Day 1: I did a quick run to the drugstore a few mornings ago. My favorite corner Walgreens – I go there almost every day. It’s the place I buy my gassy water and Ice Cubes gum (and benignly yen for sweet-n’-cheap in the wine isle). The go-to where (at the worst of times these days) I skulk, purchase and devour candy alcoholically.

The Scene of the Wine Crime…

I opened my door in the parking lot and boy – did it take me back. An empty, squished Sutter Home wine shooter right at my feet. Is there any scenario under which this little bottle was there for a good reason? It blew off the windowsill of a neighboring house or tipped from a bag of recycling in some innocent’s back seat?

I don’t think so… Someone had gone into the store, bought a 4-pack and drank one sitting in the parking lot. They tossed the contraband out of the window, unscrewed another cap and drove onto a busy street with the familiar sensation of slackening nerve-endings and vinegar settling against the liver like a giant’s thumb.

Not the gutter, but sufficiently suggestive…

And while I’m at it, are those little 4-packs ever purchased for anything other than to be secreted in a winter boot, glove box or side pocket of a purse? A friend of mine says it seems like the packaging of wine is getting more and more “fun”. Encased in juice box sized. cardboard or packaged with complimentary plastic flute. Pocket sized, colorful and geared toward women – the biggest and fastest growing market for wine.

Looking at this ugly artifact didn’t make me want to drink. There was a flash of memory – all the times I’d stumbled into a drugstore or gas station to grab a pack of shooters for the dry gap between home and the real thing. Or something to hide in a backpack, glove box or purse for a rainy (sunny, foggy) day…

The little wine bottle made me feel sad. As if I were looking at someone else’s dirty secret…

But I went about my sober business, tucking the moment away for a blog post. Pausing to crouch down and take a picture with my phone.

Day 2: I’m at Walgreens with a hundred dollar bill. Have you noticed that a hundred dollar bill is like having no money at all? It’s what grifters should carry – sorry I just have a hundred – don’t think they take them here… And one of the clerks is going to the bowels of the store to get a manager to help him count out the change.

I DID NOT purchase candy…

Yeah, I’m like Nancy Drew…

So I am standing at the check out, 8:16 AM, when a woman steps up with a four pack of wine shooters. I’m like sober Nancy Drew – side-eyeing the perp with my brain shouting, “It’s her! The wine litterer! The shooter slammer! The parking lot possible suspect…” 

I was discrete. She was normal looking – a bit disheveled as if she’d waited for her significant other to get off to work and threw on a sweatshirt and pants. Her hair was uncombed, she was probably 40 something. She could not have been more nondescript. Just your average woman of a certain age buying booze first thing in the morning.

Confirming my suspicions…

I finished my transaction and took my time packing up. Stepping back from the counter, cool as a Russian spy. Then I slowly walked to my car. As luck would have it she was parked next to me. In a VW Bug. She got into the car and gave me one of those what-are-you-looking-at-bitch, looks. I acted busy. Then she turned her back and I could see she was unscrewing a bottle and turned toward her driver’s side window she was drinking. 

There was nothing more to do, right? I drove away and left her to her shameful little morning ritual. But I can’t stop thinking about it. And I did drive back to see if she’d tossed another bottle out the window. Jackpot:

E2E – I’m thinking of you…

The post Boy Did this Little Wine Bottle Take Me Back… first appeared on Waking Up The Ghost - Alcohol Recovery.

I got the most gorgeous email from DZ a couple of weeks ago. Gorgeous because the voice was so raw. And the picture she painted so vivid I could actually taste cheap white wine. DZ was in the middle of a craving that was “surging up and down her solar plexus and choking her out”. She said no amount of exercise, candy or visits with friends was taking the edge off. She wrote to ask how I handled early sobriety cravings (candy, exercise, visits with friends…).

The Way We See Ourselves…

DZ had just moved. She said in her new, downtown apartment there were temptations everywhere…. A Mexican restaurant, live music, bars and drinking, drinking, drinking.  And it made me think about how, in early recovery, we try to shake things up. Move outside of ourselves. Avoid the people, places and things that remind us of those boozy nights on the tiki-hut, the sky so loaded with stars it’s silver and everything below is a bruised blur…

It’s good to get away from a toxic environment. But, what if our thoughts about ourselves are toxic? And the relapses, pitfalls, transfer addictions and loathsome behavior are self-fulfilling prophecies? There is no question DZ was in the middle of a hate-fest, begging her “know-better self” to give her just one night.

