My father had Alzheimer’s, so whenever I hear about anything to do with degenerative brain function, I tend to listen. This morning I spent an enjoyable half hour listening to an archived radio broadcast a friend had sent me the link to. The show was an edition of the CBC’s Quirks and Quarks, and featured a special on the importance of physical exercise to the brain. We all know that the brain is actually a massive muscle, so exercise would seem a good idea. But if you’re like me, you always imagined that such exercise would entail stimulation of the neurons through reading, puzzles, and learning new things. While it’s true that these things can certainly help, new research is showing that even more important to the brain’s health is a moderate physical exercise program. This can include anything that brings you to a slight sweat and loss of breath for half an hour, three to four times per week. Not only can increased physical activity stave off the degenerative cognitive effects of aging, but apparently it can also help those of high risk for Alzheimer’s to potentially minimize the onset of the disease by as much as 30%.

And for those who aren’t yet worried about aging of Alzheimer’s, you’ll be pleased to know that physical exercise also helps the brain improve on “executive functions” such as multi-tasking, prioritizing, and refocusing mid-activity.

In addition to entertaining and educating me on a Sunday morning, the program also reminded me of an important lesson I’ve learned: there is always something that can be done to improve your situation.

Changing the things I can: this second line in the serenity prayer seems like a no-brainer to us supporters of alcoholics. We’ve spent a lifetime making things happen, keeping life running smoothly, and dealing with the impossible. The problem is that we tend to fix the things that should remain broken (so they can be dealt with by the people who really need to deal with them); and we tend to feel helpless with making the changes and taking the steps necessary in order to heal ourselves. That’s why we need a strong support group around us to gently or firmly encourage us to put the focus back on ourselves, and then to take steps to cause our own situational improvement.

Why is it that when it comes to our own situations, we’d rather go into battle for someone else then do something good for ourselves? It’s because we’ve been programmed to believe that we are not worthy of being properly taken care of – by others or even by ourselves. That programming needs to leave us. It no longer serves. In its place, we should get curious about who we are, what we need and want, how we feel, where we are going. This journey might involve getting access to new information that causes us to re-think our belief systems. It also might involve trial and error. Last night I talked my teenage son through making a full dinner. It was painstaking in that he seemed to need to ask questions about every tiny little detail, including steps that I would assume would be intuitive. But I had to remind myself that this was new territory for him, and that I could best help him by being patient, compassionate, and giving of my time and information. He made a great meal, and I think he was proud of having done it.

I took some time afterwards to think about how I had felt during the process, and I had to admit that part of my frustration had stemmed from the fact that when I was his age and having to learn things, I received almost no help from my parents. They were busy, raising five children with not enough money to do so. There were lots of great things about my childhood and I don’t want to depict it as all bad. . Still, they were incapable of doing things that frankly, required no money. For example, they never ensured I brushed my teeth each morning and evening, resulting in considerable and frightening dental work needing to be done by the time I was in grade school. And they had very little patience for teaching me anything. So I struggled through learning to sew and garden either on my own, or by quietly watching them. It would have been so much easier and nicer to have been nurtured through this growth. Yet when the time comes for me to offer that nurturing to my boys, I tend to get impatient and frustrated with their questions.

This is a loving universe, and it gives us many gentle opportunities to learn and to practice that learning. In the past twenty-four hours, I’ve learned that there are steps I can take to significantly improve my brain function; and that I need to work harder on reprogramming my nurturing skills around my sons so that I do not simply copy how my parents raised me.
God, grant me the courage to change the things I can.

The other day a very dear friend of mine sent me an email to tell me how reading my book was affecting her. She’s been reading it slowly, highlighting passages that resonate, underlining comments that she wants to refer back to and remember. She said it’s been helping her.

Like me, she was in a long-time relationship with someone whom she discovered suffered from addiction. She reflected on our similarities: both strong women, who had – ironically – ended up with manipulative men. But it’s not that ironic. It’s logical. This is a challenging time in which to be a man. Their place is not at all what it used to be. Their levels of authority aren’t, either. As a result, there are a lot of confused men out there who don’t understand either their personal purpose, or their place in the world. So they deal with it my exerting their authority with aggression (in the form of physical abuse or mental abuse, a mild form of which is manipulation); or they try to zone out from the problem (through addiction of some kind or another). So the odds were high that a bunch of us would end up in a relationship with a confused and hurting man!

