Month: August 2014

Good and Bad

~ Patti ~ Leave a comment

I was thinking this morning about when I first started drinking.  I have five children. Four of them were asthmatic.  If I let them outside to play, they would come indoors wheezing.  My three year old grew whiskers as a result of the steroids he was on.  His face was pumpkin shaped.  I took at least one child to the doctor every week. My doctor and I saw each other so much that we were on a first name basis. The three year old had to have his blood tested every week.  I felt so bad for him that we went out for ice cream each time he had to see the doctor.  I was hoping he’d look forward to that.

I had three of them using a nebulizer to take their asthma medicine.  They had to take turns and the three year old would scream, “It’s not fair! It’s not fair!,” for the entire 15 minutes that he was using it.  I kept records like a nurse because they were all on 4 different medicines.  Yet they still wouldn’t get better.  If one of them contracted a cold, they’d all be on steroids which weaken the immune system and then it would start all over.  I was peddling as fast as I could, but it seemed my efforts to make my children healthy had sorely failed.  I was cooking health foods and reading all that I could to find any clues at all about why my children were so sick all of the time.  I had read every book about asthma that a lay person could read and it was all for nothing.

In the meantime, I was trying to home school my children, two of them were in diapers, two of them were teenagers and their father was never home.  He was working 90 hours a week which is how he coped, always fearing the ability to provide for such a large sick family.  I had my own problems with asthma and allergies and was extremely fatigued.

My doctor sent two of them to a specialist to see if they had Pulmonary Obstructive Disease.  After he examined them I asked if they had Pulmonary Obstructive Disease.

The doctor replied, “Oh God no!  You just need to make sure you give them their medicine as directed.”

I’m thinking, “Oh my God!  What more can I do?  He doesn’t think I’m giving them their medicine correctly?”

I was a faithful church goer for at least 16 years.  In that moment I had quit believing in God as a personal savior.  He certainly hadn’t saved me or my children and now the doctor is accusing me of not caring for my children properly.

I poured myself a glass of wine and lifted my glass into the air, “Here’s to you, God!!!”  Certainly, no lightening had struck.  What I did notice was that it was easier to get the dishes washed in the sink, I wasn’t bitching at my husband when he came home and I didn’t care anymore what the doctor had thought.  In that moment, I found the answer to all of my problems.  It was liquid courage.  It was “like the sun coming up in my belly.”  It worked for me until it didn’t anymore.

I am quite used to judging that something is good or bad.  My twelve step program helped me to just observe.  I have to admit after 11 years of sobriety and 14 years in a 12 step program I still judge everything in my life as good and bad.

But let me tell you what my family is like 19 years later.  The youngest child has no asthma.  The three year old that was on so many steroids that he grew whiskers, is an incredible trumpet player.  Because of his asthma, his air capacity is unbelievable.  I read all of the laymen’s books on asthma that I possibly could, so I went back to school for a degree in chemistry with an emphasis in biology.  I obtained the degree.  I work in a preventative health industry.  My health is amazing.  I’m now divorced and married to an amazing man that is home for dinner every night.  The other children that had asthma, struggle some with their asthma but steroids are rare.

By the way, the three year old is almost 21.  He remembers the ice cream and a chance to be alone with his mother but doesn’t remember his blood being taken every week.

You might say that is good.  You might even say that if it weren’t for those years of suffering I couldn’t have reaped the good that came out of it.

Just for today I’ve decided not to judge.

Do Not Take Anything Personally

~ Patti ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes I take my sobriety for granted.  We survive a lot to get sober and to stay sober.  It was usually a catastrophic event that we drank over anyway.  When we get sober we have to learn to mourn and grieve without alcohol.  We’ve survived DTs and the 12 steps. I sometimes feel like my Grandmother when she’d talked about the Great Depression.  She was tough as nails and I feel like I’m tough as nails.

My sponsor used to hammer an important concept: “Do not ever take anything personally.”

“I’m sorry, “I said, “It’s all personal!  How could it not be?”

I finally got it.  I finally realized that the words or deeds that others do to offend me are not about me.  They come from the inner dealings of their own issues.  Their problem with me, is not about me, therefore I do not need to take it personally or be offended.  What that concept gave me was an inner freedom.  I was finally free to be who I was.  I didn’t have to apologize for it, or excuse it or hide it.  I’m strong because I’m free.  The fear of people left me.  Resentments left me.

Then something or someone comes along to remind us of our fragility.  I thought I quit caring about what others think of me.  I thought I could handle anyone’s barbed words and let it roll off of my back.  Alcoholics are by nature hypersensitive.  I thought I let go of the hypersensitivity when I let go of my resentments.  And I did.

What I come to realize is that we have only a daily reprieve.  If I am not vigilant and if I am not actively taking care of my sobriety, my hypersensitivity is activated.  Sometimes it’s activated in the most inconvenient of places.  My sobriety is contingent on my spiritual condition.  If I don’t take care of my spiritual condition, I become hypersensitive and in turn am endangered to drink.

