Depression in recovery

NA is going through a big redefining, it seems, of the use of medications, including methadone, in recovery. There was a great meeting at World Convention on this topic, which has generated another outpouring of discussion. I think eventually we'll reach some sort of consensus; however, I try to stay out of the fray. I have strong opinions, but they are just that, my opinions which have arisen out of 1) my personal biases and 2) the flaming failures I've seen over the years of those who choose to take medications in recovery without proper oversight.

Last night a young gal approached me at a meeting because she's having trouble with her medications for anxiety and sleeplessness. I am not a psychiatrist; I'm not qualified to counsel her regarding what to do about anxiety and which drugs are okay to use within our confines. I simply referred her to a woman who is a local resource who will help her find a psychiatrist that is familiar with the addiction model.

Early in my recovery, I watched a gal who had psychosis stop taking all her medications, allegedly at her sponsor's request. She soon starting coming to meetings wearing a gun belt and carrying a racket ball racket in her purse, with the back window missing from her car. Then she called a friend of mine in a panic and said the Secret Service were watching her. He went over to visit her to try to calm her down only to be confronted in her front yard by--the Secret Service. Apparently she had written the President at the time a few bizarre letters.

This was a powerful lesson to me. As much as I know which drugs I can take with impunity (and there aren't many) and which ones I can't, it's not my job to give advice to a newcomer about medication. I can only hope she gets a good psychiatrist who can guide her in her choice of medications.

There are people who I watch struggle, I mean struggle, with depression in recovery. I really feel for them, because in some cases, you can work The Steps until you drop, but the depression is obviously a chemical imbalance from years of torquing our own chemistry or a hereditary problem. I dislike the black and white thinking I sometimes hear that "I just work The Steps and if you did, you wouldn't be depressed." I usually approach these people after the meeting and ask where they were credentialed.

Our literature is clear. There are times in recovery, and this includes for some of us our entire lives, that we must take medication. That decision is one best made with a doctor and a very savvy sponsor.

Another good meeting

I'm in St. Louis because I have to attend a business meeting tomorrow. I brought Oz with me and hit a meeting near my hotel. It was a Traditions meeting, Tradition Nine was the topic. I enjoyed it. I always enjoy attending meetings out of town because I can usually put principles before personalities. I'm entering a meeting and don't know anyone, so I have no preconceived notions.

One man was celebrating his 18th birthday and started the meeting for apologizing for his outburst the previous week. Where else can you go where you've behaved like a jerk and walk in the next time and no one says "Hey, are you going to behave tonight?"

It's a great thing that there are no rules in our Fellowship and no requirement for membership other than a desire to stop using substances. I was always a rebel and if anyone told me that I had to sit a certain place or behave a certain way, I probably wouldn't have gone back.

I'm grateful today I stuck around long enough to experience the miracle.

Help me, I'm melting!

I melt down often. Well, not often, but at least about once a quarter. I never know exactly what triggers it. It might be something small that breaks the camel's proverbial back. I can give you some meltdown examples from the past few years.

1. I couldn't get an issue resolved with the cable company. Although I had transferred my service to someone else's name, I kept getting the bill and so did they. It was affecting my phone service since it was a global billing (note to self--never buy into global billing again!). I spent hours on the phone and more hours trying to get it resolved until I was literally screaming at the customer service person. The result? They transferred me to someone who could help, in the process, they cut me off. Think that was a coincidence? Once I calmed down, I called the public utilities commission who told me what number to call for the head honchos and it appears there is a solution in sight.


2. I had been looking for a job with no results for about six months. I had a job interview that sounded like it might be a fit. When I got there, four different men spent about an hour talking to me for what turned out to be a clerical position. One was very condescending. I left there feeling so humiliated I could barely stand it. I talked to someone about it and I felt better.


3. I completed a project for a client that I thought was what she wanted. I spent about two full days working on it. It wasn't what she wanted at all. It was my fault, after all, because I hadn't outlined the project before beginning. I assumed she still wanted what she thought she wanted originally although several weeks had passed. I waited a day or so before contacting her and worked through my feelings, mostly disappointment. But boy, in the meantime, I was a mess. I simply kept on keeping on and worked through it. I didn't listen to any voice telling me I would never be successful as a writer.
   

