Due to restructuring, the company I worked for eliminated my position. Aside from the usual grief a person feels when they lose something that they spent a decade of their life building, I felt unusually calm. I did tell one of my children that I needed some time to process before I told any of his siblings. It was one of those times I just needed to isolate in order to process.

If recovery has taught me anything, it’s taught me to show up and suit up. I did not isolate to stay in bed to feel sorry for myself. I isolated to process. There is a difference. I still remained active.

I allowed myself to sleep in and stay in my pajamas for the day, but I was at my computer at normal working hours updating my resume, updating my social media accounts, applying for jobs and contacting recruiters. I was busy and I was productive. When I reached the point that I was unable to think to pursue the next job search activity, I constructively worked on my hobbies. At the end of the day, I turned my computer off and made dinner.

Still processing, I went to bed early to watch Netflix and play on Facebook. The second morning I proceeded to my computer to write and work out my emotions and get clear about who I am. I started my gratitude list. I was grateful to the company that let me go for all that I learned and experienced. I was grateful for the people I had met along the way. I was grateful for my salary and what they had sent me away with. I realized that even though they had eliminated my position, they couldn’t eliminate my experience or knowledge in the field that I worked in and I was grateful for that. Most of all, I was grateful that they had let me go.

I have never had a life change that did not work out for my absolute best no matter how painful it was. Recovery taught me how to walk through my painful circumstances and trust the universe and my higher power to do for me what I cannot do for myself.

After I was finished writing, I contacted my children and they sent me messages of love and support. I had processed and I did it in a healthy way that also gave me room to be gentle on myself.

Just for today, I’m a grateful alcoholic who learned skills in recovery that I wouldn’t have otherwise learned.

I’ve been visiting with my sister. We’ve been talking about middle age and the health issues that accompany it. We both agree that we like younger friends because the women our age are usually focused on how lousy they feel or how badly life has treated them. My sister and I try to keep it positive and moving forward even though like most middle aged women we have a few issues that have popped up. I started pondering this and the truth is that I had more health issues in my 20s than I do now. The difference is that I’ve been conditioned into thinking that now that I’m in my 50s, it’s age related.
There is another disease that I am in recovery from, alcoholism. I started thinking that most diseases have been linked to stress. Stress is nothing more that how we perceive the events that surround us. In recovery I learned to turn my life over to a higher power, accept life on life’s terms, take an inventory of my character defects, make amends and carry the message to other alcoholics. Most importantly, I learned gratitude. It was in my moments of gratitude that I was set free from my anxiety and the obsession to drink.
I learned how to be grateful for the love that surrounded me, the possessions that gave me comfort and for my abilities. The most difficult lesson of gratitude was the gratitude for my alcoholism. I heard people say that they were a grateful alcoholic, but I thought they were either lying or drunk. I couldn’t even imagine being grateful for something that made me such a hideously ugly person and that caused me to be bankrupt of spirit and landed me in a place of total “incomprehensible demoralization.”
I can remember the events of my life now and say I am grateful to be an alcoholic. Because of my disease, I have learned skills to cope with life that few normal people possess. I have been able to tap into the stronger parts of my person and use them to benefit myself and my family. I am more humble and accepting of others weaknesses. I possessed and learned the ability to suit up and show up for my family, my education, my job and myself. My view of my higher power has expanded where it used to be narrow and limited. I learned that god will do for me what I cannot do for myself and to trust the process of whatever I was trying to accomplish in my life. I have been able to help others in a way that none other than an alcoholic could touch.
I am wondering if we practiced these principals in all of our affairs, if we could recover from other infirmaries. What would happen if I applied my recovery and were grateful for my hypothyroidism, my other addictive tendencies or my chronicle fatigue?  I think it’s worth exploring,
Just for today, I’ll dig out my gratitude journal and start counting the ways my infirmaries bless me.

