Alcoholism, Mental Illness and Recovery

Happy Spring!  I hope everyone is doing well.  Life continues around me and I am doing my best with God's help, of course, to keep up or at least survive each moment.  I have been focusing on living in the present, not dwelling on the past too much nor worrying about the future.  Those are some tough tasks for me and not because I like to think about the past and future too much but rather because the present moments are often difficult to bear.

I have a great life and many, many blessings for which I am ever thankful to God.  The difficulties remain in my mood swings and my powerlessness over mental illness.  I asked the universe this week if there will ever come a day when I would rather be alive than dead.  The universe didn't give me a definitive answer so I guess I'll keep plugging along.  Maybe that is the answer; just keep plugging along.

I have a friend who has a teenager who is depressed and he often self-mutilates by cutting.  She knows my history and asked me if I thought he was inflicting physical pain in an attempt to distract himself from his mental anguish.  I said that I didn't know why he was doing it but the reason I did it at his age was because of self-hatred. 

I had so much anger and was conditioned to stuff it as a child that when it eventually started boiling out of me, I took it out on myself in secrecy.  Nobody knew so nobody punished me for expressing anger.  Yet, I knew and ironically, inflicted my own punishment.  Weird.  I never really thought of it that way until now.

Today, I do not hate myself.  In fact, I love myself because through the 12 step program and the examples of those women in the programs, I have learned how to see myself through God's eyes and that is an amazing gift to possess.  I love myself with all of my heart!

However, I hate my mental illness symptoms as much as I hated being alcoholic when I first got sober.  Today, I am indifferent about having alcoholism.  It is what it is and I am so grateful that the solution found in the 12 steps works for me and my alcoholism.

Maybe some day I will feel the same about mental illness.  However, for today, my symptoms are extremely painful and I struggle to find peace in them.  Yet, I remain hopeful.  I turn to God at every painful moment for help and I turn to him at every peaceful moment to give thanks.  I learned to do that by working the 12 steps "in all my affairs."

In addition to working my program, I continue to take other actions necessary to treat my mental illness (going to my psychiatrist monthly, being honest with her and others about my symptoms, taking care of myself to the best of my ability and most importantly, not being too hard on myself.)

I do not have any more power over my bipolar disorder than I do over my alcoholism.  In both cases, the only power I have is in the willingness to take the actions suggested to me by others.  So, that is what I will keep doing...I'll just keep plugging along and we'll see what happens...

Do Alcoholics Have the Option to Choose Self Control?

My ten year old daughter continues to exhibit bipolar symptoms, specifically anger and irritability, morning, noon, and night. Yesterday morning, I kept my cool with her and my serenity was not affected. This morning, on the other hand, I responded to her disrespectful actions and words with my own anger and frustration and my serenity vanished. Poof! Gone…

Afterwards, I went outside and sat in the morning sunshine to read a spiritual (although, not recovery-based) meditation book a friend gave to me this week. I immediately felt a sense of peace and relief as I read the words I needed to hear until I got to the last part which discussed self-control. It reads:

I choose self-control…Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. To these I commit my day. If I succeed, I will give thanks. If I fail, I will seek his grace.

My blood pressure rose as I read those words and I tore that page right out of the flippin’ book!

Self-control??? I have no self-control! If I did, I wouldn't need a 12-step program for my alcoholism. WTF? Does this mean normal people have a choice when it comes to self-control because I sure don't.  On the contrary, I am out of control.  I am powerless.  My life is unmanageable by me.  I am unmanageable by me.

Definition of self-control: "Control of one's emotions, actions, or desires by one's own will."

I thought this picture was cute, however, a cork wouldn't work because I'd have to buy a bottle of wine in order to get the cork (oh, the irony! :)

I am not in a great place at the moment. Therefore, I am reaching out to my fellow alcoholics and humbly asking you to share your experience, strength, and hope on this self-control thing.  Am I missing something?

