Pointless Rebellion

A reader wrote to ask me about rebellion.

I grew up with an intensely rebellious nature. I was a child, and then an adult, with no respect for authority. I've come to understand that this had its roots, in the sexual and physical abuse I received at the hands of several adults in my early childhood.

 I had enough fear of authority figures, to keep me behaving until adolescence, and then I began to stay out past my curfew, hang out with the wrong crowd, and run away from home for days at a time.

When I look back now, my rebellion was pretty tame, I didn't shoplift or commit other crimes, and the wrong crowd consisted of some people who smoked cigarettes (gasp!) and sometimes pot. That was enough to demonise them in the eyes of my adopted parents, so of course those were the people with whom I wanted to spend my time.

I'm grateful now that I was such a craven coward, because it kept me from doing anything which would have ruined my life through addiction to drugs or alcohol, or a criminal record. I think the police in our tiny town had a pretty good idea of what was going on at home, because they would find me, tell me I had to go home now, and then take me out for a hamburger or an ice cream cone, first.

That early relationship with the police, is probably why I spent 8 years working with the RCMP Victim Services - I've always been comfortable around cops.

I gave myself a great deal of misery with my inward rebellion. I rarely had the courage to express it openly, but before Al-Anon, I was very uncomfortable around authority. I rebelled against the authority figures in my life, because I seethed with anger and hatred towards the people who had abused me, and I had no way to deal with my rage.

 It manifested as pointless rebellion - rebellion for its own sake, not because of a cause, or a deeply held philosophy, or even a belief.  I rebelled because I felt no attachment to any person apart from my adopted brother. Since I felt no attachment, why should I care? was my attitude. As I've said earlier in this, I was afraid to rebel openly, so it was mostly through sullenness that my rebellion was expressed when I reached adulthood. I was a sullen, depressed, angry person before Al-Anon.

One act of pointless rebellion which springs to mind, was the day an employer asked that the women wear dresses or skirts to a work social function. I went to the function wearing dress pants, determined to rebel against what I saw as an unreasonable request. It seems silly to me now, because I often wore dresses to that job, and had many I'd made and enjoyed wearing. I justified my rebellion by telling myself that it was not fair to be asked to wear a dress just because I was female. Now I look back and shake my head at that stubborn creature I once was.

 I would have benefited from Al-Anon, long before I went to my first meeting.

Al-Anon taught me that other people (I do not include abusers in this) deserve respect, in the same way that I deserve to be treated with respect and courtesy. My rebellion faded as I matured in Al-Anon;  I have become much more accepting of reality, and of life itself.

I no longer have my childhood miseries driving an inner rage, because I have accepted that I cannot change the past. It was what it was, and although I was unhappy for most of it, I made it through to adulthood, and I have recovered, through time, and hard work in program. I've changed to such a degree, that when I describe the pre-Al-Anon me as continually angry and seething with resentment, friends in program say that they just cannot imagine me like that.

Another aspect of my life which has been changed and enriched by this wonderful recovery program. I'm grateful.

I have day surgery tomorrow, to get the PICC line removed, and a port installed. I'm feeling happy anticipation, to be relieved of the endless maddening itch caused by the allergy to adhesive bandages, and to know that if all goes well, I'll get out of the hospital within a few hours of entering. I like that idea. I might even make it to the meeting tomorrow night.

Bless you all.

A Problem Is What We Make It.

This past summer, Robert and I were walking downtown in a fairly busy area, and found ourselves face-to-face with an attractive young woman. We did that little dance to one side and then the other, trying to move out of the way, yet moving in unison, so that we were still unable to pass. Almost every other time this happens, I find myself laughing with the other person, and then one of us will stop trying to get out of the way, and wave the other by, with good feeling on both sides.

This young woman became angry, we couldn't believe it. We've talked about it since, laughing that if that is a big annoying incident for her, she must be doing very well in her life. I wonder how she'd manage if she were to lose a loved one, or get diagnosed with cancer?

It took me years in Al-Anon to realise that my problems had precisely the room in my head and in my life that I gave them. I was shocked by that suggestion the first few dozen times I heard it, and then irritated and then angry - were these people trying to say that my problems were minor?

I thought them enormous, insurmountable, terrible and depressing. That was my take on them, that was my description of them, that was the amount of room I gave them in my life.

When I began in my fumbling way to try to practise gratitude, I slowly but surely discovered that I had many things in my life for which I could feel grateful. And doing that regularly, searching out the people, times and facts of my life for which I could feel nothing but gratitude, changed my attitude completely.

"How Important Is It?" became my favourite slogan, and I used it on everything over which I became upset or even slightly annoyed. My first sponsor would ask me, "Will you remember this in a week? A month? A year? Will you be lying on your deathbed thinking about it, and wishing you had handled it differently?"

I found her questions blasted my mind open to a way of living I'd never imagined. Why, I could let go of this stuff as soon as I decided to! It's my choice to decide that something may require thought or effort, but it only becomes a "problem," and only takes up room inside my head, if I choose to allow that to take place.

