A funny kind of "reveal"

Being the soccer mom that I am (I drive five kids to practice every day) TI know how nerve wracking it can be when you have to drive to an away game. So I begged and pleaded for my good friend S. to go with me as she's very relaxed around kids, and could keep me grounded and focused. As we headed home in the dark we started to talk about AA, and Al-Anon. She has some experience in Al-Anon as a close family member of hers is alcoholic.

She talked about how she really enjoyed Al-Anon because she felt like she could tell anything in those rooms and those people wouldn't judge her. She felt safe. For so many of us this is true for the very first time.

I went on to talk about my first night in. I was running late so when I got to the club the doors of the meeting room where shut. I tried to quietly push the door open but of course it squeaked and then I saw the face of an older gentleman who smiled and said, "Come in, you're in the right place". How true that was!

It's funny but I never realized how amazing that first step through the doors is! I trusted no one least of all myself. I wasn't sure I was capable of making a sound decision, and yet here I was ready to pour my garbage out to a room full of strangers. Talk about learning to trust and trust fast. I could barely spit the word alcoholic out in private, and here I was saying out loud to 50 people, "hello, my name is Liz and I'm an alcoholic".

When I think back on those days they are so fragile. Like a castle made out of air. I learned to trust those people with my darkest secrets. I poured forth streams of junk to my sponsor, I laughed, I cried, I broke, and then piece by piece I began to put together the puzzle that would become me. Finally I learned to trust myself. That trust has carried me far.

So when people talk about a "leap of faith" i can relate. I asked God for the answer, he showed me the way. I trusted a room full of strangers, I trusted a program I knew nothing about, and I gave myself over to the will of God. A lot of people ask me what's the secret to success in AA. I smile because it was just revealed to me a few days ago, on the way home with a car full of loud fourth and fifth graders. Trust! Trusting with something you cannot see every step of the way. Funny how the most profound reveals happen in the strangest of places.....:)

Bye Bye Pink Cloud

A few weeks ago I was sitting with a friend of mine who has a family member that recently did a 30 day rehab program. This program was 30 miles from our city and the individual was doing well. They had taken to the program like a fish to water, cleared up some of their finances, secured a better vehicle and had returned to work. In other words they were having a "pink cloud experience".

I remeber that experience. When for the first time in a long time you feel strong. You feel like everything is coming together. You want to go from point A to point Z and skip everything in between. You love this new euphoria. But wait there's something nagging me in the back of my mind. Oh yeah, my sponsor had told me about this pink cloud. I believe her exact words were, "this too shall pass". And boy was she right. My pink cloud opened right up and dropped me on my butt!

So it wasn't a surpise when my friend told me this morning that this individual has stopped going to meetings. Gets angry when she asks him how is program is going, and has even met some friends out at a local bar. She has no proof that he has been drinking but he avoids her if she asks. She is worried and scared and feels helpless.

It's amazing how little we think of others. We get a scrap of sobriety and suddenly we throw out everything we know and start to feel empowered. We can handle this all on our own. Except there's one tiny problem with this. We can't. We need to do what we've avoided all along, and that is work. Work through all the muck and mire that causes us to drink. If it was easy to stop drinking there wouldn't be a need for AA. But it's not. It sucks to take that journey one step at a time. I mean after all we are control freaks and we want so badly to control this disease.

So what to tell my friend. I know she was looking at me expecting some guidelines, some solutions. I don't have any. I just could share with her what worked for me. Staying in today, not looking back, and not looking forward. Support from AA, meetings, fellowship, and my sponsor. Working hard. Excepting the highs, sucking it up through the lows. One single step at a time. One 24 hours at a time. Shutting my mouth and opening my ears. And oh yea, surrender and willingness to change.

This I'm sure seemed like a tall order. I also had to remind her that its his journey and sometimes it takes a while to get the program. It doesn't always stick right away. Everyone does it at his or her own pace. She sighed. And I wish I did have the magic answer, but I don't.

