Worms in my Refrigerator

I like to fish or maybe I like thought of being able to fish, I don't know.  Anyhow, I went and bought a new rod, reel, tackle box and worms.  I put all my new fishing gear in my room and the worms in the frig.  Worms are always kept in the refrigerator, according to my Dad.  That action brought about a memory of my Grandma D.

Grandma D. had a cabin in the northern lower peninsula of Michigan.  We vacationed there every July.  By we I mean my parents and my brothers and sister.  I loved "the cabin".  It was back 45 years ago and we were one of the very few cabins on the lake.  There was literally a one lane path leading back through the woods to the cabin.  I loved it there and many of my fondest memories are from our times there.

Anyhow, Dad would take Don (my brother) and I fishing.  We went everyday, twice a day some days.  And when I didn't get to go in the boat I fished off the dock.  It was really cool because at the end of the dock the lake had drop off and it was very deep and dark.  You could catch as many or more fish from the dock as you could from the boat.  When not fishing, we went digging for worms.  We kept the worms in an old Crisco can in the refrigerator.

My Grandma was a lady.  She always reminded me of the Queen of England, a proper lady.  You can see where this is going... She went to fix popcorn for us one night.  Got out the "Crisco" and, you guessed it, worms went flying all over the cabin.

A Step Back in Time into Love

My children's paternal grandmother, Leona, passed away in December.  Her family decided to have her funeral in February.  My daughter wanted to go and I agreed to go with her this past weekend.  I have always loved my ex-husband, Jim, and I was so very "in" love with his family.  Walking into Leona's home the other night was a step back in time.  Seeing everyone was nearly overwhelming for me.  After all theses decades, they made me feel at home. Welcome.  It was as if years of separation had never happened.

Jim was a wonderful man, a very caring and compassionate husband and an awesome father.  It was me, my secrets and my mental illness.  I think I was mentally ill long before my marriage but the birth of my daughter and the depression that followed was my first glimpse into hell.  I thought my husband was my dad and I was my mother and Trisha was me.  I couldn't make sense of the world or anything in it.  My husband went to our doctor and the doctor ordered a prescription of Valium for me (my start into the world of addiction).

I somehow felt I had to hide who I really was from everyone.  My husband was the oldest of 10 and hiding in his large family was easy.  I loved them and for the first time I understood the meaning of family.  I never had a real family.  Jim's family made me feel loved,  protected and secure.  The large stately home they lived in was my sanctuary.  I went there all the time and I couldn't have been happier and I was never again saner.

Jim went into the Army, his family moved to Florida and I had two more children, my sons.  During my third pregnancy Jim had to leave for his third tour in Viet Nam.  I was in horrible shape mentally.  Jim did everything he could do to stay home with me.  He took me to Army doctors and they said I would be fine just have a couple drinks before bed to help me sleep.  (My first steps into alcoholism.)  He left and just before our second son was born Viet Nam ended.  My husband came home and we bundled up our new baby boy and headed off to Fort Sill, OK.

The third kid was overwhelming for me.  I couldn't figure out how to take care of three of them. I only had two arms.  Who would I save in a fire?  What would I do?  Big Jim worked nights and I was so terrified.  He brought a hand gun home but that made me more fearful and so he had to take it away.  My third kid was very ill and would stop breathing often.  He wasn't gaining weight, couldn't hold up his head and was not connected to the world.  The doctors thought he had mental issues because the cord was wrapped around his neck at birth.  It turned out to be allergies but the damage to my mental health was swift and severe.  The solution for me was more Valium or Librium and booze.

I met a woman during that madness and she would take my hand and walk with me into the very pits of addiction, alcoholism and insanity.  She helped me find the false courage I needed to get divorced.  Many years before, in the late 1960's, I had left Jim.  My parents with my daughters Godparents told me if I divorced him they would go to court and have Trisha (my only child at the time) taken away from me.  So, I felt like I had go as far away from family as I could.  Besides, why would they want to hear from me anyhow?  I moved to California and stayed low.  I would never give up my babies.  Never.  By now deep paranoia had set in.  I self medicated and drank more and more.  I stayed in the pits of hell for nearly ten years until 1984.  That is when I found Dr Jacob and my 12 step program.

No one will ever know how much I still mourn the loss of my husband and his family.  How much I wish my children could have known the normalcy and love this family would have freely given them.  I often wonder how things would have been different for me and my children if and if.  This weekend I was able to tell Jim's wife of 20 plus years how much I appreciate her. Jim deserves happiness and a good wife who can take care of him.  I was able to tell Jim I will love him until my last breath and I am so sorry I couldn't be the wife he needed and deserved.  I was able to embrace and be embraced by the people that taught me to love and to be loved, for the first time in my life, all those years ago.

