Old Friends - Let go and let God

A man I haven't seen in over thirty years came into the store yesterday.  It is funny because I was third in line to take customers.  When I was in my 20's I went to school to get my realtor's license and met him and his wife during the crash course study program offered. The three of us ended up working for the same real estate company.

The two of them were a lot older than me and a very driven couple with identical cars and a business plan.  I became good friends with his wife and over time I realized there was something terribly wrong and she began to confide in me about the verbal and sometimes physical abuse she endured.

When he was around me he was syrupy sweet and so loving towards her to the point that it felt fake. She wanted out but with two small kids and everything tied up in the business together it would be hard.  She said he had eluded to the fact that she would never get out of the marriage alive. She certainly would never see her kids again.

She believed this because he had been in the military and had top secret clearance and worked under cover for years. He was a master of disguise so this seemed plausible to me. She said at one point before the kids were born someone had broken into there house and took nothing they could see and it was only investigated by the military. Is this true? I don't know.

Her fear and worry went on for years and I could see nothing was going to change. In my youthful ignorance I confronted him a few times telling him that I knew what was going on. The weight of this relationship took a toll on me and I had my own problems with my young drinking husband at home.

When I decided to quit pretending to be a realtor and get a real job I let our relationship drift. I knew I couldn't help her and if ask to testify I could only say that in my presence he showered her with affection. I felt helpless to do anything for her and I had to move on.

One night a few years right after my husband left I was home alone and I got this picture in my mind of her and overwhelming sadness came over me. I started crying and then I started praying like I hadn't done in a long time.  This went on for an hour until I felt a sort of peace.

A year later I heard from her out of the blue and she told me that he suddenly decided she could leave with the kids as long as she turned over her share of the business. She had gotten a divorce and permission to take the kid back to where her family lived in the north east. She was really happy.

She did move back here and we made plans about ten years ago to meet for lunch.  She was a no show and I tried calling her and she never answered. Probably God keeping me from going places I don't need to go.

When he recognized me yesterday he couldn't get away fast enough.  His business didn't really do well after they split he had some altercation at a bar that led to a lawsuit and bad publicity He looked older of course and a little shrunken. I ask about her and he said he hadn't seen her in a long time. 

I felt helpless back then not being able to see an end to what seemed like an impossible situation.  I left her and the friendship and it worked itself out.   Lately I have felt helpless again but I know now that I can't  fix someone else's problems but I can decided to do what I can and stick around.

We can turn the outcome over to a power greater than ourselves and see what happens.  If at some point it becomes too much we can still decide to move away and save ourselves.  The world won't come to an end and sometimes people are better off without you. Crushing to the ego but trues sometimes. Without support you have to really dig deep to solve you own stuff and grow.

At least that is my personal experience. 

Powerlessness - Focusing on ourselves

When I first got into the program what I heard most was "focus on yourself."  This wasn't what I wanted or expected to hear at that time in my life.  First I came to the program to fix the alcoholic in my life and second it seemed selfish to put myself before anyone else especially him.  But I was in a lot of pain and felt powerless and really didn't have any place else to go.

My friends sickness has taken me back to those feelings of powerlessness.  Watching someone else struggle and say they are going to do what it takes to get better and then watching them not do it. Having their own ideas about what will fix the problem when everyone can see that there is an obvious solution. For the alcoholic stop drinking in this case eat even if you don't want to even if you feel full.

I know from my illness and depression that you can get stuck emotionally and feel like you will be sick forever. I was stuck in my thoughts and couldn't even consider that it was physical and not emotional and I could be helped. I had been through grief before and thought I would eventually get over it but it had never lasted this long before.  I did eventually get over it but it has taken me almost a decade to feel like life is worth living.  If I had listened to anyone but myself it wouldn't have taken me as long.

We don't get good advice from ourselves all the time. When we are in a crisis we go back to being a child and we resist what is happening to us.  Our thoughts say "why me?" We look around for someone to save us or the very least feel sorry for us. Sometimes we get that but then people want to offer solutions and then this makes the child in us mad and more resistant.  Obviously no one understands what I am going through and there isn't any simple solution. We just want this to stop happening to us right now.

This make those around us "the adults" weary after awhile and eventually everyone moves on.  Leaving us with our childish thoughts and mostly alone.  It is a process that takes as long as it takes.

No one understands this more than I do. I made it easy on everyone and divorced all of my friends at the same time.  Mostly because I didn't want to be a burden and thought that at least I wouldn't have to worry about my obligations to other people. It gave me time to think my way out of it. Not!

I did have one person who stuck with me someone who started out as a casual friend whose soul purpose in life seems to be care taking.  She didn't try to fix me just be there for me making me eat.  She wasn't trying to change me back to the more likable person I had been before. She was just there for me until I got better and when I did she moved on to someone else.

