Not everyone gets a "do over"

There are a lot of things that I think I know, that I think I've learned, by surviving breast cancer - and by being in AA while doing it (and the AA piece matters because if it weren't for this program, I would have killed myself instead). I have learned important things about life in this program. These things that I've learned are hard to quantify, hard to articulate. They are hard to put into practice - these ideas I have about the way I want to live my life and the standards that I want to hold myself to. It is one thing to say that I will live without regret, it is something else entirely to live that way. Maybe these things that I've learned are things that most people know, though I suspect that more often than not, a true appreciation of what these things are comes only when it is too late. Unfortunately, I think it takes a real life and death moment sometimes to make you appreciate the little things, to make you truly grasp what matters in life, to place you squarely in the present moment. In fact, I am not sure that it's even really possible to get it, and I mean really get it, if you don't have such a moment.

I thought when I came into AA that I learned what life was about - I thought I had changed so much and I thought I really got the point. I thought I had gained a real appreciation for life and for what matters in life. Yet there I was struggling just the same with the very things that I have always struggled with and the very same things continued to make me unhappy. It was almost as if my higher power knew I wasn't getting it, so it was yanked from beneath me, never to be the same or look the same again. That's the thing about these life lessons, I think that we repeat mistakes until we get it right and situations will keep happening to us until we get the point. Sometimes, for some of us, it takes great pain to get it. When I get something - when I finally get it - it is never in a moment of subtlety. If I had never been diagnosed with breast cancer, I wouldn't have learned what I've learned, at least not by this age.

When I was diagnosed, I experienced a sudden and dramatic shift in perspective that slowly over time shifted back. Over time I became stressed about my job and career again, obsessed with money, worried no man would ever date me again because I had breast cancer (among other reasons)...the list goes on and on. Where did all that wonderful perspective on life go? It seems I lost it when I realized I would live. The shifting of my perspective is something I have struggled with. I have been frustrated over and over again with the shift in one direction and the shift back. Why can't I seem to remember the point or why can't I implement it in my life? That I don't know. But I do know that something happened to me over the week and a half of before the follow-up appointment and mammogram that I had on Thursday. It might have gone unnoticed but I suddenly felt different. I felt certain fears melt away and I realized that it wasn't just that my feelings had changed, but that my thinking had changed also as I felt a new degree of openness born out of desperation. Maybe just maybe I could be open to the possibility of something I didn't imagine or foresee.

Those most powerful moments of surrender have always come out of such desperation. The more desperate I am, the more willing I become to surrender. For me, such moment are always tied to my life and my death. When I am faced squarely with my mortality I become willing to give up anything. There was a time when I didn't feel this way, when I negotiated with God for my fertility and I was willing to give up my hair, or my life even, or so I thought if I could just keep that one thing. It seems silly I know. I had such a really powerful moment of surrender the night before that appointment and in that moment I had a real appreciation of the fact that the degree to which anything is possible is directly related to the extent to which I am able to surrender. This journey has been a process of negotiation. Of hanging on and then letting go, of taking my will back and then surrendering it again. Until finally, in the most powerful moment of desperation that I have ever had, I let go of all of it. Everything I ever thought I wanted out of life, everything I ever thought would make me happy, I traded it in, in exchange for my life, and whatever it may turn out to be.

I suddenly felt the peace that comes with such surrender and being free from the expectations that have contributed to my unhappiness. I have given it all up, every last thing, which means that anything is possible. If I believe in AA and the things that I've learned there, then my faith tells me that what my higher power has in store for me is more amazing than anything that I could ever imagine for myself. The worst thing that I have ever felt in my entire life was the moment when I thought it might be over and I was only 29. The moment when I thought I might not live the rest of my life and that the life that I had lived might be it. What do I have to show for this life that I've lived but unhappiness and fear, bad relationships and anger, hatred, resentments and regret. The regret was unbelievable - I realized that I was going to regret most of my adult life and that moment when I realized that I might not get another chance to get this life right, was the moment that changed me and scared me the most.

The greatest gift of my life today is that I get to live it differently. Not everyone gets a "do over" and that's exactly what I've been given. For that I am blessed. Those days before that last appointment have planted me firmly in the place that I most want to be - in the moment, with a perspective that feels firmly rooted - I doubt this time that it will shift back in the other direction. I get it this time. You don't ever know, ever, whether you will have another chance. The moment, this one, right now, it matters. What are you going to do with it?

My mammogram is clear!!

Just a quick note to let everyone who may be wondering know, that my mammogram was clear. Thank you to my higher power and everyone who has ever prayed for me.

I have a new favorite radiologist and mammographer, to go along with my surgeon, my surgeon's nurse, my oncologist and her physician's assistant. I love these people more than words can express. I am one of I don't know how many people who go through the breast center at this particular hospital and I have experienced my fair share of incompetent medical professionals in this process...however, these individuals actually care, go out of their way for me, go above and beyond for me, change appointments, squeeze me in, see me on their days off, give me their home telephone numbers. They always call back, they are never annoyed, they answer every last weird question, they would probably sit there for hours with me if I needed them to.

