Tag: shame

Hitting the bottom · Recovery

Take me Higher – an Alcoholic Finds Solid Ground

Jana Greene5 Comments

By: Jana Greene

You are an alcoholic. Or an addict. There is precious little difference, really. You indulge in some substance or activity that you cannot for the life of you control. You have tried, under your own power. You simply cannot stop.

It started innocently. You got drunk, or high – maybe a little accidentally. Certainly, it was harmless. Over time, you needed to get just a little drunker or higher to achieve the same result – feeling okay in your own skin. So you start to drink a little more, to get a little higher.

But one day, you start to need the substance or activity more than you really want it.  You begin to dread coming down from it.

Who wants to come down from something? All of the great clichés espouse the glory of high…

Ain’t no mountain high enough.

High achiever.

Soaring to great heights.

Your love keeps lifting me higher…..

For a while, “high” made you feel weightless, but not anymore. Now it feels unbearable because you can’t get high enough. It becomes apparent that high is a manner of deceiving yourself. You used to have direction. What happened to knowing where you are in relation to other things?

Then, the spiral. Everything is out of control.  Which way is up? It is impossible to tell as you flail about, falling.

Coming down is a bummer. But coming down from artificial heights is inevitable, and fast. It is not the gradual and glorious slow decent of a skydiver with a sturdy parachute.

No.

You must come back to earth because there is nowhere else to go, but doing so results in a free-fall, a plummet.  No parachute to catch the wind, and no wind to fill the chute if you had one at all.  And something inside you tells you that you should fall and with a hard landing.

The dual demons of entitlement and self-loathing surface in this free-fall:

You deserve to drink/ use and get away with it, because you have all of these pressures and why shouldn’t you have a little relief?

And you deserve to use and lose everything, because you are a weak and hopeless person who can’t cope with Life on Life’s terms.

That is why sharing recovery is the Highest calling for an alcoholic or addict. There is purpose in it – God makes sure that no agony goes to waste in this life.

Authentic life takes place in the venue that is grounded. Recovery can be bumpy path, but it is on solid earth, at least. It is, in the truest sense of the term, death-defying….more so than any leap. It is life worth living for any addict because an active recovery is an expedition..a wonderful journey into uncharted territory and the clarity to soak it all in.

Your active recovery is a hike in the wilderness with a pack full of provision – more than you will ever need, courtesy of God. It is helpful to know which tools are available, but even a blind search through a knapsack is better than a fall from a high cliff.

On the ground, there are people to link arms with who will pull you up when you feel like tripping, because everybody feels like tripping sometimes and everybody needs support. On the ground, it is okay for you to have weight – a fullness and purpose in your step, because you are a human being carrying around a burden of being human. But not by yourself.

Most importantly, you aren’t artificially high  in a free-fall of destruction -you can easily locate “up” . From positioning yourself on your knees in prayer, you can see in all directions. You can clearly discern that God is God and you are not. It becomes obvious that He was the wind that filled the parachute you didn’t know you had so that he can be the solid ground beneath your feet now. You are filled with gratitude for having survived, for not having to be your own higher power anymore.

So, where do you go from here?

You go out and find the ones spiraling in the air, grasping at entitlement and self-loathing as they fall. You make sure that they don’t hit the ground without knowing that the dual demons of entitlement and self-loathing are not trying to catch them, but waiting for them to destruct upon impact. Tell hurting people that there is hope because of Grace, and Grace promises that we don’t get what we “deserve” (thank God!)

That’s how you will avoid the same temptations of dangerous height – by providing the gear for others and leading the expedition. Because you are not immune; you are never immune to relapse. You must stay on your guard and ask for God’s help on the journey – each day. He is strong and full of hope and He has sent others to walk with you, victoriously.

One Day at a Time, you feel okay in your own skin. Lifted higher by real love, the Highest Power.

You are going to be just fine.

