addiction – Page 2

Always in my mind

Keep Ithaca always in your mind, wrote C.P. Cavafy in his epic poem about Odysseus’ journey. He wasn’t talking about Ithaca, New York, but he was talking about adventure and wandering and that, my friends, fits here.

In June, we packed up the camper and headed east. This wasn’t the first time we made our way to Ithaca; we spent a chilly fall break in 2012 tent camping there and have been dreaming about going back ever since.

If you’ve ever heard me explain why I deserved a camper after years of tent camping, I’m sure our first Ithaca trip has come up. New York in the fall is amazing. I don’t care what part you go visit–NYC or outside the city–it’s going to be amazing. But it can get chilly or, if you will, cold.

(Need a camper too? Check out these RV types to see what would fit best for your family.)

Our fall break trip in 2012 involved below-freezing temperatures with a one year old and a three year old in a tent with only a few blankets. I had, at the last minute, packed the space heater I used to use in my classroom, so we were able to point the small heater at the girls as they slept.

It wasn’t big enough to heat the whole tent or anyone not directly in front of it. I don’t want to be a martyr here, but I really took one for the team with that move. My kids slept peacefully, warm and snug in their little sleeping bags while I was too cold to move.

I plan on telling this story to them every single time they’re mean to me for the rest of their lives.

Even with the freezing temperatures, we were longing to go back. Above our bed is a picture of the girls holding hands in front of a huge waterfall as orange and yellow trees begin their descent into winter nakedness.

So we met Chris’ brother, his wife, and their daughter Savannah for a long weekend in Ithaca. This is our second annual summer camp out; they live in Maryland so we meet somewhere middle-ish for a visit. Last year it was West Virginia, this year it was New York.

We spent Father’s Day weekend grilling out, hiding from the rain, hiking, roasting marshmallows, exploring state parks, laughing, riding bikes, and telling stories.

The Graham boys carry a heavy legacy, one with a lot of pain and mess. They have parents who often made choices that were not in their best interest, were not with their safety or health in mind. Raising their own children reminds them of what they lost and how it should have been.

They could get stuck in the memories, but they don’t. It’s part coping mechanism, part survival tactic. They acknowledge how things weren’t what they would have picked and now they’re picking better for their daughters.

Father’s Day is bittersweet for kids whose fathers were not much to celebrate, not much to look up to.

Author Sammy Rhodes writes, Addicts aren’t gone, but they’re missing. Their addiction has banished them to wander as a ghost who haunts the land of the living with the presence of their absence…The wound of fatherlessness isn’t lightly healed. Time certainly is no help. If anything it reveals just how big the wound really is, just how much damage the foundation has actually suffered.

Chris and Mike’s father is not missing. He is not dead. But he is gone. Gone to Florida where it is easier to hide. Gone to drinking where things don’t feel so painful. Gone. Gone. Gone.

Like Ithaca, there is a part of Chris’ father that is always in his mind.

When Chris stopped drinking, everything he was running from caught up with him, his father’s legacy included. Picking through what he left and how it’s still being carried is laborious.

This summer has us revisiting places we’ve been before: Clifty Falls State Park, New York, Michigan. It would seem counter-intuitive in our quest to visit all fifty states to go back to some when there is still so much to do.

But before we go forward, we have to go back.

Before we start again, we have to see where we’ve been and what we still drag with us.

Before we get to healthy, we have to go through healing, and it is often facing the direction behind us.

DISCLOSURE: This is a sponsored post.

time & money

Seven years ago after Chris completed out-patient treatment for drug addiction, I thought we were done.

He had done the group counseling. He had stopped using drugs. He had done everything on the rehab checklist.

So we went back to normal life. Chris was clean, and he was back home. No more counseling. No more check-ins. No more drugs.

Except recovery is not that easy. Addiction recovery isn’t actually easy at all.

I learned that the hard way.

It shouldn’t be shocking, in hindsight, that Chris just found a new way to numb feelings and pain. In hindsight, we can see he didn’t learn any coping mechanisms or deal with his wounds. In hindsight, it makes perfect sense. But the problem with hindsight is you only get that view after.

