A Year In Al-Anon

I just picked up my one year chip in Al-Anon, took a breath and felt some resolve for the new year.

In the beginning of 2009 I stepped into my first Al-Anon meeting and felt rage that I could just barely contain. It seeped out all over my life. I felt so betrayed, confused, alone. Bitter. So fucking bitter. Feelings I’d convinced myself I’d worked through came back and came back and came back. Rejection, loneliness, fear, loss, abandonment, entrapment. Each one called to me, waived its finger and said, “Tsk, tsk, you thought you were so smart. Ha! Now look at you….” And when I looked I couldn’t see anything. Each piece of me was turned in on itself, distorted by a magnifying glass I never wanted. And all of a sudden my survival was a double edged sword. It had kept me alive but kept me distant. Kept me moving forward but kept me from ever truly being present.

And I was so ashamed. Felt so inadequate. Because so much of what I thought I knew wasn’t actually true. Because the decisions I made for myself hurt as often as they helped. Because I wasn’t as good at taking care of myself as I thought I was. Because the one persin I could always depend on turned out not to be so dependable after all. Me. I was broken. Had been broken. And had lied that I wasn’t. I could speak about pain but not feel it.

And that’s what 2009 was for me. A year of feeling. A year of opening up. And that opening up often looked like shutting down. Looked like keeping everyone at arms length. Looked like hoarding my emotions, my time, my resources. Because for the first time I could actually FEEL everything. In my heart, my body. Each sting, each joy, each sadness. The sensation was acutely overwhelming. It was completely disorienting and I no longer trusted my ability to contribute, to care for myself or others, to be a friend, lover, co-worker. I no longer trusted others to treat me with respect, to understand, to love me, to see me. And the heart breaking part is that none of that was really new. Just the naming of it was.

And perhaps that will be the challenge of 2010, letting go of the judgment and the idea that I can shape my life through sheer willpower. Learning to sit with my own imperfections and hold them a bit more tenderly. Remembering I have a choice and I can choose to give myself the love, room and respect I deserve. I can choose to share my life with others. Allow them true access. Allow myself to depend on them some too. I can accept that in the past my only option was to go it alone. I can honor that truth and gather the strength to take the next step. I can start a new year believing that I deserve better.

Sally G. Barnow

They never say your name. Not even whispers. Not even a faint murmur in the back of our family hum, all the low deep steady secrets giving us texture. A sense of fullness. An illusion of understanding when really we know so little. Like you. I know nothing of you. Except that your liver killed you. The rot, the quiet, the coping, it killed you. And they don't speak your name anymore. Because maybe you were their casualty, an embarrassment. A reminder of how your husband got called to task every time you hocked his I'm sorry jewels so you could buy enough pints of whiskey to stop caring that he was fucking other woman. And I want to make you a victim, a martyr. Want to say they killed you, took from you, forgot you...but I'm not sure we're talking about you anymore. And I'm sorry. For me. For them. Cause they never visit your grave, bring you no flowers or tacky wreaths. But you are not alone. There are many stones left undecorated. Because we leave the dead behind. Let the past rest, or haunt, or lay silent until one of us wants to remember.

My Father and My Gut

(from a few weeks ago)

I can write about what I’ve already survived. That’s not the hard part. There is a pride in obstacles overcome. The hard part is the uncertainty, no worse- vulnerability, in the right now.

A few weeks ago I decided I was going to meet my biological father for the first time. In the past he has made sudden appearances in my life (via the internet) espousing great tales of fatherly love and desperate searching. But there was never any action to back up that emotion. And, needless to say, trust didn’t come easily. Still I’ve wanted to meet him and I’ve always been afraid he would die before I got the chance. I’d planned a road trip with a friend and it seemed the perfect opportunity. We could swing by to meet him in Vegas, I had a friend I trusted who could go with me, a car I could leave in and he would have no information about where I live. It was decided.

Now 5 months in Al-Anon has shone some light on my instinct to do hard things in isolation. So this time I let people know what I was up to. I asked Morgan to come with me. I waited to talk to my therapist and worked out a safety plan with hir for while I was away. I was taking care of myself.