Let me say that another way - I may get stray thoughts flitting through my head, but I can sit quietly and watch them float by; I don't have to reach up, get a stranglehold upon them, and then spend the next two days obsessing over them.

I can watch them come and go, then turn my mind to thinking of that which gives me serenity, peace and joy. As with so much of this wonderful program, it's my choice. I do not have to give the committee of assholes any room at all inside my head. I've got the key to the lock on that door.

An Old Friend.

This week, I celebrated the milestone of 30 years in this life-saving, sanity-preserving program, by purchasing again, for probably the tenth time since I started all those years ago, the first piece of Al-Anon literature I ever read, the book entitled: "How Al-Anon Works, for Families and Friends of Alcoholics."

I've bought this book for myself many times, then lent it to one of my sponsees, or a newcomer who couldn't afford to get one for herself, and all but one time, it has never been returned. The one which did get returned, got lent out to another sponsee and it went the way of all the others. I've never minded not getting this book back, because I knew I could always get another one at any of the groups I attended, and because I was hoping that it could give to the reader some of the enormous comfort and calm that it gave to me when I was so new.

I love this book. I've read it dozens of times from cover to cover. I've read it in small sips of a few pages at a time, and I've read it like a novel, starting at the beginning, and continuing right to the last page. Either way, each time I read it, I find something new that had eluded me.

I'll never forget an old-timer at an Al-Anon meeting reading a page from the book aloud, and stopping partway through to exclaim, "I've read this 20 times, when did they put that paragraph in?"

That's one of the wonders of this program, and of Al-Anon literature - I hear what I need to hear when I am ready to hear it, and not before. When I'm ready, the wisdom washes over me in a wave of astonishment - I had never thought of it that way!
(whatever "it" is at the time.) 

With that new thought, my perception and my attitude shift: sometimes a few feet, sometimes only a millimetre or so, but there is movement, and with it, the world is new again, and possibilities appear that until now, were hidden in the shadows of my confusion.

I recommend this book to anyone who is struggling with the awful agony of trying to live in peace with another person's addictions without being swamped and swallowed up.  I also recommend it to those of us who have reached a peaceful place in our lives, and are dealing with other challenges in our lives. It's a great read, and it helps.

Where Is My Focus?

When I came into Al-Anon, my focus was squarely upon the alcoholic. He seemed to take up all the space in our house, and in my mind. I didn't have to be with him to be obsessing about him and his drinking. He'd disappear for days on a bender, and I'd go to work, come home, feed the dogs and myself, worry for the entire remainder of the evening, then go to bed and toss and turn wondering where he was, what he was doing, and if I was going to hear a knock on my front door, and find police officers standing there, telling me that he was seriously injured, or dead.

It was a terrible way to live, and I did it for about 8 1/2 years, until I finally listened to my GP, and went to my first Al-Anon meeting.

I went to that meeting expecting all of the people there to be squarely focussed upon the alcoholics in their lives. When I was told that Al-Anon was for me, and that I needed to find a way to live in serenity whether the alcoholic was drinking or not, I was so surprised that I just pushed that concept to the side. It seemed clearly impossible.

Over the years that I have been in Al-Anon, I have become much better at aiming and focusing upon that which gives me pleasure, satisfaction, and hope. I have become more skilled at letting go of that which does me no good, only torments me, and over which I have zero control.

It's the same with cancer. I have a choice, I either obsess about it continually, ruining whatever time I have on this earth, or I let go of it, and live my live the way I would had I never had the diagnosis. I choose to do the latter, because I've learned how, and it allows me to take from each day enough to feed my soul and mind, and not open myself to worry, anger, stressful imaginings, and resentment.

Life is what I make it, to a great extent. This is true regardless of my income or social status. I am the one who gets up in the morning and decides whether or not I'm going to enjoy the day. Al-Anon has taken the furiously angry person that I once was, and transformed her into a woman who loves to laugh, and to make others laugh. That's an amazing feat, any way you look at it.

Refusing Negativity.

In the laundry room this morning, we met up with one of the residents. This person is unfailingly polite, but their attitude is overwhelmingly negative. If one suggests that the day promises to be a beauty, this individual will unfailingly find some negative aspect upon which to comment - "It's supposed to rain later," or "It might look nice, but it's probably cold," or some other remark full of doom, gloom or depression.

I feel for this poor miserable soul, unable to take any delight in life. I recall all to clearly just how dismal the world appeared to me before my attitude change in Al-Anon. When it was first suggested to me that I had a choice with regard to my attitude, I thought the speaker a hopeless Pollyanna. I believed that those of who saw the world through an unremittingly negative filter were the realists of life, and those who were cheerful were naïve. After all, with all that I'd been through as a small child, how could I be expected to have a positive attitude?

