Answer Addiction

Tag: divorce

  • How I Stayed Sober Through the End of My Marriage

    How I Stayed Sober Through the End of My Marriage

    I cried at Starbucks, I cried at fancy bakeries, I cried on public transportation. But I didn’t use or drink.

    I climbed the stairs to one of Portland’s iconic bridges. The sun was out, the sky was pink, my outfit: perfect. “Goodbye to You,” a classic eighties kiss-off anthem, was playing through my overpriced earbuds, the care of which has become something of a part-time job. This was how I pictured the end of my Diane Keaton-style rom-com about a lonely heart hurt by an ex who finally finds herself. Except I wasn’t Diane Keaton, hell, I wasn’t even a woman, and this wasn’t a movie; more than that, my heartache was far from over. Don’t roll the credits. In fact, that was just a fleeting moment of freedom. I still felt horrifically shitty. 

    See, how I spent my summer vacation was lying by the pool, getting a tan, and watching my marriage and my life totally fall apart. 

    I Had To Be Present

    “There’s not enough White Claw in the world,” a pool-going companion replied when I was whining about how at least the white girls at the pool could drink their problems away all summer. He was right. What I couldn’t do while my marriage collapsed was get loaded. I had over 10 years sober. No man, nothing was screwing that up. Therefore, I was going to have to be present for the entire horrible, heartbreaking, and humiliating thing. How delightful. Diane would only do this part in a montage with a Carly Simon song playing in the background. I had to do it in real time. 

    The night my ex told me that he wanted to date other people was the day my book came out. It was also a day in which I had some category five diarrhea. I’ve always had incredible timing. All I could think about all day at my day job was getting my bowels under control and celebrating the fact that my book had finally been released into the world. 

    He blurted it out while lying in bed. I mean, he could have at least paced back and forth or looked sweaty or had eyes filled with tears. Instead, it was the same tone and urgency that you’d say something like “I think I want Thai food tonight.” I had to leave and quickly shit my brains out for the 50th time that day and then return to the conversation which basically confirmed what I’d known for months and months: it was over. I pointed out his shitty timing, literally. As my ass and my life both exploded at the same time, I thought “This will be really funny someday.” But not that day.

    My Sober Support Network 

    Over the next three months, I unraveled. I cried more than I ever have in my life. I got over diarrhea only to get the worst flu of all time. But what was most painful was the heartbreak. I stopped eating and I didn’t really sleep. I had sex with random weirdos just to feel something other than dread. If this was a Diane Keaton movie, then it was the worst one ever. My phone blew up hourly with messages from sober friends like: “I’m thinking about you”, “Do you need anything?” “Can I come and hang out with you?” I took days off just to cry and hang out at the pool. I did everything and felt everything, but I didn’t freaking drink or use. 

    My soul was shattered and even though I completely knew it was the right decision, I couldn’t do anything. I needed people to tell me it was okay to not feel okay. I talked weekly to a friend who was also sober and was also having a terrible summer. We told each other every time we spoke that we weren’t going to drink over this, we were going to get through it, and we didn’t have to do it alone. 

    My best friend, who got sober the same time I did, was also going through a divorce. He sent me texts daily and somehow knew exactly what I was going through at every turn. My 15-year-sober sister, who also got a divorce in early sobriety, called me weekly to check on me and let me cry. I cried at Starbucks, I cried at fancy bakeries, I cried on public transportation. But I didn’t use or drink. 

    I also fought. Not with my ex; that ship sailed. While my smartass brain had some preloaded choice zingers to fling at him, it would have served no purpose. We fight for stuff worth saving, someone told me. There was no fight left in either one of us. No, my fight was to feel the grief and move through all the emotions I was experiencing. And it was horrible. 

    I am not one of those people who can face things head on and “feel my feelings.” It’s the opposite, actually. My avoidance of emotions made me an excellent drug addict and alcoholic. I once totaled a car in a hit and run with a poor unsuspecting chain link fence and went home and took a nap. I can avoid some shit like a boss. But this was unavoidable. The emotional pain I felt was crippling, but I fought through it with the help of my therapist, who did a great job of simultaneously supporting me and pointing out how codependent I’d been for years. Thanks for that, homie! 

    Naturally, my sponsor and sober friends did a lot of the heavy lifting. Only other sober people know exactly what you need when you’re in pain and I leaned on all of them like Diane would Goldie and Bette. 

