The Real-Life Adventures of A Former Glamour Girl

My favorite Birthday. So far!

Today I am celebrating another birthday.  This one is my favorite because even though I was 64 just two days ago, today I am 36!  Thirty- six years of being truly alive and wonder-of-wonders, sober!!  That, for those of you who do not know, is a very long time without having “a little something to take the edge off.”

This is a down right miracle!  It is a miracle because I have never done anything for thirty- six years in a row, except for motherhood.  I have not stayed married or divorced or fat or skinny or in the same house or the same town or had the same name for thirty- six years.  One can deduce that I did not stay sober by myself.  I have had a lot of help!

I not only have stayed sober for thirty- six years, but I have kept going to “those meetings!”  I cannot say what kind of meetings because that would violate our eleventh tradition, but some will figure it out on their own.

One of my dearest friends asked me today to tell her about my last drink.  I won’t bore you or me by recounting that utterly, uninteresting event.  I can say that sometime on the evening of December 21, 1974, I had a moment of clarity where I saw clearly what I had become and what was in store for me if I did not change my ways and quick.

The next morning I was up before dawn and I made a call to a number I found in the phonebook.  I spoke to a stranger who said the words, “you don’t ever have to feel this way again if your don’t want to.”  I can’t say that I have never again in thirty- six years felt badly about myself, because I have.  There have been mornings after an argument, mornings after an outburst, mornings after I put a bad idea into play but I have never felt hopeless in that same way in the past thirty six years.

Since then many things about my life have changed.  Everything about my life, except maybe my neck and my weight, are better.  My three little girls have grown into three beautiful, accomplished, self-confident women.  They are all wonderful mothers and wives to their original children and husbands.  I myself have become, if not a wonderful wife and mother, at least a decent wife and mother.  These were not easy or speedy accomplishments.  They took years and years and the suggestions and example of many, sober women.  My own mother being the first. 

I have learned something about how to be a friend, how to live and let live, not taking much of anything personally, not criticism, not praise.  I have even come to see that I am not the center of the universe.  (I’m sure my husband and kids would beg to differ, but really, I get it.)  My first sponsor had a saying that I hated but which has come to me on those occasions when I worried about how I looked or what I said.  She said, “Kathy, you are not the star!”  It has helped me so much because I realize that my hair or my message doesn’t really matter, that I don’t really matter.  At least not in the superficial ways I think I should.

I have come to find a higher power that is personal to me.  My concept of that force has changed and evolved as I have.  It is no longer something outside of myself but is instead a power for good; a knowing of how to precede that resides within me.  I always know the right thing to do if I just get quiet and ask.  Before being sober I could not even ask the questions let alone be quiet enough to hear that still, small voice within when it whispered the truth as I became willing to hear it.

One of the best parts about this day and the many thousands leading up to now, is that I know I am capable of change.  I am flawed for sure.  No one will argue that, least of all me, but I have and I can change.  I have not given up on myself.

Today I woke up with a nasty pain in my neck and shoulder.  (I think I’ve been eating too much meat.  That’s a good one!  Too much meat!  Never thought that would be the cause of a headache.)  What was different about this pain was this; I did not owe an apology.  I did not have any messes to clean up.  I hardly had to complain about it or make myself the center of pity.  I simply took a hot shower, got dressed and went about my day.

I had breakfast and lunch with friends, one of my daughters and a granddaughter.  My drinking has never embarrassed my granddaughter.  This is not to say I have never embarrassed her.  I have and I did this morning.  I wore a ski hat pulled over my head and ears to cover my wet head.  They said I looked, odd, but I’m not the star, so I didn’t care!

The best part about the thirty- six years I’ve been sober has been the part where I get to give it away.  It’s one of our “suggestions,” that we help others by sharing our experience, strength and hope with the people coming up behind us.  This has been the most surprising and unexpected of gifts!  I have been touched deeply and forever, by people I otherwise might never have met.

I had no idea, no concept, on that dreadful December night of what lay ahead of me in stores of love, experience and community when I was thinking my life was over! 

