I’m grateful to be back at home. I’m grateful for a cloudy, quiet morning. I’m grateful for the beauty that unfolds in my life when I let it. I’m grateful for inside jokes and really good coffee (I know, but I am). I’m grateful to be sober today.

LAST WEEK ON TFLMS:

song of the week:

TFLMS Weekend: Where Sobriety Isn’t Just a Consequence…

(last weekend)

I’m grateful for a chance to visit my son. I’m grateful for a ride on his ship. I’m grateful for finding the path back and grateful for always moving forward. I’m grateful for the light that fills my life. I’m grateful for mini-Oreos. I’m grateful to be sober today.

Mystery ?? Button

song of the week:

I’m visiting my son, he’s an officer on the USS Gettysburg, a guided missile cruiser, that will be deploying in a few weeks as part of a carrier strike force, bound for the troubled waters of the Middle East. IRL, I’m a big news junkie, and it does give seemingly remote events a very personal bite when your child is among those going to do a very difficult and dangerous job in a very faraway place.

I have received an invitation for a “Tiger Cruise,” wherein family are invited for a ride on the ship prior to deployment. Of course I responded instantly (also I love my son very much and always jump at chances to see him) and here I am in Norfolk, excited to spend the day tomorrow on my son’s ship. The song? I have always liked this song and it’s set aboard a navy vessel (a battleship not a cruiser). Enough said.

Of course, I’m proud of my Lieutenant son, unbelievably, overwhelmingly proud of him. He left college with a classics degree and was unsure where his extensive knowledge of Latin and ancient Greek would take him. He landed a job with a data analytics company and within a year he was working on special projects with the CEO.

It was December of 2019 when he decided he wanted to take the exam and try to get into Officer Candidate School (“OCS”). I found this out from his sister, because he wasn’t really speaking to me much back then. I was again at a few months of sobriety—but I wasn’t even telling my children that anymore, there had been so many fraudulent day counts, so many lies and misrepresentations about my sobriety—well, it was hard to blame them for not believing much that I said.

Having to find out about him joining the navy from his sister was hard. I was crushed, as hurt as I’ve ever been. I wasn’t mad at my son, I was just so disappointed in myself, so angry at myself. So frustrated at how I had managed to push such wonderful, amazing children so far away. There’s not much that’s more painful than estrangement from your kids. It’s a bleak kind of emptiness, when even the people who loved you reflexively and so sweetly from the very beginning, finally turn away.

There was nothing I could do but keep getting sober, bide my time and hope that time really does heal all wounds. When he called, I answered. When there was any chance to see him, I changed plans and showed up. I never complained, I never asked for more. I just kept showing up sober. I knew there was nothing I could do or say that would influence his opinion of me, he had to come by those feelings on his own. He had to decide for himself about my sobriety, all I could do was provide supporting evidence.

We alcoholics run on different timelines. Days, even months can be lost to a barstool and a flinty sauvignon blanc, but we expect other people to come around lickety-split. It was hard to wait, it was hard to know that it was completely out of my control—except for the part about being honest and showing up whenever I had the opportunity.

He was commissioned as an officer in January of 2022, and since he had graduated near the top of his class, he had choices in the ship assignment process. He was excited to get serve aboard the USS Gettysburg—an incredibly powerful combat ship that is tasked with providing air and missile defense for a carrier strike force. His strike force deploys later in September.

As we get closer to the time, I get a little more scared, although I would never say that to him. Even if one discounts the danger posed by Houthi rebels firing missiles and launching drones at ships in the Red Sea, it’s not easy serving aboard a combat ship. There are long, long days capped with longer nights on watch—scanning the horizon from the bridge, even in the deepest parts of the night. There are months away from family and loved ones; He’ll spend Thanksgiving, Christmas and maybe his birthday aboard the ship.

I’ve written before about the miracle of the restoration of my relationship with him. And as I was re-reading previous efforts, I realized I couldn’t tell the story any better than I did a few Christmases ago. While I would normally just put the link here, I thought I would just put the whole thing here in front of you:

I hope that if Christmas is your thing, it was lovely. It was very, very lovely here. My son is on leave from the Navy and arrived yesterday. We had made the determination that, even though it was Christmas, since we won’t see each other on New Year’s Day, we would have pork and sauerkraut for dinner. In case you didn’t know this, pork and sauerkraut on New Year’s Day, is essential to securing the lucky bounces for 2023. He regaled me with stories of his time at sea (so far, a ten-day live fire and helicopter operations training cruise). It was hard to hear many of the details he was so vividly discussing, because I was trying to wrap my head around the idea that other adults on a combat ship call him “Sir.”

You see, in my mind’s eye, he’s still wearing pajamas with feet in them and getting all excited after watching “Space Jam” for the 132nd time. We repair to the Fisher-Price basketball set-up in the basement and I get posterized again and again. There is ferocious dunking going on, amid garbled three-year old trash talk, “Take it to the Hooch,” he shout-giggles as he crashes towards the rim, oblivious to the fact that I’ve established position and he was clearly going to take a charging call here and have the “hooch” waved off. He didn’t care. It’s a vicious, two-handed Daryl Dawkins “glass is flying, Robinzine crying, ain’t no playing, get out of the waying” dunk. The impact knocks me off my knees and he falls on top of me with his rumbly, Winnie-the-Pooh belly laugh. He scrambles up, so that he can stand over me, laugh derisively and proclaim:

I don’t know where he learned all of that. My official position is also that I’m unaware of how exactly he learned all of the words to “Dude Looks Like a Lady” when he was five.