However I do know that if you stick with it, life does get better. Does it get perfect? There is no such thing. You learn to live your life and to appreciate everything about it. This means the highs with the lows. You change, your relationships change, your beliefs change. But a whole awesome world awaits you if you are willing to do the work. And I still am learning, and changing. 19 months of sobriety and there are days I have learned nothing, I swear! The other day hubby and I got into an argument and instead of using the tools I have figured out, I fell right back into my old ways and things turned yuky! I was so mad at myself for letting those habits creep back in. But at least I recognized them, made a note to self not to repeat it, forgave myself and apologized to my husband.

We are a work in progress. But now I have a plan. I have a few resources to call upon when I get frustrated. I can take the good with the bad. I am realistic when I see a "pink cloud". I know that it will pass. I don't know if my friend's family member will make it or not. He may use again, he may start over, he might be just fine. I do hope that no matter what happens the fundamentals of AA stick with him. Because the promises do come true, and one thing I know for certain is "they will always materialize if we work for them" - AA 12 Step Promises......

A new kind of "normal"

Erma Bombeck said it best, "Normal is just a setting on a clothes dryer".

How true she is! What defines normal? I hear people describe their lives as "simple and normal." Or I've heard the expression, "she/he had anything but a normal
childhood. So this got me to pondering what is normal?

The normal in our household is that mom and dad both work. Mom during the day, dad during the afternoon and evening. Dad takes to school, mom picks up. Oldest brother babysits during the gaps and grandpa and grandma do in a pinch as well.

Mom goes to AA meetings, and its seen as a "normal" activity. I overheard my daughter telling one of her friends last week, "my mom goes to meetings at the club so she doesn't drink". She said it so matter of factly that it stopped me in my tracks. It's not a big deal to her, just something I do. Hmmmmmm

When I was a child people spoke about alcoholics in low voices. Like it was the worst thing in the world. My kids talk about it as an everyday fact of life. I guess it's just part of our "normal".

Then I realized that normal is whatever world you and yours live in. After reading "Running with Scissors" by Augusten Burroughs I was rather shocked that after a while this young man adapted his chaotic surroundings as "normal". I'm currently reading Alexandra Fuller's "Let's not go to the Dog's Tonight" her autobiography of growing up in Africa, loosing three siblings, a drunken half crazed mother, and standing for a first day of school picture holding an uzi. This was her "normal".

For you see, there isn't any one type of normal. I used to think there was and I spent years chasing a definition that wasn't even defined. It's the human spirit, its what you are used to. It's what your mind lets you cope with that becomes your kind of normal. And like two people no kind of normal is alike. Each one is uniquely different to you and yours.

Yesterday maked the beginning of the school year for our two youngest. Fourth and fifth grade. Much excitment the night before. Anticipation of seeing their friends again and having to adapt to new teachers. As I picked them up from school with two of their friends and dropped them off at soccer practice I realized that our normals are dictated by the here and now of our lives. It's not usual for me to have a meeting at school or the club in the evening, to have to stop at the grocery store, and to begin making a cheesecake at 9:00 at night.

Which is what happened last night. My oldest celebrates his 17th. birthday today, and he asked for a Red Velvet cheesecake and lazagna for his birthday supper. I had a meeting at school, and headed to the store afterwards and cooked until after 11:00 last night. My normal.

As I was making the cake I reflected back on when Alex was little. His dad has worked a second shift since he was two. Our "normal" consisted of just Alex and myself. We briefly lived in the historic district of our downtown before we purchased the house we now live in. We moved in right around this time and Alex had just turned three. I had just returned to college and we had so many good times. Due to the location of the place we were able to walk everywhere and we had our favorite paths. We would walk through the historical grounds, then to the angel blowing fountain and on up to the Mint cafe for cheeseburgers. When we came home, he would have a bath and then play by with toys while a fire crackled in the fireplace and I did homework. A sweet time of normal.

Now he's starting his junior year of high school. Looking at colleges, planning where he may want to live. His brother and sister have friends in and out all the time, and our lives are adapting to another "normal".

