Skills I Learned in Recovery

~ Patti ~ Leave a comment

Due to restructuring, the company I worked for eliminated my position. Aside from the usual grief a person feels when they lose something that they spent a decade of their life building, I felt unusually calm. I did tell one of my children that I needed some time to process before I told any of his siblings. It was one of those times I just needed to isolate in order to process.

If recovery has taught me anything, it’s taught me to show up and suit up. I did not isolate to stay in bed to feel sorry for myself. I isolated to process. There is a difference. I still remained active.

I allowed myself to sleep in and stay in my pajamas for the day, but I was at my computer at normal working hours updating my resume, updating my social media accounts, applying for jobs and contacting recruiters. I was busy and I was productive. When I reached the point that I was unable to think to pursue the next job search activity, I constructively worked on my hobbies. At the end of the day, I turned my computer off and made dinner.

Still processing, I went to bed early to watch Netflix and play on Facebook. The second morning I proceeded to my computer to write and work out my emotions and get clear about who I am. I started my gratitude list. I was grateful to the company that let me go for all that I learned and experienced. I was grateful for the people I had met along the way. I was grateful for my salary and what they had sent me away with. I realized that even though they had eliminated my position, they couldn’t eliminate my experience or knowledge in the field that I worked in and I was grateful for that. Most of all, I was grateful that they had let me go.

I have never had a life change that did not work out for my absolute best no matter how painful it was. Recovery taught me how to walk through my painful circumstances and trust the universe and my higher power to do for me what I cannot do for myself.

After I was finished writing, I contacted my children and they sent me messages of love and support. I had processed and I did it in a healthy way that also gave me room to be gentle on myself.

Just for today, I’m a grateful alcoholic who learned skills in recovery that I wouldn’t have otherwise learned.

Grateful Alcoholic

~ Patti ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been visiting with my sister. We’ve been talking about middle age and the health issues that accompany it. We both agree that we like younger friends because the women our age are usually focused on how lousy they feel or how badly life has treated them. My sister and I try to keep it positive and moving forward even though like most middle aged women we have a few issues that have popped up. I started pondering this and the truth is that I had more health issues in my 20s than I do now. The difference is that I’ve been conditioned into thinking that now that I’m in my 50s, it’s age related.
There is another disease that I am in recovery from, alcoholism. I started thinking that most diseases have been linked to stress. Stress is nothing more that how we perceive the events that surround us. In recovery I learned to turn my life over to a higher power, accept life on life’s terms, take an inventory of my character defects, make amends and carry the message to other alcoholics. Most importantly, I learned gratitude. It was in my moments of gratitude that I was set free from my anxiety and the obsession to drink.
I learned how to be grateful for the love that surrounded me, the possessions that gave me comfort and for my abilities. The most difficult lesson of gratitude was the gratitude for my alcoholism. I heard people say that they were a grateful alcoholic, but I thought they were either lying or drunk. I couldn’t even imagine being grateful for something that made me such a hideously ugly person and that caused me to be bankrupt of spirit and landed me in a place of total “incomprehensible demoralization.”
I can remember the events of my life now and say I am grateful to be an alcoholic. Because of my disease, I have learned skills to cope with life that few normal people possess. I have been able to tap into the stronger parts of my person and use them to benefit myself and my family. I am more humble and accepting of others weaknesses. I possessed and learned the ability to suit up and show up for my family, my education, my job and myself. My view of my higher power has expanded where it used to be narrow and limited. I learned that god will do for me what I cannot do for myself and to trust the process of whatever I was trying to accomplish in my life. I have been able to help others in a way that none other than an alcoholic could touch.
I am wondering if we practiced these principals in all of our affairs, if we could recover from other infirmaries. What would happen if I applied my recovery and were grateful for my hypothyroidism, my other addictive tendencies or my chronicle fatigue?  I think it’s worth exploring,
Just for today, I’ll dig out my gratitude journal and start counting the ways my infirmaries bless me.