My drinking and the ensuing divorce, was pretty hard on a certain 15 year-old. It definitely left marks and it breaks my heart to see them. The cute, cuddly, always-laughing boy had to go through a lot. There are lots of moments I wish I didn’t have to remember, but he does, so I do, too. I think healing isn’t about forgetting; I think it happens when two people hold on to some common pain, and each other, until things get better. And things get better, they really do.

One of the worst memories I have is a dinner with M. in 2019. I was proudly proclaiming how sober I was, how great things were, how my newest relationship was the thing that was going to save me. Look, it’s already working! We were at our favorite Chinese restaurant in DC and I was drunk. He knew it the whole time. Things got pretty frosty after that, and there was more bad stuff to come. When he decided to join the Navy later that year, he made a point of not telling me. At some point, he had the “talk” with me: He would always love me and be grateful for everything I had done for him, but he was a grown-up now and got to choose who was in his life and I was not really going to make the cut.

That was crushing. And it was worse when I let myself think how bad it must have felt to him, to have had enough happen to say that so cooly and calmly. Yeah, it all left a terrible mark and it’s still hard for me to look at him and know what I put him and his sister through.

But last night, we sat in front of my pretty tree with the colored lights and opened presents (well, he did, he forgot mine at his Mom’s house). He put on the high performance stocking cap I got him, for those late nights and super early mornings on the Bridge, while he’s there scanning the horizon. We ate pork and sauerkraut, took a late night, very chilly walk around the upper east side and then he played Skyrim while I dozed on the sofa. I woke up to a soft tap on the shoulder, “Good night, Dad, love you, Merry Christmas.”

I get pretty riled up when I hear people talk about “the Promises of AA” and mention “cash and prizes” in the same breath. I just want to shake my head, “Can’t you see the real miracle that’s out there,” I want to ask?

It’s a miracle that I got sober for sure. The much greater miracle is the way my heart and the hearts of the people who loved me, have grown together again. It took a lot of courage for us to do that, not the bravery in battle kind of courage, but the kind of courage that comes from letting your heart do the work, the courage that comes from putting your heart at the center of your life. That’s what sobriety has done for me and the people who love me. M was pretty upset that he forgot my gift. He’ll see, soon enough, just how great a gift he did deliver this Christmas.1

When you’re (hopefully) reading this tomorrow, I’ll be aboard the Gettysburg and undoubtedly in awe of the 500 young women and men who crew the ship and will be doing what generations of sailors before them have done: Go in harm’s way, so the rest of us don’t have to. The pay is terrible, the job is hard and the hours are long and I’m not sure I could have any more respect or admiration for the dashing young officer on that ship who happens to be my son.

The real power of the Big Book and of AA, is the power of example. Bill got sober when he saw his friend and potentially even bigger alcoholic, Eby Thacher, had gotten sober. If it works for him, it might work for me. When we see the miracles that take place in other’s lives as they gain sobriety, we start to get the idea that maybe we’re not beyond help ourselves.

My son is excited to see me tomorrow, too. We talk a lot these days and unfortunately for his very lovely girlfriend, we have the same sense of humor. We have something back that maybe we both thought was lost for good. He has a father he can trust; a father he can rely on again. And I have a son. A very brave, very kind, very strong, very sensitive, very handsome, very loyal, very funny, very excellent son.2

Seriously, how could I ask for anything more?

Happy Friday.

I’m grateful for feeling the seasons change ever so slightly with the cool air being a welcome relief during my morning runs. I’m grateful for the incremental updates we keep adding to our home to make it both more comfortable and more pragmatic. I’m grateful for the newcomer who has been showing up and letting it all out – inspiring me to demonstrate the same courage. I’m grateful for how delicious our peach and nectarine hauls have been for the past several weeks. I’m grateful for the regularity with which I look out at the horizon and my mouth drops at how beautiful the nature around here is – I hope that feeling of wonder doesn’t subside anytime soon. I’m grateful for having options in life. I’m grateful for a meeting focused on Step 1 and our experiences with powerlessness in those final days. I’m grateful for randomly sitting next to someone who recently relapsed after moving to Denver and being able to guide him a little on how to navigate the AA scene.

On Sunday evening I wasn’t in the best mood. I’d been cleaning and doing a variety of home projects throughout the day that were pretty taxing. I’d not eaten at the most optimal times. I’d been stuck indoors save for my morning run. There were tiny actions taken by my partner that were also kinda grating on me. I’d gotten caught in a rainstorm while walking the dog. Luckily we were fairly close to home, but he had not been able to “go” fully. I had to bring him back inside and wash the dirt from his feet, as I do every time we go out, but knowing full well I needed to do this again in 10 minutes after the rain stopped. My mind was primed to react poorly to external events…and it did.

Now the manifestation of my anger wasn’t yelling or visibly lashing out. It was quietly stewing on the couch and trying to analyze “why?”. Why am I in a bad mood when generally speaking there isn’t a super solid reason for me to be. At best I can be moderately annoyed, but what purpose is this negative state of mind serving me except to infringe on my serenity?