They are what they are. Their journey is for them to navigate and all we can do is to put the focus back on ourselves. So what is our journey, then, and why did we end up with addicts?

My friend referenced several areas in my book where I talk about how life hands you lessons. At first the lessons are quite gentle; but as we refuse to acknowledge or learn from them, the lessons get tougher. And like so many of us, she’s discovering that the lesson has not been isolated to her marriage. She’s been experiencing some real trials at work, as well. But that’s how it happens. When we have a life lesson, the opportunity to learn can come from anywhere, or everywhere.

Amidst this mayhem, she was trying to figure out what she was supposed to do. Was she to take action, or let go – let God? “I just keep praying for a more definitive message” she said. But I had to laugh – with love, I promise you. I found it funny because she’s such a wonderful person, and so earnest, yet she’s praying for the wrong thing.

It’s said that when the first explorer’s ship approached North American shores, First Nations didn’t see the enormous wooden boats on the water because there was nothing in their experience that would enable them to understand what they were seeing. I have no doubt that the universe if pretty clear with our lessons. The problem is, we’re not always prepared to hear or to see the truth in those messages. When we don’t see things, it’s generally because we’ve put up filters of resistance – sometimes for very good reasons. Some of the very traits I work hardest at getting rid of actually served me very well in my youth. But now, those behaviour, belief systems and filters keep me from healing. So perhaps our prayers need to shift slightly, to ask for the courage to see clearly. There’s a reason that each support meeting (for alcoholics but also for supporters of alcoholics) begins and ends with the first few lines of the serenity prayer:

Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
We are getting loving messages for growth and healing all of the time. We just need the courage and willingness to hear them, and then to act.

When you are first recovering from life with an alcoholic, romance couldn’t be further from your mind. All I wanted was a nice, boring life without chaos and fear. Serenity would be great. Happiness on top of that would be icing – almost too much to hope for. But as recovery sets in and healing occurs, the mind and body open up to the possibility of being vulnerable enough with someone to fall in love again.

Sound easy? Well it is, and it isn’t. Yet so many people have told me that love shouldn’t be complex, it should be simply and easy. My experience, then, has proved the exception to the rule. I fell in love with someone who was a close friend way back in high school. He lives 100 kms from me, he has a gaggle of step kids and even some grandchildren from his prior marriage (he actually became a granddad at 41). His work and his aging mother live halfway between his house and mine. I’m not sure how many miles he logs in his car each week, but he says that his biggest expense is gas. He’s really a country boy at heart, who’s fallen in love with a city girl. And he has a large circle of friends whom he tries valiantly to keep up with. His life is complicated, and he talks about survival by experiencing the various elements in his life in thin slices.

I’ve come to realize that the complexity of my own life is equally daunting but very different. As a single mom, my kids and the stability of our home come first. I’m incredibly grateful that he realizes I must be at home most of the time so he does virtually all of the travelling; yet when he’s here he demands my full attention so often, I don’t get to the things I need to do to keep life running smoothly. It’s a struggle, for example, to find time for things like cleaning and laundry. We’re relatively good at being part of my family dinners, but I rarely see my own friends, and the social life we have is more often than not around his friends and family. Perhaps the biggest struggle I face, however, is the one I have attempting to find balance between the independent and capable me and the vulnerable partner in love. If you really love someone, this should be easy, shouldn’t it? But it’s not because I haven’t been honest with him. He knows I was married to an alcoholic. He doesn’t fully understand how that has shaped who I am today, nor does he acknowledge that I was damaged in the process and am in the process of healing. And I haven’t told him about the difficulties in my childhood which also makes me who I am, and affects my reactions and behaviours. So while he’s an open book, I’m a semi-closed one and that is causing an imbalance in our relationship. Most of the time we can both choose to ignore this instability. We cover it with laughter, or sex, or general businesses. But every so often, something happens that puts it into the uncomfortable lime light with me, and that’s where I am today.

