Just returned from a three-mile charity walk on the beach with my sponsor. Two sober women, both adult children of alcoholics, and one happy dog. I had a great time reconnecting with my sponsor. A real benefit of twelve step programs is the opportunity to meet and get to know folks you might never have crossed paths with otherwise.
I’ve been down in the low country for a week now on my own and am settling into life dictated by the rhythm of the tides. Low tide and high tide each present different opportunities. At low tide, the beach on the sound near my house opens up and it is easier to walk long distances. During low tide you will see many wading birds; herons, egrets, and sometimes oystercatchers, my favorite, foraging for food among the exposed grasses and steamy pluff mud, which is mud formed by the decomposing spartina grass. Oysters, horseshoe crabs, whelks, hermit crabs, and many other small foraging creatures abound. At high tide, water floods the tidal marshlands on the other side of the beach and I can see water in every direction. High tide at the end of the day is a site to see and on many days I get to watch the dolphins come in with the tide to feed on the small fish. The tidal range between high and low tides can be anywhere from 6 to 10 feet and the water moves rapidly in and out of the estuaries here. You really have to know the tides if you boat or kayak on these waters.
It’s a blessing to spend time here in such a diverse and rich ecosystem.
One thing I’ve found is that I don’t have to be lonely down here. There’s always a meeting to go to, and I can always go outside and do something, walk the dog, walk on the beach, go to the gym, or the pool. September is a beautiful time in coastal South Carolina.
Yesterday I went to a yoga class, had a massage, and went to an evening meeting. A perfect day.
I’m not dwelling on the fact that I have cancer, and I’m actually starting to have a bit more energy, all good things. Today my gift is gratitude.
Sometimes it is so hard to see my part in things. I spent years in therapy working on myself, coming to grips with my past and the wreckage of growing up in an alcoholic family. The resentments I developed over so many years were so engrained in my entire being that I saw them as the truth.
I’d sit in my therapist’s office, oftentimes dissecting my latest resentment. I worked on my anger at my parents first, why hadn’t my Mother protected me against my father’s rage and alcoholism? Or against my brother’s abuse? I was the victim after all. And why did my Dad drink? When I hit my teen years, I’d hurl insults to my Mom, “Dad’s an alcoholic, you join him in drinking, why the hell can’t you do something about this? Why do you have to drink cocktails every night in Dad’s den with the door shut? Why am I left here all alone?”
I went away to boarding school at the ripe age of 14. I was getting out, my older brother said, “Do it, you don’t want to have to deal with their strictness and rage, get out”. At the same time, Mom and Dad were looking for a way to get me out of their hair, Dad was traveling often on business and they had bought a place in Florida. They also wanted to get me away from the bad influences of the kids that I had started to hang out with. They urged me to visit a few girls “finishing schools” my mother had picked out but I was having no part of that. So off I went to a co-ed board school rife with drugs and alcohol, you can imagine the rest of that story.
Today I got an email from one of my sister-in-laws, the one married to my brother 6 years older than me. The same brother who terrorized me when I was a kid, and was making me and my friends fake ID’s by the time I was in college. I no longer feared him, he’d become one of my best friends. He was everything I wanted to be; smart, good-looking, cool, heck he even played in a rock band. I had secret crushes on several of his friends. The ID’s he made got us into our favorite bars around town.
When my Dad was dying there was endless drama in my family. I’ll skip the details but in the end all that drama caused some serious rifts. My two brothers would not speak to one another, I wanted nothing to do with my sister, one brother would talk to my sister but the other one wouldn’t and so on and so on. I thought I had to take sides so I choose the brother I thought was right about one of the particular episodes in the drama. It was a circle of insanity and dysfunction.
Recently I got a birthday card from my estranged sister, “I’d love it if we could leave the past behind and just be friends.” I got a birthday email from the brother I hadn’t spoken to since the presidential election. I am praying about what to do with my sister but the email from my brother was the perfect time to make an amends. Since then we’ve emailed back and forth and a few days ago he cc-ed his wife on one of the emails.
That’s what prompted me to write this post. She emailed this morning updating me about their lives, their kids, their plans, etc. It sounded like things were good between her and my brother. I am so touched that she reached out to me. I ended up in tears.
The email really shook me. All these years lost, because of long-held, basically meaningless, resentments. I was unable to see my part in things and many of these rifts and resentments occurred when I was sober. It’s hard for me to process but I am able to see these things more clearly as they move away.