I asked if I could speak with the radiologist and the mammographer took me back into the "lab." The radiologist showed me all of my mammogram films, went over them with me, showed me all of my previous mammogram films, how they compare them, what they look for. She told me they will do whatever I need to them to do in order to satisfy me that I am really okay. (So we also did an unnecessary ultrasound - oh yeah, and back in June we did an unnecessary chest X-ray). She told me to request her every time and that she will be the one to read the films every time and she can meet with me every time and show them to me.

I posted once before about some of these people - back in June/July when I literally thought that I might not make it. Just when I feel sad and disappointed in people in general - I am reminded that there are truly amazing and caring people out there. Really, truly amazing and genuinely good people.

More later on how it feels, what lies ahead and what I learned...

9:26 and one second

The past few days have brought renewed meaning to the phrase "one day at a time." I am acutely aware of what this means, but sometimes lack appreciation of the power of this concept in practice. Sometimes it is an hour at a time, 5 minutes, a minute, a second. How do you do anything - stay sober, survive breast cancer, deal with unrelenting and inconsolable fear - you do it moment to moment. I don't have to figure out how to deal for the rest of my life with this overpowering fear of dying of cancer. I just have to deal with it, right now, this second.

These past few days I have tried to sit in the feeling - and it is indescribable. It feels one way to have your life yanked out from underneath you with no notice, like when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It feels like something else when you have a chance to prepare and think about what that would be like to have it yanked out from underneath you all over again. I can't really think of the words to describe it, I've tried - but only someone who has been through this can understand what this fear is like. It is a fear unlike any other fear and there just aren't words to capture it.

I have tried to sit in the feeling and actually experience it and process it, while at the same time maintaining a kind of distance, more like perspective, to enable me to stay present in the very moment I am sitting in and have a true appreciation of every teeny tiny detail. It is more like being in the solution than being in the problem, but it still doesn't feel good. It feels horrible on the one hand but at the same time it is the most amazing thing to be right here, right now, which is the place I find myself least often. I have focused on only one thing these past few days and that is seeing my nephew on Friday. He is the greatest reminder to me of what it is like to be present in the moment. To watch him laugh and learn and look at something in amazement fills me with a kind of happiness that is unparalleled in my life.

To my complete astonishment, even though I am caught up in the worst fear and anxiety I've ever had in my life, I have been more present these past few days than I have been in a very long time. I have enjoyed these days and I have most importantly remembered to be grateful, not sometimes, but constantly. I have felt peaceful and content. I have had powerful moments of surrender - because to deal with what I am dealing with requires surrender on a different level than what I experienced before. I have had meaningful conversations with my higher power.

This situation is a true test of my faith, of my ability to apply the program to all my affairs. You know sometimes how you wake up from an experience and things are different - you are changed somehow and it wasn't a process, it just happened in a moment? These days, changing is like that. It is sudden and unpredictable. It happens in those moments I spend talking to my higher power about the purpose of all of this that I am too human to even begin to understand. These past few days have changed me.

Tomorrow I have a follow-up mammogram. Until then, it is moment by moment. To those of you who are so inclined, please pray for me.

Coincidence, I think not

My higher power played a dirty trick on me tonight. Last night I had this moment of surrender - I mean, a real moment of surrender (as opposed to the fake ones, ha ha). By a real moment of surrender - I just mean that, you can tell - when you really let go of something. When you are really free of it, it feels different. There is a distinct difference between the moment when you surrender something and the moment when you want to surrender it, but can't quite get there. When you come out of that moment, nothing looks the same or feels the same. You have this sudden shift in perspective.

I had such a moment last night, and while I won't go into detail, I will say that it involved my mortality, my relationship situation, my fertility, everything I ever thought I wanted in life and the very thing that I want the most, right now, at this moment, which is very simply to get to continue to live. So there was this guy - he pursued me back in May and then turned out to be an ass. Unfortunately, I really liked this guy. Unfortunately, he is the only guy I've met that I've liked. Well his sponsor didn't want him dating anyone so he called me up and basically told me he is an asshole and preys upon women and he has been avoiding me ever since - in other words, he stopped going to meetings that I go to and no one saw him for quite a while.

Now first of all - this guy is a self-professed asshole therefore I should not want to to be with him (because if a guy tells you he is an asshole, you should believe him). However, I am me, and if at any point he had shown back up and said okay, my sponsor gives me permission to date you now, I would have walked right into it, in a heartbeat. I probably would have regretted it. I probably would have known better, you know, hello, red flag, a giant one, waving at me, but I would have done it anyway. That is my lack of self-esteem making the decisions for me.

But I had this moment last night with my higher power. And then guess who walked into the meeting tonight? Coincidence, doubt it. My higher power's way of testing me, probably. My higher power has this funny way of showing up very quickly after such moments of surrender and acceptance. Something always changes instantly or happens immediately. So, he showed up, and how did I feel? This is my sponsor's definition of a spiritual experience, the ability to choose that which you could not choose before. The question is, just how well did I surrender last night? I am more than a little annoyed at my higher power for this.