Honor

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Life happens.  A few years go by and I haven’t written or purged rancid emotions.  I get  self-absorbed with my husband, my kids, my career, my house, my hobbies and my desires that I forget why I still have those things.  I have just picked up a chip on Sunday in celebration of 14 years, but my sobriety date is February 28th.  I didn’t honor my anniversary the way I should have.  I put it on the backburner until I felt it was convenient.  I think that’s what I do; I wait until it’s convenient to take care of myself.  When I honor my sobriety anniversary I honor me.  I honor my story.  I honor my journey.  Life is really good today, but there was a time when I wanted to die.  The pain of living was too difficult to carry.  What I didn’t know at the time was that was my perception of my life.  When I learned how to perceive my life differently, I learn how to be happy.  I’ve forgotten what it was like to live in perpetual pain and no hope.  I’ve forgotten what it was like to try to drink my life away so I couldn’t remember it.  I’ve forgotten the utter bankruptcy of my spirit.  I learned how to be grateful and being grateful gave me a different viewpoint to look at my life.  The different viewpoint gave me a different perception from the eyes of gratitude.  My brain chemistry changed; my life changed.

Just for today I will honor that.

Thanksgiving

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I know the holidays are rough for most of us.  But for me it’s the one time a year that I’ve been able to put aside my depression and anxiety and focus on hope. My husband tells me that Christmas lives at my house.  I have a small ranch but I decorate several trees.  There is Christmas in every corner.  That’s not to say that I didn’t have some rough years.

I remember the year I was so mad at my husband, now my ex, that I actually threw the Thanksgiving turkey as it was coming out of the oven.  I’m not proud of that.  There should never be any reason for such a violent reaction.  Alcohol brings to us a myriad of regrets and behaviors that we never thought we were capable of.

The year after that I was six weeks sober and found myself sitting in an aftercare meeting Thanksgiving night.  I remember thinking, “I’ve only got to be among the lowest people on the face of the earth.  How did, I, get here?”

Those were probably my most despondent holidays.  That was 14 years ago.  It’s amazing what a decade brings.  My home is a safe place today.  It’s safe from me.  The holidays are joyous occasions that I get to spend with my five children and their spouses and kids.  I get to bring good memories and set my own traditions.  My grandkids know that I will get them books and they look forward to that.  I paint special ornaments on wood for my kids that they can pass on to their kids after I’m gone.  My Christmases will live on generations after I’m gone.

This year I look forward to spending Thanksgiving with my ex-husband and his wife.  They are family.  We will laugh and share our troubles and dreams and things that we’ve learned.  We will share our gratitude.

Maybe the holidays are horrible for you.  I pray you will wrap yourself in the fellowship of a group of alcoholics and make them your family.  I know a man that has a Christmas breakfast for his alcoholic friends.  He stays in service and takes care of his adopted family of ex-drunks.  He gives the gift of hope.

There are good years and bad years.  But I know one thing for sure, “I’ve have touched the bottom and it is sound.” –John Bunyan

Just for today I will look for those things that I can be Thankful for and remember that there will never be a holiday that a drink won’t make worse.  Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Relief From Self

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I’ve been working overtime for two months straight.  The company I work for is getting a new computer system so I’ve been working a lot of nights at home.  My daughter and I had a fight and when we talked about it later I realized I had a little PTSD going on.  She was extremely thoughtful and asked me what was going on to set it off.  She has the same disturbance sometimes and knows that stress usually is the trigger more than the actual memory.  I have a lot going on at work and at home and haven’t had the time to do any of the things that I do to take care of myself and my spiritual condition.

I go to 12 step meetings.  I camp…. In a trailer…  I actually Glamp.  When I’m out in the middle of the desert my mind quiets.  I’m at perfect peace.  It is my sanctuary where I meet my higher power.  I write in my blog.  It connects me to other alcoholics and gives me perspective.  I sit in my spa in a box cheap portable hot tub.  It relaxes me.  I dabble with my essential oils.  I read.  I exercise.  These are the things that have replaced alcohol in my life and center me.  I have not done any of them in two months.  You can guess how crazy I feel.

The thing is you don’t notice they are missing until it’s too late.  In my case, I blow a gasket, yell at someone I love, get grumpy to my coworkers, send snotty emails and I’m just plain unpleasant.  Then comes the voice of regret that tells me I’ve gone too far.  That means it’s time to get back to basics.

