Why do you think they call it "heart-broken?"

Why do you think they call it "heart-broken?"

When I had about three years clean, my husband at the time began using. It was very painful to watch, but his drug of choice was not mine and he was careful to keep drugs out of our home. At the time, I was in college in California and while he continued to work and use, I continued my education and went to meetings. Because we'd relocated from Arizona, I had to find a new sponsor, and as the Fellowship often serendipitously provides, I found a perfect sponsor, Terri. Between Terri, Naranon and my best friend, Susan Lydon, the author we lost to cancer a decade ago, I managed to stay relatively sane. Most importantly, I stayed clean.

As word of his using began to spread, some people I knew casually in the rooms were willing to give me advice, most of it very painful and unrequested.  One gal approached me one day and asked me, "How do you stand it?," referring to watching my husband  loaded all the while. Another asked me after a meeting when I had shared some of the pain of the situation, "When you gonna let that man go?" then walked away as if she'd just solved my problem. None of that "advice" was loving or helpful. These women didn't give me the time of day outside of occasionally dropping advice from way up on high. Most of those people aren't around anymore, I might add.

My sponsor, on the other hand, gave me this advice: "Stay in the 11th Step, asking for the knowledge of God's will and the power to carry it out. You might not get them both at the same time." She was right.

Two years later when I was about ready to graduate from college, it became clear that I would have to make some changes, yet I didn't know when or how. I had applied for and been accepted for a teaching fellowship in New York at Fordham University. I told my husband about the offer and he immediately offered to go into treatment. I turned down the offer and went to work, putting him through treatment once again.

I had a job I loved, but I deeply regretted my decision not to accept the teaching fellowship. We were in marriage counseling and one Saturday morning as we drove to therapy, he said something to me and I noticed immediately that he slurred his words; he was loaded again. We arrived at the therapist's office and sat on her third-degree sofa, to borrow a phrase from the poet Gregory Corso. She immediately saw that he was loaded and that I holding back tears. She asked him if he had anything he wanted to say to me. "No," he said, then sat silently looking at the floor.

She asked me if I had anything I wanted to say to him. "Yes," I said, "I have one question. How long? Two months, two years, six years? How long until you get clean?" 

"I don't know," he answered, and I realized that was the most truthful thing he had probably said to me during our entire marriage. It struck me right then, sitting on that sofa, that he didn't want to get clean; I wanted him to get clean." I knew it was time to leave. God had given me both: the knowledge of His will and the power to carry it out.

I left him there and took the bus to the Saturday morning Berkeley NA meeting. I stood at the podium and sobbed. The marriage was over and I could begin the process of detaching for good.

Within a few months of our divorce, I took a job in Los Angeles at the WSO and began work as a special worker. I was surrounded by years of solid recovery and while I began to heal, I was still in terrible emotional pain. Some days it was all I could do to get out of bed, go to work, drag myself home and then sit in a hot bath.

One particularly tough day at work, I asked another trusted servant, "Vida, I hurt in my body. Why?" She turned to me and said, "Of course you do, honey, why do you think they call it heart-broken," twisting her hands as if to show the breaking of a stick. My heart was truly broken and I felt that pain not only in my spirit but in my body. It made sense then.

It's been over 25 years since my divorce and my ex-husband still uses. He phones me once a year or so to report something, his brother's death from liver disease or that he's homeless again. I'm remarried to a man who loves his life in the Fellowship and shows it by giving back daily. God had a plan for me that I couldn't see at the time. But I stayed clean long enough to see it unfold.

It is only through the strength of my sponsors and predecessors in the rooms that I've gotten through some of the darkest times of my recovery. I am eternally grateful and work to stay that way, because gratitude is not my normal spiritual condition.

 How about you? What are you grateful for today?





 

More dog poetry

Who ever said dog was man's best friend?

My boyfriend came right to the point, as men are prone to do.
"Either that dog goes or I do," he said.
The next day I bought 100 pounds of dog food.
It's going to be a long winter.

Some random thoughts on giving back in the Fellowship

One of my favorite ways to serve in the Fellowship is through Hospitals and Institutions, which takes meetings into places where those who may need to hear the message can't get to outside meetings. Last night at the last minute I agreed to share at a Hospitals and Institutions meeting at a local recovery house. I was tired and had no time to think about what I was going to share. Sometimes, that's the best way.

When I got there, I met the facilitator and we sat and chatted as the room filled up. Soon, about 20 addicts in various age ranges sat staring at us. One thing a long-term treatment program offers is the chance to build friendships with others who are struggling with addiction, so there was a lot of laughing and joking as they waited for the meeting to start.

When I speak at this type meeting, I focus on the unmanageability of my life during my active addiction. Looking at me (I often say, "I know, I look like a Girl Scout troop leader or someone's very hip grandmother"), you wouldn't think I ever smoked a joint, much less shot heroin for a decade or so. I want newcomers to relate in some way to the craziness, the sadness and the hopelessness. Next, we usually do a question-and-answer period.

