just knew that she was going to go home and be sarcastic.

“Is there anything you’ve been wanting to go out and do?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “Why should I be run out of my own house?”

I wasn’t suggesting that, I explained. I only thought that she should look at this as an opportunity. Her husband was having fun with his friends. Why shouldn’t she look at this as an opportunity to do something fun herself that she wouldn’t normally do because her husband wouldn’t enjoy it?

If she didn’t want to go out, I wondered if there were a spot inside the house where she go to do something enjoyable and engaging.

“The idea,” I said, “is to do something so enjoyable and so engrossing that you’re not worried about what you’re husband is doing or whether or not he’s drinking any of that beer himself.”

I told her when I needed a lift, I liked to watch Ann of Green Gables or the A&E version of Pride and Prejudice (Colin Firth is the only Mr. Darcy, as far as I’m concerned) and eat a pint of chocolate almond or coffee ice cream. That’s my idea of spiritual comfort food.

She liked that idea. She thought she might rent something along the lines of a romantic comedy. She particularly liked the part about the ice cream.

“I guess I always tend to cope by working my way though problems, but it’s okay to take it easy sometimes,” she said.

“Yes!” I agreed.

Inside, I was thinking how she was so much like me. Taking life and everything in it so darn seriously. Sometimes the best thing to do is just to lighten up and have a good time.

Saying Goodbye

2010-03-21T17:35:00.001-07:00

One thing I was not prepared for when I started this blog just a few short months ago, was how quickly people would come into my life, and how soon I would have to say goodbye.

Among the first things I saw when hubby and I got back from the land were goodbye messages from two of my favorite bloggers, Lou at Subdural Flow and Madison at Fight of Your Life. These are the just latest in what feels like a string of losses. Scott at Attitude of Gratitude called it quits not long ago. These were all longtime bloggers but, being new, I had little time with them. A couple of others have taken hiatuses that, so far, have not become permanent but sound as thought they might.

The fact that I have never met any of these people does not make me grieve their loss any less. They may have been "virtual" friends, but they are real to me as the desk I write on. They told the truth about their lives and addiction, supported me, shared resources. They touched me beyond measure.

Surely Al-Anon must offer wisdom. I searched the indexes in my daily readers in vain for wisdom on "loss" or "goodbye." The closest I came was "Letting go." This is from Courage to Change, p.202.

"... We can become too busy avoiding change to enjoy the gifts we fear to lose. By clutching at what we most want to keep, we lose it all the more rapidly.

Change is inevitable. We can depend on that. When we become willing to accept change, we make room for a loving God. By letting go of our efforts to influence the future, we become freer to experience the present, to feel all of our feelings while they are happening, and to more fully enjoy those precious moments of joy with which we are blessed."

So, to Lou, to Madison, and to all of you who are still out there blogging, I want you to know you have filled my life with precious moments of joy. Thank you for blessing my life.

And for those who are moving on, whether by choice or necessity, please know that you have touched me. And I will miss you. Godspeed.

Just Say No

2010-03-19T06:46:00.000-07:00

I have a sponsee who came to Al-Anon because she wanted recovery. But she also wanted to know what to do if her loved one relapsed again. And she got to find out.

She was coming to my house to work a step. Her alcoholic had relapsed following a difficult discussion she had with him. Just as she was pulling into my driveway, he texted her.

"I want to quit drinking," it said.

She saw it as a sign from God that she got this message as she arrived at my house.

"What should I say?" she wanted to know.

"Say 'Good,' 'I'm glad,' or something else supportive," I said.

"What should I do?" she wondered.

"Nothing," I said.

"Nothing?"

"Nothing"

"What if he's drunk and can't drive?"

"I'm sure he'll figure something out."

"What if he wants to go to a meeting?"

"He can call someone in AA. That's what AAs do. They pick people up and take them to meetings."

"What if he doesn't have anyone's number."

"AA has a 24-hour information line, just like Al-Anon."

"Where can I find it?"

"It's online. Does he have a computer?"

"Yes."

"Then I'm sure he can find it."

She told me she had a conversation with his boss. She told him her loved one was drinking. She was sure she had done the right thing. I shook my head.

"No?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because it's none of your business."

"But I wanted her to understand. So he wouldn't get in trouble."

"If he got in trouble, that would be a natural consequence of his drinking, wouldn't it?"

"But she called me. She asked my why he hadn't been to work. What was I supposed to say?"

"Say, I think you should talk to him."

"Oh." She thought for a moment.

"So, normally when this happens, he would come over to my house for a couple of days," she said after a minute.