    It’s Not Fair

    Forced to live together as our condo was put on the market, the ex and I tried to become respectful divorcing strangers and we failed routinely. As I became aware that he was actively using drugs and had taken on a new boyfriend, keeping my anger in check was as much of a one day at a time practice as staying sober. Sure, drinking a bottle of tequila and telling him off seemed like a great idea in my head, but it would’ve been absolutely devastating in real life. 

    Thus I was again forced to lean on the support I had and move through it like an adult and not like a human substance trashcan from yesteryear. I whined to my therapist that it wasn’t fair that my ex got to do cocaine and have a new boyfriend instead of dealing with all of this. He reminded me that by doing the hard work of walking through it now, I wouldn’t be avoiding it and having to face it in the future. 

    Now, four months later, the divorce is not finalized and we are still stuck in our living situation. I don’t know what tomorrow will look like. I still need to take breaks in the bathroom at work to cry. And I still don’t have a Cape Cod-inspired kitchen or a romance with Jack Nicholson like Diane. What I do have is this crazy, beautiful, badass life of sobriety that has given me the gift of being able to deal with whatever comes my way. 

    So cue the music, roll the credits, and get ready for the sequel. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Evolution of a Beard: My Growth as Reflected Through Facial Hair

    Evolution of a Beard: My Growth as Reflected Through Facial Hair

    My hatred and rage grew alongside my father’s beard. Beards represented mental illness. Beards represented embarrassment. Beards represented my failed family.

    The last time I saw my father without a beard was the night he accused me of being an alien sent to harvest his testicles. It was the summer before I entered eighth grade.

    My father’s mustached face was otherwise smooth. Always had been as far as I knew. I remember kissing his cheeks as a child. Avoiding the scratchy upper lip hair.

    Now, my father’s cheeks were blushed with anger and fear. I lost myself staring into his terrified eyes.

    That night was the culmination of months of odd behavior. Standing outside at my sister’s Girl Scout summer camp, my father screamed accusations at everyone. His family had been replaced by testicle harvesting aliens. The other parents were FBI agents who’d been stalking him at work and recording his thoughts for months.

    I’d always known my dad was a little odd. He had disappeared a few times for no reason. Usually my sister and I would end up staying a few nights at my grandparents’ house. My mom would buy us new toys. My dad would eventually reappear. Things returned to our version of normal. Unknown to me was his diagnosis of schizophrenia.

    This time I knew exactly why my dad disappeared, he was going to the mental hospital; the loony bin. My dad was certifiably crazy and teenage me knew it. Worse, other people knew it. Other teens! Complete strangers. This last image of my father without a beard is seared into my memory.

    My father came home from the hospital with a beard. Well, he came home with three days of unshaven stubble. Still, it was thick, dark, and covered his face. This bearded man no longer looked like my dad. This bearded man no longer acted like my dad.

    The bearded stranger talked to himself out loud in private and public. He cursed and gestured wildly at random times, crossing himself with vigor as he watched Catholic Mass on TV three times a day. We weren’t Catholic. The bearded man spent evenings and weekends shopping for pornographic movies that sat unwatched and unopened in haystack shaped piles in our basement.

    My hatred and rage grew alongside his beard. I hated my father. I hated his beard. By extension, I hated everyone with a beard. Beards represented mental illness. Beards represented embarrassment. Beards represented my failed family. Beards were something crazy people used to hide behind.

    I daydreamed of shaving my father’s beard. Peeling off the stubble to reveal the man he had been prior to having a beard: the father I no longer had.

    At the time I wasn’t able to grow my own beard. That didn’t stop me from making a pact with myself – I would never grow a beard, damn it.

    As you can see in the image accompanying this article, I did not keep my pact.

    As an adult, I didn’t have a beard or a relationship with my father. I became a father myself and vowed to never put my children through what I had gone through: a childhood filled with an empty father.

    I didn’t prevent my father from having a relationship with my children. My mother and father would visit sporadically throughout the year and at holidays. My children were fine interacting with my father. Hell, sometimes I’d catch a glimpse in my children’s eyes of what looked like love toward their grandfather.

    I wasn’t doing so well, though. I treated lingering depression and anxiety with antidepressants, sporadic counseling, and another illness: alcohol use disorder.

    I was failing at life and I frequently drank until I blacked out. I was divorced and only seeing my kids every other weekend. I tried to wash away my bitterness and guilt but instead I found myself on an alcohol-fueled ride to my rock bottom.

    The last time I remember not having a beard was the last time I remember drinking alcohol. I had an appointment with a new counselor. He told me that nothing could improve if I kept drinking and that he wouldn’t work with me if I didn’t stop. Somehow, I heard him. I also heard what he wasn’t saying: things could improve if I stopped drinking.