I choose to admit that I am powerless (step 1.)  I choose to believe my life is unmanageable and that God can restore me to sanity (step 2.)  I choose to make the decision to turn my life over to God (step 3.)  I choose to write down my faults (step 4.)  I choose to talk with my sponsor about them (step 5.)  I choose to be willing to have God remove my faults (step 6.)  I choose to ask him to remove them (step 7.)  I choose to make a list of those I have harmed (step 8) and to make amends except when to do so would injure them or others (step 9.)  I choose to review my conduct each day (step 10.)  I choose to pray and meditate (step 11.)  I choose to try to practice the principles of the program in all of my affairs and to carry the message of the program to other alcoholics (step 12.)

But can I choose to have self-control?   Can I choose to control myself?  Can you?

Sober Time Flies

Wow!  It has been a few weeks...busy, up, down, and everything in between.  I am grieving the death of a family member yet finally coming out of a full Fall-Winter depression.  I am grateful that my sleeping habits have normalized, that my husband's financial insecurities have been relieved, and most of all, that I am sober and in conscious contact with God.

What are you grateful for today?

Alcoholism, Sobriety, and Recovery - a Step Ten Spiritual Experience

I listened to them fight. Like I used to be, she is sensitive, defensive, discontent, irritable, and miserable. Unlike me, she is only ten years old and has never touched a drop of alcohol. Yet, she thinks and acts like one who is drinking herself into an early grave.

Like my husband, my other daughter is selfless, kind, loving, as well as hurt and confused about why the former spews venomous words and blames her for all that is wrong in life. Unlike my husband, she is only five years old and was born into this alcoholic family rather than married into it.

Doesn’t matter…we all have alcoholism and sometimes it really sucks.

I have a sponsor, my daughter has a counselor, and we both have psychiatrists and God. I hate what I see and I cry because I can’t fix her any more than I can fix myself.


Step One: I am powerless.


Step Two: I believe God will restore my sanity (and my daughter's)


Step Three: and at times, I allow Him to restore mine.  The times when I don't is when I focus on my fears.  For example, I become scared to death for my children and agonize over the pain of living from which I cannot completely protect them.


Step Four: During these times, it is best for me to write out my fears and the ways in which I may be harming them by not allowing them to feel their own growing pains, for example.


Step Five: I discuss these things with my sponsor on a regular basis merely because they surface on a regular basis.


Step Six: I want God to remove my fears and seemingly selfless actions that are, in reality, an attempt to relieve the suffering I experience when I see my children suffering.


Step Seven: I ask God to remove these fears, defects, and shortcomings from me as He sees fit.


Step Eight: I place myself at the top of the list and any others whom I have harmed.


Step Nine: I make amends to myself for the browbeating I often inflict on my own conscience (which only fuels my alcoholism.)

Step Ten:  ???   Oh, Step 10, where are youuuuu???

 It is at this exact point in my recent working of the steps, in which flames of “you’re a terrible mother” and “look at what you did to these kids” and “this is all your fault” ignite; my alcoholism trying to convince me that I have power; that some how I can control my life and my children's lives. 

If I believe these lies, which I often do, I go along living life until I, once again, experience enough pain to return to Step One (and admit my powerlessness, once again!)

Insidious disease!!! I haven’t worked Step 10 in months. The others, many times as I described above.  However, even a thorough 4th -9th step-run only straightens me out for a few weeks and then I am back where I started.

I kept asking, “Why? Why?” and this weekend He told me, “...no Step 10 work.”


“She does steps 4-9 repeatedly. That’s the same thing…even BETTER than a step 10,” my disease retorted. God smiled and like that smart little dog from the Wizard of Oz who pulled back the curtain to reveal a mere man pretending to be a great and powerful Wizard, God revealed the simplicity and significance of Step 10 to me.


My focus has been on the great and powerful Steps 4-9 (which are great and powerful in their own right.) However, for me, Step 10 works behind the curtain tirelessly to maintain the phenomenal effects of 4-9, as the carnival man did to control the powerful effects of the “wizard.”


If I work step 10 on a daily basis, maybe I will be less likely to fall backwards as quickly as I have been on my Steps 4-9 every-other-month plan…that plan isn't in the Big Book!


I also wonder if skipping step 10 is the reason that steps 11 and 12 have been such chores for me lately...

