The Grafted Family Tree

The week before last, when I was at a new level of rock bottom, I reached out and talked to so many people about what I've been dealing with. I cried at an Al-Anon meeting, I talked with a friend (who before I would have considered an acquaintance) on the phone about alcoholism and saying "fuck" to God (as in, "This is a really fucked up plan" - my most direct connection with my higher power in years). I had coffee and cried with another friend, who only recently became a very close friend, and I received supportive emails from long-distance friends. I honestly felt that over the course of a few days humanity became my family.

I do not have family living within 5 hours, driving distance, but I felt so much love and support coming from so many people that day, last/last Wednesday, that I honestly believed in a human family as deep as any blood ties. I say "believed" but the truth is I still feel this way, it's only that now that the wounds are not as fresh (I felt all of this love alongside a good deal of anger and animosity from my husband), now that things are not quite so hostile between us I find myself reaching out less. This is really stupid. We, I, am no where out of the woods with alcoholism and its effects. Actually, it seems that just now I am finally beginning to understand how long and difficult a recovery this is going to be (no matter what my husband decides to do). It's just hard to communicate the in between stuff, the work and suffering that happens even when the drama and trauma are not on the surface. Still, I am writing this as confession and also as a reminder to myself. Talk about what's happening, how you are feeling with supportive people. People who are not the alcoholic.

This extended, extended family that I am just beginning to tap into is also vital for another reason. My family is not only long distance in regard to physical space, they are also long distance emotionally. My mother and father know a rough outline of what I'm dealing with - they know that my husband drinks and lies, but they have never called to check up on how I'm doing. To see if I'm okay or in need of someone to talk to. I've been disappointed by this - the way they've responded to this problem with my husband as opposed to when he had major back surgery and had to learn how to walk again. And my husband's parents have been the same. I assume he has told them about his drinking and hiding, his lying and inability to stop drinking even after I explained it was either alcohol or us (me, my daughter, our family life). I know he has told them the general state of things, and they have not once reached out to see if I am okay. I have had a hard time with this, I've struggled with the fact that they don't seem to want to acknowledge the problem (they skyped with my husband and daughter today, for instance, but did not take time out to ask my husband about how he is doing with alcohol. It seems like the problem is not real if they don't talk about it, while I find great wisdom in the phrase, "We are only as sick as our secrets").

I have had a hard time accepting their disregard, but tonight, in writing about the "family" I have here in the town I live in, in the form of friends and colleagues, and the long-distance but emotionally close friends I have dispersed throughout the globe, I'm starting to get that I should spend less time focusing on what my parents and/or in-laws are not doing and more time being grateful for all the people in my life who are being supportive. I have no control over how much love and support someone, anyone offers me. So, it seems a whole hell of a lot better to be grateful for the loving people rather than disappointed in those who are not meeting our expectations. And why not make a family out of those who do love and care!

Moving forward, I want to try to keep in mind my family of humanity, my human family full of friends and misfits and even some blood relations. The cobbled together group I believe in and cherish. I want to concentrate on them, what they are offering and what I can offer them in return.

“The capacity for friendship is God's way of apologizing for our families.” ― Jay McInerney, The Last of the Savages 

Suffering from a Hiatus

Photograph by John G. Wilbanks, I've added this image to the blog because
last week it felt like I was just sliding down this rock, aptly named  Devil's Tower.
I was a the delusional top when my husband confessed (again!).

It has been over a week since my last post. I wish I had some fantastic reason why I could not find the time or voice to write but the truth is I just suffered. While I was finishing my last post, of Monday, June 23rd, my husband came into the room and told me he had drank the day before. Between dropping my daughter and I off at home and going back to watch the second half of the U.S.A. soccer match he stopped and got a beer. He drank, he hid, he lied about it - for a day, another day. I read almost verbatim an email a friend had send me explaining that he drinking and lying had to stop now (I just changed all the "he's" to "you's" as I slowly read it aloud). I read this to him because I felt that it accurately and dispassionately summed up the situation. That if he chose sobriety then I would support him, but that what he was doing now was making himself the enemy of me and our daughter.

You would think that all the other times there has been drinking and lying I would not have been so shocked by this new confession. I should have half-been expecting it! But I guess I thought that me being so calm and serious about him moving out would kick into some sort of recognition that his behavior had to change. I was wrong.