 “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.” Thomas Theorem

For someone who is new to recovery, there is a lot to hate. And fear. DZ says it best:

Just one night. It’ll inspire you to unpack and organize and get used to your new… That’s what I don’t want to do. Get used to it and let the paranoid, self-loathing, unkempt drunk out. Down will go my boundaries and into my new apartment I will bring the undesirables… I will be afraid to call maintenance because I reek of a 3 day binge. I’ll have given every user in my building the green light without remembering, during one of my multiple trips to the garbage chute. Because much as I love to drink alone, the clumsier and uglier I get the more of a showoff I become…

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies…

I’ve read the above paragraph a dozed times. Clumsy, ugly, reek, garbage – it takes me back to my first sober days. When I tried to convince myself that life without alcohol was boring. When I was angry and resentful. And when instead of slugging the cheapest wine I could find, I secretly gorged on 4 for $5 boxes of Walgreens candy (if an all-night drug store could talk). Was I filling the empty hole or giving myself what I thought I deserved?

I still think of myself as someone who has an “addictive personality” even though I know that is not even a “thing”. And five years sober, I don’t have cravings for wine anymore, but I identify as someone with an unhealthy relationship to food. Maybe even more than as a person who is in good physical condition and hikes for miles, up hills.

Now I am wondering if these negative thoughts are shaping my actions…

Thomas Theorem

Thomas Theorem goes on to say that “the interpretation of a situation causes the action.… Actions are affected by subjective perceptions of situations…. ” Even when the perception is wrong.

So, if DZ sees herself as the woman in apartment 207 who spends a lot of time at the garbage chute, drunk and disorderly – or as the lonely woman salivating with her nose pressed against the window of a Mexican restaurant – maybe it will happen.

The Power of Positive Thinking is the Good News

I like it when my blog is formatted like getting fired. I start with something good (gorgeous email), sandwich the icky stuff in the middle (shit…. I’m making myself  eat 3 pints of Halo Top ice cream with my thoughts...) and end with the good news (positive thinking trumps negative thinking – but it takes time).

DZ is new to the sobriety game. I hate to say it, but it took two years before I stopped getting regular punch-in-the-gut cravings to DRINK. And a solid four years before I started getting a picture in my mind’s eye of a hiking trail instead of the brightly colored candy isle at Walgreens whenever it rained on a Sunday and I felt lonely…

This:

Not This:

Also, DZ emailed to say that she had “written herself out” of the craving and she was okay. I am going to imagine her in her new apartment, meeting desirable neighbors and visiting the garbage chute only when she has garbage to throw away – not when she is lonely…

And I am going to imagine her, two years from now, climbing a hill, writing in a journal or eating Mexican food with a gassy water chaser. She’ll be thinking about how proud she is of her accomplishments. And feeling like she’s fine – just fine – right where she is.

How’s that for a self-fulfilling prophecy?

How’s that for positive thinking?

The post Recovery Pitfalls – Are They Self-Fulfilling Prophecies? first appeared on Waking Up The Ghost - Alcohol Recovery.

I was at a Families Against Narcotics (FAN) meeting several months ago. It was a cold, miserable night and the room was full of folks who had lost a loved one to addiction and overdose. The topic was processing grief. The room was bursting with the collective swell of tears and regret and rage…

Where is the Joy?

I’m not sure what prompted him, because it was kind of off topic. But, one of the men in the group said he had trouble “feeling joy” now that he was sober. He said it took a lot to make him laugh. In a resigned, Eeyore-ish sort of way he added, “That’s just the way we addicts are…”

I totally related to this. It was the kind of spontaneous moment to which I am drawn.  I wanted to talk to him after the meeting, but I was slow to make my move and by the time I had gathered my coat, scarf, gloves, he was gone. Per usual, a few key words made me think about the subject of “joy”, or lack thereof, on and off ever since. And now that the weather is more accommodating, I am less inclined to clap him on the back in chummy agreement. More inclined to argue that the concept of “joy” should not include throwing up, verbally attacking a loved one or crashing a golf cart into an unforgiving copse of mangroves…

Does a storm gathering over Tampa Bay bring me joy? Kinda’

I do say it all the time – there is a little something missing, now that I’m sober. I didn’t think I meant joy, but why else did this resonate with me when I first heard it?

