Release

Remember me mentioning a few months ago a women in my home group that I'd gotten cross ways with and hadn't been able to straighten it out? Although I had sat down with her to see what I may have done to offend her, she just wouldn't talk to me except to say that she "didn't understand me." We were at an impasse.

A few weeks ago she broke a bone in her hip and within a few days she learned she had terminal bone cancer. It really hit me hard, partly because I didn't feel like I could support her in her illness like she did for me due to this distance between us. I had mulled about the relationship for months. I had gone to visit her in the hospital, but still felt that distance between us and felt uncomfortable and sensitive to anything she said.

Last night I was reading one of Catherine Ponder's books, The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity. In it she talked about the concept of release, and it hit me squarely. In it, she talked about the power of release and giving things, truly giving them to God by saying "I release this situation to you, God." She also discussed the importance of not talking about negative issues, stewing over them like I had been doing for months with this particular issue.

I had made my amends to her for whatever it was I did, I still don't know, but I hadn't released the situation. I was still talking about it with a few trusted friends, mulling it over, wondering if I had somehow again offended her the last two times I've visited her. I hadn't released the relationship to God's care.

Last night, I did just that. I released her, with love, to my loving Higher Power. My heart changed, and so did my mind. I no longer need to to relive (the root word of resentment) the situation, wondering what I did, how I can make it better, etc. It's over. Like a bright blue balloon, it floated away to God's care.

Sure enough, when I got home tonight there was a message from her on my phone asking me to call her. She loved the home-grown flowers I'd taken to her. She went on in the message about how fragrant they were and how she hadn't had the time to properly thank me. I released her to God and God did the rest.

Tomorrow I'll call her and I know--things between us will be good. I learned something so powerful. It's the power of release. That was the lesson in all this, I believe.

Until tomorrow, have a wonderful day.

Littered among the stuff

Diaries, several, probably five, from my early years of recovery and one from my using years. I can only imagine what they hold. In the next few days, as time permits, I'll be going through them to see what I can glean from my early recovery. Or from my late using. That should be scary.

Until tomorrow, have a great day.

Just hangin'

Yard sale

My neighborhood is having a yard sale Saturday and I am getting rid of a bunch of stuff. Not just any stuff, mind you, but traveling stuff. This is stuff that has been to Missouri from Arizona, back to Arizona, then back to Missouri again. Expensive stuff, that is, in road miles and mini-storage.

Why do I hang on to stuff? Part of it is a connection with the past. Much of what I'm keeping after honing down to as little stuff as I can stand, was my mother's. The rest of the it are things I've picked up over the years in flea markets and antique stores. I have two new pieces of furniture, a mattress and a couch (which I bought from my boyfriend's generous gift of all his saved change). Everything else is second-hand and well-loved. Well, my desk and file cabinets were new 14 or 15 years ago, to be rigorously honest.

So it's time to, as my sponsor suggested, take a physical inventory and part with things. Friday I'm spending the day sorting and pricing. Want to help? How much should a ten year-old black dog cost? Just kidding, Romy! Romy? Come back here! I was . . .

School starts this afternoon; I'm taking a four-week course in organizations. That should be swell. Tuition will rise by 19 percent this fall at my school. I can't believe the college is that badly mismanaged that they have to raise tuition by that great amount. It's going to price a lot of students right out of school.

Until tomorrow, 2 dogs are waiting for their walkies.

Is 75 percent honesty enough?

The women's meeting was interesting the other morning. We got on the topic of honesty and two of our newer members made the statement that they were working on honesty and that they felt that their "75 percent honesty" was enough. I scanned the meeting hall for a dictionary to no avail (every meeting hall should keep a dictionary on hand, the older the better, because some words, when the Big Book or Basic Text were written, had slightly different meanings. Meanings for words can change over time.)

So I rushed (well, I looked it up this morning, honestly) home and picked up my Webster's 2001. "Rigorous" is defined as 1) "Characterised by rigor; rigidly severe or harsh, as people, rules or discipline: rigorous laws. 2) severely exact or accurate; precise: rigorous research."

"Rigor," the root word, is best defined in this context as "scrupulous or inflexible accuracy or adherence." The synonym (opposite)? "Inflexibility, stringency." So, I guess 95 percent honesty is not enough.

