Tag: women in recovery

10 Reasons Why Sober Is Better

The way of living I have found in sobriety helps me live differently and more beneficially on a day to day basis. This has made for a good life.

I got sober at 29, ten years ago this month. Here are ten ways in which life is drastically different for me now:

1. Every Morning, I Wake Up Clean and Safe

This was not the case for so many years. I have awoken in people’s yards, in stranger’s homes, in cars, with black and blues and broken busted cheeks, with my things stolen or missing, in a jail cell, once in an FBI interrogation office, and countless times in a puddle of my own piss.

2. I’m Never Bored

Seriously, it’s true. For me the notion of getting sober meant a boring life and this was at the top of my list for reasons not to change. But the truth is that I was really bored the last few years I was still using. Bored and exhausted at the same time. In recovery I have learned that my ideas are actually things that can materialize and not just stay mostly conversations on a barstool that might move into reality at a snail’s pace. Today there are not enough hours in the day. I am writing a book, I have a full-time career that’s perfect for me, I see friends daily, I make time for art, I take care of my cats and dog, I have a hundred goals I plan on seeing through. There is no time for withdrawal or hangovers today. I am anything but bored. I am actually alive now.

3. I Prefer This Way of Living

I have some problems and I know what they are: I am impulsive and struggle to think things through, I love chaos and excitement, I live mostly in the past and the future, I am a people pleaser, I obsess about things and about people and I can be really hard on myself. These are all survival skills that helped me in the past somehow but hold me back from reaching my potential. I wish I could say they have changed but they seem to be my autopilot, deeply embedded behaviors. I never graduate my recovery program. The way of living I have found in sobriety helps me live differently and more beneficially on a day to day basis. This has made for a good life.

4. As Long As I Stay sober, I Will Never Have to Be Alone Ever Again

I am surrounded by love and not alone. Before I got sober, I was instead surrounded by people who drank like me. Friends who didn’t drink like me were distant in contact and grew into their own lives understandably. I felt very alone. Not the case anymore. The bonds I have made over time with people in my program of recovery are strong and plentiful. These bonds are strong like those of a cult but I don’t have to give up my dreams, paychecks, and outside contacts. During the darkest times in my sobriety, these people are there. They check up on me as I do them. They want me around on the holidays, want to grieve my losses with me and celebrate my successes. It’s such a gift to know I will never have to feel alone again if I stay sober. And if I don’t stay sober, which of course is always a possibility, they will undoubtedly help me if I want to get sober again.

5. I Am Well Aware That Alcohol and Drugs Will Not Make It Better

Without them it turned out I was pretty sick. At two years sober I was controlled by relentless anxiety and fear. Now I understand my trauma reactions and why I was abusing substances the way I was. Without numbing out my thoughts raced all of the time, my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder which I struggled with much of my life got so much worse and I started to try and obsessively “fix” people and situations for which in reality I had minimal control over. My body ached from being on high alert constantly. At ten years sober I am aware that when my outside world is stressed and overwhelmed, my warped stress response system goes into survival mode trying desperately to make sense of things by detective work, compulsive checking and seeking out ways to feel safe. Alcohol and drugs used to calm my system and was helpful until it started being more harmful than helpful. Now when I am caught up in my stress response system, I have learned how to ease it without abusing substances. and sometimes I just have to hang on, knowing it will pass.

6. I Realize I’m Intelligent and Very Capable

Much of my life I was considered to have learning disabilities and was even voted “most clueless” in my high school yearbook, yes, I still remember that bull&8%#- class of 1999. Through all the testing over the years I received for learning problems no one ever asked about what life was like at home. Due to early childhood loss and trauma my amygdala was working on overdrive and controlled by fear as I was worried all the time that something bad was going to happen to one of my family members or to me. This makes concentrating in a classroom setting pretty impossible. Today I have graduated college with honors, hold a Master’s degree and subsequent license and I am an expert in my specific field. Go figure.

7. I Now Have Help from Hundreds of Higher Powers That Do Not Screw Me Over Like Using Did

The whole concept of the Higher Power thing annoyed and angered me prior to sobriety. I wasn’t against there being some meaning to the universe, but I did not respect some of the older recovery literature and signage in 12 step meetings which I thought assumed the higher power was “God” and was male. Luckily, I found many recovery type meetings which welcomed a much expanded and evolved idea of what a Higher Power is. Today a few of the powers outside of myself that I rely on to stay sane, sober and grounded include but are not limited to; the making of calls to people in recovery, using guided meditations, laughing with friends, water; swimming or taking baths, daily meditative readings, using materials to make art or appreciating art someone else has made, exploration and belief in some spiritual theories, healthy eating, paying attention to synchronicities and to my breathing. You could say I am living a more spiritual life and, yes, I am okay with saying that now.