Emotional Rescue…

I remember, in my drinking days, those crazy moments. Maybe sitting in my living room alone. Staring at a new painting, sloshing glasses of wine down my gullet, experiencing an out-of-body “joy”. For hours, until I passed out. Or dancing around, in my cups like Rumpelstiltskin and putting a foot through a canvas…. But, the point is – the excruciating, in-the-moment exhalation.

If I sat in front of a new painting now, with a glass of gassy water I might last ten minutes. Even twenty. But, no euphoria. No weird, fire lit rapture… Dancing like no one is watching? Not once in the five years since I have been sober.

The object of the first drunken highland jig… Jacob’s Girl by Oleg Korchagan

Other things I no longer feel/do?

• I no longer feel like I command a room. I think I’m almost too humble. Positively pride-less. But I’m not as rich either and wealth makes people douchier, more entitled to attention.
• I no longer enjoy “flirting”. At all. But certainly not with much younger men. Or those deemed “inappropriate” (my go-to in the years of living dangerously).
• I don’t spend as much time in bathrooms at parties reapplying lip liner.
• Speaking of parties, I do not “party” anymore. I can last about three hours before I begin to look at my watch. It’s boring to talk, talk, talk if you don’t drink, drink, drink, right?
• I am not as funny. Kim, don;t say it – I can still find humor in almost everything. BUT I AM NOT AS FUNNY.
• I am not a spendthrift. Even putting something back on the shelf after considering its worth… I do not have a slew of recurring, unwanted charges on my credit card (I am too hamstrung to deal with) for things like Crepe Erase, Trifexis Chewables and HBO.
• There’s more, but you get my drift…

But do I experience joy? Defined as, “A feeling of great pleasure and happiness.”

This is where I must beg to differ with Eeyore and the man who spoke at the FAN meeting. My first impulse to agree was born of old fashioned negative thinking and long overgrown neuro pathways. Almost as if I thought I was still supposed to be miserable. The fact is, I find joy in the smallest things now. And recognize the important moments – they do not pass in a blur, because I operate in the present.

And when you operate in the present (as a card carrying adult) there is still exultation . Still hilarity.  But it comes from what is real – nature, family, community and a solid foundation. Do I still LOVE art? Sure. Do I wish the inhibitions that started me drinking in the first place would bend it like Beckham? Yup. And do I still laugh? Of course…

But that’s the deal we make when we get sober. We have to redefine what our brains have been telling us. That “happiness” is the warm buzz from that third bottle of plonk. There will always be something missing. It’s like the shadow you see out of the corner of your eye from the dead family cat. You may not have liked the thing, but it did live in the house for twenty years…

If I ever see that fellow again, I’m going to tell him he inspired me to start writing in my blog again. Albeit four months after the fact. I may even tell him, in this brave new world in which I live, he brought me joy…

E2E – Kim and I have not forgotten you… I just took a break from writing, not thinking of you and your dad. LOVE to you.

The post Where is the JOY? Does Addiction Sap Feelings Forever? first appeared on Waking Up The Ghost - Alcohol Recovery.

I think it makes sense that 50% of people who have eating disorders also have a co-occurring substance use disorder. I used to fall asleep with the remains of my wine glass on my night stand. Now, it’s often a cute little bin of ICE CUBES gum, or the remains of my soupçon of TV watching, comfort food. Eat, drink, binge, guzzle – I always seem to take things to extremes…

I hate when that happens…

But, I’m not alone. So, when I am eating a bag of those unsalted pretzels stuffed with peanut butter from Trader Joe’s as I binge-watch Anne with an E on Netflix, I feel a connection.

I sat in on a great group session last week. They were talking about the connection between eating disorders and substance use disorders. One of the many interesting things the therapist, Gail Hall, said was, “The difference with eating disorders, is that you can’t just stop eating. You have to separate the eating from the behaviors.”

I never thought of that before… I wonder if it would be like trying to have just one glass of wine with dinner? That’s something I used to tell my husband or the police when they stopped me for “erratic” driving. “No, I haven’t been drinking. Just a glass of wine with dinner…” A big lie. Because, like those old Lays Potato Chip ads, I could never just have one…

The NIH has a pithy article about this subject.