Okay, I know, these were relative newcomers. But as we stay clean, the more we evade the truth, whether it's about ourselves or about others, the more it pinches. The longer we stay clean, it's said, the narrower the path. Honesty is a habit, in many respects, I think. When I came into the rooms I'd lied for so long that I had to monitor every word that came out of my mouth, practically. I didn't know the truth. My friends in the program helped me learn how to be more honest.

I recall early in recovery I was resisting returning to work because I resisted the low pay and felt that I didn't know anything but the "fast life," as we called it. I wasn't just addicted to drugs, boys and girls, I was addicted to the drugging lifestyle. Running in the bars and speaks until all hours of the morning, hanging around with low-lifes, always wanting to know what the buzz was on the streets; addiction to the lifestyle was part of my addiction that had to be broken.

I remarked to a friend who suggested maybe I'd better stay out of the clubs if I wanted to stay clean that "I don't know anything else." He said, in a word, "Bullshit. You've held a normal job, you came from a normal home; it's time to make some changes." Honesty, for me, was very slow in coming. Rigorous honesty took years, and still sometimes I fail.

I started with small things. "Cash-register honesty," as it's called; giving back change if given too much, telling the truth even if it's not what I want to say at that moment. I stopped telling tall tales just to get attention. Those little things set the stage for the ability to be more honest in all my affairs. But still, after all this time, it can be a result of habit. Yes, I can take that extra $20 the cashier gave me or I can give it back. I once went through a bank drive-through and the women was very nasty to me. She gave me an extra $100 back. I kept it because I rationalized she owed it me for her behavior. All that had to change when I got clean. My honesty muscle is now in good working order now because I've exercised it for so long.

I have two major pet peeves in the program. It's people on disability coming into the rooms talking about how much they're making under the table and the ones who are experts tax cheats, proud of how little they pay the government (that's us, you and me, you know) because they earn a lot of cash. Somewhere along the line, they didn't learn the "practice these principles in all our affairs" part of the program. When anyone steals, it costs us all; one way or the other, we all pay for others' dishonesty.

I don't like the current tax system, but I still chose to live in this country so I'm stuck with it. Unless I'm willing to go all out to change the system, then I cannot live here and pretend the system doesn't apply to me. That's my opinion, anyway.

I was on a user group the other day littered with doctors and Ph.Ds. The moderator of the group went on a hateful rant about alcoholics; they are "manipulative," etc., she said. I did talk to her on the phone later and told her I had been in recovery for over two decades. I was met with an uncomfortable silence. I hoped that she was talking about those not in recovery, but my guess is, somewhere along the line, she's seen something that shades her perception of even those of us in recovery.

The old saying goes "You may be the only Basic Text that someone ever sees." Does my behavior match our spiritual principles? Is 75 percent, or 95 percent, or 80 percent honesty enough? I honestly don't know. I only know I strive for 100 percent honesty. I'm not always successful, but I'm pretty close.

Well, enough wanderings for one day. Until tomorrow, have a great, honest day. I always feel much better when I do.

Did you hear the one

Did you hear about the dyslexic agnostic with insomnia? She sat up all night wondering if there was a Dog.
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I asked my boyfriend to put up a"Beware of Dog" sign at my basement entrance. I don't know about you, but I'm scared, but not of my dogs.

Oh my gosh . . .

I am wiped. I'm sitting in the Phoenix airport waiting for my flight, which would only be delayed if a plane couldn't take off in 115 degree weather. I forgot how HOT it is here.

Barbara met me at the NA meeting Tuesday night. We went and got some Thai food then headed out to my friends' house to spend the night. We had a great visit and she looks wonderful. She's on her way to Oregon. Last I saw her she was heading north on Highway 60; Pete was riding high in the back of her car. She has her camera, so I'm sure she'll post some great pics along her route.

I accomplished a lot during my three days here. Business is definitely picking up. Remember six months ago when I was literally in a panic, wondering what God wanted me to do? "Trust God, work with others." It doesn't say "trust others, work with God."

Until tomorrow when I plan to post a bit more coherently, have a blessed day.

