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.

The Queen

~ Patti ~ Leave a comment

I’m the type of person that has to have a plan.  It might even be a plan to stay where I am.  I get anxious when direction is unclear.  I’m in a situation in my career where the future is unclear and even looks dim.  It took me ten years to get a degree after I got sober.  I was new in sobriety, I was going through a divorce, and I was raising children and working a full time job.  I didn’t take welfare even though I needed it and there was one month in which I ate very little so my kids could eat.  I now make a very nice living and want to move up the proverbial ladder.

 My general feeling is that I didn’t work 10 years to get a degree to stand still or go backwards in my career.  I tend to fight the system, fight my boss, fight my co-workers, fight my employees because I feel like I’m standing in quick sand and watching my career go down the toilet.

It seems that old character defect of entitlement comes to haunt me.  Because I worked so hard to get where I am, I deserve to get farther.  I deserve not to have to go backwards.  I deserve to be Queen!

When I really stop to think about it, every time I’ve been at a crossroads in my life and the future was unclear it always left the door open for transformation.  My divorce let to my children’s father spending more time with them and an education for me.  My alcoholism led me to a life far more full and rich that I could have ever imagined and a new set of skills to deal with life’s ups and downs.  It led me to my current husband.  The hard road to finishing my degree and the years I lived at poverty level led me to a big enough paycheck to live comfortably.  My daughter’s drug problem led me to have a bond with her that would have been impossible to obtain any other way.  My children’s health problems led me to my career choice.  Every time I have judged something as bad in my life, it turned out to have some form of redemptive quality that made my life richer, my soul deeper, and taught me something about faith.  My sponsor used to say. “God didn’t bring you this far to drop you on your butt,”

Maybe it’s time to “cease fighting,” just for today.

Saintly Mother

~ Patti ~ Leave a comment

I struggle to form that adult relationship between myself and my children.  The youngest of five has been working her first job.  I still tend to give unsolicited safety advice.  My OCD kicks in as I give safety precautions to my children.  My kids range from 32 to 17.  They are old enough to know what is safe and what is not, but I always have in the back of my mind, “What if there is that 0.1% situation where reminding them would help?”  I have to caution them anyway.

Reactions vary with each child.  I have one that nods her head and goes about her business.  I have another that argues with me.

I have two forces that work against me, my OCD and my alcoholism, which are closely related.  As I try to “direct the show,” I notice that I become more agitated.  The child that nods politely agitates me because I don’t really think she’s listening.  The child that argues with me agitates me because I think he ought to be more respectful.  All of the sudden I find that I’ve lost my serenity.

I’m realizing that even if they commit some dangerous act that costs them their life, “it is not my will but thy will be done.”  But it is a matter of trust, trust in a higher power and trust in myself that I taught them everything they would need to know to live life.  To tell you the truth, some days I just don’t trust either.   My higher power seems too distance and I’m just not that reliable.  Most days when I look at my kids I see them through this shroud of images from their youth.  When I force myself to stand back I see that they are 6+ feet tall and I realize that “letting go and letting God” is as much for today as it was for the first day I got sober.

Anytime I’m in a state of agitation or my peace has been compromised, there is some aspect of recovery that I have forgotten to look at.  Alcoholism is the ultimate OCD.  I can tell myself that my OCD is at work, but in reality it’s alcoholism at its best.  I was directing the show, agitated with my children and the world around me, looking at the world as if it weren’t a safe place to live and not trusting my higher power.  When I put it on paper it sounds like a recipe for a drink, but in my head it sounded so sane and almost saintly.  “I’m the saintly mother that spends her days worrying and looking after my children.”

Maybe I should let my children worry about themselves, just for today.

A Purpose for New Beginnings

~ Patti ~ Leave a comment

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