We had a dinner party the other night for a number of his friends – people I have considered my own friends in the making. For no apparent reason, one of them seemed to spend the entire evening making small digs at me. As isolated incidents they could easily be ignored. But ten or so throughout the evening felt like an attack, and I reacted by becoming quiet, and later lying to my boyfriend in saying that I was simply tired, when really I was in confused grief.
He didn’t notice it, and he didn’t stand up for me. I could have called it out at the time, but was worried it would embarrass everyone at the table. Funny thing is, most of the women must have seen what was going on becomes they were also quite silent. The conversation was dominated by the men. Later, I realized I had a resented because of my expectation that my boyfriend would notice and then stand up for me. But he went on a trip the next day and I’ve had a few days to think about it, speak with my sponsor, and understand the heart of my grief. Before I can blame or resent him for his lack of action, I need to examine a lack of my own action. I have not been forthright with my boyfriend about why I am the way I am – why I need to be respected in my home, why I need him to notice and care about when I feel slighted. And until I do that, I will only be giving him a thin slice of me, and if I truly love him then he should be worthy of getting access to more than that thin slice.

It’s easy for an outsider to say that love should be uncomplicated; but show me a truly uncomplicated relationship and I’ll show you two people who are probably not being honest with each other.

The remedy? I need to gather the courage to speak honestly with my boyfriend. There’s no doubt I’m worried about his reaction. I’m worried about how he’ll judge me, what he’ll say, how things will proceed. But I’ve realized that this is a turning point for me – in this relationship but also in my life. I have not been good at being honest, and then standing up for myself. I have not been a good negotiator for me. His reaction will make our future clear, one way or the other. And then, at least it will be honest. The alternative is to remain in this uncomfortable place, with this distance between us only growing with time. Experience has taught me that while that might seem easier in the short term, it’s a lot more painful in the long term.

My support group has an expression: “Go where you’re celebrated, not where you’re tolerated.”

As I get further into my own recovery, I recall with some shame the degree to which I held on, in the past, to relationships where I clearly was not celebrated and in fact, felt barely tolerated. This included my relationship with my alcoholic now ex-husband but also with individuals in my workplace, with family members, and even with people I had previously called friends. Rather than letting go of these people and situations, I clung to them, taking on all of the blame as well as the responsibility for repair. I tried to improve those relationships by working harder, needing less, becoming a low-maintenance, insignificant little ball that wouldn’t cause anyone worry or even thought. In doing this, I was actually enabling their dismissiveness, disrespect and even abuse toward me. I wasn’t condoning it or asking for it…but I wasn’t stopping it, either.

It took several years for me to develop enough self compassion and eventually, love for myself, to finally realize I was worthy of much better treatment. I found two reasons for the length of time it took me to get there. The first was that when one dysfunctional person is in our lives, if we look more closely we’ll probably find there are many dysfunctional people in our lives. Negatively and sickness can attract the same. When we are already in a weakened state, it can be difficult to realize how pervasive dysfunction can be. No wonder, I think as I look back now, that I felt I was so alone. I was. There were very few healthy people around me and my alcoholic ensured I had very limited access to them. I was surrounded by insanity until it became my new normal, and my environment was custom made to keep me weak and confused. How, in this condition, could I possibly have realized the condition I was truly in?

The second reason is that the very nature of supporters of alcoholics is nurturing and capable. We give of ourselves to others until it hurts and then WE GIVE SOME MORE, because we’re strong. Everyone tells us that and we believe it. We are stronger than other people and therefore it’s our duty to put up with unusual burdens. I remember a teacher of mine used to say “God only gives us the burdens we can safely carry”. As I grew older, I came to understand that God gives us the lessons we must learn. When we don’t listen, the message must come to us in a stronger way, until it is too powerful to ignore. I was so strong that I had to allow myself to be broken before I would admit I needed to be fixed. When I did, help was there.

When I was ready to start dating I ended up with men who treated me more or less how I felt about myself. As I got stronger and began to love myself more, I found the men who were attracted to me were more caring and loving as well. The man I’m with now adores me (she said with smile). He is a reflection of the self worth I’ve developed over the past several years. He is my reward for great self-work, and I hope I am reward for his as well.

Life will hand us a reflection of how we feel about ourselves. Good things can come to us, but only when we have taken the time to heal and learn to appreciate and respect our own worth. Learn to celebrate yourself, and then go where you are celebrated.

I’ve often said in this blog that when the Universe really wants you to learn a lesson, it will provide you with ample opportunity to learn. Sometimes, infuriatingly ample opportunity. The Universe wishes me to learn two lessons at present, and I’m getting lots of chance for practice.

Once again, I find myself at work facing an abusive female in a position of authority over me. At first I gave her space, believing she was just having a tough day and needed a break. The next time I reported her, informally, just to ensure someone was aware of her behaviors. It was then I learned that these behaviors had been going on for quite some time, and had led to as many as six people leaving the company. The third time it happened, I told my company I would not work directly with her again. Since then, I’ve been repeatedly asked if I would file a formal complaint, but I’ve refused. For one thing, I’m not convinced that her behaviors are sufficiently bad to justify a formal complaint. But there are two other perhaps more important reasons I’m not taking an official stand.