Thank you to my Higher Power for the gift of one of the most beautiful, bitter-sweet weekends of my life.  I only pray today for forgiveness from this family and my children.  Your will Father not mine.
     

All these years...

I got my 3rd four year token yesterday.  I got to choose the speaker at a meeting that is not typically a speaker meeting.  The guys even bought me a birthday cake! Rob gave me my token in front of everyone.  He patted my back about the quality of my sobriety, starting a new meeting, and becoming our GSR.  Ron was choked up.  Many of the people that came up and gave me a hug after the meeting were near tears.  This was very important to these people - four years!

I stood there for a long time watching people talk about the journey sobriety takes us on while we ate cake.  I was amazed at the tears of happiness and the laughter.  I was standing there ashamed.  Ashamed because I should have picked up my 25 year token in December.  As soon as that thought crossed my mind it dissolved and I felt overwhelmed.  In an instant I felt new, whole, perfect. I saw through the eyes of a person who had lost it all and in 4 years had more then they ever could imagine.  I really could not have imagined the life I live today!  I have never before felt this level of gratitude and peace.

Thank you to everyone who has been part of these four years.  Some are AA, some are Al-Anon, some are still drunks, some are near, some are afar, some are friends, and some are family.  Some know the peace true serenity brings and some are still learning.  I can see the promises through your eyes for the first time and I am so deeply grateful.

Who's Inventory Are You Taking? Mine or Yours

I haven't written in a bit because I was out of the country, then I got sick, and then my family went crazy.  For one, I was called dysfunctional. No way, me?  Well, I wasn't just called dysfunctional it was put in writing on a social network for all the world to see.  It hurt my feelings.  The truth is generally painful.  The person involved in the name calling might want to look at themselves.  You know what "they" say, "You spot it, you got it." or "You name it, you claim it."

My children haven't lived with me in over 20 years, my siblings haven't lived with me in over 40 years. The way I see it, the basic problem here is, I have changed so much in the last years I don't even look like the same person.  I don't sound like her, I don't dress like her and I don't talk like her.  They don't know that, they still see the old person.  I have spent a lifetime in therapy, 25 years in AA and 23 years in Al-Anon.  Have I "slipped" over the years?  Yep.  Am I perfect? Nope.

As painful as it is for me, there are things about me I can never change.  I cannot change the Mommy that was not perfect but, oh my gosh, I was so much better then my role models.  Other things I cannot change are, I am an alcoholic.  I am an adult child of alcoholic parents.  I was abused, neglected and unloved.  I am the mother of a drug addict.  I am bi-polar.  I am short and I am getting old.  

Do I get mad when I allow you to suck me in?  You bet I do.  I turn into the raging idiot that was living in my body before I found a program.  However, my anger is not aimed at you today.  It is aimed at me for allowing myself to play very hurtful games with you.  Today I recover quicker. Today I have sponsors, friends, meetings and my Big Book.  Today I can be swift in forgiving and more importantly, I can forgive myself.  Today I know love and I am loved.



 

Going Home

As many of you know, I moved from Michigan to Mississippi about 8 months ago.  I was raised in Michigan and spent the majority of my life there.  I got sober in Michigan.  I went to Al-anon for many years in Michigan.  My home group for both programs meets at Bixby Hospital in Adrian, MI.  My church is in Michigan and most of my friends live in Michigan.  So, when I got the chance to go back to Michigan for a visit it was a "no brainer" for me.  As I drove the miles between Mississippi and Michigan I felt great excitement.  I was on my way home.

My mom told me many years ago one can never go back home. I had not been gone that long, or had I?  I was blessed to have the opportunity to go to my church and my home group meeting.  My meeting was over early so I went down the hall to Al-anon.  I felt comfortable in my church.  A new couple I didn't know came over and sat with me.  Both of my meetings at Bixby Hospital felt comfortable but something was missing. Maybe my ego thought people would fall down at my feet.

On my way back to Mississippi I really felt like I was on my way "back home".  I drove all the way back to Mississippi as fast as I could.  I drove into the night, way past my normal bedtime.  Skipping breaks and eating fast food fast.  I wanted to be back home.  I wanted to get to bed and get up on time for my home group meeting in Tupelo.  I made it!  And you know what?  People didn't fall to their feet but I did!  I was so happy to get home to my home group meeting.  The guys were all there that have become very special to me.