Thank you, God.  Thank you, all.




http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:Are-you-a-wizard.jpg



Sobriety and Life Tie the Knot

Sober living is hard, enjoyable, stressful, serene, tough, and simple.  How can it be so many opposing things?  It can for me because it is life, a mysterious experience of co-existing joy and sorrow, suffering and relief, pain and serenity.  It is real, it is now, and it is unpredictable.

I am going on seven consecutive weeks of family illnesses, snow days, holidays, birthdays, and crises - all the usual life events - with no end yet in sight.  I want to run away via the bottle, the car, or in my really low spots, death. 

Thank goodness God has other plans for me. Otherwise, I would be writing this drunk, from a deserted island, or not at all.

I have a lot to complain about…many things I don’t like but as my sponsor says, I “don’t have to like it.”  I also have a lot to be grateful for…many things that I do like…and when I focus on those aspects of my life I have a real chance at conforming to God’s will - staying sober, living with my family, and remaining alive.

How do I keep my focus on the positives?  I have only one answer:

by working the 12 steps:

1. Admitting my powerlessness
2. Believing God will restore me to sanity
3. Trusting in His will
4. Completing a thorough self-appraisal
5. Calling my sponsor/telling her everything
6. Being willing for God to improve my character
7. Asking Him to improve my character
8. Making a list of those whom I have harmed
9. Making amends when appropriate
10. Performing repeated self-appraisals
11. Praying and meditating
12. Practicing these principles in all areas of my life and carrying the message to other alcoholics through service work (going to meetings to share and listen, sponsoring other women, writing these blog posts, etc.)

A long time ago, life handed me a rope and sometimes I swing joyfully from it like a child and sometimes I am tempted to noose it and hang myself.  Right now, I am tying a knot in the end of it and hanging on…while God and those who love me stand underneath with open arms, waiting to catch me if I fall. 

What more could I ask for?

Responsibilities in Sobriety - Grumblings versus Gratitude

Responsibilities                                         Grumblings                Gratitude

1.  taking care of sick children
non-stop for the last two weeks:               -I am tired                -God strengthens me 
                                                                       -I miss quietness         -I'm not hungover


2.  leaving early to get coffee cups
for my home group meeting                          -I am tired                   -they trust me w/$
                                                                           -I don't do my         
                                                                            own shopping         -they trust me w/$


3.  taking a friend to a meeting weekly     -why doesn't she       
                                                                      ever offer to drive?   -I have a car and can
                                                                                                                  afford gasoline
                                                                                                                -I have friends


4.  taking care of the kids alone while
husband works sooooo much                    -did I mention that
                                                                     I am fricking tired?     -I have a husband
                                                                                                                 who works hard
                                                                                                                 for us


5.  taking care of myself
and others                                                -I don't feel like it                -I know how  

So Your Sober - Now What?

Live.

How?

Go to meetings to get a sponsor to work a 12-step program to improve your contact with God to help others.  Repeat.

Why?

It works for me.

Sober Living - How to Stay Serene

I have been busy with life…too busy. Not saying no to things I could say no to, to things that are taking me away from time with God. Therefore, I am not surprised at my current state of irritability and discontent.


Life has a way of bulldozing me without me realizing it until I find myself face down, flattened to the concrete, hurting, cussing, and saying to myself, “I can’t believe I let this happen again!”


What next?

I asked God to peel me up from the pavement and tell me what to do. I opened my laptop to write this post and the words from a previous post sit in wait for me to see, at this very moment when I needed to see them, when I asked for guidance He used my own words to answer me:

The most effective way for me to find joy in everyday living is by working the 12 Steps. Following the suggestions outlined in these steps brings my will in line with God’s will without fail. The steps pave a path that leads me to the two reasons for which I believe that I exist:

1. To attain and maintain conscious contact with God

2. To be of service to others

Due to my choice to focus on things other than maintaining conscious contact with God and being of service to others, I find myself in emotional chaos. I have been focusing on maintaining contact with others in order to serve myself. My how easy it is for me to flip flop my priorities.


Time for me to slow down and regroup. Autopilot is no place for me to operate…it is a guaranteed crash and burn. I pray that God’s grace surrounds me like a protective shield, blinding me to the things my thoughts and actions have been foolishly chasing these past few days.