I encountered almost those very words in a recent conversation with one of my sisters. I was talking to her about how much more satisfying life is, when one has a positive attitude, and works to practise gratitude for one's blessings, rather than seek to find all that life is supposedly missing. She sighed heavily, and said, "Yes, but with our childhoods, how can you have a positive attitude?" She hasn't lived with her adoptive parents (the three of us were all adopted separately, that was the policy back then) for 40 years, yet she is still using them as reason for her largely negative attitude. I will occasionally get the shivers talking with her, and it's only because in her I see who I would have been without the changed attitude I learned in Al-Anon. I am so hugely grateful for all those who patiently repeated themselves as I tried my best to prove them wrong in their cheerful outlook.

I have been given such enormous blessings in my life, and one of the greatest of those is love, the love of my delightful Robert, whose patience, tolerance, and humour make him such a treat. I cannot imagine what it would have been like to come home to an empty apartment after surgery. I know my friends would have rallied around to help me, but I was lucky beyond words, I had a man whom I adore, who loves me the same way, and just being able to spend more time with him made me feel better physically. The body-mind connection is a mystical one.

Program has allowed me to deal with cancer by living one day at a time, and not terrifying myself with possibilities. It will be what it will be. My faith makes me willing to accept and to be grateful. There are no guarantees in life. I'm happy and serene today, and that's enough.

CYA, and Awfulising.

An aspect of modern medicine that I've found increasingly distressing, having been at the receiving end several times over the years, is the practise of many doctors to give one the worst possible scenario or outcome of whatever it may be that they are diagnosing us with. In this way do they "indicate the desire to document one's lack of culpability for foreseeable negative outcomes" or, to put it another way, "make sure that they cannot be blamed or criticized later for something."

I understand that this may be a result of increased litigation when things go wrong, and that it's most likely only fair to be honest about possibilities, but what I find disturbing, is this being done at the early stages of diagnosis, before tests such as CT scans, MRI, ultrasound, etc.

3 times in the last 3 months people I know have received an initial diagnosis which has scared them witless with the severity, only to be told after the testing is completed, that it's not nearly as bad as first thought.

So I wonder, what is gained by terrifying anyone with the possibilities of the worst possible outcome?
What good does it do to tell a person who has just suffered a spinal injury in an accident, that they may never walk again? Couldn't this wait until testing has proven the spinal damage to be that extensive and permanent?  Is it really necessary to give that information to someone whose spinal canal is still so swollen from the accident that no real long-term information can be gleaned until the swelling subsides?

What good is accomplished by telling a newly diagnosed cancer patient that they may have to have disfiguring surgery, before testing to stage the cancer tumour has begun?

My first sponsor called this "awfulising" and warned against it in all areas of life. She would interrupt me when I was engaged in a bout of awfulising, and state firmly that what might happen was beyond my control, I could do nothing whatsoever to change the outcome, why was I torturing myself with various ghastly possibilities? What did I get from doing this?

I used to quote the hoary old phrase "Expect the worst, and one might be pleasantly surprised" not knowing that by expecting the worst, I was robbing today of its pleasure, to try to arm myself against what a tomorrow might never bring.

Had I not had 29 years of membership in Al-Anon, the two months since my diagnosis with cancer would have been a very different experience. I'd have worried, fretted, agonised, stressed, and kept myself in a fever of fear and terror, continually presenting myself with hideous scenarios of what was going to happen to me in cancer treatment. Because I've had the years in 12-Step, I knew and know, enough to let that behavior go as a waste of precious time. I can push the reality out of my mind, and enjoy the moment. I can laugh helplessly with my beloved partner or another friend, I can work as a sponsor for those who seek my assistance, I can feel heartfelt and powerful gratitude for the wonders of my life today.

One sponsee used to try to have "what if" conversations with me, in which she would invent terrible outcomes for the alcoholic, and feel almost as much agony in the contemplation of those imaginations as she would have had they taken place. I finally declared that "what if" conversations were now off-limits, and I wasn't going to have one more of them with her. Her response, after a moment of silence, was an endearing giggle. This woman is newish to program, but her sense of humour is a gift and a treat. I admire her for it; by the time I came into Al-Anon, my sense of humour was long gone. I was completely unable to laugh at my own insanity. I took myself far too seriously, and wanted everyone else to do the same.

We know that we are getting somewhere in working this program when we can begin to truly laugh at the nuttiness of our old thinking. When we can stop wanting others to sit silently while we catalogue our woes, and then tell us how well we are doing in shouldering our burdens, when we can honestly take an interest in another person, rather than pretending to do so in order to have them listen to us, we are beginning to grow.

Awfulising is self-defeating, tedious, tiresome, and boring for the listener. Who wants to hear a litany of complaint or negativity? How are we sharing experience, strength and hope? That's the question of the day.

Waiting, or Living?

So much of my life was spent waiting, rather than living. As a child, I waited to be adopted, believing that when I was adopted, I would finally be happy, secure in a family of my own, loved, free of the fear and anxiety I felt being moved from pillar to post, one foster home after another. Back then, 50 years ago now, a child was moved from a foster home if it was felt that he or she was becoming too attached to the foster parent. This is an excellent way to create an adult incapable of commitment, for fear that the loved one will be snatched away, just as every person one dared to care for as a child was snatched away.