Life happens.  A few years go by and I haven’t written or purged rancid emotions.  I get  self-absorbed with my husband, my kids, my career, my house, my hobbies and my desires that I forget why I still have those things.  I have just picked up a chip on Sunday in celebration of 14 years, but my sobriety date is February 28^th.  I didn’t honor my anniversary the way I should have.  I put it on the backburner until I felt it was convenient.  I think that’s what I do; I wait until it’s convenient to take care of myself.  When I honor my sobriety anniversary I honor me.  I honor my story.  I honor my journey.  Life is really good today, but there was a time when I wanted to die.  The pain of living was too difficult to carry.  What I didn’t know at the time was that was my perception of my life.  When I learned how to perceive my life differently, I learn how to be happy.  I’ve forgotten what it was like to live in perpetual pain and no hope.  I’ve forgotten what it was like to try to drink my life away so I couldn’t remember it.  I’ve forgotten the utter bankruptcy of my spirit.  I learned how to be grateful and being grateful gave me a different viewpoint to look at my life.  The different viewpoint gave me a different perception from the eyes of gratitude.  My brain chemistry changed; my life changed.

Just for today I will honor that.

I’ve been talking to women lately that have children who are alcoholics.  There is a common thought process that these alcoholic children are ruining their lives.  I felt the same way when one of my children was in the middle of her disease.  When my children suffer from alcoholism or other self-destructive tendencies it just feels like my life is falling apart.  I feel like I can’t take another heart break in my life and quite frankly it literally feels like I’m dying.  I can feel my body shut down and it feels like I am a victim of the disease and the uncontrollable circumstances around me.  My life feels out of control.  I have the mistaken idea that I have suffered enough with my alcoholism to cover for my children and that my children will somehow be exempt.  So I deceive myself into thinking that life is unfair and that my higher power has abandoned me and my child.

With these kinds of thoughts and feelings, guess what happens to my spiritual condition? If my sobriety is contingent upon my spiritual condition I then put myself in danger of drinking.

The truth is because of my own alcoholism; my life is far richer than it ever was before.  I have a set of friends that don’t tell me what I want to hear.  They tell me what I need to hear.  They know me at my worst and they know me at my best and they love me anyway.  I have learned how to love unconditionally and have learned how to forgive.  They taught me how to view life in such a way as to bring peace.  They taught me how to have a conscious contact with a higher power.  They taught me how to do the next right thing.  They taught me why I should never take anything personally.  They taught me how to suit up and show up for meetings, work, school and life no matter how much pain I was in because it’s in the daily habits that our lives are made.  They taught me to take life one day at a time.  They taught me to have the courage to make necessary changes in my life and taught me when to let go.  They taught me not to quit before the miracle happened.

I tried to teach my children these things as I’m sure my parents tried to teach me.  But unfortunately we learn them through experience.  My alcoholism made me teachable and gave depth to my life that I could not have gotten any other way.  Why then am I trying to protect my children from this? I have to be careful of being so protective that I rob my children of the journey and experience of finding out who they really are and what they are made of.  It’s in that dark night of the soul that we find our way.  It’s in the dark night of the soul and the dignity of their own choices that our children will find their way.

I haven’t done anything to ruin my life.  I am on a journey of discovery and I am learning that my suffering is unnecessary and my worry is worthless.  My journey is teaching me to explore and have fun.  It has made me grateful for small things.  It has helped me to see the amusement in things that used to irritate me.  I want my children to experience those things and the self-confidence that is born of working through a seemingly impossible situation, because there is no such thing as impossible situations.  If we see our children struggling, it’s not the end of the world.  It the beginning.

I’m now watching my children’s children struggle with their issues.  I have a couple of grandchildren with self-destructive behaviors even at a very young age.  I am still prone to worry.  I’m here to tell you that the worry at times makes me insane until I realize that they are beginning their journey and I can’t prevent them from that nor should I want to.  I just hope that I have done enough inner work that I will be the wise old lady that they go to when they are ready.

So just for today, I’ll take some time to work on myself.  Maybe I’ll write.

My name is Patti A. and I’m an alcoholic. I would like to share my experience hope and strength as they apply to women’s issues in sobriety.

I believe in the empowerment of the human spirit for both men and women, but feel that women have some unique challenges in recovery from alcoholism.

It is also my purpose that as I share with others I will also strengthen my own sobriety. It is my hope that this will become a forum where we can benefit from one another and stay sober together.

I’m sober just for today.

Love and Light,

Patti