How essential oils aid in sobriety

I love using essential oils as part of my sober toolbox!

Last year, I believed with my whole heart that wine was the only thing available in my handy little toolbox. But times change and so do people!

[Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and purchase.] 

Essential Oils and a Sober Toolbox

Once I started reading books written by people who got sober, are in recovery or suffered from addiction, I noticed many of them mentioned the use of essential oils. For example, Bex Weller, author of A Happier Hour, wrote that she started to incorporate essential oils into a bedtime routine that had her looking forward to something after attending a special event:

“I put fresh sheets on the bed, and placed a new essential oil and a great book on my bedside table.”

Image courtesy of Young Living

Also, Holly Whitaker from Hip Sobriety added essential oils to her sober toolbox as a necessity, among rosary/prayer beads and good tea and healing music!

So I wanted to address how to incorporate essential oils into a daily regimen. And I really appreciate insight from Joy, of Lemon and Joy Life! Here are a few basics about what essential oils are – and how to use them. She also provides a few special blends that are great to promote relaxation and reduce stress. Follow her on Instagram at Lemon and Joy Life – and definitely reach out to her if you have any questions!

What are essential oils?

Image courtesy of Lemon and Joy Life

How to add essential oils to your sober toolbox

• open the bottle and take a whiff
• rub a drop in your hands, cup them together and breathe in
• diffuse them in a diffuser.

Image courtesy of Lemon and Joy Life

FUN FACT: Essential oils have been around since biblical times but they have had a resurgence in popularity in recent years and now you can buy them any where. They are not all the same, even if the label says “pure” or “all natural.”

According to Joy, Young Living has the Seed to Seal guarantee meaning they have the highest standards in every step of the process, starting with the best seeds, grown in optimal conditions, harvested at the optimal time, then distilled with the utmost care and precision and, finally, every batch of oils is tested in house and by a 3rd party with multiple tests to ensure every bottle of oil contains the correct amount the therapeutic constituents. Young Living has been around for 25 years and truly sets the standards for the industry.

So grab yourself a book, select your favorite essential oil and enjoy a little quiet time to yourself when you can. It will make all the difference in your alcohol free journey!

The post How to use essential oils for sobriety first appeared on Waking Up The Ghost - Alcohol Recovery.

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 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.

I heard from another long lost friend this week. Whenever someone from my past contacts me they say, “You just popped up on my computer.”  As if my details appear randomly in their ad column on Facebook. (Like the pair of suede boots you were checking out on Zappos that materialize in your feed for weeks after you decided the boots you have are fine.)

They go on to profess undying love (I found you) or genuine interest in what I am doing or in at least one case (well, maybe a few cases), how much they hated me in my past life.

Admit it, you Googled me…

My guess is, these visitations from the past were just sitting around one day, bored and Googled “Marilyn Spiller”. Why not say that? After all, if you search for me, the grizzly details of my alcoholism and recovery are there for all to see. The particulars of my divorce settlement and the houses I lived in are buried in the history… a treasure trove of details. I am a dog-eared, open book.

Anyway, this person wrote to me, “I spent much of Sunday evening reading your blog, and your interview and watching your video.  Could not sleep that night.  It actually triggered all sorts of contemplation.  Took me until tonight to write.  I was so taken aback by all…I feel like I should offer some words of wisdom or gestures of help or something else vague and awkward.  Anyway, I am so glad to know you are fine and living the reality of Michigan and all that brings to one’s life and soul.”

Does that sound like pity to you? Or am I being overly sensitive? I mean the guy can feel what he feels, right?  I just never thought about it before – but, I bet there are folks out there who knew me before, who feel sorry for me now. What a horrible notion.

I’ll be honest, I’d prefer you hate me than pity me.