I get overwhelmed from time to time; I think we all do. Sometimes when it seems like it's all crap I have to think about how I'm framing things. For example, a gal who is in charge of our newsletter e-mailed me in a panic asking me to do an article on Tradition Three. She said that the person who was going to do the article didn't. It took me about two hours and I e-mailed it to her.

The next night I saw her at a meeting and she was complaining how sick she was of service. She said "No one" ever helps her. I pointed out to her that I had helped her. I wasn't no one. Using terms like that, my friends, is catastrophizing.

I do it too. When I get mad, I frequently say "You ALWAYS do that!" or "You never do this," using those black or white terms. That's usually far from the truth. If we really examine those statements, most of the time things like that irritate us happen, but we tend to get overly emotional and use terms like "never," "always," "continuously," "every time," etc.

When I call my sponsor in a snit, she always tells me firmly, "Lose the drama." She's right, of course, although it often hurts my feelings. When I'm in the middle of a drama that revolves around me, I can't think correctly; I'm swinging from the emotional vine yelling "Tarzan." (Actually, that's me, Jane, on the far right, looking bewildered.)

Melting down is part of the life of an emotionally labile person like me. It took me many years of recovery before I saw that trait because no one ever pointed it out. Or if they did, I wasn't ready to hear it. I just swung hysterically through jobs, leaving because my boss "didn't appreciate me" or pay me well enough, rather than practice patience and try to avoid seeing everything as an attack upon me as a female. (Although in some cases it was, but that's another story.)

I have grown in the past decades of recovery, but it has been a slow, painful process. I'm glad I now have a sponsor who isn't afraid of hurting my feelings to get my attention. My meltdowns are now fewer, less dramatic and shorter. That, dear readers, is growth.

Get in the middle of the pack

When I first came around the rooms, I heard this expression often. I had been a loner, an isolator, a rebel without a cause for so many years, I didn't think that expression applied to me. I was terminally unique, as many of us that come in and out of the rooms feel we are. I was sure that no one had ever been through what I'd been through or used drugs the way that I had.

Today I can safely say I've been around well over two decades and I'm still in the middle of the pack. I go to at least three or four meetings a week, I am of service in my home group and of some help in general service to the Fellowship, speaking at H&I meetings when I can and sponsoring a few wonderful women.

The other night at my home group I was swilling down a wonderful cup of coffee, looking at faces of people I have grown to love and feeling very lucky to be part of this wonderful Fellowship. Because I "suit up and show up," share my experience, I hope, in a non-judgmental way, I can be of maximum service to my fellow addicts and to society as a whole.

This person is a far cry from that shattered gal who vibrated into meetings for the first time almost 25 years ago. Today there is such abundance in my life--friends; relationships with siblings that grow stronger every year; 2 dogs, of course; and a strong presence in my life of a partner with whom I'm struggling, on a daily basis, to connect with.
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We often fail forward, don't we? When we stumble in recovery, we don't fall back, we really fall a few steps forward. When I stay in the middle of the pack, it's easier to sort out the next right action I have to take to get back on the path to recovery.

Until next time, stay in the middle of the pack. You'll find with winter soon coming, it's much warmer and safer there.

The Gratitude Dance

Seeing God in nature

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Sometimes when I'm blue, I spend some time in nature to remember that I'm not the center of the universe. I've been working a 4th Step for quite awhile, waiting to meet my sponsor face-to-face to do my 5th. I thought I was finished, but alas, a new character defect has come to my attention quite suddenly. That character defect--inflexibility.

I loved my mother more than anyone on earth, I think, God bless her soul. But she was a trifle inflexible and I always found that trait extremely frustrating and saw the problems it caused in her marriage of 50 plus years to my father. I always swore I wouldn't be inflexible. But often when we say "I'll never be like her or him," we throw the baby out with the bathwater, and reject that person's good characteristics as well. I certainly didn't inherit my mother's wonderful trait of loving kindness; I've had to work on that trait.

I was a free spirit. I always was the little hippie dippy gal, running around the U.S. in braids and a knitted cap, living here and there, hitchhiking, on a whim, to wherever I felt I needed to be. I was not, I was sure, an inflexible person.

Okay, so I know when it comes to 2dogs, I am inflexible. That I will readily admit. I didn't realize, though, that I'm inflexible in some many other ways, nor did I realize the effects that inflexibility has on others in my life.