The post Eat, Drink, Binge, Guzzle.. first appeared on Waking Up The Ghost - Alcohol Recovery.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could have a divining rod that foreshadowed alcoholism? It would start shaking when a person was about to hit the point of no return – that moment when over-drinking morphs into reliance. I can picture some modern day Carrie Nation entering a pub, water-witching her way along the bar. Pointing her stick at those folks who are about to ruin their perfectly good lives…

What is the point of no return?

This is a subject that fascinates me.  I try not to indulge in “what could have been.” But, the one thing I do ruminate about, is when exactly did I become an alcoholic? Was there a time when I could have stopped the runaway progression of the disease? And is there a crystal ball to help others stop before it is too late?

There are stages.of alcohol dependence. And looking back, I can see that for almost ten years my drinking was risky. There was a reason I kept a repair kit (nail polish, sand paper, small hammer) to fix the scratches and dents in my car before my husband saw them. The stages are:

High Risk Stage

Characterized by drinking enough and behaving badly enough that people begin to talk. In my case, I was too scary to confront. But, this is the time to confront. Especially when the person is making dangerous choices under the influence. This was the time when I began to drive tipsy. It was the stage when I missed the installation for my own gallery opening (I was drunk in a hotel room across the street). And I began to make lame excuses for my inappropriate conduct.

Somewhere in between these two phases is where the crystal ball belongs – this is the point where things might be able to be reversed…

Early Dependency Stage

Friends and family are concerned and very aware there is a problem. Health, legal and personal issues occur. This was the phase where I got stopped by the police all the time for “driving erratically.” I got into screaming fights (I haven’t screamed at anyone in four years – ain’t recovery grand?). I watered the wine, so my husband wouldn’t know I was drinking a bottle a day. I was hungover most mornings, but it didn’t stop me from drinking at lunchtime.

Middle Stage

During the middle stage of alcohol addiction, problems mount. For me, the kicker was my divorce. You will note above that I was accountable to my husband. I was like a defiant teenager, covering my tracks, but I was watched. After the divorce, I was left to my own dubious devices, and the consequences. The middle stage is marked by ignoring the negative consequences of drinking.

And in the middle stage of my alcoholism, I bought a house in The Bahamas. A place where drinking in the morning is called “Bahamian breakfast.” Can you say, “Double whammy?”

Late Stage Dependency

Mayday! This is the crisis point where everything takes a back seat to drinking.  The alcoholic is rarely without a drink. Nothing matters but buying, harboring and drinking alcohol. This was the stage where I didn’t even look out the window at the spectacular, Bahamian view. I drank from morning till night. If it happened after 5 PM I made a slurred excuse. I was, in a word, miserable.

Okay, class what have we learned?

That there is no joy in looking back? There is no point in thinking, “If only I’d gone to treatment right after my divorce… if only I hadn’t gone on that vacation in The Bahamas… if only I hadn’t met that dude who looked like Captain Ron…”

What’s done is done, but I have become pretty militant about calling people on problem drinking. I do not tiptoe. Because, if I can halt the progress of alcohol dependency in a few people, in just one person, I will have accomplished something grand.

E2E – thinking of you…

The post Predicting Alcoholism – When Does Choice Becomes Reliance? first appeared on Waking Up The Ghost - Alcohol Recovery.

Lest you think I am starting the new year with a bad attitude, I’m here to tell you I woke up full of piss and vinegar. That could be because I am actually on steroids. I went to an orthopedic surgeon yesterday, convinced I had bone cancer, only to find that the radiating pain in my hip was probably caused by, “Years of doing what you love to do…”.

For example, hiking up hills, running on the beach and the wearing of four inch heals. That, and a lack of space between the round ball of my hip bone and the socket it fits in. I am a bit crooked. I have lost range of motion in “bound ankle pose”.  I am occasionally in enough pain to limp piteously.

When an alcoholic is in pain…

To put this in the proper perspective, I have not been to a doctor in ten years. The whole process is so rarefied, that even filling out the insurance forms seemed novel and “fun”. I asked questions. And I couldn’t help but think of the opioids lined up like fluffy, white rabbits with fangs, on a shelf somewhere. I was asked three times, even before I made it to the examining room, what I took for the pain.