Everyone’s sanctuary is different but step 10 is the same for all of us.  We continue to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.  Step 10 is a wonderful tool but by the time we were wrong and admitted it the damage has already been done.  I think a more preventative step would be to wake up in the morning and ask, “What am I going to do today to nurture my spirit? And what kindness can I show today?” I forget that everyone else is just as stressed as I am.  I’m still the center of my own world and I live inside my head with the pride of life.  It’s all about my kids, my husband, my job and my house.  It’s about what I want and what I have.  It’s about my rest and my playtime.  It’s about my money.  It’s about me.  I tend to think that all of life is about me and that the world was especially formed for me.

I know that about myself and that character defect has been taken away from me enough to keep me sober.

I can’t say that the self-centeredness will change, but just for today I can say I will take care of my spirit and write.  Maybe it will relieve me just a little from self.

Everything Changes

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My daughter just celebrated four years of sobriety.  As I was sitting in her home group meeting watching her share I began reminiscing about when she first graduated from treatment and how unsure of herself she was.  She was struggling in this tiny apartment to etch out a living for herself.  Now she has four years, was just promoted to a position that put her and her two boys out of poverty level.  She and her boyfriend of two years have started talking about marriage.

I remember my own situation 14 years ago going through a divorce and a custody battle, hating my ex-husband and fearing everything. I went back to school wondering if I would ever make it or if I was smart enough. A friend described my early sobriety while he was sharing in a meeting on my birthday.  He said, “She was so nervous, she shook like a little Chihuahua.”  That was the truth.  Now my ex-husband and his wife are considered some of my best friends, I have a chemistry degree, I manage someone else’s business, drive a new car and am married to my soul mate.

During one of my worst times a friend of mine in the program said, “One thing I know for sure; everything changes.  Throughout the last 14 years when I’m frustrated, sad, feel stuck or depressed I take comfort in the fact that everything changes.  Change used to be frightening and quite frankly still is sometimes.  But when life takes a turn for the worst, I know that change is around the corner.

Life changed for my daughter in four short years.  Life changed for me.  Had I known that when I was worried I wouldn’t make it and full of anxiety, I might have enjoyed the journey.  I might have laughed with my children more, experienced more of college, been relaxed about dating, loved more, taken more baths and thought of others instead of myself.

I have a hard time remembering that when my back is against the wall at work or my husband needs to get his heart checked out or my kids tell me they are struggling with depression.  Tomorrow everything could be roses and when I get too confident in my position and my ego starts working, I have to remember that everything changes there too.  Tomorrow I could be knocked down a peg.  Life is that way.

So I think the point is to stay in the moment where peace abounds in any situation and not think about tomorrow.  I’m told tomorrow will take care of itself.  Everything changes.

Just for today, I’ll stay in the moment knowing that circumstances change and that peace is found in the now.

Fighting Against the Tide

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One of my sons went to the doctor for depression.  The doctor had him fill out a questionnaire that asked things like, “Do you think that bad things will happen to you?  Do you think that you are going to die?”  Even when my son is depressed, he always seems to find the humor in things.  He’s telling me the story and we’re both laughing, “Of course bad things are going to happen to me and I’m going to die.”  Doesn’t everyone know that?  As an alcoholic, those thoughts come naturally for me and apparently they come naturally for him too.

It turns out that he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in which at first I took the news rather well and decided that it made sense with some of his dangerous behaviors and highs and lows.  I was relieved he at least had a name to it and that there is definite help for it.  But after a couple of hours I started catastrophizing it.  I thought about all the bad things that could happen with it and thought that maybe he could die from dangerous behaviors or suicide.  I also thought that I must have been a really bad mother and I asked myself if I was abusive and I don’t remember it or don’t recognize it.  The more I wondered if I was crazy the crazier I got.

I texted my sister for some support and she said what I expected her too.  She told me to raise my energy and think about all the things I love about my son and to think positive thoughts about his healing.  She told me to create wellness and love.  I totally agreed with her, but as always, the practice is far harder than the theory.

By the end of the day I was so exhausted with worry and projection and beating myself up that I came home from work and went to bed without fixing dinner for myself or my husband.  As I lay in bed I thought of the things my sister told me to do.  I knew she was right but I still wanted to sulk.  I knew my son needed positive support but I couldn’t lift myself up enough to send it to him through meditation, prayer or any other way.  I couldn’t shake the thought that it was my fault or that I could have prevented it.