In the old days I’d escape this emotion rather swiftly (or more likely make it worse) with a bottle of vodka. Thankfully that idea never crossed my mind, but deploying AA certainly did. I began asking myself how can I tap into the knowledge I’ve gained from being in this Program to get out of my funk.

First thing is I needed to give myself a little grace around feeling my feelings, even the subpar ones: anger, pettiness, snarkiness, etc. Ignoring them or scolding myself for not perfectly avoiding negativity wasn’t going to turn things around. However I knew I could only have this grace period for a short while. Stewing in it is never the ultimate solution so I had to concurrently devise an off-ramp strategy.

Later that evening after our second walk where my dog did finish his business, I began deploying a variety of techniques I’ve learnt in the rooms to get recentered. I asked myself the question, “What would the best AA version of me do here?”. Immediately a phrase I often recall at these junctures surfaced: “Everything is temporary“. I kept saying it over and over. I often find relief in repetition and repetition does drive home the message for me. I began welcoming the notion that another thought, another emotion would eventually arise and over time enough of these would allow me to move past my present state. I also reminded myself of the mountains I’d just seen highlighted by the setting sun and wondered how they’ve survived for thousands of years. Is whatever I’m feeling really that necessary to hold onto given my relatively short time on Earth?

After letting my mind sit in these musings, I remembered how helpful writing out gratitude lists are. So I listed a bunch of good things that happened throughout the day to counterbalance my negativity: successfully mounting artwork that had been stored in the basement, enjoying delicious homemade Indian food with plenty of leftovers for the week, having a functioning car that works in the city and at higher elevations, showing my NYC friends around Denver, etc. I got another few minutes of reprieve as I actively challenged my mind to find the light and to adopt a bird’s eye view of my life, which made it harder to be absorbed by darkness.

As my grouchy thoughts continued subsiding, I remembered a mindfulness tool a fellow had shared at a meeting a few weeks back. After having an argument with her husband the fellow decided to write about how she could’ve tackled the scenario better. She created two columns on a sheet of paper. In one column she listed her defects that had emerged during the disagreement and in the other she listed the opposite thought / action she wished she had taken. Seeing everything side by side helped get her right-sized.

As I filled out the internal defects that I’d been exhibiting in my first column I immediately realized how petulant, how childish I was being. When I moved onto filling out the second column, a sense of calm overcame me. I saw before me a roadmap for getting out of my bad mood. Here’s an abbreviated version of what the list looked like (details are omitted for personal reasons):

It’s a miracle how being sober can ensure that formerly intense desires for embracing delusion are absent when I direct my mind to productive, honest work like this. While the remnants of my sourness lingered somewhat, I began switching over to a stronger headspace where I visualized the nasty little tendrils of my defects slowly dissolving. That list creation allowed me to confront what was happening head on. I wasn’t avoiding my demons, I was understanding them and then strategically erasing them by putting everything in context. From chanting about life’s transience, to finding gratitude, to remembering how I can show up as the best version of myself, I found a way to be lead by my better angels. It’s truly amazing what my sober mind can do these days to be my own best advocate and not my own worst enemy.

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I am so grateful to be sober today. I’m grateful for seeing T yesterday, for my family, my friends and my partner. I’m grateful for our home, for AA, for asking for and getting help. I’m grateful for coffee, my service commitments, for keeping the doors open and letting the fresh air in.

Gooood morning my friends (: As per always, I hope everyone had a lovely weekend and you are feeling at least refreshed for the week ahead (let’s petition for a four-day work week?).

This morning, I sat down on my couch with my coffee all comfy only to open my laptop and realize it’s about to die. So, let’s see if I can make it through this entire post without having to get up.

On Saturday, I had yet another breakdown. I gotta tell you guys I’m really tired of having breakdowns – I feel like an actual insane person. So, I called my dad, and he helped me realize a lot of things. I am feeling this incessant feeling that something needs to change from deep inside and I have just looked at it like ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’ And I definitely don’t know what’s wrong with me, but my dad helped me see that this incessant feeling, the weekly breakdowns, it’s something that’s bigger than me.

When I first got sober, I absolutely had a white light experience – I woke up and I knew it was over for me (my drinking) and I knew that it wasn’t me making that decision. I fought it slightly for exactly one week (thought I could make do on the alcohol only episodes of intervention rather than AA) when again, it wasn’t me that made the decision to go to AA.

And still to this day or maybe up until I actually started writing this – I very firmly believed I’d never have such a white light experience again. That it was a one and done – gotta save her life and then we’ll be subtle for there – kind of thing.

But after this last breakdown and talking to my dad it was almost like some of the fog lifted. Maybe it wasn’t a full white light, just some rays but it’s more than I ever thought I’d get again and for the first time in a really long time I have hope again. That things can change, I’m not just stuck here forever, that last week’s micro actions can apply to a lot more than just journaling and wellness.

I am inspired again by the options I do have. And for the FIRST TIME EVER I am accepting that I just don’t know the answer. I don’t know where exactly I’m headed or what I want. I’m standing at a jumping off point and a long time ago I used to write here a lot about leaping and trusting the net will catch you.

I gotta tell you I’m fucking terrified to leap. Who wants to leap? That’s so stupid and not logical and what if all these numbers of catastrophic things happen and the net isn’t actually there, and this is all fake and I’m just going to fail. Well ladies and gentlemen I am starting to understand that the real courage is in leaping anyway. Getting sober at the time was to me genuinely out of my hands, I had nothing to lose, and it saved my life.