8. With a Clearer, Open Mind, I Understand That for There to Be Joy, There Must Also Be Painful Experiences

One cannot exist without the other. If there were only joy, it would be the status quo, and we could not appreciate it as joy, it would just be the way things are- the typical. For example, when you finally get to enjoy a piece of toast after getting over the flu, isn’t it just a great treat? I do not regret my past, or my pain. It has given me the life I have now, which is often a great treat. When I am in pain, I try to remember there is an opportunity for greater joy. Not always easy of course at the moment. But in time with reflection it’s clear that the universe has always led me to better things if I let it and trusted the process.

9. I Know That Sometimes My Worst Fears Will Come True, and That’s Okay

I do not need to use; throw away my sobriety to escape the pain. I wrote out a list of my fears when I was about a year sober. There were over 300. Many of them have come true; family and friends have died, I have been heartbroken, I have become ill at points, I have been judged and criticized. I have spent so much time in my living in fear. I have managed to not use to ease the bouts of fear, which is what I did for so long. I know using will only lead to more and more pain. I ease it now with a variety of other things such as cognitive behavioral techniques, meditation, talking to others in recovery, looking back on the times things were so hard I didn’t think I would make it through and I did make it through.

10. I Love Myself No Matter What

More and more all of the time. I was not able to show myself love for a very long time. I didn’t realize that until I was sober for a good while; really, for years. This has been a great gift of recovery. I am not always perfect at finding complete love for myself, but daily I can tune into it more easily. This self-love has dramatically changed my life and my ability to take risks, forgive myself, let go of shame and leave toxic situations. I have to see myself as my own daughter and protect her. This love is really what keeps me sober these days one day at a time.

View the original article at thefix.com

24 February 2020
Dear Sarah: A Letter to a Friend Who Can't Get Clean

Two and a half years pass, and you have just gotten out of jail again. I know it won’t be your last time, but I wish it were.

To the Most Interesting Girl I’ve Ever Known:

Do you remember the first day that we met? I do. I was sitting on a couch with a few other girls and we were watching a movie. That was pretty much all we could do to pass the time in detox. It was my first rehab and your fifth. That night you came out of the bathroom in ridiculous unicorn pajamas and your hair was wrapped in a towel. I didn’t even realize you were there until you started violently throwing up into a trash can. Everyone was watching you and shaking their heads. I found it sad that these women were judging you for getting sick. After all, we were all there to get better…weren’t we?

I wasn’t. You weren’t either. I was in rehab because I had nowhere else to go and you were there because your parents forced you to get clean.

The next day, you wandered into my room, jumped up onto my bed, and we talked about everything. We talked about how miserable it was to be stuck in this building when all we really wanted to do was to go out and get high. We didn’t want to be there, but it was really the best option for both of us at that time.

I learned so much about you during our time in that place. I found out that you were three years younger than me and that when your dad died, he left your mom an obscene amount of money. You have never lived in a house with less than five bedrooms and have never gone hungry. All your clothes came from the mall and you judged people based on what their teeth looked like. Your mom was used to you going to rehab every other month and she would make sure that you had plenty of cigarettes and nice things to wear.

I had nice things to wear, too. My dad made sure that I had new clothes and nice shampoo for my first trip to rehab. I was homeless but far from hitting rock bottom…that came later. We bonded over our love of superficial things and our misery there. You confided in me that you were a new mother and embarrassed about it. You did not want to be a mom and you shot up every day during your pregnancy. You gave birth to a little boy three months early because you went into withdrawal and weren’t able to get your dope that morning. It pissed you off because you didn’t like children and still didn’t want any.

I understood and didn’t judge you because I didn’t want children, either. I knew that if I were ever pregnant, there would be even less time and money for me to get high. After social services told you that your drug use prevented you from keeping the sick baby in your care, your mom adopted your son and took on all of the responsibility that you didn’t want to have.

I understood you and you understood me.

We were moved together to the residential area of the rehab program where they took away our comfort medications and forced us to interact with the other women there. That didn’t last long. We didn’t want anything to do with these women who had hit their rock bottom. We didn’t want to hear their sad stories or participate in anything therapeutic. If we talked about other people there, it was to judge or make fun of their appearance.

Looking back on my behavior during this time, I am remorseful and embarrassed by our cruelty. We were both sick and should have taken advantage of the help that was being offered, but we weren’t ready. We fed off each other, encouraging destructive behavior. A few days after being moved, we were kicked out of that rehab together for buying drugs from a man in a different unit.