There’s a phenomenon researchers call “hindsight bias” where we feel like we knew something all along, but we didn’t actually know.

Researchers argue that certain factors fuel our tendency toward hindsight bias. Research shows that we selectively recall information that confirms what we know to be true and we try to create a narrative that makes sense out of the information we have. When this narrative is easy to generate, we interpret that to mean that the outcome must have been foreseeable. Furthermore, research suggests that we have a need for closure that motivates us to see the world as orderly and predictable and to do whatever we can to promote a positive view of ourselves.

Ultimately, hindsight bias matters because it gets in the way of learning from our experiences. (source)

That’s where I’m at. I wish I would have known what would happen after the Band-aid fix of out-patient drug rehab, but how would I have? Like most people, I was not well-versed in addiction and mental health and trauma.

When addiction reared its ugly head again, I didn’t feel anymore ready or equipped. I was just as shocked, just as blindsided, just as betrayed.

So this time, I did everything different.
So this time, we did everything different.

And it changed everything.

Let me tell you what life looks like after rehab:

It looks like Monday night group.

It looks like Friday evening therapy.

It looks like Saturday morning AA meetings.

It looks like $150 a month on depression meds and Antibuse (a drug that blocks an enzyme involved in metabolizing alcohol intake. If Chris drank while taking this, it would make him violently ill. For someone who hid all his drinking, we need something that makes it impossible for him to hide.)

It looks like $200-$300 a month on therapy bills.

It looks like every morning taking his medicine in front of me for accountability.

It means check-ins with his sponsor and friends.

It means changing careers, because he can’t work alone or go into people’s houses anymore.

It means no alcohol, not one single drop, in our house ever.

It means I drive us most places, because it makes me feel safer.

It means quiet time with his Bible and his AA recovery books.

Recovery consumes our lives.

I remember feeling so inconvenienced and annoyed when Chris had to go to out-patient drug rehab meetings. It interrupted our lives. I was working full time and taking care of a toddler. I was pregnant and mentally and physically exhausted. He wasn’t home to help with laundry; he wasn’t home to carry groceries in, play with Ellie, or take care of the yard. Our marriage was failing and all he had to do was go to work and then go sit in a rehab center all evening.

I was angry and resentful.

Now I know the alternative to the time-consuming work of recovery and healing is continued addiction. It’s amazing what a hard dose of reality and pain will do to your perspective.

Our lives are filled with the work of learning and healing and sobriety, and I do not have a single complaint about it. If we were not doing this life we would be divorced or we would be biding our time until the next addiction or Chris would not be in recovery.

I do not want any of those outcomes so we do the hard work of time and money and scheduling and sacrifice. I am not angry or resentful at how our life is filled with recovery. I understand what will happen if it is not.

Does this mean our lives will look like this forever? No.

I don’t know what that means for the future, but my counselor taught me to acknowledge stress or worries or current situations don’t last–everything is temporary–so reminding myself that everything changes helps usher in some peace and acceptance when things feel like too much.

If I could go back to 2010 when Chris was doing out-patient care for drug addiction, I would whisper in my ear keep going. Keep getting help. Keep digging for answers. Keep going to meetings. Heal instead of bandage.

I think that’s why I’m writing right now, in hopes someone who is where I was, full of hurt and hope, knows the road is long, the work is hard, but it is always worth it. Ask for help. Read the books. Get counseling for yourself and get counseling for your addicted loved one. Learn about addiction. Don’t be helpless, stop being a victim. Other people can help you heal, but you’re in charge of it. Not the hospital. Not the therapist. Not the rehab counselor. Not the recovery books. Not the AA sponsor. You are in charge of your healing; there are lots of people who can point the way, but the work is yours to do.

There was a time I would have written this and told you I was mad at my past self. Mad I didn’t do things differently. Mad I didn’t notice more things. Mad I didn’t avoid so much of this.

I’m not mad at myself anymore.

