Tag: recovery

Recovery

Relapse Traps – Respecting the Disease

Jana Greene6 Comments

By:  Jana Greene

Over a dozen years ago, I became friends with a woman in California who got sober a few years  before I did.  We met on an internet support board for women alcoholics.  In retrospect, the venue for our support group sounds a little cheesy but there’s nothing cheesy about lives being saved, which is what happened there for some of us.

My Cali friend and I spoke on the phone regularly, and our bond that spanned the confines of dial-up internet and many miles.   In Malibu, she could literally be sticking a toe into the Pacific Ocean as I, on the coast of North Carolina, could be sticking a toe in the Atlantic.

She is Reiki where I am Massage Envy and she knows her way around auras and energies the way I know my way around town to find something deep-fried (equally good for the soul). You might not think we have much in common, if you were to look on the surface – but addiction and recovery are not skin-deep endeavors.    I love her and I respect her immensely, we are family – kindred spirits in recovery,   One Day at a Time, all glory to God.

There were a number of women in our little support group who did not remain sober.  Some still attempt sobriety, only to relapse time and time again.  For them, recovery hasn’t “stuck” yet, and I don’t know why.  I wish I understood why some people stay sober and some don’t, but taking my own recovery “inventory” is enough of a job for me – it’s plenty.

Not everyone survives active addiction.  That’s what people often forget about alcoholism…it can kill you.

For the first couple of years of my recovery, I had this awful, knee-jerk reaction to these friends who picked up the drink again after some period of sobriety.  Not angry with them, exactly – but angry at them, resentful and threatened.  What do you mean you got drunk last night?  You’ve been sober for the eternity of two weeks!

I resented relapsers because I myself had been one for years.  It terrified me that I could lose all of my “time” just like that.  I knew it was possible – that it is still possible, if I don’t give recovery the attention that I once gave the drink.  We alcoholics, in the midst of having a disease for which there is no cure, can only manage it by implementing 12-steps for living, and not picking up the poison.

Of course, it is the disease that tries to convince you that the poison is the medicine for your condition.

So when a friend on our support board would fall off of the proverbial wagon,  it had  seemed to me that she had gotten to enjoy a nice buzz for a while scot-free.  That she would get to start sobriety over again like nothing ever happened.

Except for something always happened.  Not once did a relapse lead to enlightenment, to repaired relationships….to healing.   Not once would the relapser even mention the buzz, so eclipsed was it by her self-loathing.  She would never claim the episode was anything but miserable and harrowing.  I knew that because each time I had relapsed, it had gotten harder to get back in the game.  To survive.

Alcoholism is a deadly disease with no respect for the length of previous sobriety; if I picked back up, I start wherever I left off before the relapse.  It is also no respecter of sex, age, faith, wealth or beauty; it is an equal opportunity killer.

Still, it demands that I must respect it – the disease.  Simply put:   If you can’t swim, the best way to avoid drowning is to stay out of the water.  Don’t even put a toe in.

My heart breaks for those in relapse-mode.  It is a terrible place to be.

A few weeks ago, I spoke to my Cali girl on the phone and we remembered our friends whom are still – all these years later – struggling like crazy.  We talked about not taking our disease for granted.  When you have recovery in common, you have everything in common.

No one ever regretted having stayed sober.  A life in sobriety is a life saved for an addict.

It is its own sweet, undeserved and precious reward.

Hitting the bottom · Recovery

Romancing the Drink

Jana Greene2 Comments

By:  Jana Greene

“There are all warning markers – DANGER! – In our history books, written down so that we don’t repeat their mistakes.  Our positions in the story are parallel – they at the beginning, we at the end – and we are just that capable of messing it up as they were.  Don’t be so naive and self-confident.  You’re not exempt.  You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else.  Forget about self-confidence, it’s useless.  Cultivate God-confidence.” – 1 Corinthians 10:11 (The Message)

It is hard to wrap my mind around the Holocaust, the horror and carnage of genocide.   And 9/11?  The images we all watched that day as they occurred resulted as what can only be described as hell on earth.  The past teaches us that human beings can inflict mind-blowing destruction onto other human beings.

History, if forgotten, repeats itself. and we all have a personal history, as well.

