What's On Your Bookshelf?

This summer I purposed that I would read more.  I used to love to sit and read for hours, but in the pace of life those days are precious and few not to mention that when I curl up and read I fall asleep. It's taken a lot of practice to be able to sit again and not feel lazy by passing the time away leisurely reading. 

When I first began recovery and even through the years since, I've found that a lot of my reading time has been wrapped up in the topic of recovery from every angle. Some days I couldn't get my hands on anything quickly enough to pacify my pain or answer my frenzied search on the what, why and when questions I had of enabling and codependency.  Soon, my bookshelf contained the excellent writings of Melody Beattie and Angelyn Miller to name a few and I couldn't take it in quickly enough. Boundaries, CoDependent No More, The Language of Letting Go and The Enabler consumed my every waking hour outside of work. 

As excellent as those books are and as medicinal as they were during various times in my life, I soon found that I was often looking at the world through a frown; the topic of recovery and addiction had become an addiction to me.  I wasn't balanced on any scale in my world, and soon I was eating, drinking, thinking recovery on every level of my life.  As we know, addiction to ANYTHING is deadly.  Over time, my chaotic living began to settle just a little bit at a time and I began to see that there was another world beyond my obsession and it was going on without me!  Music, movies, reading for enjoyment (not denial), art fairs and theater.  My world began to open up as I learned to no longer be consumed by the addictive behavior in Cliff's life and in my own.   If you are new to the world of recovery, come on in!   But learn as quickly as you can to be educated and pro-active but not consumed by all things recovery.  That's just as unhealthy as enabling and codependency. 

What's on your bookshelf?   What are your interests?  If you're stuck in a rut due to mind numbing living, ask your friends to suggest something light and easy.  Take the time to sit under a shade tree and listen to something that you can sing along with. Work on a jigsaw puzzle with a younger child or grandchild. Expand your horizons!

Step out of the ash heap and smile because staying in it won't change the ones you love.  You may as well make yourself lovable and remove the frown that the whole wide world sees you wearing.  

You are only promised today. Be set free and read! 

One Day at A Time

The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.

Abraham Lincoln

In the solitude of my car yesterday, I was going through the years of recovery for me and for Cliff.  I recalled how I felt when I first began attending meetings with regularity. I couldn't handle the pain well and that's when I began to write. I needed an outlet somewhere but didn't know what to do. 

At first, I went to meetings like most parents do, desperate for someone to tell me how to save my son. How to stop the madness and chaos and I was desperate to understand why anyone would put something into their bodies so seriously unhealthy and dangerous that each time they handled a needle it was like playing Russian roulette. What hurt my son so much that we couldn't talk about it and get to the bottom of it?  

I didn't believe that I had to go to these meetings for me. "Don't you get it??" I shouted silently "I don't have the addiction. My son is going to die in some house in Detroit or Highland Park and no one will be able to tell me. They don't know me, they don't know how to reach me!? He's only 18, he's only 19, he's only 23"....and so it went day after day, month after month, year after year.  After attending meetings weekly for several months, the scales on my eyes began to loosen and fall away, a little at a time.   And still, the boundaries and denial played tricks on me. I needed to face the facts in order for some of "it" to stick and stay and allow me to pick through it and digest what I could, when I could. Like a heaping Thanksgiving dinner plate while fighting off a flu bug, I worked through the steps of recovery. 

Finally, a year later when Cliff went to prison I had my respite. I could step back from the mental squalor that surrounded me and really work on myself and my understanding of this mess without an addict constantly coming at me like a whirling tornado.  I began to sift and sort. Cliff found recovery and so did I. He would, in his own way, sift and sort through his "stuff" and is now just beginning to see some of the fruits of living life differently, with a plan and not a substance.  To this day, I sift and sort and probably always will. 

Driving to my meeting yesterday I remembered that one of the things I used to say and wrote about early in the beginning of this blog, was "if you had a child with a terminal illness you would do anything you could to save his life." So that's what I did.  But the difference is that a terminal illness randomly comes onto someone unexpectedly and they are then dependent upon the medical field and a miracle from God in heaven, to be healed. They are subject to this test and that exam to figure out the best way to treat their invasive life-robbing disease and sadly, sometimes there isn't any cure. The terminally ill person is facing a giant to which they no longer have the slingshot and stone that will take it down. 

Now the addict may also randomly find himself addicted when they take that first step to try something risky.  Suddenly their illness takes hold and directs their life choices.  They too, can put themselves into the medical fields hands for healing but the difference is they can be healed if they simply take a step to help themselves.  They do not have to face a death sentence unless they choose to.  It's a simple change that they have to choose for themselves. No one can hand it to them. They have to pick it up and walk to the next step, inch by inch, but they can be healed.  The key is in their hands. 

So all this to say, it's taken me a long time in these meetings to come to this "aha" moment of letting this part go.  Life choices for someone at 18 are different than someone at 25 and then again at 30. Cliff is now 7 years clean, and I am 8 years on a path of life-changing choices for me that free from all the garbage that I simply used to kick from room to room and try to make sense in my thinking.    

Hang in there. Your "aha" will come to you at sometime in your recovery walk as well. And then another "aha" will come along when you are ready for the next bite.   

Just keep taking life one day at a time. God will guide you. He promised. 

Loving Detachment

Are you ever too old to be a bridesmaid?  I'm not sure, but I was a bridesmaid yesterday for a young friend whom I've mentored over the past two years.  It was a lovely day of celebration and I danced my arse off at the reception. How fun to feel so energized again!