Inspirational

Daddy’s Girls – The Healing

Jana Greene7 Comments

By: Jana Greene

Little girls….they are so full of themselves!

I never really got to know my father. He was disinterested in me when I was born.  As a very small girl, I remember jumping and dancing and shouting for him, wanting him to pick me up.

Look at me!

I can still see him now, coolly smoking a cigarette looking through me. How do I get my Daddy’s attention? Little girls crave that attention. They feel deficient if they cannot obtain it.

Then, I had a step-father. When he came into my life I was five years old. I was  both jealous of his attention for my mother and hopeful that he might show some for me. I became his adopted child, losing my identity as the daughter of one disinterested. But that didn’t really make me a beloved daughter. There are worse things than parental indifference, I would find out. There could be malevolence and maltreatment.

Years after the damage had been done, God healed my heart. He is still healing my heart. I trust Him daily, but it is an ongoing process to give up the hurt.

For years, I tried to fill up instead of give up. Fill up that space with attention from men. Fill up shame with alcohol. Fill up neediness with accolades. Fill up deficiency with a pouring into various meaningless pursuits. It’s a lot harder to give up expectations and surrender wholly. Giving up pain requires a kind of filling up faith…and trust.

It is said that we model our idea of who God is by our experience with our earthly fathers, and that is true, because we have no other measure to go by.  But then, what is a father? My maternal grandfather was a loving influence on my life, and my husband shows me what the most noble human fathering looks like in the way he cares for his daughter (and my daughters, too). But for the most accurate picture, I have to go to the Bible instead of looking to personal experience:

A father doesn’t ignore the needs of his child; he provides more than enough for her.

“Tell them to go after God, who piles on all the riches we could ever manage—to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous. If they do that, they’ll build a treasury that will last, gaining life that is truly life.” – 1 Timothy 6:17

A father isn’t irritated by the presence of his daughter, but delights in her with pride.

“Cultivate inner beauty, the gentle, gracious kind that God delights in.” – 1 Peter 4:3-6

A father doesn’t betray his daughter’s trust, but honors it.

“I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.” – Jeremiah 29:11 (MSG)

A father doesn’t abuse and neglect his girl, but protects her from harm.

“Every promise of God proves true; he protects everyone who runs to him for help.” – Proverbs 30:5-6 (MSG)

A father is not detached, but involved.

“What’s the price of a pet canary? Some loose change, right? And God cares what happens to it even more than you do. He pays even greater attention to you, down to the last detail—even numbering the hairs on your head! So don’t be intimidated by all this bully talk. You’re worth more than a million canaries.” – Matthew 10:29-30 (MSG)

A  Father is not waiting to reject his child, but welcomes her with open arms regardless of her deeds.

“Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish!” – Ephesians 2:8-9 (MSG)

So, how do I get my Father’s attention? That pure adoration that little girls crave from their Fathers? I don’t have to jump and dance and shout Look at me! He is already looking, already getting a kick out me….just because I’m His kid.

In the spiritual realm, he is my Daddy by adoption because His son grafted me into his family.  He is my Creator, the one who used love to make me family.

Getting to know God for The Perfect Father is an adventure in loving and being loved. I wish I could say that I don’t ever struggle with abandonment, rejection or trust issues, but that wouldn’t be true. I am learning to accept that My True Father loves me even though sometimes I misbehave. He is teaching me to accept that he forgives me, even when it is difficult for me to forgive myself.  And He doesn’t instruct me with the iron fist or shaming ways of the fathers I have known on Earth, but with the gentlest correction reminding me to focus on His grace instead.

Maybe so many of us women are attention-seekers because we’re designed to be. Perhaps we are created that way  in order to seek our Father’s love. To  give up on being perfect to earn a Father’s love,  in order to fill up on the love of a Perfect Father.

To be Daddy’s Girls in the purest sense…not so much “full of ourselves”, but FULL of our Father.

