Tag: codependence

Mistakes I Made on My Journey Toward Self-Compassion

The emotional and physical abuse had cost me every last ounce of self-respect I had. But I refused to see myself as weak, a victim.

John is escorted into the courthouse wearing a dirty ochre jumpsuit, cuffed at both the wrists and ankles. He looks straight at me in the wing and then quickly lowers his eyes, while I follow him boldly with my gaze, as if this is a staring contest I intend to win.

I notice the public defender right away, a small bald man who pulls his briefcase behind him like a suitcase. He is wiry and can’t sit still, either hopped up on coffee or cocaine. The district attorney has instructed me not to get emotional. “This is just a hearing,” she says, “there’s no jury yet, and judges don’t like it when you seem like an unreliable narrator.”

I roll my eyes. “I’m not going to get emotional,” I say, “It’s not my thing.” She tells me she has seen public defenders get hostile, make accusations, try strategies to get a victim discombobulated, to contradict herself, to look mentally unstable.

Not me.

When I received the subpoena to testify, I was also given a victim’s packet, a small handful of pamphlets informing me of shelters, therapists, and resources available to petition for restitution. I threw them away. I refuse to be a victim.

They call me Jane Doe and I am satisfied with this identity. I would rather be anyone than who I am: a survivor of his raging chaos, the predictable woman who positions herself as collateral damage in a psychodrama in which she envisions herself the savior. I internally restructure my story to cast myself as a resilient hero, an arbiter of the complicated events of my life that have somehow made me stronger, clearer, more potent in my circuitous journey.

I tell myself John was an opponent, not my perpetrator. A perpetrator is an illusion, a false dichotomy of black and white hats. He didn’t beat me up, I beat myself up. He was my sparring partner, and I wanted to know my weaknesses and where to grow stronger. Like Clouseau with Cato, I gave him access to my home, my body, my mindset, my skill-set. I gave him my weapons and the keys to my personal kingdom. I asked him not to use them against me, but God knew we would eat of the fruit and gave us access to it anyway.

I run through the ways I never trusted John, as this is proof that I couldn’t have been betrayed. Either I don’t believe I deserve happiness, or I generated my own ultramarathon training session. I suspect it’s the former, but I try to convince myself it’s the latter. I may lose a battle, but I won’t lose the war. I repeat this to myself as I sit in the DA’s office, waiting to be called to the stand.

“Did anything the defendant do frighten you?” she asks.

Very little the defendant has done the past four years has not frightened me. To be more precise, the emotional and physical abuse have cost me every last ounce of self-respect I had. But I refuse to see myself as weak, a victim.

“No.”

She doesn’t shake her head in disgust, but rather acquiesces, as if she has seen this over and over.

***

The first time John broke into my home, I was at work. When I got home, he was on the balcony with a kitchen knife he’d used to cut his hair. When he saw me, he pressed the knife to his throat, just slightly, to make an indentation without blood. He stared at me until my fear softened to compassion. I hadn’t seen him in months, but I didn’t call the police. I just calmly talked him down the stairs, as if he were a negligent child, and reminded him that he could have seriously hurt someone. I politely asked him to please not break in again.

“Okay,” he said.

When his mom hadn’t heard from him in over ten days, she called me to ask for help. I researched addiction symptoms online, and searched local arrest records until I found him. Since his arrest had nothing to do with me, I convinced myself I could be of service and made an appointment to visit him in West Valley Detention Center. The weeks that followed were a jumble of court proceedings and miscommunications.

He was released in less than a month with a misdemeanor and a punch card for Narcotics Anonymous meetings.

I saw him as the victim of a system that didn’t understand his illness and I was defensive and proactively defiant. I spent his first night out of custody in a motel room with him, nurturing his wounded spirit.

Then I helped him get his car out of impound, let him borrow money, helped him get medications and appointments, helped him get back into school and into a part-time job, and genuinely believed we would fight the madness with surefooted logic and love.

No matter how deep into the rabbit hole of illness he descended, through the drinking, cocaine and hallucinogens, and even when his numerous arrests would sometimes lead to jail and eventually prison, nothing shook my loyalty.

“I love you,” I reassured him, “As long as you exist in any form, anywhere, I will find you. I will always come to you. Wherever you are, I will be there. There is nowhere I won’t look. In life or in death, I will come for you.”

And I meant it. I loved John irrationally, with an intensity I didn’t have for myself or my well-being. I loved him in all the ways no one loved me, and I nurtured his brokenness like I wish someone had nurtured mine. I couldn’t go back and hold myself as a little girl, so I clung to him, and to the idea of rescuing him.

I didn’t ask him to change, I didn’t even know what change would look like. I loved him without regard to what he did. I loved every muscle and hair on his body, every nuance of his mouth: the way it silently shook instead of making noise when he laughed, the wide sardonic grin, and even pursed with displeasure. I loved his deep voice and his dramatic anger, louder and more direct than anything I am or could ever display.

I loved him for his ability to fall apart.

When he broke into my home again, the consequences were more dire.

***

After John was convicted, I broke all communication with him and got myself into therapy. After the hearing, the judge insisted on a protective order for me and my children. Shaking, I took the papers into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror, a skeleton of a woman, 25 pounds thinner than I was when I was first subpoenaed. I didn’t recognize the frail woman looking back at me. All I knew is that I needed to change.

I was raised to turn the other cheek. If someone takes your cloak, give him your shirt. If he imposes on you for one mile, go with him two.

My mother taught me if a man tries to abduct you, pretend you adore him, and you won’t get hurt. I never fought back. I was raised to respond to aggression with a smile.

I was drawn to people with addictions the way I am drawn to sugar, metabolizing them quickly and easily, with a counterintuitive calm. I was drawn to the way they let me play a supporting role in their life drama, so I didn’t have to recognize my own drama. With someone chaotic and wild and suffering, I didn’t have to think about myself. There was always somewhere to hide.

I thought turning the other cheek made me a good person. I didn’t care how many slaps that got me or how much it hurt. I just kept turning the other cheek.

My therapist recommended a daily yoga practice, so I began the journey of learning to listen to and trust my body. Through yoga, I learned to pay attention to my body. I began to recognize I could feel, and that I did feel, and I learned to be more honest with myself about the trauma lodged in my body.

Before yoga, I didn’t even recognize trauma.

It took sitting in my pain, rather than working to fix everyone else’s, to teach me to pay attention to my own needs. The process started with breathing mindfully, and then moving mindfully. Eventually I learned to feel my body, then recognize its pain, and eventually, recognize desire.

I am a recovering enabler. I had to unlearn self-abnegation to understand that you can’t really be empathetic until you know where you end and someone else begins.

Meeting my own needs serves as an example for others to meet theirs. When we show compassion and care for ourselves, we give others in our lives implicit permission to find wholeness in themselves, without needing or relying on us.

Now I begin every morning with sitting in stillness, listening to my body, and paying attention to what comes up, even if it’s painful. Especially if it’s painful. Since I’ve committed to this daily spiritual practice of ruthless self-honesty, I haven’t had time to rescue anyone else. I have enough to rescue right here.

Listening to the wisdom of my body has healed the cognitive dissonance once lodged in my psyche. I can now talk lovingly to the demons inside, rather than projecting them onto other people, trying to heal in others what I didn’t know was wrong in myself.