Stuck in the airport

I'm sitting in the KC airport; my flight is rain-stalled. I was hoping to make my connection in Albuquerque, but it doesn't look likely. Oh well. Life on life's terms, as one of my friends said last night when we visited her in the hospital where she was just diagnosed with incurable bone cancer.

I decided to while away the time that I would write about another great couples fight I just heard about. My girlfriend, who I'm going to stay with in Phoenix, called me to see if I needed a ride from the airport. She mentioned that she had a little set-to with her boyfriend that day. I've known him for about a decade now and I know that having a "little" set-to with him isn't really possible; it's usually a loud and long fight, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt.

They import German shepherds, so their house is like going to visit a kennel. She told me she was running around for two hours cleaning up and moving dogs while her boyfriend took a nap. She ate lunch and when he woke up, he asked her if she'd made him any lunch. She had just laid down to read a book and she was rather annoyed that he was asking her to make him lunch. So she said something to effect of "I already ate lunch while you napped; you can make your own lunch."

That was all it took. I think he woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and they were off to the verbal races. He yelled at her that she was inconsiderate or something to that effect. So she stomped into the kitchen finally and made him a salad then went back to read her book. A minute later she heard the toilet flush. "That's what I think of your salad," he yelled as he flushed it down the toilet.

I almost cried I laughed so hard when she told me. It was a very visual fight; I could just picture him stomping into the john and putting the salad in the toilet.

It's just another indication that relationships are hard. Until tomorrow, don't get in a stupid fight; let me do it for you.

Monday travel day

Well, I'm off, but then we knew that didn't we? I'm heading to Arizona for a few days. I'm meeting BaWA Tuesday night at the VA then we're having a slumber party at my friend Debbie's house. Whoopee! Then she's off for a vacation. Pete is accompanying her; unfortunately, 2dogs have to go to the kennel.

Have a wonderful day. Say a safe travel prayer for both Barbara and me. Until tomorrow, when I'll be baking in 110 degrees, ciao.

Here's a little fun for a Sunday

Click this link.

He's got a lot of explaining to do . . .

Here's a sickening article to start your day, or end it. This is how disposable prostitutes are in our society. I'm heading to Arizona today for a few days. Barb, meet me at the Tuesday night meeting at the VA!

Will someone help?

Please write George W. Bush and ask him to read this speech.

Oz wants to play

I love plants

The Draculus Vulgaris

Check out this bad boy! I have no idea what it is, so if anyone knows, I'd love to know so that I can plant one. My neighbor is growing it. I guess I could ask her but that would require some effort. [P.S. I did ask her, the name is in purple above. I'll say.]

I went to a good meeting last night and I had a realization. No one does relationships very well. The topic was "right relationships" and there was a guy there last night who said he'd been married to his wife for 52 years. He went into a long story about how he'd met her when, drunk, he spun out on a gravel road and drove through her father's goat pen. While he left the scene that night before the sheriff could arrive, he caught up with her father the next day at church to admit he'd done it because he knew her father wouldn't cuss much at church.

Sure enough, he went over to fix the goat pen and there he met his future bride. "She was just a little bitty thing with pigtails," he said. Needless to say, we (at least the women in the meeting) were just charmed, imagining this scene. Then he went on to say that sometimes when things are rough, the silence between them might go on for a week or more. That made me laugh because that's my modus operandi; when I'm mad, I don't want to talk about it, sometimes for a long time.
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Another guy who is about 60 or so told another long story about how he was making lunch for his wife that morning and he mispronounced her sister's name for about the 1,000th time. She had to correct him, he said, and her tone of voice apparently sent him over the edge. He said they ended up in a physical altercation with her pulling his beard and him wielding a kitchen knife. We were laughing thinking of these two sexagenarians duking it out in the kitchen over a bag lunch. It just goes to show you, you never know what goes on in someone's home even if they do tell you their side of it. My mother always said "You never know 'til you marry them." I don't know how she knew that; she was only married once. I guess that was enough to figure it out.

I left the meeting thinking maybe I'm not so dysfunctional after all. I'm heading out to Phoenix next week to work for a few days, so I'll get to hit some meetings and see a few friends. Until tomorrow, take it easy. I plan to.

