Echoes of Recovery Writing: Turning Points and Mindset Shifts

 I would like to say I have had some big mindset shifts lately, but in reality I don't really think I have and that is probably why I'm sitting here on a Tuesday night trying to write to this prompt at 10:20 pm. I don't usually stay up this late, but I find myself here for tonight because I just need a little more time awake and to myself. Time that is just mine. Not time that I'm answering emails or grading or helping students or stressing about a problem with a student at work.

Not one that is Cameron's either. I need to learn how to throw that shit back at hime better, according to family group. He has to take control of his recovery.

In talking to another spouse of an addict and alcoholic tonight, one who is much farther along on her journey than I am, she told me that she told her husband that he makes her feel small and she's not willing to make herself feel small at the expense of their marriage. And I thought that was a really bold move.

Of course, then she said she did that in couple's therapy, and I felt like that was a wise choice to say that with a third party present. It is safer that way.

I have been feeling small around Cameron for years. That was how his alcoholism and alcoholic behavior has affected me. The difference in my mindset here is that I have never said that to his face. I have yelled and whined and screamed and tantrumed that he needs to leave me alone, and I've faught with him over little things, but is this really what is at the root of the issue?

I think the mindset shift comes when we partners and loved ones realize the toll it has taken on our own sense of self and self-esteem or self-worth. Cameron has spent so much time convincing me that I have a problem. I have a problem with cleanliness, housekeeping, and organizaiton. I have a problem with listening and never listen well. I have been listening to this shit for years it has become so ingrained in me that I am not worth the sack of shit you can bury me in. I am not worth the time I give myself to take a shower or comb my hair in the morning.

But the mind has started to shift. I've started to become aware of the way alcohlics manipulate. And Cameron's was so subtle. In fact, it is so subtle that I'm not even sure he knows what he's doing. He hasn't been doing the work I've been doing.

But it's my fault for NOT TELLING HIM.

But if I told him I feel small around him and that's his alcoholic behavoir his response would be "but I can't make you feel anything, you're doing this to yourself."

I wish I had a third party to intervene and listen to the way we treat each other. But I know he's not ready for couple's work. He's five therapy sessions in to a new therapist and refuses to go to AA or do any kind of group work.

The mindset shift now has to become loving myself enough to recognize when he's treating me like garbage.

And to gently remind him that I don't talk to people that talk to me that way.

It's so easy to do on paper.

It's so hard to do in them moment.

The reaction is usually to avoid conflict and leave the room.

Or leave the house and go for a drive.

But that isn't going to help the situation.

The mindset shift has to be to let him know his words hurt and to request that he not speak to me like that.

And to hope that the words "you're just too sensitve" don't get thrown around.

My dad always made sure I was the tough one. He didn't raise a princess.

But the truth is that words hurt, and that is important to recognize.

No one teaches us how to be in a healthly relationship.

There. I'm done for the night. Now I have to try to sleep.

Journaling for some self-care

 Living in an alcoholic relationship with a dry drunk is not for the weak, y'all! 

I finished prepping for Monday and Tuesday

I spent "family time" with Cameron's mother and sister, with Barry and the kids and a little bit with Megan's partner Josie.

Friday afternoon Cameron told me his mother and her boyfriend were coming over and told me I didn't really have to be there. So I didn't come home until after they left. I set up a cocoon in the back of my car and lay down and had my virtual appaointment with Karri. Karri has been my therapist for some rediculous amount of time like 10 years. Or almost ten years. She always makes me feel better about life.

After that Cameron texted me about bringing home dinner for us and said his parents had already left.

Which relieved me. I didn't want to make small talk but I didn't want to pick up dinner either. We have so much food at home. It felt a little like old alcoholic behavior of past years. So many times five years ago he would ask me to pick up 12 pack of something and I reluctantly said yes because I didn't know or was in denial about how dire the circumstances were.

I asked him what he wanted for dinner and he said it was my choice. But it's never my choice. Wings were on the way home so I stopped there.

By the time I got home there was something wrong with my choice. Too little heat or soggy wings or not enough sides.

He grabbed his portion and went up stairs and I had my portion of dinner and I watched a movie downstairs and by the time the movie was half over I was tired. It was 8:30 on a friday and after being up since 5 I was a mess. I went to bed.