It's really quite easy when you think about it. Normal is just a setting on a clothes dryer. Life's normal is how you adapt to your ever changing seasons of life......

I want to go back to......

The last few weeks have been stressful. A lot going on in the personal life department and I no longer have my old friend alcohol to escape to so what does a girl do? I want to go back.....

to my grandparents house when I was a girl. I want to sit at the table and eat fresh garden grown leaf lettuce smothered in onions, garlic and vinegar dressing. My grandma always put it in a big blue pyrex bowl and let us eat it with our fingers.

I want to play with the neighbor kids, until dusk turns into dark, and my mother calls for us to come home, and millions of bugs buzz around the street lights.

I want to stand out in the driveway and gaze at the stars with my middle brother's plastic telescope.

I want to be sixteen with a million feelings all bursting forth while smiling at a very cute boy.

I would love to walk into the store like I did when I was 18 and grab the smallest size they had and it would fit great without ever trying it on!

I want to sit on a phone (a real phone not a cell phone) and talk to my bff's for hours.

I want to laugh so hard soda spits out my nose.

I want to run through the fresh white sheets on the clothesline at my grandma's house and run under the shade of their enormous willow tree.

I want to go to bed at night in the room that was my mother's when she was growing up and smell the fresh bouquet of pink peonies my grandpa placed beside my bed.

I want to escape it all. Just for today, or a few hours, or even for a few moments. However this is reality. My program has taught me to stay in today and to walk through the hard times. So say a small prayer if you can. The next few months are going to be a very bumpy ride for us. So please indulge me once in a while as I take a quick escape to things in my past that I treasure dearly. They can make difficult times seem not so bad. And I know "this too shall pass"......:)

Forgiveness

The more I know,
the less I understandAll the things I thought I knew,
I'm learning again
I've been tryin' to get down to the heart of the matter
But my will gets weak
and my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think it's about forgiveness
Forgiveness- "The Heart of the Matter" by Don Henley

When I left college at age 21, terribly thin, depressed, I ended a two and a half year relationship that had only been good for a total of six months. I remember trying to feel real when I got home. I slept a lot, got a job, all my friends were away at college so I had a pretty quiet existence that spring. I remember turning on VH1 one day and this video was playing. I have always liked this song, loved the lyrics because I think somehow it speaks to all of us. I hadn't heard this song in years until the other day on the radio and it brought back such a flood of emotions I thought I might drown if only for a moment. Where had this come from? I thought I had gotten rid of junk like this in my fourth and fifth steps. Well there it was right on the surface and I had to deal with it. So I started sifting through the rubble and I knew quite quickly why it surfaced. It's the time of year. I never talk about this time of year but it has bothered me for years. It's the time when things begin to change. The night creeps in earlier, the daylight plays differntly in my yard, we school clothes shop, the smell of paper and erasers. But to me and in me this time of year right before fall brings a feeling of loss. Like time has always been slipping through my fingertips and I can't stop it. I'm anxious, I don't sleep well, I'm easily aggitated. My husband and I seem to argue more the end of August than we do any other time of the year. So this time I wanted to deal with this once and for all. So I needed to sort things out and there it was plain as day. One bad relationship after another ended around this time of year. A boyfriend that left for three years in the army, another for college, many I left, and how fall, and winter seemed to change the ever fun long days of summer. I still had a closet full of baggage. Twenty years later this junk was still washing up on shore and I was still picking it up and carrying it around with me. Guilt, hurt, anger, saddness were all mixed up inside of me. So I've been kicking this around for a few days wondering where or how I should get rid of it. Yesterday after registering my two youngest for school, I stopped at a local bookstore to pick up a book by an author I really enjoy. As the proprietor was checking me out, I asked about his wife who is a fellow recovering alcoholic. I know a little of her story, and I know she's pretty fragile, but I haven't seen her in almost a year so I wanted to make sure she was doing ok. We ended up talking for over an hour. He was so open and honest with his stories, and her journey, and I shared back that it was like a "mini AA meeting" right in the bookstore. We spoke about our marriages how he was like my husband, by some miracle still married to me. Then he said something, "You know all the words, all the actions, sometimes it's only time that heals all those wounds". And just like that a plug was pulled and all that baggage and junk I was carrying just sucked itself down the drain and far, far, away. It's about forgiveness, and when I think of those people in my past I have forgiven them, I can focus on the good times, but the one person I needed to forgive the most, I hadn't and that was me. It was time to let go, and I finally did. We said our goodbyes and as I stepped into the warm afternoon sun, things looked differently. I felt differently. Suddenly I was excited for the turning of the year, the back to school, the schedule change. For the first time in twenty years that icky feeling was gone. As I opened the gate and stepped onto our patio, a cool breeze touched my face and I drank in my surroundings. Change comes when we least expect it. I thought I had done so much growing, and changing, and cleaning out in my first year of sobriety that I never thought it would happen in my second. I now realize it's only the beginning. And getting down "to the heart of the matter" is forgiveness.....