Don’t do that…

Please don’t feel sorry for me and here’s why:

• I really was kind of a douche in my drinking days. I am a much nicer person now.
• I hurt myself a lot and fell down and made a fool of myself when I was drinking. I am careful where I sit, sleep and walk these days.
• If you’re sorry addiction happened to me, it could have been worse. A lot of people suffer more than I ever did. I didn’t kill anyone – I did not go to jail.
•  I lost some things. I have the love of many people (that former nanny still despises me, but she left in the middle of the night with my leather bomber jacket, and she was a crappy babysitter, so I don’t really care…). I am getting back all the things I need and more.
• My brain is better than ever.
• My hair is better than ever…
• After flittering around The Bahamas for 8 wasteful years (and a few years before and after), I am gainfully employed in a job I love.
• And speaking of The Bahamas, there were plenty of good times before the fall…
• I am in great physical shape.
• I have found a calling.
• I enjoy my sobriety and my life.
• After plumbing the root cause of our collective addiction, people in recovery are the strongest, most introspective and honest people on the planet – I am proud to be among that group.
• I am happy.
• I write a blog, so I always get the last word..

It’s nice to get a blast from the past, I guess…

But, I’m not really into harkening back. I have rekindled some great relationships with my childhood friends, now that I’m back in Michigan, and a few of my college pals – but that’s different. I have met some amazing people from this blog, but they understand the journey.

There are some things best left in the past. Because I’ve been through a lot and I don’t want to have to explain. Or justify. Or give a second thought to whether you pity me or not. I certainly don’t want anyone to lose sleep over me. And there is no joy in considering a reconciliation or the rebirth of romance. Been there. Done that. “To know them is to be disappointed,” to quote you…

It’s like cleaning a closet. If you haven’t worn that Moschino jacket  for ten years, it’s unlikely you’ll wear it again, even though you paid a lot for it. Best to give it away. Or throw it away…

E2E – Be careful where you sit, sleep and walk. Wish we were there to take care of you…

The post Why do I get the impression you pity me? first appeared on Waking Up The Ghost - Alcohol Recovery.

A few short years ago, the month of August would have been like every other month. I would have woken in a tangle of sheets, maybe bloody (certainly besmirched) with nausea rising in my throat and no memory of how I got the abrasions on my knees.

Read it and weep…

I’d reach over to the bedside table and drink the last dregs in the wineglass from the night before like a tonic. The curtains would be billowing, a sharp breeze off the Exuma Sound. And as I started another day in Paradise, I wouldn’t bother to look out of the window…

As patches of the previous evening came back, I’d get snippets of memory. It felt like the sickening strobe light – OFF ON OFF ON OFF ON – at the Happy People Bar in the village. A face here, a piece of a room there, swapped with a matt-black nothingness…

My past came up in the office yesterday. Jess said she could not imagine me in my active addiction. She said it made her sad to think of it. Weirdly, I can’t imagine it either. That time in my life, at the tail end of the maelstrom that was my late-stage alcoholism, feels like it happened to someone else.

Falling off a bar stool should hurt, right?

When I think about that crazy blonde who wore a wineglass like a wedding ring and drove a golf cart like a drunken banshee, I don’t even like her.  And think about what it does to your body to fall, dead weight, from the summit of a barstool. And what it must feel like to have a baker’s dozen of the local guys try to hoist you from a filthy cement floor.

It’s no wonder my Pucci kitten heals didn’t survive.  It’s a wonder I did.

There were good times living in The Bahamas. Such good times in fact, I cannot muster the nerve to return. Another island perhaps, but not Staniel Cay… not yet…

This summer I have been working…

Living in Michigan, is like living in Opposite World from The Bahamas. In fact, people work during the summer here and travel to warm climes in the winter. Speaking of working, I’ve been doing a lot of it.

And because I am proud of my accomplishments, and happy to be working at something I love to do, I wanted to share with you the new website I created (along with Jess, Monica, Kevin and Mindutopia) for Sanford House Addiction Treatment Centers.

We have gone from being a gender specific treatment facility for women, to adding treatment for men to the mix. It was necessary to rewrite the entire website before the opening (in the next two weeks in a series of events) of our newest restored historic mansion – Sanford House at John Street for Men. The website has been a long time coming. I began writing it in February, in a cabin in the Up North woods.

Walden Pond and all that…

When you think about it from the marketing perspective, a profound change in an organization makes for a host of problems, challenges, exigencies and opportunities. One must bow to the Gods of Google SEO… And what a fun brain teaser it is.

Now, I’m not saying that launching a new website and opening a 20 bed treatment facility is as relaxing as passing out on the deck of a boat on the Exuma Sound. And I am not sporting a tan this summer. But the confidence, pride and community I have developed during this process is so satisfying, I can honestly say I’d rather be doing this than sitting on a beach.

