Moving On

Once upon a time, I was caught in a rip current while snorkeling in Mexico.  This could have been the end of me but instead it became a powerful metaphor for the way life can sometimes change direction and velocity without warning.  After easing my way back toward shore, I was two miles away from where I had entered the ocean, tired but exhilarated at having outsmarted an irresistible force of nature.

When my husband lost his job in August, which was the reason we had relocated to Florida in 2005 from the rolling hills of Virginia, it was as if another rip current had pulled me away from the known world.  My husband's first instinct was to put the house on the market immediately and sell off everything of value that we owned.  Remembering my experience in Mexico, where the stakes were much higher, I advised him to slow his thinking down and analyze the situation.  For reasons I do not fully understand, Beau has always acted as if homelessness was a missing paycheck away.  Our financial adviser explained that, while we weren't rolling in dough, we had a generous cushion and could live with no income indefinitely as long as we changed our spending habits.  It took a while for Beau to internalize this message.

Meanwhile, at age 60, Beau began pounding the pavement in search of another full-time, salaried job.  He found a number of jobs which he could do with no learning curve to surmount, but every hiring manager he spoke with explained that he was "overqualified", in other words too old. So we decided to regroup.  The Florida Bar requires every practicing attorney to take the dreaded Bar exam. That was not going to happen, so we looked north and discovered that Georgia's Bar was much more friendly:  a lawyer in good standing with no criminal history can qualify.  Atlanta was the obvious destination.

In the fall, we met with a real estate agent who gave us a to-do list for getting our house ready to sell.  We did everything except clean out the girls' bedrooms, leaving that for after the Christmas holidays.  Shortly after the children returned to their schools, we de-cluttered and cleaned their rooms, replaced unattractive wall art and bed linens and rearranged furniture.  A photographer captured the beauty of the home and landscape and after eight weeks of sweating, we found a buyer.

Florida's real estate market was slowly recovering from the crash of 2008, so instead of losing a fortune, we only lost the equivalent of a three bedroom house in an anonymous suburb.  After paying off the mortgage, we would have just enough to buy a decent house in less expensive housing market.  Friends and family in Atlanta encouraged us to move there because the market was still depressed.  They could not have been more wrong:  every house we liked received multiple offers and sold over asking price.  It occurred to me that we would feel poor in Atlanta and we would spend inordinate amounts of time stuck in traffic.  So we looked at smaller towns an hour or so away.

Finally, we settled on a town where our real estate dollar would go far, or so we thought.  It turns out that Atlanta's satellite towns suffer from an overabundance of outdated and unappealing homes and a scarcity of good real estate.  While the prices were lower, the good houses sold like high jackpot powerball tickets.  Worn out houses in popular locations sold for more than we could afford and turnkey houses in terrible locations simply would not work.  It took months of looking at endless internet postings of homes for sale and visits to homes that sounded promising until we found the perfect little house.  We made an offer, the sellers countered, we counter-countered, and the sellers decided to wait.  Two days later, after hearing that we were in competition with a cash buyer, we offered $15 thousand over the asking price and removed all of our contingencies.  The cash buyer won and we were back to looking at houses.

This period of riding a current over which we have no control could have been my undoing.  I often think about drinking, about how soothing a glass of Pinot Noir would be, about the warm feeling inside, and then I realize that the reason I am able to outsmart the rip current that is relocating us is the serene feeling that has replaced alcohol.  Somewhere in our future home town, there is a home for us, but in the interim we slowly and patiently move in the direction of solid ground. 

Copyright 2014 Serena Englander, all rights reserved

More Thoughts on Acceptance

Each of us has flaws and shortcomings, some of which cannot be changed.  It is important to recognize these things, accept them as reality, and forgive ourselves for being less than perfect.  More important, however, is finding things about ourselves to appreciate.  We cannot all look like movie stars, in fact most of us do not:  we are too short/tall, too fat/thin, too dark/fair, too hirsute/bald, too much this, not enough that.  This tearing down of self is an act of self-destruction and only serves to feed our addictions.

Unless you are a hermit, there are people with whom you interact on a regular basis, including family members, friends, co-workers, and neighbors.  Unfortunately, all of these people have flaws and shortcomings which can stir up uncomfortable feelings inside.  If you find yourself saying, "Suzie makes me so mad!", consider that Suzie cannot MAKE you do anything unless she is pointing a gun at your head, and even then you have a choice: to be or not to be.  In reality, you are reacting to Suzie's behavior and this is something within your ambit.  The hard work of acceptance in recovery is separating your own emotions from the behavior and emotions of others.  Once you learn to do this, you can change how you respond when people in your life do things that trigger upsetting feelings.

Finally, life has a way of frustrating the best laid plans.  Weather, health, politics, and economics shape the world in which we live.  Our task is to learn to manage our inner response to unanticipated challenges and problems.  In order to do that, we must learn to accept the storms that rain on parades and find some other way to move forward with our lives.  It is not always possible to make lemonade out of life's lemons, so it is important to accept and embrace how powerless we truly are. 