Do you remember sitting on that curb in the sunshine with our freedom and trash bags full of clothing? A guy that you knew picked us up and bought us each a gram of heroin and a brand-new bag of needles. He then took us to a hotel in a sketchy part of town and we stayed there for the next three days. We looked at each other as we pulled out of the rehab parking lot and smiled so big. We had won our freedom and were now able to get as high as we wanted without consequence.

We didn’t think about the fact that we’d both just screwed up a really good chance to fix our lives and to rebuild the trust we had broken with our respective families. We weren’t thinking about anything past the three days that the hotel was paid for. We bonded and became closer during that long weekend. You overdosed in the bathtub and I brought you back. The first thing you said to me was, “where’s my shit?” I laughed, you laughed, and we continued to get high. After being kicked out of the hotel we went our separate ways but continued to stay in touch. You went home to your big house and I continued to crash where I could because it was getting cold out. We even planned our next rehab stay together!

We really had our priorities straight, didn’t we?

The next “vacation” we took together was a bit more successful. We didn’t get kicked out, but we came close. We didn’t take it seriously and continued to judge people, something that I’m still ashamed of. You told me you’d been arrested twice since we’d seen each other last, both times for felony possession. You saw your son and he’s walking now, but you still hate being a mom. I nod and agree, it sounds like a hassle to me at that time in my life. We graduate from this 30-day program and go our separate ways again. You go back home again to your fancy house and I go to a sober living facility, something I wasn’t ready for. You came to visit me often and took me out for coffee on my birthday.

I got kicked out of that place too and had to stay on a lot of different couches, each more desperate and filthier than the previous. My parents were done housing me because they saw me getting sicker with each visit. They saw me lose weight and gain track marks and strung out boyfriends while you were sleeping in your childhood home with a fridge full of food. I never compared myself to you and I never complained about my situation, especially to you. In rehab, we judged people like me; I had become one of the unfortunate. I was someone whose addiction had completely taken over her life. I was paying for my heroin with money that I stole or earned in ways that I don’t like to talk about. You paid for your drugs with money that your mom handed you and if that wasn’t enough you stole it from your stepdad.

Maybe I was a little jealous.

The following summer I hit my rock bottom. I won’t tell you how it happened, but it was brutal. The drugs we so enjoyed doing in your car ended up taking my soul and my self-respect. I decided that I needed to change and right after making that decision I met the man who changed my life. I’d started taking methadone a few months prior to meeting him and finally my life was starting to make sense. I had a home, a job, and someone who loved me unconditionally.

I still called you every few weeks to check in. You told me you were still getting high and that you overdosed a few times and that you had just gotten out of jail again. We laughed about it and then we didn’t talk for almost six months because we were both so busy with life. The next time I called you, you kept talking about how “nasty” the girls in jail are and how they’re missing their teeth and you’re sick of having to pee in front of your probation officer.

I didn’t tell you that the damage I caused to my own teeth led to them all being pulled and replaced with porcelain ones.

You asked the last time I used and when I said eight months, you yelled at me. “How?! You were the WORST! You LOVE getting high!”

I told you about the methadone and how it was really helping me fix my life. You said you will never be on that stuff because you don’t want to have to take something every day. I wish you would at least try. If not methadone… just try something.

I tell you I’m pregnant and getting married and you are in disbelief again. You say my child will have issues and I won’t be able to bond with him. In the same conversation, you get upset because I don’t invite you to my baby shower. My husband doesn’t want us to see each other and I agree with him. You are now dangerous for me and the little life that he and I built together. Perhaps you always were. I imagine you falling asleep or getting high in the bathroom as I open presents.

I am a different person now and happy about it, a different kind of selfish.

Two and a half years pass, and you have just gotten out of jail again. I know it won’t be your last time, but I wish it were. You don’t look three years younger than me anymore. We don’t talk on the phone because we don’t have anything to talk about. I know how you feel about the medication I take and that’s okay. I have a family now and a home, and I wish that one day you’ll get to have the same things. I want you to know that the unconditional love that your child has for you is better than the best heroin you’ve ever done. I want you to know that eventually, once you stop using, you can enjoy things again. Sushi is amazing. Sleeping in late is amazing. Not being sick and desperate every morning is amazing, too.

We might never see each other again but I just wanted you to know that I still think about you and that if you give it a chance, you can find happiness too. You deserve to have a good life, we all do. Just try, okay?

Your friend always,

Mary

View the original article at thefix.com

22 November 2019
How I Learned to Show Up for Life Without Alcohol

Sobriety means—or will come to mean—different things for different people. But I can attest to one thing: The path is beautiful, and the difficulties you may encounter along the way are worth it.