Spiritual

Southern-Fried: Thoughts on Knowing Better

Jana Greene6 Comments

By: Jana Greene

Today, I reminded about showing compassion to those who may not “deserve” it.  I made a dumb mistake, you see.

It’s the blisters that are reminding me. Or maybe the skin on my nose and shoulders that has turned the deep crimson hue of a good Merlot. I have a bad sunburn, and all I want to do for the moment is wrap up in soft sheets and whine about the pain.  Maybe even moan a little. And eat chocolate.

What… You never heard that chocolate has healing properties?

I am nearly forty-four years of age. I know better. I’ve been a fair-skinned red-head all of my life, and this is not the first time I’ve been severely sunburned.

The other day, my Beloved and I took a day-trip to the beach and we only intended to stay for an hour or two.

But as if by some act of divine mercy, we found a spot on the shore that was nearly deserted (by at least twenty feet on either side) and the sky was a wide blue with nary a cloud to block the glorious rays of the sun! A breeze from the ocean blew gently and cool (but warm for October) against us, making us forget that…hey,  there are no clouds to block the sun.

We had even remembered to put up the beach umbrella!

Not that we stayed under it for very long.

When we did get warm-ish sitting under the wide blue sky, we walked down to the water – holding hands. And although the ocean was a bit chilly at first, the initial “yikes!” gave way to a cooling ahhhhhhh until we were neck deep and free-floating.

On an October day, no less!

We swam until we were tired and then walked back to the beach chairs in the sun, enjoying the sensation of water evaporating off of our skin. Conversation, laughter, sunshine, water. And then again. And then again.

Until we – satiated and out of cold beverages – headed home.

And then, over the next few hours, our bodies turning burgundy, thought “Hmmm. Maybe we should have used sunblock.”  We did think about it a few times.

But it’s OCTOBER, my mind protested stubbornly. As  if one cannot possibly get sunburned in the fall, the way one cannot possibly wear white after Labor Day.  My mind, which felt increasingly  like an egg fried underneath my crimson scalp relented. Excuses, excuses…and then a painful consequence. And now the moaning.

You did this to yourself.

Wandering  through Wal-Mart later on a quest for aloe lotion, I see the stares from people thinking, Well, she should know better. Or worse…..Tourist!

Judging is easy….the smug realization that whatever painful, blistering circumstance a person might be in – they brought it on themselves.  I’m getting better at not judging, but sometimes it’s still a challenge. Because when we see homelessness, addiction, a pregnant teenager or even celebrities who struggle with consequences – sometimes our first thoughts are not of compassion:

You know, that could have been avoided.

Don’t you know better?

That was a dumb mistake.

And while all of these things are possibly true, the resulting pain is still pitiful. God may shake his head with frustration over us – the stubborn ones – but he still gathers us up in soft sheets of compassion. He expects us – as if by His divine mercy – to do the same. Even when one’s mistake is out there  for all the world to see. No excuses necessary….just love.

Ouch.

Yeah…..Especially then.

Inspirational · Recovery

Playing the cards you’re dealt

Jana Greene4 Comments

By: Jana Greene

Seven UNO cards were spread out like a fan in my hand. There were four greens, two reds and one blue. The card facing upward on the table was yellow, emblazoned with the number “5”…just about the only number and color not represented in my hand.

Anyone who has ever played the card game could see that this was an unlucky grouping. My daughter, who was nine years old at the time, smiled like the cat that ate the canary. Never one to present a poker face, she picked the last of her own seven cards from the thick, worn pile.

“Hmmmm,” she said. “Another wild card.”

I looked down at my cards again, knowing I would have to pick yet another in a game that required losing all to win.

“Skip me?” I asked.

“You know the rules, Mom,” she chided. “You have to pick another card until you get a match for the yellow or the five.”

She was right, of course. So I picked the first card lying face down in the pile. It was a blue eight. The next was a green “skip” card and the one under it was another green three.