I’ve had to forgive a lot of people on this addiction journey we’re on and one of those people was myself. A grace-filled release of what I missed, what I allowed, and what I didn’t know.

I actually didn’t know what was happening. Hindsight wants me to think I did, but I did not. I know now, so I do better. That’s all I can ask of myself. It’s all you can ask of yourself too.

Here’s what you can’t do: Nothing.

You are not a victim of your life. You are not a helpless spouse, a helpless parent, a helpless friend. If you’re going through addiction or betrayal or pain and you’re not learning anything for next time, you’re probably part of the problem. Please go get some help.

If you’ve hit a wall, had your heart broken, or feel like you’re drowning, but you’re not willing to do anything differently, it will happen again. I’ve learned that lesson the hard way, and I would venture to say you have too. So what now? What are you going to do to heal? What are you going to do today to make tomorrow safer and healthier?

Figure that out and then get to work.

Christmas + Recovery

As the holidays rolled around last year, Chris was baby-stepping the first days of sobriety. He had completed treatment and was living in a halfway house with limited time at home. When Thanksgiving rolled around, he was allowed–for the first time–to spend the night at our house. Before that, he had only been granted an eight hour visit one day a week.

He was easing back into the real world with all the freedoms that entailed but with better boundaries and different eyes.

The holiday season is overflowing with parties, dinners, dates with out-of-town friends, and family gatherings that center around alcohol. Even if you’re not one to drink or you come from a family of non-drinkers, everyone is around more alcohol this time of year.

And that means the holidays are really hard and really dangerous for a lot of people, especially those in early sobriety. Family dynamics, social settings, stress, and peer pressure are ever-present triggers exacerbated in December.

So what do we do? What do we do if we’re in early sobriety and gearing up for the season? What do we do if we’re trying to support those in early sobriety? What do we do if we will be around a loved one who struggles with alcohol?

First of all, thanks for asking. Pretending this doesn’t exist only hurts ourselves and the people we love; talking about situations before they become a reality sets everyone up for success.

You might have to skip some events.
You know which events I’m talking about. I don’t even need to point this one out. Christmas party with the open bar? Might be too tempting. Night at the bar with college friends? Might not be a good time. Listen, I get that it’s hard to miss fun things, and that sounds like the opposite of fun, but this isn’t forever. The more sobriety you have under your belt, the better you’ll be in situations with alcohol, but for now, it might be a bad choice. It’s important to remember that whatever is happening right now in this moment doesn’t mean it’s forever. But if there’s a chance you might slip up, why risk it?

Sometimes a place just isn’t safe. If you’re in early sobriety, the list of places you shouldn’t go might be really long. It won’t always be like this, but for the time being, there is no guilt in skipping something for the sake of sobriety. If you’re the loved one whose party or gathering is being skipped, please chill on the feelings of abandonment and insult. This isn’t forever. Your party probably isn’t even that good. (Just kidding. Maybe.) But if someone is vulnerable and shares they’re not attending something because everything feels too fragile–it’s not about you, so get over yourself.

You might have to ask for new traditions.
Alcoholics love a routine: get home from work, crack up a beer; survive a busy week, drinks on Friday; watching a movie, cold drink in hand. Addict brains thrive on ritual and when you try to do one of your normal habits without the drink, your brain fights against your choice. Fighting against your own brain is hard and, especially in the beginning, you might not win. So don’t tempt yourself with the same places and the same people and the same celebrations you spent years drinking at. People who want you healthy will eagerly change things up and those who don’t eagerly change might not be safe for you anyway.

You might have to let go of some relationships.
Healthy people don’t become alcoholics. Healthy people don’t become addicts. And depending on when these behaviors started, it might be time to remove some family or friends from the inner circle. I know that’s hard and it sounds painful, but some triggers and wounds can’t be handled or healed with a little sobriety. Chris has chosen to remove himself from unhealthy family relationships because they’re too dangerous. This wasn’t easy, but it was also necessary. Through rehab and therapy, it became apparent that some relationships were just too damaged and unsafe. This isn’t a decision he made lightly, and it was met with a lot of uninformed people trying to shame him into changing his mind. People in recovery don’t have to explain their decisions on their way to sobriety. You don’t either.