Codependency: Who doesn't qualify?

Every week when I can, I update my readers about what happened at our women's meeting. Yesterday was a great meeting. A women with 16 years came in and talked about her fiancee going back out after about two shaky years in the program. She said it didn't surprise her that he'd relapsed; he wasn't working a program.

It must be in the wind. Relapse, that is. But of course it's not in the wind just today; people we know and love and are family either by blood or ties as deep as blood are relapsing.

My wonderful sponsor, who has 25 years clean and works the strongest program of about anyone I've ever met in the rooms, had her husband relapse a few weeks ago two months before his 20th birthday.

My own husband, whom I finally divorced at five years clean, relapsed for the entire time after we were married until our divorce, and remains on the fringes today.

No, relapse isn't in the air, it's something that we deal with almost daily. So how do we react when those we love make bad choices?

First, we keep going to meetings. Often people relapse because they stop going to meetings. They aren't around to find out what happens to people who don't go to meetings any longer, as the old saying goes.

Next, we find others who've been through what we are going through and ask for help. I found tremendous strength in Naranon, which was very strong in the Bay Area where I lived at the time. "Detach with love," members kept telling me. So I tried.

But when one we love relapses, anger is often the first emotion that flares. As my acquaintance John Carter who wrote God, Get Me Out of This One, a book about his addiction (but unfortunately not about his recovery, which is a treasure), anger is often the last emotion "left standing." Anger is safe. It allows us to postpone the heartbreaking grief that follows. But the grief does follow. It is inevitable, unavoidable and threatens to overwhelm us.

Inflicting our anger on our loved one, who is sick, and on others in our path, isn't the way to deal with this emotion. Writing, talking to others about our feelings, screaming at the top of our lungs when we're alone, beating the crap out of a pillow, those are legitimate channels for our anger. One day I decided that I was going to take all the dishes out into the brick courtyard of our apartment and smash them one by one. It made perfect sense until I realized they'd probably cart me away.

I didn't get really angry until after the divorce when my wasband got clean and he started dating someone else. Then, I was furious! "You mean I put up with that SOB for five years then he gets clean and loves someone else?" I thought. I was on fire. Thank God, I had moved to LA by that time so I didn't have to see him in meetings and I was able to process my feelings with my sponsor there, act out in some pretty sad ways and get support from women at the WSO, where I worked at the time.

But while still in the relationship, one thing I learned was that He would tell me of some crisis he's created, problems with his instructor at school or having no money until payday, and I couldn't fix his problems.I would simply say "I'm sure you'll work it out." I stopped offering advice, offering to smooth things over, suggesting he go to a meeting, calling his male friends and asking them to talk with him. I worked my own program and tried to keep my mouth shut, which you can imagine is hard for me.

I don't mean I was a saint. I said some really mean things to him a time or two, at least. Once when he told me before the divorce was final that I could keep his last name (I used both mine and his), I blasted him with my opinion of his dysfunctional family.

Another thing I did was stop listening to people who wanted to update me on his whereabouts. There was one woman in particular who loved to make judgments about how I could stay with a practicing addict. She and her husband had a lot of years clean and I knew her concern wasn't concern, it was judgment. She didn't want to know what was happening out of love; she wanted information, I'm sure so that she could feel superior. About ten years later she O.D.ed on pain pills, my husband's drug of choice ironically, in a hotel room in Santa Cruz. We need to work our own programs and not worry about how other people are working theirs.

People would approach me at meetings with a look on their face I came to know. The look said: "I'm going to fill you in on what he's really up to." Once someone said "I saw your husband in the projects today with a VCR." Imagine how helpful that piece of information was, since he was a Texas white boy in the middle of an East or a West Oakland project. So when I saw them coming with that look, I would wave my hands in front of me and say "I don't want to hear it." Soon, the updates stopped. (That, incidentally, is a 'boundary'.)

My sponsor at the time, Tery, was tremendously helpful. She would tell me "Stay in Step Eleven," and "Act in haste, repent in leisure." So I stayed busy, finishing college, providing service and going to meetings. And I prayed constantly about the marriage and what God wanted from me.