But I am thinking of taking one of those Michigan, fall vacays or booking a trip to Florida for the holidays now… All work and no play makes Mare a dull girl.

E2E – We are thinking of you every day…

The post What Did You Do On Your (Sober) Summer Vacation? first appeared on Waking Up The Ghost - Alcohol Recovery.

My four year sober anniversary came in like a lamb. I only remembered it, because Lauren sent me a text to congratulate me.  And other than being a mother (and for a while a wife) I haven’t maintained interest in many things for four years straight, so I should have been jazzed. Maybe the milestone fizzled because I drank as a hobby and later, as an avocation, for at least ten years. So by comparison it’s small potatoes.

Or maybe it’s that my sobriety has settled…

…and I’m not dealing with those punch-in-the-gut demands to DRINK anymore. So I don’t feel so full of my sober self at this milestone. It’s been six months since the last time a Bob Marley song or a walk through an airport or the smell of Aqua di Gio Pour Homme (don’t ask) has made me crave a tall, icy glass of chardonnay. Reading the words “tall, icy glass of chardonnay” doesn’t even make me salivate.

I don’t want to negate the degree of difficulty in getting and staying sober. It is the hardest thing I have ever done. There will always be a little piece of me that feels “missing”, but I am comfortable as a sober person now. And my life is so much better, I can’t even muster the resentment I used to wear like a cheap suit, because I couldn’t swill white wine anymore. I have learned there is always a worse case scenario, always something to be grateful for.

And I do not want to drink.

I work for an addiction treatment center, so I am around folks who are new to recovery all the livelong day. And at My office, in the marketing group, we are always researching the cutting edge treatments, methods and modalities available to increase the national averages for successful long-term recovery. I have found that you really have to want to get sober. No one can do it for you. I have also found you have to be ready to slay the dragon when the words, “I’m going to drink” pop into your head at inopportune times (and they will).

Four things I know for sure about getting and staying sober:

1. You Simply Must Find a Passion (If You Are Able – Get Physical)

I am convinced that long term sobriety must contain a passionate interest in something outside of oneself. For me it has been writing and hiking. Seriously. I am still saved regularly by a comment on this blog or a rigorous walk with friends (or alone). I have started a walking group, and I can see the positive influence an early morning, city trek can make on a day in treatment.

And if the passion is physical, I think it works even better for quelling the cravings. Statistics show that rigorous exercise and challenging yourself will increase your chances for long term recovery.  Fill your hands with something and get the heart pumping. You can mountain climb, but you can also walk dogs at a rescue shelter or garden. Or for a double whammy, become a docent at an art museum and take the stairs.

Passion is defined as “strong and barely controllable emotion”.  Yes. Find that.

2. We Are All in Control of Our Own Lives

I hear from people all the time who say things like, “It was my sister’s wedding. They made me drink.” Or they might say by way of excuse, “My cousin died,” or “I knew I shouldn’t have gone to that Kid Rock concert,, but what was I going to do? I couldn’t cancel…” This “excuse-thinking” is something I can relate to. Because I did it for years. I am reminded of the plastic bag in the movie American Beauty. Born on the winds as it dances with no direction of its own.

All my drinking stories used to begin with the words “I ended up”, as if I were not responsible for crawling out of a ditch after drunkenly crashing a golf cart. My bad? The fact is, we are not pushed around by capricious winds. We are in control of our own lives. And here’s the kicker – shit still happens, temptations abound even when you are sober.

3. Nature Has the Power to Save You (God is in His Heavens…)

One of the reasons I am so passionate about hiking, is that I am humbled by what I see in nature. There is something about standing alone on Guana Reserve beach before a storm that makes me feel large and small at the same time. In my mind, it is impossible to deny the existence of God, while rustling through the Michigan Up North in Autumn. 

In the excellent book by Interventionist Jeff Jay, Navigating Grace, he describes exactly that feeling during a solitary moment on the deck of his boat. He says, “I was standing on the deck, leaning back against the shrouds, looking up into the Milky Way, musing on the Universe. Here I lived in a tumble of stars, sharp and silent as the night, a thousand visible and a billion more I couldn’t make out… …And here I was, an infinitesimal being standing on a sailboat.” Beautiful.