You would think that being smart enough to get into an elite university would mean I’d be “smart enough” about recognizing the signs of my disease. It took me a nearly fifteen-year drinking career, a six-year engagement, at least five psychiatric hospital visits, and maybe fifty face-to-face run-ins with actual, imminent death before I knew something had to change.

Forced to Change

This time, the change would have nothing to do with my intellectual rigor, the dynamic quality of my ideas, or really anything in terms of my personal pursuits. Neither was this about a spiritual makeover of sorts, or a renewed commitment to my health. I was forced to change or face the end. I hadn’t even turned 30 yet.

My engagement—a union with an emotionally absent partner, the result of my desperate need to not be alone with my demons—was becoming more and more codependent, unhealthy, and financially dominating, and less and less loving, protecting, viable. Still, we smiled in all of our pics.

The hardest thing to admit was that I could no longer pursue “the life of the mind” when my own mind was lost—null—from an almost continuous state of being under the influence.

The process of recovery has not been easy, even three years down this road. While I have since become comfortable not drinking, and with telling people that I don’t drink, it wasn’t always that way. There were times I felt not only uncomfortable but sad, and at times jealous or angry, wishing I could have a drink. There were times of full-body anxiety that made the sober life seem like another kind of death sentence.

But I am fiercer now. I defend my right to be well.

Recovery as Self-Love and Self-Preservation

When Audre Lorde said that self-love is an act of political warfare, I think part of what she meant is that if I care about myself, then I have to defend my sole, autonomous house—my body. I take Lorde’s words to heart when I think about my own recovery—that I indeed have had to become defensive about my health. Being in active recovery is a lifelong process of sticking up for yourself—your best self and your worst self. It is also a way of being that demands you treat your body as a temple, rather than an outhouse.

Now that I haven’t touched a drink in three years, not only have the clouds lifted, but I know what to do when life gives me rain.

Today, I have to be diligent about my health and about the truth of my alcoholism. It is a disease with branches in the family tree(s). It is also a disease that can go from dormant to full-fledged before you’ve had time to give it a name.

The myth of drinking as self-care (at least for some of us) was apparent in the ways I had been taught to “decompress” from the stressors of graduate studies, a place made all the more difficult to navigate as a black, mixed-race woman (who has struggled with anxiety, depression, disordered eating, and of course drinking—my favorite form of self-love and self-abuse).

The truth is that I loved drinking enough to have developed a habit of it. At the time, I loved what drinking did for me (despite the pain of what it was doing to me). It brought me a social life, it furnished me with (false) self-confidence.

It also stole time from me. So many years spent in various states of relative alarm—how to get my drinks for the day and morning after, if I had enough money (somehow I always did), would I be able to last through that 12-step meeting without a drink?

Clearly, I wasn’t ready to heal yet.

I can’t tell you when I became ready, or precisely what day it was; I had been on and off the wagon so many times that I’d stopped believing in myself.

What I did want to believe in was the line of thinking that told me I could control my disease and drink like normal people. If I could control it, maybe I would be “cured.”

Seizures, Psych Wards, and Liver Failure

My thinking changed when I had my first withdrawal-induced seizure.

Or was it after my second major stint in a psych ward? When did I become ready to change? Was it when I resorted to hiding liquor in shampoo bottles? Oh, I know—it must have been when my eyes started to turn yellow (though I remember still drinking—at that point, having to drink—in the face of these obvious symptoms of liver failure).

Eventually, the dreadful condition of being caught in the throes of all kinds of dependency caught up to me, as they do for the luckier alcoholics among us.

When you’re in the midst of active addiction, it’s the drug that keeps you “alive” and “well.” But when you’re in recovery, you see the drug for what it is—the thing that is killing you and keeping you unwell. To complicate matters, your drug was your best friend—the friend who was there when you were stressed, sad, or having suicidal thoughts… never mind that it was the same friend who implanted these thoughts in your mind to begin with.

Not everyone thinks of alcohol abuse as an illness or disease, and that’s okay. What isn’t okay is the promotion of cute slogans like “wine not?”—in a world where more women are abusing alcohol than ever before.

Getting sober from alcohol coincided with my decision to withdraw from my studies abroad. Becoming dependent on alcohol had largely destroyed my independent spirit—the same one that had guided me to want to study abroad in the first place.

For years I had chosen alcohol as my drug of choice—what I “used” when things were going well, not well, and also when I was well, or unwell. My kind of drinking was pure self-destruction—mind you, I had continued to tell myself it was a feasible form of self-care. Plus, I deserved it. At the end of the day, if you worked hard, you deserved some kind of reward, didn’t you? That’s why they invented martinis, wasn’t it?

I’ll spare you the details of my last hospital stint, but it was arduous, and at times left me hopeless, wanting to burn the wagon if possible. Now I had to learn to live and cope with life without that substance, and accept that in the end, the drug chose me.

