Those Darn Skeletons Keep Falling Out of The Closet!

You know that time of night/morning where you've been tossing and turning for so long that you have to make a decision about whether you're going to go back to sleep, or surrender the battle and just get up?  I'm there.  Here I sit in front of my computer, totally exhausted, drinking my fourth cup of Folgers. (But at least it isn't room temperature cheap wine with dead fruit flies floating in it.  See?  There's a silver lining to everything, eh?) I would have hoped that last night's sleep would have gone a little better, seeing as that I only slept about 3 hours the previous night.  But there again I don't know if I"m considering this to be last night or this morning.  Or does it even really matter when you're this tired?  Said disorientation to time reminds me of waking up having passed out, and trying to figure out in a haze if it was 7am or 7pm. All I know at this moment is that I have a husband who has the flu, and I'm starting to get a little "rummy" as my mom would say from getting up every 2 hours to check on him.  (This would be a good time to pause and note that I like to throw in a few booze jokes every once in a while to give myself a chuckle.  "We are not a glum lot"). What's eating at me is not concern over my husband's health. Which I am dutifully solemn over. Nor is it my  four year old daughter, whom I tried to scrunch up next to on her twin bed lest I catch The Plague, and whom mommy has discovered to be inhumanely bony. My head, plunked next to browns curl on a Dora the Explorer pillowcase, is hearing only the loud rattling of those pesky skeletons in the closet.

Oh, you know the ones!  The ones you thought you'd come to terms with and moved on from. When I went to treatment, I had worked my way through the 7th step and was feeling pretty mellow. I had squashed shame and guilt like a nasty bug. However, I was advised to start the steps over again so my darling sponsor, Gillian, could be privy to all my circus side car freak show acts.  When this was suggested I thought, "No problem! I'm totally cool with that.  But I really don't have any juicy bits left cause I already did an inventory of my resentments and harms".  What I realized as I was hopelessly tangled in sheets this morning/last night, was that I had completely forgotten about  that second storage unit of skeletons that my evil twin locked up.  It's as if I had a second little Gretchen running around (no doubt in SUPER cute heels) in my brain, grabbing up memories of some really crappy things I did while drinking, and heaved the door closed with her shoulder to lock away any shreds of ugliness.  Just to find that when I'm least expecting it and dozing off, BAM! The skeletons come out tap dancing.

How does one find the stable middle ground between owning your stuff, and not getting trapped by paralyzing shame and guilt over crap that you just can't change?  My friends and family have been so loving and gracious, and have lavished me with an undeserved clean slate. But what about those things that haunt me which I can't gloss over and fix?  The Living Amends doozies. My inclination is to take the reigns and start spinning into a frenzy of fix-its, so that everything will be perfect and I won't have to feel bad about it anymore.  Once the sun rises, I know that super-Gillian will have astute words to offer that will propel me forward.  But right now, all I can do is go back to this: I am totally powerless over the things I did while I was active in my disease.  I am, and was at that time, powerless over alcohol and my life was totally unmanageable. Step 1. I believe that I was in a state of insanity, as the big book describes, when I was living my life in a manner that is hard to face today. And that there is a force bigger than I am who can fix all the wreckage I left in my wake.  Step 2.  And then with joy and a huge amount of relief, I'm gonna catapult that stuff over to God. (which is what I choose to call my higher power.  You can call yours the fellowship, doorknob, Buddha, kitty cat, or Honey Pie...the God of your understanding). When I was spooning Emily, I was fashioning in my head all the amends notes that I was going to scrawl with good intention in the morning to relieve my guilt.  But that's not turning it over.  I can 8th step those suckers when it's due time.  For the moment, though, I know that my God is wanting me to really marinate in the fact that his forgiveness for me is all-encompassing, and free of charge. What a wonder it is that my list of deeds was shredded and no memory remains in his eyes for me.  Even if the committee in my head kept a hard copy and want to read it to me through a blow horn at 3:47am. That is the beauty of restoration.  I will end on this note: God has been blessing my fun hobby-turned venture, which is named after lyrics of a song by 10th Avenue North, "ReMade". I find old broken pieces of vintage jewelry, take them apart, fix them up and turn them into new and sparkling creations. (I say this not for self promotion.  Truly.  Any success I have is only an indication of a Living and Forgiving God who can turn me into something usable).  The song

Social Ineptitude

 
From a very young age I remember feeling like an outsider, never quite fitting in. Not even in my own family. We used to have this house in Eugene, on Miramonti Drive.  There was this huge boulder in the front yard, under a cherry blossom tree.  And for a period of...i hope it wasn't more than a year....I would sit out on that boulder, alone, and sharpen a stick.  Not just any stick, though.  I had procured from the empty lot next door (where there were goats roaming) a stick that I felt oddly connected to.  I loved the way the bark flaked off and the gleaming, pale, flesh underneath was so smooth.  And so it became my pass time to sit on the boulder in the front yard, with the warmth of the sun beating down on my bony shoulders, sharpening the end of the stick into a perfect point.   I felt safe there, free to get lost in the far reaches of my thoughts and avoid any kind of awkward social interaction.