Jeff (who is obviously farther up the ladder to heaven than me), says he can get that feeling on a city street too, or having coffee with a friend. But it is in a natural setting, in solitude when my path becomes clear and my troubles very small by comparison. I want you to have this feeling, no matter what you believe – this epiphany that is seeing the trees and the forest.

4. Find a Way to Be Accountable to Someone or Something

I am a card carrying loner and a natural at isolation. All my heavy boozing took place behind closed doors. A wise psychologist (who I summarily ignored and lied to at the time) once told me, “Marilyn, it is dangerous to not be accountable to something.” At the time I was newly divorced and swanning in the Exumas like I owned the place (I should have, for all the dough I threw around like a drunken sailor…). The truth is, I didn’t really listen to any good advice, and I was getting some from Kim and Dee…

I think this is where AA comes in. Or a church or another 12 step or recovery group. If you can find a community where you feel comfortable and will be missed if you don’t turn up, it is a positive move for your recovery. Create a schedule. Join a book club or a walking group.

It is also the place where mended family fences and work relationships can assist. I advise anyone who is serious about getting sober to tell every single person who is important to them they have quit drinking You would be surprised how resistant most newly sober people are to doing that…

I’m Still a Grasshopper…

In the grand scheme of sobriety, four years is not a long time. And time is certainly my sober buddy. After five years of sobriety I can feel a little more comfortable that the statistics are with me on maintaining my place on the wagon. And the longer I am sober, the smarter I feel. The more secure in my own health and wellness. Maybe I don’t have all the answers, but I have four.

I can’t say, “Whoopee! I got sober, found the love of my life, lost 20 pounds and I can do a cartwheel now!” But I can say, “I have found myself. I am where I am supposed to be, doing what I am supposed to be doing.”

And I don’t lie anymore. So that’s the truth.

XXXOOO, M

The post Four Years Sober – Four Things I Know For Sure first appeared on Waking Up The Ghost - Alcohol Recovery.

I was driving around yesterday, picking up obscure items like those things you stick to the floor of slippery tubs so you don’t fall while taking a shower and knock yourself out and drown. I saw a sign on a billboard on 28th Street. The sign read, “I Forget the Last Time I Forgot”.

Brain Teasers…

That is the kind of brain teaser I usually can’t get out of my head. And it was especially meaty, because it was in front of a sad looking import shop.  I can picture the boss saying, “Get a message up on the sign out front that will drive traffic in here.” And some poor guy, with a handful of plastic letters chose this unsuitable aphorism.

Maybe he’s a recovering alcoholic.

Because, this recovering alcoholic can relate. It occurred to me, it has been ages since I have forgotten what happened the night before, or blanked out a conversation I had or unrecalled buying a puppy on the internet. That horrible, hollow feeling when the kids are saying, “Mom. You said we were going to Disney World today. Remember?”

Why Does too Much Booze Make you Forget?

According to an article by Denise Cummins Ph.D. in Psychology Today, “When the body’s alcohol level rises too high too fast, memory functions are impaired. The hippocampus, a brain structure that is crucial for transferring information from short-term to long-term memory, is impaired at a cellular level. The resulting amnesia can be en bloc (can’t remember anything) or fragmentary (bits and pieces something can be retrieved with proper cuing).”

And females are particularly at risk for blackouts.  Dr. Cummins says, “This is because females tend to weigh less than males and have less water in their bodies to dilute alcohol levels. They also have less of an enzyme called “alcohol dehydrogenase” in their guts to break down a small percentage of alcohol before it even gets into the body. Females also are more likely to skip meals to save calories when they drink, so there is less food in the stomach to help absorb the alcohol. As a result, more alcohol reaches the brain, where it plays havoc with sensory and memory functions.”

It is not exactly clear how alcohol creates a memory “blackout“. And the amount of  alcohol required to impair  memory and potentially cause a blackout, can vary. The type of alcohol, and the amount consumed is significant. If you are pounding moonshine, don’t expect to have sharp recall of how you got home (or to someone else’s home…).  And the faster you drink, the more impact there is on the brain and memory.