When finally adopted at the age of six, I realised very quickly that my new home was not going to be much of an improvement on the foster homes, because my adopted mother was a woman so full of rage and fear that she was unable to nurture or love a child. She used physical force to get her point across, and beat me regularly. I settled down to wait until I was sixteen, and could leave home.

 (It wasn't until I was an adult, sitting in the kitchen one day with my first husband's youngest daughter upon my lap, chatting to me about a movie she'd seen, and playing with my then waist-length hair, that it struck me how frail and delicate she was - her hands and wrists were tiny. I'd been told for many years that the beatings I suffered were my own fault, that I had caused them through my own choices. I took that information and internalised it, accepted it in some internal measuring place we all have. It wasn't until that day in my kitchen, that it struck me all at once - I had been about the size of the little girl in my arms,  and there was no way a child that age or size could have "deserved" the beatings that were administered to me. I just wasn't that "bad.")

When I left my adoptive home I quickly became involved with a raging alcoholic - my first husband. For ten years I hoped that he would change, and waited for things to improve, so I could be happy. It didn't happen, and I left that marriage no happier than I'd entered.

My second husband was a sober alcoholic, but not in recovery. His ego was the size of a mastodon, and I was miserable in that marriage, too. I had figured out very quickly, when he moved me to a town in which he'd lived before, where he felt comfortable and I knew no-one, that he didn't care how I felt, as long as he was content. I tried to work my Al-Anon program and accept my lot in life, but I had the feeling that there must be more to life, and to a relationship.

When I left that marriage a year and 3 months ago, I grieved for my little dog, whom I'd had for six years, but had to give back to the breeder. I knew I'd never be able to afford to look after her the way she deserved, since I was going to be living on a disability pension. I grieved for her, and for the death of my dear friend, who had died a few months prior to my leaving.

During that marriage, I had learned to find happiness in my friendships and my siblings, in gardening and art., but on some level, I was still waiting.

Alone, and once again living in the city I love and where I feel at home, I had begun to find a real happiness, and life was a wonderful adventure. I met Robert after almost a year, and we became first friends, and then as we realised how well matched we are, more than friends. I found myself eagerly anticipating the next time we got together, for the conversation was wide-ranging, our interests intersected in plants and gardening, and other areas of life, and we can make each other howl with laughter. I slowly, ever-so-slowly, allowed him access to the part of my character which had before then been closed away for over 50 years - my deepest feelings. I trust him completely, and it's an astounding feeling, this amazing trust. I had stopped waiting, because life had given me everything about which I'd dreamed.

We had 3 months of bliss uninterrupted, then I was diagnosed with cancer. I began once again to wait, but the waiting was of a very different kind this time around, because I have a partner who waits with me, for the tests to take place, and soon, for the results of the tests. I'll know on Oct 10th exactly what it is that I am facing, whether surgery is an option, or if the prognosis is grim. This time, I have only been waiting for short periods of time before I've pushed that thinking right out of my head, and gone back to dealing with the glorious delight of daily life in a relationship with a man I'm crazy in love with, who loves me. Somehow, even facing the most frightening possibility of my life, I am waking up full of joy and delight, turning to catch sight of my beloved's sleepy face on the pillow beside me, and greeting him with a bursting affection.

I'm waiting for the results of the tests, but I am also living in a way unknown to me before now, and this I wouldn't give up for a clean bill of health. I'll take it all, good and not-so-great, because all of it makes up my life, and life is good.

AA Rally

Last night was the start of this weekend's local AA rally. A program friend gave me a ticket as a gift, and I went with my beloved sponsor, and a woman I sponsor, whose courage for the program invigorates and inspires me. Rallies have an energy which is uplifting and powerful. One of my favourite moments at an AA rally is the countdown to sobriety. That's happening tonight, and the three of us are going back for another evening of laughter and wisdom, and then again Sunday morning, to hear the Spiritual speakers.

I'm thinking I might drop in this afternoon for the "Old-Timers sharing - 30 plus years of sobriety" I like to hear people talk about how sobriety has changed for them over the years. It seems that once the first overwhelming compulsion to drink has been removed, and a few years of sobriety has been gained, that to keep a solid program going, many people turn more to the spiritual side of the program.

Listening to the AA speaker last night, when he quoted "God could and would, if he were sought" I realised just how much my seeking has changed over the time I've been in Al-Anon. My seeking at the start, 28 years ago, consisted of my asking from my Higher Power, that I be granted my own will.
It took me years to be able, or willing, to grasp that what I was asking was doomed to failure, and that if I kept on along that path, I was never going to be able to trust my Higher Power, because I was going to continually be operating under the belief that I would never be granted that for which I was asking.