One of the questions I get asked often is "How do you draw boundaries, or remain in a relationship without condoning certain behaviors?"    This question can lead us down many rabbit trails, all leading to a healthy garden, so today I will take one part of the equation. I don't have all the answers - I just have my own experience and exposures to draw from. 

So much about recovery is finding balance in your world.  We enablers and codependents have been sitting so long on the down side of the teeter totter that we've come to believe or allow  that it's an all or nothing relationship.  And, we continually think it's all about us and what we can do to rescue our lost loved ones.  We can't balance the teeter totter this way, yet we continually say, "sure, I can do that" or "yes, you can leave it with me", or still "what can I do to help you change your life?"  

In Melody Beattie's book "Codependent No More" she opens 
Chapter 5, entitled "Detachment" with the following quote from an 
Al-Anon member: It (detachment) is not detaching from the person whom we care about, but from the agony of involvement.  WOWEE!! 

You mean to tell me we don't have to be involved in everything??? You are trying to tell me my addict/appendage does not have to be the object of my obsession??  Are you saying I can finally take a step back and stop trying to intercept every painful moment that belongs to my addict and not me?  Oh, thank you Lord, for permission to loosen my grip and let go!!!  

Sometimes in well meaning relationships between a substance abuser and their family, there are large amounts of confusion over who owns what.  The boundaries weren't clear before the addiction took root and then became even blurrier when the substance moved in lock, stock and barrel. 

By this time, we the enablers, have relinquished ourselves 
and our rights to allow anyone and everyone to trample on our feelings, our beliefs and our dreams.  Now, as we begin to step back and get a little breathing room, we struggle to put to rest all that we thought was true. 

And if you add your faith to the mix, sometimes we struggle to juggle all the different balls in the air and get them to land safely, softly and in love.  Sometimes we don't want to accept that maybe that dream we envision won't happen and it quite possibly isn't up to us to make it right. The Scripture says, "hate the sin, not the sinner". This can apply to all areas of our life.  

Taking care of "self" is not selfish. Detaching from those you love in addiction is not mean. It's not leaving them to die.  Loving with detachment means you are going to take care of self. Can you have one thought, one conversation or one day that doesn't tie you to your addict? Can you formulate a thought on paper or make a plan without dragging your appendage into it? Are you constantly shifting your finances around to "help" out your needy addict?  Do you have adult appendages? 

Look at your friendships. Hopefully those are healthy and you are not trying to control them.  If you had a friend that called you night and day, begged for money and hurled filthy language and accusations your way, how would you handle that? You would end it or certainly do a cut off with a clear call out on what was acceptable and unacceptable. 
Why then, do we allow our adult addicts to behave like an overgrown two year-old having tantrums? Are you throwing them pacifiers to quiet them down instead of letting them cry it out and feel their own pain? We must learn to step back from the unhealthy behavior that so easily entangles us.  Why do we think an active addict will behave like a healthy individual?  They can't and they won't.  Until they choose to get their addiction kicked, they will not change their behavior.  

The "thing" that I needed to finally take hold of when Cliff was in his addiction was that, by trying to manage his addiction by controlling where he was, worrying why he wasn't where he promised to be, fretting over money he promised to pay back and would not, was not going to change until I learned to let him go and learned to take care of me.  

So how can you love with detachment? Take your substance abuser out to eat once in a while. Have conversations about the music they love, the latest movie or TV program they enjoy. Get them a pair of shoes and socks if they need them. Don't give money, don't give gifts that can be returned for money, but spend a little time with them. Have some laughs with them! They are longing for you to see them beyond their junkie status. However, you call the shots. In love let them know what the rules are. Set the time and place and the amount of time you will give.  And if they don't show up, don't take it personally.  Always remember that your active addict is sick. They are incapable of keeping their word. 

For now. 

Second-guess!

"I'll do my best today, without trying to second-guess every word or action."

Like most people these days, I choose to receive a myriad of daily e-mails to help encourage my walk in this life. Some are to help me grow spiritually in my walk with Jesus, others come from recovery based programs, and still others are general topics of encouragement that keep me focused upward in life.  It's so easy to look down, it seems if we don't train ourselves to focus on what is good, right, true and honorable. 

So today, in my email from Hazelden.org the "Today's Gift" came from "Walk in Dry Places" by Mel B.  and the closing line shown above was a perfect gentle nudge to remind me that I don't have to try to figure out or second-guess myself or what others are trying to say. Or what I THINK they're trying to say. I don't like it when others assume they know what I'm thinking or know what I meant, when their assumption is as far from my point as it can be.  I used to drive myself crazy second-guessing if everything I said was co-dependant, controlling or just plain wrong. I was in misery! 

Meeting with Cliff this past weekend for a minute or two was enlightening.  He mentioned how he's finally stepping out of the junkie thinking and applying some of life's most basic concepts.  Hard work generally gets noticed and pays off. Cliff found a job on Craig's List sometime back and that job has continued to lead him to his next paycheck two times now.  This next opportunity may land him into some permanent employment.  It's satisfying to hear his words and know that his life has changed and I no longer second-guess what he's doing, where he's going or how he's spending his money. 

I've learned the hard way to step back and just listen to others. I don't have to tell them I don't agree. By keeping my thoughts to myself doesn't necessarily mean I agree or condone them it just means I'm not in charge of anyone else's life but my own.  I try to choose to back out of conversations that used to lure me in, if it doesn't pertain to me. The best part though, is being free from second-guessing or trying to figure out things that don't belong in my brain space. I don't have room for anyone but my own life issues and don't have the knowledge or ability that the Creator has to re-align someones life choices. 

It's so freeing to be free from all the things that used to entangle me!

All pics googled.