In the next few days I emailed him. Then called. Twice. Asked him and his family to meet me for dinner on Monday night, 10 days away. And when I left for my road trip I still hadn’t heard from him. I checked my email compulsively. There was nothing. After all his grand statements, and wish-it-coulda’s, after feeling shamed about not being able to move forward and have a relationship with him. After thinking, shit, maybe it really was me…he didn’t even call back. I had told all these people I was going to meet him and he didn’t even call back. I was humiliated.

But I was determined to have fun on my trip. Determined to shove it aside and jump waves in the ocean, eat roadside Taco Bell and explore the desert. And I did all those things. I loved my life, I laughed with friends. But my disappointment, my hurt, was too deep to be articulated. And when I tried it was always with a steady, firm, voice that tried to evoke some illusion of control over the situation while tears slid silently over my face.

Eating had become more difficult but I chalked it up to bad travel food and the desert heat. My appetite had slimed and eventually it got to the point where I could feel my stomach opening and an intensely dull ache would tare through my entire body. It would wind through my ribs and up my back and leave me momentarily immobile.

And then there was the email, 10:20pm Sunday night: “Hi Blyth. Been really ill and just got out of the hospital Saturday. I would enjoy seeing you. Josh my 14 year old has a baseball playoff game at 7:30 on Monday. It's on the northwest side of town. Perhaps you could stop by the field and say hello. Everyone should be there. Let me know. Josh's team won the 14 and under division. Great to hear from you”.

There were tears and no words. I had resigned myself to not hearing from him. Earlier that day Morgan and I had booked a hotel outside Sedona. And then there he was. In the final hour. My thought process went something like this: ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!! Fuck him. Fuck me for trying. I should have seen this coming. I can’t believe this. What was I thinking? A baseball game?! What if he’s really sick? What if he’s dying? What if this is my last chance to meet him? Maybe I should cancel the hotel. Maybe I need to go. What would Morgan say? I shouldn’t let him change my plans like that. He hasn’t done anything to deserve that sort of accommodation. A baseball game?! It’s not worth it. I deserve better. I’m not going.

The next day I talk about it a little and can no longer consume anything without pain. A few bites at both lunch and dinner and I burst into tears.

Sedona was really beautiful. The rocks were red, air was cool and it almost distracted me from thoughts of my father and the fact I could no longer eat normally. Morgan and I splurged, got a hotel and the promise of a free breakfast in the morning. 6:45am and we walked into a room with a counter full of cereal, toast, bagels, juice, waffles. I splurged on juice. Apple and orange. I slid into a plastic covered booth, took a sip and lost my breath as the ache pushed through me. And I sobbed. For my body. For my lack of control.

Last Saturday I ate my first full meal in over two weeks. The diagnoses: a not quite ulcer that will take at least a month to heal and was brought on by too much stress and Aleeve. And shame. Shame at not being better at this yet. These hard knocks and disappointments. Shame at not taking better care of myself. Shame at realizing that, at least subconsciously, someone else has control over my body. Anger for being here again. For not being able to nourish myself. Shame that it’s all so public. This disappointment, this illness, this failure. My failure and my fathers. It’s embarrassing. I am reminded of it every second. My body is singing it. Screaming it rather. And while it is getting better, I have not yet survived this. And that is terrifying.

A Few Hits, A Few Misses And Alot Of Effort

From the Al-Anon reader Courage to Change

March 3rd

A recent searching and fearless moral inventory of myself (Step Four) gave me a clear message: Much of my behavior was extremely immature. But what is mature behavior? Obviously the answer is different for each of us, but exploring the question can help me to identify my goals and apply the Al-Anon program as I seek to change this behavior. To me, maturity includes:

-Knowing myself

-Asking for help when I need it and acting on my own when I don’t

-Admitting when I’m wrong and making amends

-Accepting love from others, even if I’m having a tough time loving myself

-Recognizing that I always have choices, and taking responsibility for the ones I make

-Seeing that life is a blessing

-Having an opinion without insisting that others share it

-Forgiving myself and others

-Recognizing my shortcomings and my strengths

-Having the courage to live one day at a time

-Acknowledging that my needs are my responsibility

-Caring for people without having to take care of them

-Accepting that I’ll never be finished— I’ll always be a work-in-progress.