I shared my story, which is pretty funny in parts, and the newcomers listened intently and had a few laughs. They asked some really good questions. Here are a few:

• "How long did it take you to detox off methadone?" 
• Answer: A long time. The detox lasted about a month, but the effects lingered on for years. I didn't want to depress them, I said, but I didn't sleep much for my first seven years! (Remember when your sponsor told you, "Lack of sleep never killed anyone!" and you thought, "Except now I'm going to kill you!"?)
• "What are the first three things you do each day to stay clean?"
1. Thank God for another safe night and an awakening, not a "wake-up."
2. Roughly plan when I will go to my next meeting.
3. Try to set out with the intention to be a nice person. 
• "What is the hardest thing you've ever stayed clean through?"
• My liver transplant. While the three deaths in my family -- my mom, my dad and my brother -- were incredibly difficult, the liver transplant and the chronic level 8 and 9 and 10 pain were so difficult it is beyond description. Unless you've been that sick or been an attendant to someone that sick, you can't understand.

I thought they asked very insightful questions. They made me think and it really helped me connect with these newcomers.

If you're not active in service, you're missing a tremendous opportunity. While I can't judge anyone else's recovery, I simply do not understand those who stay clean yet abandon the rooms. If this program saved your life, which it undoubtedly did mine, why would you not continue to go to meetings and fail to pay back what was so freely given you?

Have a great day.

Feeling unlovable

About two decades ago, I went to a seminar in Los Angeles with a friend of mine. I can't remember for sure who spoke, although I think it was Sondra Ray. The seminar had a huge impact on me; in fact, it changed my life.

The speaker talked of that one lie we all tell ourselves, that "believable" lie that we learned in childhood and which has shaped so many of our actions throughout our lives. She asked us to take a few moments and think, to recall the lie that we keep telling ourselves, that one key belief we have about ourselves that is ultimately false and holds us back. 

I didn't have to wait long. I knew what that lie was. It was simple. It was what I'd learned in my childhood in a home where one of my parents failed to value me as a unique individual and instead kept pushing me to be someone I was not. This was the lie: "You are unlovable."

Over the years, I've worked hard to dispel that lie and to act in ways that make me lovable, yet not at the expense of my own calling and my own uniqueness. But sometimes that old lie resurfaces and I have to take steps to dispel it from my thoughts.

Tonight I was driving to a meeting and thinking, "That old lie is really rattling around in my head." I had a few thoughts that arrived just after that realization. Here they are:

• When I feel unlovable, it may be time to be more loving.
• It may be time to call my sponsor and a few friends for a reality check. They love me. 
• Spend more time in meditation.
• Pray and ask God to find ways to make me be uniquely useful, which will help to banish those feelings.

Believable lies are powerful because they are so deeply ingrained in us. That I am unlovable, on it's face, may seem real because sometimes I am sometimes irritable and angry and I fail. I am not perfect, in fact, far from it. But people do love me and if I take the time to do the next right thing with love, then I will become more centered and more self-loving. It's a process of returning to Truth.

Isn't that what the program is all about? 

Landmark natal birthday

I just had a natal birthday, a big one I'm trying to ignore. I know a lot of women are proud of their age, but I prefer to keep a bit quiet about my age. I had a great day up north with a friend or two and went out to dinner with another friend.

Life today is good. I'm picking my husband up at the airport tonight while wearing my new, 24-hour heart monitor. I'm sure he'll ask what it's for. I'm going to point to the 'event' button and tell him if he doesn't agree to a few remodeling changes around the house, I'm going to detonate the thing and blow us both up. I learned that negotiation tip in a slightly different form from my mother. It involved new carpeting. A long story, so I'll end here.

Have a great day. It's already in the upper 80s here; too hot for February.

Another day in the trenches

Just checking in to say "All is well." The weather is beautiful, I'm having lunch with a friend of a friend visiting from the Midwest, then I'm speaking at a meeting at 5 p.m. I don't speak all that often, but when I do, I usually think about the message I want to convey and write a few bullet points. I usually keep it simple: What it was like, what happened, and what it's like today.

Here will be my bullet points today:

What it was like: My bottom had a hole in it. I hit bottom at 17 on the streets of Oakland and it got only slightly better until I hit the rooms at 27.

What happened: I walked into an AA meeting at 24 and raised my hand and said I was a heroin addict and I didn't know if you could help me. Everyone said, "Keep coming back." Three years later, I did.

What it's like today:  When I got here, someone suggested I write down on a piece of paper what I wanted in one year. It was simple. I wanted a roof over my head, to pay bills on time, to own a car, to have a dog, and to lose that constant depression and misery. Today, 31 years later, I have that and so much more.

If you're struggling, know that it does get better. First it may only get different, but slowly it gets better.