So, the rest of the week, mainly and most heartily (if you can move into despair heartily) the next two days I let myself go into despair. I couldn't eat. I had a ball of fear in my gut that kept me from feeling any peace or appetite. On Wednesday, after my husband new I was serious about him leaving, he was so angry. He acted just like a cruel ass whole. I hate to be coarse, but that's the only way to describe it. He even neglected our daughter.

I believe that he felt so bad about himself that he couldn't stand to let himself be near her, but the fact that he did avoid her for almost a whole day, that he closed his office door in her face (although on accident, I like to assume), well these facts remain. Things got better from that day, and he has made plans to move out, although they are not yet definitive.

Now, he is more caring and attentive, he is going to meetings. But he still hasn't apologized for his recent behavior, the cruelty that he showed to me last week and he's yet to say anything that convinces me he is fully aware of the problem he faces and prepared to do whatever he can to get himself and his drinking under control. I can't imagine that he believes good behavior now is going to excuse his past actions. I won't move forward with him unless I get more assurance that he is set on mending his ways. So far, proof of that is pending - and his living apart from us seems more of a certainty than any marriage saving revelations. Possibly, I am still on Devil's Tower, just near the bottom.

Doing Nothing

The cartoon to the right is really not a joke. It is seriously difficult to do nothing when you are near the life of an alcoholic.

When consulting the Index of Subjects in my daily reader, it's clear that lots of time is spent discussing detachment, changing what I can, and controlling. It must be because what so many in meetings have told me is true - you can't do anything. The slogan goes something like, "You didn't cause it, you can't cure it, you can't control it." This is very hard to accept when you see someone wreaking themselves and your family. This is especially hard to accept when you have a little one you feel you need to protect. I feel the need to control things more than ever since becoming a mother. I need to make sure my daughter has a safe and happy home to grow up in. I don't want just functioning for her. I want stability and joy, honesty and peacefulness for her. I know it can not always be roses and chocolate cake, but it shouldn't be cigarettes and alcohol. 

So when my husband drinks and lies, when he smokes, I want to control him, more than ever before, because I want to control the environment my daughter is exposed to. And I can't believe I find myself in a situation where the person who is supposed to be my partner is acting as a saboteur. I just find it unbelievable! And because I find it unbelievable, I also can't believe that my husband does not know the damage he is doing, realize the risks he is taking. It takes all my energy to go through a day not pointing this out to him. But I succeeded in getting through today without doing so. For that, I congratulate myself, we'll see what comes tomorrow. 

While I am doing nothing (saying nothing) in regard to his choices or actions (or lack of actions). I am doing something for myself. I'm talking with friends and getting a clearer head about him living in our house or finding an alternative place to live - as we've discussed. Most importantly, I know that in the life I want to make for my daughter there is no room for lies. 

Coriander

In the south, cilantro can live outside through the winter. That's when it does best. When the weather warms it sprouts up and turns into what it always is, coriander.

We had a bunch of these plants along the edge of our vegetable garden. They were tall and gangly and heavy at the top with seed ponds. I wanted to keep them there and harvest the fresh pods for cooking (because you can't buy that flavor, apparently), but I never told my husband this and he pulled the plants out to clean up the garden.

Still, I harvested some of the pods off the pulled plants, catching them just before or as they were drying out. I started doing this as I pushed my daughter in her swing and soon enough she didn't want to swing, she wanted to help me pull coriander ponds. Her fingers are the right size, but she didn't quite get the leverage you need to establish by holding on to the stem.

Today we went to church as a family. And although this may seem to have nothing to do with coriander and coriander may seem to have nothing to do with alcoholism, stick with me here, there is a point. The church we went to was new to us, we'd never been to this church or a church of this denomination (strange how that word almost has the word demon spelled outright inside it, a bit uncanny). Anyway, during the reverend's sermon she talked about how she always imagined the manna that came from the sky to feed the Israelites as a ready to eat feast that was easily received with quick joy and gratitude, but that the truth she had read of earlier this week is that the manna was actually ground coriander combined with a sticky substance that the Israelites had to work and sweat over before they were able to consume it as food.