Letting someone hurt you in the name of love hurts them too.

Before we can be in a healthy relationship with another, we need to be self-aware enough to know who we are, and to identify what we want and don’t want. And we can’t do that when we spend all our time running around trying to fix other people.

I no longer want to be anyone’s light or hope or savior. Now, I’m committed to being my own best friend.

View the original article at thefix.com

16 May 2019
How I Stopped Hurting Myself in the Name of Love: Tales of a Recovering Enabler

The emotional and physical abuse had cost me every last ounce of self-respect I had. But I refused to see myself as weak, a victim.

John is escorted into the courthouse wearing a dirty ochre jumpsuit, cuffed at both the wrists and ankles. He looks straight at me in the wing and then quickly lowers his eyes, while I follow him boldly with my gaze, as if this is a staring contest I intend to win.

I notice the public defender right away, a small bald man who pulls his briefcase behind him like a suitcase. He is wiry and can’t sit still, either hopped up on coffee or cocaine. The district attorney has instructed me not to get emotional. “This is just a hearing,” she says, “there’s no jury yet, and judges don’t like it when you seem like an unreliable narrator.”

I roll my eyes. “I’m not going to get emotional,” I say, “It’s not my thing.” She tells me she has seen public defenders get hostile, make accusations, try strategies to get a victim discombobulated, to contradict herself, to look mentally unstable.

Not me.

When I received the subpoena to testify, I was also given a victim’s packet, a small handful of pamphlets informing me of shelters, therapists, and resources available to petition for restitution. I threw them away. I refuse to be a victim.

They call me Jane Doe and I am satisfied with this identity. I would rather be anyone than who I am: a survivor of his raging chaos, the predictable woman who positions herself as collateral damage in a psychodrama in which she envisions herself the savior. I internally restructure my story to cast myself as a resilient hero, an arbiter of the complicated events of my life that have somehow made me stronger, clearer, more potent in my circuitous journey.

I tell myself John was an opponent, not my perpetrator. A perpetrator is an illusion, a false dichotomy of black and white hats. He didn’t beat me up, I beat myself up. He was my sparring partner, and I wanted to know my weaknesses and where to grow stronger. Like Clouseau with Cato, I gave him access to my home, my body, my mindset, my skill-set. I gave him my weapons and the keys to my personal kingdom. I asked him not to use them against me, but God knew we would eat of the fruit and gave us access to it anyway.

I run through the ways I never trusted John, as this is proof that I couldn’t have been betrayed. Either I don’t believe I deserve happiness, or I generated my own ultramarathon training session. I suspect it’s the former, but I try to convince myself it’s the latter. I may lose a battle, but I won’t lose the war. I repeat this to myself as I sit in the DA’s office, waiting to be called to the stand.

“Did anything the defendant do frighten you?” she asks.

Very little the defendant has done the past four years has not frightened me. To be more precise, the emotional and physical abuse have cost me every last ounce of self-respect I had. But I refuse to see myself as weak, a victim.

“No.”

She doesn’t shake her head in disgust, but rather acquiesces, as if she has seen this over and over.

***

The first time John broke into my home, I was at work. When I got home, he was on the balcony with a kitchen knife he’d used to cut his hair. When he saw me, he pressed the knife to his throat, just slightly, to make an indentation without blood. He stared at me until my fear softened to compassion. I hadn’t seen him in months, but I didn’t call the police. I just calmly talked him down the stairs, as if he were a negligent child, and reminded him that he could have seriously hurt someone. I politely asked him to please not break in again.

“Okay,” he said.

When his mom hadn’t heard from him in over ten days, she called me to ask for help. I researched addiction symptoms online, and searched local arrest records until I found him. Since his arrest had nothing to do with me, I convinced myself I could be of service and made an appointment to visit him in West Valley Detention Center. The weeks that followed were a jumble of court proceedings and miscommunications.

He was released in less than a month with a misdemeanor and a punch card for Narcotics Anonymous meetings.

I saw him as the victim of a system that didn’t understand his illness and I was defensive and proactively defiant. I spent his first night out of custody in a motel room with him, nurturing his wounded spirit.

Then I helped him get his car out of impound, let him borrow money, helped him get medications and appointments, helped him get back into school and into a part-time job, and genuinely believed we would fight the madness with surefooted logic and love.

No matter how deep into the rabbit hole of illness he descended, through the drinking, cocaine and hallucinogens, and even when his numerous arrests would sometimes lead to jail and eventually prison, nothing shook my loyalty.

“I love you,” I reassured him, “As long as you exist in any form, anywhere, I will find you. I will always come to you. Wherever you are, I will be there. There is nowhere I won’t look. In life or in death, I will come for you.”

And I meant it. I loved John irrationally, with an intensity I didn’t have for myself or my well-being. I loved him in all the ways no one loved me, and I nurtured his brokenness like I wish someone had nurtured mine. I couldn’t go back and hold myself as a little girl, so I clung to him, and to the idea of rescuing him.

I didn’t ask him to change, I didn’t even know what change would look like. I loved him without regard to what he did. I loved every muscle and hair on his body, every nuance of his mouth: the way it silently shook instead of making noise when he laughed, the wide sardonic grin, and even pursed with displeasure. I loved his deep voice and his dramatic anger, louder and more direct than anything I am or could ever display.

I loved him for his ability to fall apart.

When he broke into my home again, the consequences were more dire.

***

After John was convicted, I broke all communication with him and got myself into therapy. After the hearing, the judge insisted on a protective order for me and my children. Shaking, I took the papers into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror, a skeleton of a woman, 25 pounds thinner than I was when I was first subpoenaed. I didn’t recognize the frail woman looking back at me. All I knew is that I needed to change.

I was raised to turn the other cheek. If someone takes your cloak, give him your shirt. If he imposes on you for one mile, go with him two.

My mother taught me if a man tries to abduct you, pretend you adore him, and you won’t get hurt. I never fought back. I was raised to respond to aggression with a smile.

I was drawn to people with addictions the way I am drawn to sugar, metabolizing them quickly and easily, with a counterintuitive calm. I was drawn to the way they let me play a supporting role in their life drama, so I didn’t have to recognize my own drama. With someone chaotic and wild and suffering, I didn’t have to think about myself. There was always somewhere to hide.

I thought turning the other cheek made me a good person. I didn’t care how many slaps that got me or how much it hurt. I just kept turning the other cheek.

My therapist recommended a daily yoga practice, so I began the journey of learning to listen to and trust my body. Through yoga, I learned to pay attention to my body. I began to recognize I could feel, and that I did feel, and I learned to be more honest with myself about the trauma lodged in my body.

Before yoga, I didn’t even recognize trauma.

It took sitting in my pain, rather than working to fix everyone else’s, to teach me to pay attention to my own needs. The process started with breathing mindfully, and then moving mindfully. Eventually I learned to feel my body, then recognize its pain, and eventually, recognize desire.

I am a recovering enabler. I had to unlearn self-abnegation to understand that you can’t really be empathetic until you know where you end and someone else begins.

Meeting my own needs serves as an example for others to meet theirs. When we show compassion and care for ourselves, we give others in our lives implicit permission to find wholeness in themselves, without needing or relying on us.

Now I begin every morning with sitting in stillness, listening to my body, and paying attention to what comes up, even if it’s painful. Especially if it’s painful. Since I’ve committed to this daily spiritual practice of ruthless self-honesty, I haven’t had time to rescue anyone else. I have enough to rescue right here.