I say this all the time - that I love the fact that you never know when you walk into a meeting who is going to say the thing that saves your life that day, or changes your life that day, or changes your perspective. It is often someone you don't expect and it is often so simple. This woman said tonight - don't give up on yourself, whatever you do, don't give up on yourself. All of these other things that I've tried not to give up on - but I wasn't even on the list. Myself being the one thing that I need to not give up on. Everything else can go. And this other woman said that if she had settled for the life that she thought she wanted before she came into Alcoholics Anonymous, she would have sold herself short. That says it all.

That might be the most true thing that I've heard in a while. There is no doubt in my mind that if I had settled for the the life I thought I wanted when I came into this program, or even for the life I had during my first year of sobriety, I would have sold myself short. Expect the unexpected. That is what AA has taught me, to expect the unexpected.

It's like pre-cleaning for the cleaning person

So I just finished a little pre-pedicure foot scrub. I know, this is ridiculous - but the past two pedicures have left me unimpressed. My feet were still kind of dried out and gross and, well, yeah, even though I am paying 45 dollars to have my feet done - I would never say, hey, do you think you could scrub them a little better? I just would never do that. So, I've taken to doing a little pre-cleaning for the cleaning person so to speak.

I think this phenomenon is so ridiculous. I mean - everyone tells me they have to pre-clean for the cleaning person. What the heck is the point then? I did contemplate getting a cleaning lady - cause one slipped her card under my door - during those weeks of laziness that I experienced, I do hate to do the wood floors - but I wouldn't want to have to pre-clean. Plus, these days, cleaning is my form of exercise since I can't seem to stop driving to work. If I had a cleaning person, I wouldn't pre-clean. I would also plant things around the house and set up traps to test whether they were actually doing what I was paying them to do. Better not to go there.

Anyway, this week was good work wise, middle of the road emotions wise, and down-right bad as far as what goes on in my head. Glad it's almost over. I just need to hold out until Thursday. I called my doctor and asked to move my mammogram up by a week (so it's next Thursday) and then next weekend I get to go see my nephew for a few days. I can't wait. I now have two bags of clothes for him. I really want to buy him a Halloween costume. It's been all I can do to resist. I don't know how my brother and sister-in-law feel about this. I'm not sure whether it would be okay with them to parade their child around dressed up like a skunk or a monkey (the cutest ones I've found) when he is too little to even get what is going on. Not to mention, their German neighbors might wonder what those crazy Americans are doing with their child. I don't know if they celebrate Halloween in Germany. Anyway, I might not be able to resist. I might just have to buy one and hope that my sister-in-law will humor me. Seriously, my nephew would make such a cute monkey or skunk!!

Later-day blogging

I forgot to mention earlier that Saturday is pedicure day. I love pedicure day.

Who here thinks it is unreasonable for a client to email me at 9 p.m. asking for a 9:30 a.m. conference call? I do. Who says I was even going to be there at 9:30 a.m. I had planned to not set my alarm, try to sleep in, take my time getting up, wander into work late whenever I feel like it, do nothing until 11:30, when I leave early for my lunch, return late, 1:30 or so, and start actual work at about 2 p.m.

Now granted it is my fault for checking email and forwarding it to the partner (who the client failed to copy so he never would have known) tonight which means I can't play dumb. I probably should have waited until the a.m. to forward the email - that way I could have claimed ignorance when I show up at 9:45. Frankly, I think the partner will agree with me, that we are not doing this call on a whim tomorrow morning, but just in case, I probably have to get there. Then again, nah. I am sticking to my original plan of moseying on in when I feel like it. The thing is - did the client really think I was going to set this up tonight? That's what I get for checking email - I like to know if I am in for anything in the morning, so I check it before I go to bed. And I check if first thing when I get up, cause I just have to know what came in during the night (I do mostly international work so I get a lot of stuff from other offices while I sleep).

What does all of this mean? It's time to 12 step the crackberry again. We admitted we were powerless over email, and that our lives had become unmanageable. What did people do before the Internet anyway?

Mid-day blogging

I have this project I could be working on - but I can't seem to wrap my mind around it. It's complicated and I've been avoiding it. I just cleaned my whole office. I am actually really pretty busy, but I can't get the partner that I work for to pay any attention to me, which means the pile of questions that I have for him is lingering on the floor and I've got some time on my hands. Which is actually unusual. I wish there were a little more consistency. The past two days I worked until 8 p.m. (and I got here at 7:45 a.m. - long day), today I am cleaning my office and blogging. Hmm. Just watch, every thing will come undone thirty minutes before I need to leave early (5:45) to go to my favorite AA meeting.

Maybe the contents of my head are distracting me today. I have definitely had a hard time concentrating. So, I am going to vent. I thought, for a split second this morning, about taking public transportation. Then I drove. I really have a complex about this. I have way over analyzed it. I mean - it's hard to argue that I should be taking public transportation when I have calculated and re-calculated and determined that I only save $14-20 per week by not driving (it's a complicated analysis with several assumptions). I guess I didn't factor gas into it though. Hmm. Maybe worthy of a re-calculation. Except that you know I will keep driving and feeling lame about it.