"Do you want him to come over?" I asked.

"No," she admitted.

"Then don't do it." I said. "Just say no."

A smile spread across her face as she started to understand.

I shared with her about a recent morning's reading. I read all three daily readers, and I can't remember which one it was. There was one line that really stood out for me.

"I will leave the alcoholic to the alcoholics."

That was a hard lesson to learn. It didn't seem fair that my daughter would listen to someone else who had been saying what I had been trying to tell her for years. But the truth is, she simply didn't hear me.

I had to leave her to the alcoholics and addicts. I had to get out of the way. I had to stop putting a pillow between her and the consequences of her actions.

But that didn't mean there was nothing I could do. I could help the families of other alcoholics and addicts. That's how I chose to spend my energies these days. Where it might do some good.

The next time I saw my sponsee, she was smiling. She looked genuinely happy. I asked how she was. "Life is good," she said.

Life is also good for me, these days. Hubby and I are on the way to the land where there is a closet that does not yet see have a cedar lining. It has my name on it.

I'll see you in a couple of days.

Meanwhile, take care.

My Best Asset

2010-03-18T06:31:00.001-07:00

I love speaker meetings and birthday meetings.

It's nice to have a break. To just listen and not have to form coherent thoughts on a difficult topic. But more than that, I love these meetings because I get to hear the big picture.

Topic meetings help me learn solutions about particular problems. I hear little bits and pieces of a person's story. I may have heard them share dozens of times before, but the context is missing. But speaker meetings and birthday meetings are where I forge deeper connections to people, because I hear their stories whole.

More often than not I hear my own story, or pieces of it, and understand, really understand, that I'm not alone.

The other day, I was listening to Joe, who was celebrating his 12th birthday. I had been sitting in meetings with Joe for a couple of years. But in this meeting, he talked a lot about his childhood. I had no idea all he had overcome.

After the meeting, I told him that his path inspired me. That he had come from where he was to where he is now seemed one of those miracles you hear about in Al-Anon.

He answered that what he loved about this program was that this was the only place he knew where his past could be turned into an asset.

I knew just what he meant. In Al-Anon, I know that all of the difficult things I've experienced, all the mistakes I've made, the embarrassing and awful things I've done are not for nothing.

I can share them freely. Because when I do, someone in the room might benefit from what I've gone through. They might have done something similar and know they are not alone. They might somehow learn from my experience. They might be inspired.

It reminds me of that fairy tale of the girl who could turn straw into gold. When I came to Al-Anon, I had no idea that I would come to embrace my past and share it freely. That it would, in fact, be my best asset and the greatest gift I can offer.

If I Were a Tree...

2010-03-17T06:39:00.000-07:00

Have you ever played this game: If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?

A friend of mine once referred jokingly to people who played this game. But I had an answer. I had actually thought about this.

If I were a tree, I thought, I’d be a mighty oak. Oaks are strong and slow burning. With a wide and sheltering canopy, a mature oak provides shade and sustenance for small animals and dreamers alike.

But having been in the program for a while, I realized that I did not want to be an oak. Oaks do not fare well in storms. Their very strength makes them rigid and prone to breaking. A wind that is strong enough can sheer a limb or topple the tree.

No, rather than an oak, I aspire to be a humble palm. Palm trees are flexible, made to weather the storm. In a strong wind, they bend and sway. And when the gale has past, the palm returns to its natural posture, standing slender, straight and tall.

What's My Line?

2010-03-15T21:29:00.001-07:00

Having become a sponsor recently, I pay more attention when people talk about how they sponsor others. I find the variety fascinating.

My line of sponsorship is very tradition bound. My sponsor told me that ours is an old line, dating from the earliest days of Al-Anon. There was no precedent, so the early Al-Anon members went to the women in AA and asked what it meant to work a step. To this day, we still study AA literature in addition to Al-Anon literature.

That I was part of an old line didn't mean a lot to me at first. Since then, I've come to see myself as the beneficiary of generations of wisdom. I work the steps with my sponsees the same way my sponsor worked them with me. And she works them the same way she was taught by her sponsor.

Being tradition bound also means following a certain code. There are six principles we follow in our line of sponsorship. They are:

1. We are willing to go to any lengths for our recovery
2. We attend meetings
3. We pray on our knees
4. We work the steps
5. We take commitments
6. We sponsor others

Tradition also dictates a few other things. For example, whenever we are at a podium, whether chairing a meeting, speaking at an institution, accepting a chip, we wear a skirt. Old fashioned, yes. But I'm okay with that because when I appear in public, I represent more than just myself.