Recovering Life begins here.

Copyright 2014 Serena Englander, all rights reserved

Words to Recover By: Accept

Accept -- If we accept the things we cannot change, we stop fighting and when we stop fighting and face our vulnerabilities, we begin the process of healing from within. 

The word "accept" has many nuances: to receive gladly, to welcome, to believe, to absorb or bond, to make a contract, or to meet a minimum requirement.  In order to accept something, it must be available or on offer and we must be willing to receive it.  Sometimes, in order to grow, we have to accept things that we do not welcome, such as criticism or grief.

Recovering life is all about acceptance: 

• that we are powerless over our addiction, among other things;
• that we cannot control anything or anyone outside of ourselves; 
• of spiritual guidance; 
• of help from others who live in recovery;
• of the beauty and mystery that surround us even on the worst days, if we open our senses.

 Copyright 2014 by Serena Englander, all rights reserved

Getting Better and Better

My husband and I celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary by inviting some friends over for dinner.  One couple brought a bottle of Dom Perignon because they were celebrating their anniversary as well.  "You can have a little, it's your anniversary," said the little voice inside my head that constantly speaks to me.  "You can have a little, it's a celebration," said my friend who knows how hard it has been not to drink.  I thought about it all during dinner while everyone enjoyed a cabernet sauvignon and aged Chianti and had decided, "what the heck, it's been six months."

We set out six champagne flutes and my friend declined to open the bottle.  I volunteered because it is something I am quite good at:  slowly twisting the cork and resisting the increasing pressure as the vacuum inside the bottle begins sucking air molecules inside with increasing velocity.  I had to exert quite a bit of energy to keep the cork from flying off and the result was an ecstatic gasp as the cork met the palm of my hand.  "It's flat," my friend said.  "Oh no," I reassured her, "there is plenty of life in this bottle."  She was doubly impressed at my skill in uncorking the champagne as I poured the first glass which threatened to explode out of the delicate crystal flute.  I poured four more glasses with the finesse of a seasoned sommelier and hesitated before deciding not to fill the sixth.  "You do that very well," my friend said.  "I've had a lot of practice," I said.

I have never enjoyed a bottle of champagne more than I did that one.  

Gullible

Luca is a young man of my acquaintance whom I met while he was -- unbeknownst to me -- on house arrest.  He had crashed his car, injuring several people, while intoxicated.  During his year of house arrest, he attended mandatory AA meetings and eventually earned permission to leave his house in order to work at the horse farm where his girlfriend was employed as assistant manager.  Jenni is a sweet and beautiful young woman whose passion is horses.  She is an accomplished equestrian but has never achieved her potential.  When she met Luca, he was already in trouble:  he was selling and using drugs, getting in fights, and generally wasting his life.  The only person he was nice to was Jenni and eventually, after his accident and house arrest, the two became a couple.

When Luca first appeared at the barn, I didn't know what to think.  With tattoos from the neck down, he looked like a drugged-out thug, but was as sweet and polite as well brought up child.  He absolutely loved my horse and seemed like a peaceful and happy young man and soon I stopped noticing the "body art".  Fast forward three months to when the ankle bracelets came off.  The first thing he did was reconnect with his homies who were also newly off house arrest.  They went to AA meetings together not because they had to, he said, but because they wanted to.  Luca seemed sincere in his desire to live a good life, free of substances.  It made me happy to hear him speak of the happy place he found himself in. Around Christmas, Luca moved in with Jenni and the two made quick work of the stalls and other horsekeeping chores and seemed head over heals in love.

Last week, after the owner of the farm commented to Jenni that her work ethic had recently deteriorated, Jenni announced that she and Luca were moving out of the farm residence and into a place of their own and the two walked off the job to go house hunting.  In anticipation of a vacancy, the owner let herself inside the little house in order to measure for new kitchen cabinets and appliances.  The inside of the house, which had been mostly renovated just five months before, was a horror.  There were holes punched in the walls and garbage and dog feces covering the floors. It looked like a crack house.

One of Jenni's friends told the owner that Luca was back to selling and using drugs and was also becoming violent towards Jenni.  Later when the owner confronted Luca with her suspicions, he threatened to beat her too, but the owner reminded him that she had his parole officer's number on speed dial.  He backed off but Jenni stood paralyzed in a corner, sobbing.  The owner offered sanctuary to Jenni, but she declined without a word.

The two left the next day, but not before Luca greeted me in his usual sweet and innocent way and fussed over my horse.  I wanted to say something, to ask him why, to offer to take him to a meeting, but pretended that I knew nothing about his fall from grace.  It should not have surprised me, but it did because I wanted so badly to believe in the miracle that was his recovery.  How did I not see this coming? 

