Shame is a Parasite (and other suprises)

May 23, 2012May 23, 2012 Jana Greene9 Comments

By: Jana Greene

I once watched a television show about a woman who had traveled to **insert the name of sub-tropical paradise here** and returned home with some strange symptoms. She felt crawling under her skin, and she couldn’t figure out what it was. In one episode (a year later) after many trips made in vain to doctors, she glanced down at her forearm and saw a worm wiggling around just under the surface of her skin. During her trip to paradise, something had bitten her and deposited its eggs into her body, where they had been growing unchecked for all that time. She ended up getting treatment that killed the parasites, but she still had the sensations on occasion. The feelings she can’t forget, and she is paranoid that they will resurrect.

Ew.

Yesterday, I blogged about the process of preparing to write a memoir, which I have been threatening to do for years. I wrote about getting honest with the world, “coming out” as a recovering alcoholic and my hopes that someone somewhere might find hope in a similar circumstance.

As repugnant as the worm story is, it’s a pretty good analogy for my issues with shame. Years ago, I considered alcoholic drinks paradise, going hand-in-hand with the sun, sand and surf at the beach where I live – socially acceptable and readily available. And nobody judges a soccer mom who enjoys a nightly glass of wine (except that it was NEVER one nightly glass….I will address the amazing enabling phenomenon of Wine by the Box in a later column….) but I started having strange symptoms, including – but not limited to – nausea, vomiting, shaking, yellowing of the eyes and skin, blackouts and the worst of all: a shameful sensation of self loathing had gotten under my skin.

Yet I couldn’t stop drinking. I could hide the magnitude of the issue with some measure of confidence, but I COULD NOT STOP. Self-diagnosis? Crazy, weak and powerless.

Now, many sober years later, the shame I thought was gone seems to have only been lying dormant. Reliving the experiences of those dark days through the journal pages has made me feel shameful again:

Sample entry: Try not to drink, stop for two whole days, and relapse. Stop again for one day, feeling triumphant. Take one drink to stop the shaking….full-blown relapse. Over and over and over again.

I cry while I’m reading the pages, but slowly my shame dissipates, as I realize I don’t hate the woman I used to be at all. She is weak, yes – but not bad.

She is just only sick.

She doesn’t know the ironic thing yet; that admitting to that powerlessness is the thing that will get and keep her sober. That just feeling powerless says, “Its useless…I am weak,” but admitting powerlessness to God and others says, “Ok, I am weak. What now?”

In the Bible, 2 Corinthians 12:9 assures me that those phantom sensations of self-loathing have no place under the surface of my life. The feelings that I can’t forget keep my active disease from resurrecting, but shame has no place.

“Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.” (NLT)

So, in writing about my experience with alcohol, I am boasting about my weakness for sure, but Jesus considers our weaknesses to be His greatest stronghold. He is also a big proponent of forgiveness. Even when we must apply it to ourselves.

I think I’m starting to forgive myself. Someone, somewhere might find hope to employ some self-forgiveness, too, in a similar circumstance.

It’s a start.

Rigorous Honesty and Other Risks

May 22, 2012May 22, 2012 Jana Greene9 Comments

By: Jana Greene

This morning, I was at a loss at what to write about. I’ve had a headache pretty steadily for nearly a week solid, and have a busy schedule today, and these two conspired against my wanting to write at all. But still….

Under my desk is a big cardboard box full of writings; articles, poetry and general musings about life, some of it going back to high school. This is my sad attempt at organization…throwing things into a box, so that the oldest pieces end up on the bottom, and the most recent on top, like layers of sedimentary rock.

So, I consult The Box this morning for writing ideas, digging down a few layers. Somewhere in between the top (which is from yesterday) and the bottom (the Jurassic period when the dinosaurs roamed the earth – known to my children as “the 80’s”) I found a single manila folder. Everything else in the box, at least seven inches deep, is thrown in willy-nilly. The folder is named simply: “The Bad Years”

Immediately, I knew which era was chronicled in this layer: The later stages of my disease, and most likely, the very early stages of recovery.

I am an alcoholic. The Bad years, I have had.