Cameron came in at 11:30 to wake me up from a full slumber to tell me that my sleep machine was making noise and he could hear it from another room.

Told me to do something about it.

Nevermind the fact that he could wear headphones. He could close his door. But it's always my problem.

Woke up Saturday -- before Cameron, he doesn't sleep, but go up and had my tea and finished the movie I started. Took a walk. Read my book. Got some work stuff done.

Cameron wakes up at 12 and demands we go to Home Depot to look at storm doors. Says his mom is paying for them. Whatever. I go with him because I don't want an argument and want to seem agreeable. We grab tacos around the corner for lunch.

He doesn't want to eat there despite me saying I do. We get it to go.

He buys flowers at Home Depot because he wants bees in the yard as pollinators.

We go back home. I have to chaperone prom in Atlanta that night and am meeting a group of teachers for dinner before hand.

I take a nap because I know it's going to be a long night.

I put on a dress and Cameron criticizes it. Tells me I look frumpy and asks if I have a better one.

I say this is comfortable and leave.

I'm early to Atlanta so I browse a nearby bookstore before going to Felinis with my crew.

At dinner I suffer through conversation with teachers that can't turn off work on a Saturday night. I lament having genuine conversations instead of ones where people complain about coworkers I actually connect with.

Mentally make a note to avoid these people at work this week.

We go to prom, it was actually a lovely event, kids have fun, look amazing, and are well behavied for prom.

I come home and the first thing Cameron says is that Miso heard my erratic driving. He heard me pull up and said I was loud pulling in.

It's midnight and I go to sleep.

Mind you, I could have spent the night at my parents becuase they were much closer to the event last night, but I didn't becuase Cameron said he wanted to check out tomoatoes in the morning.

So when I wake up, we go to his sisters and do tomoato shopping.

I said I didn't want a repeat of last year. I didn't want 50 plants sit unused and die before they get planted.

Cameron got so mad. He told me that that was before rehab and he wouldn't do that and not to bring that up.

He told me not to rehash bad situations.

I am ready to resentment process.

He is not.

He is so full of shame.

He is so full of shame and he doesn't realize it.

Cameron's mother told me tonight that she thinks he's doing better from an interaction standpoint, that he was able to talk to her this weekend in a nicer form. She only sees him twice a year. Of course it's going to be performative.

She told me she likes talking to me becuase Cameron is just like his father.

It dawned on me then that this family is steeped in generational alcoholic behavior and they don't realize it.

She is SO USED to being put down by her husband before he died and by her son, and even by her daughter, who is mean as a snake.

It saddens me even further after what I know about generational trauma.

I want Cameron to embrace recovery.

I want him to be nicer.

He is just not capable of it.

And even today with the comment about food and snapping at me and saying "this is just what people talk about"

Which is another form of "you're the one with the problem."

He said it had nothing to do with me.

Another version of you're too sensitive.

So no, I won't bring up bigger issues.

I won't bring up how he makes me feel small.

He's not ready.

But I'm ready to walk away.

Quietly.

I'm ready for my self-worth to not be attacked anymore.

"You're the one who has changed" (An Echoes of Recovery Post)

 Please tell the story of a time when you heard, "You're the one who changed," or some variety that suggests that change is bad. Tell us about when someone found discomfort or threat in your growth, recovery, or progress (you can write about your alcoholic relationship, but you don't have to -- growth is threatening in many aspects of life and relationship.) 

I feel like the alcoholic in recovery in my life finds discomfort or threat in my growth, recovery, and progress everyday but he will never admit to it. He just finds a reason to lash out or throw an insult my way. Isn't that what someone in varying stages of recovery does? Someone who hasn't experience true recovery and is "only" sober will find discomfort in the boundaries I set around sex and intimacy. If I say I don't want to be intimate when he wants to I'm the one who "isn't any fun anymore." I'm the one who acts "like a bitch" now. 

Just Saturday when we were at Publix and we found ourselves shopping together (an activity we enjoyed when we first started dating 10 years ago but grew to more of you can stop after work and get what's on the list on the refrigerator and pick up more beer or hard seltzer while you are there) and I would do it just five years ago because I didn't know he had a problem. 