My response, “Um, nothing? Maybe an Advil gelcap when it hurts really bad?” was met with looks of incredulity. It occurred to me that most people take pain medication when something hurts… As an alcoholic, it’s weird I suppose, that I have always avoided medicine of any kind. Other than the three bottles of elixir I used to drink per day, of course…

To the young man who took my vitals (excellent), I said, “I’m an alcoholic so I can’t take anything, you know, strong…” It felt like TMI, or at least like I should have had the proper name for what I couldn’t take. Narcotics? Opioids? Oxys? Corticosteroids? I’m an addiction professional for God’s sake!

To the x-ray technician I said, “I wish this would just go away…” She laughed, but I meant it. Miracles occur, why not me?

Bone Daddy…

I waited in the appointed room, with my x-rays pinned to the light box like a Damien Hirst exhibit. My hip and back bones looked fragile and lacy. It made me feel tenuous. As if a wrong step might snap my underpinning and I’d clatter to the ground like old pottery.

An hour and 1/2 later, I didn’t care anymore. I had studied my infrastructure ad nauseum, and sped read six Hello magazines (Megan Markle is divorced). I played with the models of joints. I thought about Tom Hager’s cyanotypes. I looked out of the sliver of window like a prisoner on the Bridge of Sighs… I just wanted out of there.

I mean, doesn’t everyone think of Thomas Hager’s cyanotypes while at the orthopedic surgeon’s office? Thomas Hager “Departure” cyanotype photograph.

When the great man arrived, I amused myself by thinking of him as Bone Daddy. He was actually super cool. And, get this, one of the first questions he asked was, “Has there been an alcohol problem in the past?” I nodded yes. “Are you an alcoholic?” Bingo…

Apparently my dicky hip could be caused by excessive alcohol consumption. The gift that keeps on giving, right?

I performed like a trained bear in one of those sad, roadside carnivals for Bone Daddy – over-anxious to please. I bent at the waist and touched the floor. I duck stepped in place. I lay on my back while he twisted my legs like pipe-cleaners. Does that hurt? How about that? 

Stoic or scared straight?

The doctor said I was “stoic”. That most people would have been shouting at him to stop when he pushed my knee to my chest even though it didn’t want to go there. But, I don’t feel stoic. And as with each new experience I have in recovery, I tried to process.

The bottom line, is that those of us in recovery must advocate for ourselves.

I have developed a condition that begged the alcohol question, but what if I had said, no? I volunteered the information about my alcoholism to anyone who would listen, but what if I didn’t? As it turns out, I left with a dose of Prednisone mild enough for “pregnant women.” And a prescription for an anti-inflammatory that “also coats the stomach”.

But I keep thinking about the question, “On a scale of 1 to 10 what is your level of pain?” What if I had said 10? Alcoholics are used to under-reporting. How many drinks a day? One? I am suggesting we also try to accept a bit of discomfort, when the fix is potentially addictive. And don’t be embarrassed by the TMI. 

In this case, too much information is a good thing…

E2E – I’m BACK…

The post An Alcoholic Walks Into a Pain Doc’s Office… first appeared on Waking Up The Ghost - Alcohol Recovery.

When my son was a toddler, a resourceful mother bird built a nest in the tree outside his bedroom window. It was stressful for both of us to watch. The sparrows built their nest during a Florida wind storm. And because they took up residence in our tree, we felt responsible. We’d sit on the floor of Jonathan’s room and supervise like unqualified nannies. Knocking on the window if our cat came too close to the tree. Fending off a marauding osprey as it cast a shadow on the speckled eggs.

Even with all our knocking and peeking (and yes, touching the nest), life happened. And when the fledglings tried out their wings, I was horrified to see that they dropped like stones. Or careened into bushes and walls while they learned the un-easy task of flying through the air.

And the mother-bird, exhausted as any single parent with sextuplets, spent all the live-long day feeding her charges a steady diet of regurgitated grubs and worms. The daddy-bird was like the father in Angela’s Ashes – rolling in late on a work-night, the food money spent. Perching on a branch with a detached look on his little bird face.

And here’s the thing – birds don’t leave the nest until they are bigger than their mother. Crammed into their crib and bellowing for MORE GRUBS till my son and I were mouthing through his window, “Oh, come on. It’s time to fly away already.”