Practically speaking, these are the nuts and bolts:

Ideally, a sponsee will attend at least one meeting their sponsor attends so they can see each other at least once a week. In my case, I attend two committed meetings my sponsor attends, as well as one open AA meeting.

We have a regular, weekly call time of a half hour. During this time, I can talk about anything that is on my mind. I use that time to talk about what's going on in my life, ask questions, ask for advice. However, my sponsor also encourages me to call any time I need to.

One of the most important roles of sponsorship, for me, is working the steps. We all start by reading "Alcoholics Anonymous," the AA Big Book, up to the personal stories.

The next assignment is to read step 1 in Al-Anon's and AA's "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions." There is a writing assignment. Then we get together and discuss the writing. It pretty much goes like that through all of the steps.

Some of the writing assignments are short. Some are long. My fourth step took months. There are additional things along the way. A book, a gift. Prayers.

Every other month, everyone in our line of sponsorship gets together for a Big Book study. Interruptions, cross-talk, questions are all encouraged. This allows me to develop a relationship with my whole, extended Al-Anon family, women with long years of recovery and dedicated service.

I learned a lot by being sponsored. It was obvious to me that my sponsor was not flying by the seat of her pants, but was operating from an unofficial play book. There were rules, for example, for making amends. Like everything else, we followed tradition. The rules were old fashioned.

We made amends for our part of things in person. We said we were wrong. We were not allowed to justify or explain our behavior. We had to listen without interruption to the other person.

Tradition dictated what we made amends for and what we did not (the generational wisdom here having to do with doing further harm). Certain acts called for certain types of amends. There are, after all, no original sins. These things had all been worked out.

Tradition even guides our suggestions for action. There are standard "remedies" for whatever ails us.

The sponsee who is stuck in despair is often asked to keep a gratitude list for two weeks. They are asked to list 10 things, each day, for two weeks and not repeat anything.

The sponsee who is spinning out of control is sometimes asked to go clean the bathroom then call their sponsor back. Don't laugh. It works.

The sponsee who can't stop obsessing about their problems is given the assignment of calling other people in the program to ask how they are doing. The sponsee is not allowed to talk about their own problems.

The sponsee who is withdrawn and isolated is encouraged to take a service commitment.

We are taught to pray for willingness. We are taught to pray for those people we resent. The list goes on.

I know there are those who would probably chafe at something so regimented. We are Al-Anons, after all. We are control freaks who have problems with authority.

People are different, I can almost hear you say. What works for one may not work for someone else. And on some level, I agree. But what has struck me the most about this disease is how much we share in common. It's our sameness that binds us, not our differences.

It's comforting to me that there are guidelines. That I don't have to figure everything out. That I have literally generations of wisdom to draw upon.

I used to wonder if my sponsor talked to her sponsor about me. Now I know she does. I do the same. I have a sponsee who is having this type of problem, I will say. How can I help her? She will say something like, when you were going through such and such Karen (her sponsor) and I talked about it and she said....

Of course, there were times when my sponsor didn't have the answer and said so. She'd run it up the chain. Sometimes her sponsor didn't know, and it would go up again. It could be a little frustrating waiting, but I learned patience. It was a lesson in God's time. When I got my answer, it always made sense.

And even though the teaching has become cannonized, in a sense, the relationships are not. The sharing and the way we react to one another comes from who we are. It can't be learned or faked. And we can only give someone else as much as we have.

And that's why I'm glad I don't have to rely on just myself. Like everything else in this program, I can't sponsor someone well all on my own. I am not self-sufficient. But I have a Higher Power, and deep well from which I can draw.

To Everything There is a Season...

2010-03-14T22:04:00.000-07:00

Spring is in the air.

Up at the land, the birds have returned. Seasonal creeks are running with snow melt. Change is coming.

Back here at home, a spiritual adviser I admire is moving on. The change is good news. A promotion and the chance to fulfill a dream.

Still. For a moment I felt struck by the news. Selfishly, I worried about his successor. Would he or she have that same appeal? Would he or she be able to shine a light like a laser until I felt the prick of truth?

Then I remembered something I heard at a meeting. That whatever people God puts in our path are the right people. We can enjoy them while they are here. If we are lucky and if we are listening, sometimes God speaks to us through them. And when God decides it is time for them to move on to new places and new people, we need to let them go.

So I did. I felt glad for him, and I let him go.

Let It Begin With Me

2010-03-14T13:29:00.000-07:00

Hubby and I got home late last night, and so this morning when the phone rang I felt a little tired.