But just Saturday when we were there together and we found ourselves floating down the beer/wine aisle (he was leading, I was just following  -- that's more codependency I don't want to address right now) he asks me if "I want something" and if I want something "I should get it because I don't have a problem." He also says in the middle of the store that he doesn't think he actually has a problem (he's been through detox and rehab a year and a half ago) because he can drink one beer now and just enjoy the taste. A year ago I would have fallen for that line. I have more recovery and education in me now to know the difference. I didn't want to make a scene in the grocery store so I just said "no I don't want any." He pushed back and tried to say I was lying. He tried to manipulate me into buying beer. I held my ground. I am growing. He gave me silence for about 10 minutes while he went to the pharmacy to get his prescriptions (an act I've also done for him before I knew not to do for him what he can do for himself). We didn't end up buying alcohol. We checked out and he complained about the price of groceries. He doesn't live in reality. We paid $150 for two of us for the week. It's what we always pay for standard, non-shitty fare. 

I'm proud of him for doing things he hasn't done in a while. Going out to the grocery store, doing things with me he used to enjoy, but I'm not enjoying them as much and neither is he. I am growing. It's uncomfortable. He knows it is. 

I'm sure there are other examples but I'm too tired to think of more. I forced myself to write this out as part of my healing and I am thankful to the group for forcing me to write out things like this and others. 

I don't know how I'm going to navigate the holidays this year. I don't want to invite him to Christmas Eve. The person of last year knows what a bad idea that is. I don't want to hurt his feelings. But I have to know that my feelings are important too. I long for the connection I lost with him but know he's incapable of giving the connection I need right now. 

House Fires (A Lyrics Post)

 House Fires 

Spencer LaJoye 

Lyrics found here: https://spencerlajoye.bandcamp.com/track/house-fires-2

Mom was scared of house fires, so we would make a list
of the things we might save with little arms and little fists
We'd carry all our choices down the stairs and out the door
to the mailbox at the bottom of our hill beside the road

Dad would grab the rolodex and family photo tin
I would grab my puppy and my brand new violin
But on the night you burned, and I fled to the car,
I only took my toothbrush and a cell phone charger

Carry an umbrella, and it'll never rain
Build a house beside a lake, and it won't go up in flames
We dug each other's graves so we wouldn't die alone
And we planned a great escape from this world to one our own

You would grab the animals and our most expensive gin
I would grab the vinyls, your best shoes, my violin
But on the night you burned, and my back hit the wall,
I ran with blistered hands and no plan at all

And I drove with whiskey in my blood, with blurried double vision
I left with no religion, every breath a new decision,
saying, "tear yourself away, my love, from what could never happen.
You need to let her burn before you consecrate the ashes."

I'm afraid of house fires, so help me make a list
of things we might save, should it ever come to this
Let's keep it simple, just one thing a piece
If I carry you, will you carry me?

I discovered this artist at UUCA when Plowshare Prayer was performed. I went on a deep dive and found this gem and I can't stop listening to the haunting lyrics. To me, it's speaker recounts a fear of her mother and what she did to prepare for that fear. That's a particular event to be afraid of. I can't think of a single person in my childhood who was afraid of their home burning down, but as homeowners, we have witnessed two house fires in our neighborhood and both were very fast and very scary for for the neighbors and us. It happens. But who does it happen to? Does it happen to the careless? It can really happen to anyone. And this particular song addresses the unpredictable nature of such an event. As much as the family prepares for the worst, when it does happen, all plans go out the window and she's left holding a toothbrush and a charger for a cell phone. No mention of the cell phone and no toothpaste. So two things are very useless without their accompanying pieces. Life happens. And I'm also left wondering the story behind the young girl's family. Because I'm doing so much of my recovery from loving an addict work, I'm wondering if her family is one of addicts or alcoholics as well. Is it unpredictable because of addiction, is that what caused the fire, or is it unpredictable because life is unpredictable? 

Then she flashes forward to life as an adult with her own, assumed, romantic partner. She has developed her own fear of housefires? Or is housefires merely a metaphor for losing everything? A symbol of loss of all that is valuable in life? Is she truly afraid of housefires? Or is she afraid to lose everything she's worked so hard for in life? Then she talks about driving drunk and blurred vision. And don't leave me. Such a sad, haunting song but so beautiful. ''

Maybe I need to start a blog featuring songs that aren't about addiction and how it affects the family, but I end up interpreting it that way because of how I see the world now.