Recovering alcoholics have a tendency to “romance the drink”.  No matter how low one became when he or she “hit bottom”, there are those memories that somehow retain a rosy glow in the mind of addict.  The glass of champagne in celebration of a loved one’s wedding.   The salt-rimmed margaritas enjoyed at the beach in the summertime.  The warm glow experienced while drinking  beer at a barbecue with family.  By romancing the drink, we feel we are honoring the few snapshots of time in which we were not exhibiting addictive behavior.  For the person in recovery, it is a dangerous train of thought to board.  It is not accurate history.

What we human beings can do to ourselves is pretty horrific, too.

Romancing the drink doesn’t allow for the desperation to feel “other than” that preceded that rosy picture.  It does not acknowledge the lack of control from the very first sip, nor the dark craving for oblivion that is the goal of each drink.  Romancing it forgets about the self-demeaning actions  that followed many drinking sessions, the endless slide show of ugly behavior and shameful choices made under the influence.  It doesn’t reflect the sobering shame after the snapshot, nor the lives of the children and spouses left in the destructive wake of a drinking binge.  Romancing the drink will not show you the bigger picture: broken relationships, self-loathing, sickness, embarrassment, loneliness, shame and death.

What to do when romancing thoughts of our drinking days creep into our minds?  Sometimes they flash before us simply as memories  of  our lives in a different time, but other times they are a warning sign to stop and consider the trigger.

1.       Stress – for an active alcoholic or addict, the drug always promised to ease the stressful times in our lives, but ultimately did NOT deliver.   A glass of wine will not keep stress from affecting the mind and body…it only tricks it into thinking it will.  Fifteen minutes of oblivion is never worth repeating the history that brought us to sobriety in the first place. 

 

2.       Feelings of being out of control:  From my experience, addicts are often “control freaks”.  We like things to happen a certain way, and we like to know when they will occur.  This is one of the hardest things about recovery, because it requires constant submission to God.  Any illusion we had about being in control when we drank/used was just that – an illusion.  With sobriety, we can have the wherewithal to surrender that illusion to God DAILY. 

 

3.       Taking Sobriety for granted:  This is perhaps the most slippery rock of all.  If you are an alcoholic, you will not “outgrow” your disease.  Nor will you “get well”.  You have an incurable condition for which there are treatments and options for disease management.  Having one drink or using on one occasion does not prove you aren’t addicted; it only sets the stage for a painful and repetitive relapse pattern.  How much do I respect the parameters of my disease?   One drink is all it would take for me to fall flat on my face again.

 

4.  Putting confidence in self, rather than God.  I got myself into the mess of active alcoholism, but God got me out.  Having God-confidence is the difference between a successful recovery and a frustrating, self-driven relapse pattern, in my experience.  Part of managing the disease of addiction is to remember the past for what it was – dysfunctional.  I am just as capable of messing things up as I’ve ever been.  But God is my ever present help in danger.

It helps me to imagine each deceptively idyllic picture of having romanced the drink with its ‘before’ or ‘after’ snapshot, based in reality.    The glass of champagne imbibed in at a wedding?  It was really the fifth or sixth drink, as I had started while getting ready for the event hours before, and had to fill a soda cup with wine to keep the buzz at a comfortable level until the ceremony started.  The salt-rimmed margaritas in the summertime?  My drinking them  created an environment in which I took risks with myself and my children near the water, and embarrassingly passed out on the beach.  Beer at family barbeques?  What better venue than a family event to really get obliterated and make yourself sick because you cannot stop your drinking.

Romancing the drink honors that which does not deserve honor.  Tinkling glasses, and toasts among friends and feeling a part of the normal drinker world….such a small price to pay for living life with clarity, whole and full.  What I could not do for myself was no problem for our loving God when I cultivated confidence in him.

An honor he deserves.

Inspirational

I’m ALL in! A Reintroduction to the Beggar’s Bakery

Jana Greene2 Comments

Hello, and pleased to meet you – or meet you again!  Today I’m re-posting the first piece from The Beggar’s Bakery as a reintroduction.  God bless you, and thanks for your readership!

