I sit in the chair at the front of the room and open the meeting
with the usual introductions, readings and a prayer. I’ve been asked to speak for 25 minutes about my experience
strength and hope. Some faces are familiar, some are not. I speak about terror,
bewilderment, frustration and despair.
When I tell the story, it becomes clearer to me what went
wrong.
From the beginning, the house full of secrets, shame, fear
and anger. How when I found drinking there was almost a sense of “thank GOD”.
The relief from the bondage of self and feeling I carried around. How it was disastrous
right from the start and it just kept on going. The brief reprieve when I found
drugs, the relationships that taught me first to drink and then to mask it in
socially acceptable ways, with expensive waterfront restaurants and water taxis
to the bar and fine wines matched with cheese and olives, champagne at the
cellar door, vanilla vodka martinis in sparkling hotel bars overlooking the
city. The many cycles of moving to a new
place, starting again, new house, job, boyfriend, it all looking great and then
pulling the lot down on myself , over and over again. Getting into AA and
trying, really trying but it not working.
It was only in the middle of this share that I realized why,
that I had tried to stop drinking a few times but was still that angry teenager
carrying the weight of fear and shame and rage.
I couldn’t stay stopped while I was still that person.
I reflect on what I had to do differently to finally get
sober, the Little Big changes I had to make, the seismic shift and psychic change that had
to happen to me. The sense of surrender, and to paraphrase Maryanne Williamson,
the voice that finally whispered tome on my knees winded by the many strong
kicks in the gut, stay down. Just stay
down this time.
Learning to live like an adult, day at a time, Malibu Barbie
who taught me about honesty, compassion, forgiveness, the fact that there is no
justified resentment for me. Randy who taught me that honesty comes first, if I’m
not telling my sponsor the the whole and complete truth then I will relapse. Paul
who taught me that all the bad things that ever happened that weren’t my fault
– well I don’t have to keep reliving them do I. That is my part. Michelle who taught me about my own towering fragile
ego and about the physical allergy, that some things are ok for other people
but poison for me. Michelle who prayed for me and gave me hope back, the women
12 steppers who came to my house late at night and kept loving me when I had no
self-love, who still believed that I could get sober when I gave up hope. It was
a very long and often undignified journey but it was my journey.
I reflect on the things that have changed. I am now asked to
mind people’s cats and children and it’s a privilege. I couldn’t be trusted to water your garden or
return your dress in the old days. At work things go well and I am responsible
for other people. My short term memory
is excellent, and I can hear my own intuition, spot a lie a million miles away
and react gently (sometimes). I would benefit greatly from being better able to
pause, practice restraint of pen and tongue, but I get there 30% of the
time. I dress myself better and I go to
the dentist regularly. I have learnt to sort of pay bills more promptly and am
able to take care of some basic life administration, like setting up a direct
debit or filling in forms. I haven’t learnt to manage irritation so well yet
and am told at work that I need to become more likable – we claim progress not perfection. I have had another daughter and
am able to be a present mother to her, spend quality time with her. I’ve never
been drunk around her or fed her poisoned milk or cried and asked her to
forgive me for what I am (although I have asked for forgiveness when she rolled
off the bed with a thump a few times. ) I get frustrated with Jason sometimes.
I am frantically catching up on life, we are in a whole new phase, and I feel
like sometimes he is stuck in the old world, the place where we are a couple
with no kids and no assets and I am sick and always wrong. Its just not like
that anymore. I can do adult things
today – buy property, write thank you cards, plan a birthday party, organize a
tour, create a time table, get the whole way through a job interview process
and turn up to everyone of the interviews, answer the phone when it rings. I
can be there for my mum, can treat her gently, organize the help she needs,
remember all the things she has done for me, sort out her life, take her to the
dentist and the gym, make difficult decisions about the future.
To Matilda I will need to make my living amends, by being
the best mother I can be, by making sure she knows safety, peace, unconditional
love, boundaries, fun, joy, and has a childhood free of fear and shame as far
as possible. I make sure I have quality time with her and invest in her. I
think back on her baby days, what I missed and what she missed with sadness. I
recall waking up to a big baby in bed trying to shake me awake, the look of
confusion and sadness on her face when I came to, after what had obvious been a
prolonged effort. I remember coming to in the old house to Jason shaking me and
becoming aware of a much smaller baby screaming, looking down on the floor and
realizing she had rolled off the bed and been there screaming for some time,
waiting for daddy to come home and find her while mum lay there unconscious.
I
remember holding her at lunch time in the café across the road from the office,
crying and promising her I would stop drinking and things would be different from now on.
She looked at me with sad innocent eyes. I
didn’t choose this. I want my mum.
Today I take her cool places and we do cool things, have our
rituals and songs and habits. I cant be there all the time but she knows that I
want to be, knows that when I am gone for meetings its because I want to stay
well, when I am gone for work it’s because I want to take care of our family,
knows that when she cries or tantrums I can be there and wait patiently with
her until the feeling passes – something I seemingly did not learn. She knows
that I will always take her with me places if I can, that she has a choice,
that she is safe and loved, that I will come home at night, do what I said I
would do, feed her and be there for her, that I am the mum and the helper is
the babysitter. I think she is a secure
little person.
There is a long way to go and I don’t know what the future
holds and that’s ok. I am doing my best, with what I have, a day at a time.