Being mostly (entirely?) outside the faith, this explanation of the story made a lot more sense to me. It de-miraclized the story. Now, instead of food falling straight from god to the people's mouths, there was human effort involved. This also sheds some light on a topic I've written of in the past, about what to take personal responsibility for and what to "Let go and let God". Essentially, the story - and the reverend's retelling of it - tells me that God (or my version of a higher power) does not spoon feed me or give me a finished product. Only the materials are offered. And aren't we all offered these materials when we are offered life. We've got the coriander and the sticky what-ever-it-is and if we make something edible, make a life that will nourish us, then all right. If we don't make lumpy bread-ish stuff then we cannot blame anyone but ourselves.*

Additionally, even when they had the materials it took the Israelites a while to make food from it. So the word patience, comes rearing its' continually present head. You have to see what you've got to work with and have the patience to turn it into something that will sustain you. The vision and fortitude necessary for seeing and making the best of your reality are not always easy to find or develop. And not everything in life can be made into manna.

For example, in some ways I can see and appreciate that my husband's alcoholism is an opportunity for me to take my life into my own hands, develop the strength that I will need for life regardless of what he does or if we stay together. But just because I can use this as an opportunity does not mean that if he continues to drink and lie that I need to stay with him and continue to try to make a family life with what he's offering as a partner. Because the fact is coriander is quite nutritious - has many health benefits - so the Israelites were given something they could work with and survive by. With beer, although it is called the "sweet nectar of the Gods," there just isn't as much to sustain - the best it's got is 1% of your daily value of Niacin.



*(although, I do realize that I am writing this from a very privileged background and that in some places, many places, in the world, food or lack of food is much more a dire battle with reality than a convenient metaphor).

Light on My Problems

Art work by: Adam TLS

Today was not a good day. Earlier this week, my husband drank again, and lied about it again, tried to cover over it again. At first, I stuck to the modo I've heard several repeat in Al-Anon - "Do nothing, that is the only thing that will help." I didn't say anything to him about drinking that night, I just went to sleep. Magically, I was actually able to fall asleep without needing to confront him. That really is progress!

But two days passed, and I couldn't stop myself from asking him, "Have you drank since you started 90 meetings in 90 days?" He said yes, and admitted to drinking the night I knew he had. I was able to take this calmly, for the most part. I said I was glad he was honest, but that I needed to read for a while, I wouldn't be able to fall right to sleep.

He went to the couch.

I did read and I did sleep. Then in the middle of the night I woke with such anxiety. I started thinking about our future, if it would be an "our" and felt the weight of needing to take things into my own hands, not count on him at all as a partner. I started to agonize over my lack of trust in him and how this would affect summer plans, day-to-day life, our marriage in general.

Luckily, instead of staying in that cycle I was able to just turn on the light and start reading until I felt sleepy again. But the next day and the rest of this week my anxiety over his having a relapse strengthened and strengthened. When I read an email from a friend checking in on how I was, I broke down crying at work. Clearly, everything was not okay. I was not coping with my husband's additional drinking and lying as well as I would have liked.

Things came to a head tonight. During a conversation about how I was "trying to do nothing" but that it  didn't seem to be working, he said that it had. Well, he admitted to feeling worse about his drinking when I said nothing than when I brought up the drinking and what he was going to do (or not do) about it all the time. I get that - it makes sense.

But at one point in the conversation he said, roughly, he'd done wonderfully with his drinking since January. Hearing him say this really higlighted for me how deep of denial he is in. He lied about drinking and drove us both home drunk from the airport in February, he hid and lied about drinking in May (and who knows, maybe before), he has twice in the past month gone to AA meetings and then drove around drinking afterwards yet in his opinion he's done wonderfully. And all of this when I've told him he cannot drink and lie and expect myself and my daughter to stick around - that it IS NOT okay with me, even if it is okay with him.

He pushed me over the edge and I said, finally, that we should not live together, that it is not helping. I told him that either our daughter and I would get an apartment or he could start looking for one. He said okay. I went to take a shower.

Useless Resentment

A friend of mine who is now very successful and happy was once going through a terrible divorce and working at a crummy furniture store. While she was working at the crummy furniture store, a co-worker shared this nugget, "Worrying is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do but it doesn't get you anywhere." I'd like to revise this by switching out worrying for resentment. Something like...

"Resentment is like a bag of cement. It weighs you down and frustrates you but at least you build arm muscle." 

No, that's not quite right. Maybe...

"Resentment is like a suitcase full of clothes the wrong size. They may cover you but you're not going to look good wearing them." 