I Made It Out Alive… And I’m Thriving

Fast forward three years, and what I really want to talk about is all the amazing things that can happen when you’re not drinking—being willing and able to forge authentic relationships with people, for example, and learning what it means to heal emotions through the body. Oh, and meeting people, whether romantically or as friends, does get weird, though in some ways more exciting.

The list is long, and I am learning new things about myself, but I think it imperative we put a new spin on recovery rhetoric—not all of it is a struggle, there is so much to take delight in. There are things that will pleasantly surprise you (like getting a real good night’s sleep).

I eventually accepted that my kind of sobriety from alcohol would have to be a total one.

Because the severity of alcoholism lies on a spectrum, there are people who can drink alcohol and not become addicted (must be aliens), there are folks (total weirdos) who can just stick to one drink. But I know after many years of trying and lying to myself, that I am not one of them… and never will be.

Likewise, there are many ways to get sober and no one right path. Sobriety means—or will come to mean—different things for different people. But I can attest to one thing: The path is beautiful, and the difficulties you may encounter along the way are worth it.

This summer I am celebrating three years (okurrrrrrr?!) of sobriety from alcohol. I do not define myself any longer by my disease. Of course, I work to ensure I never lose sight of the fact that my disease isn’t ever “going away,” but recovery sure beats bodily warfare, chronic sickness, and a fear of the future.

Today, I identify as an artist, a writer; and more specifically as a Catholic witch, poet, and intuitive. If you told me during my drinking years that I would one day not only make it out alive but drink-free for over 1,000 days, I’d say you were lying. But here I am, not just surviving but thriving. I have my sad days, but I let them be what they are. It’s good to cry sometimes. It’s good to feel your feelings. Now, I have an array of tools and ways for navigating those feelings, especially when I think of the darknesses of my past. But mostly, and most importantly, I feel excited for the future. Now, I show up to life. And as long as I can show up to life (and for life), my intuition tells me it is bound to be an amazing ride.

View the original article at thefix.com

29 August 2019
Confetti Company Gives Work To Women In Recovery

“I want it to do some good because everything gets chucked at the end. My confetti is disposable, but it is made by women to help improve their lives,” said the owner of Leonetti Confetti.

Kylee Leonetti was inspired to start her confetti-making company after the overdose and near-death of her beloved brother. After a weeklong coma, he awoke. To his family’s great relief, he has been sober ever since. Leonetti was full of gratitude for her family’s good luck, and she wanted to give back to the addiction recovery community.

“I wanted to spread it around,” Leonetti told MINNPOST. “I wanted to be there for people at a time in their lives when they aren’t experiencing all that much happiness.”

When Leonetti looked around for a way to contribute, she was struck by how difficult finding and maintaining employment was for so many people in recovery from addiction. Leonetti’s husband, Christian Jensen, saw that potential employers weren’t sure if they could trust someone who had a known past of addiction.

Even for people without a known history, those who have been in the throes of addiction often have spotty or non-existent work histories. The emotional and physical challenges of early recovery can also make consistency with attendance and production a challenge.

Leonetti had already been considering starting a confetti-making company, and she realized that cutting confetti – something that could be done at home – could be the perfect job for someone newly clean.

Jensen and Leonetti already had a business and income and were able to make the confetti company a non-profit, dedicated to giving back. Only the confetti cutters make money.

After pinpointing women recovering from addiction as the most financially vulnerable population, Leonetti Confetti was born.

“Empowering women in recovery” is the company slogan, as the company hires and pays only women recovering from addiction. Leonetti Confetti is partnered with Wayside Recovery Center, a comprehensive addiction treatment program for women, and primarily hires women from this center.

The women confetti cutters work from wherever they can, and when they can, and make $10 an hour.

Teresa Evans, Wayside’s senior director of development and communications, offers, “Not all of our women are employable. They are all working on building relationships and trust. This is a huge thing for our women to overcome because of the trauma they’ve all experienced. . . . Kylee is a very passionate and compassionate business owner who is willing to put up the right kind of boundaries, help educate them on soft skills and be understanding when they struggle.”

Leonetti works closely with her non-profit company and the women they employ. “I want it to do some good because everything gets chucked at the end,” Leonetti told MINNPOST. “My confetti is disposable, but it is made by women to help improve their lives.”

View the original article at thefix.com

15 December 2018
She Recovers Brings High End Feminist Recovery to Los Angeles

I could say a hundred things about every incredible woman I encountered over the weekend and it would not hold a candle to the inspiration I felt. The only catch? The price of admission.