This birthday truly is just that; a celebration of re-birth.  For I have been given all that I was seeking in the way of tools for living, love and connection with others.  These riches were given to me  in exchange for simply letting go of the things I thought I could not live without. 

Happy Birthday to me!! Happy Birthday to Us!   

Thank you for the gifts! 

How did you know that I just LOVE surprises?

 

My life is so glamorous!  It is just not fair, lucky for me!!

 

When is it time to give up?

I’m beginning to wonder if I have some invisible invitation etched in my forehead.  
Something that my wrinkles spell out that invites “people” to step into my life and take advantage of my good nature.   Something catchy like, “Sucker in the house.  All takers welcome!”   (I knew sooner or later I would regret not going for another try at Botox!)

So I have been in “service-mode.”  Something I was taught early on in my sobriety, as one of the twelve steps.  The twelfth step to be exact.  “Carry this messages to alcoholics and practice these principles in all of our affairs.”  The message is of course, how to work the eleven previous steps as a program for getting and staying sober.  It is simple.  The steps are numbered.

I have a number of stable, sober people in my life who sponsor me as much as I sponsor them.  They may call me with a problem but they want to and are willing to, hear my experience, strength and hope on the matter and they are willing to take direction in an effort to learn from my experience and suggestions.  These people are a pleasure, a joy to work with. 

We all have bad days occasionally.  No one, no matter how long we have been at it, is immune from life’s little trip-ups.  I have bad days, God knows!  The key to serenity is in learning how to handle obstacles with a modicum of grace and dignity.  Sometimes this is a tall order.

Lately, (no always,) I have also attracted the sick ones.  You know, the people no one else will take on or bother with.  (I’m beginning to think the others have the right idea.)  As of last week I am having to consider that my sponsee in jail, my friend in the Ventura sober-living facility and a couple of other hard-core cases I’ve been trying to help, may be among those who are “constitutionally incapable” of living a life that demands rigorous honesty.  (That is self-honesty as well as “cash-register” honesty.)  My question is this; when is it that enough is enough?  When do I throw in the towel and admit that someone cannot be helped?  It seems I used to know this.

My friend from high school, Ed, says he/I never want to give up on anyone.  That is true.  I have always been so slow to process and catch on, that I would have been absolutely lost if “they”, especially my late sponsor Noel, had given up on me.  It was so late in the game of life in sobriety that I trusted anyone enough to “let go absolutely.”  If they had thrown in the towel on me and turned their backs, my life would not have had the turn towards happiness, joy, serenity and love that I now enjoy every day.  Who is to say when someone else has used up all of his or her chances for a good life?  I do not know for sure.

I have been told and I believe the program is for those who want it, not necessarily for those who need it.  A newcomer at a meeting I attended recently asked "why need versus want?"  I was quick to raise my hand and have a chance to answer her heart-felt question.  I said something to the effect that it is only when we truly want “it” that we are willing to go to any lengths to get “it.”  Needing to be sober and change our lives is not enough.  We must WANT to be sober and willing to “go to any lengths” to have it. 

There are millions of people who are dying from the disease of alcoholism, but the only ones to recover are the ones who are willing to be uncomfortable.  At least for a period of time.  Most of us are not.  We do not like to feel pain, fear, worry, confusion, emptiness, depression or guilt.  We do not like to feel inferior or unknowing in any situation.  At first and sometimes for a long period of time, a drink or a pill or some other substance, even cookies, can relieve us of that pain. Then without warning, the solution becomes the problem.  Our "fix" quits working. There we are, left high and dry with our feelings.  The sad news to most of us is that there is no easy way out of our feelings, only through them.  We have to feel “it” in order to heal “it.”

I received an email from my friend in Montana late last week.  He was writing to keep me informed and to warn me, that our mutual friend in Ventura had been contacted by two sober men, sponsees of another long-time sober friend, who also live in Ventura who were offering our struggling friend help with his sobriety.  The response they received was disappointing, but not surprising. 

They said he did not want to go to a meeting.  They said his speech was slurred and he was unable to track the conversation.  Knowing my strong sense of the maternal, they warned me to be careful.  I had already had my own awakening to the sad fact of his condition.  He wanted to come visit me and see my daughters, re-living a part of a period in his life when he had been sober and happy.  I told him we would come in a couple of weeks and take him to lunch.