“Dos, tres, cuatro,” I counted, my hand becoming heavier with the losing cards.

“You will have catorce soon!” laughed my opponent. “Catorce” is the Spanish word for fourteen.

“I must not have shuffled them well,” I grumped.

“Maybe not,” she said. “But you have to play the cards you’re dealt.”  How many times had I told her that?

It was not, in fact, until I did have fourteen cards that I was able to get rid of even one of them. By the time I chose a winning card, there were too many to hold in fan formation so they fell about in a messy heap that allowed my opponent to see which colors and numbers I held.

Miraculously, though, I won the game that day. I kept choosing and she kept laying down her cards until she was forced to play a green one. She had been holding on to not one, but FOUR wild cards – pieces that entitled her to change-up the game in her own favor all along. Somehow, using all of her good cards had resulted in her ending up with green cards.

And green cards I had!

It seems to me that many people are dealt unfair cards in this life. Some are given wild cards in abundance, while others have a handful of “fives” without any apparent significance.

I didn’t mean to choose the hand of proverbial cards that I had to play in the darkest times in my life, but I did pick many of them myself.

I hadn’t wanted to grow up to be an alcoholic.

I don’t remember picking the card for divorce that showed up in my deck.

And single motherhood? I’d have just as soon left that one out, too.

Chronic pain, financial struggle, surviving abuse….I’d never have asked for them. So many issues  – more than catorce! – that my hand could not hold them all, spilling out of formation and into a messy heap.  And when you have a big enough pile, you can’t hold them close to your chest and they fall about you for all the world to see. For your opponent to see.

I didn’t ask for that messy pile. Even though I often contributed to the disorder with my own actions, it still seemed unfair. Sometimes I’d done all the right things – shuffled well. Still, bad things happened, things that made me hurt deeply.

“Skip me!” I’ve begged the Lord on numerous occasions. “God, please….”

But He had purpose all the while.  I found out that there is a huge difference between perceived unfairness and purposeless-ness.  All of the losing cards I’ve held have  played pivotal roles in making me understand what God’s grace is all about. I wouldn’t trade that card for anything.

We all have to play the cards we are dealt – in a game that often requires losing all of self to win.

Keep picking up the next card, believing that God will work it to the good. Believe it, and ask him to fill in the gaps where you do not believe it yet.

And lay them down; keep laying your cards on the table – on the altar.

At the cross.

Spiritual

Redemption Feast Blog – Letter to my Disease

Jana GreeneLeave a comment

I invite you, dear readers, to visit http://wilmingtonfavs.com/blogs/jana-greene/letter-to-my-disease to see the Wilmington Faith and Values site that I also write for.  My blog there (usually updated a few times per week) is called “Redemption Feast”.

God bless you and yours today, and as always – please feel free to share the link with anyone whom you feel might benefit from it.  Have a great day!

Spiritual

Lousy with Fish (when grace and provision strain the nets)

Jana Greene6 Comments
Look closely at the wave – it is full of fish!
Wave after wave, so many fish!

Simon said, “Master, we’ve been fishing hard all night and haven’t caught even a minnow. But if you say so, I’ll let out the nets.” It was no sooner said than done—a huge haul of fish, straining the nets past capacity. They waved to their partners in the other boat to come help them. They filled both boats, nearly swamping them with the catch.

Simon Peter, when he saw it, fell to his knees before Jesus. “Master, leave. I’m a sinner and can’t handle this holiness. Leave me to myself.” When they pulled in that catch of fish, awe overwhelmed Simon and everyone with him. It was the same with James and John, Zebedee’s sons, coworkers with Simon.

Jesus said to Simon, “There is nothing to fear. From now on you’ll be fishing for men and women.” They pulled their boats up on the beach, left them, nets and all, and followed him. -James 5:1-15(The Message)

Do you ever worry about how you will meet your needs – financially – and in every other way? Like there is a drought in the middle of the ocean in some area of your life? Do you ever feel like water, water everywhere but not a fish in sight?

