“If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it-then you are ready to take certain steps.” -The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous pg 58
I am on a journey. I’m not sure where I am going but I know the direction is forward. My journey started 16 years ago when I entered the rooms of Al-Anon. Al-Anon is group for families and friends of alcoholics. At the time I was living with someone who was drinking too much and it was having a detrimental effect on me and my mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health. Joining Al-Anon gave me support, knowledge, compassion, and strength. It gave me a relationship with a Higher Power that I had long lost and it gave me a place in a community with no other agenda other than supporting one another through life. All of our lives had been affected by someone else’s drinking or addiction. We knew what it was like. There was safety in it, there was comfort in it, there was anonymity in it and I needed all of those things.
Through my years in Al-Anon I have realized that what brought me there was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to the affects of alcoholism on my life as a whole. It was a thread of my life since I was born and long before as I suspect that it has run in my family lines for generations. I don’t have proof of this and am not pointing fingers at anyone down the line, but there are behaviors present in families affected by addiction and boy do we have them.
My suspicion is that I marinated in a good stew of drama in my mama’s belly. Not to blame my mother, she had no more control over her life circumstances than I did when I was growing my own child in me surrounded by dysfunction and not even knowing life could be different. I don’t have blame in my heart, but compassion for all of us affected by generations of living with the affects of addiction, alcoholism, or patterns of behavior shaped by them.
So I’ve been chipping away slowly at this mountain of pain, some mine, some left over from previous generations, and some dumped on me by a society that promotes drinking and vice and shames those living out the effects of it all. When I arrived at Al-Anon I was just willing to show up. I wanted to feel better, but honestly, just tell me how to get someone to quit drinking so I could get on with my happily ever after dream. I was exhausted and not really in the mood for working on me. I didn’t know at the time that me was the only person I was allowed to work on. My plan was to work on everyone who was upsetting me.
So controlling, manipulating, stonewalling, withholding, punishing, and/or being a complete pushover were the only skills I had. I thought they would deliver results if I just kept at them with great gusto. As it turns out, none of these work (if you already knew this then thanks for not letting me in on this info 16 years ago). What they will do for you is destroy relationships, chop away at dignity and respect, and leave you exhausted and mentally, emotionally, and spiritually bankrupt.
Al-anon led me to a community that did not scold me for using these old trick in my bag, for as long as I needed to. They used them too and when we got together, we talked about how much it hurt and how could we learn to do it differently. There was no judgement because we all knew how hard it was to learn a new way of life in the midst of great chaos and generations of learned behaviors. It was my safe haven.
I used to go to AA meetings to learn more about the disease of alcoholism. AA meetings start with a reading of How It Works from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. This is where the quote above came from “willing to go to any lengths…” and when I first heard it, it struck me hard. I knew hearing it that we were all in the fight for our lives and that we were going to have to battle for it. I’m so glad I learned this early on and that I heard it with the severity that I believe the founders meant for it to have. This was life or death.
I have chosen life. At all cost, and believe me the costs have been great. I am willing, at all times, to do whatever it takes. I’m fighting for me. ME! ME! I’m worth losing everything else for. I will go to any length for myself.
Do I sound selfish? I don’t care. The most loving thing I can do for myself and anyone I love is to take the best care of myself as humanly possible. When I am my best self, I can show up for you as a big giant ball of love and goodness ready to scoop you up and spill my goodness over onto you. When I am practicing self care and healthy boundaries, and self-love I am unstoppable. Who wouldn’t want that for me? I’ll tell you who, those who do not wish to be awakened from their sleep that keeps them in the unconscious behavior patterns they survive on. That’s okay. Just know that I won’t be stopping for you and your comfort, I cannot. I have seen what others in recovery and in healing have and I want it for myself. I am willing to go to any length.
I attended a retreat this weekend that took great bravery to get to. I showed up not knowing what to expect, who would be there, or how it would impact me. I trusted the facilitator. I knew what this person had awareness, love, peace, connection with God, healing and the ability to feel and connect in a deep way with others, and I was willing to go to any length to have those things for myself. I know that great change takes big brave acts of faith. I went and I participated to the full extent of my abilities. I pushed through fear, pain, tears, anxiety, upset, trauma wounds, and on the other side was love, community, connection, acceptance, healing and self-awareness. I’m so glad I went. My life will not be the same.
The picture above is me on the deck the first night before dinner. I’m a mess on the inside wondering if I made the right decision, if I had what it takes to do the work, and doubting my faith in myself and the people I was there with. But I could also hear the words in my head that I heard 16 years ago that struck me right in the heart…willing to do whatever it takes…and I stayed. In return, I reached a new level of healing in my life and found a new layer of myself that had been hidden away and pushed aside by the affects of addiction and trauma on me. Every bit of it was worth it and I look forward to more, hopefully this fall, on this lake, in this house, where I found more of me and people to support me in my search.