Changing Sponsors.

Over the many years I've been in Al-Anon, I have rarely changed sponsors, and apart from one other time, the changes have been a result of my having moved to a new city. This time, I decided to get a new sponsor when I went to see my sponsor and told her that the cancer had returned. I was in tears and very upset. She first told me that it was God's will, and then to "look on the bright side."

To say I was astounded, wouldn't be stretching the truth. I was gobsmacked. I don't happen to believe that our Higher Power is the agent of our sufferings - I believe our HP is there as comfort and support and encouragement during those times, but I don't think certain people get singled out for cancer, or any other disease. I think that it's genetics, and the randomness of nature. And, look on the bright side? What exactly is the bright side of cancer having returned?

I was not happy with her response, but apart from ducking a few of her phone calls, I hadn't quite decided what to do about it. Then at the last meeting of our home group, which my sponsor chaired, after we'd all gone around on the topic, she asked us to go around once more and talk about "what we could do to cheer ourselves up for the rest of the week." When it came to me, I passed.

She wouldn't accept my passing, and began asking me "What about such-and-such? Wouldn't that cheer you up? What about this? What about that?" I was stunned, because never in 29 years of Al-Anon meetings have I seen a chairperson refuse to allow a member to pass, or begin hounding them like that for an answer.

I managed to say again that I had nothing to say, thank you, and she finally went on to the next person, but I was livid.

I shot out of the room the moment the meeting was finished, and to my great gratitude, Robert was early, waiting there in the car to pick me up, lovely wonderful man that he is. I talked to him about it, and then yesterday, I talked to someone else who is a long-timer in program, without breaking my sponsor's anonymity, but explaining what had happened, and how I'd felt.

Through speaking with her, it dawned on me, that all along, since the first cancer diagnosis, I'd been feeling like my sponsor wasn't validating or acknowledging my feelings of pain, anger and sorrow. I don't know if she can't handle my feelings about it, or perhaps her own, but whatever the reason, her behavior has become less acceptable to me as time has passed, and I've been trying to deal with it.

Talking to my friend yesterday, I understood that with major surgery coming up in only 12 days, I do not need the hassle and stress of a sponsor who will not accept or validate my feelings. I need support,  love and encouragement. So I told my old sponsor last night that I was going to look for a new sponsor, then called a woman I respect and enjoy and asked if she would sponsor me. She was warm and receptive and agreed happily. We meet next Wednesday for coffee, and I'm looking forward to it.

I'm not angry with my old sponsor, I think she was doing the best she could. As with so many of us, if we know better, we can do better.

In a while, I will be walking down to the finish line of the 10k run/walk in which Robert is entered with some friends for the walk. I want to be there to cheer him on when he comes across the finish line. He has been cheering me on the whole way of my struggle with cancer, and I feel blessed and  grateful for him.

I want to thank all of you who have been supporting and encouraging me with your comments and emails. It means so much.

A Better Attitude.

Sorry no posts for so long, I was reeling from the news about the cancer having returned. But now, a couple of weeks further on, my mood has settled more into acceptance and gratitude for all of the love in my life: friends, family, and my wonderful Robert.

One of the women in a group I attend weekly, came up to me before the last meeting, gave me her phone number and address, told me that she had been through one aspect of the surgery I'm facing, and would happily be there for me as support and encouragement. I called her a few days later, and she was encouraging and helpful. Her surgery was due to other reasons, not cancer, but it was the same sort of thing, and she is willing to come to my place and help me when I'm newly home from hospital, and to be a support by phone at any time. I'm supposed to call her this weekend, and go over to her place for tea and some more talking.

I felt far less frightened after speaking with her; she helped me to feel that I can get through the surgery and recover, although it's life-changing and invasive. I have no choice, if I want to live for any time at all, I have to get it done.

Tomorrow I go for a CT scan in the morning, in an effort to see if the cancer has metastasized to my other organs. If it has, I will be lucky to live for another couple of years, if it has not, who knows?

My brother is flying out from New York on the 2nd, and going home on the 4th. We were estranged for many years, and haven't seen each other for almost 30 years, so I am giddily excited at the idea of having even that short space of time to visit with him.

When I live in the moment, life is good.

Test Results.

I got the pathology results from last week's test. The cancer has recurred. So I am facing more major surgery as of May 9. I still have to hear about the tumour marker blood tests, and am waiting to be booked in for a CT scan to check for metastasis.

Today, I am feeling stunned by the news, depressed, despairing and highly anxious. I was standing at my ironing board working on a pattern I'm making for a friend, and had to stop and ask my Higher Power for help - the tears were streaming down my face, and I was completely undone.

I am not afraid of death. I believe it will just be like going to sleep - fading off into unconsciousness. I do mourn the possibility of leaving my beloved Robert far too soon. We haven't even had a year together yet, but it's been the happiest time in my life, and in his. We get along amazingly well, with no conflict, a shared delight in reading, gardening, and other pursuits, and a shared sense of humour. We can make each other laugh, and that's a gift.

It seems so unfair to have finally found the love of my life, and have to be enduring this misery with it. I was just beginning to feel like myself again from the last surgery, and I'll have to start again from scratch in a month. Worse, because this surgery will be even more invasive and mutilating.

I'm afraid I have nothing positive to offer anyone in this post today, just my own pain and sorrow.

Guilt.

Guilt can be a useful signpost that I have behaved in a way which contravenes my ethics or philosophy. In that case, it's useful, helpful, and makes good sense to pay attention to what the "still small voice" of my conscience is trying to tell me.

But when guilt is an overwhelming wave consuming me, it's always been a form of self-abuse. I am just not sufficiently evil to warrant that kind of guilt.

We cannot know what we don't know. It's self-bashing to look back at choices made before I had learned about alcoholism, and decide that I was a terrible person to have done, thought, or felt whatever it was.