The story in the Bible’s book of James became manifest to me in a way I could see, hear and touch during an evening trip to the beach last month. My husband had come home from work stressed out and I’d been writing bills, so we decided to load the jeep with a couple of chairs and journey the 15 minutes to the seashore.

Ahhhh. Restorative salt air eased our moods right away.

And then, gazing out on the water, we noticed a single fish jump – and then another and another. They were swimming quickly northward and popping out of the water as they raced, some as big as a foot long.  There were hundreds, which became thousands within moments. And the most amazing thing happened. As we looked into the transparent, glassy, green waves breaking in the light of the setting sun,  each was filled with fish! End to end, big silver fish formed a visible wall of life under the surface.  And they kept coming – millions of shimmery fish making the waves silver, leaping and splashing.  The water was lousy with fish!  For a couple of hours, we sat and watched the miracle. Let’s go for a swim, I suggested. So, for a glorious time,  my husband and I floated amongst the fish, trying to keep still so that they wouldn’t be disturbed.  In all of my years living near the water, I had never experienced anything like it.

I’m sure that there is an explanation for the phenomenon, some migration pattern that science can explain, but for me – it was a miracle. I had been in my own pattern of worry / pray / worry / pray for months. Worried about our finances, about the economy. That day I felt so comforted, remembering Jesus and his complaining brethren, who – when asked to trust Him – said, “Ok, but we’ve already been working on it with no results.” (At this point I imagine Jesus doing a face-palm and thinking, aye carumba!)

“Trust me anyway,” he says, in essence.  That’s important.

The reality is that in God’s economy, there is no drought. Our needs – so radically different from our “wants” – are met despite our concern that our nets might come up “empty”.

If I’m meeting my needs – financial or otherwise – I have good reason to worry. With not a “fish” in sight sometimes, I could easily see only drought of supply  in the vast ocean.  Not even a minnow!

But Jesus is my portion and prize.  And His provision is perfect, trustworthy. When I’ve worried about my needs and He has (again) supplied them, I always wish I had employed more faith. “Jesus!” my spirit says, “I’m sorry …. I’m a sinner, and  I can’t handle this holiness!”

And after declaring aye carumba! He steers my boat back to shore and says “Folow me.”

Oh how I love Him.

I’ve never experienced anything like the grace and provision He gives….miraculous.

Devotional

Acting Ugly

Jana Greene2 Comments

By: Jana Greene

I’ll take a step and its right behind me
Always fighting for control
There’s a war that’s raging inside me
I feel the battle for my soul
It’s like my shadow is dragging me around
And You are my only way out – Casting Crowns, My Own Worst Enemy

Yesterday – all morning – I felt like God’s red-headed stepchild. I was being a brat, really – acting ugly.

It wasn’t because of anything He did or said, but because of my mind-set. My brain chemistry felt “off” and my hormonal balance no better and I didn’t want to talk to God about it. I felt like there was a wedge between him and me because I was so messy, even though I know that’s the right thing to do. I wanted to own my little tantrum for a while, truthfully. But after a while, I got so tired of my own tirade that I agreed to go with my husband to the beach for a little while.

“Okay,” I told him. “But I’m in a really bad mood.” (To be fair, I thought he should be warned – as if the crying and crossed arms didn’t clue him in.)

As is his way, He took my hand anyway.  God love him (and He does) – that man ministers to my Spirit like nobody else because he just simply walks the walk by loving. Not by preaching or nagging or alienating me. Living with me and our three nearly-adult daughters, he cannot afford to be easily spooked by a little female freak-out.

By the first hour on the shore, sunshine on our shoulders, I felt my mind-set change dramatically, and with it came an apology to my husband – and my Heavenly Father.

I’m sorry I pouted with you, I told God silently. But He was already over it. I love that He is so forgiving.

