Recovered recovery

I learned something important about recovery this week: I need recovery.

I've managed - by the grace of my Higher Power, the support of my recovery community and my loving friends and family - to accumulate double-digit years of substance free life. Sounds good, right? It is. My sober life is better than any life I ever could have imagined (except maybe for my 9-year-old dream of being Mrs. Bobby Sherman). My job as a recovery support coach allows me to share my experience strength and hope 40 hours each week. Most of my friends are sober folks, as is my partner. It's safe to say that recovery is the centerpiece of my life.

But.

There is a lot more to being sober me than simply talking the talk. I know this, BUT. Sometimes I forget. I lose my spiritual focus. I zone out during meetings. I skip the daily readings that set my mind in a good direction each morning. I make excuses for being short-tempered and snarky. I loll in the warm, sticky ooze of self-pity. I expect my life to roll along without hiccups; how dare the car break down, the sky pour rain, the cat dig her claws into my tender ankle? These are the symptoms of a lack of sobriety self-care. It isn't pretty. It isn't fun. The irony is that although I know the cure, sometimes I prefer to sit in my sickness. That's the weird mental twist of addiction. We hate being miserable, but we can be averse to the cure.

Today I got sick and tired of being sick and tired. I had a little cry, took a last dip in self-loathing, and admitted that what I need is more meetings. Listening to the inside of my head for too long leads me down some dark, tangled paths. I need other voices, the voices of people who have been where I've been and understand my struggles without need for translation. People who are trudging the same road as I am.

Sometimes someone I know who isn't in recovery will ask, incredulously, "You mean you still have to go to those meetings?" Yes. Yes, I do. Because as my life changes, my needs change, and what I need from recovery changes. It's funny that no one ever asks someone, "What, you still go to church every Sunday?" 

I know what I need. I know where to get it. And I know how fortunate I am to know. 

Recovery is a gift that keeps giving. But you have to keep unwrapping the package and using what's inside. 

Vista sky

When I took the dogs outside for their last bathroom break last night, I was mesmerized by the sky. The moon's glow lit the curtain of filmy, silver-blue clouds that arched across the sky. When I brought the dogs in I told Wayne to put on his coat and step outside with me - I promised him it would be worth it. It was. We stood in silence, holding hands, heads tipped upward.

That sky reminded me of the paintings that hung - maybe still hang - up in the high front corners of the Vista Theater in Negaunee. When I was 8, 9, 10, it was still the kind of world where your dad dropped off you and a friend at the movies after dark and picked you up after. I shivered through many a cheap horror movie in the dark of the Vista. And I have a distinct memory of looking up at those night sky paintings. They gave me the same pleasantly spooky, lonely feeling I got when I stared up at the sky last night. I felt as a child - and felt last night - tiny and insignificant in a vast, indifferent universe.

That feeling was - then and now - tempered by the knowledge that I was securely anchored to the earth, close to home, warmth, and safety. It's all right to feel small and spooked when you know that the feeling is momentary, and comfort is close.

That's one of the aspects of fall that I most appreciate. It feels a little sad to feel winter closing in, but that sadness is eased by the warmth and comfort of home. I can appreciate that moment of melancholy, because the cure for it is on the other side of my back door.

"Are you sure you're an alcoholic?"