Healing is a slow process. I’m letting go of the past, one step at a time, one person at a time. I’m learning about honesty and forgiveness and I’m starting to become the true me after so many years of wearing masks. The conundrum is that I want it all now. I want to let go of my ego, to love and accept others for who they are, let go of judgment, be evolved. I want all of this immediately so I can live in harmony with others and this world. I’ve wanted a quick fix all my life, I’m an alcoholic.
They say that to discover what is true and to practice what is good is are the two highest aims in life. I’m partway through discovery.
Speaking of anxiety, I downloaded a romantic comedy to watch on my new Kindle Fire during the car ride, “Midnight in Paris”, a film written and directed by Woody Allen and for me Woody Allen is synonymous with anxiety neurosis. The film was set in Paris of all places, as if the title didn’t give it away.
Decided to watch it after darkness fell so I plugged in my noise-cancelling headphones and turned up the volume. The main character, played by Owen Wilson, is your typical, Woody Allen-ish neurotic, romantic, unfulfilled writer. He’s a successful Hollywood screenwriter but what he really wants to do is write the perfect novel. He’s there with his beautiful, shallow, pretentious fiancé and her rich, conservative, disconnected-from-reality, parents.
One of the reasons I chose the film is because I love Paris, we’ve been there several times and I have many wonderful memories of wandering through her narrow, romantic streets, strolling along the Seine, sitting in her bistros and sidewalk cafes. I drank plenty of wine in those cafes in Paris, rationalizing my consumption by the fact that wine was a part of the prix fixe menu.
I also have memories of the day we planned to go to the Louvre but couldn’t because the workers were on strike. Strikes are something I can always count on when visiting Europe. We did go to Louvre some years later, and I could spend a lifetime in that museum. That and the many other museums in and around Paris.
The film showed two of my favorites, Rodin’s Sculpture Garden, and Monet’s Giverney. I figured that even if the film was bad, I could still look at some pretty pictures and I did. I enjoyed the film in a semi-conscious state and was somewhat bored and annoyed by Owen Wilson’s antics. He’s so one-dimensional.
I followed the main character’s time-travel trip back to the 1920′s Paris society with interest. There he meets some of his favorite authors, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, composer Cole Porter, Picasso, and a multitude of other now-famous artists, musicians, and writers. Flash back to memories of my 11th grade English class, “The Lost Generation“, taught by one of my all-time favorite teachers, Mr. Bursk. He introduced me to the literary and social culture of the great artists and writers of the Roaring Twenties. Among other things. Wonder whatever happened to Mr. Bursk. That was 38 years ago. Funny how vividly I recall details from so long ago but don’t ask me what clothes I wore yesterday. So glad I took that English course in high school, now all I need is a memory course. ;)
I dosed off a couple of times during the movie, and at one point I woke up when my husband was exiting the highway for dinner. Are you hungry? Moments later we were getting chicken at the drive-through at Zaxby’s, a southern tradition and a new experience for me. I had buffalo chicken fingers, not bad but a very sloppy food to eat in the front seat of a cramped Volkswagen turbo-diesel Sportswagen.
We finally crossed the bridge to the island, D driving and me with our two sweet dogs in my arms. I’d released them from their seat belts in the back earlier when we stopped at the huge Kroger’s off-island to buy a few groceries. The brave little-girl-dog was balanced on my knee with her head hanging out the open window, her ears flapping in the wind, whereas my timid little-boy-dog was nervous and trembling on my lap. I held him tight and reassured him that all was ok and we’d be there soon.
I always feel relief crossing that bridge.
We arrived at our beach house at about 11pm and the first thing I do when I get here at night is breathe in the fresh air and look up and marvel at all the twinkling stars above me. Thank God it was a clear night. Thank God we are finally here. Thank God for the beauty of this place.
I’m praying for a peaceful holiday and a few days to relax with my husband before our friends arrive on Wednesday. I’m also looking forward to driving up next week to a meeting that Syd attends. It will be great to meet him, a fellow recovery blogger that I so admire.
This has been a long post, longer than suggested so I split it into two parts. I was in a writing mood. I need to seize those moments. If I was in Paris in the 1920′s I might sit around drinking, talking, and writing in dark, smoky, literary cafes. Instead I blog from inside my house out into the blogosphere. The drinking part is long gone and that’s a good thing.
I wish for all of you a wonderful holiday if you celebrate this season. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, and Happy Winter Solstice!!! I hope everyone is enjoying love, peace and light during this sometimes stressful, but beautiful-if-we-let-it-work-its-magic, season.