I flip through the pages, and catch words like: drunken, AA, lying, puking, embarrassment, shame and rejection…..words I don’t necessarily associate my “now” life with, but words that have been my life at other times. And no matter how hard I try, I cannot shake the feeling that I am supposed to write about the experience. Trust me, I’ve tried to shake the feeling.

More than a feeling, it is (dare I use the term?) calling. At the end of the day, I just cannot imagine that we must endure the really difficult things in life alone. What is the point of coming out on the ‘other side’ of something horrible if you keep it to yourself?

But writing about it is going to require what 12-step programs refer to as “rigorous honesty”. In my interpretation, rigorous honesty is different from regular honesty in that it is subject to the sin of omission tenfold. Writing about my journey is going to require including the words: drunken, AA, lying, puking, embarrassment, shame and rejection – and that’s just for starters.

I pray about it often, asking God about what to include in a book, if I were to write one. I tell Him that I don’t want to embarrass myself, but I know it’s a little late for that consideration. I try to tell Him that I don’t have the time/money/confidence/smarts to write a book. I think He is telling me that I don’t need those things to write my story. What I need is faith in Him. Period.

He reminds me that I still have tons of issues, in my “now” life, and that I get through them One Day at a Time the same way He got me through The Bad Years….with grace.

He is enough to save my life. He is more than enough to handle the seven inches of literary sediment in a cardboard box. I cannot undo my past, but I can write about my redemption so that maybe someone somewhere will know that they can survive The Bad Years.

Grace really is amazing.

Spiritual

The Saint-Sinner Paradox: Come as you ARE

May 15, 2012May 15, 2012 Jana Greene6 Comments

saint-sinner ambigram tattoo – inkarttattoos.com

By: Jana Greene

“When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games. Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer.”

–Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

I don’t know if you are familiar with Brennan Manning’s books, but if not…I recommend them highly. Although Ragamuffin Gospel is a classic, “Abba’s Child” spoke to me the plainest.

I like plain talk, I like honesty.

Brennan Manning is just plain honest. A quick Google search of his name will alert you of the controversy among Christians about his life. It seems that Brennan Manning is an alcoholic whose theological views go against the grain of some denominational teaching. He is a sinner, whose view is that life is messy, and relationship with God is all about grace.

Are you a bundle of paradoxes?

Some of my favorite people are, including my other two favorite authors – Donald Miller, who wrote “Blue Like Jazz”, and Anne Lamott, whose “Traveling Mercies” literally changed me forever. I love everything these two write. But they are not what you might expect, if you were to expect traditional Christian literature. They are honest in a literary way like Bob Dylan (or perhaps Adele, for the younger generation) is honest in a musical way….raw and real. And I love that.

I once attended a live simulcast by a very famous Christian author and speaker. There was a sense of excitement leading up to the event that I can only liken to the Super bowl, if the Super bowl was geared toward middle-aged females of the Caucasian persuasion. The speaker, I must tell you, is very charismatic and popular. She is “The Face of the Christian Bookstore”, I suppose you could say. The simulcast was very nice. It was two hours well spent, but not two hours that changed my life. I’m glad that there are people whose lives are touched by this speaker. There is nothing wrong with her message, she seems to have gotten past some truly difficult times in her life and she gives God all of the glory, as she should.

But “very nice” doesn’t hook me anymore.

Donald Miller’s bestselling “Blue like Jazz” is a semi-autobiographical account of Mr. Miller’s departure from his Christian upbringing by attending university at “the most godless campus in America”. Some Christians are shocked that the book (and recent film depiction) contain references to both sex and drugs, and believe those things should be omitted. Had they been, the story would never have been told. Because sex and drug issues are a part of life, and a very real part of what many people struggle with….even many Christians.

And Anne Lamott? Although I personally disagree with her political views, I adore her honesty. She writes like a sinner; like a sinner who is crazy in love with Jesus. A 2003 Christianity Today article b Agnieszka Tennant describes her this way: “She came to Jesus just as she was—a foul-mouthed, bulimic, alcoholic drug addict. One week after having an abortion, she surrendered to him in her very own version of the sinner’s prayer, punctuated with the f-word. The author calls Ms. Lamott “a Born-Again Paradox.”

Indeed.

Please don’t think I am condoning any of the behavior mentioned. Being a follower of Christ means that you try to walk in His footsteps because He was perfection incarnate. But being human means that you will misstep sometimes because you are not. That’s my theology.