Okay, so, obviously it is much harder to come up with these pithy sayings than it is to read them (or find pictures illustrating them) online. What I'm trying to get at, however inarticulately, is that this evening I finally discovered resentment does absolutely no one any good. This seems like something I should have already known, that everyone should kind of know, but the truth is before tonight I only knew it logically, intellectually. It wasn't something that my whole being believed as true. 

What happened to bring about this wonderful discovery? The 4th Step. Yesterday I read, "Will I blame others for what I do on the ground that I am compelled to react to their wrongdoing?" And then more about taking an inventory of my faults. This is not fun. Mostly, it is not easy. Being objective and honest about your shortcomings can sometimes seem almost super-human. You have to step outside yourself to look at yourself and you are constantly getting in the way of your own view. 

But one thing I could quickly identify within myself was resentment. I don't easily let go of the hurt that comes into my life. I think I hold on to it in hopes of being able to demonstrate, somehow, how much pain someone has caused me. That's crazy. Basically, I keep pain around, to show pain, to cause pain, in order to protect myself from future pain. Yeah, that makes sense, keep pain to avoid pain. Right. And the icing on the cake of this ridiculous logic: the person who I want to pick up on this pain (mainly, my husband) never does! And if, by some off chance, the resentment I'm carrying around does really make an impact on another person, it causes an argument not reconciliation and understanding. 

These lines helped me realize something about resentment: 

"I must go on day after day trying to face myself as I am, and to correct whatever is keeping me from growing into the person I want to be." 

Suddenly, it hit me. Resentment is not only causing me turmoil and annoying (at best), enraging (at worst) others in my life, it is actually keeping me from growing. Now, that, that I can't put up with. I suppose I am a selfish person. Well, I am. But when I think of letting go of resentment (that I feel my husband caused) for my husband's benefit, I'm not so entirely motivated. I think he caused this resentment, he deserves it! That would make a teeny-weeny bit of sense if (big IF) he were the one suffering most from my resentment. The awful truth is I suffer the most from my own resentment. 

I feel like I should have really fully learned this lesson when I read The Count of Monte Cristo for the first time, but it's taken 15 years to sink in. The bright side in realizing that I suffer under resentment that I impose upon myself is that I am also the one who can liberate myself. I may have been captured and locked-up in my resentment in the past, but realizing now how truly futile and self-defeating this resentment is has loosened its hold on me. I am not there yet, but I can imagine a future where I've let go of a lot of the weight I've been carrying, still am carrying. This gives me hope. Seems like I just need to be sincere (with myself) and patient (with myself). After all, as Dumas explains in his novel: 

“All human wisdom is contained in these two words--"Wait and Hope.”

I Didn't Invent the Piano, Neither Did Schubert

Tonight my husband and I went to a piano concert. Joseph Kalichstein played selections from Beethoven and Schubert and it was phenomenal. Kalichstein's performance made me remember how much about life can be communicated in sound - and how nice it is to not have to talk (or write) about everything.

Really, the wordless version of "I married an alcoholic" might draw a bigger audience, and more tears. But aside from regretting my medium, which I am really just doing now while I write about the concert, another important--at least personally important--thought occurred to me. It has to do with what I've been writing of lately, "Letting go and letting god", releasing more of my life to a power outside and superior to myself.

I thought, Schubert did not invent the piano. He created some amazing art with it, but he was not the instrument's inventor. Joseph Kalichstein neither invented the piano, nor was he the first to discover Schubert's genius. He can expertly, really fantastically, play the piano and Schubert's work upon it, but in order for this to have happened tonight. First, the piano needed inventing, Schubert needed birthing, Kalichstein needed touring, etc. etc. All of this in order for me to be able to hear Schubert's Sonatas this evening. More plainly put, I could not have orchestrated this evening if I had tried, the whole lot of it is too complicated. Still, I benefited from some complex orchestration, spanning centuries and continents, so that I could hear, and be moved by, the piano, the music, the man playing. This is something like the pooling of human intelligence. Everything working together to create something beautiful. This is something I can believe in. Not a personal god, but a collective intelligence that is much bigger than myself and scope of knowledge. So, I have decided to give it over to Schubert's "Hungarian Melody". If life can sound as sad and hopeful, ernest and solemn as this piece, then I think we'll all be alright.