When my seeking changed from wanting my own will to asking for help, guidance and comfort, my program took a huge leap forward, because the results were swift, breath-taking, and hugely powerful in changing my thinking. I, like other old-timers in program that I've heard, can see that my progress in understanding and acceptance, and my level of serenity, grew deeper in the last ten years than in the almost 20 years prior to it. I don't know if it's because my stubbornness kept me plodding along a  path that led nowhere but back to myself, or if my fear was the culprit (a favourite AA speaker talks often about the fact that it isn't that we're afraid that true honest prayer for God's help won't work, we fear that it will work, and then where will we be, with our ideas about life?) -whatever the reason, when I began to ask for help instead of to be granted my will, everything changed, not the least of which was me.

I began to let go of things I'd had a steely grip upon for years, because I just couldn't trust enough to let them go. I accepted, and I turned over the clutter which had been clogging my thinking before then. That's when I knew I was going to have to leave my marriage, because I didn't want to live with my husband'd anger for one more day. When my friend took ill with cancer, and died within 3 months of his diagnosis, it was a turning point for me, I looked around at my life, and thought, "That could be me, I don't want my last 3 months of life to be lived in this environment of anger, with a man who is so self-absorbed he cannot really see me." With my husband's illness, his self-absorption is understandable, I'm grateful on a daily basis that I'm here now, and not still there.

If I'm going to make it to the library, and the old-timer's sharing, I need to get ready now. Take care, and may your day be blessed with beauty and serenity.

Carrying the Message.

I've been asked to join with a couple of other long-time members in giving a couple of talks about Al-Anon to members of the general public who have asked for information. This should be interesting. I'm always willing to carry the message, and it's encouraging when the public wants to know more about how we can help. the families and friends of alcoholics.

I still recall quite well how desperate I was when I came into Al-Anon at the recommendation of my family doctor, who'd been saying to me, "I think you'd benefit from Al-Anon" for months before I actually heard him. When I finally did hear him over the noise in my head, which consisted of complaint, self-pity, depression, blaming and obsession, I asked, "What's Al-Anon?"

I listened to an Al-Anon speaker today, and she said half-jokingly that she'd read statistics stating that for every alcoholic, there were ten people affected by their drinking, but she considered the more likely number to be up around 45.

I think of my first husband - granted, he had a large birth family, but still, there were more than ten people negatively affected by his alcoholism. In a small way, each of my friends was negatively affected, as they listened to my litany of complaints.

I try to carry the message in this blog. I don't write here as often as I did when I began it, but I still feel a responsibility to share here, the same way I do in meetings, albeit at far greater length.

I received a phone call from my lawyer a few minutes ago, she said that my husband has closed down his business and will be applying for disability, so there's no point in going to court and asking for spousal support. I felt sad for him, I know how much of his self-esteem has always come from work. I hope that he has good support from his AA friends, and his sponsor, and that he will find other ways to feel good about himself.

I'm grateful that Al-Anon has changed my thinking to such a great extent that what I feel is only compassion, and gratitude for my freedom today.

Appreciation

So much of my time before Al-Anon was spent enumerating all that I considered wrong about the world, and the people in it. I was forever judging, considering, comparing, analysing, and deciding. I had expectations of those close to me, and were they not to perform up to the level I determined correct, I would be silently fuming and frothing away to myself, in a stew of self-righteous indignation. I believed that I knew precisely how everyone else should be behaving, and was more than willing to share that belief with anyone who would sit still long enough to listen.

Letting go of my idea that I had the right to decide how anyone else should behave or act, has allowed me to be appreciative. I can simply enjoy other people. Inside a meeting, or out, I can find something in every person, which gives me pleasure - this one has great empathy, that one is wonderfully funny about his own character defects, a third has a kindness which envelops and soothes the wounded hearrt of newcomers.

I've been thinking about this after working through the questions in Al-Anon's Pathways to Recovery
on Step Three with a sponsee yesterday, and one question has stayed with me:

"What can I do to try and see others as God sees them?"

I didn't actively start out doing this, or even working towards it, this ability to appreciate has grown quietly with my recovery in program. Somewhere along the line, I realised that other people didn't annoy me the way they once had.  I'd sit and listen while someone spoke of how annoying or irritating they found a third person, and I'd think to myself, "Hmm, he/she doesn't have that effect on me, isn't that interesting. I quite like that person who they find so maddening."

I realised that it had finally sunk in to my stubborn brain that other people weren't driving me nuts, I drove myself nuts wanting other people to be someone other than who they were. I lost my serenity each time I became annoyed when someone did or said something I thought they shouldn't have.

Father Tom W., a Jesuit priest active in AA and Al-Anon, speaks of the paradox of acceptance, and how it isn't until we accept "to our bones" our own reality, it isn't until we admit our powerlessness, that real change begins.

With this acceptance has come the ability to politely defuse rudeness or unkindness, without heat or anger on my part. I don't have to feel indignant about it, I can simply feel that I don't wish to stand quietly by and be an audience to rudeness. If, as often happens, the person who is being snarky or sarcastic or sharp is asked nicely to please moderate their tone, and they choose to do so, that's the end of it. I don't hold it against them for ever after, I don't judge them for it. I let it go. We all have our bad days.

