Dear Mom...

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

When Someone Else is My Problem…

“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?

I Resemble that Remark

In Monday's Big Book study, we were reading about step 4, so the big topic of the evening was resentments. We talked about it from every conceivable angle. It generated a lot of discussion, because we've all had them and they have created all sorts of havoc for us.

A woman with nearly 20 years of recovery shared that a resentment that began as a tiny twinge, grew so large that she nearly walked away from what was then 16 years of recovery.

Someone brought up the commercial of the woman with the stuffy nose whose head blows up like a balloon until it looks like it's ready to pop. We all agreed that's what resentments can feel like.

We reminded ourselves of the old Al-Anon adage, that nursing a resentment is like swallowing poison and hoping the other person dies from it.

Here's what the Big Book has to say about it, in part:

"Resentment is the 'number one' offender. It destroys more alcoholics (here, we substitute 'Al-Anons') than anything else... It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while... For when harboring such feelings, we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol (here, I substitute 'sick thinking') returns and we drink ('get crazy') again." (pages 65 and 66)

The stories we shared played out just like that.

We talked about the tools that helped us get over our resentments. There were many. But one that the women in our group said has worked consistently is the resentment prayer. It's located on page 552 of the Big Book. Here's what it says:

"If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free. As for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and yout will be free. Even when you don't really want it for them and your prayers are only words and you don't mean it, go ahead and do it anyway. Do it every day for two weeks, and you will find you have come to mean it and you want it for them, and you will realize that were you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love."

Many of the women said they had to pray the resentment prayer for longer than two weeks, but to a person, they all said it worked.