Hindsight

 My sometimes walking route takes me past the apartment I moved into when I left my first husband. I was 23, had never lived on my own before, and well into daily drinking, along with the poor decision making that went along with that (cue disco music). I probably kept the apartment for close to a year, though only lived there for maybe 6 months. When my new boyfriend came home from an extended family/business trip, I essentially moved in with him.

I wasn't much of a blackout drinker, yet I have very few actual memories of my time in the apartment. I remember my dad going with me to buy my first car (a Chevy Nova) and the driving school instructor coming over for my lessons. I remember awful hangovers, hitting the snooze button on the alarm clock 3  or 4 times, groggily downing an Instant Breakfast with toast while reading the comics and Dear Abby, then walking to work about a mile away. A non-alcoholic friend from school was a runner, knocking on the door a few times in the early morning so I could join her, stopping after one too many sleepy (i.e. hungover) groans through the screen door that I couldn't go. 

In hindsight, that all-knowing, all-seeing oracle, I sure wish I'd lived on my own, and maybe gone to college before getting married - though if I'd done either, I probably wouldn't have gotten married at all. I was very competent in the workplace back then, but had such limited maturity in the realm of relationships. I can be grateful to have survived, to have not gone home with the wrong stranger, to have never wrecked a car.

At one of my Alanon meetings this week, the topic was "love," with the sad awareness that love isn't enough to save someone from addiction. As people shared, I realized that, as a kid, I confused love with pity, with the illusion of control, or performance, as in "if I do this, that or the other thing, the person I love will be OK." In reality, love has to do with respecting another's decisions, no matter how stupid those may seem. My heroin addicted boyfriend died of an overdose. All the "love" in the world couldn't change his unwillingness or inability to accept his powerlessness. Love can mean trust, as in trusting that you know what is best for yourself in the moment. I don't have to agree. 

And a huge piece of recovery has to do with learning to love myself enough to stay in my lane, to understand on a gut level that my dad's alcoholism wasn't my fault, to have compassion for others without trying to be in charge. Loving myself means paying attention to the still, small voice that I used to try to outrun or ignore, the voice that said, "Ah, not a good idea," while I went ahead anyway. Loving myself these days means respecting the HALTS, paying attention to bodily changes without being paranoid, following routines that work for me while being flexible when circumstances warrant. The saying we've heard a thousand times - let us love you until you can love yourself - seemed so very corny, especially since I had no idea what it meant. Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly...

I've been to a couple of in-person meetings this past week, one my long time (and long ago) home group that I intend to continue. It's at the same church, in a different room (with a working fireplace), and only one guy from back in the day - and that guy just celebrated 42 years. Between the pandemic and getting older (!) I've gotten very comfortable with my online connections. And, in-person meetings allow for more spontaneous interactions, and real life hugs. 

Name three things you're grateful for today. Is there a person or situation that you might need to release? What did "Let us love you until you can love yourself?" mean to you at the beginning? Now? 

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The NOW WHAT workbook is 78 pages of topics and processing questions, great for solo exploration or in a small group. Go to the WEB VERSION of this blog page for the link on ordering (PDF for those outside the U.S., or who prefer it, or hard copy mailed to you). 

Contact me at SoberLongTime@soberlongtime.com or shadowsandveins@gmail.com with questions. A reminder that the workbook is available at Portland Area Intergroup, 825 NE 20th. for local folks. Also, Barth Books and Gifts took a few workbooks back to Yakima, WA with them from Summerfest, if you're in the area