Maturity.

How many of us can honestly say that we respond to our daily lives with a mature attitude? I know I struggle sometimes, because the sulky teenager rises within me, and I want to have a hissy fit, it would relieve the stress and my feelings. But I've learned from long experience that hissy fits make everyone feel worse, the one having it, and those around her.

Today my brother sent me an email I found disturbing. He's a professor at a major university, and we write back and forth with great regularity, sometimes two or three times a day. He'd asked about my meeting at the treatment centre, and Al-Anon in general, so I sent him an email containing a light description of what happens at meetings, and in return received a reply insulting the program.

I haven't shared much with him about program, for fear of just exactly the kind of sneering response I got from him today. It's sad that I can't share such a meaningful part of my life with him, but I don't want to give him opportunities to mock Al-Anon.

It's not easy to respond to his email with maturity. I'm feeling that I should have known better than to trust him, I knew he would probably react the way he did, but I think I hoped he would not, that he would be respectful, because he knows I've been in Al-Anon for 28 years, and that I consider it to have changed my life in a myriad of positive ways.

I took a chance, and it didn't turn out well. The mature way to deal with this is just to accept it, and let it go. Learn from it, and keep my program to myself, don't give him a chance to make fun of what I hold dear. Don't, as a friend would say, offer my throat for the tiger to bite, and then complain when he sinks his teeth in. Live and learn.

Memories Surfacing.

 I've been having memories from the early days of the marriage surface, and invariably, they are memories of the alcoholic's skillful manipulation of me, through the use of guilt.

This has a double effect of both making me laugh with wonder, and groan for my gullibility. I could get caught up in the blindness of the woman I was, or I can allow the humour of how well it worked to assist me in my search for self-acceptance, then record the memories in my journal, so they don't sink out of sight, be again forgotten, and trip me up in the future.

This feels like a positive learning process, and if I stay open, I will gain knowledge about myself and my character. I had a certain idea of how it had been when we were new, and since I left him, I've been granted the understanding that this vision was created by my enabling co-dependency operating at top speed.

Letting go of it all will take a little time, but if it is my own inventory I take, my own character defects I examine, for how they've held me back in my life, if I am willing to stay free of anger, I can feel that the growth from this will be life-altering.

I pray to let go of pride, and to retain humour.

Progress.

I want to thank all who have sent good wishes and hopes for my little dog. She's resting in her crate right now, so she won't hurt herself being "Defender of the Household" when the telephone repairperson arrives to fix our phone.

She seems to be feeling better - this morning I had to stop her from trying to stand on her hind legs to welcome me when I woke up and went out to check on her in her pen in the livingroom. Her ears were up, and her tail was wagging madly. She's still cautious in most of her movements, because of the pain, but I see definite signs of improvement, and it lifts my heart. She's such a loving and sweet little creature - a friend says that "dogs are the embodiment of a HP - always loving, always forgiving, and just wanting to be near us to be content."

From today's reading in Courage to Change:

"Al-Anon gave me Twelve Steps with which to rediscover myself. Making a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself and sharing it with a mutual friend (Steps Four and Five) were especially helpful. It was the first time in a long time I had paid so much attention to myself! I also learned about myself by listening in meetings - when I identified with others, I gained insight into my own thoughts and feelings."

So many of us come into program with every bit of our attention focused like a laser upon someone else's life. We can recite in detail what the alcoholic thinks, says and does. When we're asked to turn our attention back to our own lives,  there might be not much self left upon which to focus, because we've been stifling our own natures to obsess over theirs. I was very angry and opinionated when I came into Al-Anon, but in many cases, my opinions weren't really mine at all - it isn't as though I'd sat down and given whatever topic much thought or care, I simply picked up and wore whatever coat of thought came to hand and I could fit into - "I think this about that."

In Al-Anon I learned that my ideas, thoughts, opinions matter, but that I haven't the right to try to ram them down anyone's throat, no matter how hard I tried to justify that desire because of the alcoholic's drinking. The alcoholic is also a child of a Higher Power, and deserves my respect. A relationship may be severely damaged due to years of drinking, but I  believe that where there's life, there's hope, and it's never too late to find ourselves, and in that journey to ourselves. gain understanding and compassion for others

Common Denominators - Impatience & Intolerance.

For me, these two character defects are closely linked. Intolerance leads to impatience. When I'm not being convinced by intolerance that I know better how someone should think, feel, or behave, I've got endless patience. Conversely, when I'm feeling impatient, it's because I'm viewing another person through a lens of intolerance, and deciding that, measured against my standards of behavior, they fall short.