I have struggled with my sobriety for many years.  I know now that the move to Mississippi was a gift from my Higher Power.  The move has renewed and refreshed my sobriety.  After I went back out the second time I felt so bad about myself and I felt everyone in the state of Michigan was judging me.  It seemed to me my sobriety was always in jeopardy.  The people at my home group here in Mississippi know about my past.  The difference is I have never let them down and I hope I never do.  I feel new, welcome and very special here.  I feel at home.



      

God and the Woodpecker

November is gratitude month and believe it or not, as of today, I have not sat at one gratitude table.  In Michigan it seemed all we had were gratitude meetings in November!  I hated those meetings.  People said, "I am grateful for my sobriety." I always thought, "Big deal everyone in the room is sober."

I learned the biggest lessons of my life in March of 2009.  First, I need to back up a few months.  I had a beautiful backyard in Michigan with a creek and huge old trees.  In my kitchen was a big sliding glass door and I could sit at my breakfast table and behold nature.  Out in my yard I had a tiny little bird house with a tiny little hole in it.  Every spring these little birds would come and have babies birds and leave at summers end.

In the late fall of 2008 I was watching out my door and along came a red-headed woodpecker.  He started pecking away at the little hole in my little birdhouse.  At first I wanted to shoo him away but I had never seen a woodpecker up close.  So I watched in fascination as he hammered away.  When he left I looked and to my horror the cute little hole was big, ugly and out of shape.  Before I could get up from the table along came these bigger birds.  They made their home there in the birdhouse.  The imperfect house, in my eyes, became a perfect home for those birds!  My gift was a lesson about perfection and God's grace but it doesn't end there.

In March of 2009, the movers came and went and I was wrapping up a bittersweet move from Michigan to Mississippi.  I was cleaning out the last remaining things from the kitchen and I looked out and saw my poor run down birdhouse.  I was wondering if those little birds would live in that house ever again.  All of a sudden a huge storm started.  It got very black and the wind blew very hard.  The river was way above its the banks and the huge trees were water-logged and heavy.

When the storm ended many trees had fallen across my backyard.  Part of my garage roof was torn back and I had minor damage to my house.  My fence had collapsed under the tremendous weight of those huge old trees.  I looked through the limbs and devastation and there, standing proud, was the birdhouse.  What a beautiful gift my HP gave me!  He showed me His grace and His love.  If He cared so much for His birds, I knew I was "worth it".  I also knew everything would be O.K. and for that I am very grateful.

Gifts From "HP" and My Cousin

Getting gifts from my Higher Power is always great but the one I got this time is beyond my dreams.  I know the gifts were always there but anger and fear blinded from seeing them.  It seems the more I thank "HP", the more I am able to see and the more I receive.  As with everything in my life, that too is cyclical.  And as with everything in my life, more is being revealed to me.

I always thought I had lost my childhood memories.  Years of abuse from my parents and years of self-inflicted abuse left me immobilized by my own self-loathing.  I thought I was worthless, unloved and incapable of loving.  Little by little my program taught me otherwise.  Doing a fourth and fifth step helped me see where I was the problem.  It also allowed me freedom to grow beyond my wildest dreams.  I was able to love and to be loved.  I have been to my dad's grave and forgiven him.  My mother and I talked about "it" before she died.  Mom will always be in my heart as a "best friend".

I know my childhood had to have good no matter how dark because I wasn't completely lost.  I just could not remember any good.  So I prayed on it.  I did a first step on my childhood, so to speak.  And then, as the old song goes, "Along Came Sally".  In birth order Sally is our maternal grandmothers' oldest granddaughter and I am next.  I grew up with Grandma near me in Michigan, Sally lived in California.  Sally's other grandmother lived in Michigan as well.  The Grandmothers were friends and I had a relationship with both of Sally's grandmas.  Sally's mother is the oldest of three sisters and my mom is the youngest.

It started innocently, I found Sally on Facebook and emailed her.  She emailed me back!  I told her I didn't know anything about her sibs and kids.  We emailed that information back and forth and on it goes.  We have shared childhood memories, some I had completely forgot. We have shared information about ourselves and our families.  I cannot wait for new emails and hate when I get busy and cannot respond right away.

When I write her I start writing "my dad did this or that".  Then I stop and think, she doesn't need to know that.  So, I erase and redo.  That process has allowed me to "re-frame" my childhood.  To completely free myself of the darkest thoughts and find the good.  Thank you HP for one of the most precious gifts I have ever received!  They say, "when the student is ready".  I am here to tell you for me that is the truth and her name is Sally!