On Friday, I received another disturbing call from him asking to borrow money.  First of all, I don’t lend money.  If he were in need of help, I would give him whatever I could.  However in his previous calls he had said he was suicidal.  No way am I going to give him money to help facilitate his demise.  Next he called again to say how broke and down on his luck he was feeling and then a third call apologizing for the two previous calls.  He did not sound good. 

All of this makes me feel sad.  In addition, I have a woman I have been working with for the past two years.  So far, she has not been clean and sober for even a day.  I have checked her into the hospital for detox, met her at meetings, listened to an inventory and spent many total combined hours talking to her on the phone.  She says she wants to change her life and that she is now ready to go to any lengths.  I’m not so sure.  I am sure that I am, that’s about it.

We are taught to carry the message and not the alcoholic.  We are taught to give it away in order to keep it, but we are also taught to give our time and energy, our experience strength and hope to those who are serious about wanting what we have and are willing to work for it.  There is no easier, softer way.  It is simple but it is not easy. 

For the past three nights I have drowned my sadness in ice cream.  This may seem like no big deal and I guess it isn’t as compared to some other drugs I could use, but for me it is a symptom.  A symptom of an emptiness I cannot fill.  Maybe my ego is wounded at not being able to help these people .  They are not the first and probably won’t be the last, yet, giving up is, well, it seems wrong.  EGO.  Edging God out.  Maybe I need to turn them over, and let nature take it’s course.  Hell, in a few million years, they might be a whole mountain range.  I alone am not capable of bringing about a physic change in anyone!  That transformation is left to a power greater than myself.  I don’t mind being a sucker.  At least I AM still sober.  It’s a new day.  Maybe I’ll try it without ice cream.

My life is so glamorous!  Not fair!  Lucky for me!!

 

 

 

 

 

Epilogue to epiphany.

It has been a few days now since I debuted as a witness in court.  Wednesday I went to visit my sponsee one last time in jail before she gets moved to The Big House.  I was surprised at how much the whole thing stuck with me.  I’m still not certain why.  I guess it was a very intimate encounter with something profoundly dark and sad. 

When I saw her for a few minutes in jail, we both cried.  She for what is ahead and I for the person I saw sitting across from me behind the thick glass.  A little girl in her early forties, who has made bad decisions, based on self, and who still believes she is a victim.  I told her she would need to continue her recovery work in prison and that she should devote her life to being of service. 

She did not jump for joy at either of these suggestions.  “I still blame the police!” she said.  Don’t bother, I told her.  That will not serve you.  You started the ball rolling when you drank, used drugs and got behind the wheel of a car.  You are the problem.  Not the police.  She looked at me with a blank stare.  The best part about “you”’ being “the problem” is that you can do something to change yourself.  You can start over!  She remained unconvinced.

I left the jail feeling heavy with an un-filled emptiness.  When I got home, I ate another large bag of blue corn tortilla chips for solace.

Friday morning I left the house at five forty five to meet my daughter Shelley at the bottom of Mission Canyon to take a hike.  It is something she and I have been doing for a few weeks now.  Shelley is a nerd through and through.  She will admit it, and did so that morning.  This nerd is also a lover of geology.  It was her major or minor or something in college along with anthropology and chemistry. (See what I mean?)

The trail that we take for our morning hike is at the top of Tunnel Canyon, up and well into the area that burned in the Jesusito fire last spring.  Much of the area is charred but there are the beginnings of new growth and a beautiful array of wild flowers in and among the barren, blackened trees and shrubs.  Because of this there has been a real threat of rock and mudslides whenever it rains

Last week when we walked, it was just after a couple of days of heavy rain.  There were rocks and boulders covering parts of the trail.  In a few, very deep crevasses and canyons above us there were huge boulders that had obviously moved and brought with them hundreds of rock fragments, some of which were contained in steel nets that had been strung at the bottoms of the crevice.  Here, Shelley and I stopped to examine some of the specimens.