When they did finally leave, I dismantled the nest… but the lesson was learned.

Parenting in the best of times …

My son was visiting from Florida last week.  And it reminded me of that mother bird. My son is almost 26, but I feel exactly the same toward him as I did when he was a child. The same pride at his many accomplishments. The same punch in the gut when I feel with his hurts or disappointments. I still think he is one of the funniest people I have ever met… the most engaging…

Luckily, Jonathan is going through a “good phase”. He is happy, healthy and just got a promotion. And it’s not like I wait around for the other Vans slip-on to drop, but I am ready for the phase where I might have to step in again. After all, parenting doesn’t stop at 18. For a mother, her children never leave the nest.

And the worst…

Last week the Director of Admissions  was out for a couple of days, and I answered phones on her behalf. About half of the many calls I took were from those who needed help themselves. Or from professional referrals. But, the other half were the calls that rung me out. Those were the calls from the loved ones of the person who was suffering from a substance use disorder.

And I don’t mean to diminish the concern of sisters and brothers and children and fathers and spouses, but the voices of the mothers have a particular, tragic ring…

we say that addiction is a “family disease.”  It impacts every member of the family system. But, I am thinking right now about a mother who called last week (in fact I can’t stop thinking of her). We talked for a while about her daughter – the bad crowd she was running with, the likelihood she would not listen to reason, the drugs that were killing her. At some point the mother said, “What do you think I should do?”

Wow. That is when I know I am doing good work.  Important work. And that my answer – mother to mother – will validate her – exonerate her. And just might give her hope.

Sin eating, nest building…

I spend a fair amount of time listening. To folks who write to me on this blog, to the women at Sanford House who elect to go on morning “Walks with Mare,” at various meetings and support groups… Answering phones…

It’s a bit like sin-eating. Last night I attended a Families Against Narcotics meeting and watched while family members lit candles on behalf of loved ones. For those who had died and for those who had survived and were in recovery.

And I don’t mean to diminish the pain of sisters and brothers and children and fathers and spouses, but the faces of the mothers had a particular, poignant look…

As good mothers, we do our best to nurture our young.

Certainly mistakes are made. But the bottom line is that we never leave the nest, never really watch our children fly away. And in that shaking voice on the phone, the tremulous chin as we stand with our candle, there is the unspoken question. Did I do enough?

I listen more than I give advice. I think that’s a good policy in my line of work. But I will say this – sometimes, even with the best of intentions, bad things happen. What should you do? Love, hope, build community and know that motherhood brings with it a sort of exquisite malaise.

Lifelong…

E2E – Did we do enough?

The post The Mothers of Addiction first appeared on Waking Up The Ghost - Alcohol Recovery.

I just read an article by William White about the difference between Relapse Prevention (RP) and Recovery Management (RM). In a nut shell, he opines that one focuses on “deficits and vulnerabilities” and the other on “assets”. RP implies we are running from monsters (waking up the ghost?). RM suggests we are “being positively drawn toward something of great value of one’s own choosing.”

The four-year experiment…

It came at a perfect time. Because, I was reflecting on the Thanksgiving weekend and my own, four-year psychosocial experiment in sobriety. And I was feeling pretty full of myself this morning. In fact, for the first time in four years, I actually broke my typical cycle. I think I have begun to trick my own brain!

Let me explain.

My son Jonathan and his girlfriend Kallie were visiting. And it was a fantastic weekend of family, hikes, great food and conversation. Even the Up North winter cooperated with unseasonable warmth (other than the 25 mph winds off Lake Michigan).

Jonathan asked me if it was still difficult for me to be with people who were drinking. He wanted to know if I still craved wine – if it was still an “issue for me”. (This asked while he sipped a Coppola Cabernet…) I answered truthfully, that I never thought about drinking anymore. It took a long while, but I have not had that out-of-nowhere, punch in the gut desire to DRINK! in about a year…

What I have done, is replace my addiction to wine with candy, coffee and food. And exercise. Hiking in the Michigan wilds has been a staple of my recovery, and I talk about it all the time. But, so has anesthetizing myself with the fast food equivalent of white wine shooters in the glove-box. That, I don’t talk about much…

Cultivating wellness…

Yesterday, Jonathan and Kallie left at 4 AM. I experienced the usual feelings one feels – tired, a bit lonely, a touch of anticlimax. And I also experienced the feelings that plague the person with a substance use disorder. That empty, bleak, icky feeling that used to send me to bed with a jumbo bottle of chardonnay and a party bag of M&Ms.