The first is that I have to stop enabling bad behavior – in this case not by this person, but rather by the company. They clearly have evidence that this person is abusive, but instead of dealing with it themselves, they are seeking to hide behind a more vulnerable employee (me). My own arrangement to avoid working with this woman, endorsed by my company, effectively protects me. Yet they would have me go through the emotional trauma of filing a formal complaint simply in the hope that one more nail will effectively finish her coffin. As you can probably imagine, I already feel used enough in this lifetime. I took on far too much in my relationship with my alcoholic, so that he could continue to lead a drunken, chaotic life regardless of the impact on me. I can’t go there again and I shouldn’t be asked to. But when I am – I have the choice to just say no.

The second is that my task was to establish and maintain my boundaries, which I’ve done. I don’t need to scream and yell, or get this person fired. Being with an alcoholic and raising a family taught me to be forceful and determined, swatting at mosquitoes with baseball bats if need be. In my own recovery, I’m learning the finesse that leads to precise, effective moves rather than loud, fast ones. I recall working with my Shaman, admitting to a part of me she called “the bulldozer”and declaring how much I disliked that side of me – wishing it were gone. “It’s already started to go, just by you saying that” she explained. And she was right. I am very capable of being a bulldozer, and so, they’ve admitted, are many of my friends. But I’m also capable of making a choice as to how I react to life. We don’t need to be that way in life and really, who wants to fight for every little thing. Isn’t it enough that we simply put up our hands and say “you’re hurting me..stop” or “if you keep yelling I’ll leave the room until you get yourself under control” or quite simply “no”.

These two lessons – no longer enabling bad behavior, and quietly but determinedly maintaining my boundaries for respectful treatment – have occurred more than I am comfortable with. But the trick is to stay curious about why certain things are happening in your life, to see the pattern and recognize a lesson in the madness, and to focus on learning how to overcome the challenge and to finally get the lesson. I’ll know I’m on the right path if these lessons stop and some new ones arrive in their place!

When I see isms in others around me, I can generally observe with detachment and compassion, creating an emotional space between their behaviours and my own involvement. But when those isms show up in people who are close to me, it’s so much harder to remain purely an observer.

This started with the person who was closest to me for many years. When I was married to an alcoholic, I sometimes felt like an extension of his actions. If he did something awful in public, he might be too inebriated or ego-bound to care but I was certainly embarrassed. If he said something unfeeling toward our friends, I worried about how this might affect my own relationship with them in future. There seemed to be no separation between what he did and how it would affect my life. On the contrary: there was a direct and immediate correlation.
An important part of my healing process was to take back myself. Feel my feelings. Be responsible for my actions and to stop feeling responsible for the words or actions of another. This might sounds easy and obvious for someone who hasn’t been in our shoes, but we know that what I’ve described is one of the hardest things we’ve had to learn. And the lesson continues.

My boyfriend is an amazing, caring, intelligent human being. I couldn’t ask to be with a more wonderful person, and I don’t think I could be loved or treated better by anyone than I am by him. Yet it can be challenging to be with him at times because he is a nurturer, and an enabler at heart. He has a long history (with his ex-wife who is no longer in his life, and with her four children who very much are, and with many of his friends) of being the person to whom everyone turns when they have an issue or need. And he’s inevitably the solution. He helps gracefully, with love, but also with control. This is where he is comfortable, but this part of him is not comfortable with me. I listen to his advice but do not always take it. I set boundaries and stick to them, whereas he is used to moving boundaries frequently to accommodate others. He therefore sees my boundaries as judgement instead of discernment or self care. By way of example, he has a work acquaintance who would like to be our new best friend. This person triggers me because I see in her the isms of undiagnosed alcoholism and I don’t feel she is a safe person for me to be around. But I’m perfectly happy for my boyfriend to maintain a friendship with her, which probably needs to happen as he sees her at work and she’s become good friends with his best friend. But my boyfriend believes this would be awkward (and it might be, as I’ve said no to attending a number of dinner parties with his best friend in order to avoid socializing with this person) so he is irritated by what he perceives to be my judgement of her creating an awkwardness in his life.