    I went home and got drunk for the last time that evening.

    It wasn’t easy to stop drinking. At first, every minute of every day was hard. I didn’t have the energy to do anything other than attend AA meetings and counseling. Then, without thinking, I stopped shaving and grew a short beard. At first it brought me comfort in a tangible way: I’d rub on it and scratch it and twist the hairs. After a few weeks it started filling in. And so did my sobriety. My beard grew thicker along with my willpower. I kept the beard and I’ve kept my sobriety.

    At some point I made the first proactive phone call to my father I’d ever made. It wasn’t a magical conversation– we talked about sports and the weather, the same topics we’ve always been able to safely cover during face-to-face conversations over the years. When it was over, I hung up the phone, feeling sick to my stomach. I knew I’d never have the dad I wish I had. I know it’s on me to deal with it. But I wanted to have whatever relationship I could with him.

    I’m four years sober. In these four years I’ve searched my soul to forgive my father. My children love their grandfather. They don’t know the bearded stranger I knew when I was growing up. They’ve never known him without a beard. They only know him as Grandpa!

    I can’t regain my childhood. And I can’t undo what I’ve done to my children. But I can make sure I don’t go back to the dark place of alcohol abuse.

    I kiss my children with a beard. I cuddle my youngest daughter and tickle her with my whiskers. She’s never known me without a beard. My kids see beards differently than I did.

    Today I still have a beard. I keep this beard as a reminder of the importance of staying sober; a reminder of the importance of my family; a reminder of the forgiveness I’ve given others and that I’ve asked for from my loved ones.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Narrative Therapy, or What Angelina Jolie Tells Herself About Herself

    Narrative Therapy, or What Angelina Jolie Tells Herself About Herself

    Ask yourself: As a sober person, who am I? What is my new story? What will I tell myself and others about who I am and what my life is like sober?

    Human beings are fascinated by stories. Indeed, we are particularly enthralled with stories about the lives of other people. Biographies and autobiographies always hover near the top of the New York Times bestseller lists. Kids love bedtime stories as do adults these days: Popular smartphone apps like “Calm” tell bedtime stories that send their adult users into a soft, peaceful slumber. As a therapeutic approach, narrative therapy dives into the human instinct for storytelling to help people in need. Stories can be a profound vehicle for healing.

    Not everyone, however, uses storytelling in such a positive fashion. Taking advantage of our instinctive love for stories, entertainment magazines make millions by publishing articles about famous people like Angelina and Brad, whose seemingly fascinating lives offer distraction from our own. If you were awake when the news broke out about Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s divorce in September of 2016, you probably saw the headlines. Everybody saw the headlines.

    The tabloids and media alike snarled and ripped apart both Brad and Angelina, trying to create negative hype and drama. Negative stories sell a lot more than positive ones, so this particular narrative was salacious, with accusations by a vengeful wife against her husband that included out-of-control substance use and physicality towards his children, teetering on the edge of abuse.

    The stories provided classic schadenfreude — that guilty, yet pleasurable feeling you get when you hear about someone else’s pain. And we, as a collective whole, loved it. Even the rich and beautiful are not perfect, so us “average” people don’t have to feel so bad and so “less than” after all. The media capitalized on this phenomenon, and Angelina was portrayed as enraged and merciless, a bitter accuser of someone she once loved. But some people felt Angelina was going too far; an angry woman airing her husband’s dirty laundry felt like a betrayal.

    Yes, such a characterization could be true, and it could be a legitimate take on the story. But, from her viewpoint, could there be another? Could the negative portrayal of both Angelina and Brad be slanted by our society, namely the newspapers and magazines, for their own benefit? Was Brad really that unhinged and was Angelina really that vindictive?

    If Angelina and Brad chose to deal with their struggles through therapy, there would be a number of different approaches from which they could choose. Narrative therapy, a type of psychotherapy, is all about looking at the world from different viewpoints and perspectives. By looking at how narrative therapy could apply to this celebrity break-up, we can gain good insight into why this approach can be effective for adults in recovery.

    Let’s use Angelina as an example. If Angelina went to a narrative therapist, she might present a quite different perspective about her actions and the divorce than what the tabloids were touting. According to an analysis based on the theory of codependence, Angelina could be staying with her husband out of desperation, even if he were dangerous. I am not claiming that Brad Pitt was a danger to his children in actuality, but rather examining this overall narrative for argument’s sake. In this analysis of the situation, the fear of “being alone” can have a damaging influence on people’s lives.