I extend an offer to start again, whether with a small silly joke, or a comment showing that I appreciate something else they said or did, and almost always, the other person is perfectly willing to start the encounter over with kindness on both sides. It amazes me how well this works.

Changed Attitudes - HIndsight

At one time in my recovery, I'd have said that hindsight is extremely useful - all those realisations not possible any other way. But now, I see it more as turning once again to mine the past, trying to gain wisdom there, working and living not in this day, today, but stepping back to add shame to our ignorance or innocence.

We can't know what we don't know.

 No amount of self-belittling now, will change our inability as human beings, to gaze into the future and make sound decisions as a result of what we see gathered there.

I must let go of my younger self's not being able to see past the love and infatuation of a new marrage.
No amount of shame ladelled upon my head at this age, will change a molecule of the choices the younger me went on to make. Allow them. Be at peace with them. Be at peace with her. Lift up my eyes from this vantage point, and feel gratitude for the love and care with which I am surrounded.

I have only to ask, and I will find my pathway swept and marked for me, and loving companions with whom to walk.. But first, I must turn my face from the past, let go of furture outcomes, and live in this day, fully.

I've learned not to consider rain a personal affront, but to dress for it. So much of life can be lived in this way.

Happiness Is An Inside Job - I Give It To Myself.

A reader asked: "How do I find gratitude, when I don't feel any?"

I'd bring this back to the basics of life - is there food in your fridge? Do you have a roof over your head, a bed with enough blankets, or a comforter, to keep you warm and safe as you sleep? Do you have untainted water to drink?   Start there. Start as far back as required in the basic needs of life, and push gratitude.

By "push" I mean, remind yourself. Don't listen to the nattering, tv-fed mind, which never stops insisting  that if only you had the latest app, your life would be a different thing entirely. That's not reality, it's advertising.

Reality is that feeling in your chest, when you look into the eyes of another Al-Anon member and what you see is loving acceptance of the same person with whom you've completely lost patience - you.

Road Rage - Another Name For Bad Manners

A few days ago, after checking first, to make sure I wasn't being followed closely enough to  be rear-ended, I slowed to stop for a pedestrian at an unmarked crossing, and when he looked at me to make sure that's what I was doing, I waved him on. He was young, in his early twenties at the most, and when he smiled, gave a wave of thanks, and stepped off jauntily to cross the four lanes of traffic, a shattering blast of horn broke out behind me. He froze in front of my car - he knew that I, at least, knew he was there and wouldn't mow him down.

A look in my rearview mirror, and I saw the man in the large pickup behind me, wave his arms in that gesture meaning, "What are you doing!"

I pointed to the pedestrian, wondering if the driver hadn't seen him, and was thinking I'd stopped at the end of the block for no real reason.

His response was to punch the fist of one hand, violently into the palm of the other, face suffused with rage.

I thought of the phrase I use as a meditative tool: "Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace." and not knowing I was about to do so, blew the enraged driver a kiss.

Rather than respond with increased fury, the driver's rage seemed to deflate; he changed lanes and dropped back. It was as though he'd lost interest in that which had so infuriated him just a moment before.

I thought of myself, so angry at everything when I came into this program, so completely unable to see my own part in the troubles of my life, so desperately longing for connection and a sense of love, and yet unable to attain it, becauce first, I had to understand that if I wish to have a friend, I must be one. If I wish love, I need to behave in a way that does not alienate and hurt the people in my life.
We none of us live in a vacuum, but so many of us newly in, are self-absorbed to the point we are unable to recognise the pain that we have called. We rationalise all of that.

Step 4, we stop with the game-playing and the blaming. We accept that each of us has human frailty, and admit that we have done some harm ourselves.

Changed Attitudes

I was doing yoga exercises this afternoon, listening to an Al-Anon speaker, and kept having to pause the file, to get up and run over to the kitchen table to write down what she'd just said. This woman spoke about her version of "contempt prior to investigation" and her description caused me to realise that I've been doing just that about my new living quarters. As of the first of Sept, I will be living in an apartment. I've only lived in two or three in my life, becauce I had all sorts of reasons why I didn't like them, and preferred a house.

At the moment, my options are severely limited due to my finances being severely limited. I've been offered a one-bedroom in an area of town I love, close to a large park, and the ocean. It's very small, but it will be my peaceful, private nest.

I have a choice, do I concentrate upon how much I'd rather live in a house with my dog, which at this time, is not within my financial reach, or do I concentrate upon the blessing of this little private space which will be mine alone, and in which I will be able to learn and heal from my sorrow? My choice.

One makes me feel hard-done-by and self-pitying, one makes me feel grateful. I want gratitude, and peace of mind. I want to be able to accept what I am given in life without always wanting something different. It isn't that I believe we shouldn't strive for more, I do, but I"m realising that in the unhappy years of that marriage, I had some belief in geographic cure.

And that never works, because I have to take myself with me. My same crazy over-thinking self would be along for the ride no matter where I went. So I choose gratitude, and the work required to remind myself of my choice, when those little thoughts slide across the forefront of my mind.

Loving Me.