Listening to the wisdom of my body has healed the cognitive dissonance once lodged in my psyche. I can now talk lovingly to the demons inside, rather than projecting them onto other people, trying to heal in others what I didn’t know was wrong in myself.

Letting someone hurt you in the name of love hurts them too.

Before we can be in a healthy relationship with another, we need to be self-aware enough to know who we are, and to identify what we want and don’t want. And we can’t do that when we spend all our time running around trying to fix other people.

I no longer want to be anyone’s light or hope or savior. Now, I’m committed to being my own best friend.

View the original article at thefix.com

15 May 2019
I am in love with an addict: Why do I stay?

How many times have you asked yourself why you continue to stay in a co-addictive relationship with an addict? When you are in a relationship with someone where a substance comes first it is likely you have tried; ultimatums, interventions, rehab, AA, NA, therapy, family therapy, ignoring, begging, pleading, and crying to no avail. If sobriety IS attained, it is usually followed by relapse and broken promises. Ultimately things go back to the way they were—being last on the list of your loved ones priorities while drugs and alcohol is first.

So how can you become ready to address your own codependence and co-addiction? Tips from someone who’s been there here. And a section at the end for your questions or comments or experiences.

The Beginning Phase: Attraction and love

In the beginning of a relationship with an addict things are usually amazing. Stories of courtship are often described as an incredible experience. This honeymoon period is seen by the sober mate as a remarkable love story. This time is usually described as a period of charm, fascination, and attraction.

The new relationship is so intense that the addict is usually able to hide their demons. In order for an addict to function they must become very good at manipulation, lies and creating drama to deflect their substance abuse. Their behaviors may be so aloof, appealing and beguiling that the sober partner is intrigued by the mystery and thrill of the addict’s actions. Even if the sober partner feels that something may not be right, they ignore their instincts. The addict is able to make light of their substance abuse and convince their partner that they just like to party once in a while.

The person who is sober is so clouded by their desire to be with the addict they do not ask any questions.When the sober mate can no longer keep up with partying or accept the inconsistencies in an addict’s storiesthey may start to ask questions. At this point, it is typically too late. They are already in love.

The Middle Phase: Committment and concern

Loving an addict can bring up many mixed emotions. I started to notice that my boyfriend’s car was home when it was supposed to be at work. When I confronted him, he told me I was seeing things. Then I would drive by his work and notice his car was not there. I wanted to believe I was seeing things more than I wanted to face the fact that my gut was probably right. He called me one weekend and spoke to me in the strangest tone making some outrageous statements. He had disappeared for a couple of days and said he was with friends.

After my worry got the best of me, I went to his apartment. I found him sitting up on his couch, asphyxiating from a drug overdose. Because my feelings for him were so strong, I allowed him to let me believe that this was not a problem and things just got out of control. He swore it would never happen again. I was desperately afraid of this behavior but I loved him so much I felt it would hurt more to be without him.

The middle, or the “discovery period” of a relationship with an addict can be baffling. This is a time where the love is so strong and both parties have made commitments to one another but there is a clear realization that something is wrong. The discrepancies and contradictions in stories and unpredictable behaviors of the addict become more apparent. The addict is feeling more comfortable with the relationship and secure their loved one is not going to just up and leave.But it becomes more difficult for an addict to hide their addiction because they are spending more time with their partner.

Deep down, the sober party knows there is something inherently wrong. They will start to ask questions, dig deeper, and possibly confront the addict about their addictive tendencies. This discovery period can last weeks, months, or years, depending on if the addict is more functional or dysfunctional in their addiction. The sober partner may be questioning their own eyes, sanity, and reality just to try and believe an addict’s lies. Over time,the strange, unexplained behavior can no longer be chalked up to nothing.

It is at this time that the sober partner may become “hooked” or addicted to the addict. Their love becomes more desperate and they feel that it is their responsibility to help the addict see there is something wrong and fix it. The addict will use this love to manipulate their partner into staying.

When will this addiction end?

When it becomes clear that there is a problem things will start to deteriorate in the relationship. The decline can happen very fast. You see the addict as a different person from the one you fell in love. This new person is revealing themselves more and more of the time. The addict is no longer hiding their addiction but instead making excuses for it. Wanting to believe them, you entertain promises of sobriety and proposed behavior changes. These are typically empty promises.

The sober mate knows the addict’s life is at risk. The worry, fear, and obsession over their partner may become chronic. Nights are spent wondering if the addict will come home,and hours or sometimes days are spent waiting for a phone call. This becomes the norm. When they do show up, you watch your spacey-eyed partner make excuses as to why they were not available.The sober mate will make desperate attempts to plead for the addict to change because they hope there is still a viable future for their relationship.

Co-addiction begins

There is a turning point that occurs sometimes without notice. This is when the sober partner becomes a co-addict. A co-addict is a person who puts the addict’s addiction over their own needs. A co-addict will enable and cover up for the addict in an attempt to help them. A co-addict will spend countless hours trying convince them that they need help.

A co-addict is torn. They want to leave but they cannot. They want to believe the addict will change and think their support and love will save them. They want to be there when the addict recovers. Actions speak louder than words and usually the addict’s actions are not consistent with their words and promises. The two will go back and forth with one another making and breaking promises. A co-addict’s life will be turned upside down and inside out dealing with the addict.

Holding out longer than you should

Even though a co-addict loves a person with a serious disease and knows deep down they should leave, it is not always easy to walk away. While we cognitively understand that zero tolerance for drug use and abuse is required, some will marry, have children with, move in with, become financially dependent on and/or financially support the addict over the course of the relationship despite the addiction. Most feel they are abandoning the addict if they leave. Regardless of the scenario, most co-addicts will wonder when this will end and the person they fell in love with will return. That person may only show themselves now in glimpses. These short episodes keep us holding on longer than we should.

The reasons co-addicts stay no longer matter. The situation becomes so convoluted even the co-addict does not understand why they continue to the relationship. They only know what they feel and how much they still love the addict but abhor the situation.

How do you leave?

How do you leave someone you love so much even though they hurt you when they have a serious problem? That is a very good question. If you find yourself in this situation, you are not alone. There is help, but the help is not for the addict, it is for you.

View the original article at addictionblog.org

8 May 2019
Loving a drug addict: Can a drug addict truly love?
No. A drug addict cannot truly love you.

If you’ve found this article, you might be searching for ways to repair a “broken relationship”. But the truth is, you’ve got to fix…you! Here, we’ll take a brief look at root causes for loving an addict. What gets you to this desperate place to begin with?

Then, we’ll challenge you to take action. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments section at the end. In fact, we try to respond to all real life questions personally and promptly.

Getting to the Root of Co-Addiction

If you find yourself in the situation where you love an addict and you cannot let them go, then you need to get down to the root of your issues, not theirs. If you have found that you meet the criteria of a co-addict; it is time to look at how this situation developed.

Codependent and Co-addictive behaviors may have roots that date back to childhood. The behavior may be so severely suppressed that the co-addict does not even relate to or remember when they lost their sense of self. For example, if a young child faces:
- sexual abuse
- emotional abuse
- verbal abuse
- psychological abuse
- neglect or abandonment by a parent
…they may have tried to resist. In this resistance they find that the abuser only becomes more irate. Their response to fight for their well-being gets them nowhere. Over time, the child may learn that their feelings are less important and become submissive to that person, parent and/or abuser.