   "Are you sure you're an alcoholic?"
   I was recently asked this question after mentioning to an acquaintance that I was approaching my 32-year anniversary of sobriety.
   My first response? I laughed. After a moment, I asked, "Was that a serious question?" Turned out, it was.
   When I am surprised by someone's question, or someone's response, I typically swallow my first reaction, my emotional one. It's an almost unconscious response, and is probably a fear-based defense mechanism left over from my past. My first reaction simmers in my unconscious, then bubbles to the surface a few days later, and I assemble the words I wish I'd said.
   So on that day all I said was yes, I am certain that I am an alcoholic. I explained that I had had an immediate, visceral response to alcohol the first time I caught that liberating, loosening feeling of a light buzz. I explained that I always drank to get drunk, and that even when getting drunk stopped equaling a good time and became a series of frightening incidents of self-destruction, I was unable to stop. And if my own experience wasn't evidence enough, I had been evaluated by an addictions counselor.
   I wish I had spoken more strongly. I wish I had asked, "Are you asking me that because you don't believe I would be capable of staying sober if I were truly addicted?" I wish I had asked, "Why do you think you have the right to question my own self-knowledge?" I know who I am. I know what I am. And I know how I got here.
   I drank heavily - alcoholically - for four years. I experienced my first blackout the second time I drank. By the time I attended my first 12 Step meeting, two months before my 22nd birthday, I had humiliated myself in several local bars, experienced countless blackouts, missed I don't know how many hours of college classes because I'd start drinking at lunch and lose the rest of the day, acted out sexually in a manner my sober self would never be capable or desirous of, and was battling suicidal impulses every time I got drunk.
   Those were the drinking years.
   Sobriety has not eliminated the impulse to drink. I have teetered at the edge of relapse several times in the past 32 years. It's a horrible feeling, desperately wanting - needing - to drink, and knowing that doing so will tear your rebuilt life to shreds. What kept me sober in those tormenting moments was my 12 Step practices, music that soothed and buoyed me, my supportive circle of recovering women, and my spiritual life. When those thoughts flit through my mind, which they rarely have in recent years, I am able to brush them aside with an ease achieved only by rigorous practice of my recovery principles.
   Am I sure I'm an alcoholic? Despite all evidence, I have actually asked that question of myself. An insidious voice in my head will whisper, "Come on, you were just a kid out partying! You're an adult now. Maybe you can have a beer or two..."
   I can definitely have a beer or two. The problem is, there will be a third. And a fourth. And so on, until my money is gone and I am a laughing, weeping, vomiting, intoxicated embarrassment. It has always been so and will always be. I cannot separate drinking from drunk. Imagining myself having being satisfied with a social drink or two is like trying to imagine myself leaping from the roof of my house and taking flight. Drinking is not something to do; drinking is the passageway to drunk.
   My sober life today is bigger than anything I could have imagined 32 years ago when I was a timid, desperate newcomer. Alcohol would have killed me; admitting to alcoholism saved my life.
   Am I sure I'm an alcoholic? Dead sure. And grateful beyond measure.
 

The weather outside is frightful....

   As I write this, swathed in sweatshirt, sweatpants, fluffy socks, fuzzy bathrobe, and a knitted afghan over it all, we in the Upper Peninsula are enduring one of the roughest winter days of this season. It's a blizzard out there: 35 mph winds, -35 wind chill. The heavy clouds are sifting a steady falling of dry, floury snow. It's a notable day when the postal service knuckles under and announces there will be no mail delivery in your city today. Events were cancelled; everything from high school sports to church dinners to bingo. Local police are advising people to stay off the roads and the snowmobile trails. Last I heard, the U.P. is currently in a state of civil emergency. Civil emergency! What does that even mean?
   For me, it means stay put, relax, have another cup of coffee and see who's doing what on Facebook. Hardier souls than I are braving the blasting wind and icy temps, venturing out to the events that haven't been cancelled. More power to them. I will stay in my warm, albeit drafty house, with my two-legged best friend/Valentine and the motley four-legged crew. We are all in neutral gear, dozing, eating, reading. Sadie cat has had gotten the most exercise of us all today, chasing a small ball of tinfoil that I rolled down the hall for her. She loves chasing tinfoil balls, but she will not touch them. She galumphed down the hall (she is a rather large cat), cornered the ball, then sat beside it expectantly, waiting for me to come and get it and roll it back again. I call this game Bowling for Sadie.
   A snowstorm produces its own particular kind of silence. There are fewer cars going by, of course, but the sounds of the few that pass are muffled by the snow-covered streets and the high banks. There are no human or animal voices to be heard. Each house is its own island, private, tucked in tight.
   I ventured outdoors twice today, to take the dogs out. They went in the morning and again this early evening. Normally they would have become restless in the mid-afternoon, pacing by the back door, but they seem to understand that today is a day for semi-hibernation. When I took them for their second round, Saira beagle was wild with joy - so much new snow to sniff, to burrow her head in, to dig into for treasure! Indy, my schnauzer, shared my sentiment: Let's just get this over with and get back inside, OK?
   I am not a winter person. I don't skate, ski, snowshoe, or hike along snowy trails. Winter has its beauty and its pleasures, but for the most part, for me it's a season to muscle through on the way to next spring. But I've got to hand it to Mother Nature. Just when you've had about enough of scraping ice off your windshield and putting on a brave face to meet another frosty day, she says, No, you aren't going anywhere today. Settle in. Stay warm. Make popcorn with extra butter. Crack open a good book and relax. For one glorious day, your world is on hold.
   Come to think of it, I may be more of a winter person than I thought.