You might have to make an event alcohol-free.
If you’re trying to love and support someone who struggles with alcohol, someone who is trying to make better choices, please consider making an event alcohol-free. Arguments like “but we always have wine with dinner!” or “he just doesn’t have to drink!” aren’t helpful. If you can’t celebrate a holiday or hold an event without alcohol, maybe spend some time figuring out why that is. I’m not talking about making the company Christmas party dry, but if it’s Christmas Eve and your immediate family can’t gather without everyone drinking, maybe have some honest conversations about what that says about your interactions and level of health. (Remember this post is about helping alcoholics or supporting people who are working on sobriety; this is not a general conversation about healthy, non-alcoholics having a drink with the Christmas ham or while playing games with the grandkids.) If you’ve got tons of excuses as to why this won’t work for the short-term while someone needs extra encouragement to get healthy, I’d look closely at the definition of enabler and see if you can connect some dots.

You might have to take breaks.
Even the healthiest person can’t always tolerate all the cheer and relatives and noise at the holidays. Add in a newly-sober person whose nerve-endings and emotions are frazzled and you’ve got an anxiety party for one. Before you head to the event (or before you host the event), figure out some breaks. Where can you go to get a minute? Who can you be around that won’t ask stupid questions or make awkward small talk? Need a code word or secret handshake to signal it’s time to go? (I’m sorry, that’s not really a legit thing, but if you could create a secret handshake before your next Christmas party and then let me know you did it, I would die of laughter and joy.) But seriously, you know your triggers, you know who gets on your nerves, and you know who’s going to say something dumb you’ll want to punch. Prepare yourself ahead of time so you’re not left with drinking as your only coping strategy.

You might need to find a safe person to be your wingman (wingwoman).
Addictions of every kind thrive in secret shame. If you or someone you know has made shaky first steps to get rid of the shame and share their struggles honestly, they’re telling you they want your support and they trust you. Take this responsibility serious. You’re not in charge of their sobriety. But you can encourage them in places or at times they feel less than confident. It’s an honor to stand by someone who wants better.

You might have to speak up.
Once again for the people in the back: alcoholism loves shame and secrets and guilt, but you get to refuse those things and tell people what’s happening. Not everyone. We all know people who aren’t safe, who could help you justify your behaviors, who enable instead of help. But you don’t have to keep it to yourself either. Let a few co-workers know you’re trying a sober holiday. Tell your cousins you’re working on yourself and want to do it sober. You can say lots of 2018 fluffy things to ward off some pressure and weird looks. You might not have a lot of confidence in yourself, but pretending you got this is half the battle.

If you’re doing this holiday season sober for the first time: I’m so proud of you, and I know you can do it. One moment at a time, one day at a time. Go to meetings every day if you need to. The holidays will be done before you know it and the pride you’ll have from surviving this season is inexplicable. You’ve got this.

If you’re willing to be a safe person for someone in recovery this holiday season: Remember, this is not about you. This isn’t the time to have deep, hard conversations with someone in recovery. Give them space to breathe; changes you make this year aren’t forever, but could help a recovering person feel loved and supported. Don’t make a big deal, don’t put on a show of how great you are. Just do it and move on. Again, it’s not about you.

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They’re going to hate me as much as I hate me.

It’s October again, and I found myself sitting in southern Indiana in the wood-paneled building surrounded by addicts and alcoholics just like last year.

This time I was there for an AA meeting and not weekly visitation for my husband. We had the girls in tow. The four of us walked in together, and we would be leaving together as well.

The old timers hugged Chris, checked in on him, teased him. A friend admitted he’d slipped and was starting the sobriety count again. People grabbed waters and coffees, and as the meeting began, the girls put their headphones on and turned up their tablets.

AA meetings aren’t for little girls.