My sponsor is pissing me off. She has actually succeeded in making me feel really bad about expressing stress and anxiety about my upcoming mammogram. She told me I am stuck in self-centered fear and that I should not be calling up people to talk about it - I should be calling up people and only asking questions about them. Now, I get the value of helping other people to get outside of yourself and to get relief from self-centered fear - however, we aren't talking about the kind of self-centered fear that makes you worry about what will happen if you can't save 100K for a down payment and what if you don't get the project you want to do at work, and what if no one ever wants to date you again (yes, these are some of the things I worry about when I lose perspective). We are talking about life and death, this is serious, I don't want to die young of cancer, a miserable and horrible painful death. I want to live, desperately. I'm terrified and she seems to think I shouldn't be expressing that. Well I disagree with her. You can bet I won't bother calling her to tell her I'm worried about it. That's not good - that I feel like I now can't tell my sponsor absolutely anything. She really did make me feel bad about it.

On a related note - please be careful what you say and think before you speak - remember you don't always know who you are talking to, or what their life experiences have been. There is a reason I don't like to share about certain things at AA meetings - like the fear and anxiety that I have about this mammogram. I like to deal with things myself - which I know isn't the best way - but I don't always deal well with people's responses/reactions or advice. Telling me to just not worry about it is a ridiculous and impossible solution. This girl said to me - well, we are all going to die eventually anyway. I thought, you stupid and incredibly insensitive bitch.

This morning I called someone an asshole while driving - so much for remembering to bless the person. He honked at me for not accelerating fast enough for him through the light. He deserved it. I told someone else (in my head of course) that they had a really stupid looking car. It's true though - he had a really stupid looking car.

My nephew and sister-in-law are coming home from Germany for a visit and I am so excited - I can't wait. I saw them in June when I went to Germany. This is my nephew (on my brother's and sister-in-law's blog). He is so cute. I can't wait to kiss his feet again and make him giggle. I've already bought him a whole bag of clothes and I am going to go buy him more, just because. I asked my brother if it was okay - cause I don't know if it bothers them that I like to buy him clothes and donate to his college fund - he told me it's fine as long as it doesn't require an extra suitcase to get back to Germany. Ha ha ha. I can't wait! I suppose I could ship things to him instead.

I have these lunch plans tomorrow that I am nervous about. It's so ridiculous. This isn't a date - but I've never met the guy and he is not an AAer. I guess since I stopped drinking, I stopped hanging out with "normal" people. Rarely do I find myself in social situations that aren't sober social situations or I am at least always with sober people. It isn't that I can't handle such situations or don't enjoy them (well, sometimes I don't, it depends), it's just that I can't remember the last time I had a conversation with a guy that wasn't program (and wasn't also an asshole actually) and didn't know the truth about me. I mean - there is a certain level of comfort when I am surrounded by other AA people that I don't find as much when I am with non-AA people and having to hide that part of myself. What makes this extra ridiculous is that this is not a date, and I've already spent way too much time thinking about what to wear. I need to wear flat shoes so I am not too tall (cause I'm pretty tall)...I mean seriously - I don't need to impress this guy. I'm just volunteering to help people through his organization. (Okay, I have a secret hidden agenda - I am at least hoping to expand the social circle of people that I hang around by participating in events etc. I need to do something besides work and go to AA meetings).

I tried Zoloft and had to go off of it a week after starting. I was so tired I couldn't function. Not to mention that I actually felt a lot worse on it. It brought me relief from all of the anxiety I feel, but quickly sent me into a depression. How can it be that I am more depressed on an anti-depressant? I think there is some merit to the argument that I am mildly bipolar, even though I don't ever reach the level of a true manic episode. Two nights ago I was hysterical, crying on my bedroom floor, writing that last post, begging God to help me - but last night when I got home from work, I thought - my life is great, everything is great - woohoo - things couldn't be better. Watch, tomorrow I will be devastated again. I've been seeking relief from this up and down and up and down and up and down - but I've always been this way. I'm used to it, but tired of it, but medication isn't working for me.

Damn, it's only 1:30. I thought surely I'd been blogging long enough that it would be 2 by now. I wonder if there are cookies left over upstairs from the partners meeting. I don't really want to go check though and be seen sneaking cookies by anyone coming out of the meeting.

Okay, well, I've run out of random things to say. I will add a little gratitude though. I am grateful that I am healthy (as far as I know). I am grateful that the sun is shining in Chicago today. I am grateful that I get to share some time with my nephew - who reminds me what it is like to be present in the moment. I am grateful that my favorite meeting is tonight. I am grateful to be sober. I am grateful for all of the people I have connected with through blogs!

The fall and the spring

It's funny sometimes how you go right back to a place you have been before - to a moment and a feeling, and it feels just the exact same way. I posted this post, called Living As If, about my life, about dying, about living, about the present, about being in the exact moment - last November. Well, I am right back there, this is exactly what I am feeling and I am suffering from a complete inability to wrap my mind around what happened to me.