“Oh my God, Mom!  Look at these fossils!”  (She gets excited about dead things and really, really old things.)  Oh, uh huh!  Those are cool!  (What does one say about old seashells and plants embedded in rock?)  They WERE pretty fantastic I must admit, so we both carried home a couple of samples and I placed mine on my little wonder table/altar near the Buddha fountain in my office.

Friday morning when we walked it was with the expressed intention of finding fossils.  Again, we were not disappointed.  The surprise came, when once again; I found a metaphor for life in nature.  My life, and the lives of these women and men who just don’t seem to getting the gist of what it takes to live sober and in harmony with others, with nature, with all of creation.

We found some big and some small fossils from some different periods in pre-historic time.  I had to ask Shelley to spell the correct names of them for me, but they were something like Eocene, Miocene, or Paleocene.

Each was a rock, some of different hues, that had multi-layers of swirls and compressed matter with large and small chunks of oyster shells and other sea shells and plant life embedded within the layers.  Shelley pointed out to me that these specimens were more than sixty million years old.  They had long ago been at the bottom of the sea, and as the earth’s surface changed, they had been pushed and compressed, heated, cooled and moved, to form the mountain we were standing on.

I’m not sure where I was in my life as a child when I should have been standing in awe of these magnificent transformations, probably in some form of survival or me-centered mode.  I only know that I did not give nature and the planet Earth her due praise.

Fast forward to Friday and my ah-ha moment of epiphany:  it took millions and millions of years to transform this sea life and plant matter into a mountain.  Why would I believe that a soul could be transformed in one lifetime?  Some of us seem to catch on, while others do not.  Here I go, rushing and judging the process.  Having expectations for the enlightenment of others.  My ego must have taken center stage again.

I guess the big changes that would transform a person, take longer than sea-glass to be changed from a beer bottle to something beautiful.  It must be more like the making of the Rockies from oyster shells.  Maybe those of us who get it now, have been here before.  It’s just a thought, but one that is more comforting to me than believing there is something terribly wrong with my sponsee’s inability to see her part in her troubles.  I just have not allowed for the full transformation process to take place.

Years ago, maybe thirty, Shelley, Stephanie and I saw a palm reader.  I remember she said that Shelley and I were “very old souls.”  (I think it had something to do with our wrinkly palms and finger tips,)  Maybe I “got it” in this lifetime because I’ve already had several million tries.  That would figure.  I’ve always been slow to process!

My life is so glamorous!  Lucky for me, it is NOT fair!!

 

Witness to the wreckage of a life.

I went to court today.  It was the final sentencing hearing for my sponsee who has been in county jail for the past year.  Judge Adam’s Courtroom was full up.  Filled to the brim and overflowing with people down on their luck and not showing very good judgment.  Most of them were requesting a continuance or an extension in time allowed in which to pay their fines or complete their community service or attend a prescribed number of AA Meetings.  All had a “good reason” why they had failed thus far to do so.  The judge was compassionate and generous.  He was in a good mood.

I arrived at 8:30 on this blustery spring day.  The sun was shining as I sat in the second row with a view of the mountains. I had decided to dress somewhat more casually than usual, wearing jeans, a nice top and a long sweater-coat.  High heals of course.  I even wore a necklace in tribute to my friend Laura who is trying to class me up a bit.  You would think my wardrobe would be irrelevant.  Maybe it was, but I try to dress in a way that is respectful to the court.  Not everyone does.

The judge was on a roll, flying through matters at warp speed, to clear the room so he could get to my sponsee’s matter which he said would take “a bit of time.”  I started to feel a little bit nervous.  Her boyfriend, whom I have met casually at jail during visiting hours and on the three previous trips to court, was dressed up and wearing wool slacks and a tie.  He’s a mechanic and usually wears a tee shirt and jeans and smells of motor oil.  It was clear today was different. 

Our girl was brought in by the Sherriff’s deputy at about 9:30 in what looked like a brand new, blue jail uniform with a freshly stamped Santa Barbara County Jail logo across the front.  She wore pink handcuffs and leg- shackles.  Her hair needed highlights but she still had curls.  She was quiet and looked to me to be scared.  I was feeling anxious.  Her attorney asked the judge if they should move from the jury box to the council table and he replied that they should.  The district attorney stayed put, seated next to her lawyer.  I was surprised when the first order of business was hearing my name called as a witness by the defense attorney.  I was not expecting this.   (Ah, oh!  I should have worn a dress.)