The owner of the farm, herself, is engaged to a man who is finishing his sentence for felony DUI.  The two started dating while he was on house arrest and she stuck with him during those long and lonely months because she believes in him, despite his being less than completely honest about what actually happened before the accident that nearly killed a nine-year-old child.  He seems like a sweet and good person who wants to live a good life.  He appears to have learned to live in a state of gratitude and to surrender completely in the face of addiction.  My heart will break for both of them if he throws away the God-given love of a good woman, the forgiving heart of his precious son, and the support of a whole community with a stake in his recovery.

Addiction is so powerful it blinds and numbs us to the divine light of eternal love that surrounds each and every one of us.  Living in a state of grace is a constant decision to move toward this light and to ignore the seduction of addiction's false promises.  Some days I feel like a child's soap bubble riding a gentle breeze, and on others,  like a leaf floating gently down a stream.  Fragile and beautiful and temporary. 

An Epiphany

In a recent "Dear Abby" column, a man in his 30s wrote to say that he had a lifelong problem controlling his anger and he was afraid that his outbursts were hurting his children.  Abby's response stated that "[w]hen a bigger person yells at a smaller person, the message is often lost because the smaller person (in your case, your children) simply shuts down out of fear that physical violence might follow."  I fought back an urge to vomit because of the powerful memories this statement evoked.

My whole life from the time I became aware of myself as a person, until I started taking Prozac and doing the hard work of psychotherapy, had been a time of terror.  My father routinely exploded with rage at my mother over her shortcomings as a wife, mother, homemaker, and person, and at his growing children for being "ungrateful little bastards," among other sins.  By the time I reached school age, I was completely cowed into submission, a victim ripe for picking.  All anyone had to do was raise his or her voice and I would collapse into a quivering, gelatinous mess on the floor.  Whatever beliefs or opinions I might have had disappeared before I could become aware of them.  The only thing I knew for certain about myself was that I loved horses.  Otherwise, I tried to be a chameleon and blend in but it never worked.

After college, I married a man who, like my father, had a violent temper but unlike him experienced and expressed great love and affection for me.  The angry outbursts felt very familiar as did my emotional collapse, but when the storm clouds parted, there was always love and tenderness and I found a way to pretend to be fully human, until I could figure out how to stop making my husband angry.  In my family of origin, there was never any demonstration of love and I grew up starved for it which is why during my young adult years I had sex with a handful of strangers, but avoided anyone that appeared romantically interested in or attracted to me.  It took a brush with my own mortality to shock me into caring enough about myself to allow someone else into my life.

If my father had been capable of loving me, my mother, and my siblings in a way that felt safe and happy perhaps I might have been better equipped for friendships and romantic relationships.  Instead, I trusted no one with my heart or my inner life, not even my husband.  I loved him deeply, and even more today, but was convinced that if he knew what was in my heart of darkness, he would be frightened away.   To a degree, that is still true which is why I will not let him read what I write.   Yet.

Dry Drunk

Alcoholics tend to share common traits, such as blaming others for their own mistakes, denying obvious truths, and rationalizing their unworthy behavior.  For example, a wife might blame her drinking problem on her husband's lack of sexual interest (when the reality is that she is passed out drunk every night and he finds this repulsive).  Teenagers who binge drink every weekend often fail to see a problem when they drag their hungover selves out of bed on Monday mornings.  Parents who regularly finish a bottle of wine (or more) every night credit their European heritage for their appreciation of the finer things in life.  Of course, there are much worse examples than these:  physical and emotional abuse, lying and stealing, and self-destruction, among others.

Not everyone who blames, lies to, or hurts others is an alcoholic or addict.  In AA circles, these people are called "Dry Drunks".  During my rehab and recovery process, I realized that almost everyone could benefit from a Twelve-Step type program because of the profound effect it had on my inner experience.  Each of us engages in denial and rationalization to some degree because being brutally honest with ourselves is often painful.  But, taking an honest look at oneself can be transformative because it allows us to stop pretending that we are whom we are not. 

Defensiveness has many faces:  anger, passivity, aggression, fawning, criticizing, and masking feelings are a few.  Anger, aggression, and criticizing deflect attention away from one's own shortcomings and serve to intimidate others.  Passivity, fawning, and masking feelings are a way of protecting oneself from angry, aggressive, and critical people.  Honesty is the key to being whole and healthy because it cannot survive defensiveness. 

In rehab, my counselor Chrissy often said that when someone stirs up strong (negative) feelings it is about some aspect of ourselves that we dislike.  This powerful insight allowed me to let go of anger and resentment I had toward some people in my life and confront my deeper feelings about myself.  Twelve-Step programs force us to examine our behavior over a lifetime and tease out the defenses we have used to protect ourselves from unpleasant emotions.  It is easier to hurt someone else than to admit failure or humiliation to ourselves.

If everyone could, from time to time, take an honest inventory of his or her behavior and forgive him or herself for wrongs done to others, we might all get along better.  On a global scale, this could foster a more peaceful world:  It's not you, its me and I apologize for making you feel bad because I hurt.  Amen.