And I posted this second post this May called The Day in Between. I am overwhelmed with sadness, and with regret.

I have a follow-up mammogram coming up - it isn't until September 6th, yet I am a wreck already. This isn't the first follow-up, it is the second one and I am wholly unprepared for what this feels like. There is a part of me that regrets the decision not to have a double mastectomy. I feel like I have left myself in a position to have this happen again, or worse, when I could have prevented it. All I can tell myself is that I made the best decision that I could at the time with the information that I had. But if I hadn't cared so much that no guy would ever want to be with me again, I might have made a different decision. If I hadn't felt so bad about myself to begin with and so ashamed of everything, I might not be sitting here crying. I literally don't think I can deal with this.

Between depression, anxiety and motivation

So my sponsor and I agreed to lay off on the 90 meetings in 90 days. It was causing me a lot of stress because of my job. Between my job, going to a therapist, going to a psychiatrist, going to the dentist, doctor's appointments - it's just really hard for me to go to a meeting every day. Basically I had decided to space out appointments with a therapist - because if I go to a meeting and to the therapist in one day, I lose 2.5 hours of my day (that valuable billable time), and I just can't do it - I just end up working even later than I already do. It seems like it might make sense to go to fewer meetings and more therapy appointments. It's about balance right? Can you guess what has happened since my sponsor and I talked about not doing the 90 in 90? I haven't been to a meeting since Wednesday. Now granted that's only 3 days without a meeting, but still. For the first 9 days of my commitment to do this 90 in 90 I went to 10 meetings - then between days 10 and 15 I only went to 1. Frankly I am extremely disappointed in myself.

I felt really good during that 9 day period, and now I don't. I'm full of excuses for not going - I have two friends in town this weekend. This is a bad excuse because they totally don't care and would have had no problem with me going to meetings. I am basically just really disappointed in myself.

On a related note, I started taking Zoloft on Tuesday and immediately couldn't sleep. On this drug I am tired from about 1 p.m. to 7 p.m., then wake up around 10:30, finally fall asleep, wake up at 1:30, wake up at 5:30 and then at 6:30 I when it is time to get up, I feel like I could sleep all day. I basically feel like I didn't sleep at all because the sleep I do get is not restful. I am frustrated enough with this that I feel like giving up. Both times that I have gone on a drug I felt pretty good when I went on it - anxious yes, but not depressed. I am trying these things for anxiety, not depression. The first time I ended up paranoid and depressed - this time, well, we'll see.

The problem is, I'm torn because I actually do feel anxiety relief. Even today, only 5 days later, I do feel noticeably less anxious. My doctor told me I would be able to tell on about day 5. The only way I can describe it is to say that the things that bother me are still there, they just don't bother me. It is nice not to feel anxious all the time, however, I feel like I'm just trading one problem for another. For some reason, for me, when the anxiety goes, so does the motivation. Is that normal? Already I feel myself not caring about things. My house is completely trashed right now, and all I want to do tomorrow after my friends leave, is lay on my couch and sleep as much as possible. So what if there is enough dust and cat hair under the dresser to knit my cat a sweater, I just don't care. So what if I'm behind at work, I just don't care. So what if I have errands to run, I just don't care. So what if I hate my life, I am unmotivated to change it.

Isn't there some kind of happy medium between depression, anxiety and motivation? I can't find it.

The great obsession of every abnormal drinker

I thought about drinking a couple of days ago (I may post later about why, etc.), hence I have selected a few things from the Big Book that I was reading just now on Step 1, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable. Today, even more so than most days, I am incredibly grateful to still be sober. If ever I question whether or not I might actually be an alcoholic (which is where my head has been the past few days), all I have to do is read the Big Book. I related to these words the first time I read them. There was great fear involved in this initial read of the Big Book, but now there is comfort - because I am reminded every time I pick up this book, that there is a solution.

"The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.

We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed.

We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such intervals - usually brief - were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization....Over any considerable period we get worse, never better." Page 30

"Despite all we can say, many who are real alcoholics are not going to believe they are in that class. By every form of self-deception and experimentation, they will try to prove themselves exceptions to the rule, therefore nonalcoholic." Page 31

"Most of us have believed that if we remained sober for a long stretch, we could thereafter drink normally...We have seen the truth demonstrated again and again: "Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic." Commencing to drink after a period of sobriety, we are in a short time as bad as ever. If we are planning to stop drinking, there must be no reservation of any kind, nor any lurking notion that someday we will be immune to alcohol." Page 33

"To be gravely affected, one does not necessarily have to drink a long time nor take the quantities some of us have. This is particularly true of women. Potential female alcoholics often turn into the real thing and are gone beyond recall in a few years. Certain drinkers, who would be greatly insulted if called alcoholics, are astonished at their inability to stop." Page 33

There was a tremendous urge to cease forever. Yet we found it impossible. This is the baffling feature of alcoholism as we know it - this utter inability to leave it alone, no matter how great the necessity or the wish." Page 34

And finally, "If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic." Page 44

Most days, I feel like staying sober is the easy part - life is the hard part. Drinking hasn't crossed my mind since last October probably. Then every once and a while I am humbly reminded about this part of the disease. I found myself beating myself up for thinking about it, for obsessing over it. I found myself questioning myself these past few days - am I really an alcoholic, am I really sure? I remember when I first came into the program and my friend who brought me there finally pointed out that only alcoholics sit around questioning whether they might be alcoholics. My sponsor says I don't need to figure out why I have been thinking this way. The answer is simple. It is because I am an alcoholic. I should just be grateful that on most days, I live free of the desire and the compulsion and I should consider it a miracle that these moments are few and far between for me.