With tragedy growth is inevitable. Grow or suffer..  We can decide to stay stuck or we can get sick and tired of being sick and tired and do something about it. Our child mind is trying to catch up and it is pissed off that once again it has to do the work. We imagine there is a point in life where things will be easy and sometimes it is but we don't appreciate it until we experience the opposite.

We can't save other people they have to save themselves. We can share our experience, strength and hope and just be there. He is a program person and just like me he has the foundation to find his way out of this.  He is also like I was he has a physical component that is skewing his thought process.

It will take longer for him to come back from this without more food.

When I first  came to the program I hated the idea that I was powerless over my husbands drinking and that I needed to focus on my own recovery.  Seriously there was nothing wrong with me if only he would do what he was suppose to do we would both be happy. I can say that about my friend and his fear of food but it isn't true. He will get through it and in the mean time  I have to focus on my own recovery.

We can't help the people closest to us we are perceived as parents and rejected.  I will do my part and offer food and know that it will all work out eventually. Hopefully it won't take a decade like it did for me.

Devils Advocate

Does the devil really need an advocate? It seems if your the devil your doing alright all on your own.

I had a meeting with our landlord today to discuss reducing the rent. The rent was last negotiated when things were at their peak. I was talking to a friend about the appointment today and she proceeded to tell me all the things that could happen that wouldn't be in my favor. She stated she was just being the devils advocate.

What I have learned from my journey through the steps is how not to be that person anymore. I learned that when I turn things over to a power greater than myself I don't need to go through every possible bad scenario, I just expect that things will go exactly the way they should go and I don't need to live in fear of something I have no control over anyway. I don't have to ready and if things go wrong I will spring into action then instead being upset before I know the outcome.

We had the meeting. It went exactly how I envisioned it would go and we have reduced our expenses. The owner and myself said a prayer in the car asking that all parties come away from the meeting satisfied.

Just as the devil doesn't need an advocate God doesn't need one either. He is God you know and can handle things without my help. It was a good day.

Step Two-Came to Believe

Step Two- Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.



What this means to me is that it is possible, it doesn't mean that it has happened yet. In my case this process is long and painful. I have to wallow in the mess admit that I have a problem and then believe that I can't fix it. As long as I think I can find a solution on my own I don't need help. When I am exhausted and I have come to a place of acceptance of my powerlessness I am ready to accept help. I just have to be ready and believe that I will some day be restored to sanity. What to do while I am waiting is the hardest part. I am an action person and I can quickly start thinking of possible solutions and I then have to go back to Step One. This is the insanity and why I have to believe that only a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity. All I have to do is believe this is possible.

I have been waiting to be restore to sanity for almost two years and it has been the most painful period of my life. Until recently I didn't believe that I would ever be restored to sanity. I have had more difficult times in the past but I would escape by burying the pain in my work and the rest of the time I would sleep. This time those solutions didn't work for me. I was left to face the pain wide awake. Most of the time I felt like I was an alien visiting from another planet. In the past month I have seen glimpses of sanity and that has helped me to believe that it is possible.

Today's reading in Courage to Change talks about growing at your own pace and this growth cannot be forced no matter how bad we want to move ahead. I have accepted this time of my life as part of God's plan for me. The pain will pass and with the help of the steps and my friends in the program I will emerge stronger than ever. I am only ask to believe.

Step One-The first time

Step One- We admitted we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives have become unmanageable.

I came to my first Al-Anon meeting through the recommendation of my counselor I didn’t really even know that I was fighting the disease of alcoholism. All I knew was my husband had left me after 9 years of marriage and I had to do something about it. When she brought up the possibility that alcohol played a part in my situation I didn’t really believe her. The alcoholics of my childhood didn’t have jobs. Sure he drank but so did all his friends and they were happily married. At this point I thought I was not powerless and if I could figure out what it was that he needed I could fix it. So I started scheming I tried everything you can imagine and to my surprise nothing worked. He would reach out to me sometimes and this would give me hope but when I reached out to him he wasn’t interested. This made me crazy and I would like to say I gave up and ran to Al-Anon and embraced the 12 steps, but I wasn’t powerless yet. Alcoholism was so final and I wanted proof so I tested the theory. I would have him meet me at restaurants that didn’t serve alcohol and study him. He was noticeably agitated and would say this place would be great if they served beer. The last of these meetings he said I know you’re mad, why don’t you just punch me. You heard right. I have never punched anyone before or since but took him up on it. I knocked the wind out of him and I am a small women and he was a big man. My life had become unmanageable and I knew it.

I did eventually attend that first meeting. As you can tell from the story above it is clear that by the time I got there I couldn’t deny that I was powerless and that my life had become unmanageable. I was spiritually bankrupt and the ups and downs of dealing with the effects of alcoholism had taken its toll on me. I don’t really know if whether my ex-husband was or is an alcoholic but, I do know he was an adult child of an alcoholic and that alcohol had affected our lives. This was my first experience with the Step One but not my last.