The only thing that changed as time passed, was that I figured out how to fake it really well.  I learned how to be pleasing and tenacious, funny and smart, anything you wanted.  I would be that for you.  It was a classic case of "The-Insides-Never-Matching-the-Outsides-itus".   My sponsor says "if you wanted me to have eaten oatmeal for breakfast, I would tell you I ate oatmeal, when, in reality, I had a pop tart".  And I think, after a while, I believed the construct myself.  It's so easy to get lost in the play. As the big book states, "Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way...Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of life if he only manages well?". (p.66-67 Alcoholics Anonymous). For me, playing the perfect part meant being loved and accepted; a way to get past my innate, albeit perceived, inability to connect deeply with others.

Fast forward to today.  The Jig is Up, as it were.  My house of cards crumbled, and I'm now starting to relearn how to relate to people.  Towards the end of my drinking, I isolated myself so much that I didn't even know how to talk to the pizza guy anymore.  Finding other alcoholics who were just like me was such a relief.  Yet, even still I struggle with feeling like a social leper.  I've been going to this weekly women's meeting on Wednesdays with my sponsor.  I've noted for the past few weeks a group of gals go out to dinner afterwards, and I so desperately wanted to be invited.  At long last, my lovely sponsor said, "Are you SURE you can't come with us to dinner"? Wait, What?!? In all my internal brooding, I had forgotten that she had invited me before and I had said I would have to go home to help Troy with the kids, so she quit inviting me.  So it was with amazement that I sat at that table at Marco's and had Asian Curry Rice Salad, laughing so hard tears were streaming down my face.  I was no longer Little Timmy, standing in the cold, watching the lovely gathering through the frosty window panes.  I have to laugh at myself, feeling so worried about not being invited to dinner.  It felt a lot like sitting on the boulder, sharpening my stick.  Alone.  It's such a relief to know that even when I get real and expose my broken self to the world, that I'm still accepted.  Flaws and all. I just hope that as I continue along the path of sobriety I won't feel so LAME!  

Powerlessness: Oh Sweet Release!

As I've had continually drilled lovingly into my heart, powerlessness and willingness are where real life truly sprouts.  After so many years of hiding, my dark and horrific insides never matching the shining picture of perfection I was trying to present on the outside, I finally cracked.  What came spilling forth was honest, raw, uncut, and in need of some serious pruning.  In that delicious brokenness I found complete freedom.  When your worst fears are realized, and The Great Oz behind the curtain is shown to be nothing more than a scared and lonely little girl wanting to be loved and truly known, it's kinda hard to save face.  And in all honestly, I wouldn't want to.  My disease of addiction wants nothing more than to pry me from my God. (I choose to call my Higher Power God.  If you are bristling at that statement, take a deep breath, and remember that step 3 states we are turning our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him).  Cause when I'm not on the ground frantically scratching at whatever remnants of sobriety I can get my hands on, I'm as good as dead.  Not to sound dramatic, but that really is the truth for my story.  I nearly died trying to be perfect.  I had to do everything perfectly on the outside because it was the only thing that made me lovable.  I was trying to use my feeble attempts at control to shroud myself in anything that would distract you from the ugly cesspool that was my soul.  I needed to be smashed to tiny bits before I could be remade. "It's never too late to be what you should have been. --Elliott".

When I was a kid, I remember going on a road trip to Yellowstone National Park. We had been driving for what seemed like FOREVER when we finally got there.  I distinctly remember  sweating bullets because I'd consumed too many juice boxes and there was no place to pee.  Every attempt at "hang on, we're almost there" was starting to fade. I was crazily moving my toes, letting out loud and random high-pitched squeals, bouncing even.  Anything I could do to hold myself over another 15 seconds until I could get to the toilet. Just when I thought we were rounding the corner to arrive at the loo, i saw before me a flock of Buffalo stopping traffic. The lazily winding roads of Yellowstone had become my prison of misery in that moment. What was this?!? Didn't the universe understand I was going to christen the inside of my mom's gloriously large and golden Dodge Aries with urine if I didn't get there? I crossed my 10 year old scrawny chicken legs with desperate frenzy.  I grit my teeth, sure that I was not gonna make it.  But somehow I did.  The heavens parted, doves were released, the angels sang the hallelujah chorus as I tore across the field with my eye on the holy land, the stone outhouse, and I let er' rip.  THAT moment, that unbelievable relief is what I feel when I embrace powerlessness.  I fight it so hard, and struggle against what I know is best for me.  And usually it ends up that I'm beaten down by circumstances into powerlessness.  As the big book states in the chapter We Agnostics, "Faced with alcoholic destruction we soon became as open minded on spiritual matters as we had tried to be on other questions.  In this respect, alcohol was a great persuader.  It finally beat us into a state of reasonableness". (p. 48, Alcoholics Anonymous).  Sadly, it usually takes being beaten into a state of reasonableness in order for me to surrender.  My son Noah, who is two, will sometimes get so tired that when it's nap time I have to hold his hands against his side to keep him from flailing.  It feels mean, but in that state, he cannot help himself.  He needs mommy to pin him in a big hug.  And he hates it.  He  screams, and wails, and bucks himself around.  That is, until he finally collapses in complete surrender to the exhaustion.  That is so the picture of an addict, isn't it?  When I find myself embroiled in "restless and discontent", I find that my higher power is using a circumstance to bring me back to the sweet release of powerlessness.  In the same way I lovingly bring Noah to sleepy-land through discomfort, my God uses circumstances to say, "Stop fighting it.  It's OK.  I've got this one. Just let go".  That's where the peace is.  When I'm snuggled up to powerlessness and willingness.  If you're fighting something, it might just be your Higher Power telling you to surrender.  So come on.  Give it up.  I promise you'll sleep better.