I knew it was a program call because the caller asked to speak to Kathy M.

"Yes, this is Kathy," I said.

The caller's name was Sylvia and she spoke with a heavy Eastern European accent. She was a new volunteer at the local information center and my name was on her list. Could I help take home calls in April?

I started to tell her I was pretty well committed. Three sponsees, prison service, commitments with my home group and, well, life.

I started to say those things.

Then I remembered that in my line of sponsorship we don't say "no" without a good reason. I remembered that I said I was willing to go to any lengths for my recovery. I remembered that God knows better than I do. I remembered the Al-Anon Declaration: "When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, let the hand of Al-Anon always be there, and Let It Begin With Me." I thought of the commitment she had made to fill all those night.

"What do you need?" I asked.

Sylvia said she needed someone to take home calls on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

My home group meets on Mondays, and one Monday a month, I'm at the prison.

Tuesday evenings are when I have my regular call times with my sponsees.

I wasn't available every Wednesday night in April, but I was available for a couple. I said I could fill in a day or two. She suggested two dates. I was free. I told her to sign me up.

I remembered what my sponsor said every time she took yet another sponsee (she has 14). "My God has a sense of humor," she said.

As I hung up the phone, I had to laugh.

Still Waters

2010-03-11T05:18:00.001-08:00

I’ve noticed a recurring theme at the open AA meetings I’ve attended lately. Nearly every speaker has said that they came late to the practice of daily meditation, even after working their programs for years. But once they started, they’d give up a lot before they’d give it up. It made me realize how much I’d let my own practice slide.

Prayer and meditation are part of step 11, but I began both early in my Al-Anon program. My sponsor explained that the last three steps were maintenance steps, and I could practice them at any time. I was glad. I once had a daily meditation practice and missed it.

In Al-Anon, the idea behind daily meditation is to quiet the mind so it’s possible to hear the voice of a Higher Power. I’ve heard it explained this way: When pebble is dropped into a stormy pond, it’s difficult to tell. But a pebble dropped into a still pond is unmistakable. You hear it “plop” in the water, and the ripples run outward in every direction. The idea is to make the mind like a still pond.

Al-Anon is wide open as far as what constitutes meditation. It can be anything that quiets the mind. For some people, that’s a period of quiet. Exercise works for some. One woman I know uses her time in the garden.

I had always understood prayer as talking to God and meditation as listening. But for my sponsor, that feeling of quiet meditation comes through prayer.

I remember reading once that prayer is a form of meditation, and that all religious faiths practice some form of it. Repeating a prayer over and over works something like a mantra, and so saying a rosary, for example, could be one form of meditation.

The way I learned to meditate is called “mindfulness meditation.” Mostly, it involves paying attention to my breath. I like to begin with a few prayers. I find prayer centers my mind, so it’s more willing to quiet down. Then I focus on my breathing.

There are several variations I’ve been taught, and I find it’s good to mix them up. My mind reacts better when I don’t do the same thing all the time. The simplest method is to focus on the sensation of my breath where it enters my body through my nose.

A variation on the same idea is to follow my breath as it travels into my lungs and back out, noticing even that the air is dry and cool on the way in, but returns warmed and moist. Or to I say to myself “I’m breathing in. I’m breathing out.”

Another method is to focus on an idea, say, “serenity” and to imagine that I am breathing in serenity with every breath. Or I might imagine that I am breathing in serenity and breathing out stress and anxiety.

Of course, thoughts come. But I try to take note of them and release them without attaching. When I realize my mind has grabbed onto an idea and run off down the road with it, I simply remind myself to return to my breathing, without judgment.

When my mind is particularly unruly, I like to imagine myself as a cartoon character sitting serenely at the bottom of a glass of soda. The bubbles rising all around me are my thoughts, and I picture myself simply watching them rise to the surface and break.

Lately, I’ve been trying to spend extra time in prayer and meditation. It’s been so long that my mind is like an unruly child. Even in long periods of meditation, it refuses to quiet down.

Then, one day, it happened. My mind went smooth as glass. I did a body check. Completely relaxed. It was a moment of pure bliss. Ahhhh, I thought. This is it. This is what I’ve been missing. Then it was gone.

It really only qualified as a moment of silence. But what a moment. And I know the more I practice, the more often I will have them and the longer they will be.

So we are off to the land, where I hope to observe several moments of silence in the next few days. There is no internet, so I will not be posting. But I will keep you, my blogging friends, in my thoughts and prayers.