Are you a paradox?

I am a bundle of them, when I get honest.

I admit that I forgive and struggle with grudges. I am sober but crave oblivion. I run to the downtrodden but turn away from what I see. I am real but I still sometimes wear a mask. I am no rational animal; my emotions run the show far too often.

A Born-Again Paradox, crazy in love with Jesus.

Inspirational · Recovery · Spiritual

To Thine Own Self be True?

May 10, 2012May 10, 2012 Jana Greene8 Comments

We’ve all heard the old adage

“To thine self be true”

But I say NO to that baggage…

I’ve seen what My Self can do

I love the verse in Romans that asks the simple question, “With God on our side, how can we lose?” It reminds me that God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for me, exposing Himself to the worst of humanity in order to save me. What could possibly even attempt come between the love of God and me?

Me.

I cringe when I think of some of the things I’ve done in the past. You see, I am my own worst enemy.

In my life as an active addict, I used alcohol as a numbing agent to quiet my anxiety. It started off innocently, but ended in the near-destruction of my body and mind. Yet the worse byproduct of my drinking was that it anesthetized the quiet, divine stirrings that my Father in Heaven was sending. He was loving me, trying to tell me He loved me. I chose numbness over relationship in order to keep my sickness alive. In countless small ways, I shut God out, preferring to get “my way”.

Before long, there seemed to be a pattern with “my way”. It always ended in destruction, and then surrender to God. What if my pattern were to become taking all matters – big and small – to Him, and bypass the whole “destruction” phase altogether?

I’ve been sober 11 years, but I’m still a work in progress.

“To thine own self be true,” ends, ironically, in my self-destructive behaviors.

People ask me sometimes when I knew it as time to stop drinking. I’m never quite sure how to answer them, because I knew the first time I took a drink and thought, “If I can feel like this all of the time, I’d be crazy NOT to stay drunk”. That warm buzz? I loved that sensation….I really loved it. At first, I tolerated the destructiveness because it felt so good. Years went by, and by that time I realized it didn’t help with the anxiety anymore, I needed it in order to stop the shaking in my hands. The shaking in my spirit.

And prayer? I’d stopped praying altogether, because of the mess I’d made of my life. I was embarrassed before God Himself, ashamed that I couldn’t control this thing, this one thing. That is how insidious my disease is. I was turning yellow, sick and retching, but I just couldn’t let it go. I wanted desperately to be a good mother, but that facade was breaking apart. I couldn’t get sober for my kids, for my job, or for my life.

One cold January evening, I walked to the harbor near our house, and sat on the bulkhead. I always felt the Creator a little closer near the water. I told God that I couldn’t do this anymore, that I’d made a mess of everything. I shouted at Him for not saving me from myself, and warned him that if I had to live without drinking, He may as well take me home now because I couldn’t give it up. I cried for my children, who were four and seven at the time. For two hours, my cares and worries spilled out in racking sobs until I had said everything. I ended the rant of my soul by telling the Almighty that He had to meet me in that place because I couldn’t take another step.

Essentially, I said, “Ok, God….You said you are enough to get me through this. You said your grace is sufficient. Show me your grace, then!” I’m not proud that a challanged God, but thats what I said.

The sun had set by this time, and all was quiet. I half-expected a light to beam from heaven, but instead, something better happened. I felt His Spirit gather me into the lap of his unfathomable grace and hold me there. I felt so incredibly small, like a much beloved child. I cried for a long time in the lap of Jesus. “What took you so long?” He seemed to say. “I love you so much.”

It was January 3rd, 2001. I was a captive set free.

Of course, it was no easy task to get sober, or to stay sober. It was very hard work, but every day, God extended His help, His supernatural-ness to me as I needed it; not ahead of time, mind you. But enough for each day. He is faithful every day, one day at a time.

My addictive personality didn’t change, although I have a healthy dis-trust of it now. I ask God to use the good stuff within me to tell others what He did for me, and to help me overcome the bad stuff within me so somebody might actually listen and receive his help, too.

Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? Theres no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins found in scripture

That’s what God says about it. Still not convinced?