I was told by a sponsor, that whenever I would exclaim "I'd never do that!" I was demonstrating  intolerance. I remember sitting thinking to myself that "all I was doing" was pointing out that my choices were vastly superior to those of the person against whom I was comparing myself. At some point, perhaps after repeated reminders, I vocalised this thinking. And was, as I was so often at the beginning, supremely annoyed to see my sponsor fighting a smile, as she explained that it was somewhat arrogant to describe my choices as "vastly superior."

I've been asked by sponsees how I can describe myself as filled with self-loathing, when I was such an arrogant little snot individual. My arrogance was driven by insecurity, a secret belief that I was "not enough." Not tall enough. Not smart enough. Not pretty enough. Not rich enough. My car, clothes, house, none of these were expensive enough. Absolutely nothing in my life was enough. The only thing which ever escaped this incessant measuring-and-falling-short, was my dog. The dogs I've had through the years, were, to me, perfectly beautiful, and perfectly loving.

I had big dogs back then, not mini dachshunds, as I do today, but I've learned that the size of the canine package matters not, even the smallest of them have that amazing dog capacity for love; I think a dog is one of God's greatest gifts. I'd sit on the floor, hugging my dog, and my heart would swell with love and gratitude. I'd walk behind my dog through the woods, or beside the ocean, and feel a grateful contentment in that moment, long before I could identify that feeling.

I had what I once heard described in an open AA meeting as, "low-to-no self-esteem." The only way for me to deal with this, was to pretend first to myself, and then to others around me, that I was superior. I hid in plain sight, since the only person I managed to convince of this was myself - it seems as though it's fairly easy to identify low self-esteem in other people.

So, sneering at the choices of other people was the only way that I could feel a modicum of good feeling about who I was. But that passed off so quickly that I was always trying to find another way in which I could feel better than, superior, far above in knowledge, taste, attitudes, yada yada yada.

Intolerance led to impatience. Impatience tells me that I am being intolerant. And intolerance is never driven by a good feeling, a happy feeling. So when I feel impatient, I've learned to step back from the moment, detach, and ask myself, "What's going on? Am I hungry, angry, lonely, tired? If none of those apply,  what's lurking behind the impatience/intolerance? What am I not dealing with, elsewhere in my life?" 

It's never about the person cutting in front of me in traffic, or elbowing me out of the way to grab the last item on sale, or snatching away the precise head of lettuce I was aiming to get, or being rude in any one of the myriad ways of which we humans are capable. When I'm in a state of serenity, I can let that rudeness slide right on by, and just - notice it, without an accompanying rush of hot feelings. In serenity, I can wave them in front of me, get that lettuce for them; I can say with a giddy delight to my friend, "Guess I wasn't meant to have one of those sale items today, let's go have coffee," I can respond to rudeness with a calm courtesy that is sincere.

My state of mind affects the way I view my world. My world doesn't change - there's still the same percentage of lunatic misguided drivers on the city streets as any other day - but I'm driving with my Higher Power's love sweetening the air in the car, and I'm at peace with the world.

Catharsis - A Deleted Post.

I wrote a post two days ago, with the title "Catharsis," then went back later and deleted it, because I felt too raw and vulnerable. I'm not sure why, perhaps because what's happening is so precious to me that I want to guard and protect it? A moment of superstition? No matter.

This week, I've reconnected with my adoptive brother. We'd had a blowout (my fault) and didn't speak for a while (my pride and stubbornness - this preceded my joining Al-Anon) then later, he'd moved to another country, and I'd lost touch with him completely. After some time in program, I'd tried to reconnect, but my adoptive parents wouldn't give me his contact info, or him mine. Later, I tried to find him online, with no luck. I've tried many times since then to search online, with no result. My first sponsor suggested since I couldn't make the amend to him directly, I do it by writing a letter and reading it to her, and I did that, but I just could not lay it to rest. I've had no peace on that one thing for many years. I've tried to forgive myself, I've prayed and meditated, but I couldn't get there. I've tried and tried to let it go, but it's always been there, underneath. We were very close as children, and I've grieved the loss of that relationship a hundred thousand times.

For some reason, this week, a few days ago, when I did an online search, I included his middle initial, which I'd never thought to do before, and up it came - he's a member of faculty on a university in that country. I clicked on the link, and there was his picture, and an email address.

I prayed for guidance, wrote an amends letter and sent it off, heart in mouth. He responded within about 3 hours, warmly, thanking me, "surely accepting" my amend, and signed his response with "Love."

That undid me completely.

I cried so hard for about the next day or so, off and on, that, as I wrote to a dear program friend, "my eyes looked like little boiled cherry tomatoes."

