It Won't Go Away

Being a group representative for my AlAnon group is very easy. I go to one district meeting a month, and two assemblies a year. As I've settled into the role, I know how much information my group wants me to pass on. I give a two or three minute summary of local, state, and world organization items at each weekly meeting.

Now I've volunteered to be the public outreach person for our district. This is a position that basically I can do a little or a lot with.  So far, I have gotten suggestions to place flyers in doctor's offices and rehab facilities. The fliers cost 10 cents each, so I want to put them where they can have the most impact. I also volunteer to talk at family night at several rehabs.

I've tried several times to set up talks for parents at the middle and high schools, but have gotten shot down quickly. The school district both my kids attended is large, affluent, and concerned about ratings. Like most school districts, it has a huge drug and alcohol problem. There are programs within the schools (not pro active enough, in my opinion), but no place for parents to hear the experience of another parent. My feeling is schools would rather hide the drug/alcohol problem, than have their ratings suffer.

 I was disappointed how unreceptive they were. I'm willing to give the school district the benefit of the doubt about the ratings.  Can anyone think of another reason they don't want parents talking about drug/alcohol use?

Awards

I never expected to learn from blogging, to get prayed over, to be understood. I sure as hell never expected to come out a better person. I got so incredibly lucky that a group of people found me, and gently but persistently stayed on message. "I am powerless over drugs and alcohol. I can turn my life and will over to God. I can understand my part and make amends. Life should not be lived on high alert. Love and hope are free for the giving."

I've gotten a few awards, so it's a good time to acknowledge your support. (I'm not linking; everyone is on the side).

Without Pam, Scott W, Mary Christine and Syd, I would still be trapped in fear, guilt, blame, worry, remorse, and anger. They commented day in and day out that there was another way. They said it patiently, and they said it over and over. AlAnon has changed my life. It has not changed the addict, my work, my family, or my circumstances.

AlAnon changed me.  A little light I had inside is warmer and brighter now.  I trust more, I'm afraid less.  I  don't know how it works, but it does.

I'm indebted to the honest, caring commenters. I love me some people who tell it like it is--Patty, Frankiecon, Bro Frankie, JeNN, Dr John, LL Cool Joe, Kristin, Clean & Crazy--to name a few. Your words have changed my mind on more than one occasion.

Thanks to the friends who are steady and sure. Tall Kay, Indigo, Prayer Girl, Louisey, Paula, Lori, Rachel, Betty Ann, Cat, G-Man and Whitemist.  All the many others! I'm so grateful.

I don't read blogs of people who are still using. I have lost the need to "understand" addiction. I do read the parents of those still using. Often I wish they were in my home group.

Sometimes I get a follower, and I go to their blog, and I say "hmmm" or "WTF." I wonder why they care to read about  an IV drug user, alcoholic, felon, bipolar, son of a workaholic, compulsive, nut job of a brokenhearted mom. I'll poke around their blog, and usually I find the answer. They have been slapped upside the head by life.

Just like the people on my sidebar.

Yearning Heart

 

This week end I just needed to put up the Christmas tree. We have a little, corny, fiber optic tree since we are not always home at Christmas anymore.  I still decorate it with 25 years worth of memories. Andrew made the bell in one of his preschools. The date puts him at barely three years old; obviously the teacher made the bell.  I cannot see Andrew doing such a neat job even today.

I decorated the tree and put up all my Christmas stuff because try as I might not to have expectations, I want this Christmas.  I want to see his face, and exclaim over the ornaments together.

My husband watched, but didn't say anything. To use one of Andrew's sayings, "he knows what time it is."  

It's Christmas time, trusting God big time kinda time, taking a seat and letting everybody make their own decisions time.


I asked Andrew's dad to put the lights up around the fireplace.  He grumbled, said  it was too early, he would do it next week.

I guess he really wants this Christmas.

The Old Days

For over 23 years I've worked at a Catholic hospital. They hired me first, so there I am.

As part of my employee orientation, I had to sit through a four hour slide show/lecture on the history of the Daughters of Charity (the order that founded the hospital). Many of the new employees in the warm, dark auditorium slept through it, myself included.

A Catholic hospital is a regular hospital,  but with a chapel, a crucifix in every patient's room, and nuns.

When I started there in 1986, there were nuns all over the place.  They were in the cafeteria, the halls, the pre-op area in case someone wanted to talk before surgery, and always several in the family waiting room. There were priests too, but the nuns did the day in, day out hand holding. They never forced themselves on anyone, always inquiring first if they were welcome.

When one's chest is about to be sawed open, and one's heart manipulated by the large hands of a brusque surgeon, wandering nuns become popular, regardless of previously held religious beliefs.

After a time, I stopped thinking of the nuns as a strange aberration of womanhood, and took pride that we had something special, a mission, at my hospital.

The years passed and I saw fewer nuns, and more administrators. The hospital system  merged five times. The CEO's are male business majors, not the stern,  "I know what you have done"  nuns who ran the show when I started. We are owned by a Catholic health system that doesn't require new employees to watch slide shows  of their history. I have not seen a nun in 12 years.

Except for the one who always says a few words at groundbreakings and the opening of new wings.

Now that the nuns are gone, I miss them. Or I miss what they represented; a shared goal, values, the pure joy of service.

*sheesh* Now I'm starting to blog about the good old days.  I might have to rename the blog "Subdural Nostalgia."

Sunday Meeting

Fear and guilt drove my actions in the first five years of Andrew's Addiction. I now know this is normal, and it takes an average of seven years to start understanding the family role in the addict or alcoholic's progression.

In working the 12 steps of AlAnon with a sponsor, I've been able to let go of a lot of guilt. But not all, and I never will.  The guilt I keep is part of the life lessons learned. I don't want to sweep all the missteps of the past away, absolve everyone by saying "I did the best I could."

As a parent that is not real to me. What attending meetings, daily reading and meditation, and calling my sponsor do for me is put the past in perspective. I get strength and faith that I'm making better decisions today and for the future. I believe in my intuition.

AlAnon is not a program that tells me to feel good all the time. 


It's a program that tells me feeling is good.