This morning, I picked up my Bible and read in the book of Romans that nothing can separate us from the love of God. The scripture reminded me that no matter how I feel on any given day (it changes constantly!), His WORD is fact.  And I know that, intellectually…I’ve read it 100 times. But I am still learning to fully accept that in my spirit (it’s a journey).

It isn’t trouble or hard times, or hatred or hunger….or homelessness, bullying threats or backstabbing that makes me feel that chasm between the Father and I.

No…. It’s me.  Often, I do it to myself.

Still, no matter where I stand crying, arms crossed and ornery, when I turn around He is there.  The enemy tells us that we are separated from God at our worst, and we feel that it must be true. But the enemy is a liar.

Here is what The Authority says:

“None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I am absolutely convinced that nothing – nothing living or dead, 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)

He is our only way out, carrying us in an embrace.

What a beautiful Savior.

 

Inspirational

Grace Train Sounding Louder – thoughts on writing the tough chapters

Jana Greene10 Comments

By: Jana Greene

“But how can people call for help if they don’t know who to trust? And how can they know who to trust if they haven’t heard of the One who can be trusted? And how can they hear if nobody tells them? And how is anyone going to tell them, unless someone is sent to do it? That’s why Scripture exclaims,  A sight to take your breath away!  Grand processions of people  telling all the good things of God!  But not everybody is ready for this, ready to see and hear and act. Isaiah asked what we all ask at one time or another: “Does anyone care, God? Is anyone listening and believing a word of it?” The point is: Before you trust, you have to listen. But unless Christ’s Word is preached, there’s nothing to listen to.” – Romans 10:14-17 (The Message)

When I first read this scripture,  I thought about a locomotive. The image came to my mind of a train making stops in all kinds of places and picking up wayward people of all walks of life before continuing down the track.  I don’t know why.  Writers are a peculiar bunch when it comes to thinking (and everything else).

Another  line of thought  kept me active in my alcoholism for many years:  Nobody knows how I feel.  As long as I fed that train on the black coals of Terminal Uniqueness, the faster it gained speed for the inevitable train wreck.  Since no one else has had the exact  same life experiences that I have, I felt justified in drinking – and so I drank more and felt sorrier for myself and entered a tunnel of dark denial, and well….enough of the locomotive metaphors.  The result was disaster that I might not have survived.

I might not have.  But I did, because God is real and because surrender is an option.

The book I’m working on writing is about the ways that I’m not unique, which is most ways.  It is about life happening to a person who lost control; about that loss of control being the best thing that ever happened to her because it set the trajectory for letting go and letting God do His work.  There are elements of comedy, because so much in life is absurd, and musings about getting older, raising kids, and the like. Also along the storyline, there are many dark tunnels,  experiences that may speak to others who have lost control, these are the the parts that are difficult to write. Painful to write.  I would rather not include some experiences in the book  because they are embarrassing and shameful.

But they are the very same things that made me feel as though nobody knew how I felt when I first tried to get sober. They are universal, really – just as much as getting older and raising kids. Everyone hurts.  I think it’s important that others know they are not alone, not “too bad” for God to love, not a train wreck waiting to happen. Unless there is a Grand Procession of Christ-followers willing to be honest, who will help? God has given me a beautiful, awful, honorable burden to write about my recovery so that maybe someone with similar uniqueness will know that God can be trusted.

Or as Isaiah said in scripture, “Does anyone care? Is anyone listening and believing a word of it?”

I care. I believe.

As I relinquish the engine to God and ride in the boxcar, barefoot and vulnerable with my legs dangling over the passing tracks – watching the world and enjoying the view, and grabbing ahold of other wayward sinners on the way, pulling them up to ride along side me. There are bumps in the track and the car rattles at times, and we are not certain where it is headed.  But it’s okay because we are confident that the Engineer knows what He’s doing.

It is a sight to take your breath away.  And breathe life into your soul.

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.