I've carried the desire to make that amend for about 24 years. I've been afraid that he would die before I could find him, and make that amend to him.

I believe that this has happened at last, because I've moved forward in my spiritual growth of late. I've been doing what one AA speaker calls "seeking more" - making a concerted effort to work Step 11, and improve my conscious contact with my Higher Power. I've learned some painful lessons about myself and the way I still think and behave. I've grown in humility, and I've wanted that humility with all my heart and soul.

I think it was finally time for the reconnection with this wonderful man, my brother. My joy is like a  heat in my chest, and the tears are washing out 24 years of close-held pain and regret.
"Gratitude" seems like such a small word to describe what I am feeling.

Forgiveness Is A Choice, Not A Happening.

I was listening to an AA speaker last evening, while doing yoga, and one thing he said really resonated with me. He was answering a question posed by an audience member, about forgiveness.

He replied that when he was talking to sponsees about forgiveness, and wrongs done to them, he'd ask: "Can you imagine yourself 5 years from now, would you have forgiven them by that time, do you think?"

Invariably, the reply, after some thought, is, "Yes."

He then asks, "Why wait?"
(I could hear the ripple of surpise, and appreciative murmurs, run through the audience.)
The speaker repeated, "Why wait? So you can marinate in your unhappiness, and be a victim? If you can see yourself forgiving them sometime in the future, why not do that right now, and then you have your freedom from the resentment and anger?"

Forgiveness has been a powerful tool for me, to increase my daily serenity. When I accept that other people are trying to function with their own confused thinking and character defects, just as I've done, and continue to do, I can choose forgiveness.

I used to think that forgiveness would just ...occur, after I'd reached a certain place in recovery. That has proven not to be the case. Forgiveness is a choice. As I let go of my old beliefs that I have the right to know what another should do, say, or think, forgiveness becomes an easy choice. It's not something I do for the other person, as I once thought. It's a choice I make to free myself - from anger, from resentment, from Victimville. I lived there for a long, long time, and I'm not interested in moving back. They say you can't go home again, well, I'm grateful that through the practise of Al-Anon, not only do I not go back there, I've pretty much bulldozed the entire place - nothing to see there, anymore. Blue sky, green grass, the occasional bird or deer wandering through, but all those buildings I'd constructed and maintained with rage and resentment, they're gone, with not even a foundation stone to mark their place.

That's freedom.

An Extra Meeting.

Last night, I was feeling prompted to attend an "extra" meeting. I found myself in that interesting place of arguing with the part of me that was pushing me into my shoes and out the door; I didn't feel much like attending a meeting.  I was tired from having driven over to have lunch with my sponsor. But some part of me accepted the prompting from my Higher Power, and got me there on time.

It was one of those intensely powerful meetings, where every person who shares, seems to be speaking directly to my character defects. Ouch. And not-ouch, too, because when I hear that others struggle with the same issues, I feel comforted, that I am not alone in backsliding on this or that. I feel that I am human, only human.

There is an aspect of my character with which I occasionally have to struggle, not so much anymore, but in times of stress, it will fight to gain some ground, and that is the part of me which wishes to punish in return, when someone I love has hurt me deeply. I heard sharing on that very thing in the meeting last night, and it was welcome, because I've been feeling that gruesome sneaky guilt I feel, when parts of me that I dislike, want to put on a fashion show, and commandeer the runway of my internal dialogue.

I need those reminders that I'm not a cartoon character of evil, just a flawed human being. If I give the guilt any room to move around at all, it will begin to take me over, my self-esteem will plummet, and before I know what's happening, I will be feeling despaired and depressed. I need to have it proven to me, by the loving empathy I feel to hear someone else share about it, that I can also love myself, in spite of my "worst" character defects.

Being in Al-Anon, even for a time, doesn't mean I will not be faced with the normal human struggles, merely that when I am, I will have a repository of experience, both mine, and that of others, from which to choose healthy thinking.

Onward and upward, one day at a time.

Dealing With Difficult People.

I was thinking about this yesterday, but was so busy, I didn't get to my computer until after midnight, and then sat facing the monitor, yawning hugely, and finally realised if I did manage to compose a post, it would likely be garbled and confusing. I went to bed instead.

When I've had encounters with someone, and been faced with hostility or rudeness from them, the next time I approach that person, I will most likely be doing it with expectations of more of the same.

I'm trying to learn to do things differently. It can be a wierd high-wire walk, to let go of negative expectations, and allow for the possibility of a positive encounter, while at the same time, not allowing myself to be treated in an unacceptable manner.
There will always be those who cannot understand how their own hostility mandates their life experiences - I no longer see it as my job to inform them of this fact.  My job is to look after me, and to present to the world at large, the most positive, accepting, tolerant, and understanding face of which I am able.