By:  Jana Greene

Welcome to my little piece of Real(ity)Estate on the web! It took a long time for me to create one; I could not imagine anyone would read it.  (I hope it turns out that I’m wrong, but if not – I get LOTS of writing practice!)

I also hope that you might take something away from it each day.  I am going to try my level best to keep it real (probably too real at times).

So what you should you know about me?

There are the usual stats and facts:

I am happily married to Bob Greene, whom I don’t write about in the public forum often at the risk of sounding like I’m bragging.  He really is – cliché not withstanding – my best friend, and I’m so glad to be doing this crazy life with him. We have been married over five years and have blended a family that contains three teenaged daughters; two mine, one his. (Yes, they all live with us, and yes….He IS practically  a Saint!)  The blending is harder and sweeter and more challenging  and more rewarding than I could have imagined.

I gave birth to two daughters, now 16 and 19, and I  mother my lovely stepdaughter (nearly 20) when she lets me.  They are my heart walking around outside of my body, if my own heart chose to drive me absolutely crazy (which it has on occasion). I love them fiercely and will try to respect their respective privacies here, although you can expect a good many pieces about my frustrations as I learn to let them go. If they get bored enough, they might read this one day, in which case I have TONS of chores for them to do.

I’ve worked at insurance and real estate agencies, mortgage companies, law offices, and as a day-care teacher. As a single mother I worked several at a time – including a hardware store paint-slinger and as a part-time hotel maid.  All were character building.  But I’ve been a writer – legit or not – since I could hold a crayon.

I am imperfect all the way.  As a writer,  I use the forbidden “three dots”…too often and cannot bear to part with the text-forbidden smiley faces 🙂 and sometimes use run-on sentences because I think they convey stream-of-consciousness better and yes, I know all of these are against the Strunk and White’s “The Elements of Style” guidelines.  I have written for a small  local paper,and although I couldn’t make a living at it, it was the best job I ever had.  Also, I have a terrible “wordi-ness” problem, but I’m working on it.  Sort-of.  I write for the selfish reason that it helps me productively process the pain and pleasure in life when I pour words onto a page.  And for the selfless reason that I cannot help anyone else find the “Bread of Life” if I don’t show them where I found it.

Because, all of these things I tell you about me, are true, but none define me.  I am a Christian and a beggar.  That is my most accurate self-description.

Over eleven years ago, I came to the end of myself and all of my delusions of put-together-ness, which is to say – I got sober.  If you know me even casually, you know I am an alcoholic. I haven’t had a drink in that long, but I am still – forever – in recovery, something that keeps me humble and coming back for more of what got me clean in the first place.  Every single day. I keep it “out there” because there is somebody, somewhere who is hiding bottles and drinking that “two” beers just to stop the shaking and who is so, so, ashamed. I know shame.  Or maybe he/she is addicted to drugs, or porn, or the approval of others –  it’s all the same to your soul – or cannot seem to find a reason to wake up in the morning.  I can’t tell you how to fix it, but I can tell you who can.  I can tell you that I 100% expected to die during that hard time, and sometimes would have considered it a relief. I still have bad days (that “One Day at a Time” thing…) but I have the clarity to enjoy the GOOD ones, of which there are many.  Faith and humor are key.  Oh, and boundaries, on occasion.

One Day at a time, by the Grace of God. Even if I might have bad days, or whine a little.  You know, just to keep it real!

One beggar showing another beggar where she found food. When I couldn’t love myself enough to lift myself up, I crawled back to Jesus, and He  said “You look hungry… come to the table!”  Redemption is the best feast ever.

All posts are copyrighted.   Feel free to share a link to this blog and let me know who you are sharing it with, please 🙂

Spiritual

Gather by the River, and Touch the Hand of God

Jana Greene10 Comments

By:  Jana Greene

A lifetime ago, I had a dream.

There stretched before me, under a lavender sky,  a wide ribbon of water.  I approach it alone at first, barefoot and wearing a robe of opalescent  linen.  As I draw closer to the river, others come, too.  Feeling a soft tug at each of my sleeves, I know by instinct that my children are by my side and I clasp their hands.  I look down at two heads shining blonde in the bright moonlight, their gazes focused forward.

