Another Christmas come and gone. I do enjoy the festivities, to a point. I love the Solstice, the quiet of the earth here in the NW, time with friends and family, the lights...  And, today I’m ready to take down the tree, over the edge with crowds and traffic and images on TV of people going mad at the mall. It can be challenging to balance the sacred with the material world of buy, buy, buy! We aren’t huge gift givers, but simply navigating in the world is harder during these December weeks. On a positive note, has anyone else noticed how our meeting attendance goes up this time of year? We had four or five out of town visitors at our home group, and every meeting I’ve been in since Thanksgiving has been full. We come together in times of need, and these holiday times can be emotionally triggering.  Thank you, HP, for another day clean and sober. Thank you for the holidays coming to a close.

I’ve been listening to a Bob D (Las Vegas) CD. He describes how he fought recovery for so long, in and out, unable to slow his mind enough to hear the message. I feel fortunate not to have had that experience. I have an image of the drugs and alcohol exiting my system, leaving that God-shaped hole that we hear about. I then picture a vacuum, kind of like the sound of a can of coffee being opened, that sucked in the principles of the program. I’m certainly not implying that I understood much of anything at the beginning, but I did experience the immediate comfort of feeling like I’d come home, like this was what I’d been looking for. That was not my experience a month earlier, when I detoxed in a hospital for four days, then left. In that case, my daily habit was missing and all the vacuum sucked in was the frigid air of want and craving. Of course I got high again. What happened in the interim? I hit bottom, precipitated by seeing my face in a mirror as I searched for a vein that wasn't there. In that tiny, little snap of recognition that I was killing myself, I realized that I needed to stop, and became entirely willing to do what whatever was asked of me, having no idea what that meant. 

Bob D. talks a lot about the “disease of the mind,” and how his unmanagebilities were mainly on the inside. Yes. When I went to treatment, I had a car, and a nice home, food (mostly beer) in the fridge, and my mother was still speaking to me (though my other close friends barely were), so the outsides looked reasonably ok. But on the inside, I was shattered – grieving the ending of a relationship, knowing I was incapable, at that point, of supporting myself, feeling like whatever life spark that is me was about to flicker out. We often hear about the gift of desperation – I hope I never forget how broken I was prior to being graced with recovery on January 3, 1986. 

As I seek to cultivate internal stillness as the year ends, I take a mini-inventory:  How did I contribute this year/what do I feel good about? What truly matters to me at this point in my life, and how am I living those values? What do I want to learn/create/practice/experience in the coming year? What do I want to release?  How would you answer? What else comes up in your year end inventory or intention setting notes?

See you next year, kind reader. Thank you for continuing the journey.  (As always, the reminder that you can sign up, on the right side of the page, to receive these posts in your email, delivered each week on Thursday)

I received word this morning that my ex died. Not unexpected, though so very sad. And of note, he was in my dream before I awoke this morning. The time frames were all jumbled up, but in the dream he was leaving and I was trying to convince him to stay.

This has been a season of loss for myself and several friends. I am thinking about the balance between light and dark as we move towards Solstice. This evening, a group of women will gather at my house to mark the Solstice (actual date is Friday) with a candlelight meeting, something we’ve done for 14 years now. I appreciate tradition, and ritual – taking a moment outside our daily routines to connect with our spiritual source, however we identify that.

As a Libra, I am drawn to the idea of balance. Notice that I say idea, as I’m realizing that actual balance is fleeting. Except on the Vernal and Autumnal Equinox, nature is always in flux – the shifting from dark to light and back again, from blooming to decay. I think life is like that too. There have been times in my life that felt very dark, but even then, there was hope and positivity. Same with times of light – life is life, so there is always a bit of the darkness even in the brightest of days. As the old song says, you have to take the bitter with the sweet. Yin and yang, positive and negative... the energies interconnect. One couldn't exist without the other.  

In our Solstice meeting, we usually share about the year that is passing, noting what we hope to let go of, or what it is we hope to embrace as the calendar turns. Overall, it has been a good year – time with friends and family, time in nature, our stellar grade school reunion – and there has been loss, because that is what happens. Ups and downs, light and dark. I do believe that there is a randomness to what we experience. I can contribute to my health by not smoking, for example, and trying to drive defensively, but I am not in charge of my time to go, or anyone else’s. I honor those gone, and consciously shift my perspective to gratitude for the time we did share together. I'll need to think about what I want to manifest and invite in for 2019. I would love to let go of my sense of time urgency, my need to control when I'm off kilter - nothing new there, but perhaps a new perspective given these recent losses. If not now, when?

As we move into winter, and the daylight returns, however incrementally, what is it that you want to leave in 2018? What is it that you hope to bring forth in 2019?

I am writing this in limbo, having received word late last week that someone very important to me is in hospital on the other end of the country, in renal failure. What I'm told by a friend who is there, is that it is terminal and just a matter of time.

A matter of time - God's time, not ours. I often say that I don't believe in a puppet-master god, but that's what it has felt like this past year. Having reconnected with my first husband, making living amends and rekindling a nice friendship, I was feeling that the only missing link from those days was another ex - the man I was with when I hit bottom. We'd had a very intense relationship that encompassed the ending of my marriage, my father's death, his brother's heart attack, and Mt St Helen's erupting, among other things. It ended (though that itself was protracted) when I was unable to put down the needle. But God bless him, seriously. By all rights he could've kicked me to the curb and no one would've been surprised. Instead, he worked with my cousin to get me into treatment - paid for it, and then helped me get on my feet in that crucial first year of sobriety so that I could focus on recovery. I am eternally grateful to him for essentially saving my life. We had only sporadic contact over the past 10-15 years - he'd gotten married and had four kids (after a 1st marriage with another four children). Events transpired in his life last winter, resulting in his sister-in-law reaching out to me with his phone number.