When I was new in Al-Anon, and full of anger, I had a short fuse - I was easily provoked, and would seethe with resentment and fury, holding the other person accountable for my feelings. There were a lot of things about life that I felt should be changed, and I was vocal about it. I look back now, and think I must have been a bit of a bore, with all my ranting and raving about how things "should be."

Control freak is still my default mode, but I have the tools and experience in 12-Step, and the companionship of my group and my sponsor, to help me not have to live in that frustrating, lonely place.

Difficult people can still trigger me, but not with anywhere near the same intensity as before Al-Anon. Now, rather than having my entire week "ruined" by another's rudeness or intractibility, Iwork to detach, and ask myself, do I have a part in this? If I don't, I can speak up if I feel I need to, or keep quiet and allow it to pass by me.

I try very hard not to take other people's inventory, and to see their rudeness as their pain bursting through, rather than a deliberate attempt to hurt me. I do not always manage this, far from it at times.  I try to detach, to see past the sound and fury, to the person. I aim to be able to see them as a child of God, doing the best they know how at the time, just as the loving members of my first Al-Anon group were able to see past all my noise to the real, frightened me.

Living With An Alcoholic...

...can be an interesting experience. We were joking around at an Al-Anon meeting not long ago, when the topic was self-care, and a newcomer had asked with a little smile: could wallowing in self-pity be considered self-care? A member answered, stating that when she was new to program, she was throughly convinced there was a special place for her in Heaven, because she'd been such a saint here on earth!

It can be tiresome and tedious to deal with the issues which arise from addiction. It can also be confusing and even frightening.

I know that without the help of Al-Anon, I'd have never made it with my sanity (relatively) intact. One has only to stop and listen to a reasoning process verbalised by an alcoholic, to realise and understand just how crazy it is inside their head.
Practising my Al-Anon program has allowed me to develop a healthy gratitude that I'm not in there with them, and an element of compassion for those who are still trapped in there, alone and suffering.

I may not like the way the alcoholism manifests itself in behavior, but that doesn't give me the right to dismiss the person themselves with an attitude of contempt or negation.

If I am tempted down that path, I will read some program literature, call an Al-Anon friend, and pray to my Higher Power to help me detach with love. I cannot change another person, I can only change the way I deal with them. That's work enough to keep me occupied into eternity.

Taking Other People's Inventory.

This can be an enjoyable pastime for those not in recovery - one can feel superior in many ways, while castigating the other person for their human frailties.

The wisdom of generations suggests that we not judge others, rather, that we look within, since we are always mid-reno ourselves.

We cannot know the stresses and strains under which other people are struggling along; a smooth, unruffled exterior can hide any number of anxieties, and any amount of pain. Rather than decide that I know how someone else should act, I can instead shift my focus to my own sphere, and work to be more compassionate. My first sponsor, whenever I'd start to complain about the alcoholic, would ask with dangerous sweetness, "All finished working on yourself, then?" and smile brilliantly.

After the first few times, I'd always laugh when she posed this question. I've now been in Al-Anon for quite some time, and although I can see how far I've come, I still seem to faced with the same number of self-improvement projects, they are just of a different sort than they were at the start. It's more detailed work at this stage of recovery. In the beginning, I was, in effect, hosing the room down with a power washer to remove major surface grime. Nowadays, I'm down on my hands and knees, scrubbing grout with a toothbrush.

There is always personal work waiting for me. It's not up to me to be looking elsewhere, and deciding that someone else should be cleaning their household. That's their business; I need to allow them the dignity of making their own choices in the matter.

I would not want to be harshly judged for my past, present, and future mistakes. I pray to be filled with empathy and compassion, for the suffering of my fellow human beings.

Keeping Score

I used to be a rabid scorekeeper - every harsh word, every sharp look, every injustice, was hauled out regularly, chewed over, and spat out at the alcoholics in my life. I didn't know any other way to live.

Now, I do know another way to live. Now, if I scorekeep, I am doing it by choice, and I have no excuse. I have no reason to continue bad habits, except laziness, and the occasional burst of hurt feelings I use for justification.

From ODAT, page 231:

"Storing up grievances is more than a waste of time; it's a waste of life that could be lived to greater satisfaction. If I keep a record of oppressions and indignitites, I am restoring them to painful reality."