The river is mighty, but sounds like a tinkling brook of a million bells.  I see multitudes of people at the river’s edge and more spilling from the hilltops beyond and through green valleys – all resplendent in the whitest garments.  I instantly understand  that some had been blind in earlier times, for their eyes took in more than mine.  For others, the river bells were the first sound to befall their ears.  Some were skipping, as though they had never walked before.  Everyone is in a slow rush to get to the water.

Everyone is  at such peace.

My children were pulling me now, their voices joined in with an ancient song that grew with the masses, as if known by instinct.  Nothing I’d ever heard compared with this music, composed by angels.

Across the river!  There is my Papa!  My beloved grandfather’s eyes were clear of the depression he carried when I was young.  And next to him was my grandmother, healthy and alive!  Oh how I want to run to her and bury my face in the familiar softness of her shoulder.  And my mother, there, too…ever beautiful, now serene.  And all the ones I loved so much – who struggled with all kinds of issues and hurts – are here, with whole minds for their bodies, whole spirits for their journey to the river’s edge.

One by one we gather until there are too many to count.

Closer, closer to the river now, I am desperate for the water. I wade in until my tunic is wet to the waist.  The current is cool and swift, but I am not moved by it.

I absolutely must reach Jesus.  I know He is here.

See?  There He is – holding out His arms to me!  There are so many, many people here, but He is waiting to embrace me!  When I can no longer touch the soft sand of the river bed with my feet, the current starts to move me gently toward Him, and the music surrounds me – fills me –clearer and more harmonious than anything I’ve ever heard, and I am almost close enough to reach the Living God.

But, wait.  I can’t see His face.  Why can’t I see His face?

With all my might, I try to hurl myself sideways against the water that now rushes.  But my strength is not enough and I fall just short of brushing His fingertips with mine.  My tunic is suddenly so heavy.  Isn’t this the living water?  Why is it so heavy, then?   Within moments, it is burdensome, like swimming in jelly.

Your face, Lord….I am seeking your face now!

And then I wake with a sudden, terrifying start in the darkness of my bedroom.  I am panting with suffocation, and my arms ache with having been outstretched in my sleep.  Heart racing-skipping randomly like a rabbit in the brush-  body drenched in a detoxifying sweat.  The beautiful  music has been replaced by an eerie sobbing – my own – and though it is pitch-dark, I close my eyes as hard as I can, grief-stricken that I am back in my heavy, wet, hurting body.

It is day three of this thing called sobriety, and I almost touched the hand of God.

Inspirational · Recovery

The Changing Room

Jana Greene12 Comments

By:  Jana Greene

Embarking upon recovery from alcoholism years ago, I realized that everything about my thought process had to change from the inside-out.

But how?

From my experiences, I had already learned that the ways ‘tried and true’ were not always true for me.  If I were to get sober, I would be scrapping my own blueprint for my life.  When I chose sobriety, I felt like an infant who lacked even the most basic instincts for survival, since what I had counted on to survive had nearly killed me.

The standard learning model did not work for me in early recovery, because alcoholism is not a rational disease.  Despite having read every self-help book I could get my hands on (there it is again…..self) and having listened to motivational speakers, preachers, and my own bullhorn of self-condemnation, I had failed repeatedly to get sober.

Then I attended some AA meetings.  It was not until I surrendered my own strategy and listened to other addicts in 12-step meetings that I began to accept that recovery was not about learning to change at all.

It was more about changing to learn.

In that room, I changed.  I listened.   I heard from people who somehow – and this is the miraculous part – did not drink.   They did not drink, but sometimes still wanted to….and when this occurred, they looked to 12 remarkable steps for living and to each other,  and it saved their lives.  They worked on recovery even when it wasn’t fashionable to be in recovery, when they really didn’t feel like it, when nobody else understood.  And they committed to sobriety in a way I never imagined possible, because they would never, ever be able to drink “like everyone else”, no matter how many meetings they went to.  Until this point, I thought meetings were a kind of means to an end….like perhaps once you “graduate”, you can celebrate with a Zima or something.

But no.

I would never graduate from alcoholism, and that was depressing.

But I would gradually LIVE, fully and joyfully….and that was exciting!

The successfully sober people I met were from all walks of life, but they all  had one thing in common:  they just didn’t pick up a drink.  No matter what.