How did I know when to leave? One day, after I'd given up a teaching fellowship at Fordham University to take a job and put him through treatment, we were driving to marriage counseling. I looked over and he was nodding out. He was loaded again.

We got to therapy and the therapist, very wise about addiction, asked him if he had anything to say to me. Of course, he didn't. She asked me if I had anything to say to him. "Yes," I said. "I want to know how long. One month, six months, six years; what's the time frame here?" I asked, referring to his using.

"I don't know," he said. I had a mini-epiphany. I realized that this was probably the most honest thing he'd ever said to me. I realized he didn't want to get clean; I wanted him to get clean.

I said, "Well, I do know." I told him it was over. I left therapy, went to a speaker meeting at Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley, stood at the podium during burning desires and sobbed. It was finally clear--it was done.

It took several years to get over the grief of that failed relationship. I don't care what anyone says, for me, taking sacred vows to love, honor and stay through sickness and in health changes a relationship in some spiritual way. He's remarried for the second time to his second wife. I hear from him occasionally, we laugh about the old days, talk about mutual friends, he talks about work, but we don't talk about the Program. That itself speaks volumes.

Codependency, for me, was my core problem. I grew up in a family that had no clear boundaries except anger. Over the years, and mainly thanks to Naranon, I have learned a great deal about what I can do and what I can't do in another's life. I've learned in NA that I can walk through fire and not get loaded, even when those I love choose different options.

As my beautiful friend Susan Lydon used to say, "If you feel your feelings, you never have to get loaded again." For those who come in and out of these rooms, I am convinced no one ever told them that.

Until tomorrow, may you walk in sunlight.

Welcome to my messy life

Why is it we get into relationships and suddenly the things we love about another person send us over the edge? Admittedly, I am a little overly obsessive about my dogs. But I've been that way for about 30 years, so it should come as no surprise to those who love me that:

1. There is often dog hair lying about, despite my best efforts at sweeping every day. I don't think everyone would want to live this way, but I am okay with it.
   
2. I don't go on spontaneous vacations anymore because I have to consider where I park the dogs, and believe me, not just anywhere will do.
3. If I'm gone all day, I want to hang out with my dogs. Sometimes they want some attention, too.

These are three weird things about me I guess, the latest craze sweeping the blogosphere. Why is it that we don't so much get into relationships as take hostages? "Become like me!" seems to be the mantra.

Yes, my house might appear, at times, a zoo. It has been that way for a long while. My childhood was a zoo: You made allowances if the dogs got sick; the dogs ate the fence; my brothers brought the colt into the living room (as they did one Christmas eve); the dogs left hair all over the place; the cat ate the fish; the horse got colic and you had to stay up all night to walk it; or the dogs hung out on the couch. This is how I was raised and I'm completely comfortable with it. You know the old saying? "If nothing changes, nothing changes." If you don't want it to change, well, then, it definitely won't change.

This is my messy life.

Every day I'm above ground and sucking air, as my sponsor says, I am grateful. I plan to go through it one day at a time, usually with a lot of dog hair on my clothes. How about you?

The 1st Tradition

I went to a meeting tonight; in fact, I've been to meetings every night since Sunday. I've been in a difficult place; a lot of personal things going on. Tonight's topic was the 1st Tradition, each group should be autonomous . . . .

It got me thinking about what kinds of meetings I like to attend. The town where I live has one meeting per night, so there isn't much choice. I hit most of them from time to time, Sunday night is my home group. There is one meeting in town, though, that I don't attend. It's an "everything has to go exactly like what is on the format" or the poobahs that started the meeting will have apoplexy. I call it a control issue, but what do I know?

I know as an addict, I don't like authority, never did, and despite many inventories and a new Fourth Step in progress, probably never will. I didn't come to NA to have someone else's ideas of how to behave or what direction the sharing in a meeting "must" go, right or left, pushed down my throat. If that attitude will cause me to rebel, imagine what it will do to newcomers.

Tonight I shared about the type meetings I support. To my taste, the best meetings are relaxed; yes, there are some ground rules, but there is a good deal of bantering that could be construed, in those oh-so-rigid meetings, as crosstalk.