There’s a rhythm to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, just like any other meeting you’d attend. There’s an opening script, a call for restarts, a time for sharing milestones. They begin with 24 hours. Anyone starting over? Anyone been sober for 24 hours? And they work their way up.

Chris stood up at the one year call-out and declared his one year of sobriety. His sponsor said some words, and Chris got his one-year coin.

I thought I would cry when this happened, but I didn’t.

The moment passed, and the meeting opened to comments and questions. As the conversation warmed up, a guy spoke up about his fears as he begins to work through step four.

In AA, step four is when the alcoholic makes “a searching and fearless moral inventory of” themselves. This normally involves a lot of time and paper: the recovering alcoholic writes out all his or her moral failings, all the decisions alcohol played a part in, and all the areas of his or her life affected by alcohol.

For an alcoholic, this step is long, exhausting, hard, and painful. Alcohol helped them forget things, but there are still millions of things they can’t forget and until they confess them, they’ll continue to be weighed down by them.

And so the alcoholic writes them down. All of them. As many as he or she can remember.

When you’re done with step four, you move to step five which is “admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.”

You have to confess all the shit you’ve done. The shit no one else knows about. The secret shit you’d like to forget. The lies. The stealing. The hurting of others. The deceit. The cheating. The wrecks. The manipulation. The destruction. The things you swore you wouldn’t tell anyone. The things you only did because you thought no one would ever know.

Everything.

Now you can see why someone was anxious and worried about step four. Not drinking is hard. Not drinking while you write down and then say out loud all the very worst things–pages and pages–that you’ve done is hard multiplied by one hundred.

Alcoholics who are trying to do the work know you can’t skim or gloss over this part, because it comes back up and you drink again. You have to get it all out, get it all on paper, and then say it all out loud to move on.

You don’t get the benefits of hard work (in this case: sobriety) unless you actually do the hard work.

Here’s why I’m telling you this: because we’re all carrying things that are destroying us. We might not be driven to drink or to numb with drugs, but we’re all weighed down with secrets and regret and shame and it is one-hundred percent impacting our actions, relationships, families, and conversations.

We don’t get the benefits of hard work (in this case: intimacy, healthy marriages, wisdom, authentic friendship, peace, joy, contentment) unless we do the hard work.

Everybody wants the results but nobody wants to do the work.

One guy joined the conversation to encourage the speaker through his step four wrestling, and then he said when he was working on steps four and five, it destroyed him because he just knew when he said his stuff out loud that “they’re going to hate me as much as I hate me.”

They’re going to hate me as much as I hate me.

If that’s not the most honest and truthful reason people lie, I don’t know what is.

They’re going to hate me as much as I hate me.

I can’t get that out of my head. I can’t get that out of my heart. I can’t make it stop echoing in my ears.

They’re going to hate me as much as I hate me.

That’s it, friends. That’s why we lie and hide and deceive and manipulate and cover up and scheme and destroy. Because if people knew the real us, they’d hate us just as much as we hate ourselves. So we keep digging bigger holes and we keep creating more faces for more people. We keep doing things we would never own up to because we hate who we are and we for sure don’t need other people to hate us too.

But the secret is when alcoholics confess to their sponsors, no one hates them. No one is shocked. No one is even impressed. Because sponsors are alcoholics too. Because sponsors have done their own horrible things. Because sponsors have already done their own hard work. Because sponsors understand the power of saying it out loud and then letting it go.

AA isn’t a religious organization, but if you’re not seeing Jesus in this madness, you’re not paying attention.

AA demands community, honesty, confession, grace, forgiveness, and a changed life. Sometimes the alcoholic has to start over fifty times before he or she gets it right, but each time, AA is there with open arms and a bunch of broken, beautiful people who want to walk with you.

Jesus demands community, honesty, confession, grace, forgiveness, and a changed life. Sometimes Jesus followers have to start over fifty times a day before he or she gets it right, but each time, Jesus is there with open arms and a bunch of other broken, beautiful people who want to walk with you.