Good neighbors

    I have good neighbors. No, scratch that. I have outstanding neighbors. I've lived next door to Hank and Perri for almost nine years. We've watched each others' teenagers grow up, move out and, on occasion, ricochet back to the nest. We've weathered blizzards, hailstorms, deep freezes and deep-fry seasons. We've shared sympathies when we've lost beloved dogs. We stop to chat when we're outside at the same time. It's comfortable, and then some. Here's a little tribute to the "then some" of good neighbors.
    When I brought my son and my older daughter to see comedian George Carlin perform at the Island Resort and Casino, a 90-minute drive from home, I asked Perri to keep an eye on the house while my younger daughter was home, alone from early evening until much later that night. Melissa was 15; old enough to be left to her own devices. But my concern wasn't about wild parties or a boyfriend coming over, it was the thought of my daughter alone in the house late at night.
    My daughter told me later that Perri had kept a steady but unintrusive eye out for her that entire night. When my daughter was leaving to run to the store, Perri popped outside to remind her that she was available for any major or minor issue that might arise, from a blown fuse to feeling lonely. My daughter felt the comfort of neighborliness with feeling the smothering of nosy supervision. I felt free to have a good time without worry nibbling at my thoughts.
    When my older daughter needed to get from Marquette back to college in Houghton and her car died, Hank and Perri came out in the bitter winter cold and tried to charge the car's battery with their charger. When that failed, Perri drove me to buy a new battery, and Hank installed it.
    Need I say more? Well, I can. They gave me natural remedies when our beagle, Saira broke out in a fire-red, itcy, painful rash. Just this week, Perri answered my call on Facebook when my Jeep needed a tire removed and my partner was unable to get the lug nuts loosened. He needed a pipe to provide extra torque (or something), and Perri immediately replied that Hank had a pipe he would loan. And by the way, did I want a box of Calvin and Hobbes books? Perri had noticed my posts of the comic strip, was getting rid of the books, and thought I'd appreciate them.
    Did I mention that whenever Hank snowblows his driveway he also does mine? I do what I can to repay their kindness, but every gesture I make feels paltry in the face of this steady, ever-present care.
    Some people love to help because it feeds their ego. They radiate false modesty and lap up "thank you's" like a cat laps warm milk. They make it clear that they are the awesome helpers, and you are the needy "helpee." Getting assistance from these people leaves you feeling less than.
    Good neighbors - good people - help because they can. They don't seek fawning thanks and they aren't in it for anything other than the pleasure of being able to help. I have the inestimable good fortune of living next door to two such people. And I never, ever take my good fortune for granted.
   

Kim Kardashian is not half-assed. Obviously.