We've had several good and necessary conversations over the past year, which felt like prayer answered. And then, feeling in my gut that something was wrong, I got word that he is in hospital. I am heartbroken, and so very grateful for the re-connection that we've had.

I was struck by the irony on Sunday that while I was completing a half marathon, the person who insisted that I go to treatment was dying, likely from the effects of his alcoholism. Life certainly hasn't turned out the way I thought it would. And I'm seeing the stark reminder of the benefits of recovery, thinking of dear Walt, who outlived a 30 year diagnosis of liver disease by living a sober life, compared to my ex, who didn't.

My ex is a good man. Was Walt a better man? What about Richard, my meth cook lover who died of an overdose so many years ago. He was a good man too. I think of young Jenny, who drank herself to death, and Brad, who took his own life, and countless others over the years who've died directly or indirectly from the disease. And then I think of those of us who have been able to walk away from the darkness. I know it has something to do with willingness, with suiting up, but I still don't understand the mechanics of the thing.

How do you quantify desire? How do you measure willingness, the willingness to step through the fear of doing something you've never done before, without the buffer of drugs or alcohol? How, exactly, does surrender happen, that moment when something snaps inside and you say, "I just can't do this anymore"?  It is certainly not logic - we all know that you can't think your way out of addiction. And you can't just feel yourself sober either. If that were the case, a bad case of the "what did I just do?" would've led straight to recovery. The surrender that we hear so much about is the spiritual equivalent of laying oneself bare, flat out "God, take me," and then being willing to stay in that terrifying place of not knowing what's next.

The Steps outline it perfectly, especially when I read them through the lens of desperation. One is that I am utterly and totally powerless. What a place to be, and one that takes so long to realize. Thank goodness for Two, the coming to believe that we can be restored, and then Three, making the decision to trust. We then have the task of putting pen to paper to determine what, exactly, we are turning over, and then in blessed Step Seven, say "My Creator, I'm now willing that you have all of me." Here I am, coming out of the fog, lost and confused. Guide me, please.

The ongoing relevance of our program is that I can apply that one, two, three & beyond to whatever troubles me, though I still need to have that moment of remembering that I am not in charge, which usually comes after beating my head against the wall of self-will. "Figure it out" is not one of the Steps, though how I do try.

So today, I balance sadness with gratitude. I pray that my dear friend is at peace, however this chapter of his story turns out, forever grateful for where and how our stories intersected.

Several times over the years I've had those God-shot coincidences of crossing paths with the exact person I needed to talk with. What about you, and how did that turn out?  Where do you find your place of surrender today, with whatever part of the "ism" that you struggle with?

I was honored and privileged, over the weekend, to sit with a small group in hospital as our good friend, Walt G, made his transition. Such a blessing, these program relationships. At one point, the ER nurse asked, “So how are you related?” We decided that  “cousins” fit – different last names, same story, though with variations. As we stood by his bed and said the Serenity Prayer, I felt the power of the “we,” the power of connection, the power of love, for our friend, and for his long-term partner. No matter what my dis-ease sometimes whispers to me, there is nothing in this life that we need to walk through alone.

At one point, during a nurse hand-off, it was mentioned that our friend had cirrhosis, from alcoholism. I felt it important to speak up and note that yes, alcoholism, but that he’d been sober for 30 years. The “cunning, baffling and powerful” of this disease is that it sometimes gets us long after the drinking is done. Our friend had a good, long life in recovery.

So I'm thinking, today, about life on life’s terms – the highs and the lows and everything in between.  Contrary to what the old timers used to say, there are big deals, though even the little deals can trigger my emotional roller coaster.  We switched out our big Christmas tree for a table model this week, which means the opportunity to trim down the holiday decor. But, it isn't just "holiday decor." It is memories of the Christmas spent with friends in Florida when it was so cold, lizards froze on the sidewalks. It is the favorite pink glass ornament that Mom always let me put on the tree as a kid. It is ornaments given as gifts, and purchased on various vacations, some from childhood and some from Mom's tree. I'm feeling both efficient and melancholy as I look at what to keep and what to give away.

I'm thinking of that duality, the ability to hold seemingly opposing emotions - sad and happy, relieved and grieving, excitement and fear. It took a long time for me to be able to move beyond black & white, good/bad thinking to "this, and..."  With time (step work, good sponsorship, therapy) I’ve been able to understand that I did bad things, but am not a bad person. My father was more than “the alcoholic” in my childhood. Bad things do happen to good people (an excellent little book, by the way – by Harold Kushner) and people that I love do die. I understand that “happy, joyous and free” is not an everyday high, but a state of mind. I understand that it is possible for fear and hope to coexist. I can anticipate missing friends who are moving, and be excited for their adventure. I can love my job and be ready to quit. 

This time of year lends itself to reflection on the year passing by and that yet to come, especially as I feel the shock and sadness of these most recent losses. A friend asked, "What is going on?!" when I told her of another friend who is currently in the hospital with kidney failure. I think what is going on is that we are getting old. As much as I don't feel what I think 64 should feel like, I am an old person. I am an old person who has been fortunate enough to have loved and lost and loved again. I am an old person who has been blessed with close friendships, and many more acquaintances of the meeting variety.  Honoring those who have moved on while allowing my sometimes mixed emotions is an aspect of maturity that I'm just beginning to get on a deep, soul level.

Even as I do my best to detach from the busyness this month, I'm unable to avoid traffic that grows exponentially each week, overcrowded parking lots and busy stores. How do you carve out a quiet moment to appreciate the connections that make this time of year special? What are some of the dueling emotions that you're feeling, and are you at peace with the whole package of your humanness?