Are You Becoming More Submissive?

The abuse or act of submissive behavior may even be mild; a controlling parent, a self-absorbed parent or a caregiver who abandons a child. Even if these roles are not as pronounced as what we think of as outright abuse, the child is still learning that their voice only angers this person and they develop a passive, submissive disposition.

More specifically, with a co-addict, the development of submissive behavior might be a result of a childhood relationship with an addict. For example, if a child’s parent/s or caregivers are addicts then the child may learn early on that they must put their parent and their addiction first. They are naturally going to come second to a parent’s addiction so they lose their voice, their sense of self and learn to grow up taking care of an addict parent or family member. This behavior can become something that is ingrained and will be carried out into all other areas and relationships in their life.

Do You Value the Addict More Than Yourself?

It is also possible that the adult co-addict or codependent is aware of the abusive relationship they endured which imprinted their lack of sense of self. In either case, the adult codependent is a person who puts more value on the person they love then on their own welfare. A co-addict or codependent may lose their identity. The only identity they create is through the person they are codependent on.

Addict and Co-addict: A Perfect Match

Don’t you find it strange that most addicts marry codependents or co-addicts who end up putting their addiction and problems above their own?

This relationship is actually a pretty natural one. Co-addicts need to hide behind others and be submissive and addicts need someone to take care of them and put up with their behaviors. An addict is naturally attracted to a codependent or co-addict. In fact, being in any type of relationship with one is how most addicts survive and continue their addiction as long as they do.

The Challenge: Are You Ready to Look at Yourself?

If you can look at your past trauma, childhood relationships and experiences, you may start to uncover why you chose an addict as a partner. Being with an addict or a person whose needs are put above yours may be comfortable for you, familiar, and feel like second nature. If you can understand why you are in this type of relationship and unravel the life events which helped you get here; then you can start to work on your part which contributes to this troubling relationship dynamic.

How can you fix the relationship and the dynamics of it if you do not understand why it happened in the first place? You cannot and that is why a co-addict must get down to the root of their problems and stop deflecting them with the addict’s problems. That is the only way for a co-addict to sort out and then make changes in their life.

View the original article at addictionblog.org
7 May 2019
My daughter or son is an alcoholic: What can I do?

Watching a child lose themselves in alcohol addiction can make parents feel helpless. If you suspect, “My child is an addict!”, there is no magic bullet or good advice that can stop an addiction and so when most people see their son or daughter slipping into alcoholism, they simply do not know how to stop it. Here, we review some practical suggestions in addressing a suspected alcohol problem within your family. We invite your questions about treatment or family therapies for addiction in the comments section at the end.

STEP 1: The Old Ways May Not Be The Best

Many parents, upon discovering their children have an alcohol problem, resort to traditional parenting reactions. They attempt to punish their child. This could be cutting them off from “bad friends”, Sending them to their room, Taking away privileges or even just getting angry and yelling. These methods may have worked in the past, but chances are, they will not work to treat an addiction. The two reasons for this are that, 1) if they are old enough to get alcohol, they are probably old enough to have some independence which means traditional punishments are harder to enforce. 2) Punishing an addict does nothing to fight the addiction. So, your first step is to recognize that what you used to do…is broken, and that you need to seek alternative ways of coping.

STEP 2: Talk To Them

People with an alcohol problem do not respond to anger, they respond to empathy. Someone who is drinking too much may already feel depressed or isolated, punishing them further really only serves to increase their urge to drink. The best way to approach an alcohol addiction is to talk to the person. Do not do this when they are drunk, wait until they are sober, and maybe even a bit hung over. Tell the person that you are worried about them, that you care for them and that you just want to help.

Also remember to go to them with evidence and ideas. What this means is, before you speak to anyone about an alcohol addiction, it is important to gather evidence to prove they have a problem. No evidence means they can just deny everything. Once you have the evidence, the ideas come into play. Find a list of treatment options so you can have them ready for the talk. Ideas of the treatments available will show the addict that there is a way out. It is like offering a ray of hope.

STEP 3: Take Action

Once you have spoken to your child about a possible addiction to alcohol, it is time to take action. If you can, go with them to speak to a doctor about the condition, Speak to a counsellor or look at a treatment centre. All of these options can be effective in getting treatment but it may be hard to get your son or daughter to embrace them.

If you are having trouble, speak to a doctor, counselor or treatment centre yourself. They can offer advice and some comfort. It is also a good idea to look into some family support groups. There are organisations out there that are designed to support the families of alcoholics. They are full of people just like you that have gone through it all before and may be able to help.

You Can Only Do So Much

Addiction is often called a family disease because it affects everyone around it, but when it comes to treating addiction, The Addict has to make the first move. If you have Offered help and provide your son or daughter with treatment options, there is not a lot more you can do. Most addicts that actually kick their habit do so because they decide to.

If someone does not want to quit, there is very little that can be done to treat them. A good example of this is people in prison treatment programs. These people do not have access to drugs or alcohol for years at a time but once they get out many go right back to using. This is because they were forced to stop rather than choosing to stop themselves. Until someone decides they want to get better, they will not respond well to treatment. If your son or daughter is refusing treatment, attend family support meetings and get yourself some help and support. The only other thing you can do is keep encouraging the addict to go to treatment.

The road is not easy

This may not seem like an easy road or the answer most people want to hear but it is the truth. Having a child with an alcohol addiction is never easy but with help love and support, most people can get better. We invite your questions or comments in the section below and will try to respond to you personally and promptly.

View the original article at addictionblog.org

7 May 2019
I am in love with an addict: Why do I stay?

How many times have you asked yourself why you continue to stay in a co-addictive relationship with an addict? When you are in a relationship with someone where a substance comes first it is likely you have tried; ultimatums, interventions, rehab, AA, NA, therapy, family therapy, ignoring, begging, pleading, and crying to no avail. If sobriety IS attained, it is usually followed by relapse and broken promises. Ultimately things go back to the way they were—being last on the list of your loved ones priorities while drugs and alcohol is first.

So how can you become ready to address your own codependence and co-addiction? Tips from someone who’s been there here. And a section at the end for your questions or comments or experiences.

The Beginning Phase: Attraction and love

In the beginning of a relationship with an addict things are usually amazing. Stories of courtship are often described as an incredible experience. This honeymoon period is seen by the sober mate as a remarkable love story. This time is usually described as a period of charm, fascination, and attraction.

The new relationship is so intense that the addict is usually able to hide their demons. In order for an addict to function they must become very good at manipulation, lies and creating drama to deflect their substance abuse. Their behaviors may be so aloof, appealing and beguiling that the sober partner is intrigued by the mystery and thrill of the addict’s actions. Even if the sober partner feels that something may not be right, they ignore their instincts. The addict is able to make light of their substance abuse and convince their partner that they just like to party once in a while.

The person who is sober is so clouded by their desire to be with the addict they do not ask any questions.When the sober mate can no longer keep up with partying or accept the inconsistencies in an addict’s storiesthey may start to ask questions. At this point, it is typically too late. They are already in love.