This is so much scarier, because I am sober. I have things to lose. But I want to be someone who has courage and who fights for happiness. Who listens to my body, those deep-down feelings that I simply cannot ignore anymore. Who has all of these fears – and leaps anyway.  

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Xx

Jane

P.S. I am pleased to report I still have 14% battery and have not had to get up from the couch!

I’m grateful for a lazy day and grateful to myself for making it happen. I’m grateful for the warm sun on the pirate balcony. I’m grateful for the farmers market. I’m grateful for the life I’ve built. I’m grateful to be sober today.

LAST WEEK ON TFLMS:

song of the week:

TFLMS Weekend: Where Sobriety Isn’t Just a Consequence…

(last weekend)

I’m grateful for a Friday morning. I’m grateful for where I’ve been. I’m grateful for an excellent cheeseburger. I’m grateful for how I got here. I’m grateful for the sun and the smile on my face. I’m grateful to be sober today.

Mystery ?? Button

song of the week:

I’m not sure how the whole “song of the week” thing began. There is now a whole process around the selecting of the songs; invariably, that carefully constructed, deliberative approach gives way to hearing a song I haven’t heard for a long time and then not being able to stop listening to said song. This is what happened with this song.

Maybe it’s not the happiest of songs. I can remember listening to it a long time ago, like the early 2000s. I was a very unhappy, hard-drinking alcoholic. There were lots and lots of problems all around me. My marriage was already in a shambles, I was going through some fairly wrenching events and upheaval in my professional life. In those days, I mostly “slept” on the sofa in the family room, the three dogs surrounding me, the TV flickering some military history documentary all night long. The cauldron of fear, anger, shame, regret, guilt, hopelessness and loneliness was always overflowing, my stomach roiled with every boil-over.

I was still almost a decade away from finally seeking help for the thing that dominated my life. My memories of that time are tinged with dislocation and desperation. I felt empty and lost, I was so tired of living a double-life. But I had no idea how to stop. This was an extension of the realization I had in a black naugahyde booth listening to the Electric Light Orchestra:

I don’t know how this ever ends. How will this ever stop?

I remember hearing this song and so viscerally identifying with it. I listened to it over and over and over, thinking how perfectly it encapsulated my sad, desperate, entrapped life.

I remember painting the basement (I like painting) and listening to this song on repeat for three days. I was angry. I was lost. There was no sign of land and I had no idea which direction to paddle.

I drank. A lot.

I’d play this song in the car and sing along, feeling the satisfying burn of resentments and anger washing over me, creating the perfect conditions for an afternoon, or an evening, or a mid-morning rendezvous with that chanteuse, Kim Crawford. My wife knew I drank, she just had no idea how much or how often, or what happened when I did.

I was the classic Jekyll and Hyde of the Big Book, turning routine trips to the Home Depot into hurried visits to the Legal Sea Foods in the mall next door. I knew the bartenders there could be counted on to get me the three or four glasses I needed to continue the day—and I only had about 30 minutes. I still needed to get to the Home Depot and buy whatever it was for the project I wasn’t actually going to do. I lived the life of a spy, always constructing a cover story to generate time “in the black,” time where I could drink.

I got the “in the black” thing from a book I read about operations at the CIA station in Moscow in the 1980s and 1990s. Everyone leaving the US Embassy complex was, of course, heavily surveilled. It was necessary to elude the tail, using disguises and ruses and trickery, all employed to generate what they called, “time in the black.” Time when they weren’t subject to surveillance, weren’t being watched and had the time to do what was necessary.

They did spy stuff; I drank Sauvignon Blanc at the mall.

Then I would drive home listening to angry music in the car. I realize that one of the very excellent things that drinking did for me was to turn the fear into anger. Fear is a terrible feeling. The emptiness, the heart pounding, the stomach doing somersaults, the blood running cold, the sense of impending tragedy and doom—it’s all just overwhelming sometimes. At least it was for me.

I have always struggled with emotional regulation. I was subject to runaway feelings, scary racing thoughts, from a pretty early age. Scary things that I was not able to dispatch on my own. Fear was such an overwhelming feeling for me, I was afraid to be afraid, if that makes any sense. My imagination produced incipient catastrophes from relatively minor concerns, but I was 12, I didn’t know they weren’t real.

I will tell you, those first few drops of alcohol, “pink jesus punch” at Deak R.’s house out by the backyard trampoline, fell on fertile soil. I describe myself as a “white light drinker,” meaning that I immediately recognized this was the answer. Drinking was the thing that could let me navigate the world around me.

It did this by making me care substantially less about things that I used to care more about—relationships with other people being in that category, along with a lot of other stuff. It did this by making my fear feel less piquant and more distant. For whatever reason, I ran on a lot of fear from a fairly early age and part of the problem was how familiar I was with the feeling of fear—it subconsciously directed me to seek out situations that would generate even more fear, making me feel weirdly “at home.”

At some point, the dangerous alchemy occurs, when drinking finally solves whatever thing it was supposed to fix and the alcoholic brain recognizes its true champion. For me, this happened when drinking began to turn my fear into anger. I didn’t know what to do about fear, I didn’t know how to feel less fearful, I didn’t know how to pop the weirdly distorted cognitive bubble that grew in my head. Until I drank enough and the fear metastasized into anger.