So I did what I used to do when I first got sober.  It’s my personality to fear life and tough times and just go to bed in the fetal position for days or weeks and not come out of my room fearing what’s on the outside.  When I first got sober I was afraid of doing that because I knew that I wouldn’t come out of my room except to go to the liquor store.  So when I went through divorce, or broke up with my boyfriend or needed a fourth surgery on my hand, I’d go to bed in fetal position but I would limit it.  Just for today I’ll stay in bed.  Tomorrow morning I’ll resume my regular life and practice positive thinking.

By doing that, I’ve allowed myself to grieve but not wallow.  It takes the pressure off and I don’t have to beat myself up for not being positive in a tough situation or not practicing what I preach.  I went to bed at 6:00am and got up in the morning and things looked just a little lighter which made it easier for me to meditate on the positive and send my son positive energy.

He called me two days later and reported that he was already feeling better.  I contribute it to the creation of positive energy and technology of course.  I also contribute it to the fact that I wasn’t trying to fight against the tide.  I allowed myself just enough isolation and grief to let some very real feelings and fear out but not enough to stop my productivity.  It allowed me to be rational about his depression and it allowed me to accept it as being life on life’s terms.

Just for today, I give myself a break and allow myself the time to pull myself together.

Cease Fighting

~ Patti ~ Leave a comment

My 12 step program has given me the ability to look for the positive in people, to learn how to forgive and think of the world as a generally safe place.  As an alcoholic I’m generally full of fear, focus on the worst in people and hold resentments forever.

When I’m with my children or my family, positive thinking is fairly easy.  I love them, so I can easily find their good qualities and overlook their character defects.  It’s easier to overlook slights because I see their human condition.

At work it becomes more difficult.  I seem to be focused on getting the job done and running the business.  People tend to get in my way, not do what they tell me they’re going to do and just plain act stupid or lazy.  I spend the majority of my days irritated at some person, place or thing that slows down the idea of progress that I have designed for myself.  I forget about the people, people who have feelings, people who love and people who have pain.  I forget that they have an inner life and inner talk just like I have.  I forget that most of them probably have amazing stories of overcoming some kind of hardship or ailment.  I forget that in the grand scheme of things 100 years from now no one will remember the business that I did or the money that I made for the company.  What will be remembered is the compassion and love I showed another human being in the daily chore of doing business.  That love will be passed along to their family and friends and will one day cross the divide of generations.  There is no other work that is more meaningful than the way I treat people while I’m at work.

Since I’ve worked my 12 steps I supposedly have ceased fighting anyone or anything, but yet I still fight at work.  I fight for my place.  I fight to be recognized and I fight to be right.  I fight to keep business and I fight to do business.  My days are wasted on fighting.

What I’ve failed to do is turn it over to my higher power.  My only job is the footwork.  The results aren’t up to me.  Maybe it will fall apart, but if it does it serves a higher purpose and I must be ok with that.  My sanity and ultimately my sobriety are at risk.  We do not have the luxury of resentments like normal men.  We do not have the luxury to live a mediocre life of some good and some bad and let the chips fall where they may.  We are sensitive people.  Eventually the irritants and the resentments drive us back to the bottle.  We must live our lives aware and thinking of others.  When I don’t do that my self-will runs riot and my self-centeredness actually stands in the way of my own progress.

This week I’ve decided to focus on what is good about people.  I’m trying to find the good and verbally recognize it.  I’m working on gratitude for what they do right rather than focus on what is wrong.  The amazing part is I’m happier, my week is easier and I sleep better.  In a world where most of our business is done over the internet, we dehumanize people.  We forget there is a face connected with the name under the letterhead of our emails.

Just for today I will practice patience not knowing if something I do or say will be helpful or hurtful.

Someone to Mimic

~ Patti ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been on vacation visiting my family two states away.  I come home feeling a little sad that I probably won’t see my family for another year and strangely at peace and ready to tackle whatever life decides to hand me, life on life’s terms.   I also feel empowered to create the life that I want.  Somehow, going back to my roots and catching up with those I love has grounded me.