We are taught that love is about compromise, and to a degree it is. But those who have been close to an alcoholic have lived a life so compromised only on our own sides that in the end we have completely lost touch with ourselves. Coming out the other side of our own illness, we protect our boundaries and individuality with the fervour of a reformed smoker protecting their right to smoke-free air. If we are zealots about our boundaries, it’s because the release of them feels like a slippery slope to us: we fear we could too easily wind up back living someone else’s life, forgoing our own emotions and needs for those of someone else. It is our equivalent of the alcoholic’s one beer after work. We might not be able to stop ourselves.

Still, a relationship requires that the needs of both people be respected and addressed. So I’ve decided that I will attend the odd function with this other person and test gentle exposure to her. Perhaps I can limit her emotional impact on me over time. I will do this for my boyfriend because I love him, and in addition to protecting my own health, I also wish for his happiness and I know that will entail occasionally accompanying him to dinner at his best friend’s house.

This is not something I would have attempted earlier in my own recovery, but I’ll consider it the equivalent to an alcoholic finding the strength to visit the bar with friends after work and trusting that they can stick with soda and not be pulled back down into well practiced and destructive behaviours. I’ll do this because I believe this relationship is worth it. But I’ll approach this carefully, appreciating that this is a compromise and that the first aim should be the maintenance of my self care. Because I know that I’m worth keeping healthy.

I haven’t posted in a while but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been experiencing life’s isms. Actually, they’ve been hitting me with full force over the past few months. Most of these instances have been related to my boyfriend and kids – understandable given the intensity of those relationships. More surprising, however, has been the devastating and world-crashing realization that someone in another part of my life is not only an addict, but has acted out their addiction isms in a way that will change their life forever. Their bottom – please Lord may this be their bottom – may cause them to do jail time but at the very least, they will likely lose their relationship and their job, and never work in their chosen industry again. They will also never be in a position of responsibility again. Nor will they likely ever be able to afford to live at the standard to which they have become accustomed.

Knowing what they are about to go through I reached out to them with compassion and offers to stand by them and help in any way I can. In return, I received attempts at control, a realization that their relationship was of little consequence, and a confirmation that their ego was still in charge. No humbleness, no admittance of guilt or remorse, no request for forgiveness for their betrayal of me. In other words, they confirmed their diagnoses of addiction, and proved that they were very much still in the early stages of potential recovery.

So why was I so disappointed? We who have lived with an alcoholic truly understand that admittance of the problem is only step one. It is not a sign of health, but rather a confirmation of issue. I guess I was hoping for the incredibly dramatic outing of their illness and resultant behaviours to produce more immediate results in the form of humility. Instead, their ego kicked in and they used whatever powers they had left to manipulate the situation – and then tried to manipulate me when I offered help. And so my ego also kicked in. I should be above that, after all. I’ve lived through this. I know what they are about to go through. They should listen to me and accept the help I offre, shouldn’t they?

Truth is, I have been through it and I didn’t like it much. I’m tired of being there for an addict, and of being tolerant of their intolerable behaviours. I’m tired of dealing with the inherited isms of their father in my children, and the enablement behaviours I see so clearly in my boyfriend. I would just like to hang out for a while in a world that doesn’t include addictive behaviours. Unfortunately, I recall the statistic I once read that said as much as 40% of America suffers from some form of addiction, be it to alcohol, drugs, sex, spending or gambling. And each individual probably suffers from more than one, because it’s not the substance or activity of choice but the underlying behaviours that make an addict. So it’s inescapable. It’s all around us.

There is no escaping; addiction and the isms relating to it can and will hit us from every angle, and probably for most of our lives. But we do have choices in how we deal with it. What’s left for me is the 3 C’s mantra: I didn’t cause it, I can’t control it, and I can’t cure it. Ultimately, the healthy reaction from me is to focus on dealing only with my own side of the street. Set boundaries, maintain responsibility for myself, and live my life with compassion.

They say that infrants grow at the same rate as the strength of our arm muscles, enabling us to carry them as they age, but only to a point. There reaches a time when the size and weight of our child force us to let them go, so they can walk and run and begin to live their lives less directed by their parent. But whle we might be proud to see them climb unaided to the top of the monkey bars, or dribble a soccer ball through a field of competitors toward the net, there’s also a feeling of loss associated with this progression. Someetimes, that loss distracts us from where our focus really should be.