Anger gave me way more options. I could direct it at people in order to make them feel a taste of the pain they were causing me. I could employ it passive-aggressively to emphasize to loved ones what it might feel like if I was really gone. I could use it to justify doing whatever the f*** I wanted to do at that moment. Anger was useful, anger could be expressed —when drinking.

Much later, as I was on the way to ruining yet another relationship, I would spend most of my evenings with my bartender friend, Antoine, talking about basketball and quietly nursing resentments as I made my way through yet another big green bottle.

One super useful skill I acquired as a Boy Scout was learning how to start a fire, even in wet and windy conditions, or in the snow. The critical thing is creating a small burning core and then gently growing it, so that it can consume the bigger pieces of kindling that had been pre-gathered. I would cup the nascent flame, gently blowing on it to coax a little more temperature and encouraging its spread. Hopefully, there were dry pine needles involved, because when you got the flames big enough to ignite that shit—well, that was an explosion and now you’re off to the races.

I guess you could say I drank like a Boy Scout.

Once I’d turned enough fear to anger, I’d engage in some passive-aggressive texting with the girlfriend, hinting at all kinds of resentments from my barstool. I’d usually hustle home around 10:30—she liked to call around 11ish to say goodnight. Since she thought I was sober, I didn’t want to do that call from a bar. If I’d hit that magic mark, just enough to get me angry, but not enough to make me sleepy and loving, well, we could have an actual and very satisfying fight on the telephone and by text.1

There were way too many mornings that would unfold with me stretching gloriously in my bed, feeling relaxed and maybe even happy for a moment or two, then reaching for my phone and realizing,

Shit, I think I we broke up again last night.

This happened more than once. This happened a lot. The duration of the break-ups ranged from two hours to two months. We always got back together, well, except for that last time. Why? We were both too scared to let go. That was also a very familiar and comfortable spot for me—the feelings of being trapped, the feelings of claustrophobia, that came with knowing that I was in the wrong place. Letting go meant going back into the dark unknown. I was too scared to do that, but it was exactly what I needed to do.

Drinking turned my fear into anger, a feeling I had a better chance of managing and expressing. The problem is that anger and fear send very different messages. The anger told me that I had been wronged, under-appreciated again, taken advantage of, and expressing that to the wrongdoers was very satisfying and also very futile. The problem was the inexhaustible well of fear down there, which meant there was going to be a need for a corresponding amount of flinty white wine.

My fear was telling me something very different. My fear was telling me that we were a long way from home, and that it was getting dark and it wasn’t really obvious where the path was. My fear told me that my life, as I was living it, was not sustainable. My fear was telling me I was really lost, that I had lost sight of myself.

Anger locked me into conflict, it rooted me to a life that I found unsettling and unpleasant. But for a long time, feeling angry was way better, and much more tolerable, than feeling that fear. So I hung in there, woke up every morning feeling more disaffected, more fearful, counting the minutes until I could wash those feelings away and turn them into self-pitying razors of death I could send whizzing at the people who made the mistake of loving me.

Living in fear sucks. Sitting with feelings of fear sucks. Fear sucks. But only by sitting and listening to my fear, over and over, was I finally able to discern the true message. My fear was really telling me that it was necessary to change and even pointing to the thing that needed to be done.

It was when I stopped running from my fears that I found myself.

One of the things that grabbed me about “Hanging Around” was the way it started,

and then the dark part is there in the very first stanza:

and then,

That’s not really the story of any particular relationship, it’s the story of my life while drinking. I spent much of my life, maybe what could have been my best years, on a barstool; witty banter and white wine flowing, just waiting it out and giving way, way too much away. Sometimes it feels like I let a whole life drift away on a river of golden wine.

I love the mornings. I love, and have always loved, getting up in the dark, taking in the delicious quiet, watching the sun slowly come up and seeing the possibility of every day emerge anew. I never feel alone or lonely in the early morning hours. Me and my coffee, maybe on the pirate balcony, watching the sun emerge over the power plant and the RFK bridge is pretty hard to beat.2

I love this song, but it makes me sad to listen to it. I think about what was and what could have been. But that doesn’t matter, it’s what is here and now that does. I can only make my mark on my today, and that’s exactly what I intend to do. There’s no more hanging around and feeling sorry for myself. Fear was my guide to the promised land, listening to it was hard but necessary. But it was listening to my fear that has unlocked so much about my life, generate so much happiness and content.

As I may have written in the not-so-distant past, this is more my vibe in the mornings these days:

Happy Friday.

I’m grateful for showing my visiting friends some beautiful parts of Colorado and being reminded how lucky I am to live here. I’m grateful for my dog’s daycare place taking good care of him. I’m grateful for how my Higher Power is constantly working, whether in the foreground or background, to let me see clearly what’s in front of me and focus on the next right action. I’m grateful to allow myself to feel emotions – including negative ones – but not dwell on them in unhealthy, unsustainable ways. I’m grateful for listening to diverse perspectives and seeing how they grow my own understanding of the world. I’m grateful to feel pride about elements of my past and use that emotion to infuse positivity into my present. I’m grateful to have squeezed in my daily run despite the day being packed.

