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.

A Christmas Miracle

At the risk of writing a sentimental sermon about the spirit of Christmas, I want to share a miracle:  Julia, daughter #1, volunteered to spend time with her grandmother. 

As a mother, GM was a classic narcissist.  She loved her three sons to the extent they reflected favorably upon her.  In other words, not very much.  Success meant being superior to everyone else in every way.  GM made this her life's work and was extremely good at it.  She was not, however, happy and the sad part is that she didn't know it.  When she felt upset, which was all of the time, GM went about "fixing" some aspect of her environment in the form of giving advice or criticism or picking a fight or redecorating a room or shopping or "having work done.". Somehow her sons managed not to murder her for her constant expressions of motherly love:  telling them who they should be, how they should look, and what they should (not) do.  Failure to conform to her wishes was an intolerable rejection which never went unpunished.

Son #1 did his best to conform, but in the end was unable to measure up.  He dropped out of Yale, married a nice (wealthy) Jewish girl, and lived in the style to which his mother was accustomed for a couple of years.  The marriage failed as did the next three.  He lost his psychology license because he engaged in a romantic relationship with a patient and then moved to Israel to become a militant Zionist.  Son #2 conformed up until he graduated from Harvard Law School (after Duke University) and then dropped out of law to become a professional psychic.  Son #3, my husband, refused to conform but became a successful business attorney, got married, and had two children.  Of the three, he is the son who reflects the best upon his mother, but she still doles out the "motherly love."

Grandpa is a classic enabler who allowed his wife to bully their children with her withholding of love unless they conformed to her wishes which they were never allowed to do.  There has never been a more co-dependent relationship than theirs and while they were successful in many ways, they are both emotionally crippled and disappointed in their offspring.

I never let it get to me when GM would buy me padded bras and lipsticks and force me to try on clothing which accentuated the negative more than my own choices did.  When the babies came along, GM had a fantasy about how wonderful it was going to be and bought a houseful of baby products for the week or two we spent with them.  Unfortunately for her, Julia had her own ideas from birth about what she wanted to do and how she wanted to do it.  The two never hit it off but once Julia entered puberty, the war was on and I was caught in the middle.  My daughter and husband would tell me to tell GM to back off and GM would complain to me about how horrible my daughter and husband were behaving, like I could fix everyone.  If anyone should have hated her, it should have been me.

As Julia grew from teenager to adult, she struggled mightily with depression, anxiety, mania, and ADHD.  Her grandmother had no ability to understand why Julia was so difficult to be around as well as her failure to fawn all over her like a good granddaughter.  No amount of explaining was enough to enlighten GM.  For the past decade, she has asked me the same twenty questions about Julia and I have given her the same twenty answers.  It's like talking to a stone.

Meanwhile, Julia has had the benefit of loving, supportive, and understanding parents who demanded no more than she was capable of doing.  The one time that we asked her to step up to the plate was on the occasion of her grandparents' 70th wedding anniversary, a dinner party planned weeks, no months, in advance.  Unfortunately, the dinner party coincided with a "cosplay" convention in which Julia and her friends hoped to win an award for their costumes.  Fortunately, the competition was held in the morning along with the photo shoot.  The winners -- my daughter and her friends -- were announced while we were attempting to enjoy the dinner and Julia made sure that each and every one of us suffered for requiring her attendance.  I nearly disowned her after that and it was a long time before I was willing to give her the time of day.

So, when the girls came home for Christmas and the grandparents came down to be with us for a week, Julia made a big show of hating her grandmother (who chose to ignore it).  Kayleigh, daughter #2, took her sister to task on Christmas Eve and said some things which caused Julia to realize that it was she who was causing the problems by being reactive instead of ignoring the criticism and acting like a civil and mature human being.  As Santa was getting ready to fill the stockings, Julia came in and apologized for her many years of being an asshole.  She said that she finally understood that she owned more than half the dysfunction in the family and promised to do better.  I hugged her and told her I loved her and that the past doesn't matter as much as the present.

The next day, after opening presents and eating a delicious Christmas dinner, GM mentioned that she needed to get a manicure and Julia volunteered to take her and have lunch with her.  I almost died of shock.  She seemed genuine in her offer and GM was thrilled.  It was the first time that Julia had said anything nice to her grandmother in years and she seemed sincere.  Just the same, I expected a blow-up and arranged to meet them for lunch.  When I arrived, they were chatting and laughing like a couple of old biddies and the only explanation I could come up with is that a God had performed a miracle. 

Serenity Happens!