Do you ever find yourself feeling like this? If so, what do you do? Thanks for any insights you offer.

Communication Styles - Tricks Before Recovery versus Tools After Recovery

I haven't read any sober blogs in two weeks and I miss it!  I can't wait to catch up today.  I hope everyone had a blessed Holiday Season.  Mine was busy with God, family, gifts, food, shopping, decorating, cleaning, more family, more cleaning, and hanging out with my husband and kids. 

Last week we saw the movie, Tangled.  It is based on the story of Rapunzel, the princess with the long, golden hair.  "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair."  The movie was funny, adventurous, and dramatic.  I highly recommend it for kids and adults alike.

Communication Tricks Before Recovery


Photo source

I hate to admit it but the witch in the movie, who held Rapunzel hostage in a high tower for the first eighteen years of her life, reminded me of me!  The witch was nicey, nicey to every one's face and schemed and manipulated behind their backs.  If I was ever an expert at anything in my life, being passive-aggressive was it.  "Kill them with kindness" had a whole different meaning for me than I think it was meant to have.

I grew up with a aggressive father and a passive mother.  I picked up traits from both of them and ended up being a well-blended mix of both.  A mutt of unhealthy communication skills, if you will.  My bag of tricks contained all of the following:

• verbal attacks
• threats
• guilt trips
• silent treatments
• sarcasms
• cynicism
• negativity
• vengeful acts against people that may or may not know about them
• and most confusing to those around me, like the witch in the movie did, I was an expert at taking verbal jabs at others and quickly following them up with an innocent smile and a "I'm just kidding" lie.  I did this to express my anger but gave myself a way out in case they didn't like what I said.  Fear of what people thought of me played a huge roll in my unhealthy communication style.

Thinking about the way I was, let alone writing about it here, makes me cringe and feel a bit nauseous. 


Communication Tools In Recovery



Source

However, in the past few years I have learned new, healthier ways to communicate, including:

• beginning statements with "I" instead of "You."  For example, "I feel uncomfortable when you belittle her in front of me" rather than "You're so mean to her.  You're a jerk."
• avoiding all or nothing qualifiers such as "always" and "never."  For example, "I always do everything around here" or "I never get to do what I want."  For me, all or nothing statements are rarely true or simply gross over-exaggerations, which give the other person an opportunity to respond with specific examples that prove my statements false.  So, I try not to even go there.  Really, it is a subtle form of dishonesty.
• asking for help by admitting my limitations to others.  For example, rather than falling against the wall with the back of my hand to my forehead, giving my husband my best Scarlet O'Hara impression, and saying, "I do everything around here.  This house would fall apart if it weren't for me," I can instead say, "Hey, babe, I am feeling overwhelmed this week.  Could you help me by doing this, this, and this?" 
• which brings me to another facet about communication I learned in recovery:  PEOPLE CANNOT READ MY MIND.  Who knew?  I didn't.  I thought I knew what you were thinking and feeling so it stood to reason that you should always know what I thought and felt and what I wanted and didn't want.  It turns out that you don't know these things unless I TELL YOU.  Amazing!  Additionally, I don't know what you think, feel, want, or don't want unless YOU TELL ME.  What a revelation!  Better yet, what a relief!  Not to have to assume, guess, and feel responsible for anticipating your wants and needs is the most freeing thing in the world!  I never realized what hard work being a good codependent was until I stopped being one.

I still pull from my old bag of tricks when it comes to communicating with others, which invariably leads to chaos in my mind, my environment or both.  On the other hand, when I choose to pick up the tools of healthy communication, I give myself a real chance to experience peace of mind and true love of others.

What is your communication style?  How's that working or not working for you?

Happy New Year!

Finding Balance and Living Sober

I visited my family this week, which more often than not increases my anxiety.  Honestly, I feel a bit (sometimes a lot) crazy afterwards even when all I do is silently witness the dysfunction and not necessarily take part in it.  Although, maybe witnessing it is a part.  Sooooo...


Should I stop going to nieces' and nephews' birthday parties, spending the holidays with them, thereby denying my children the fun they experience in seeing their grandparents and playing with their cousins?  That answer doesn't feel right. 