I spent yesterday afternoon doing some of my typical household chores, paying bills, doing laundry, making phone calls. Was successful in persuading the guys I gave a deposit to months ago to fix the roof today. Maintaining our house is never-ending, I don’t recommend a house with a flat roof if you can avoid it. Still love my house. I’m grateful to live in this peaceful enclave in the middle of the city.
Yesterday was election day. Beautiful, sunny, 60 degrees, a rarity here in the mid-Atlantic in November. Lovely. I live next to a beautiful college campus and vote at the Music Center. I walked my dogs up to the voting poll breathing in the smells of fall. At the voting center, a poll worker was sweet enough to offer to watch my dogs while I went in to vote. Voted and was happy to not be working the polls, I recently put my political work on the back burner.
After voting I took a walk around the campus. While my dogs were playing, I looked up to the sky, felt the warm sun on my face, soaked it in. Hot shining sun, my higher power for the day. Returning home, I opened up the sliding doors, hooked up my iPod to the speakers and put it on shuffle. A painter was touching up some of our exterior trim before the winter sets in.
I’d love to paint the front door a new color, I told him. Our black front door was chipping. To my amazement he said no problem, went to his truck to get the color fan for me. He said he could easily and quickly pick up the paint. I wanted a purple front door, selected a color I thought would work well with the house. I LOVE color. I was happy. A simple change. A simple moment. A beautiful and welcoming front door. Sun shining, Fall swirling through the house, my favorite music playing. What a day. Grateful.
I wish I could say the day ended well but it didn’t work that way. That evening we had a tough visit with our family counselor, the guy we sought to help our son, who refuses to take part. Dredged up a lot of difficult memories. My husband and I were at odds, disconnected. After the session, we stopped for a bite to eat, dropped the subject for some peace. After dinner I excused myself for a moment, and when I returned he was checking his iPhone. (he’d moved on from his Crackberry). I got a call, It’s WORK, its important, he said. More important than me, I thought. Work at 9:30?, I said. On our drive home he had a conversation with his partner through the blue tooth on the radio. I had wanted to talk to him and process our therapy appointment. Another lost opportunity. Another distraction.
We got home, relaxed a bit, he fell asleep in a family room chair, woke up, went to bed. I loaded the dishwasher, set it to run, gathered up the recyclables. Fell asleep. At 12:19AM the phone rang, our son’s number on caller ID. Woke up having just drifted off. Oh shit, I thought. Didn’t pick up, is he in jail? The phone continues to ring incessantly, he doesn’t leave messages. Couldn’t be in jail, they only give you one call, right? Called both our cells. Called our daughter’s cell and woke her up. I heard her arguing with him downstairs, It’s not my responsibility, she said. He was raging, demanding a ride. He needed someone to drive him from one part of town to another because he had missed the last bus. Said the clock was nine hours slow, blamed us that he would miss his work tomorrow. Seriously. We didn’t talk to him, unfortunately our daughter did. This is the stuff we’ve dealt with for as long as I can remember.
In the past my husband would have jumped out of bed and given him a ride. He didn’t this time. I unplugged all the phones in the house, turned off our cells. Couldn’t sleep, worried, is he cold? Will he sleep in the park? Will he come to our house and try to break in? Needless to say, it was not a restful night.
Writing this down is re-living the experience and I’m not sure how helpful it is. I’m letting it out and I know I’ll cry for him, for us, for our shattered family. I could have titled this post, F the Phone. Luckily, the sun is shining again today, our front door is still purple. Welcoming, inviting. I will invite the positive in today, I pray for him, for my family, to get myself out-of-the-way, to walk through whatever comes my way with grace. This is my meditation. I cannot control these things, I can’t beg and plead God to fix everything even though that is what I want.
Gossip. When I say the word, it twists around in my mouth, it feels and sounds “bad”. As in, if you gossip, you are a bad girl. Turns out the word gossip has its origins in the Old English words, “ god and sibb, the term for godparents, i.e. a child’s godfather or godmother. In the 16th century, the word assumed the meaning of a person, mostly a woman, one who delights in idle talk, a newsmonger, a tattler. In the early 19th century, the term was extended from the talker to the conversation of such persons. The verb to gossip, meaning “to be a gossip”, first appears in Shakespeare.” Thank you Wikipedia.