My week has been a little chaotic, but primarily in positive ways. I’ve been looking to settle my mind as a bunch of competing priorities emerge so Step 11 has naturally crept to the forefront:

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

Prayer and meditation are two tools in AA that I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface around engaging with deeply. Importantly though I’m glad that I’ve not been hard on myself when it comes to needing to find an immediate answer. The key for me is to continue keeping an open mind. Judge less, learn more is my personal motto around Step 11.

On this front I do give myself credit, especially over the past year. Whenever I hear tidbits of what people share about their experience with prayer and meditation I log it as something to use – if not now, then store it in my memory bank for later. I don’t shut down immediately when something isn’t immediately relevant because at this stage of my sobriety I’ve collected enough evidence to know that these sleeper pearls of wisdom can swoop in at any point to restore my sanity.

In the “Twelve and Twelve” I love how they describe the evolution of my thinking here:

Perhaps our trouble was not that we used our imagination. Perhaps the real trouble was our almost total inability to point imagination toward the right objectives. There’s nothing the matter with constructive imagination; all sound achievement rests upon it. (Pg. 100)

“Point our imaginations toward the right objectives” – that’s crucial for my journey. Before I could nitpick with creative gusto around how terrible any religious rhetoric is. I do come from serious religious trauma so I had to spend time training my mind to pivot from its instinctual nature to ignore when advice on prayer and meditation is shared and instead actively listen to see what elements I could use today.

Prayer as I define it for myself can be a repetition of important phrases I’ve heard in AA that lift me up – “PAUSE – Postpone Action Until Serenity Enters”, “THINK – is what I’m doing/saying Thoughtful, Honest, Important, Necessary, Kind”, “From Pillow to Pillow”, “KISS – Keep It Simple Sean”, “Forgiveness is Love in Action”, etc.

Prayer as I define it for myself can also be repetition of actions. My daily gratitude list mad lib around “I’m grateful for ______” lulls me into a calm, reflective, and pleasant space. Even saying “I’m grateful” without finishing the sentence elicits a spiritual reaction. Making the bed in my specific way and opening the blinds for the houseplants every morning in silence is prayer in motion for me because of its recurrent nature.

Finally, prayer of late has become tied to its traditional definition too: the Serenity Prayer, which I absolutely adore, and certain ones from my religious background, the Gayatri Mantra or Shanti prayer. The last piece has been super interesting for me because I can now recite these mantras and not have the baggage of my past take over. Instead I have nostalgic associations with those Sanskrit words. I’m stilling investigating the roots of such a drastic shift. Part of it could be missing my culture, my family, and my youth now that I live in Colorado. But I think it’s deeper than that and I’m still on the path of discovery here. What I do know is that prayer in all its versions has become a bit more demystified in AA and I’m able to embrace it rather than flee. What I like as a summary of my thinking around this is again found in the “Twelve and Twelve”:

Just saying [a prayer] over and over will often enable us to clear a channel choked up with anger, fear, frustration, or misunderstanding, and permit us to return to the surest help of all-our search for God’s will, not our own, in the moment of stress. (Pg. 103)

Now with meditation feelings were similarly complex. It is something I would joke about doing at meetings. I’d make an excuse to fellow that because it’s something my grandfather would force us grandkids to do when we were little I don’t take mediation seriously. I associate it more with goofing around with my cousins, trying to get out of being yelled at to stay quiet. However such calcified thinking prevented me from moving forward and staying curious. Slowly but surely I no longer use that story as a reason for why I don’t explore mediation. I just do it now – or make moves to do it seriously. Meditation for me involves writing these weekly Substack posts, thinking for at least 5-10 minutes about what I’m grateful for daily and sharing it with others, not listening to anything while I take my dog out for a walk, quietly watching my mind during periods of unrest, etc. Meditation hasn’t yet morphed into me sitting on the floor, eyes closed, and pondering what life is about, but it doesn’t have to be that for me….today. I can gradually move towards such a state if I so desire. All I need to do now is to welcome moments of stillness, draw them out for a longer period when appropriate, and simply learn sans judgement from the thoughts that cross my mind.

I’ll end my little take on Step 11 with this gem from the “Twelve and Twelve” that got me in the feels:

Perhaps one of the greatest rewards of meditation and prayer is the sense of belonging that comes to us. We no longer live in a completely hostile world. We are no longer lost and frightened and purposeless. (Pg. 105)

I don’t need to define right now what prayer and meditation are for me. I don’t need to define it ever. I simply need to keep the channels of communication open around engaging with these twin tools and let them give me that sense of belonging that alcohol ripped away from me for many years. As long as I do that, I’ll be good.

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I am so grateful to be sober. I’m grateful for a day off, for rest, for books and for fresh air. I’m grateful for thunderstorms in the summer, for a fridge full of groceries, for all of the good things I have in my life. I am grateful for my family, for Timmy, for T, for my friends and their kindness. I’m grateful for quality time with myself and for a fresh day with new opportunities.

Morning my friends (: As per usual I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend full or rest or fun or family or whatever makes it an exciting weekend to you!

I’ve been sitting here, brainstorming what to write and I think one of the things I owe every one of you is an apology. I am sorry that my posts haven’t been the most spiritual or positive lately, honestly for several months now and I am so grateful that you have continued to bear with me as I navigate weird and uncomfortable feelings.