I raised my right hand as directed by an the officer of the court, swore to tell the truth under penalty of perjury, and sat down in a chair in the witness box.    I was asked to spell my name for the record. 

The questions came first from the defense attorney.  “Why are you here today?”  To support the defendant.  “How long have you known her and how did you meet?”  I’ve known her for about a year.  I was asked to contact her by a court advocate in hopes of helping her with her sobriety.  “What do you think her chances are of staying sober?”  (Here is where it gets sticky.)  I think her chances are excellent.  (As are the chances of anyone who finds their way to a twelve-step program, if they follow the program laid out for them by the twelve steps.)  She has begun to show remorse, humility and an understanding of her disease.  She knows that she must never drink again and that that result will take daily maintenance for the rest of her life.  “No further questions.”

The DA objected to my speaking as an expert, but the judge allowed it.  I pointed out that I have been staying sober and sponsoring for a very long time and that I have had experience working with others.  Now it was his turn to ask the questions.

“Have you ever known the defendant outside of jail?”  No.  “Are you aware of how many DUI citations the defendant has?”  Yes, seven.  “ Are you aware that she has injured people while driving drunk?”  Yes.  “Are you aware that the defendant was under court order to not only not drink and not drive but also not associate with known alcoholics and criminals?  I see that you were sitting with her boyfriend who is a known criminal.” (Hey, wait a minute!  HE sat down next to ME!) I was aware that she was not to be driving or drinking or using drugs, I was not aware of her order to not associate with her boyfriend. There are a lot of alcoholics in AA, but I was not aware her boyfriend was a criminal.  (Gigget goes to court!)

“Don’t you think that once she gets out of jail and gets with her old friends her humility and remorse might be forgotten?”  Yes, that is a real possibility.  I wrote in a letter to her recently that it is easy to be humble and compliant when the heat is on, I have had first hand experience with that, (more about shoe-shopping than crime,) and that is why she must stay close to the program, so she doesn’t forget and say “I’ll take it from here.”  No further questions.  You may step down.

I was remarkably calm while being questioned, however when her attorney made his closing argument, recommending that she be released to a sober living program, I became terrified!  What if she made a mistake?  What if, God forbid, she killed somebody?  Would I be able to live with that?  (Dear God, I don’t know the right outcome.   I am trusting that you and the judge will.)  A yucky feeling was coming over me.  Next I heard her attorney saying that she had agreed to avoid all association with her boyfriend.  I felt his body, which was still in the chair next to mine, bristle.  His face flushed and his eyes shot poison daggers towards his girlfriend.  “I didn’t know that!”  He said.  What will you do?  I asked.  “I’ll hit the road.  I feel like this has all been a waste of time!”  I think she’s in survival mode I said, trying to comfort the criminal.  (Is it lunchtime yet?)

The district attorney made his final and very compelling statement as to why this woman should go to prison and not to sober living.  I did NOT disagree with him at all. The judge calculated her time served and gave her credit when he sentenced her to six years in the state penitentiary.   I smiled at her and got up to take my leave.  I walked next to her attorney on my way to the stairs and asked him if he thought I had made matters worse.  “Not at all.  You were fine.  This is the best possible outcome for her.”  The best possible outcome?  I said it over and over to myself. I was still feeling yucky, but also grateful.  Grateful it was not MY best possible outcome.

The yucky feeling hung with me into the evening.  I was awakened a couple of times during the night and the feeling was still with me.  I said a prayer of thanks for my Temp–pur-pedic mattress and my pillow.  Why do I still feel yucky?  Tom has a couple of theories; one, that I was there to support someone who has done bad things and who might do more bad things.  No, I don’t think that’s it.  I was there to say there is hope for anyone if he or she makes a decision and does what is necessary to change course.  Two, that I know that she and I are not that different.  I drove drunk more than once.  I was never arrested, nor did I hurt anyone with my car.  Did I hurt anyone with my drinking?  Yes I did, more than once.