Flash 55 Friday

We are all bare trees
stripped of adornment
standing alone and vulnerable
next to the sidewalk.
Our bark maybe bruised, scratched, at
times even missing and we
stand with our crooked arms bent
praising the unknown and
waiting for the harsh time to pass so
we can delight in the promise of leaves to come.....


Today is my daughter's ninth birthday. She of course is thrilled and is having a party later. So I'm taking a half day to pick up the cake, decorate, and concentrate on just her, the way it should be when you are nine :) Hoping you all have a wonderful and cool(if needed) weekend........

The "up" side of sober....

I know I've said it before but I love sober anniversaries. Lately the only AA meeting I seem to get to is the elleven o'clock on Saturday mornings. This is one of my favorites as its the weekend, people are in a good mood, relaxed, happy to be there and this past Saturday was no exception. Not one but three anniversaries. A five year, a two year, and a one year. How cool is that! I know the two people that celebrated the five and the two year, but wasn't familiar with the person who was celebrating that awesome first year. That to me is such a milestone! I remember on my anniversary feeling like I was finally getting the hange of this thing called "sober". And also realizing that the rubber now hits the road. You have to continue practicing the 12 steps, you need to let the program filter in multiple areas of your life. You can't get soft, think you can do it on your own, in fact you need to rely on your HP and your fellow AA's more than ever. It's not a time to become complacent. C the man celebrating five years has an awesome story. He's a larger than life person, literally he's six four and his sponsor is a 75 year old man whose about 5'4. We like to call them "Danny and Arnold". Anyway C five years ago had nothing. No place to live, no family, no job, no license just the bottle. He had just gotten out of prison and had no where to go. He ended up at the Alano club and reached out to A and asked him to be his sponsor. The rest is history. C is a shining example of the miracles that are worked in this program every day. He's got his own apartment, a good job, a mother and a brother who love him, a driver's license and a great AA jail ministry. He's one of my favorite people at the club and we always hug and say, "hey keep coming back"! R the person celebrating his two year anniversary is another miracle. He was driven to the club by his wife and just about tossed through the doors of AA. She had had enough. I wasn't there for his first year but I've been told it was shaky and minute by minute. His second year has gone much better and you can see a peace that passes all understanding on his face. His gentle smile was radient as his sponsor presented him his two year medallion. I loved all the stories that were shared Saturday morning, all the laughter and the applause. Who needs a drug when you can get a high just hanging out with a bunch or recovering addicts. Afterwards I headed to the farmer's market to get some yummy fresh veggies, and grabbed a bouquet of fresh wild flowers on my way to the car. The kids were at the waterpark with my hubby, my oldest was working at the fair, and I started preparing food for the night's dinner as my parents were going to join us. The sun was streaming in the kitchen and I began to arrange the flowers in a vase when I realized that it was my eighteen month anniversary. 18 months sober, who would have thought. I was and will always be so grateful to my higher power and the program of AA. This program has taught me so many things, and one of the best is being able to celebrate the miracles of others. It takes you out of yourself and gives you the interest in your fellow man. I set the flowers on the table and got back to work, humming happily and enjoying the "up" side of sober......