In Hebrew, the word for gossip is Lashon hara, which literally means evil tongue. Lashon hara is a serious sin. It is evil speech behind one another’s back. Even if a person hears Lashon hara, they are guilty by association.
What I need to examine is not just the act of talking about someone when they are not in the room, but the intention of my actions. Is the gossip intended to correct a wrong, to fix a problem? Or is it intended to hurt another person by inflating my own sense of self-worth? Is it okay to gossip about a person when I am attempting to make things right and ultimately help others in the process? Or am I justifying my actions? Being self-righteous? Again, who wrote the playbook, me?
In today’s Courage to Change, I read that “I continue to assume that I have the inside track on how everything should be done, and that other people are too short=sighted to recognize this great truth.” That ugly word should keeps cropping up in my untended garden. Note to self, shit on should.
Last night, I took my tenth step inventory. There is always something to look at, both good and bad. How had I helped someone? Where did I go wrong? The tenth step has come up in meetings a lot lately, presumably because it is October, the tenth month. In a meeting last night, the topic was the bondage of self. How am I overly concerned or obsessed with myself, my feelings, my situation in life? How do we turn it over as instructed in the third step? What can we do to get out of our own heads?
My first thought, be of service to others. If I am helping someone else, I am not preoccupied with myself.
The glaring character defect that popped up last night was gossip. Even if my intention was not to harm the other person, it is still behavior that I am not comfortable with. I continue to do it, even when I know it’s not the right thing to do. My little foray with gossip yesterday involved talking about a woman that attends many of the same meetings I do. She really gets under my skin, pushes my buttons. I have wasted a lot of time examining her character defects. Oftentimes I am able to let it slide and chalk it up to early sobriety. Those are most likely the times when I am spiritually fit, aligned with my higher power. After all, I’ve seen a lot of sick people come into the program and when they go to meetings and work the steps, they get better. I can practice compassion.
What is it about me that feels the need to correct someone else’s behavior? The twisted part of this is that when I really take a look at my actions, I realize that when I concentrate on the other, I am not looking at myself. I’m not keeping my side of the street clean.
Becoming aware of my defects of character is one of the great gifts of the 10th step. If I am not aware, how can I change? Instead, I can take the step of contrary action. When I want to isolate, get outside, go to a meeting. When I want to gossip, say something nice about someone. Do something nice. When I am fearful, be courageous, just do it. Walk through the pain.
My prayer is that someday I will look back on these pages and smile. I will find comfort in the fact that by confronting these hard facts about myself, and turning them over to my higher power, I will have changed.
Melody Beattie’s daily meditations inspire me. One of my favorite tools of the program for me is starting my day with a meditation. The act quiets my mind and helps me set an intention for the day. Often my intention is as simple as loving myself and practicing kindness and compassion for others. It sounds simple, doesn’t it?
In today’s meditation, Melody takes about victimization and negativity. If we try hard enough, we can find the misery in any situation, no matter how wonderful. She urges us to “take off the gray cloak of despair, negativity and victimization.”
Funny, I still remember when I put on that cloak. It was in sixth grade and I had just entered middle school. Surrounded by a bunch of new kids, I was uncomfortable. These were not kids from my neighborhood, they were bigger, tougher. I unknowingly stepped into the realm of class conflict; the chasm between the haves and the have-nots, the kids whose parents were corporate executives versus the working class, blue-collar families. I made a conscious decision. I set out on a path to switch sides, to abandon the materialistic values of my parents and the folks living in my neighborhood. I was going to be tough and fit in. I started dressing like the other kids. Being one of the smartest kids in the class was just not cool so I started to slip.
This is when I started feeling guilty for what I had, very guilty. Why did my parents have the big house, fancy cars and country club memberships? I wanted to be like the other kids. I wanted to live in the ranch house with the close-knit families and accessible parents. I started to make excuses for my circumstances. Guilt and shame for “having it all”. If someone complimented me on my clothes, I would say, this old thing? I could not say thank you and accept a compliment. Of course, I didn’t have it all. I was missing something and trying desperately to fill it up. I wasn’t good enough so I donned a new outfit, a new persona.
Alcohol helped fill that hole. It felt good, I felt good. Now I see this for what it is, a trap. The descent into alcoholism took away the precious gift I did not even realize I had. The gift of authenticity. I wasn’t giving myself a chance to become comfortable with who I was without the external crutch of a substance. I was becoming a prisoner just when I thought I was becoming free. A simple twist of fate. A sad love story. Losing the gift of loving myself.