My grade 12 son recently announced that he intends to pursue a career in the Canadian military. I should have felt proud of his commitment to serve his country, but the mother in me was only terrified of losing her son. At first I was worried that he might be hurt, or worse; but now I understand that whether he goes to the military or leaves town to attend university in another part of the country, he will soon be leaving me to enter into independent adulthood. My loss of him is imminent, and inevitable, regardless of how it happens.

It’s taken several weeks and strong advice from friends and family in order for me to get to a place of acceptance and support for my son’s decision. But it’s been a rough ride, intensified by my programmed need to control situations I’m uncomfortable with.

If you’ve had an alcoholic in your life, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Alcoholics thrive in chaos and craziness, and we’ve been trained to try to neutralize or at least minimize the mayhem by attempting to mange the situation as much as possible. It was a survival mechanism, and it allowed us to keep our families together, our homes viable, and our lives somehow on track.

Through our own journey of recovery, we learn that it is not our job to try to change people. All we can really do is to establish and maintain our own boundaries around how we wish to be treated, and ensure that we keep our side of the street clean. This means that the only peson we should judge is oursleves, and we should seek to ensure that in every action and behaviour, we are living healthy, respectful and honest lives.

To “control” life is a fallacy anyway. The people we love could – heaven forbid – be hit by a bus or diagnosed with a terrible illness tomorrow. My son could fall in love and move to Australia and there’s very little I could do about it. All I can control is my own behaviour, my own reactions. So I decided to examine my behavious around my son’s decisions, and realized that while I had no control over his future, I could certainly do a better job of enjoying the time I have with him today. So I’m teaching him to drive, I continue to serve as one of his soccer coashes, and we’re planning a trip together – just the two of us – to Europe this summer after his graduation. The other night, we went shopping for his first suit and it was an evening I will always treasure. Who knew that such a simple task could be such fun, and so poignant?

Admittedly, this moment was possible because I have built structure and care into my life so my time is not wasted on managing mayhem. I’ve created the physical and emotional space in which to experience joy, but I’ve come to realize that I haven’t always allowed for the time in which to let joy happen. Thanfully, a loving Universe has given me another gentle lesson. I have the time, and now the awareness, to truly appreciate life right now. All we ever really have is this moment, anyway. And in this moment, I love my son unconditionally, and I thank God that he’s in my life.

It is a common desire to seek out the like-minded or similarly situated in society.  It gives us greater joy to share our passions with those who share them – consider a book club, or a professional association.  And in times of strife, we find comfort in those who understand our misery.     

One of the most important groups in which we find celebration and comfort is our family.  This can refer to your blood relatives, or friends with which you’ve chosen to surround yourself.  But unlike a book club or professional association, your exposure and vulnerability to your family is not necessarily controlled.  It is usually an ongoing and somewhat frequent relationship with individuals who will probably see you in your good, bad and the ugly times.  So it is important that these relationships be trustworthy.  Many of us assume that they will automatically be so.  We inherently believe that family not simply be there for us, but that they should also be supportive and without judgement.   Yet intuitively we understand that not all family members were created equally, and we tend to pick and chose those with whom we are prepared to be the most vulnerable.

When I was going through my most stressful times, there were certain individuals on whom I could most rely to listen, to comfort, to give me strength to get through another day.  Now, several years after having gone through this struggle, I’m noticing an uncomfortable shift in my relationship with some of those people.  It’s as if they preferred being the strong one to my needy self, and as my strength recovers, they need to find small ways to put me down in order to maintain the relationship dynamic that they are used to.  This can be at first confusing and in time infuriating to us.  We’ve already spent far too long expecting a healthy relationship with our alcoholics.  Now that we’ve put those expectations aside – perhaps forever or at least until the alcoholic is better – it’s hard to accept that they very people we trusted the most throughout our ordeals have become manipulative as well.  

Life is not a cruel joke – merely a series of lessons we must learn and it isn’t impossible that once we’ve begun to learn a lesson, we might be retested in a safer environment down the road to ensure we got it.    By distancing myself from the individuals who seemed to be trying to manipulate our relationship, I was able to reflect on the situation with less emotion.  In that light, I realized that this was a gentle and loving reminder of what I had learned. 