I have to admit, when I got home I felt the momentary desire to eat up the frayed remains on the charcuterie plate. And I wanted to scrounge for anything containing Karo syrup. Stuffing my mouth with processed, sugary foods has been my go-to panacea to fill the void since I quit drinking.

But after a nap and a cup or two of coffee, I had the out-of-nowhere, punch in the gut desire to go for a walk. It was a beautiful, sunny day. And I had no desire to hole-up and eat. The feeling was so shocking, I didn’t quite know how to handle it. I even opened the refrigerator and looked inside to test myself. Rattled the Skinny Pop bag because I am a glutton for punishment. Nothing. 

Talk about being drawn to something of great value of one’s own choosing…

Learning positive reinforcement…

The only explanation I have is that after four years of sobriety and two years of actively trying to rewire my brain – it is working! When I had the moment to fill an empty day, I chose the positive reinforcement of a walk.

Recovery is so much more than just not drinking. So much more than looking over one’s shoulder for the next relapse. It requires an overhaul of an entire life. And positive, healthy choices after the cravings for alcohol or other drugs dissipate.

Bill White says, “If recovery is more than the removal of alcohol and other drugs from an otherwise unchanged life, then the focus of recovery support interventions should shift from a strict RP focus (a process of problem subtraction) to an RM focus on achieving global health (a process of addition) and increasing one’s potential for a both personal fulfillment and social contribution (a process of multiplication). There is a difference between the prevention of illness and the promotion, achievement, and transcendence of wellness.” Relapse Prevention, Recovery Management, Recovery Transcendence – William White

I might not be at transcendence yet…

Full disclosure. I came home from the walk and ate a bag of Boom Chick a Boom caramel and sea salt popcorn. I also watched some smutty TV. But the difference is that I was not compelled to do so. And although I am a work in progress, my brain is rewiring in the right direction. The fact is, I like popcorn. Almost as much as the choice to walk along the lake on a cold, bright new day.

E2E – We always think of your well-being…

The post Alcohol Recovery Management or How to Trick Your Own Brain… first appeared on Waking Up The Ghost - Alcohol Recovery.

I went to CPR training/certification last week. I felt a bit anxious as the trainer painstakingly itemized all the unfortunate things that can happen to a person. In the video, after someone cut themselves with glass or collapsed while ordering coffee at a kiosk, there was always someone who stepped forward. They would hold up their hands like a surgeon and say, “Remember the emergency training I took? I can handle this.”

And then the person, a little smug if you ask me, would go through the prescribed steps to secure the area and provide quality care until the real EMTs arrived.

Here’s What Made Me Anxious…

There are A LOT of dangerous circumstances out there to beware of besides heart attacks and chocking. There are cuts that require gauze and pressure to stop the bleeding. More serious gashes that might need a tourniquet (we fashioned them from tree branches and bandannas). Around every bend there are snake bites, bee stings, spider chomps and concussions. Overdoses, broken bones, drowning, curling iron burns and anaphylactic shock wait in the wings to ruin your day…

And babies – we were assigned baby dolls with trachea and instructed to resuscitate our tiny charges (with two fingers instead of two hands). Pressing a third of the way into their chests 30 times to the tune of “Staying Alive” by the Bee Gees; two breaths into their maws, watching to see the chest rise; repeat.

I started feeling like Aunt Josephine from Lemony Snicket: fear that the chandelier might fall and impale you. Fear that the glass doorknob will shatter and get in your eye… Fear that the alcohol wipe I used to clean my dummy’s mouth  didn’t prevent infection…

The Good News…

The good news is that I am now certified in CPR. Although I don’t see myself stepping forward boldly like the actors in the video, I am good in an emergency. And now, I know what to do if a stranger keels over at my feet or bleeds all over my beige carpet (hint – deal with the wound first and the Woolite Rug Cleaner later...).