Powerlessness in Canine Form

I was on my way to my favorite Tuesday morning meeting today when it happened.  A God Shot, so to speak, in canine form.  I was actually running ahead of schedule, which is an absolute miracle as I have two small children. My Higher Power must have been watching out for me because i avoided the typical fight with my 2 year old over putting his boots on, and having to sweet talk a curly headed 4 year old into leaving her entire tea set at home as her preschool teacher surely won't need it today.   I had a hot coffee in my hand, radio on, and the sun shining when I noticed a small stray dog running around in the street.  He was a cute little chihuahua with a red collar, obviously somebody's love, and obviously no match for a Hummer going 37.  (I will now refrain from spewing hippie green hate at said Hummer for it's mere pointless gas-guzzling, environment-trashing existence).  My tiny corolla with peeling paint screeched to a halt on the side of that busy road. Cars whizzing by I chased that little dog four blocks and through the Fred Meyers Parking lot in the attempt to get him to come to me and not lose his little life in the middle of Oatfield Road.  At one point I thought he would come to me, he near enough for me to touch, and then he bolted.

So I stood there in the ill-fitting workout clothes that I had thrown on at 6am when my son woke up crying.  Clearly my attempts to lure the little dog into safety were for nil.  I was so worried about the dog, and missed my meeting.  But it was also a lesson in powerlessness.  In a funny way, I'm kinda glad I didn't get the happy ending I had fantasized about while I was huffing it in the freezing cold February wind.  Because it gave me the chance to remember my powerlessness.  Over the dog.  Over alcohol.  Over that one damn black hair that continues to grow above my belly button despite my plucking.  Over when I will find a job.  Over my kids and husband.  And that's where I find my peace.  By snuggling up to my powerlessness, and getting out of my own way.  Thanks, Higher Power.  I appreciate the reminder.  Even if it meant I had to chase a random little dog in the cold to get it.  

Covered in Dripping Pink Goo. Now What?

The often referred to Pink Cloud is a true phenomenon.  One which leaves you even more head-scratchingly baffled when it explodes, and you're left standing there, awkwardly covered in Pink Cloud remnant goo, unsure of whether you should clean up and go on, or run with reckless abandon back to your favorite liquor store.  (You know the one: where they know you by name and refer to that cheap bottle of $7.99 Vendange Chardonnay as your "usual").  I can't say I wasn't forewarned about riding that lovely pink cloud of comfort and sober glee.  And how it would someday blow up in my face.  I even dare say that I thought I was the ONE addict who would evade the issue of  the inevitable explosion of the honeymoon period with my new lover, Sobriety.  But I am sweetly reminded by my higher power to get off my high, terminally unique, horse, and live among the common recovering addicts.  My high and lofty conversations with my committee surely weren't getting me anywhere.  I will spare you the stories about drinking fruit flies along with the wine straight out of the bottle.  Oh, and the nosebleeds.  Can't forget those!  So what gives?!  I'm either flying high on the Pink Cloud of Sobriety, or down in the Pit of Despair.  (Princess Bride reference).

It shouldn't surprise me that I have a difficult time with the dreaded Middle Ground.  I'm all too good at the extremes.  The drama.  The highs. (Pun intended). And the lows.  That unexplored no-man's land, which my sponsor annoyingly pointed out is usually referred to as "stable", is where I get befuddled.  I was thoroughly enjoying recovery when I was in Pink Cloud mode.  Cause it was fun.  It felt good.  I was in the mood.  The lesson I'm learning is that the gritty and authentic recovery isn't quite so sparkly.  It's about staying sober when you're NOT in the mood to stay sober.  It's not as if I loved every moment of treatment.  But I was just so glad to be out of the hell that I had been living in that I was willing to do anything.  That anything was a relief.  Day to day doldrums have sunk in.  And while I'm still thrilled that I don't have to wake up anymore at 3am in full blown withdrawal, I'm not always particularly in the mood to be sober.  It's not as much of a relief as it used to feel.  But i guess the only solution is to snuggle right back up with Powerlessness, and remember exactly what it was like to be at my bottom.  Cause it was pretty low.  And to hold onto God like he's going out of style.   I guess when you think about it, maybe stable isn't that bad.