That Damned Onion

You can't be in recovery long without hearing about the Onion: the work we do refines us on the inside, going deeper and deeper, getting to parts of our psyche like layers of an onion. As sick as I am of this metaphor, I have once again come up against the layer in me that always leaves me stuck, and stuck is something I can't afford.

I am 39 years old, but you wouldn't know it in the way I respond to my parents. I do not have adequate boundaries with them. When they are unhappy with me, I make myself physically sick with worry and anxiety. I'm a black-belt al-anon with everyone but them.

It ebbs and flows, and it is making me sick again. Whenever I tell them something I know will make them unhappy (mostly things beyond my control), the cycle begins: they go into a rant and I try to disappear inside myself or block them out or reason with them (never works).

Last night, I got a new sponsor, and told her all about it, that it was making me sick and I don't want to participate in the vicious cycle any more

So The Trudge Report is taking a bit of a turn, growing with my program. There's going to be a lot going on here about dealing with my parents. I'm finally sick of the onion making me cry.

My Search for Meaning

Hazelden's recovery thought for today from The Language of Letting Go reads, in part "Too often, we try to gain a clear perspective before it is time.That will make us crazy.We do not always know why things are happening the way they are.... In hindsight, we will know. It will become clear. For today, being is enough. We have been told that all things shall work out for good in our life. We can trust that to happen, even if we cannot see the place today's events will hold in the larger picture."

Life often makes no sense to me from the seat I'm assigned in the present. For example, I am now a couple of months into a job that more than likely is not going to work out, and that has been a great disappointment to me. I have no idea how many times I have thought to myself, "Why is this happening to me?" or second-guessed myself for taking this job in the first place.

If I'm not vigilant, I will get into woe-is-me, and that's not good for my sobriety. The Big Book tells me that "anger is the dubious luxury of normal men" and depression, as many professionals will tell you, is anger turned inward.

I come into this place each day, and I remind myself that I am here to be of service. I do what I know is the right thing at each moment, trying not to worry about what the future holds. This place was not built to fill me emotionally, so to expect emotional fulfillment here is irrational.

My favorite story in the book of my faith is the book of Job. Job is this all-around success story: well-to-do, great family, and respect in his community. One day, God and Satan are talking, and God says, "Hey Jerkalope! Check out Job! He is one of my biggest fans!"

The devil says, "Well sure he is - you've given him everything. Take away his stuff and then see how much he loves you - I dare you!"

And God does, and Job, though miserable in his new, cruddy phase of life does not lose his faith that God sits supreme in the universe, doing everything for everyone's greater good.

The best part of the story for me is that Job specifically asks God why He took everything, and God doesn't ever tell him why. I love that because it tells me that it is not my job to know why things happen. It is only my job to respond properly.

What I Was Like

Once our noon meeting actually got started, today's topic was 'what is was like/what happened/what we are like now' because we had a newcomer present.

I've said before that when I started coming to meetings, I didn't get a "newcomers meeting" dedicated to me, thank God. I said in the previous post that folks don't hear me say "we'll love you until you love yourself", because I loved myself far too much when I came in, and that was my problem.

I felt that I was entitled to a lot better out of life, and if the rest of the world would spin in the direction I told it to go, everything would be great! As the BB says, "Selfishness! Self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles."

The world tells us to work on our "self esteem". Amazon.com has an entire catagory of self-esteem books with over 2600 items listed in it. However, I have yet to meet an alcoholic that got sober by building her self-esteem. I've met plenty of women who have gotten drunk with their self-esteem, and I'm one of them.

Nor do I need to "embrace my inner child", whatever in hell that means. I spent my entire drinking life acting like one. Someone should have called Inner CPS over the way I treated my Inner Child! Maybe had to put in an Inner Foster Home? Anyway ... I am 37 years old and somebody's mom - time to be an Outer Grownup.