So many times the topic of a meeting will be precisely what I need to hear. Today I had an experience which brought up a lot of old, bad feelings about myself, and I couldn't seem to shake them off. I tried for a couple of hours to work it through myself, then decided to go to a meeting, and when I did, this was one of the readings chosen by a member, on the topic of "patience." The reading begins with a rather joking listing of high expectations we may have of ourselves in recovery, and the accompanying lack of patience with our character traits or defects, then goes on to talk about the ways we deal with ourselves when we aren't moving fast enough for whatever arbitrary speed we've set as the correct speed for us to be changing and growing.

From Courage to Change, page 103:

"Is it still hanging on? Very well, I'll launch a major campaign of self-criticism. What's wrong with me? Why do I have all these feelings about something that isn't important? I'm sure I caused all this myself; somehow I'm to blame.
 Heaven forbid I should surrender, accept my discomfort, and pray for guidance."
-----------------------------------------

  I realise that I must surrender to the pain, sorrow, grief, and whatever other feelings are going to arise in these early months of learning to live alone again, after 17 years living with my ex. It's not going to be something I can toss off like a stubbed toe, so why do I do this to myself, launch this "major campaign of self-criticism"? All I manage to accomplish is to add to my discomfort in my own skin, without having eased the original ache one iota. Hounding myself for whatever I perceive as lacking in my character, or for mistakes made, is old behavior, and it's interesting to see how quickly I have reverted to this "default mode", in the midst of this major life change of leaving my marriage.

  I'm grateful for those in program who show up at meetings, so that I may have that glorious feeling of peace which descends upon me when we are "having a moment of silence to remember why we are here."  I feel blessed with my friends, who keep reminding me that I don't have to treat myself harshly, that I need extra love right now, and that love needs to be coming from me as well as those friends who are my staunch supporters.

I wrote a reminder not to be unkind to myself, and placed it where I would catch regular sight of it.


I want to be at least at loving to myself as I would be if any other person asked for my support while they went through this sort of massive change in circumstance, thinking, and life.    I sat quietly tonight, surrendered, and asked, "Please help me." I know that my help is there for me, I have only to ask, from myself, from my friends, from my Higher Power. I must open my mouth and ask. No more silent misery.

Assumptions Keep Our Viewpoint Narrow.

A sponsee called last night to ask how I was doing, and we talked for a while. I had reached and passed the level of fatigue at which my brain goes on "standby" (if asked a direct question, I can reply, but I'm unable to generate new topics, or a new element of the existing one) so the conversation was sort of limping along. She was very surprised by my answer to one of her questions, and said so; she'd "assumed it was the opposite." I was too tired to take it up with her, but it crossed my mind this morning as a good topic for our next meeting, because these sorts of assumptions keep our viewpoint narrowned down so that we only see what we expect to see. We have our assumptions, and we can operate from that starting point for a great deal of life, never realising that there is so much more than is visible through our narrowed viewpoint.

If I limit my life to "this is only possible with that prerequisite" I am closing off great sweeps of possibility. There's so much more to life than what I am capable of imagining.

A long-timer in Al-Anon jokes that this is one of the reasons that meetings are set up so that we don't interrupt or crosstalk, because we need to be forced to sit quietly and listen to a viewpoint differing from ours. I think for some of us, myself included, I could have gone on sitting in meetings and listening, without having much of a change in my thinking - I needed to work the Steps with a sponsor who gave me very little wiggle-room. My assumptions were all about keeping me safe in the world, so the roots ran deep in my character, and needed concerted, sustained time and effort to dig up, haul out into the light of day, examine closely, and eventually, realise that I could let them go. I needed that shared time, talking and laughter to be able to discard my outmoded notions.

Don't Take It Personally.

My little dog is worse today, even with the steroids and painkiller, she's in pain.  I'm trying to believe what the vet and her breeder are telling me, that her prospects are good, that she will improve, that this is early in the injury, but it's distressing to see her suffering.

A few days ago, I sat quietly listening as someone spoke of how he didn't understand why anyone would spend so much money on "just a cat or a dog." He wasn't aware of my little dog's illness, so was quite forthcoming in his scorn for these foolish owners - why didn't they put the sick animal down and get a healthy one to replace it? Why spend all that money on an animal?  A friend (who is aware) glanced over at me, worried that I would be feeling upset.

As he spoke, I'd been thinking about the fact that I understood that sort of blanket-coverage opinionated statement very well, because I'd been a distributor of them myself, before Al-Anon. I was a strange mixture of very poor self-image with very strong opinions.

What I've learned in this marvellous program is that not only is it not necessary for me to give my opinion in every situation - many times I can just listen, or interject only a small joke to lighten the mood - but that it most circumstances, I don't need to possess an opinion of any sort. I can be neutral. If asked, I can reply that I don't think anything much  about it, or that I see both sides, and care to join neither.

