My Tangled Mess
Dec 28, 08- (by Mama MPJ)
- 6 responses
- Sober Salon
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I remember a friend telling me that she found it hard at a particular point in recovery to go to Al-Anon meetings because there was almost too much progress in the rooms. So many people were at a place in their recovery where they’d moved beyond talking about a loved one’s alcoholism and were really focusing on their own issues. So, they would talk about how they worked through resentments around something a coworker had done or how they came to a new understanding of their fear of abandonment during a disagreement with a friend of where to have dinner. None of those things seemed to address where she was and the problems she was having coping with another person’s addiction.
I think of that way sometimes when I sit down to write about where I am in relation to my husband’s sex addiction and my own codependency, since honestly, the issues that are most pressing on my mind are the seemingly mundane ones: coping with Mark’s work schedule, working through my need to plan outings in detail, finding my way through my inability to schedule in consistent homework time for the kids. These things don’t seem like part of recovery, and yet they are. Everything is at this point.
There was a certain crazy way of looking at the world, at life, at myself that led me to be attracted to a sex addict and not recognize his addictness as anything out of the ordinary. And that craziness that led me to marry a sex addict wasn’t limited to just this relationship. I had warped ways of dealing with family members and friends and coworkers and my kids’ teachers and other drivers on the highway and folks who bagged my groceries. I’ve really worked on the part of my life that was twined up in my husband’s addiction, but I’ve come to see that my issues still have themselves wrapped around other things in my life. It’s all part of the same tangled mess.
But I wonder, when I write about things like almost-resentments around almost-lost stuffed animals, how much of that is going to help someone in the throes of that new hell of find out about the breadth and depth of a loved one’s addiction. But of course, wondering about that is part of my own tangled mess too.
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How does it help? It helps to know that the progress is ongoing, not finally complete and perfect. It helps to know that one day I won’t just be tense and dark and sad all the time about Loved One’s addiction, and that it might be my job to find ways to recognize that life is really happening to me — that there is a huge reality outside of Loved One’s addiction that involves lost stuffed animals and coworkers and homework time. And if I’m not there yet, it’s nice to hear that it’s out there, and it’s not just there for the perfectly organized, debtless and trouble-free.
Depending on where other readers are at, it could help more than you know. I took comfort initially in all the stories that were my normal for so many years - stories that I could not tell my own family because they were just too crazy, but the stories that others told gave me comfort in the knowledge that I was not alone and there there was hope.
It helps to give us a sense of normalcy - that life isn’t always going to be about books and meetings and therapy and 12-steps. Beyond the hard work being done to stay sane, and to stay sober, the small things are what the blessings of life truly are. Progress is always being made, even if we are not at the same stage as others. Everyone has a story they need told, and all of us can at times find that kernel of truth for ourselves in their sharing. I am grateful to you and others out there with the courage to express what they feel, what’s going on in their lives, “tangled mess” or not. It helps me to know I’m not alone, especially at the times when I do indeed feel the most lonely.
If it’s the story you need to tell, it’s the right story for today. Those who need it will find what they need. Not everyone will need what you have to offer, but that’s OK, as long as offering it is what you need to do.
I’m not married to a sex addict and I’m not recovering from any addictions. Yet I still learn from your writing. I see where I’m connected to humanity, I learn about struggle, I see that problems are not so different whether or not they come with an addiction attached. Anyone open to listening and learning can gain something here wherever they are. That’s what sharing our stories is about. And you can’t reach every person every minute of the day. That is not what your story is about. If you reach one person, you’re doing better than most of us can hope for. That connection os hard to find, and so valuable. Don’t doubt it.
I think that it’s just very good to be able to look past the yuckiness of addiction and realize that even though it’s still all tangled up in what you do everyday…that there is normalcy still. Dishes still need to be washed, kids taken care of….life doesn’t end just because addiction is in the picture.