Practising self-acceptance means that I work to forgive myself for my not-knowing. I work to let go of the struggling mess I once was, and forgive that confused unhappy woman. Life is different now, I am different, and I deserve to let go of the past. Today is a new day, the sun is shining, and I am at peace.

I'm going through a new round of testing to check for metastasis of the original tumour, the first test looked okay, but I have to wait for the biopsy results. It's a difficult time, I'm up and down with it, but overall, my mood is good. The sun is shining today, and that helps.

I Love You, But I Don't Like What You Did.

One action I still find extremely difficult, is setting a boundary with someone I love. I did this recently, and it was agonising, trying to find the right thing to say, to express my feelings without condemning or accusing, while letting them know that I felt they had overstepped one of those personal lines.

Sponsoring for many years has led me to an understanding that there will be times for each of us when we will be told what we most definitely do not want to hear, and if we can stay quiet long enough to really, truly, listen to what is being said, there will be a pearl of self-understanding encased in the rough and scaly shell of explanatory words.

I've moved slowly from being someone who accepts everything, excuses it all, makes up reasons to ease the hurt of someone's behavior, finds some way to choke it down regardless of how offensive or repulsive, to believing that if I am as careful as I am able to speak my truth kindly, I can let go of the outcome and trust in my Higher Power to work things out for the best, whatever the result.

Sounds good, right? And I do believe it, but the reality of doing so is surprisingly painful, especially when the person I'm setting the boundary with is someone I love dearly. I dither and waffle about whether I should say something or just let it go, I struggle mightily with "How Important Is It?" And then when I finally make the choice to set the boundary, and the recipient is sincerely apologetic, I'm horrified to have been the cause of their pain, lash myself with regret for having caused it by speaking up, and feel guilt.

When I think about it hypothetically, setting a boundary seems neat and precise and if I'm careful, as though it should be relatively painless - the truth is that it's invariably messy and hurtful and sloppy and awful.

Why then should I do it?

I do it because I've come to the realisation that when I accept unacceptable behavior, I am lying about who I am, what I feel, and what I believe.

The saying is, "the truth shall set you free." not, "the truth shall set you free, and you won't feel a thing."

Acceptance, And Facing Our Own Powelessness.

Yesterday I received a comment from a reader who had found a loved one dead from a heroin overdose, and felt guilty because they'd talked themselves out of a feeling of concern that something was wrong, and the next day, found his body.

I read the comment this morning, and was reminded of Neil Young's "The Needle And The Damage Done", in which he sings, "...but every junkie's like a setting sun..."
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf6RXn_E_7s

I came to my blog this morning meaning to write a post about "Live and Let Live." I read that comment and thought of the last young man I knew who died from a heroin overdose. He was in his early twenties, a handsome university student. When I heard that he'd been found dead with the needle still in his arm, I recall being swept by an almost overwhelming sadness at the waste of another life.

When still married to my first husband, (who as far as I know is still drinking, 20 odd years after we've been divorced,) and very new to Al-Anon, I found the idea that I was powerless over his addiction to be maddening. Again and again I would speak at meetings about wanting to change him, and would hear others sharing about the difficulty of realising and truly accepting that the alcoholic or addict makes their own life choices. We can decide to stop enabling, and we can work on our own recovery. We cannot force them into sobriety. We are utterly and completely powerless.

We cannot save them from themselves, regardless of what the recovery business would like us to believe. I know couples who have almost bankrupted themselves putting a child into one rehab centre after another, only to lose the thousands of dollars expended, when the child leaves before the end of the treatment and picks up again. We are unable to fix what is wrong with them, they must be desirous of fixing their own lives. Some will, and go on to lead happy fulfilled lives. Some won't, and will die young, of alcohol or substance abuse. That's an unfortunate reality, but until we accept our own powerlessness, we can't be set free.

Being Satisfied With Our Daily Accomplishments.

I've heard many times in meetings, and from sponsees, and once upon a time, believed myself, that what I (we) managed to get done in a day was never enough. I gave myself no wiggle room for illness, fatigue, or simple mood - every day was the same - I hounded myself mercilessly to do more, always do more. I couldn't look at what I'd accomplished and feel satisfaction.

Today I was out picking moss from the stone verge of the rooftop terrace. The crows like to come down, pick up a clump of moss, and fling it out onto the terrace, looking for worms and other insect life. We end up with a terrace covered in small clumps of moss with mud attached, distributed evenly on the walking surface.

 I figured out that if I just remove the moss, they have nothing to fling and I feel immediate gratification at the resulting clean space. Much of gardening seems to consist of various tidying and neatening jobs of this sort, and I enjoy them all. Years ago, however, I wouldn't have been able to do what I did today, which was to do half the task, then stop for the day. Or had I been able to stop before completing the job, I'd have been completely unable to take any pleasure in the work I had completed, because I would have been nattering at myself about not staying at it, until I finished.

I was raised to believe that half-done was the same as not started. I had to be in Al-Anon for quite a few years, before I could give myself credit for whatever I managed to get done in one day. And it took a few more years after that, before I could even consider giving myself permission to take a day of rest. It felt like the "thin edge of the wedge" to get up in a day and decide that if I did not much of anything that day, I was still a good person, and my world wouldn't fall apart.

Challenging this kind of message instilled in early childhood can feel world-shaking to begin with, but after we've moved through the process to a state of clarity unsullied by emotions of guilt or shame, we may be astonished to realise their power over us.

Today I accept that whatever I get done is enough for today. Some days I will accomplish everyday tasks, as well as clear up a backlog of waiting chores. Other days, I'm doing well to be up, washed, and dressed. It's all okay. What matters is that I have love and respect in my life. Picking moss can be spread over two or even three (gasp!) days.