One year ago, Harvey Weinstein and men like him were purged from their high positions in industry jobs due to allegations of sexual assault, misconduct and worse. Across the nation, dominoes fell while survivors locked arms and commiserated. Crooked Rehabs and their rapey cult leaders were dethroned or taken to prison along with Bill Cosby—their paternal halos were tossed back into the stream that raged forward without them. Me Too and Time’s Up have gained momentum as women insist on equity and diversity in every corner of our lives whether it’s work, rehab or the Olympics.

On Friday, September 14^th, hundreds of women redefined recovery for themselves with a fresh, feminist lens at She Recovers, a conference held at The Beverly Hills Hilton. She Recovers was founded in 2011 by Dr. Dawn Nickels, a warm, honey-haired overly credentialed sober badass from Victoria, Canada who has accumulated decades of 12-step recovery and one prescription drug relapse after she lost her mother to Leukemia. With years in AA, Dr. Nickels saw a missing piece of the Big Book that excluded women. She wanted to offer an alternative for women who long for that missing piece.

She Recovers is branded around the idea that we are all struggling to recover from something—not only drugs and alcohol. This expanded view of recovery has the potential to reach women who have survived sexual assault, abuse, cancer, heartache, self-harm, homelessness, eating disorders and all kinds of suffering. The weekend was dedicated to healing. The only catch? The price of admission.

I received a few emails from Dr. Nickels confirming the schedule of events and I was really excited to attend. Not only did the line-up include comedians and authors I’ve long loved like Cheryl Strayed, Janet Mock, Amy Dresner, Sarah Blondin, Tara Mohr, Mackenzie Phillips, Laurie Dhue and others, but there were several workshop panels offered with helpful, vital topics like “Changing our Relationship with Food” (Shelly-Anne McKay), and “Money as Power” (Allison Kylstad), “Standing our Ground” (Darlene Lancer), and even “Finding Forgiveness” (Ester Nicholson). The mind, body, spirit approach to recovery was factored into the weekend to include fitness classes like Yoga by Taryn Strong, Pilates, meditation, and an early morning run.

I drove to the Beverly Hills Hilton and arrived after registration opened at around 3:30 p.m. After getting off the elevator, I stepped into a conference room that was turned into a temporary mini-marketplace. Tables and fashion racks displayed oceans of lotions, soaps and mood lifting supplements, dark chocolate and yoga pants. Postcards and stickers offered the promise of energy shifts and emotional well-being. I figured if I was going to focus on recovery all weekend, I wanted a mental lubricant in the form of a dopamine supplement. I was being marketed to like a mofo and the rhetorical trope was tailored to fit. The buy message on tap was this:

You are perimenopausal and you are raging. Your sleep is shit and your relationships are strained. You are horny. You are prickly. Take the gummies and no one gets hurt.

I snatched the vegan, non-GMO dopamine-enhanced gummy bears and pocketed the chocolate for later.

Around the corner, a half-dozen aggressively kind, smiling women sat behind long plastic registration tables handing out laminated passes. They directed me to where the opening reception was held.

The Beverly Hills Hilton is a fancy place. And She Recovers attracts fancy women.

According to their website and other sources, the bulk of paying attendees are the wealthy, white feminist elite ages 30-69 with a household income of 80K and over. Registration costs $500, not including the rooms or the parking.

I asked Dr. Nickels how she planned to engage younger women, women of color, other-abled and the LGBTQ community. She replied, “The thing that we are most proud of related to LA is that we awarded 40 scholarships. We have been attracting WOC and members of the LGBTQ to our community – especially LGB – but we recognize much more needs to be done. We also need to work harder to include other-abled women to join us. We were very fortunate to have already made close connections with some amazing WOC and thus our program exhibited much more diversity than we had been able to do in NYC. Janet Mock is a powerhouse – and we loved having her – but despite efforts to do so, we didn’t have any success making direct contact with influencers in the trans community in LA to ensure that the trans community knew about our event.”

Given the steep cost of the weekend and the fact that registration for the conference was sold out, I wondered if presenters were paid or not, so I asked around. Those who answered requested anonymity.

Some presenters were not offered payment, but their registration fees were waived. The speakers and presenters who were not paid were happy to be asked but some were disappointed they were not offered the opportunity to have a book signing. Two of the speakers were paid high fees (between 16 and 20K) to speak. Those who were not paid used the weekend to promote their materials and businesses; they also wanted to share their experiences and connect to other women in recovery. So, who gets a seat at the table? Follow the money and you can see that She Recovers prioritizes celebrity.

This is where AA (and other 12-step programs) and She Recovers part company: AA has no red carpet; AA doesn’t cost money to attend and speakers are not paid at meetings. AA is an anonymous program that does not acknowledge celebrity or participate in the cult of personality—at least not as outlined in the traditions. While it has its own shortcomings, AA welcomes everyone.