The Middle Phase: Committment and concern

Loving an addict can bring up many mixed emotions. I started to notice that my boyfriend’s car was home when it was supposed to be at work. When I confronted him, he told me I was seeing things. Then I would drive by his work and notice his car was not there. I wanted to believe I was seeing things more than I wanted to face the fact that my gut was probably right. He called me one weekend and spoke to me in the strangest tone making some outrageous statements. He had disappeared for a couple of days and said he was with friends.

After my worry got the best of me, I went to his apartment. I found him sitting up on his couch, asphyxiating from a drug overdose. Because my feelings for him were so strong, I allowed him to let me believe that this was not a problem and things just got out of control. He swore it would never happen again. I was desperately afraid of this behavior but I loved him so much I felt it would hurt more to be without him.

The middle, or the “discovery period” of a relationship with an addict can be baffling. This is a time where the love is so strong and both parties have made commitments to one another but there is a clear realization that something is wrong. The discrepancies and contradictions in stories and unpredictable behaviors of the addict become more apparent. The addict is feeling more comfortable with the relationship and secure their loved one is not going to just up and leave.But it becomes more difficult for an addict to hide their addiction because they are spending more time with their partner.

Deep down, the sober party knows there is something inherently wrong. They will start to ask questions, dig deeper, and possibly confront the addict about their addictive tendencies. This discovery period can last weeks, months, or years, depending on if the addict is more functional or dysfunctional in their addiction. The sober partner may be questioning their own eyes, sanity, and reality just to try and believe an addict’s lies. Over time,the strange, unexplained behavior can no longer be chalked up to nothing.

It is at this time that the sober partner may become “hooked” or addicted to the addict. Their love becomes more desperate and they feel that it is their responsibility to help the addict see there is something wrong and fix it. The addict will use this love to manipulate their partner into staying.

When will this addiction end?

When it becomes clear that there is a problem things will start to deteriorate in the relationship. The decline can happen very fast. You see the addict as a different person from the one you fell in love. This new person is revealing themselves more and more of the time. The addict is no longer hiding their addiction but instead making excuses for it. Wanting to believe them, you entertain promises of sobriety and proposed behavior changes. These are typically empty promises.

The sober mate knows the addict’s life is at risk. The worry, fear, and obsession over their partner may become chronic. Nights are spent wondering if the addict will come home,and hours or sometimes days are spent waiting for a phone call. This becomes the norm. When they do show up, you watch your spacey-eyed partner make excuses as to why they were not available.The sober mate will make desperate attempts to plead for the addict to change because they hope there is still a viable future for their relationship.

Co-addiction begins

There is a turning point that occurs sometimes without notice. This is when the sober partner becomes a co-addict. A co-addict is a person who puts the addict’s addiction over their own needs. A co-addict will enable and cover up for the addict in an attempt to help them. A co-addict will spend countless hours trying convince them that they need help.

A co-addict is torn. They want to leave but they cannot. They want to believe the addict will change and think their support and love will save them. They want to be there when the addict recovers. Actions speak louder than words and usually the addict’s actions are not consistent with their words and promises. The two will go back and forth with one another making and breaking promises. A co-addict’s life will be turned upside down and inside out dealing with the addict.

Holding out longer than you should

Even though a co-addict loves a person with a serious disease and knows deep down they should leave, it is not always easy to walk away. While we cognitively understand that zero tolerance for drug use and abuse is required, some will marry, have children with, move in with, become financially dependent on and/or financially support the addict over the course of the relationship despite the addiction. Most feel they are abandoning the addict if they leave. Regardless of the scenario, most co-addicts will wonder when this will end and the person they fell in love with will return. That person may only show themselves now in glimpses. These short episodes keep us holding on longer than we should.

The reasons co-addicts stay no longer matter. The situation becomes so convoluted even the co-addict does not understand why they continue to the relationship. They only know what they feel and how much they still love the addict but abhor the situation.

How do you leave?

How do you leave someone you love so much even though they hurt you when they have a serious problem? That is a very good question. If you find yourself in this situation, you are not alone. There is help, but the help is not for the addict, it is for you.

View the original article at addictionblog.org

3 May 2019
The Ugly Side of Dating in 12-Step Programs

When someone acts perfectly, their best selves, when that’s what they present to us, we often fall for it. I wasn’t special or not special. I was typical.

Recently I was in a relationship with a guy I met in the program. We’d been together about four months, on again-off again. Really twice on, twice off.

The first breakup wasn’t pretty — we’d had an argument one evening and when we parted he wasn’t happy. I’d say he was disappointed, but it was more than that. But after years of working my AA program, my “people pleaser” was quick to reassure him we were “good.” In fact, while the argument wasn’t really that bad and could have even been food for growth, his anger had frightened me. I’m eleven years sober, he had four years. I thought the recipe was for love, not disaster.

The truth is: I’d been on the fence about him since we met.

On our first date, he told me that he’d threatened to kill someone during a relapse. This left me feeling unsettled, but when I told my friends and therapist, I learned it was apparently really, really bad. I thought well, it was a relapse, not the type of thing he would do sober. I remembered him also telling me of a breakup that had happened when he was still using. Maybe all of his negative behavior was when he was using. I’d been through this before with sober men, and it was altogether confusing. An ex had gotten physical with a few women before I knew him, and I assumed it was while he was drinking. I learned at the end of our relationship that it was actually during a dry period.

I sound so judgmental. I guess we all have to be, to some extent, while we’re choosing who and who not to date. But apparently I’m not judgmental enough. I ended up dating the man who’d threatened someone’s life, and now here we were, post-fight, all my protective feelings swirling around inside me. I hate it when people say they were a hot mess, because it implies that they are or were hot, which is a little too narcissistic for my taste, so let’s just say I was a mess. (Not that I’m completely free of narcissism, but I choose to believe in the good in myself and focus on my character defects one at a time, rather than bundling them together.)

I’d like to say I was fine, but really I wasn’t fine. I was going to act like I was, though, to maintain the status quo. In other words, I’d said everything was okay, so I’d act like it was. Acting as if is a skill I learned fairly early in sobriety, and it had served me well.

The morning after the fight I awoke to a long Facebook messenger message, really a few long messages from him, clustered together. This was the guy I was dating exclusively, and sleeping with, and basically in a “sober” relationship with. His messages were angry and spiteful. I’d thought all was okay enough to at least be civil to one another, but no such luck. And I felt sick about it.

I can’t remember if we spoke after the messages, but I don’t think we did. I was livid and hurt, an ugly combination of emotions. I broke up with him. Over messenger. The way we loved, we died.

The Resurrection

Until he started love-bombing me. I call it “The Resurrection.” It started with things he was going to give me, restaurants he wanted to take me to. He gifted me with a very personal family heirloom… and on and on. After about a month, I caved. Our second-round first date was at a park near my home. When this guy was on, he was on. We ended up kissing at my place, just kissing, and I was falling in love like I never had with him before. When someone acts perfectly, their best selves, when that’s what they present to us, we often fall for it. I wasn’t special or not special. I was typical.

The love affair lasted about two days, and then the old him reappeared: not listening well, an underlying frustration, a continuation of great and comforting sex (that’s where the connection stemmed from). All in all, except for the sex, nothing very exciting. Except I’m leaving out my behavior in the whole episode. Knowing I didn’t feel as strongly about him as he did about me, I should have ended it the first time around.