   Stepping outside this morning in the aftermath of the blizzardy past couple of days, I thought that the still, innocuous air and benign gray clouds were like the weather's embarrassed hangover after a wild, roaring drunk:
   "Whoa, did I really do that? I dumped all that snow on you guys? Three feet? In, like, November? Dude, I am so, so sorry. That is the last time I mix my warm fronts with my cold fronts."
   But I'm a Yooper, so I'm over it now. It snowed, we shoveled, life goes on. What's claiming my attention at the moment is similar to snowbanks only in shape. What is on my mind is - butt cheeks.
   Kim Kardashian's butt cheeks, to be specific. I mean, have you seen them? If you own a computer and have an Internet connection, seeing those mind-bogglingly enormous globes this week has been next to impossible. Or maybe I'm just surfing the wrong sites.
   At any rate, my naked eyes have seen Kim K.'s naked ass. And woe to all who've so much as peeked; once it's been seen, it cannot be unseen. Ms. Kim, in her noble, ongoing quest to "break" the Internet, posed cheekily for the publication Paper. She appears butt-naked, her back to the camera, on the magazine's cover. She grins naughtily to the camera, her hair up in an elegant twist, and she clings to what could have been a glamorous black evening gown, but is instead used as a sideways parenthesis, a sort of hammock bolstering her rear end. Her naked skin is slick with oil, giving her the hard plastic sheen of an obscene Barbie doll.
   What immediately captures the eye, however, are those two unnaturally round bulbs of solid pink flesh jutting out from the base of her spine. It can't be real. A backside like that does not exist in nature, at least not among humankind. It is, obviously, designed purely for display. It looks incredibly bulky for toting around, and unimaginably uncomfortable for its intended use - sitting. Is Kim's back able to make contact with the back of a chair when she sits? Is she able to sleep on her back without feeling like she's doing a yoga pose? When she goes swimming, does she sink under the weight or get buoyed up to the surface tush-first?
   If the Kim Kardashian buttocks was not a gift from Mother Nature, this was a purchased item, consciously selected, willingly accepted in exchange for a sackful of legal tender. Which begs the question: WHY? Why would a perfectly attractive, slender young woman with more money than the Almighty decide to invest in a derriere expansion? And, being obscenely wealthy, able to afford the finest cosmetic surgeons available, how did she end up with what looks like two beach balls filled with Fix a Flat?
   It's beyond me. Maybe it comes of having more money than I.Q. points. What it looks like from here, from working class, ordinary butt, non-famous land, is a frantic attempt by Kim Kardashian to feed her insatiable "Look at me!" appetite. It's superficial, it's tacky, and it makes me a little ashamed to be a member of the same species. This is what we've come to: young women so desperate for the gaze of the public eye that not only will they peel off their clothing, they'll surgically alter themselves into fashionable Frankensteins. Forget talent, forget hard work. Shove your bare ass out there and fame will follow.
   I feel a twinge of guilt for mocking her. It's too easy, really. Shooting silicone fish in a barrel. But she put it out there. Nothing I, or anyone else, can say or write will do more than Kim Kardashian already has to make a huge ass of herself.
 
 

News fast

       Give yourself a gift: Take a day off from reading or listening to the news. No MSN, NBC, or CNN. No Public Radio, no local headlines, not so much as a whisper of who is campaigning for what office or why the economy is destined to tank. Let your brain dedicate itself to gentler pursuits. Read old Calvin and Hobbes comics, watch a '40's screwball comedy. Or tilt your head back, close your eyes, and don't think about anything at all.
        I have no idea whether the world is going to hell in a handbasket or whether it's business as usual on the global scale. I do know that there has always been poverty, bipartisan rancor, disease, and horrifying crimes committed by soulless individuals. Lately it all feels bigger, louder, and even more irreparable than in eras past. But is that truly the case, or does it only feel that way because of our 24-hour, every single second, multimedia access to it all?
         In my recovery program participants are encouraged to accept the things we cannot change. I cannot accept the rich getting richer on the backs of their workers. I cannot accept the unashamedly bigoted bleatings of racists and homophobes. I cannot accept human beings slaughtering other human beings in the name of... anything. I can accept that there is little I can do to change these unacceptable goings on. 
          I can vote. I can speak out for what I believe in. I can pray. I can try to make my own little corner of this life a warm one for all who cross my path.
          And once in awhile, for the sake of my sanity and peace of mind, I can turn the world off. There will be new headlines tomorrow, some solemn (Ebola), some silly (Kim Kardashian's sisters are more popular than she is!). It's not that I don't care about what's happening in my city, state, country, or world. It's that sometimes caring costs me more than I can afford to give.
           Join me, won't you, in a one-day news fast. We'll play video games, or go for a walk along the lakeshore. We'll give a dog a belly rub, or make silly noises for a toddler and giggle along with him. We'll eat cookies, blow bubbles, sing along with an old song on the radio. We'll appreciate the quiet in our neck of the woods. The world's teeming chaos will be there tomorrow. But just for one day, we can pretend it isn't there at all.