If I do have an idea, I can easily and happily keep it to myself, I no longer feel the need to foist it upon other people. I don't feel personally slighted or offended if we disagree. I don't take the world personally in the way I once did. That sentence encapsulates my miracle in Al-Anon - I don't go out into the world every day "loaded for bear." And as a result, the world turns a much softer, more loving and accepting face back to me.

Slaves To Our Emotions.

A recovery speaker likened his thoughts to "trains going through the station - do I climb on board and ride that sucker for hours, days, weeks? Or do I just watch it go through the station?"

Great analogy. I thought, pre-Al-Anon, that I had to ride every train going through the station, I didn't realise, (or when told, believe at first)  that I could just watch them go by. I also didn't know, as I do now, that I could change stations if I worked my program diligently and with sincerity, rather than only giving it lip service when I was in a pleasant frame of mind, and disposing of it as soon as my mood changed.

I was a "slave to my emotions," and due to my immaturity, my emotions were in a continual state of change, rising and falling at the smallest of successes and difficulties. Drama and crisis were mainstays, and I couldn't self-soothe.

So, back to the train station of our minds - we can stand back from the platform's edge, and watch the trains come in - where's this one going?  High-speed train to anger and frustration, no stops along the way; think I'll wait for a later one. Here comes a poky old steam train going to serenity and peace, with many stops to allow others to board, takes a scenic route - this train I'm going to ride.

Busy And Tired.

An interesting combination, since the first requires energy to fufill my obligations, and the second makes me think longingly of sleep. I've been having less than refreshing nights for a couple of weeks now, and the exhaustion is cumulative. One good night, and I could feel rejuvenated, but I'm not getting one. I get up every morning feeling as tired as I did when I fell into bed the night before.

Being this fatigued strips life down to the essentials - do what must be done, and let the rest go by unremarked. No energy to complain, obsess, worry, stress, argue, or even think very well, which is why no posts for so long - I'd be sitting in front of the computer staring at the screen, mind completely blank.

Today isn't much better, but I was struck by a phrase in today's reading in One Day At A Time In Al-Anon:
"my own limited ideas."

So much of my problem in life before Al-Anon was just that - my limited ideas. Not only the limits of my thinking, but my inability to recognise those limitations, admit to them, accept them, and be open-minded to receiving new ideas from any source. I was a closed system, forever going around on the familiar cicuits of my thinking, unable to break free.

Accepting new ideas can be very difficult to begin with - we don't like change, and we don't want to have to make any changes, because the old and the familiar feel safe. They may not be working very well, they may be causing distress and discomfort and distance in all our relationships, but we can still be reluctant to let them go.

My first sponsor said I should work to accept one new idea every day. When I asked where was I supposed to get all these new ideas, she suggested I start reading the literature of Al-Anon every day - many new and helpful ideas contained in the Al-Anon books. I began with not much willingness, and grew to love these daily readers. They've helped me enormously, and continue to help me. For that, I'm deeply grateful.

Common Denominators - Negativity, Nervousness.

How I think affects my mood, feelings, attitudes, contentment, peace of mind. When I was consistently negative in my thinking, I was nervous, uneasy, and apprehensive, waiting for the next blow to fall, the next thing to go wrong. I approached other people with my guard firmly in place, mind shut tight.

In a weird way, I could have an encounter with the other person with hardly any input from them - I'd be responding to my own expectations, and acting upon my own assumptions. I couldn't see the other person clearly, because my own character defects were like a negative filter through which I viewed the world and its inhabitants.

That negativity created my nervousness. Not the world, not the people within it, but my own negative thinking. How do I know this?

Because as my thinking has changed, and my attitude become ever more positive, so has my life become ever more positive. I've met wonderful amazing people who are a delight to know. I don't go about in a sort of half-cringe, waiting for the next inevitable bad thing. When I go to the grocery store, and standing in line, joke with the other customers and the cashier, making us all laugh, that trip to the store is fun, rather than a boring, stressful experience. When I accept the daily round of life with a cheerful demeanor and a positive frame of mind as my reference point, life is good, people are kind and interesting. When I decide to let go of negativity, and focus upon the positive in every situation, my mood is powerfully affected, and life becomes an adventure.

Each day, each hour, each moment, I have a choice. It's mine to make. I choose whether or not I will enjoy my life. That doesn't depend upon my situation, it depends upon my attitude. I can enjoy life even
though I may not be utterly delighted with the changes over which I have no control. I don't have to like it to accept it.

Letting go of my original negative attitude, and choosing instead to focus upon the positive, has changed me greatly. I've become the sort of person who would have irritated the dickens out of me 26 years ago when I was new to program. Back then, if someone was cheerful, I thought it was because they didn't face the harsh realities of life as I saw it. I didn't understand that this was only my attitude, and not reality.

Acceptance is hugely powerful - it has created in me a source of joy, and peace of mind. I don't always manage to maintain this, because I get off course time and again - I am human, with all the attendant frailties. But when I work the 12 Steps, and this marvellous program to correct my course, I reap the incredible reward of serenity.

Until you have felt peace and serenity, you may not grasp why we work towards achieving it. Once you have, you will never be the same.