None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing – nothing dead or living, angelic or demonic – today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable – absolutely NOTHING can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us. – Romans 8:31-39 (The Message)

I tried to drive a wedge, but I failed. He loved me still. Now I ask for His will for my life, and try to get out-of-the-way of it.

“Lord, your will…not mine,” is my prayer.

I’ve seen what “myself” can do.

Spiritual

Manipulation Liberation

May 8, 2012June 12, 2015 Jana Greene9 Comments

By: Jana Greene

“If you are an approval addict, your behaviour is as easy to control as that of any other junkie. All a manipulator need do is a simple two-step process: Give you what you crave, and then threaten to take it away. Every drug dealer in the world plays this game.”

– Harriet B. Braiker, Who’s Pulling Your Strings?

The first time I read the quote above, I understood it in the context of an addict. As an active alcoholic, I drank in order to feel a certain way, which pleased my mind and body. My spirit, however, recognized alcohol as a toxic substance and understood that it simply had to go. I craved what would have eventually killed me, had I not surrendered to God completely on a cold January morning in 2001. The two-step process of behavior control – I get it.

But as I re-read it, I considered it as it applies to addiction to the approval of others. There are people in my life with whom I have had to construct boundaries in order to survive sane and sober. Quite literally, after eleven years of active recovery, there are people who still make me want to drink to oblivion. Complicating the issue is that some of these people are family; human beings tethered to me by DNA and some very dysfunctional patterns. Sadly, some of these relationships have ended in estrangement.

I really struggle with that. I know that , I am protecting my sobriety by limiting contact with some people. I am protecting the little girl who was not protected growing up. That child within me is at peace with avoiding such persons. But ironically, it is that child within me who also longs to be nurtured. Safe. Cherished. And who seeks out those things.

I struggle with it because it is a tragedy to lose relationships, but when people who love you use your weaknesses against you, the environment becomes unsafe.

For years, like a good junkie, I would return for another fix for the fleeting sensation of being loved by certain others, forgetting the sickness and drama that would be left in the wake. I was given what I craved, and it was t threatened to be taken away. And then it would be taken; boundaries demolished, the rubble having to be cleared away before another could be built.

So today, I just don’t take the “drug”. People are always and forever telling us who they are, but you have to pay attention to what they are. If manipulation came with a warning label, it wouldn’t be manipulation. That’s the sneaky thing about it, the game every drug dealer in the world knows.

Like the lyrics to a great song (All the Same) by the band, Sick Puppies:

I don’t care,

no I wouldn’t dare to fix the twist in you.

You’ve shown me eventually what you’ll do.

(To watch the Free Hug video on Youtube, accompanied by “Twist” by Sick Puppies, CLICK HERE.)

I am a follower of Jesus Christ, and He never estranged anyone. He ran toward the most dysfunctional people on earth. He is forgiveness incarnate, grace I don’t deserve and mercy I cannot comprehend.

There is absolutely no possibility that you could mistake me for Jesus. I am as imperfect as they come.

But I pray that He understands the reasons for my boundaries. I pray that He will help me heal from the trauma in my childhood and the tragedy that is a splintered family unit; that He will keep me sane and sober, and protected.

Simply put, the twist is not mine to fix. It is His.

Spiritual

Alcoholism and the Art of Intermediate Mat Dragging

April 28, 2012May 6, 2012 Jana Greene6 Comments

By: Jana Greene

Thebeggarsbakery.wordpress.com

Addiction is addiction is addiction. If you cannot control it, and it interferes with your relationships (especially your relationship with God), it is addiction. Alcohol, heroin, crack , porn, online shopping….all reward the reward centers of the human brain, but differently in different people. Which dopamine receptors scream the loudest determine which drug-of-choice a person might invest in. Mine happened to be alcohol. But all scream loudly. I long for the blood of Jesus to replace the toxic flow in my system that not even active recovery can replace. In constant touch with my limitations, both as an alcoholic and someone who experiences chronic health issues, I need a transfusion of the Blood of Christ every day.

When I first started dealing with chronic pain and fatigue, I had the “I gave at the office” mentality; as in thanks for considering me, God….really, it’s an honor just to be nominated…but you see, I’ve already been through the ringer, so to speak , with alcoholism and whew! I’m glad I got that suffering out of the way. Except that it has become apparent that I might battle illness the same way I have with addiction. One day at a time.