I took off from work last Friday and today. Friday I booked a massage because yah know self-care and as I’m sitting in this incredibly tranquil and serene place I already feel myself wanting to put lemons in our Brita, eat only raw and organic food, buy one of those things you put your face in when you get a massage because..SO comfortable. I was ready to buy pink peppercorn and lemon grass essential oil to lather myself and our apartment in, become a yogi, move to Nepal, sell my soul to the wonders of wellness because THAT is what’s going to fix me.

It’s not the big extravagant things that stick for me. I.e. I bought a little stool once, I think I wrote about it here, where I was going to sit and pray every morning in a little spiritual corner I was going to build in our old apartment. Well, I sat on it to pray about twice and now almost a year later we use it as an actual footstool like it was meant to be used.

It’s micro moments and actions that build up over time, those are the ones that stick for me.  Starting with the past two days where I have forced myself to journal even though I really didn’t want to. And hopefully that will build up over time and I’ll be journaling every day again. I did NOT put lemons in the Brita but that doesn’t mean I can’t make small choices to just eat a tiny bit better.

When I first got sober one of my home groups was an online meeting and truly, without that meeting and the 79th St. Workshop I do not know where I would be today. But since I’m off this fine Monday I am going to the 12:30 in person meeting for the very first time to sit in an actual room in person with those people who saved my life. THAT to me is a micro moment.

They say we’ll love you until you can love yourself. I think that’s something I missed back then that I’m paying for now. I love parts of myself but not my whole being – I can be this awkward human who word vomits and gets lost in so much anxiety that it feels like the entire world is crashing down on me. I was speaking to a friend just the other day who so simply said that she prayed on something and a little while later clarity and the right words came, and I genuinely thought to myself ‘wow. I miss that’. Followed by ‘What the fuck am I doing??’

I have strayed so far from my path these past few months, if I’m being fully transparent. I had a performance review at work that was more ‘areas of opportunities’ than it was ‘here’s why you’re perfect’ and it crushed me. Working from home all the time has taken a toll because I am literally never leaving this apartment. My sponsees have dwindled down into zero and that feels like a very legitimate break up. I have stopped talking to God and to be clear I absolutely do not want to drink BUT I have been to enough meetings to know I’m probably not that far off if I don’t make changes – micro or not.

My expectations for MYSELF are far too high but I compulsively feel like I must meet them all of the time. So, when I say I’m sad and I don’t know why – that’s a lie. There are a few circumstances that were beyond my control for sure. But for the most part it’s me – it’s the too high standards, it’s me crushing myself and being afraid to be vulnerable. It’s me asking for help in only superficial ways. I need help deep down on the inside, I need help loving myself and that is not what I ever ask for. Why? Maybe because it’s embarrassing. It makes me feel like a failure. It makes me feel vulnerable and weak. But at the end of the day, I am scared – and I make myself feel very alone in that place between my ears.

I promised myself long ago that I would always be honest when I write here. Sometimes I’m already thinking about the work that needs to be done after I write so I just throw things together here and call it a day and I find myself complaining or just blankly saying I’m sad and that is a band aid over a bullet wound. I haven’t told you that I’m uninspired, that I’m lost. That so many good things have also happened but there is something inside of me that’s so heavy and it’s been outweighing all of that good.

My job just last week told me that I’m doing perfectly. And when the weight of the world wasn’t lifted off my shoulders like it normally would have been because I was told I’m doing good again – that’s when I knew that somewhere along the way the rock formed inside my chest that never used to be there. And now all that’s left is God who can fix it.

Xx

Jane

I’m grateful for a quiet, rainy morning. I’m grateful for being exactly where I am. I’m grateful for new chances. I’m grateful for delicious dinners. I’m grateful to be sober today.

LAST WEEK ON TFLMS:

song of the week:

TFLMS Weekend: Where Sobriety Isn’t Just a Consequence…

(last weekend)

I’m grateful for a Friday morning. I’m grateful for a soft morning breeze. I’m grateful for what I have. I’m grateful for the way the orange sun glimmers on the water. I’m grateful for my secret perch on the pirate balcony. I’m grateful to be sober today.

song of the week:

I took a long break from this song. I liked it a lot when it first came out, it was a song I always sang along to, if I could, which I usually couldn’t, owing to the close proximity of people who might hear me. I’m pretty shy about that.1 To be honest, I always felt a little sheepish about really getting into this song, mostly because it seemed a little hysterical for a 15 year-old to be plaintively wondering:

Spotify suggested this as an addition to the playlist, “What I’m Probably Listening to Right Now,” and I hadn’t listened to it for quite a while. Now it makes a lot more sense. It actually hits me pretty hard these days.

and this:

As I considered which video to post, one from 1978 showing Jackson Browne in his prime or this one—with a 75 year-old version of the same guy, I saw a little of my own evolution in there. So, you know which one I picked. I’m sorry to the younger people, this song really belongs to folks my age. Speaking of my age, I was surprised to learn (maybe not in the good way) that I’m actually older than vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz. OMG, I thought, “he looks old.”

Not to worry, I easily pass for 60, or even 59, so it’s all good. But still. It’s hard to be this age and not get reflective. It’s easy to start compiling the list of “what you had and what you lost,” to steal a line from Fleetwood Mac.2 Some days, those lists both seem impossibly long.

Owing to my prolonged drinking career, and my very difficult path to sobriety, I lost a lot of time. I’m grateful to be sober, so grateful, I’ve actually posted a gratitude list every day for the last three years that always ends, “I’m grateful to be sober today.” But like everything in life, it comes with a cost.