Taking care of my spiritual condition may be different for you than it is for me.  I think for me it means I take the time at least once a day to be quiet and to quiet my mind.  In addition to being an alcoholic, I’m also an introvert.  I need a sufficient amount of quiet to go back out into the world and let possibly offending words and deeds roll off of my back.  I know myself and know my limitations.

So, I will tend to my spiritual condition, just for today.

 

Peace on Earth

~ Patti ~ Leave a comment

The camping trip this weekend was a good chance to talk to my sons, especially while traveling.  They are very much like me when I was in my 20’s.  The world seems like a daunting place to be and when you are 20 and realize what a violent state the world is in and what a sad history our own country has, it seems discouraging.  They are young and energetic but wonder about how wise it is to bring children into the world; they wonder how they can choose careers that make a difference.  They feel like there is nothing they can really do anyway.  And like me, they tend to overthink the issues.

I struggled to find anything to say that could truly bring light into the subject or comfort.  I mumbled something about change starting at home and in our own lives and allowing that to ripple into our communities.  I don’t believe they really understood what I meant or how that would even work.  I thought about it all weekend.

I’m a recovering alcoholic.  My 12 step program suggests that I drink because I’m irritable and discontent.  In other words I drink because of a lack of peace.  When I drink, like most drunks, I’m prone to less than charitable behavior.  I’m self will run riot.  When 80 percent of the population in prisons are addicts and alcoholics, you might get the idea that it’s the lack of individual peace that causes all of the crimes.

It makes sense to me that if every person in the world were at peace, there would be peace on earth.  Violence would disappear.  So, peace starts with me.  When I’m agitated about my job, or my kids, or the economy, or traffic, or lack of peace in my country or in the world, I’m not at peace.  My family soon follows suit and we gripe together.  Pretty soon, they are griping with their friends and I’m griping with my friends.  Doesn’t it make sense that the mood would eventually reach the other side of the globe?

I’m not saying we should never do anything, and I’m not saying I live in perfect peace.  I’m just saying maybe it would be a start.  Maybe it’s time I let go of guilt, resentment and fear.  Those are the ones that cause me all of the trouble.  I don’t drink over them anymore, but they still sit there in the recesses of my mind quietly causing they’re destruction and robbing me of my serenity and possibly robbing my family and coworkers of their serenity.

Just for today I will practice developing a peaceful heart by letting go of guilt, resentment and fear.  Who knows who it might reach?

 

 

Peace and Gratitude

~ Patti ~ Leave a comment

This weekend I have a camping trip planned.  When I pull out of the driveway in my little 16 foot trailer, it feels like the whole world melts away.  Underneath the stars in front of the fire, I try to think about all of the things I was worried about during the week and I can’t remember why I thought it was such a big deal or why it took up such space in my head.  I feel like my brain empties of all of the garbage and I can just be.  And I don’t have to be anything to anyone else.  I get to be who I am.  I’m at peace.

When I first got sober, I’d hear the word peace thrown around and I didn’t even really know what that meant.  I don’t think I had ever experienced it.  I was always worried about something.  People told me not to quit before the miracle happened and I really had no idea what they were talking about.  “Wasn’t the miracle that I was sober?” I was a wreck for almost three years and was only hanging on by my fingernails.

Then one day something changed for me.  I was at perfect peace for what felt like the first time in my life.  By staying in recovery and doing the things that others suggested I had somehow cultivated an environment of peace.  I didn’t experience it every day at first and don’t always experience it every day now, but I began to experience it more often and the intervals of peace began to get closer and closer together.

Today I can’t tolerate a prolonged period of irritability or discontentment in myself.  I know how to put myself in a peaceful state again.  It boils down to the basics of my 12 step program, talking to another alcoholic and doing what is suggested, going to a meeting, reading, writing, meditation and prayer.  It’s simple but really not easy.  I like to complicate it and try to find a way around doing what’s easy.  I’m always trying to think it away.

Another way that I’ve learned to cultivate peace is to nurture myself.  I always thought someone else should do that.  I was always angry if you didn’t sooth my feelings which were impossible to sooth away in the first place.  I’m an extremely emotional and an extremely passionate person.  I have strong feelings.  Today I recognize that this quality in myself is good and is useful in many areas of my life, but I am responsible to take care of my own feelings.  I nurture myself.

I take care of people all day.  I have employees and a husband, children and grandchildren.  Sometimes I have to stop and ask myself what will make me happy today.  I nurture myself.  It might be something as small as lighting a candle, or eating healthy.  It might be as large as a trip.  In the end, I’m responsible for what I feel.  What I’ve noticed is that feelings are always preceded by a thought.  I work on disciplining my thoughts by staying in gratitude.  Where there is gratitude, there is always peace.

Just for today I’m going to write in my gratitude journal.