Observations on going "home" and coming back again, and what occurred to me in between

I've never done a bullet pointed post.

• First of all, I need to stop buying yogurt. I don't like it and I never have, so why do I keep trying?
• My favorite way to drive back into the city is north on Lake Shore Drive off of Stoney Island Ave. On a day like yesterday, when the sky is clear, and the weather beautiful - I love the skyline - that moment when it first comes into view. It's really amazing. The city up ahead of you, the lake on the right. I would probably like it even more if I didn't have to pee so bad by the time I got there, which brings me to my next point...
  
• There must be a way to better time my liquid consumption with the rest stops. Perhaps the 20 oz. pop at the last pee stop was not a good idea, considering I had already had two bottles of water.
• I need to stop calling people assholes in my head. Anytime anyone does something - for example, moves my cart out of the way at the grocery store (when I left it right in the way), I call them an asshole in my head. Or if they do something stupid while driving that affects me, I call them an asshole in my head. My new remedy for this is that I am going to try to remember to bless everyone that I call an asshole. You are an asshole - God bless you.
• I still don't want Alcoholics Anonymous to be the answer. But it is.
• Going home (like all things) is what you make it. Be wary of your expectations, both the good and the bad ones. "The outer world, far from being the prison of circumstances that it is commonly supposed to be, has actually no character whatsoever of its own, either good or bad. It has only the character that we give to it by our own thinking." - Emmet Fox
• White cheddar cheese rice cakes really aren't half bad, but I fail to see the point of them. They have no nutritional value and it is what I imagine eating flavored styrofoam would be like. Yes, I did imagine this - the texture, the taste. I am also the one who once tasted a dryer sheet, just to see what my cat's compulsion was all about. Dryer sheets are like kitty crack to my cat. I frankly didn't like them. The rice cake could be used as a delivery mechanism for peanut butter though - a plain one anyway. But why would you ever use a rice cake to deliver the peanut butter when you could use chocolate?
• My job is as stressful as I allow it to be.
• I would be a "shoe person" if my feet were smaller.
• Zucchini is not a vegetable I typically think of eating raw. It tastes like nothing.
• You might not think so, but you are as judgmental as the person you are judging for being judgmental. There will be a post on this later.
• Why is it that when you leave for 4 days your house kind of smells when you come home, but when you live in your house over the course of 4 days, it doesn't? Does my house smell and I am just used to it? Or is there something really foul going on in my garbage disposal when I'm not running water regularly?
• You might think I am a freak because I still worry about money, but everything really is relative.
• When I go to Ann Arbor, I realize I miss it. But I miss Chicago more.
• My sponsor just might be the coolest person I know.
• There really is something to be said for $25 hairspray.
• I still haven't fully grasped that the answer to most of my problems is to stop participating.
• I don't understand why people eat faux meat products. If you are a vegetarian, it is probably because you either don't like meat or don't agree with eating it - either way, why would you ever want to ingest something that resembles the very thing you don't eat? Soy beans and other stuff ground up and mushed into some kind of little chicken wing resembling thing. Frankly, if you don't eat meat to be healthy, well, I would argue for moderation instead. I have no problem with tofu - but if I am going to eat tofu, I want to eat tofu as tofu, not tofu masquerading as something else. I admit, I will eat the occasional veggie burger, for the sake of a really good veggie burger, but not as a meat substitute. I tried to eat faux sausages the other day (cause I love any kind of sausage - lately my fave has been tomato basil chicken sausage), I won't tell you what these things look like frozen. I'd rather eat no sausage, ever, than faux sausage.
• It is ridiculous that I am still driving to work, but I have no intention of stopping.
• I do complain, a lot.
• I could be happier. I could be less happy.
• Tomorrow I will have been sober for 20 months! When I went home this past weekend I realized just how few faces I recognized at meetings. Where have all the people gone? I remember being at a meeting really early on and someone saying - take a look around, only one of you at this table will ever have long term continuous sobriety. I want to be that one person.
• I bet you are all wondering about the time I ate a dryer sheet.

Home Again

Tomorrow I am going home to Michigan for a long weekend. I have mixed feelings about this. In fact, I am feeling rather like I did last September, when I wrote this post about feeling homesick. I don't know what it is exactly to feel homesick - it is something I imagine - I imagine what it must feel like to have a place that evokes a feeling of comfort unlike any other. I don't actually have such a place. It exists only in my imagination.