So here I am, left with what my Mother said to me when I cried out that “it’s not fair!”  Lucky for you young lady!  Lucky for you!

Today is Wednesday and I am off to visit her in jail before she gets moved to her new residence at the state prison.  After that I will meet a friend for lunch and then come home to my sweet husband, my dog and probably a nap.  Whoa! That is all I can say.  Whoa!  I say a prayer of thanks, that when I “stood at the turning point” grace led me to the road I am on..

My life is so glamorous!  Lucky for me it is not fair!!

 

 

Beach glass as teacher.

I have taken to picking up beach glass.  You know, the old broken bottles that have been shattered and tossed about by the sea, then spit back out on the sand as something beautiful?

I am really copying my daughter.  Not that I have not always picked up the tiny colored bits I have found over the years, I have.  It is just that she has a beautiful collection of the stuff filling a large vase in her entry way and it looks like spectacular art.  I am a copycat.

So this morning when we were walking I realized that beach glass is the perfect metaphor for a life.  It starts out clean.  Just glass, plain and empty, shaped like a vessel to be filled with the stuff of our choices.  My bottle, my choice.    Then life tosses it all.  Pitched and pounded, roughed up by the sands and rocks and water, worn down and left to be discovered.  That’s me.  Softened, rounded, unique in its new form. 

I received a call today from my friend in the Ventura sober living house.  He is very low.  Says he is tired of the struggle says he “has handled his life all wrong!”  “It’s not over”, I point out to him, but he can’t hear me.   

Who can say when enough is enough?  I think he should NEVER give up but do I really know what’s best for him?  How dare I say what is too much for someone else?  I have lost friends to suicide.  It is a cruel goodbye, especially for the ones left behind.  But what about someone who has no one?  That is what my friend says, that he has no one. 

I tell him he has me!  He has other friends who care about him, who love him and know his history.  Problem is, no one can take the pain away, or know for sure if we should. It is his pain.  What CAN I do?  Keep him company?  Tell him my formula for having a happy life?  The big surprise in the end is that it really is an inside job.  I hate clichés, but really, it’s something one can only do for oneself.  Company helps.  Someone to walk along and talk to, help you strategize, map it out, change directions.  Ultimately only one at a time crosses the finish line.

Tomorrow I go to court again with my sponsee who is in jail, who has also expressed disappointment over her handling of her life.  She is hoping this will be her final sentencing hearing and she’ll know whether it will be six to fifteen years in prison or another rehab and a program for living sober.

 Again, I have no idea what the right sentence would be.  I know what she wants.  I know I want what is best for her, what will change the course she has been on to one of happiness and hope.  I have no idea what that course should be.    

I found some pretty pieces of glass on the beach today.  All colors of blue and white, green and brown.  Scalloped and blasted into something not ordinary or easy but singular and special.  I picked them up one by one.  I brought them home and washed them.     I placed them with my sea-shells in a crystal dish on the table in the entryway.  I admire them whenever I come and go.  Remembering when I do, their beginnings and the shattering, splintering trip they made to perfect refinement.

My life is so glamorous!  Lucy for me, it is not fair!!

 

 

Tuesday taking me down, then up.

Today was a bit gloomy.  It rained a steady sheet of heavy drizzle most of the day and into this evening.  The sky was gray and it was chilly and damp.  I walked in the morning on the usual route at Butterfly Beach.  My friend walked with me.  There were only a few die-hard walkers out in it, including my daughter and her husband.

On my way down to the beach I received a call from an old friend who lives out of state in Montana.  He wanted to give me a “heads-up” that he had divulged my whereabouts to another old friend who might be calling me.  The call came soon after I returned home from my walk.

Hearing the voice of the “Montana” was comforting.  We had lost contact for many years and were reconnected about a year ago via face book.  He has grown older and wiser but still has the youthful spirit I remember from thirty-five years ago.   His hair is white now and he seems calmer and wiser, more at peace with himself than he was when we were in our twenties.  Thinking back to that time makes me smile. Both my friend and I are in a good, sweet part of our lives at this time and each of us is in a happy marriage.  We are still “walking the walk” although we live in different parts of the country.