I like meetings where we don't read everything NA has ever written, nor take up the entire hour reading from literature at a literature study. Even with my years clean, I can't pay attention that long.

I also like meetings where people don't share to correct members who spoke before them, no matter how much clean time the "correctors" have. The program I work may get someone else loaded. There are a few things I've learned that I think are musts, but that's my path and I don't have to correct everyone who differs with the way I think the Program works.

My favorite meetings are those that make a big fuss over newcomers, greet new people to the meeting they may not know, and that start on time and end, reasonably on time. I don't like candlelight meetings because, as I learned from my old friend Red, newcomers needs to look you in the eye so they know you aren't bullshitting them about staying clean.

One local meeting just had a group conscience and decided to outlaw text messaging in the meeting. I don't like meetings that change their format to address one problem rather than talking to the "problem" and straightening it out, or not. Personally, if someone wants to sit in meetings and text message, who is it hurting but him?

If there is scandal revolving around a meeting as we've had here for a few months, I refuse to listen to the gossip. I simply tell people that "I don't want to hear it." A meeting that is spiritually unfit will die; it is that simple. If I don't like the things that I believe are going on in a meeting, I can either attend it and hope to steer it back toward center (not my center, an atmosphere of recovery that our literature describes), or not support the meeting and simply say, if asked, that "I don't go to that meeting." It's not my duty to run around town spreading more gossip about the meeting to try to stir up support and "save" the meeting.

Our First Tradition is a strong tie that can bind us together if we remember that it's all about our "common" welfare, not my group's welfare at the expense of another group's.

And here's another opinion. If your sponsor, after taking you through the Steps, doesn't then take you through the Traditions, offer to go through them together with him or her. They may never have done so.

The Traditions are just as important in our recovery, if we want to keep what we have, as are the Steps, in my opinion, anyway.

Well, I am exiting my soapbox for an early bedtime. Tomorrow is another day.

Slow news day

The squirrels are busy, however.

Another good meeting

I had kind of a rough day trying to figure out some health insurance stuff and dealing with life on life's terms. So I headed to a meeting tonight, right after I cooked up a batch of chicken with rigatoni. It was good if I do say so myself.

Anyway, one of the kids at the meeting (this meeting gets all the drug court people) was saying that he though people who had NA stickers on their cars were narcs. When was the last time you used the work "narc"? Anyway, it reminded me of a story, I'm not sure why but lately at that meeting I'm surrounded by all the teenagers and young adults, and I remember a lot of stories from my early recovery.

I was married at the time and we were at the Northern California Regional NA convention in Sacramento, probably in about 1989. Anyhoo, we ate dinner, my wasband and me and about five of my girlfriends, Susan Lydon, who I've blogged about before, and several other women. After we all threw our money in, my wasband stayed inside to pay the bill and we went out on the sidewalk to wait for him to head to the convention center.

Standing outside by about ten brand new pickups were a bunch of Hells Angels in their colors. We gals stood there waiting for my wasband and they sort of sidled over to us and starting making conversation. I was not in the mood to chat because I steer clear of bikers of that ilk, but a few of the gals started chatting with one in particular.

He asked us where we were from and we told him Oakland, the home of Sonny Barger, who of course started the whole mess. He asked what we were doing in Sacramento. There was a weird silence. My friend Marilyn piped up and said, "We're here for a Narcotics Anonymous meeting."

The biker kind of hiked his leather vest around him and said, "Well, I prefer to keep my narcotics anonymous, too."

But that wasn't the funniest part. My wasband about that time came out of the restaurant and saw us standing there surrounded by Hells Angels. He walked by us like he didn't even know us. Later I asked him why and he said, "What do I look, stupid?" He was a survivor, that's for sure.

Anyway, it was getting dark as we all piled in the car and drove to the convention center for the speaker meeting. We drove across the Sacramento River bridge and we saw this one headlight coming toward us. We couldn't figure out what it was until we were right up on it. A street person pushing a grocery cart had rigged up a headlight on his cart. It was too bizarre.

I used to love to go to NA conventions. Last weekend was Arizona Regional Convention which is an awesome convention and which I unfortunately could not attend. Until tomorrow, 2 dogs say "Hey."