Daily Reprieve

From Courage to Change of March 24;

I had a very difficult time believing that alcoholism was a disease. I was convinced that if they really wanted to, alcoholics could stop drinking. After all, I quit smoking. Wasn’t that the same thing?

Then one day an Al-Anon member likened active alcoholism to Alzheimer’s disease. We see our loved one slip away without their being aware of what’s happening or being able to stop it. They look perfectly normal on the outside, but the sickness is progressing, and they become more and more irrational and difficult to be around. When they have lucid moments and once again seem to be themselves, we want to believe that they are well, but these moments pass, and we despair. Before long we find ourselves resenting the very people we once loved.

I’ll always be grateful to my friend because her explanation helped me to accept the reality of my situation. Once I did, it was much easier for me to separate the disease from the person.

Today’s Reminder

When I accept that alcoholism is a disease, I am forced to face the fact that I am powerless over it. Only then can I gain the freedom to focus on my own spiritual growth.

“A family member has no more right to state, ‘If you loved me you would not drink,’ than the right to say ‘If you loved me you would not have diabetes.’ Excessive drinking is a symptom of the disease. It is a condition, not an act.”

~ A Guide for the Family of the Alcoholic

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My mother told me of the time her Father died in Mobile. Initially she maintained that he had been crossing a road with her and her kids and he heroically pushed them out of the way of an oncoming vehicle. He was hit and hospitalized. She held him after the accident. It wasn’t until my adolescent years that an elder in the family let my Father know that what she was remembering wasn’t true. Dad took her to a solitary place to confront the delusion and faced her wrath for doing so. What a hard moment that had to have been for them both.

The reality was that she adored her Father and resented her Mother for leaving him. He was an active alcoholic who never found the solution. He went to the hospital with failing internal organs. It was the progression of the disease robbing him of any possibility of a heroic exit. He died before my Mother could get there. I believe she was around 16 or 17 years old during the Christmas season. Bing Cosby had just come out with a song, “I’m dreaming of a White Christmas,” and for a long time she was not able to listen to it with reliving this  pain of that time. She said that it was so impossible for her to believe he was gone. She suspected she was being lied to. She would see the back of a stranger’s head and would go running up to him; “Dad! Dad!” Only to have the vision crushed as the surprised man turned around. She lost it for a little while.

To grow up with her was to dance around trip wires of her often irrational fear that she was being left, abandoned, and rejected. Dad said that he never knew what he was going to find when he got home. Her children were all injured in their own ways by her untreated response to her alcoholic Father. She was sick with her Father’s disease.

What if either father or daughter had grasped the reality of the disease as a disease. My Mother asked her minister if her Father was going to Hell. He was inconclusive. What if she had been able to see that it was not a loss of love or faith that drove him to a tragic end?

The comparison of the addictive disease with Alzheimer’s is potent and pretty accurate. I wish I had known my Grandfather. I wish I had known my Mother unshackled. I am glad that I can look back through the lens of the program and separate the person I love from the disease I hate.

Rest in peace, Mom.

From Courage to Change of March 23;

Alcoholism has contributed to many dashed hopes, broken dreams, and considerable pain in my life. I do not wish to dwell on these feelings, but neither do I wish to turn my back on them. Al-Anon is helping me to face even the most unpleasant aspects of my past. By taking hold of the hands of those in the fellowship, I am able to feel the pain and mourn the losses, and to move on.

These feelings are a deep part of me; when they come knocking at the door of my awareness, I wish to open it and let them in. I need to treat myself with the same care and respect that I would an Al-Anon member sharing pain, confusion, and turmoil at a meeting. Only in this way can I become whole and at peace.

Today’s Reminder

They say that pain is inevitable but suffering is optional. If I learn to accept that pain is part of life, I will be better able to endure the difficult times and then move on, leaving the pain behind me.

“… when we long for life without…difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure” ~ Peter Marshall

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My guilt-o-meter is broken. My early childhood and adult trainee adolescence were filled with unreal and shifting expectations. I was a family god soaked in the steady acid drip of an overprotective distrust of “outsiders.” Only my family had it right. Only my family knew how to love one another. I felt guilty when I stepped outside of this unrealistic icon forged in family dysfunction. I knew, absolutely knew, that if my family or anyone got close enough they would discover how pathetic and worthless I was. My family champion mantle protected me from discovery. I feared the exile. The protection I received made plain to me how incapable I was of handling life on my  own. In this way I was cut off from myself and others.

Over time I am attempting to reset my guilt-o-meter to a balance of liberty and responsibility and to abandon martyrdom for the weeping mad goddess of my formative years. It is not natural for me to remain balanced in this fashion. A major part of this depth of recovery is to process some very difficult emotions that have phantom sources. A séance pursuit of childhood ghosts takes time and patience. I had to overcome my distrust of non-family sources to get help from others who were invested in the recovery of my true Self. I attend the meetings and surrender to this program of restored volition. I did not create this delusion on my own. I strongly suspect that I will not undo its damning effects in solitary confinement.

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From Courage to Change of March 22;

In order to survive in the contradictory and explosive world of alcoholism, many of us learned to ignore our feelings. We lost touch with ourselves without even knowing it.

For example, although I pointed an accusing finger at the alcoholics in my life for deserting me in times of need, I wasn’t a very good friend to myself. In my fear and confusion, I walked away from the little child in me who lived simply, who cried when the cat died and then let it go, who could appreciate a sunset and not want to own it, and who lived one day at a time.

Recovery does not mean that I have to become a different person. It means I need to start being myself again. The lessons I’m learning in Al-Anon are lessons I already know. I just need to remember.

Today’s Reminder

There is an innocence within me that already knows how to trust my Higher Power, to cherish life while holding it lightly, to live fully and simply in the present moment. I will allow that part of myself to come forward and nourish me as I continue on this journey.

“It takes one a long time to become young.” ~ Pablo Picasso

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Reclaiming the inner child and reparenting it can be a confusing prospect. “When I was a child, I talked like a child, thought like a child, reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things…let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” (scriptural splice of 1 Corinthians 13:11 and Matthew 19:14 respectively). I cannot remember ever living simply. I have no reference point. My imagination has always been active but that energy has simmered on the back burners of life’s urgencies. I think I am okay today. I am clean and sober, but that inner child feels like something off the Omen. I keep it locked away most times. I suppose this is an area I am still working through.