“If your ass falls off on Main Street,” I remember one Old-Timer saying.  “Don’t pick up.”

I really never forgot that, and I’ve felt like my ass was going to fall off too many times to count, truly.

I also felt like I would die from the shakes or from the pain of de-toxing alcohol.  I felt like I would die of isolation because nobody close to me knew – or understood – the magnitude of what I was facing.  I felt incredible shame as a mother for all the nights I put my kids to bed early so that I could start drinking early.

I felt, felt, felt, felt…..like every nerve ending in my body was on fire and every piece of my spirit was shredded.    When will all of this FEELING end?  (Thankfully never, because I learned how to feel GOOD things, too 🙂

I kept feeling, but I didn’t pick up.  I tried to gather up all the nerves and soul-shreds and bring them to God, but I missed a few pieces in the process.  No matter; He found the ones that needed to remain a part of me and we decided to discard the ones that kept me in bondage, and bit by bit He is still restoring me.

I’m still a hot mess in some regards, but I’m God’s hot mess and I’ve decided to spend the rest of my life letting people know that He is utterly faithful and sobriety is a crazy-wonderful-life-saving thing.

Nearly a dozen years into recovery (thank you, Jesus – and one day at a time), I am still changing in order to learn. I have a long way to go yet, but the learning; it just keeps coming.   No matter what.

Because nothing changes if nothing changes.  Yeah, I learned that in a 12-step meeting, too.

Inspirational

From Outside of the Circle: My 50th Blog Post

Jana Greene6 Comments

By:  Jana Greene

Observations from Outside of the Circle

A Writer Looks at 50 First Blog Posts

My dear friend, Liz, and I were at the beach, watching her six-year-old son play.  He had found a long stick of driftwood and was using it to draw a tight circle around himself in the sand.  When he was done, he sat down in the center, knees drawn up to his chest.

“It keeps the monsters out,” he said, matter-of-factly.  With the imagination of a child, he enjoyed the safety of his circle.  Pleased with himself, pleased with the illusion that he was safe…that although he could get out, nobody else could get in.  It reminded me of writing.

I don’t think I’ve ever written every day for fifty days in a row before.  Even though it’s my passion, I’m too wonky and inconsistent to employ the self-discipline.  But today, as I write the 50th blog post for The Beggar’s Bakery, I am keenly aware that I have so much to learn about the craft.

Learning be true to my own story. God didn’t give me a love for writing so that I can be someone else’s mouthpiece.  I’m working on the bad habit of second-guessing myself all of the time.

Learning to be as honest as I can.  This is difficult, because when I write in my most honest voice, I will potentially offend/shock/elate/disappoint/inflame/inspire/make nauseous any number of friends and strangers.

 Learning to treat heavy subject matter with gentle care.   Addiction, rejection, the difficult aspects of parenting and marriage, self-condemnation and the theology of grace.  And that could be the combined topic for any given Tuesday.  “Keeping it real” may help someone in a similar situation know that they are not alone.  At the very least, it helps keep me humble, sober and realistic.

Learning to appreciate the writing community.   I have gotten to know other writers who, much like sponsors in recovery, love to encourage new bloggers.   They are amazingly, selflessly supportive.

Learning to let others IN.  Anyone who has battled addictions knows that you protect your secret with your life, until it becomes your entire life to protect it.  By it’s very nature, alcoholism demands keeping others out.  It just makes sense to me, then, that recovery means letting others in. 

At some point during the past 50 days, I realized that I don’t want to live in a tight little circle anymore; writing to be pleased with myself, pleased with the illusion that I am safe…. that although I can get out, nobody else can  get in.   That self-drawn circle is cramped and predictable, and the edges are the same in every direction.   Writing is stepping out of self-preservation in order to let others in.  It is running full on- to the sand, inviting others to join me, even though the tide keeps rearranging the landscape.

Constantly rearranging it.

And what about the monsters that the circle was supposed to keep out?

Honestly, none of my monsters has ever respected my boundaries anyway.

Recovery · Spiritual

First Do No Harm

Jana Greene6 Comments

By:  Jana Greene

I’d written the post I’d set out to write for the blog, but hesitated to hit “publish”.