Then the second time, about a month in, we went to a couple of galleries and walked around on a Friday night when everyone in New York City, like us, was mulling around for free. I wasn’t in a very good mood; my insecurity and self-hatred were getting the best of me. We had an argument — again, not so bad — but he got too angry for the situation.

I woke up the next morning, upset and out of sorts, and called my sponsor, as I had a few times during our courtship. I asked her if I should keep my date with him that night. For the third time, she suggested I take a break from seeing him, but I didn’t listen. Suggestions are just that, I told myself, and at 11 years sober, who was I to have to listen to my sponsor.

I went over to his place around six that evening. We took a taxi to a restaurant we liked, and the whole ride there was awkward, with short bursts of forced conversation. It got worse at the restaurant and culminated in me telling him I didn’t have the same feelings for him that he had for me. Read: My Part. I shouldn’t have gone in the first place, should have broken up with him the night before (as I didn’t hesitate to mention during what I now realize was a fight from the minute I set foot in his apartment).

But then his anger moved in, like a dark cloud.

“I’m breaking up with you, bitch,” he said and slammed his hand on the table. He started to walk out, which I feared would leave me stranded, far from home, with no means of getting back to my warm apartment and my sweet cat. At times of high stress, I, like so many others, go to the worst place, a place of abandonment and rejection. And as much as he really might have been rejecting me, I knew in my heart I had left the relationship months ago.

I ended up begging him to let me ride home with him — that feeling of being stranded, scared, and alone that reminds me of all the reasons I drank and drugged — and we ended up sharing a taxi back to his apartment so I could take the subway the rest of the way home. During the 45-minute ride he alternated between yelling at me and saying he wasn’t going to be mean to me any longer, an agreement he broke countless times during the drive. He spewed hate at me while I mainly stayed silent and looked out the window. And then he said the most danger-filled and threatening thing anyone’s ever said to me: “if you think this is bad, try pouring alcohol and coke on it.”

The moral? I should have left sort-of-well-enough-alone. After I knew who he was, I never should have gone back and dated him the second time. Or, if I am honest with myself, the first. I’m glad I got out before something really awful happened, though I remain worried that he might stalk me. I don’t know if that’s his style, but he did tell me that I had reason to be terrified of him. He said there are only a few people in the city who he hates, and they are scared of him.

I’m dating again and it’s hard. I’ve had difficult breakups, in and out of sobriety, but this has to be the worst. It’s an all-time low; the one that leaves you with the most vile taste in your mouth. I don’t even know if I want to publish this, for fear he might read it, for fear you might. I’m going to go with HP on this one — pray like there’s no tomorrow, pray to be of service, to learn what HP has brought me in offering me this experience which I have embraced and then, finally, un-embraced, and to affirm that whatever happens, I’ll be taken care of.

View the original article at thefix.com

15 March 2019
Setting Boundaries in Sobriety

Sobriety doesn’t come with a handbook. If it did, you’d have to be sober first to read it.

People with addiction issues are not used to setting boundaries, especially when those boundaries involve behaviors we have reinforced for years.

I spent years violating boundaries as a drunk. Particularly when it came to relationships. Piss me off and I’d become belligerent. Let me drink all night and I’d throw up on your carpet. Invite me to a party and I’ll embarrass you in front of your friends. Weddings? Absolutely! Sign me up as the drunkest attendee. For drunks, the people who let us violate their boundaries are the ones we come back to over and over again.

I chose to become sober and dry after drinking made my life unbearable. My fiancé Jill didn’t make that choice. She didn’t have to; she wasn’t experiencing the same struggle with alcohol abuse I was. Drinking was ruining my personal and professional relationships. I spent my days trying to make up for what I destroyed at night. She had a glass or two of wine when she felt like it and functioned fine the next day.

***

Sobriety doesn’t come with a handbook. If it did, you’d have to be sober first to read it. Perhaps I would have learned about being a decent sober person if I had gone to an in-house treatment program. I did my sobering up in the wild, so to speak. My changes, positive and negative, took place in front of everyone around me.

Jill and I were blindsided by boundary-setting issues early in my sobriety. Our relationship was one of the few things from my drinking days I wanted to save. At best, it was hanging by a thread. We agreed to stay together while I tried to get a firm grasp on sobriety. She gave me support and encouragement as I experienced little successes: one day sober, one week sober.

I appreciated Jill’s support. We never discussed the specifics of what I’d need from her. I wouldn’t have known what to ask for anyway. I intended to go to AA every day for the first 90 days and I was seeing an individual counselor and going to a weekly all-male support group. I was bursting at the seams with support; I was exhausted from so much support.

Jill drank wine. Not my drink of choice. I was the typical Philadelphia-living, bearded, tattoo-covered, craft beer drinker. The higher the ABV the better. The more ounces the better. Wine? No thanks. I hadn’t asked Jill to stop drinking or to keep alcohol out of the house but she had naturally done so, initially. I assumed we had an unspoken agreement.

A couple weeks into my sobriety, we had plans to spend a relaxing afternoon and evening together. I was leaving work early to watch a Team USA World Cup soccer match, an event I would have typically used as an excuse to overconsume alcohol on a weekday. Just like football games, tennis matches, holidays, and days ending in a y.

However, my newly-sober-person plan consisted of spending time watching soccer and eating takeout Thai food with Jill.

Jill sent me a text asking if I would pick her up a bottle of wine on my way home from work. It was a reasonable request on the surface; she didn’t have a car, so it was easier for me to pick up the wine on my way home. Pennsylvania has interesting liquor laws: you can’t walk into any random gas station or grocery store and grab an alcoholic beverage; there are special stores for buying wine and spirits and separate bottle shops where you can purchase beer.

Jill’s request didn’t offend me at first. She knew I didn’t drink wine and she was supportive of my sobriety and told me she was proud of me. I knew her request for a bottle of wine meant we were likely going to have sex that evening. I had no issue with that – of course I could bring her a bottle of wine.

On the way home, I picked up the finest bottle of $10 red wine I could find. I guess we weren’t going to watch soccer after all.

We had the kind of evening you can only have when you are in a relationship that’s starting to heal after a long period of damage. You know, sexual healing? Jill had a glass of wine or two over the course of the night. I found out later Team USA had won their game.

Everything was perfect.

Until it wasn’t.

There were a couple things I hadn’t told Jill about my trip to the wine store. First, I had broken out into a panic while I was in the store. I’m no stranger to anxiety attacks, but this one hit me hard.

Making matters worse, I chose to get her wine from a store directly across the street from the meetinghouse for the AA group I was attending. I felt like I was sneaking behind enemy lines as I came and went from the wine shop. I expected to see someone I knew from meetings standing outside smoking. I bent my head down and rushed back to my car.

To hell with them, I thought at the time. If someone sees me, I’ll tell the truth. I flashed back to the time my middle school friend told his parents the open beer he was holding was for a friend. Not a believable story then, still not a believable story as an adult.

No one from the group had seen me, but mentally the damage was done. I tend to ruminate on things until they drive me crazy and I spent the next few days stewing on what Jill had asked me to do. How rude. How disrespectful. Didn’t she understand my position? How absurd I should have to say that I don’t want to go into a wine shop as an alcoholic.

I decided I needed to tell Jill about my boundary issue when I picked her up from work that Friday. Every Friday I’d pick her up from the University of Pennsylvania campus where she worked, we’d get Indian takeout and go home to Netflix.