Early sobriety is very, very tough, make no mistake. But there is also a deep sense of satisfaction, of triumph even, as the days turn into those first two or three years. The feeling of liberation, the ease and peace and calm that replace the fear and dread and chaos—well, that was when I really was spending my days on a succession of pink clouds. I had this sense, as the responsibilities and duties of the real world began to impinge on my pink cloud kingdom,

“Hey, can I get a break here? Isn’t it enough that I got sober?”

I think every alcoholic/addict has this moment where they wonder why they aren’t getting more credit for finally accomplishing this very, very, very difficult task—getting sober. I had a lot of moments like that,

“Hey, not sure if you noticed, but I’m sober now, so everything is fine.”

Sobriety and recovery are priceless jewels and I’m lucky to have finally found the path, but I had to learn that doesn’t necessarily resolve all of the issues I left behind, the hurt I did, the things I left undone. This is obviously where the 8th and 9th Step come in, and why I think it’s hard to accomplish those in the first year of sobriety, it’s hard to make amends for sins that you do not yet fully comprehend.

I have embarked on another round of amends and, of course, view this with a great deal of trepidation. I’m going to do some for the first time, some are going to get an “Amends, Part Deaux.” All are guaranteed a rollicking, good time. Actually, probably not. Facing up to the past is not easy. I look back on events in my life, the way I acted at crucial moments, the moments I created in the memories of the people who loved me, the moments I lived through, it’s enough to get that stomach to flip, lower the temperature of the blood flowing through me and make me want to look away, to not remember, to forget.

Unfortunately, like elephants, alcoholics never forget.

I think the Steps, and particularly the 8th and 9th, perform their magic by defanging shame. One of the potent drivers of this alcoholic’s drinking was shame and regret, the fear of having to answer for the things I had done. Alcohol was the fuel for my coyote-like rocket, as I attempted over and over again to make a clean exit from very difficult situations.

Of course, that never, ever worked. Not even one time.

I can get a little teary listening to “Doctor, My Eyes,” there’s maybe still a little too much of that wandering through this world, waiting as each moment unfurls, and yeah, maybe I feel like it’s been a long time waiting to awaken from these dreams. I definitely have the feeling that it’s later than it seems.

I’m at an age where my contemporaries are spending their time with grandchildren or on boats or playing an endless round of golf. I’m starting a brand new career and working pretty f****** hard. Sometimes I get envious. Sometimes I feel like I’m at a water balloon fight (these don’t happen often enough imho) and everyone else is chucking their balloons at each other and shrieking with laughter and excitement. I’m still at the spigot, trying to fill my balloon.

That’s me feeling sorry for myself. That’s actually a version of a lie I’ve been telling myself since around 1978:

Everyone else is having a great time, everyone else knows what to do, everyone else’s life is just better.

I drank for 45 years to try and live like I thought everyone else lived.

One of the things I had to come to believe to get sober, and keep believing to stay sober, is this: I’m placed exactly where I’m supposed to be at this moment. I think that’s called acceptance, scientifically, it’s simply the recognition of a force called gravity. I’m here and the only thing I can change about this moment, or the next one, is me. Myself.

A lot of those years I sometimes feel like I wasted, the years where I just couldn’t stop drinking, no matter what it cost me, were spent waiting for the cavalry, the sober cavalry, to ride in and save me. I was waiting for all of the people in my life to get their shit together so that I wouldn’t need to drink so much. I needed them to fix the holes in the fucking roof, where the rain kept coming in. If they would simply do what they were supposed to, I would be liberated from this very sticky barstool.

I finally got sober when I realized there was only person I could change. I stayed sober every day I recognized that I was exactly where I needed to be, for that moment. That doesn’t mean things are static, that they stay the same. No, just the opposite, many days it feels like I’m trying to stand on the heaving deck of a pirate ship, or one of those annoying people on the subway who think they can balance without hanging on.3 The only person I can change is me. I lack the power to still the waves around me, I can only still my own fears of them.

It turns out, that’s enough. Do I have a lot of regrets in life? Yes. Are many of them unexpressed? Yes. Can I do something about that? Yes. I’m placed at this moment for reasons I’m sure I can’t understand and that extend well beyond me. The feelings of discomfort that wash over me periodically? That’s called growth, and it kind of sucks sometimes.

I know this sounds kind of sad or unhappy. It’s not. I have a default level of happiness in my life, an emotional floor, so to speak. It was constructed as I began to disbelieve another of my self-lies, as I began to realize that I was enough for the world, as is. I realized that as long as I stayed sober and true to myself (that means authenticity and vulnerability), I was living the life that was meant for me.

I definitely am due for a visit to the opthalmologist, my glasses shuttle on and off, depending on what I need to look at, and I’m famous for not recognizing people in the wild. I know now the problems didn’t come from keeping my eyes open too long. Things went bad because I forgot to keep them open. It’s what I looked away from that did the damage.

No more. My eyes are wide-open these days, to be honest, there are days when that sucks. When things happen that I wish wouldn’t. When I have to sit with my own fears and disappointments, when I’m forced to listen to the sadness inside. I spent years and years drunkenly chasing peace and happiness; it turns out it was right here all along. I just needed to open my open eyes.

Happy Friday.