Where Anger and Accountability Meet

Accountability. It is a word that holds so much power for me that I’ve thought about tattooing it to my body. It speaks to my desire to be accountable to the world around me, my desire that those I love be accountable to me and my hope that someday we might all be accountable to each other. Imagine what the world would be like then….

At the moment I’m trying to be accountable to my anger. When it comes to emotion I tend to feel intensely and then try to channel it into something productive. It is emotion that pushes me forward. But I’m stuck here. Stuck with anger. I’ve taken the edges of anger and twisted them into art, activism, growth but I haven’t dealt with the root of it. I don’t know how to. I don’t know how to pull out all those sneaky veins that wrap themselves around memory and instinct. It requires a surrendering that I’m not yet capable of.

My therapist asked me today what I’m angry about and I couldn’t answer hir. I told hir that I felt like I had a whole book of things but didn’t know where to start. Then I took a breath, sat in silence for a second and said the first thing that came to mind. Me. I’m angry at myself. Angry for knowing better and doing anyway. Angry for allowing myself to disappear when I love someone. Angry for staying when everything in me said it’s time to go. Angry for doing that over and over again. Angry for living my life like that. Angry for not being accountable to myself and my needs. Angry for not holding myself to something I so value.

I’ve made a life for myself by weaving scraps together. By taking what I can get and making something more from it. But now I find myself in the midst of plenty. I have plenty of love, friends, adventures, resources but I still search for the scraps. I look for the sting of struggle because it is awash in that sting that I have found a sense of worth. It is being sweet, willing and generous despite that sting that has told me who I am. So, still, when I’m presented with but a piece of what I need I accept it gratefully. I ignore the voice that screams ‘this is bulllllllllllshit’ and push forward….to nothingness…..to never enough.

And in the end I’m left with anger. Anger for settling when I’m capable of more and for not being accountable to my own values. It is where anger and accountability meet that I am lost. Because to be angry means to be vulnerable. And vulnerability is only safe in a land of plenty and I still can’t believe I’m here…

Recovering From My Life?

I stepped into my first Al-Anon meeting last Monday. I expected a nervous comfort. Comfort in familiar slogans and hearing stories that mirrored my own. Nervousness for walking into a room full of strangers and choosing to till up deep seeded hurts. But as the serenity prayer began my chest drew in and anger burned between my shoulders. My body withdrew tightly and the resentment for having to sit in that meeting nearly carried me out the door.

I found myself lacking compassion for my mother and for every other addict that has come in and out of my life. I could not sit quietly and respect that they were working through a disease, an addiction, a way of being that hurt themselves and others. I could not applaud their progress at working the steps or staying alive or being sober. I could not look upon them objectively because I can still see the consequences of their addictions rippling through my life. I still cannot separate them from me.

Sitting it that room felt like punishment for survival. Surviving my childhood, my lovers and not only my mother’s addiction but also hir recovery. Punished for supporting hir and others when that support stripped me of so much. I held their hands through detox, funerals, beatings and relapses. I went to my mothers meetings with hir, had my 12^th birthday at an NA social and read all the literature. I gave them my life and this is my reward? Once again I’m sitting in church basements, reciting the serenity prayer and she’s not there. They aren’t there. And they won’t hold my hand through this.

The anger, resentment and perhaps grief that came up for me in that meeting goes far beyond words. Which just tells me that I’m in the right place. That there is work to be done there. I recognize unhealthy patterns that do not serve me, yet still I feel resistant. I’ve gone to two meetings since the first. I’ve been welcomed and congratulated on beginning my path to recovery; I just wish somebody would tell me what I’m supposed to be recovering from….