It is really with a pretty deep sense of sadness that I go to this place called "home" tomorrow. I haven't been there in three months - it was something that sounded like a good idea when I planned it. It sounded like a good idea in the same way that picking up the telephone and calling my mother sometimes sounds like a good idea - because you have this moment of so desperately wanting the person who picks up the phone to be someone other than they are - that for a second, you fool yourself into thinking maybe just maybe, maybe just this one time, she will be who you want her to be. Maybe just once going home will be what I imagine going home is supposed to be. I am disappointed before I get there.

Much of what exits there, which isn't much, I would prefer to leave behind. The memories, most of the people, most of the experiences. Most of it I would like to forget. There are days when I appreciate my story for just exactly what it is - just a story, with a lot of parts - just a story, not good or bad, just a fact. But there are moments when I so desperately wish my story were something other than it is. There are moments when I would trade in my strength, resiliency, independence - all of the things that I am, for another story, a happy story. I think of home as a place where there was a lot of lying, a lot of pretending, a lot of trying to live up to other peoples' real and imagined expectations, and consistently failing, among other things. My trips home feel like they are all about pretending. Pretending to be something other than I am - to be accepted and to be loved. Only sometimes do I ever have the thought that I would rather not be loved than be who you want me to be.

For some reason going home this time doesn't feel the same as it has in the past though. I have no illusions about it, hence the sadness I guess because I have given up the hope of ever having different memories. Even when it is painful, the memories, the experiences, it is sometimes, just briefly, more painful when you let go of them. I feel much more myself these days - something I never felt I was when I was in that town, ever. I don't really know how to go there and be me. I feel like I am going home as a different person this time. I can't explain how, I just know it isn't the same and it won't be the same experience. Some of the hope is lost, and with it, some of the possibilities. I don't feel like pretending and the only thing I know about not pretending, about being honest, about being true to who you are - is that pain follows.

I don't think I've ever felt such sadness before going home, such a feeling of loss, such an intense need for that feeling of comfort that I have only ever been able to imagine.

The red shirt example

My sponsor was talking tonight about the principles behind the steps. Step 1 - acceptance, 2 - belief, 3 - faith. I don't know that I ever thought about the distinction before - between belief and faith. I suppose there is one - but if you look these words up in the trusty American Heritage Dictionary - my favorite college professor's all time favorite book - these words define each other. To have faith is to believe and to believe is to have faith. But I think that I get the distinction that my sponsor was talking about. I have a belief, the acceptance of something as true, but my faith, which is a belief that is not logical and doesn't rest on anything "provable" is a belief on a whole different level. People sometimes say it is believing in the absence of any reason to believe or sometimes in the face of evidence to the contrary. I suppose it makes sense that belief presupposes faith.

Anyway, you always hear people say that "fear is the opposite of faith" because if you have faith, you don't need to be afraid. I do find that my level of fear is directly related to my level of faith - this is definitely true for me. In my most "God centered" moments, I do not feel afraid. But not that long ago at a meeting someone gave a great lead on spirituality and he said that "certainty is the opposite of faith (as opposed to doubt), because if you are certain about something, you don't need faith." I liked this way of putting it.

The only reason I am thinking about this so much lately is because if I am so sure that I have come to believe, and that I have faith - then what am I doing writing this blog instead of doing what my sponsor has told me to do? It is really very simple. It is so simple that I find it painful that I am sitting here not doing it. "Remember that we deal with alcohol - cunning, baffling, powerful." My friend that brought me into AA used to give me this example (which turned out to be a bad example because I ended up having cancer) - he used to say, if you were told you had cancer, and all you had to do was wear a red shirt, and you would be cured, you would wear the red shirt wouldn't you? Yeah, this over simplifies things, but that's kind of the point. So my sponsor says do X, Y and Z. And I say okay, then I kind of lie about whether I am doing it or not, and then I decide to X and/or Y and/or Z, say I pick two out of three and then I do them in the wrong order.

Then it becomes painful enough (because doing Z and then Y doesn't work), that I decide to pay attention, that I think for just a moment, I might stop trying to do this my way, and I will try doing it her way - remember, "Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely." My sponsor is telling me that if I do X, Y and Z, I get to live and I get to have a life that is more amazing than I can even begin to imagine. So I question my faith, my belief - do I believe that what she is telling me is true? Yes. Do I have faith that it will work for me? Yes. Then why are you blogging? Why am I talking to myself? Ha ha.

All I can think about is the red shirt example. If all you had to do was wear a red shirt - you would wear a red shirt. Of course. I think about December of 2005 when I got sober and the moment of acceptance and surrender - we all have those moments of grace - it is in a moment of grace that we get here, to the program. That moment when you finally get it is a moment of grace and how many of those moments do you get to have, and if you are so lucky, what will you do with it? Wouldn't it be nice if all I had to do, is what I have done? But it isn't enough. I am painfully aware of that. And if it hurts so much, and I believe there is a way out then why the hell am I not taking the action she is telling me to take? I simply don't get it. I want what she has and I know how she got it and she is telling me how to get it, and I'm just sitting here. I'm sitting here on my bed, with the dictionary, my Big Book, my 4th step, and the Sermon on the Mount by Emmet Fox, which my sponsor has told me to read - trying to figure out why I am sitting here crying.