It was a pretty raw piece about addiction and motherhood; two things I have experience with that often end up awkward bedfellows in my writing.  Addiction and motherhood don’t belong in a single story, but long ago they had an affair, and the resulting lovechild was a story about my grieving choices I had made but reveling in the grace of Christ.

Still staring at the glow of the laptop screen.  Perhaps I shouldn’t put this ‘out there’, I thought, finger hovering over the enter button.

Some Christians will be offended.  They will judge me twice; once for being the person I was, and again for admitting to being that person.  They might think I am playing fast and loose with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, a poor representation of a Christian.  I would never want to do that.

And – far more importantly – what about those who don’t know Jesus yet?

Still, I can’t shake the urgency to write about these things, to ‘put them out there’.  So I pray….

”God, first let me do no harm.”  A spiritual Hippocratic Oath of sorts –“ let me do no harm to Your name”.

Be the beggar, I feel Him saying.  Stop trying to “bake”…..

Sometimes, writing, I feel like a rebel deserter of my formerl self;  a New Creation counting on Christ to do the jousting because I am rusty from old war injuries.  A grateful and humble flawed veteran…not measuring up to what the world thinks a Christian should always be, but gratefully not of this world.

Old war stories sometimes need to be told, and telling half-truths distorts history.

I press the Enter button to Publish.  And revel in the grace of Christ.

 

Inspirational · Recovery

Shame is a Parasite (and other suprises)

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.

Inspirational · Recovery

Rigorous Honesty and Other Risks

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

Flexing the Faith Muscle – Frankenankle Style

Jana Greene2 Comments

photo: 3dimensionallife.wordpress.com

By:  Jana Greene

My leg, which I had surgery on in March, is healing very nicely.  Frankenankle, as I affectionately refer to it because of the hardware that now holds it together and the scar that holds in the hardware, has become a bit of a lesson to me about various things.  One of those things was a reality check on my faith.

Two days before the injury, I’d had faith that all would be okay.  My plans to do projects around the house get in shape and find a new job had been carefully crafted for weeks.  I thought I was really flexing my “faith muscle” in believing my plans were foolproof!  “Lord, bless my plan,” was what I had prayed, essentially.  And believed, foolishly, that it was a reasonable request.

Many weeks later…..

When the surgeon first assessed the damage, he declared that the surgery “shouldn’t put you back all summer….”

Excuse me?  This could take all summer to heal?  That’s just not ok! 

But it would have to be.

But I’d had faith!

I found out what the doctor had meant about the time-frame when I had healed well enough to come out of the “boot”.  Even after graduating from the boot to the support bandage, Frankenankle would be weak.  I mean   very, very weak.   It looks puny and pale, and although I can walk on it for short bursts, it is painful when I’ve put it under too much pressure, flexed it the wrong way, or stepped out of a normal pace.  It revolts, “Oh no you DIDN’T!”

I am so over it – over my injury – in my mind.  My leg, however, has to regain strength.  By not moving it for months, it atrophied – plain and simple.

And I’d had so much faith in my plans.  Sigh.

My plans.  Hmmmmm.

In 2 Corinthians 12:9, we are told by Jesus that “My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.”

Which of course, having had years in active recovery from alcoholism, I know.  I’m familiar with the verse; I just forget that His grace is all I need in relation to all of my weaknesses.   In having faith in my plans, I wasn’t using my faith muscle at all.  Faith in myself is puny, pale and usually results in pain.  It atrophied my faith muscle.

But looking to His plans with great expectation?  Supernatural strength.   It takes some stepping out, and sometimes my flesh – wanting my way – revolts…”Oh no you DIDN’T!”

Oh yes.  Yes, I did.

Today, my prayer is “Lord, bring me into your plan, your will.   Stepping out of my normal pace, I am expecting His strength to be manifest in my weakness, and I have plenty of weaknesses.   My faith is again being strengthened again by Him.  He is so patient and  awesome that way. “I’m at your disposal, God….”  I pray.

I’ve got all summer (plus a lifetime) to be present for His plan, and authentic faith that yes – all will be ok.

 

Inspirational · Recovery · Spiritual

To Thine Own Self be True?

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

Jana Greene9 Comments

IMG_4844

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

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 2nd 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

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