The truth is we’re all weighed down by something. We get to wake up every day and continue to carry it which we know will lead to our self-destruction, or we can start the hard work of admitting, asking for forgiveness, and living a better life.

They say after recovering alcoholics complete step five, you can see them almost float out of the room. I don’t think humans can fly, but I think the closest we’ve ever come is when an addict stops carrying the traumas and scars and shame that has controlled them for so long. You can’t describe or imagine that first feeling of freedom after being in bondage for so, so long.

They just float out of the room.

We can do that too. We can float–unashamed and untethered–all we have to do is start the work.

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We’re still here.

I kept a notebook last fall and winter.

Every text, card, gift, meal, word, or message I received, all in a pink paisley notebook. I kept it because I write everything down. I kept it because it helped on nights when I couldn’t sleep and I was overwhelmed with sadness. I kept it because I didn’t want to forget the kindness. I kept it because I wanted to learn how to do what these people were so good at doing for me.

I kept it so one day I could say thank you.

‘One day’ came last weekend.

Going through the small pink notebook for the first time since the spring felt cathartic. Already my memories were fuzzy of who did what and how often people showed up at just the right moment to love us in a season of pain and transition.

It was a rag-tag group of people keeping us alive last year. People who love Jesus. People who decidedly do not love Jesus. People who fed us. People who texted me inappropriate memes religiously. People who prayed for us. People who said all the curse words for us. People who cried with us. People who helped buy us groceries. People who loved on our kids. People who said nothing but gave really good hugs.

I was reminded again and again as I turned the pages of the notebook that God can use people–all people–whether they are fans of Him or not. He is present and active in all our lives, and we just need the eyes to see it.

The beginning of my thank-you to these people was a cookout last weekend at our house. Once it was all said and done, over 100 people were on the list, over 100 people had shown up for us when we were too tired to show up for ourselves. It was overwhelming to realize.

But I wanted to feed them all.

I don’t know the words to express my gratitude, but I do know how to buy food for lots of people and make batches and batches of chocolate chip cookies.

So I started there.

And the people came.

Even with sports and weddings and traveling, our favorite people trekked to the country to jump on a trampoline, slide down an inflatable, stand around a bonfire, play cornhole, throw the football, roast smores, and eat hot dogs covered in mustard and jalapenos.

We celebrated the one-year anniversary of Chris’ sobriety. We celebrated the goodness of a God who sends His people to love on others. We laughed and joked. We cried a little. We talked about the past year, and we filled people in on what’s ahead. We said ‘I love you’ with our eyes, our hearts, and our embraces. We hugged babies and said ‘thank you’ with extra helpings of chips and salsa.

I don’t know if the words exist to adequately express our gratitude, but we tried with bottles of soda and Goldfish crackers.

The most overwhelming part is that invite list just included local people; it didn’t even touch on the people from other places, other parts of the country, other parts of the world who held us up. We were loved by people from every corner as we tried to heal our marriage and each other.

And so this post, this thank you, is for you too.

If you sent me an email, an anonymous card, a message on Instagram–I thought of you last weekend too. I am grateful and humbled by the people who love and support our family. We would not still be here if it weren’t for all of you.

I’ve learned a lot in the past seventeen months. I’ve learned a lot about families and staying silent and loving others well and friendship and encouragement and what I will allow and what I won’t. These past months have shifted and shaped me in profound ways.

I can no longer keep quiet when kids are being hurt by a parent’s actions or inaction.
I will not accept lies to keep people’s secrets.
I can share what I have with those who are hurting because it’s not mine to begin with.
Once you’ve broken, you can see the other broken people easier.
Change hurts.
When we stop blaming others, the real work begins.
God is good even if.
The rebuilding never looks like you think it will.
Sobriety is fragile, and who I let into our lives matters just as much as who Chris does.
One moment at a time is all you should focus on.
You can laugh and cry, break and mend all at the same time.

I’ve learned lessons a million ways recently, but some of them have come from my people on the internet and some have come from my people in the trenches.

So thank you for teaching me things, things I needed to survive.

We’re still here, and it’s thanks to all of you.