There is a solution. Today I use the tools of the program. I listen to the wisdom of others traveling the same path. I read daily meditations.
Today I will refuse to think, talk, speak or act like a victim. Instead, I will joyfully claim responsibility for myself and focus on what’s good and right in my life.
Authenticity, loving myself enough to be who I am.
Today the husband, two of our dogs and I took a day trip to a small fairly undeveloped island off the South Carolina coast. Traveled around the island via golf cart and enjoyed the historic sites and the beautiful 3 mile long beach.
We had a good day, in peaceful, Forrest Gump-like surroundings. The highlight was watching our dogs’ first goat encounter. Seems that people on this island have goats for pets. Our dogs must have spooked the goat because he jumped in our golf cart and tried to drive away. After bonding with the goat, we moved on to have a great lunch of fried grouper at a funky dockside establishment and another look at some of the bankrupt developments on the island. We swung past John Cougar Mellencamp’s house on the way to the dock to catch the ferry back to our “Small Town”. BTW, I still think of him as Johnny Cougar. Shows my age.
After a choppy, windy trip skirting the stormy skies, we headed to our beach home, showered off the sand of the day, and ventured out to hit the Monday night Al-anon meeting. On our way we picked up two Grande Decaf Nonfat Lattes. Armed with our coffee, we entered the Clubhouse where our meeting is held. Just as we were going in, another member came out and told us they moved the meeting tonight to Starbuck’s. Due to circumstances beyond their control. A bit perplexed, we decided to give it a shot and got back into the car and headed back to Starbuck’s.
I was a bit skeptical. What about anonymity? Starbucks? Are you kidding? We got to the meeting being held in a room in Starbucks called “The Vault”. Turns out the Starbucks was once a bank. We both sat down at the table in the room with about 10 other people. No one else appeared very concerned about holding a meeting at their local Starbucks. I wasn’t starting to feel any better about the surroundings and I could tell my husband wanted to leave. It was impossible to close the vault door so our meeting was wide open to the rest of Starbuck’s.
I told myself to buck up and have a good attitude. Attitude of gratitude, right? I reminded myself that I always get something out of a meeting. Take what you want and leave the rest, right? We agreed to talk softly and proceeded to discuss the 12th step.
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
I thought about the 12th step and what it means to work it in my life. For me the tricky part is to practice these principles in ALL of my affairs. Why not just some of my affairs? What about the ones where I think I’m right? Those times remind me that my character defects are flaring up again and that’s a good thing. I need those reminders. My ego hasn’t disappeared. Seriously, if I didn’t have the 12 steps I wouldn’t even know what my character defects are.
How do you practice the al-anon principles in all of your affairs?
Back to the meeting, I got a bit squirmish when a newcomer asked whether a person can be members of two programs at the same time. For instance, can a person go to both Al-anon and AA meetings? Good question. Silence. I said nothing. Others commented that those people are called ”Double Winners”. Never hearing that term before, I decided that was a good thing. A compliment, perhaps.
Just to let you know, I wasn’t in my home town and wasn’t really connected to these folks. They knew nothing about me.
As the discussion was going around the room, Starbucks was playing loud “background” music. When I got my head out of the rabbit hole, I realized that the song that was playing was “Let it Be”. So that’s what I did. Let it be. I didn’t have to explain myself to anyone. I could sit quietly and remember that “I am right where I am supposed to be”.
I’ve been down in the low country for a week now on my own and am settling into life dictated by the rhythm of the tides. Low tide and high tide each present different opportunities. At low tide, the beach on the sound near my house opens up and it is easier to walk long distances. During low tide you will see many wading birds; herons, egrets, and sometimes oystercatchers, my favorite, foraging for food among the exposed grasses and steamy pluff mud, which is mud formed by the decomposing spartina grass. Oysters, horseshoe crabs, whelks, hermit crabs, and many other small foraging creatures abound. At high tide, water floods the tidal marshlands on the other side of the beach and I can see water in every direction. High tide at the end of the day is a site to see and on many days I get to watch the dolphins come in with the tide to feed on the small fish. The tidal range between high and low tides can be anywhere from 6 to 10 feet and the water moves rapidly in and out of the estuaries here. You really have to know the tides if you boat or kayak on these waters.
One thing I’ve found is that I don’t have to be lonely down here. There’s always a meeting to go to, and I can always go outside and do something, walk the dog, walk on the beach, go to the gym, or the pool. September is a beautiful time in coastal South Carolina.