Sometimes my husband takes the kids out to eat and I do not feel like going whether it be because I am tired, don't want to sit in traffic or deal with the crowds and waits or like this week, I didn't want to go out in the freezing cold weather.  I suggested we order in but they wanted to go out.  I used to suck it up and go with them thinking that it was the "right thing" to do...telling myself that I was not a very great mother or wife to choose not to go out to eat with my family.


Now days, I rarely go if I truly do not want to go.  For the most part, they are alright with this.  I know they would rather me go with them but they understand that if I give more of myself in terms of time and energy than I physically, mentally, and emotionally can for too long or too often, I will become irritated, over-fatigued, anxious, and depressed.


God has revealed these limitations to me over the past 2-3 years and unfortunately, they have been extremely debilitating.  I am finding however, that the more I accept myself and my limitations and love myself despite my limitations, the more I am able to actually do, be, and give in ways that are - I now believe to be - God's will. 

I wonder if what I referred to as "debilitating" - meaning that I could no longer do what I had been doing for so many years - would be better stated as, I just was not doing what God wanted me to do (even though the things I was doing weren't inherently unhealthy.) 

I think God's plan for me just changed and I fought it tooth and nail.  Change is hard for me, it always has been...it is completely fear-based. 

In my experience, whenever I am not in line with God's will, I am usually anxious and/or angry.  And whenever I am in line with God's will, I am at peace.  Someone sitting around the tables once visually demonstrated how she feels while not in line with God's will by tensing up and holding on to the edge of the table with a death grip.  She went on to say that when she is in line with God's will it feels like, "Ahhh" and let out a big relaxing sigh, relaxed her shoulders, closed her eyes and smiled.  I feel that way, too.

Fighting, denying, being angry about who I am, how I am made, what is good for me and not good for me in terms of my spiritual state, must have taken so much energy from me!  Now that I am (on most days) no longer fighting, denying, and being angry with who I am, I feel myself healing and getting better but, as I stated above, not in a way that allows me to go back to doing the activities I thought I should be doing like working, volunteering time I don't have, socializing needlessly with acquaintances, and signing the kids up in too many activities. 


Rather, I find myself being able to be a more patient and loving mom, a mom that has the time and energy to sit down and get eye-to-eye with her children and really listen to them, a mom that can say, "Sure, you can have a sleepover with your friends at our house" and really mean it and not freak out once I have a couple of eight year old girls giggling until two o'clock in the morning. 


I also find myself being a more fun-loving wife and an equal partner in my marriage instead of being either a total control freak or a helpless victim unable to even get out of bed in the morning. 

What would usually happen is I would go, go, go because I felt guilty about not being able to contribute financially to our household and then I would crash and not be able to do anything around the house or with the kids for days or weeks at a time.  This would compound my guilt and once I was back on my feet, the whole cycle would start all over again. 


Why is it that alcoholics in particular tend to have a difficult time finding the middle ground on most things?  (a rhetorical question, but feel free to share any of your personal experiences regarding this thought.) 


Thanks for reading and I wish you a happy, joyous, and well-balanced week!

photo credit

Find Joy in Everyday Life

The past week has been productive and joyful. I have been working on some projects, Christmas shopping, and reading. We put up the Christmas tree and decor around the house. My five-year-old daughter came home from school the day my husband strung the colorful lights along the outside of our home and exclaimed, “The Christmas lights are up…this is the best day of my life!”

She reminded me that the little things in life make it great. The big things make it wonderful, too. My wedding day and the days my children were born were some of the best days of my life. However, the excitement of those days fade as time goes by and those memories do not sustain my joy for life indefinitely. I must find joy in living every day, one day at a time, in order to be able to claim that life is good.

The most effective way for me to find joy in everyday living is by working the 12 Steps. Following the suggestions outlined in these steps brings my will in line with God’s will without fail. The steps pave a path that leads me to the two reasons for which I believe that I exist:

1. To attain and maintain conscious contact with God

2. To be of service to others

I find joy during the process of achieving these two purposes. Where do you find joy these days? Is it a fleeting joy or one that permeates each day of your life?