I have faith that is almost unshakable. But it isn't enough. "There is action and more action. Faith without works is dead." The real moment of surrender, the first surrender, was the moment I gave in and decided to do what my sponsor told me to do - I was two weeks sober and I told her I was going to kill myself, and she said to me, "so you are telling me that you are going to give up without even trying?" I honestly believed in that moment that no matter how I tried, it wouldn't work. So I said fine, I'll try - I'll do everything you tell me to do and I will prove to you that this program doesn't work - and to my surprise, it was like my whole world changed in 30 days. It felt like a small miracle. But I need to surrender again - I need another moment like that moment where I commit myself to doing anything - what I need is the willingness to do absolutely anything necessary to save my own life.

Can I just do what she is telling me to do - for the next 90 days? Can I do a 90 in 90, do what she is telling me to do with my 4th step, do what she is telling me to do with my 9th step, read this book? Can I just give myself 90 days - commit myself to it - 90 days - we are talking only 90 little days out of a life time. Just 90 short little days. If someone told you that you could have this amazing life, beyond your wildest dreams, that it would be more amazing and more joyous than anything you could ever dream possible and all you had to do was everything someone told you to do (for example, wear a red shirt and every three hours take off your shoes and hop around in a circle on one leg) for 90 days and this life could be yours and you absolutely believed that if you did these things that life you have always wanted would materialize before your eyes in the most miraculous way - you would do it right? Of course you would. You would do it while I'm still blogging about doing it.

I'm not buying it

So, I attempted to log into one of my credit cards online today to check the balance, and to my astonishment, my online access has been suspended - due to recent suspicious activity, the details of which cannot be disclosed due to a law enforcement investigation. What does this mean? This means that the company has had to take action, based upon a data security breach, and law enforcement has probably asked that they delay notification to affected individuals, so they can't notify, but they also have to take action so there is no further compromise of data. Naturally, like everyone else, I called.

Do these people think we are stupid? I've been through this before. My data has been stolen before and I have had credit protection ever since. (Oh, and I practice data privacy law, sadly, I am intimately familiar with these state laws, though this really isn't what I do regularly). I knew this was not an isolated incident because I had to wait forever, that means everyone is calling. Then, the woman on the phone tries to tell me that this is related to the "brand" conversion because a new entity has acquired the card company. Right. Cards are being issued in the new entity name, and new account numbers are being assigned in the process. Hmm. When Cingular became AT&T, a new account number was not required. When MBNA became Bank of America, a new account number was not required.

Then she tries to tell me that nothing is wrong with my account. Right, but that doesn't mean that my personal data hasn't been compromised, again. Then she asks if I am familiar with the TJ Maxx story, yes, and DSW and several others that I am prohibited from talking about due to the confidential nature of my involvement in the handling of the matter. And, what about TJ Maxx? How does this impact me? Well she says, they are giving everyone a new account number and having everyone re-activate their online account services in order to protect them from something like the TJ Maxx incident happening in the future. Right - and how is giving me a new account number going to protect me exactly - UNLESS MY DATA WAS STOLEN YOU MORON AND YOU ARE NOT TELLING ME. I mean, go ahead, give me a new account number, but this isn't going to protect you from losing it again. I AM NOT STUPID LADY.

So I said look, I want to know, what data was stolen, I want to know when, how and when can I sign up for the free credit protection that you are going to provide me? Oh yeah, and if something shows up on my credit report, in the meantime - what are you going to do to fix it?

Ma'am she says, this is part of a brand conversion. When was the last time a "brand conversion" had anything to do with a law enforcement investigation? Ma'am she says, all of our customers' online services have been suspended and everyone is being issued a new account number and card. Right, and a brand conversion is something that gets planned, gee, I don't know, with enough time to inform people that their account access will be terminated and a new account number provided. Ma'am, nothing is wrong with your account. I'm not worried about my account, I want to know who got my data? Was it encrypted? Ma'am. This must be one very big data breach you are experiencing if you have had to suddenly, and without warning terminate all online account activity and provide new account numbers. Ma'am, we are undergoing a brand conversion. Whatever lady. You better hope this is a brand conversion cause if it isn't, and I find out later that my data was stolen and you blatantly lied to me, I am going to be really fucking pissed and you are going to be sorry. (Okay, I didn't really say that part - but those of you who know me can imagine me having this phone conversation - I am quite good at it actually). The last time this happened, I actually told the poor guy off so good that I wished I could directly call him to apologize. It wasn't his fault. But I am sorry - waiting an entire month to notify of a security breach is just too long.

Then she says ma'am, do you have your credit card? Uh, yeah, it's right here in my wallet. What the hell does that have to do with anything?

You just wait, we are going to find out shortly here that AT&T UniversalCard, now Citibank, lost tens of thousands of peoples' personal data. I certainly hope not, but I won't be surprised.

She did also try to convince me that they are doing this during the brand conversion because "some" peoples' data was compromised through the TJ Maxx incident. Right, and how many months ago did that happen? I'm just not buying this.