The other good news is that even though I am anxious about it, I have at long-last become aware of the world’s dangers. There was a time, when I was drinking, where everything from mitigating the peril of  riding in golf carts with nefarious strangers to near-daily hematomas were remedied with another glass of wine.  In those days the cause was also the panacea…

I had a morning habit of checking the sheets for blood and running a finger over my teeth to make sure they were still there. (Which reminds me, I know what to do if you knock out your teeth or cut off a finger!) Then I’d lean over and start my day with a slug of the leftover wine on the bedside table.

Sobriety Breeds Safety…

Interestingly, the CPR class did not talk about what to do if someone had alcohol poisoning, specifically. Although we did get the number of poison control and talk about what to do for an opioid overdose.

The bottom line is that “normal folks” are aware of potential danger without developing irrational fear. And they also tend to the occasional emergency with the appropriate level of care. Not like the old me, who drunkenly cut off the top of my thumb with a Cutco knife hosting a dinner party, and wrapped it with a tea-towel and (you guessed it) had another drink…

I continue on this journey of recovery, perhaps as a late bloomer, but keen to learn. My previous disregard for safety aside, I can now step forward and try to save a life.

And that’s what it’s all about, right? Just staying alive, the best we know how…

E2E – I can take care of you. WE can take care of you…

The post It’s a Dangerous World Out There, People… first appeared on Waking Up The Ghost - Alcohol Recovery.

I bought a new pot of face cream. The package promised to “erase fine lines in a week,” which is great because it’s my birthday today and I wanted to have a wrinkle-free face by that milestone…

The Quick Fix…

I mean, I actually bought the cream – $37.99 – because the box said it would work its magic quickly. Isn’t that what we all look for? And it got me thinking. Getting sober is like standing in the Lotion and Creams isle in the drugstore. We are all looking past the seductive packaging for the quick fix.  And discounting the cause – years of self-sabotage. In my case, Bahamian sun, booze, and the inadvisable practice of not removing mascara before bed and scraping it from the tender skin below my eyes with a rough washcloth in the morning…

It got me thinking that getting sober is a lot easier than staying sober. Let’s face it –  the long-haul, drudgery of sobriety and the punch in the gut demands when the addicted brain wants what it wants, are about the least fast things one can think of. It takes a lifetime. Just ask the AA old-timers.

Imagine the packaging for the product “Sobriety in a Box” – a brightly colored parcel, a symmetrical, smiling model and the promise it’s going to “TAKE YOUR WHOLE LIFE” to get the desired results. Who’d buy that?

Getting Sober Fast…

For about half of what I paid for the face cream, I can order the book: How to Give Up Drinking Fast and Stay Sober: An Ex-Alcoholic’s Guide to Overcoming Alcohol Addiction. Or a dozen other books promising “speedy recovery.” I haven’t read any of them, but anyone who has done what we have done knows it’s not about fast. And a surefire guide? One size fits all? I don’t think so.

But no one is going to choose the book titled Staying Sober is HARD.  With the subtitle:  The chronic nature of the disease may include a relapse or two… 

We live in a world where we fix every ill, quickly, prettily, with a pill or an unguent or a Google search. No one should have to suffer unnecessarily. Or, God forbid, walk around with the ravages of a hard life etched on one’s face… We are all like Willy Wonka’s Veruca. I want it now!

Benchmarks, Wrinkles & Atta’ Girls…

It is at milestones like birthdays and sober anniversaries when a person should stop and give proper credit to themselves. For doing the hard stuff.  The things that take time and effort. And we should give ourselves a break for continuing to believe the packaging – even when we know better… although I think the face cream really did reduce my fine lines…

So, on this birthday I can say I feel pretty darned good about myself. Kim is visiting and I said to her last night, “I might be older, but I am really happy with my body.” I don’t think I have ever said that before. (Although Kim reminded me I used to vogue in the mirror and say it all the time…)

What I meant this time, was that I am happy with myself. The body that I possess is clear headed. I am wearing my size twos again because of a consistent, long-term program of rigorous exercise and healthy eating. This person I have become, after all I have been through, is present. I am here for the long haul. And stronger than ever for having eschewed easy.

And I am happy with my body and my countenance.

Wrinkles and all…

E2E – I know you are thinking of me today – I think of you every day…

The post “Buying” the Sober Life (With the Proper Packaging) first appeared on Waking Up The Ghost - Alcohol Recovery.