1.  We recover by recognizing the dividing line between our own issues, and those of others.  Once we see that division, we work on building self-respect to the point where we can start to require respect from others who wish to be in a relationship with us.    
2. When those boundaries of respect are crossed, we learn to recognize it and take action.  That can include limiting interaction with that individual; speaking with them about what’s happening, or sometimes just feeling compassion for that other person.
3. Regardless of how we chose to address the crossing of our boundaries, we must acknowledge and respect the fact that whatever is instigating their behavior is their stuff, not ours.  We didn’t cause it, we can’t cure it, and we can’t control it.  And most importantly, other than the reminder lesson that the experience is giving us, this is not about us.  It’s about them.

 Recovery and maintenance requires our constant vigilance and awareness of how we are feeling.  For a long time I felt uncomfortable these individuals in my life but could not put my finger on the cause.  When I spent some time in meditation exploring what I was feeling, I realized what was happening.  Then I had to move quickly into a feeling of compassion and respect for the other individual.  I could see how their world was spinning out of control. I could empathize with how they might be struggling with their own sense of purpose in light of what was going on in their life and how they might find solace in period in our relationship when they were clearly the stronger one, the one in charge.   I get it. 

That doesn’t mean I have to buy into the manipulation; that wouldn’t be a healthy place for me to go.  But I can be empathetic, while recognizing their situation was just that: theirs, and not mine.

If it seems unfair that friends could seem to turn into foes, remember that life can change in the blink of an eye.  All the more reason to really value what you have, when you have it.  Your health, your job, your good friends, your family, your pastimes.  And it never hurts to spend a moment in gratitude, considering where you were last week, last month or last year.

Living with an alcoholic, I learned that things could change in an instant.  One moment life can be normal and in the next, I could discover that my husband was in jail, thousands of miles away.  Or I could be having a perfectly normal day gardening only to suddenly learn that he’d had a car accident while impaired and that as a consequence, there was a chance we might soon be bankrupt.  But the first and biggest change by far resulted from the day I accompanied him to the doctor where it was officially declared – to my surprise, not to my husband’s – that he was very likely an alcoholic.  I remember him turning to me and saying “things are going to change”.  And he was right.

I was raised in a wealthy environment by poor parents.  The money we had was spent on our educations, and a decent home in what became a very good neighborhood.  Other than that, we didn’t really have a lot.  But it was enough for my siblings and I to appreciate what could be possible, with the right focus and effort on our part.  My plan was to get married only once, to have a family of two or three children, and to be able to work at a job that enabled me to live with a bit more ease and a bit better lifestyle than my parents had.  I chose my spouse carefully, never dreaming that he was hiding such a terrible secret as alcoholism.  And for many years, we successfully and happily worked toward those dreams. 

When my world crashed down around me, I knew I would survive because I had managed hardships in the past.   It was the death of that dream that, in many ways, was the hardest to take.  But human beings can be remarkably resilient.  It took several years for me to let go of what could have been and focus instead on what could be.  And during that time, my world changed.  My boys grew older and became more independent.  My own independence blossomed as I built new friendships with wonderful people, and discovered that I was more than capable of running my household and raising my children on my own. 

Last night as I lay lounging on a couch with some new friends, drinking a late night cup of tea and sipping liqueur, I contemplated where I was now.  After three years of dating I’ve met a wonderful man – a friend from long ago who has come back into my life in a new, more intimate role.  Together we are enjoying the summer with friends and on our own. This week, my boys are vacationing with their father, while my boyfriend and I relax in a little cabin on a quiet bay surprisingly close to home.  There are some pretty impressive boats bopping up and down out there in the bay, and a lazy row of houses lining the beachfront, each with their own narrow boardwalk to their small section of private beach.   Dinners here occur later in the evening, after cocktails at various cottages along the beach.  Then they are cooked in open kitchen designs, with candles throughout the house and soft rock from somebody’s iPod playing through the speakers.  Last night we took our plates down to the beach and when we had finished eating, played along the shoreline in the phosphorescence. 

There are a few cell phones here but they don’t ring very often; maybe that’s because everyone has turned them off.   I check mine from time to time just in case there is a message from my boys.  But my blackberry is sitting back at home babysitting my empty house and probably has over 500 emails on it by now.  I supposed if someone needed to get in touch with me with news that would rock my world, they could find a way.  But for the moment, I’m happy to just sit here and contemplate how much my life has changed over the past several years.  And there may be more changes coming: after all, before I left on this trip I bought a lottery ticket!  Yet when we boated out to a local harbor yesterday to do some grocery shopping, I forgot to take it with me to see if I won anything.  Right now, it just doesn’t seem to matter.