The call from my second old friend was gray and sad like the rain falling outside of my window.  His life has not been as sweet and he finds himself alone and destitute, living in a sober-living house In Ventura with other newly sober men.   He said he had come across the phone number of our Montana friend and taken a chance on finding him.  Hearing his voice took me back too, to a time when each of our lives held such promise, and I was struggling to find my way.

At the time we were friends, I was in between marriages, in my mid-thirties and working full time at a job in fashion downtown at the Mart.  Two of my daughters were in high school and the third was in college.  I had a dog and lived in a rental near the beach.  My days were full of work, dating and the details of raising teenaged girls.  I was happy I think, but probably more in survival -mode than striving in any particular direction. I was probably at the pinnacle of my co-dependence, and I had some rough years ahead of me but I didn’t know it yet. 

I was still to experience another marriage, which ended shortly in divorce. I was yet to face and walk through the illnesses of and the subsequent deaths of both of my parents. I was ill prepared for any of this and it all came too soon for each of us.  

The most painful memory the call from Ventura evoked was that of myself at that time.  I was living a good part of my life honestly and out in the open, while there were parts of my life that I kept secret.  Those were the parts that I did not trust to a higher power.  Relationships with men in particular.

I had been married and divorced three times.  Not a great record, but I had an explanation for all of these failures.  First, I had married too young.  Next I had been in “the cups” of alcoholism.  The last one was still a mystery to me, but I later saw that I was unwilling to look at the parts of myself that needed changing and do the work to change.  I think the final blow came when in couples therapy, my husband said I was “just like my Mother!”  So true, but I did not want to believe it at that moment.

Then there was my dating life.  I did not know how to say “no”.  I never wanted to hurt anyone’s feelings.  Consequently I had multiple relationships, overlapping and spilling guilt and shame onto my heart.  Finally, I married again, this time with the selfish motive of wanting to be rescued from myself.

When the fourth marriage ended in divorce I had to look at myself.  There were no more excuses that made any sense.  I was the common denominator.  I realized if I were ever to be able to look myself in the mirror again and be taken seriously by anyone I would have to change.  Change everything, that is. 

This is when I sought out a new sponsor/mentor who had what I wanted and had not been able to achieve doing things “my-way.”  I was sober nearly twenty years.  It was a humbling experience to admit that in my forties, with two decades of sobriety I was still behaving irresponsibly.  I had not “let go absolutely” of my selfish ways and I needed help to accomplish this goal.  I was afraid but desperate.  I surrendered to the twelve steps and taking direction from Noel.  My life changed dramatically from there.

The marriages of my daughters, the births of my grand children were happy, wonderful times.  Then came my marriage to Tom, my fifth and most likely final husband.  But all along, I stayed close to the winners and “walked-the walk.”  Now I am asking myself what happened to my friend?  Why did I make it and he has not? What does it mean to have “made it?”

These questions have been in my face of late.  I saw my sponsee in jail today just after I talked to my old friends.  She is another one who has had the same opportunity I have been given and yet she hasn’t been able to stay sober and stay the course.  I want to know, why me, or more importantly, why not them?  

My only answer, aside from pure Grace, is that there came a time in my life when I stood at a turning point and had to choose.  I had to choose to let go of my ego, my pride, my ideas about how to live, and allow myself be led.  This, as it turns out, was a “life-or-death-decision.”  Death of the “old me,” to give life to the “new  me.”

So here I am today.  It is a rainy Saturday, in my sweet, sweet, un-dramatic, un-complicated life.  My plans for the day include breakfast at a little French bakery with my husband, shopping for food for a special dinner for my grand daughter’s eighteenth birthday dinner, the meditation of cooking and creating magic for my family and later a walk on the beach with another grand daughter.  I will probably take a nap and then serve a delicious dinner, infused with love and gratitude to twenty- seven of my extended family.  Tom will help with the dishes and I will go to bed tired but happy and filled up.

It was Grace that offered these choices, but choice that gave me my true self.

My life is so glamorous.  It is not fair, lucky for me!