Mornings are the BEST Part of Being Sober…

I have said it before, but I’ll say it again. Mornings are the greatest part of a sober life. There is nothing like opening one’s eyes and feeling clear, clean and honest. And my memory is sharp enough now, I’m the one who recalls the details and says, “Remember?”

There seem to be benchmarks in alcohol recovery. At three or four months, the effects of post-acute withdrawal (PAWS) begin to dissipate. At two years, or “advanced recovery” cravings and triggers have less impact. And at 5 years the relapse rate drops from a whopping 75 percent in the first year of recovery, to 7 percent. People who successfully complete a formal treatment program or an intensive outpatient program (IOP) have higher recovery rates than those who do not. And day by day, benchmark by benchmark, the brain rewires.

For me, at four years sober, yesterday was another benchmark – marking that I’d forgotten I don’t forget anymore. And for a minute, as I ran normal, everyday errands I remembered there was a time when I would have run the same errands with wine shooters clinking in the glove box.

Best not to forget that…

The post I Forget the Last Time I Forgot… first appeared on Waking Up The Ghost - Alcohol Recovery.

I told Christine that I had just experienced the “move from hell.” She said, “Your last move was ‘the move from hell’ wasn’t it?” Which is kind of true, but also made me feel like my horrible moves are somehow my fault. As if I don’t have the moxie to pack my own belongings, or the strength to navigate flights of narrow stairs while juggling breakables. Like I’m fabricating these hellish, move-a-day outcomes to make a better story.

 

I had this idea to get cute photos of me perched on boxes for this blog. That crazy Mare – recovery on the move again!  But after the fortieth trip up three flights of stairs to get my hanging clothes, I didn’t have the heart for it. So there are no pictures of before and after. Suffice to say I am relocated. And I look like I used to look when I stayed out late drinking and fell down a lot.

 

The offending daybed, now in a garage…

 

I had help…

And it’s not like I had to do it all myself. I had a moving company for the heaviest lifting. But I am sitting here with a body full of bruises and a head full of horror stories to tell. Come on, who has a 4 to 6 hour estimated move take 12 hours? Who has the smiling waif of a moving boy drop 500 pounds of wooden cabinet on the cement stairs and break it into pieces?

 

And who stage manages two enormous, decorative “key pieces” of furniture out of the bell tower of a refurbished church, only to have them founder on the impenetrable entranceway of the new apartment (ne historic home). And what does one do when the movers (after trying two stairways and twisting the furniture every which way but loose) look at you and say, “We don’t know what to tell you lady, but this won’t fit and we can’t put it back on the truck.” At that point, I was tired of sweet talking, cajoling and demanding. I just didn’t care. But, it’s not like putting a rickety end table at the curb for someone to dumpster dive.

 

These pieces of furniture are so large and unwieldy you need, well, a moving truck to move them. Luckily, my new landlord owns cattycorner mansions. I mustered enough charm to negotiate temporary space in his garage across the street, and got Niles and Clem to carry my behemoths to yet another location.

 

Unpacking the shot glass collection and all those flasks, again…

And why my friends do I keep packing and moving my shot glass collection? Hoisting box after box of brandy snifters and my Grandfather’s Waterford sherry flutes? And why can’t I just throw away those gag cocktail napkins, whiskey flasks and the wine glass that holds an entire bottle? I don’t think there’s any nostalgia for the days when I carried a wine goblet like an affectation. So why not toss the alcoholic’s accouterments?

 

I’d like to say this is my final move. That I will never move again. But the truth is, this move is just the next step in my resurrection/recovery (I have a fireplace!). There will be moves in the future and more stories to tell. But I need that neat, little book by the Asian woman who helps people all over the world organize their dross (keep/give away/throw away). I need to keep only those things that “bring me joy”.

 

Which reminds me, it does not bring me joy to schlep all those extra wooden hangers and the throw pillows that keep multiplying. And for God sake Marilyn, you will not be hosting a martini buffet anytime soon, so give away the martini glasses. Give them away. They do not bring you joy…

 

Today I’m not drinking, because I am moving again and keeping only those things that make me blissful…

How come you’re not drinking?

E2E I hope you are finding joy…

The post Moving the Shot Glass Collection Again… first appeared on Waking Up The Ghost - Alcohol Recovery.