“You really screwed me over the other day,” I started the second she sat in the car.

“What are you talking about?” She asked.

“Why did you think it was OK to ask me to pick you up a bottle of wine?”

“You didn’t have to say yes. I could have gotten it myself.”

Our conversation spiraled into an argument.

“I don’t want that poison around me right now. What would I have done if someone from AA saw me?”

“I won’t ever ask you to pick me up wine again. That’s easy.”

“Oh, I’m beyond that,” I told her.

“Are you asking me not to keep alcohol at home? That’s easy too.”

“That’s the least you can do.”

“You can’t ask me never to drink. That’s too controlling for me. I’m a grownup.”

“Fine. I’d appreciate you not doing it around me for a while.”

We drove home without getting our food.

***

I told the story of the bottle of wine and our argument at my next men’s group meeting.

“I’d say I did a good job setting my boundaries,” I proudly told Counselor Gary and the group.

“You did a piss poor job setting boundaries,” Gary replied. “You willingly crossed your own unstated boundary. And then you got mad about it.”

“At least she knows now what I won’t stand for,” I shot back

“You don’t have a right to tell her what you won’t stand for. I’d say you have a lot of work to do on yourself before you get to that point. Especially with Jill.”

“Why should she get to drink still if I can’t? How will we get along?” I asked.

“You can remember she’s an adult and she can do what she wants. That includes choosing to stay with you. You should focus on that, and not nit-picking behaviors she has no idea rub you wrong.”

“I have boundaries, damn it!” I said.

“Right. That’s new for you. That’s new for the people around you. People can’t read your mind. You’re responsible for setting your boundaries. You’re responsible for maintaining them. Not Jill.” Gary shut me down.

I sat, arms crossed and unreceptive the rest of the session. Gary’s words stung. I was responsible for setting my boundaries? How could I do that? I drove home wondering how I could verbalize the things I was feeling.

***

I worked hard as my weeks of sobriety turned into months; hard at my work, hard at my relationships. Jill and I turned a corner. We found a way to work with each other and communicate our needs.

We set some basic boundaries, ones that would have made sense to a sober outsider. I would never be asked to handle alcohol in any way. No purchasing, no opening a bottle, no carrying a drink to her across the room. The tradeoff, although Jill didn’t ask for it, was that wine could exist in our house without upsetting me. She could have a glass of wine at a dinner out and I wouldn’t feel affronted.

Other boundaries were a little less perceptible. We had to negotiate the boundaries needed for a healthy relationship. I communicated my needs to Jill more often. She began to open up more to me about her needs. We found ourselves more in periods of harmony as we strengthened our bond.

Gary was instrumental on my end. He provided an unbiased view of my unacceptable behavior. He gave me feedback on how I could approach situations without sabotaging them. He coached me on identifying situations I wasn’t comfortable with, and how to better communicate them to my friends and family before things got out of hand.

Today, Jill and I are married with a three-year-old daughter. I recently passed the fourth anniversary of my sobriety. Parenting and being a husband are rewarding and challenging roles that require setting and respecting boundaries. It’s something I’ve gotten better at in my sobriety and something I’m thankful for the opportunity to continue improving.

View the original article at thefix.com

4 October 2018
Men… I’ve Always Been Obsessed With Them

It’s not him, it’s the version of him I’d chosen to focus on, ignoring all the bad behavior which followed, as I have way too many times.

“Addicted to Love” is a great song––it’s also a not-so-great running theme in my life. Last week, at 62 ½, it dawned on me that there’s never been a time––nary a day of my life––when I haven’t had, first a boy, then a man, front and center in my brain. Attempting to add up the hours––the real estate––and what I might’ve done with both had I been more focused on me––rather than them––is depressing as hell.

I can remember being a little girl of not quite 8, chasing 10-year-old Andy Helfman––all day, all summer long––for at least three years running. I eventually caught him and got the chaste kiss I sought, and the satisfaction of discovering he liked me, too. Returning to the city from the Catskills, there was Roy. I picked him on the first day of school; in June he asked me out. I fell for Paul when I was barely 12. I harbored that love for years until he returned it, in his fashion––breaking my heart and hymen. There was Lenny––unrequited; with Randy, I came to wish it was unrequited; Vinny #1, and then Vinny # 2––both mine for the having, and both exceedingly inappropriate.

I sound insanely fickle. And yet, I was fairly easy on the fickle, heavy on the insane. These were not short impetuous crushes. I harbored all of them well past their expiration dates, either until I got them or until the next one took hold, oft with some heart-breaking overlap.

Looking back––how much of my quest was about the conquest? The chase. Winning. Ownership. Not to amass bounty, but to capture––love. To fill a hole, to prove my worth––which I could never seem to do with the people I deemed most important, including my rarely-considered self. I never thought of it in those terms––yet now––it’s impossible for me not to see the pattern.

How many times have I given my time, attention, and power to a guy who either didn’t ask for it, didn’t appreciate it, or used it more as a means to control rather than love.

I followed one boyfriend to the college of his choice, and another, post-degree, to the city of his––in both cases putting aside my own desires. I married the second one, knowing he was a volatile alcoholic. But, he was my volatile alcoholic. I waitressed, putting my career on hold, so he could… sleep. So what if there were holes in the walls behind every picture? You couldn’t see them, so I could pretend they weren’t there. I spent the majority of our years together obsessing… about how to get away from him.

It took falling in love with someone else to manage it.

My second marriage grew from a years-long professional friendship. The romance was built on mutual respect, affection, and ultimately, love. In my mid-thirties, almost immediately, I shifted my focus from my career to managing his and to starting a family. It was my choice, my great privilege and pleasure. For a decade, as his star ascended, our kids blossomed and thrived. When his up came crashing down, it took our love with it. We spent the next 10 years struggling over what once was, trying like hell to get it back––unsuccessfully. Graciously, the kids continued to bloom––magnificently.

As a middle-aged single mom, without a career or a man, I obsessively struggled to find both. My long-starved creative passions swiftly found their voice and vision, and have met with some success. The money and the manhunt have been an exhausting, heartbreaking, ego-crushing exercise in futility. In spite of all the years, and lessons learned, I’m struggling to find my way with both. I’m still giving men who don’t deserve it––and sometimes don’t even know it––my time, energy, and my power. And, there’s always a man––and a way to stalk him.

Back in the day, I did it with the phone: I’d call the object of my desire, hear his voice, or,sometimes hell-forbid, his parent’s voice, and hang up. I graduated to the walk-by––finding any excuse to pass his house, or where he hung out, in hopes of catching a glimpse––a smile––or a moment of his time. What a waste of mine.

Facebook, Twitter and, Instagram took my occasional insanity and turned it into an ongoing opportunity to “check-in” on the latest object of my obsession affection.

Dating apps are an even bigger nightmare, with distance offered at any given moment. Twenty-three miles? Hey! Where the hell are you?

Finally, two weeks ago, I freed myself from the now daily insanity. Julian, my latest (mind) fuck, doesn’t utilize social media (talk about insanity). I had no way to monitor him other than to glimpse What’s App to see when he’d last been on. Why exactly? What did I gain by such behavior? Heartache. I knew when he was communicating, I also knew it wasn’t with me.