Last night I talked about this trait at a meeting. There was a woman visiting from a large city at the meeting who proceeded to give me all sorts of advice about what I should do (crosstalk, as I define it). I know when we travel out of our own element we sometimes think we can go to small towns and "set people right" with our superior experience, strength and hope. Frankly, it just annoyed me. But I digress.

I know what actions to take. This ain't my first rodeo. It's more in depth inventory and a call to my sponsor.

I wrote a letter of amends to a person who has been hurt by my inflexibility but didn't mail it because frankly, it digressed into a bit of an angry overtone, which is not what amends are about. Amends are "I was wrong; I'm sorry," not a "I did this but you did that, so you are wrong here, too."

So until I post again, have a great day. Fall is in the air in Missouri and frankly, I'm looking forward to it.

If you're not hearing what you need to in meetings

Maybe you're not listening hard enough. This beautiful pic was taken by Barb, our fellow blogger. Isn't that great?

I find that when I don't hear what I need in meetings, it's sometimes because I'm so busy judging the content of the character of the speaker who is sharing. It is so hard to suspend judgment sometimes, isn't it?

But it's terribly important that we put principles before personalities, especially in smaller towns where the same people hit the same meetings again and again. I am blessed to have a lot of clean time and I find that people watch how I act and what I say. If I portray even the slightest negativity toward another NA member, they are quick to pick up on it and add their two cents. So I work at keeping my facial expressions neutral (which is hard for me) and my comments kind.

Last night I walked into a store behind one of our Fellowship's younger members. His pants were bagging and I immediately began to take his inventory. Then I remembered: This young man spent most of his formative years in correctional facilities. He's working hard, he has a young son he loves to death, and he's trying to clean up his language in meetings. Who am I to judge him? I didn't have the same upbringing; I'm not a single parent; my language is far from perfect. Thank God I am learning tolerance and mercy in Narcotics Anonymous.

There's another young couple in NA who have a few months clean but have been in and out for years. They are so busy taking everyone else's inventory regarding how they work their programs, I can't imagine how they find time to take their own. They both have sponsors and hopefully at some point their sponsors will point this out. Until then, I don't have to participate; I can walk away or gently remind them to "take their own inventories."

It's a daily walk toward becoming a better human being, isn't it?

Don't pick up that lip balm!

It could be addicting!

This must be what serenity means

I was driving along yesterday feeling very content, thinking that my life is almost perfect. I can't think of one thing to complain about, at least not for the past few days. If my parents were still alive, my life would be absolutely perfect. That's the only thing I can say I feel the slightest regret about.

I think this feeling is serenity! Or joy. Or some other by-product of right living. And as for my parents, I am just grateful that I had them for all the years I did.

Life, today, is good. When there is a problem, it's a much higher quality of problem than I had in my using days. So until tomorrow, I'm going to relish this feeling.

Day Three

I'm home now, but had a great time and no time to blog further while there. Every minute was something new to do, a meeting to go to, a walk along the San Antonio Riverwalk, or a new restaurant to check out. As I get older, I find myself more distanced from NA, at least here in Missouri where most of the newcomers are crack or meth addicts and much, much younger (the courts drag them in young these days!).

I'm always a little concerned about how addicts in large groups will behave, recalling how badly I did in early recovery. I remember once at a regional convention in Denver we were in a hotel that was shaped like a pyramid, with staggered balconies. I talked a friend of mine, Mike, into lobbying an M-80 off my balcony onto another balcony above of a friend from Arizona, Michael U, to wake him up because he had an early flight to catch.

Unbeknownst to us, his door was open and the M80 hit the end of his bed and about scared him into a heart attack. We were laughing uproariously when my phone rang in my room. "God loves you, Nancy," Mike said, furiously, "I'm trying to."

But World is the top of the food chain addicts, generally speaking, because it costs a bit to get there and register and stay in the pricey hotels. The behavior, I'm saying without trying to sound like a snob, was awesome. Everywhere we went in San Antonio in the downtown, there were addicts with their name tags and smiles and hugs. There was so much love in the air, it was infectious. The people of San Antonio, the drivers who shuttled us, the convention center employees who served us volumes of coffee and snackies, everyone was awesome and friendly.

If you've never been to a World Convention, save $10 a week because in 2009, it's going to Barcelona, Spain. I hope to see you there. And a shout out to WSO employees and the members who made this possible--You did an awesome job! We thank you!