Is my stomach clenched, my heart racing, my shoulders tight because I don’t know what to do?
Or because I know what to do, but can’t predict or manage the outcome?
Tag: detachment
Audio version now available.
Serving as the facilitator for our Echoes of Recovery group has been the single greatest learning experience of my life. Below are the most important lessons, addressed to people like me. Below the list is how I gained this knowledge.
She loves her kids more than she loves you.
The lying is worse than the drinking.
Audio version now available.
I did the math in my head. If the sales revenue generated on the opening day of our fourth location remained even sort-of consistent, we would be good–finally over the hump to financial security. We started with one whole grain bread bakery in 2004, and four years later, we had added three locations, and I thought we had reached our goal. I remember where I was standing, on the stairs leading to our kitchen, when I was overcome by relief. A goal attained. At last. At long last.
But it didn’t last. I grew to resent those opening day looky-loos for getting my hopes up. Our fourth location settled into a revenue performance much like that of our other three bakeries. We would survive. But we were not going to thrive. So I looked for a new path to achieve our goal of financial security. I adjusted the product lines, trimmed down our workforce, promoted seasonal specials, changed our operating hours, partnered with other organizations, donated tons of bread in the community. I even ate nothing but whole grain bread for a whole month, and lost weight, to debunk the gluten-free frenzy. And I did it all in pursuit of a goal.
Audio version now available.
(Click here to read part one.)
Confused about the sources of her anxiety, and incapable of confronting Chris for the alcohol or relationship dysfunction, Rose did what she’d been trained to do her whole life. She signed up for 5k runs and thumbed through grad school degree catalogs. Deflection and gaslighting are traits so often assigned to people experiencing addiction first hand. But second-hand alcoholics can get pretty good at them, too. Rose could have taught a grad school class in denying reality and looking for a solution in external gratification.
Rose ignored the anxiety and her partner’s drinking, and instead focused on the next degree, the next job, or at least the next PR in the next Saturday morning race. It is a good thing she didn’t get the euphoric feeling from booze that many of us alcoholics experience. She had the denial and deflection down so well that it’s kind of amazing that she didn’t develop a debilitating addiction of her own.
She was stuck.
Audio version now available.
He took a cube of cheese right out of Rose’s mouth. It was the move a parent makes when a baby shoves an unhalved grape past its toothless gums. “You should eat more protein,” is what Rose’s partner, Chris, said.
“You’re too fat,” is what she heard.
Audio version now available.
My wife, Sheri, and I just spent a long weekend with three couples. It was interesting to hear that we had all shared the same clear and decisive experience, without which, none of our marriages would have survived.
All four of us men were drinkers. All four of us men begged our wives to let us back in emotionally, and to comfort us as we tried to get sober. All four of our wives, after multiple attempts to be our soft pillows–to cushion the impact of early sobriety, finally stood by a hard boundary.
All four of our wives said enough was enough, and forced all four of us men to do it on our own.
Audio version now available.
“I wish my partner would die.”
The gruesome, shameful desire uttered faintly through hopeless lips, the unexpected authenticity of an exhausted heart. She looked up slowly, terrified to see the reactions of the people to whom she had gifted her trust, afraid that her new admission had crossed the line of relatability to something unthinkable.
She saw nodding heads. Lots of nodding heads.
It’s true. I have changed, and I do remember how much fun it was.
I remember college, flooding the doorway of Bullfeathers with friends, my fake ID and phony confidence persuading the bouncer that my blue eyes really are brown, just for tonight.
We’d dance, laugh, maybe kiss a boy and then head home – well, those of us not going back with a boy. There’d be late-night pizza and late-morning snoozing before loading up the backpack to hit the stacks and study ourselves silly.
I remember the nights with you in Paul’s Club, the tree in that bar, the antique velvet couches and moody lighting. We’d share a pitcher seated criminally close, constantly in conversation with locked eyes and wandering hands that eventually led us back to my apartment. The drinks only added an element of magic, a surreal film over the evening. I loved those nights and those mornings.
Please ask about my cats. Elvis and Carson are my loyal little companions, but even more importantly, they are my family. They are my comfort, my unconditional loves and my best friends. Ask about them and enjoy my smile as I tell you all about their perfect little furry faces.
Please don’t ask about Louie. I’ve distanced myself, and I don’t know the everyday details of how he’s doing. You asking about him reminds me of the distance, the detachment and the walls I’ve had to build to protect myself. You don’t know all of this, and I know that no malice exists behind your innocent question.
I have not been taking my meds
My personalities have never felt better
The programming was not working
So I switched off all the channels
Unlike Neo I took both pills
Turned into my inner child
Now I’m rolling and running down hill
Still profoundly upset with our depravity
I would argue the point that we are not civilized humanity
My best thinking had me drinking, drugging, and With myself Stuck IN