I tried weaning myself from looking, but just as it was with pot 17 years ago, I had to quit cold turkey. I’ve stuck to it for 14 days, and it’s working. As each day passes with zero connection, he fades from my mind, and perhaps more importantly, from my heart. With distance, the rose lenses are clearing their hue––less obstructing my view. I’ve come to appreciate that I’d been romanticizing him, focusing on the alchemy of the connection, whilst ignoring the harsh cruelty of the abrupt disconnection. It’s not him, it’s the version of him I’d chosen to focus on, ignoring all the bad behavior which followed, as I have way too many times.

For the first time in memory, there’s no man in my head. I’ve stepped away from the swipe. That leaves a lot of time and space to think about worthy people, ambitions, and causes––and maybe, at last, to include myself as one of them.

View the original article at thefix.com

27 June 2018
An End to the Parent-Child Role Reversal: Taking Care of Me
When my dad drank, he folded in on himself and quietly disappeared. When this happened, I’d wait patiently for his return while dreaming up myriad ways to make his life better.

There was a little more than a week to go before my wedding day. Left on my to-do list was an array of tasks:
- Pick up the marriage license.
- Finalize the seating chart.
- Tell my dad he wouldn’t be walking me down the aisle.
I called him on a Sunday afternoon, and he responded the following Thursday. After awkwardly discussing the weather, I said, “Dad, I need to talk to you about the wedding.”

As I waited for him to say something, I pictured him gently resting his cigarette in an ashtray on the kitchen table, leaning back in a chair and adjusting his thin-rimmed glasses away from the tip of his nose. Finally, he cleared his throat and let out a long and careful, “Okaay.”

“Listen, I want you to know this isn’t because I’m angry.” I paused. “It’s just I’ve thought about it and…I’ve decided it wouldn’t be appropriate for you to walk me down the aisle.”

“Mmm hmm,” he grunted.

“I mean…I wanna hear whatever you have to say,” I told him. “Do you want to ask me anything? Do you want to talk about it?” I waited. I wanted to know what he was thinking, and I thought he’d do so with words, but instead, he chose silence.

“Do you have anything at all to say about this?” I asked.

“Nope,” he snapped. “I got nuthin to say.”

*

If you ask my mother, my father didn’t come to the hospital the day I was born. It’s not that he didn’t know my mom was in labor, or that I arrived earlier than expected, it was because he didn’t believe I was his. And, knowing my father, he probably assured my mother he’d be there, in the delivery room, and then decided not to come and didn’t think to tell her.

But despite his absence, which I was dull to as a newborn, as a kid I possessed an untempered affinity for my father. When my parents divorced when I was four years old, they agreed he would keep the house and my mother and I would move a 30-minute drive away, back to her hometown of East Falls, Philadelphia. On the day we left, I sat on my parents’ bed with my Raggedy Ann doll and watched my mother dump her side of their dresser into a suitcase, whining to the back of her head, “I don wanna leave daddy. I wanna stay wit daddy.”

As I was growing up, my dad was drunk more often than I realized. I watched him stumble and bump into walls, and walked in on him passed out, chin on chest at the kitchen table. I sat and listened to his drunken, swear-laced ramblings about his bastard father, the assholes at work and the overall unfairness of life, but I never considered my dad an alcoholic because he didn’t behave like the ones I knew. Unlike my mom and stepdad whose drinking guaranteed violence, when my dad drank, he folded in on himself and quietly disappeared. When this happened, I’d wait patiently for his return while dreaming up myriad ways to make his life better.

At some point, this dysfunctional pattern led to a complete role reversal: my father regressed into the helpless child, and I became the dutiful parent.

When he was drunk and while I still believed in Santa Claus, we slipped effortlessly into our roles, but when I became a teenager who needed more than my father could give, the cracks in our relationship began to show.

During my junior year of high school, I got a job as a telemarketer selling frozen beef. One night after a shift, I headed outside to the parking lot, expecting my dad’s truck to be idling by the curb, but he wasn’t there.

I waited about 10 minutes before I left the parking lot to use the payphone across the street. I called home collect at least a dozen times and each time the operator came back with the same disappointing response, “No one’s home,” she said. “Do you want me to try again?”

After an hour of pacing in the dark, I embraced my only option and started walking. By car, the drive home would’ve taken 20 minutes, but on foot, it took me over two hours. At 11 pm, I arrived home to find I couldn’t open the front door because my father had jammed a kitchen chair under the handle. When he finally let me in, he refused to believe that I’d walked for two hours.

“Where the fuck were you?” He screamed.

“Where was I?” I punched back. “Where the hell were you?”

“I was in the parking lot, and you weren’t there,” he lied.

“What are you talking about? I waited an hour, and I called a million times,” I yelled.

“Who were you with?” He took a long drag from his cigarette.

“What do you mean who was I with?” I roared. “I walked home alone, two hours down Germantown Pike like a freakin’ prostitute.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I didn’t?” I asked in disbelief. “Look at me: I’m soaked with sweat. Look at my feet!” I pointed at the dirt filled cuts and raw blisters my sandals left behind. Halfway through my journey, when the pain became unbearable, I ripped them off and walked the rest of the way barefoot. The black layer of grime and dried blood coating my feet was all the proof I thought my father needed. But he was drunk, and he’d already made up his mind.

“You’re a fuckin liar.” He slurred as he looked at my feet.

*

My father’s greatest disappearing act occurred when I was in my freshman year of college. After months of chat room flirting, my stepmother packed up her car and drove to Florida to be with her Internet lover. On the day she left, my father called and left a message on my dorm room answering machine.

“She left me for a guy living in a trailer park! She’s telling everyone I beat her,” he wailed. “You’re all that matters to me now; it’s just you and me, kiddo.”

That weekend I drove home to be with my father. When I walked through the front door I found him drunk at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette and staring blankly at the white wall in front of him. I sat and watched him cry, promising him that the pain he felt was temporary and that my stepmother was a complete fool for leaving him. Driving to a Friendly’s restaurant for dinner one night, I sat in the passenger seat and watched my father get lost on a route that he’d driven a thousand times before. Seeing him hurting so profoundly cut me wide open. And although I didn’t have the tools to fix it, I knew he needed me, and I was going to be there for him even if it meant losing myself along the way.

Back at school, worrying about my father edged out my sanity. I worried about him driving drunk, I worried about him feeling alone, and I lost sleep over the fear of him taking his own life. I became so consumed with him that I barely noticed the cloud of depression that stopped me from brushing my teeth or the bursts of anxiety that stole my sleep. But still, I answered my father’s every phone call, I walked with him through the grief, and I did my best to coach him back to life.

And then one day, he stopped calling and just disappeared.

Fearing the worst, I stalked his phone. I called and left messages on his voice mail until the mailbox was full. After a week of torture, I reached his co-worker.

“Oh yeah, your dad’s fine,” he told me calmly. “He’s on vacation with your stepmom in Florida.”

*

To my shock and surprise, my father showed up on my wedding day, and from the sidelines he watched me walk down the aisle. Since then, almost seven years have passed, and I can honestly say I don’t regret my decision because it reflected the truth about my relationship with my father: he’s always been the petulant child while I’ve played the role of the ill-prepared adult. For years, I took care of him, catering to his every emotional need while he couldn’t bother to be concerned with mine.

On my wedding day, I retired from that role and did what was right for me.

View the original article at thefix.com
18 June 2018