It wasn’t always like that.  I used to hold a lot of resentment.  Working the 12 steps helped me to see what my part was in the disintegration of my family relationships.  It also helped me to see my family and parents as human beings with feelings and weaknesses and issues of their own as well as strengths and talents.  My little sister has always been a big part of that as well.  She is an old soul and somehow sees to the truth in all of us.  She’s the first person that really saw me and got who I really was.  I don’t think it was always that she approved of how I thought or my behaviors, but she understood where they were coming from and she approved of me.

I remember when I was drinking I had friends and family tell me that I was drinking too much, that I should grow up and that I was a spoiled brat.  All of that was true but it didn’t really bother me too much and at that point I didn’t care who said it.  I’d just lift up my glass and have another drink at them.  But one day my sister shot me a look that pierced through my heart and down to my soul.  She was standing in her kitchen and she didn’t say much but the look she gave me was half anger and half, “You’re so pathetic.”  I don’t know what she was really thinking but I know my sister well enough to guess.  Whatever it was, I got the message loud and clear even in my drunken fog.  I was clearly out of control.  It was bad enough to warrant the disapproving look from my sister.

When I first got sober, she was probably the only one who believed in me.  There was an acronym WWJD, what would Jesus do?  But I when I was struggling with a life issue or didn’t know what the next right thing to do was I’d say to myself, WWJD.  What would Jennifer do? (I changed the name to protect the innocent.)  Jesus was much too esoteric and unreachable for me in early sobriety and my sister just somehow understood life.  She got it and I didn’t.  Somehow I could figure it out if I put myself in her shoes, so that’s what I did.  Little by little I learned to think like her and after several years and a sponsor my feet were set firmly on the ground.  I go back home when my grip loosens to get re-grounded.

Although our personalities, tastes in cloths and décor and interests are totally different, we seem to share a common thread.  We have the same spiritual bent and similar philosophies of life that we have developed separately but in the same time frame.  We also developed interest in some health products separately but in the same time frame.  It seems that even though distance separates us, there is a matrix of some kind that keeps us connected even when we don’t talk for a while.

My sister tells me what I need to hear, not what I want to hear.  There is no greater friend.  I have a lot of gratitude for her and for the part she has played in my life and in my sobriety.  She’s my little sister but I look up to her.

I think one of the keys to my sobriety was to have someone that I could look up to and mimic.  I have tried to find people who were smarter, more spiritual, and richer than me to hang out with and to learn from.  I hang out with the winners and somehow that gives me success.

Just for today I will mimic someone I look up to.

Acceptance

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The first time someone told me that acceptance is the answer to all of my problems, I thought they had dove off of the deep end.  I had never heard of anything so preposterous.  “Isn’t that a nice little pat answer that doesn’t say anything,” I thought?  I was going through a divorce, trying to stay sober and trying to stay in school going through all of the grant, loan and scholarship red tape.  Something as simple as the toilet clogging made me want to drink.  All I need to do is accept it all and it will go away?  How’s that going to unclog my toilet?

I started complaining to my sponsor about my ex and she told me everything is the way it’s supposed to be.  “Why?  How do you know,” I retorted?  She said, “Because that’s the way it is.”  For some reason that spoke to me.  Everything else was the way it is supposed to be.  It’s me that needed to change.

If the toilet clogged, instead of panicking I could calmly unplug it.  I could accept my ex for who he is and maybe I’d stay a little more serine.  “Unless I accept life on life’s terms,”I will never be happy with my situation, my ex or myself.

This was extremely difficult at first and then I had an epiphany.  What if someone wanted me to be something different than I am?  Wouldn’t that be painful?  Maybe I should allow others to be who they are.  I learned how to focus on all that is good about whoever I was irritated with or unhappy with.  This did not happen overnight.  It was a process of several years and the same issue still crops up once in a while.

“When I find some person, place or situation—unacceptable to me—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.”

I have had a lot of changes at work in the last year.  I have spent the majority of the year, fighting, complaining and whining about my situation and irritated when transitions aren’t smooth and people don’t follow through.  I don’t think it ever occurred to me to that accepting it would be the easier softer way and that maybe everything is the way it’s supposed to be.  Now a year later I’m tired and sick and still struggling with the same issue, life on life’s terms.  I’m surprised I still have friends and family that listen to me.

Just for today I will think about and focus on all the good in my current situation knowing that my higher power doesn’t make mistakes and that everything is as it’s supposed to be