Outside on the grass, several women stood in small clusters by a table of pastel colored macaroons. One of them was Shelly-Anne McKay, a delightful woman from Sasquatch Canada who led the panel on our relationship with food. Another woman told us she had just arrived from France. Others chimed in from the Bay Area, Washington and Oregon. When I asked the group what they were recovering from, the ones that replied stared up at the cerulean late afternoon sky and said, “Everything.”

I asked Shelly-Anne McKay what brought her here. She replied: “I love the She Recovers philosophy that every woman’s path to recovery may be unique. Not everyone finds solace in AA.”

I should tell you now I’m 23 years sober in AA and have studied the Big Book (the basic text of Alcoholics Anonymous). It was written by and about men. The language is old-timey and urges men to check their overinflated egos, to give up “golf fever” and to dive into service instead. The narrative of the shattered, broken self is a theme that is relieved by the belief in a higher power. The one chapter to women, “To Wives,” is heteronormative and sexist, designed to pacify neglected women and encourage them not to make waves.

She Recovers was designed for wave-makers.

Back in the ballroom, the first keynote speaker was wave-maker Cheryl Strayed. Interestingly, Strayed is not in AA and does not consider herself an addict (to my knowledge). But before she spoke, Paula Williams took the stage.

I was concerned for Williams the same way I am for any person with no public speaking experience who collapses under the pressure of adrenaline and stage fright. She seemed mortified to be center stage and she spoke to that. In that moment of terror, I fell in love with her rawness. Williams constructed an art installation — definitely my favorite thing in the mini-marketplace room — called “Shame Booth” (also the name of her podcast) where a person could sit alone inside a vintage phone booth and confess their secrets into a silent ear piece and then leave. Segments of their voices are recorded here: Shamebooth Audio. The only piece of that secret they took home was a new pair of strangely oversized white briefs with the big red words “No Shame” on the butt. And yes, I got my granny panties.

Cheryl Strayed brought the house down with her seasoned message that illuminated the question: how do we do the thing we cannot do? Her personal stories contained humility, resilience and heart. I’m very familiar with her content because I teach her memoir and essay collection “Dear Sugar” to my nonfiction students at UCLA extension. The crowd was enthralled as Strayed discussed the suffering she endured due to her mother’s illness, the aftermath of her grief, and the hopefulness she offered as a reprieve to that grief. She answered questions that were not really questions for a long time. At some point while listening to her, I realized that — whether we were addicts or not — the room vibrated with undeniable hopefulness and willingness to carry that which we thought we could not carry; but in the end we find that we can, we have — and we will.

I could say a hundred things about every incredible woman I encountered over the weekend from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon and it would not hold a candle to the inspiration I felt. I only wished there had been some scheduled time for us to all connect and mingle in one place away from the speaker/workshop/formal dinner format. The schedule was jam-packed and felt a bit rushed. The highlight for me was Saturday night: The Gala Dinner.

I never know what to wear to formal events, so I brought a couple of options. I decided that nothing says Formal Gala like clear stripper heels with red rhinestone hearts in the middle and shiny black Bad Sandy (from Grease) pants. A petite brunette with tattoos on her arms was looking around. She looked as lost and overwhelmed and alone as I felt so I asked her if she wanted to find a place to sit with me.

The dinner honored celebrated change-makers and wave-makers who dared to break the silence of addiction and alcoholism like Betty Ford and the woman who started a movement to disrupt sexual violence, Me Too activist Tarana Burke, but the speaker who got a standing ovation (which seemed to befuddle her) was My Fair Junkie author and comic Amy Dresner.

The opulent ballroom fell silent as Dresner walked up to the podium wearing a vintage Indian jumpsuit with billowing legs. She did a funny dance and squatted.

“I was attempting 70’s super model but I’m way more Genie, don’t you think?”

After explaining how neuroscience proves we can burn new pathways of stability in our minds by taking consistent, disciplined action, she said, “If you’re waiting to take the action, you’ll be waiting forever.”

Dresner’s journey of addiction to recovery was a beacon of inspiration and the best part of the weekend. Her talk embodied all that She Recovers hoped to convey because her story contained universal, gritty humor and you can’t package that. Her message was the very thing I craved the whole weekend. She told us the worst thing that ever happened to her was definitely the best thing that ever happened to her, but she could only see that after experiencing jail and street sweeping. The room erupted in laughter.

Dresner ended by telling us that after getting three years sober for like the 14^th time, she asked her dad, “Are you ashamed of me? When you talk to your friends do you feel ashamed?”

“My friends wish their kid was as unbreakable as you,” he said.