    Rather than coming forward with this codependent explanation, Angelina most likely would present a radically different narrative. Instead, Angelina was standing up for those very people she holds most dear – her children. If the accusations were true, she could have told a story about herself as a guardian of her kids, strong and fiercely protective. Rather than being scared of being alone, her decisions were based on her natural instincts, akin to a mother bear protecting her cubs. Ultimately, their welfare was her number one priority.

    A narrative therapist could help Angelina see that being committed to her children was a powerful narrative to embrace. Her fervency could be seen as having its roots in protection. She bravely stood up to protect that which she loved. And she made a number of potentially difficult sacrifices for the welfare of her kids (namely, her marriage), but she also stood for her values and intuition as a mother.

    What’s more, maybe Angelina has gone against the societal definition of a so-called “happy family.” According to the People website, Angelina made a statement to Vogue in 2006 about being a single mother when she met Brad. “I think we were the last two people who were looking for a relationship. I certainly wasn’t. I was quite content to be a single mom,” she stated.

    This vantage point would support what is called in narrative therapy the “sparkling moment” when Angelina Jolie stood up to the problem. She made the choice to leave a situation that was potentially harmful to her kids, perhaps taking the chance of becoming a “single mother” again.

    The therapist taking a narrative approach would ask questions of Angelina to guide her as she developed hope in the aftermath of her divorce. The therapist would remind Angelina Jolie of her confidence in being a single mother as shown by the quote. The potential goal would be to help her deal with the inevitable effects of her divorce.

    Single motherhood often has a negative connotation in our society. We are told how hard it is to be a single mother, but could this be different for Angelina? Could it be a way of life that Angelina enjoys? She chose to adopt multiple children before getting together with Brad, actively taking the role of “single mother.” She broke society’s mold of the “ideal” mother: someone who is in a partnership while raising kids. Perhaps the narrative therapist would examine this with Angelina, helping to posit it as one of her strengths.

    A narrative therapist helps you uncover the other side of the story that often doesn’t get told, for one reason or another. The pressures of traditional roles and mainstream ideas in society often keep these other narratives buried. A significant part of narrative therapy is about telling your story about who you are and why your life counts.

    The therapist helps clients to understand the situations and events of their lives in a manner that helps to reveal how the clients want to be in the world. A goal is to create a tangible image of what they want their life to look like and finding the evidence to support this image, which may already be in place.

    Narrative therapy works particularly well within recovery scenarios. People who have struggled with addiction often have negative stories about who they are, often because of the shame associated with being an “alcoholic” or “addict.” Finding a different story is a way of seeing yourself apart from the “alcoholic” or “addict” label and developing a way to view yourself and your life that has nothing to do with the drug or alcohol problem. A narrative therapist believes that you, as a person, are separate from the drugs and alcohol, and he or she will always remain curious and respectful.

    Many people call themselves different things and have “stories” that depend on the labels they put on themselves. For example, a “hipster” is someone who may dress in a chic, alternative way that most people outside of big cities don’t encounter in daily life.

    What story do you tell yourself about yourself in recovery? Ask yourself: As a sober person, who am I? What is my new story? What will I tell myself and others about who I am and what my life is like sober?

    There are a myriad of questions that can offer access into new stories. For example, have you ever thought about what you want to be written on your gravestone? If you were at a party, what would your elevator pitch be about who you are and what you have done in your life? What would your theme song be and why? 

    The therapy work is about developing a storyline that runs counter (or opposite to), but also at the same time as, the story of addiction. It is separate from the storyline involving the problem of drugs, alcohol, and other addictions. Just as Angelina could feel shameful for being called a “bad” wife who did not stick by her husband, there is an alternative story in which she is a “good” mother protecting her children. The therapist helps clients view themselves and their lives apart from the shame of the addiction and the resulting resentment at being viewed negatively by society.

    The narrative therapy approach can be empowering: The client is always the expert, and the therapist is the guide who asks questions. The goal of this process is to help the client build the confidence and self-esteem to be the person that knows his or her life the best.

    To the narrative therapist, you are so much more than just an “addict” and the negative experiences that happen to you in the throes of addiction. Doing this work can help you uncover and discover the other parts of who you are; your hopes, dreams, and preferences for living in sobriety as the protagonist and main character in your own, entirely new storyline. Is there something that only you know about who you are and what your life is like that would help you evolve into sustainable sobriety with the right attention and care? Maybe developing this side of yourself could help you stay sober and live a healthy, satisfying life in long-term recovery.

    View the original article at thefix.com