I don't want to "restore them to painful reality." I've already lived through them once, and been hurt, do I truly want to keep on hurting myself, by having them ready to hand, in the forefront of my mind? I used them as a weapon, to wound the alcoholics with their recital, but I can't do that, without causing myself a repeat injury. There's a name for that - martyrdom. I spent almost my entire first marriage in a state of martyrdom, and it was a deep misery.

"The horror of that moment," the King said, "I shall never, never forget." "You will though," said the Queen, "if you don't make a memorandum of it."
(Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking Glass)

Alcoholism Is A Disease

We can feel resistant to this fact, because we have so much accumulated anger, and resentments, old and new, all seething and bubbling within. I know I felt aggrieved at the suggestion that my alcoholics were suffering from a disease, because it felt like that "let them off the hook" for all their ghastly behavior.
Then I came across this line in the ODAT, page 58:

"When I ask: "Why does he drink when he knows it damages him and his family?" I really mean: "How can he justify what he is doing?" implying a condemnation I have no right to make.

Ouch. That was one of those stickleburr thoughts from program, it glued itself into my brain, and just couldn't be pulled free. I'd catch myself thinking along my usual condemnatory lines, and into my head would pop that line from the book again. I felt quite annoyed, as it made it impossible for me to feel the same self-righteous indignation and contempt, which had previously bolstered my arguments against the alcoholics.

I justified my own unacceptable behavior by pointing to theirs.

When I surrendered to the truth that they were suffering from an addiction that they had no more control over, than I did with cigarettes, I began to feel compassion. That was very painful. My sponsor, who also smoked, asked me once how I felt when someone, anyone, suggested I needed to quit smoking. I replied that I was immediately overwhelmed with a (sulkily) powerful desire for a cigarette.

She asked, could it then be possible that my extensive sermons upon why the alcoholic should quit drinking, inspired the same result? So wasn't I then, actually achieving the opposite of what I'd intended with my preaching? If all my yarping just made them want to drink, what was the point?

I felt irritated with her for that observation, but the next time I was moved to begin my usual rant, I thought of her comment, and stopped, because really, what was the point? We were well aware of all that I was about to say, I'd said it so many times already; they could most likely recite it along with me, word-for-word. I stopped, sighed, smiled, and said nothing.

In such small increments, do we learn to work our program.

Forgiving is Not Condoning.

I don't know how many times I've sat in an Al-Anon meeting, and heard someone say, "I just can't forgive them, for this or that reason." When I started this 12-step journey, I believed that if I were to say: "I forgive my childhood batterer," I was, in effect, stating: "What she did was acceptable." I saw condoning as an intrinsic element of forgiveness. I couldn't see how the two could be separated, they were so intertwined in my thinking.

As has so often been the case, it was a little offhand comment which started the arduous process of disentanglement. A friend in art school, himself a victim of emotional abuse in his younger years, (born gay into a very wealthy Chinese family, he was the modern-day equivalent of a remittance man, supported in style over here, so his family in China wouldn't lose face) was trying to console me after one of my occasional family encounters, and said "Happy people don't behave that way."

Simple. Clear. Obvious. (Wilson was wise far beyond his years.) Two decades or so later on in my life, I recalled this comment, during a conversation about the batterer with my sponsor, and I repeated it with almost a feeling of wonderment. Up until that moment, I honestly do not believe I had ever tried to place myself in the batterer's shoes instead of my own - I only ever seen her as unrepentantly evil. I decided I was going to at least open my mind to the possibility that she was a deeply unhappy person, and see if I could find anything to support this in my memories.

I tried to rexamine my childhood through an Al-Anon filter, praying for guidance, and the ability to see with clarity. (I'm condensing the process for the sake of brevity, this took several years to accomplish, because it was painful to let go of the rigid thinking which got me out of my childhood with my sanity intact.)

I came out of the other side of this, with an understanding that what I'd been trying to ahieve, was to see her from the viewpoint of an adult living in a place of safety.
Up until then, she'd always been a raging whirlwind, seen only by the terrified upward gaze of a cringing child, catching glimpses through arms held up to protect my face.

I gained significant understanding of what drove her, of what she felt she had lost early on and could never hope to regain (a younger sister dying at the age of 7 from diptheria, and it being made abundantly clear to the surviving child that both parents wished she had died and the sister had lived, and other traumas in her childhood during the war)

Understanding allowed me to reach a place of forgiveness. Not condoning. Not excusing. Forgiving. Until I forgave, I couldn't cut the ties between my adult self, and that tiny quaking child I had been. Until I forgave, I was tethered to my past misery by a slender cord of anger and resentment.

Forgiveness allowed me to feel peace. Yes, I suffered what I did, but now I see the past as "a far distant country" I once visited, not as a monster waiting under the bed to leap out and get me by the ankle.