Then, looking out at the 500 wet faces, she told us: “Remember, that’s what all of you are: unbreakable.”

And dropped the mic.

View the original article at thefix.com

18 October 2018
Owning My Space as a Woman in 12-Step Programs

I am totally within my rights if I say no, you may not sit there, and no, I don’t want a hug and I don’t want a cup of coffee and just back the fuck off because I have mace in my purse.

Several days after I took my last drink, I was detoxing at home (note: this is not a good idea) when my mother came over to check on me.

“You should go to AA,” she said, not judgmentally but kindly, from her perch on the sofa in our playroom. I was sweating, sprawled on the other couch, ignoring the toys strewn around me, and her suggestion hit me like a crack of lightning. I sat upright.

“Absolutely NOT,” I replied. “I’m not going to sit in a room full of people who have problems.”

I laugh about it now, looking back. Alcoholics Anonymous is exactly where I belonged then, and it’s where I belong today, but finding the courage to take that first step is not easy by any stretch of the imagination. I was terrified, physically and emotionally sick, and as vulnerable as a baby animal left in the woods. Truthfully, I belonged in rehab, but our insurance would require us to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket if we chose that route, and we simply could not afford it.

People fresh out of the mire of addiction or alcoholism, are, in a word, weak. I waffled between wanting to die and experiencing bursts of euphoria. I had moments where I would have done any drug offered to me, just to make the unfamiliar experience of feeling raw emotions stop. I was fortunate enough to have a fortress of strong friends and family around me to hold me accountable and keep me on track long enough for sobriety to really take hold, but I can honestly say that I’ve never been as vulnerable as I was in early recovery.

And that is why I am so pissed off at the men who tried, unsuccessfully, to take advantage of my weakened state.

I don’t hate men; I think they’re pretty great. Men have, in general, always treated me well. I have two sons, an amazing husband, a wonderful dad, and multiple examples of loving, emotionally healthy male figures in my life. My life experiences have shown me that men are not only perfectly capable of treating women like human beings, but also that they should be expected to do so. Maybe I’m naïve, or sheltered, or simply have out of whack expectations, but when I began attending 12-step programs, I was quickly reminded that not all men are decent, and it PISSED ME OFF.

I’m not going to bore you with descriptions of how some of the dirty old-timers treat me before they realize I don’t play the 13^th stepper game. Some of these people are very slow learners, and others may never get it. If I had not been pushed, encouraged, and sometimes accompanied by my badass girlfriends, the energy it took to ward off the creeps would have been enough to allow me to talk myself into just staying home. It was the perfect excuse, really – telling myself that it wasn’t worth the trouble, or that a women’s only meeting wasn’t until tomorrow, so I could just skip out for today.

Fuck that.

“There will always be assholes,” my sponsor said at the time. “You can’t let that stop you from staying sober.” That was the day I decided not to allow someone else’s sickness interfere with my own recovery.

Fuck that.

I had no idea that I am terrible with boundaries until I started practicing saying “no” when a creeper tried to hold my hand or sit next to me. I learned that nothing terrible happens when I stand up in the middle of a meeting and switch seats, or if I say “this seat is taken,” even when it’s not. I learned that I can simply say no without offering an explanation. I am totally within my rights if I say no, you may not sit there, and no, I don’t want a hug and I don’t want a cup of coffee and just back the fuck off because I have mace in my purse.

Fuck that.

When a known predator walked right up to me and tried to give me a kiss, I stepped away and said “NOPE” as loudly as I could. As time went on and the fogginess of early sobriety began to clear, I forced myself to speak up in meetings, even with multiple pairs of eyes boring into me, mouthing words to me, and generally making me uncomfortable.

Fuck that.

My husband suggested that I start looking rough on purpose; at the beginning, I didn’t have to try. I looked like shit 24/7. But honestly, I don’t think it matters. Creepers gonna creep, no matter what a newcomer looks like.

I refuse to be crowded out of the only place I can go to for safety. I am in a happy marriage, I’m not looking for a sugar daddy or a fuck buddy or even a friend. I can get my own coffee and throw away my own garbage and get my own chair, and don’t you dare follow me to my car. I am in the rooms because I’m sick and I want to get better, and when I watch the newer newcomer get preyed upon like they tried to do to me, it fills me with a quiet rage. All I can do is give her my phone number and encourage her to find her boundaries and more importantly, her voice.

So now, nearly 18 months in, I force myself to look the men loitering around outside of the meeting in the eye; I don’t scurry by, allowing them to stare without any acknowledgement from me. I’m here, I’m taking up space, and I don’t owe you anything – not even a smile, not unless I fucking feel like it.

View the original article at thefix.com

1 June 2018