Popular among evangelical Christianity is the issue of deliverance. It is not so prevalent in AA or other recovery programs, where it is considered dangerous to court the disaster of referring to your disease in the past tense. Everyone has a sticking point when it comes to dogma, and this would be mine. After eleven years sober (as of this writing), I think I’ve identified the root cause of this stickiness: I’m jealous. I envy people who have experienced the very real and one-time-only-ness of deliverance. God can most assuredly deliver us from a plethora of evils, addiction being the least of them, but not everyone experiences recovery or healing that way. For years I believed that there was something wrong with my walk with Christ because I still struggle at times, I still live One Day at a Time in recovery. So foreign was the concept of total deliverance from addiction to me that the first time I met someone claiming it, I thought he must be drunk.

“Sober five years now,” said a middle-aged man at the AA meeting, when it was his turn to speak. “I just woke up one day and God said, ‘You’re delivered’. Never touched drugs again.”

I was amazed. Aghast. “Really?” (I didn’t mean to engage in ‘cross talk’ at the exclusion of other people, it just came out).

“Yes. Really. He is so good.”

Yes, I know He is so good…I really do. But this is supposed to be a program of rigorous honesty, after all. Don’t pull my leg! This guy must be high. He must be high RIGHT NOW; making claims like that! This man had spent a considerable amount of his life as a junkie, had lost everything because of his drug habit. His startling statement made me think of the paralyzed man in scripture, the one who Jesus healed on the spot and told to “pick up your mat and walk”. And the man did. Just like that. Astonishing.

I still have a ton to learn about God (no surprise there) but I have learned that He does modern-day miracles like this all the time! He heals in all ways – maladies of the spirit and the body, every day just like that. Tumors vanish from x-rays and breast lumps from mammograms. Sufferers of depression alleviated from sorrow, sometimes instantly. When I hear of such deliverances, the Child of God within me says, “PRAISE YOU, JESUS!” but the “child” within me worries, “You love him better than me.”

Behold ! I am a new creation in Christ Jesus.

But I still have to drive this clunker.

I want to pick up my mat and walk. I do not want to be a mat-dragger all my life. But I am also reminded of the scripture that describes Paul, whom endured unspeakable acts of abuse and torture, had a “thorn” in his side. The Bible never says what his malady is, and perhaps this is a purposeful omission. In scripture, different translations describe this “thorn” as an “obstacle”, a “handicap” or a “trouble in the body”. Or, I imagine, trouble in the mind. The Message translation of the Bible says in 2^nd Corinthians 12:7-10:

“Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn’t get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me,
My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.
Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become. “

Paul knew God could remove the issue, and he believed in deliverance. He had seen miracles throughout his travels, and if anyone has ever “given at the office”, it would be Paul.

“My grace is sufficient,” Paul was told. So he had to stumble about with his thorn and live life to the fullest “undelivered” from it.

The thorns of addiction, chronic pain and anxiety?

I am starting to understand that the Lord cares more about whether or not I trust Him than my perceived limitations. He is limitless-ness. He seems to tolerate my childishness when I envy those differently-blessed, simply because I am his child. And although I’m learning to take things in stride, the “with good cheer” is a work in progress.

More of Him; the antidote for the venom of anger, resentment, fear and unforgiveness. I don’t know how it works, I just know that it does.

I very well may be a mat-dragger, but I have to remind myself to consider this: I am walking, sometimes with a little limp, but moving nonetheless. Toxic thoughts and aching bones, pain and restless worry? The remedy is the same: Grace Transfusion, because His grace is more than enough.

One Day at a Time.

Spiritual

About Jana Greene

April 18, 2012July 12, 2022 Jana Greene19 Comments

Happily married wife, mother to three adult daughters, and JiJi to one granddaughter. Chronic illness and pain survivor – one day at time. Ex-evangelical who loves Jesus more than ever. Alcohol-free 22 years. Unlikely feminist. Animal-lover. Poet. Mid-life is when your mind wakes up. Believer in the Universal Christ. My friends are family. Music is life. I believe in plant medicine. One Love.

(Oh….And I love to write. Always have. Thanks for coming along on this journey.)

Chronic illness and pain survivor – one day at a time. I just love