Tonight, my students are learning about how to write personal narratives. I’ve sent them on a mission to discover a few great examples of personal stories, and one of the places I sent them was to the online version of the Big Book. I asked them to take a look at the stories that follow the original text and to analyze the structure.

The Big Book tells us that the way to tell our recovery stories is to describe what we were like, what happened, and what we’re like now. I thought it would be a great assignment for my students…

In…

I’m thinking a lot today about walls.

I’ve learned quite well to protect myself from my husband by throwing up great, big, frozen, insurmountable walls. I hunker down behind them. There have been good reasons for me to feel the need to be safe, and I’ve learned out of a strong sense of survival. It works well in the short term, and it keeps me from following my husband off a cliff, which is my immediate, instinctual response.

It doesn’t, though, truly work. As long as I can construct a big enough wall to keep me far away from his pain, I…

I am in counseling to deal with the sexual abuse in my childhood. I’ve been going for a few months now, and we are only beginning to touch on the fringes of the childhood stuff.

It’s sucky. It’s hard. Apparently, I’m really angry with my parents.

Today, we talked about a peripheral story to the sexual abuse. A friend of the main perpetrator in my life would sometimes touch me inappropriately. Between the ages of 10 and 16, this guy would push himself up against me, shut himself in rooms with me, and generally show up in places where a grown man…

Everyone, everywhere: Stop everything, and go buy this book:Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections between Sexuality and Spirituality. I borrowed it from a friend, and it is the most interesting thing I’ve read in a while.

I’m only a few chapters in, but I’ve already been floored. So far, the emphasis is on restoring sexuality to its spiritual center…recovering the human-to-human connectedness that can get lost when we objectify each other. It’s beautifully written, and it seems a bit more like a poem than a book in some ways.

The author is distinctly Christian in his descriptions of God, but as I…

My husband and I met up with an old friend tonight. It was a guy he’d known at the beginning of his active addiction, and they’d lost each other as both of their diseases had spiraled out of control. I remembered that this kid had recently gotten married and had a newborn, so I was excited to bump into him and hear how the baby was doing. He looked fatter, happier, and clean.

The boys chatted for awhile about small talk, but eventually, the topic of his child and wife came up. He explained that his wife had asked him to…

I seem to be on a Nar-Anon vacation. In my time attending Nar-Anon, I’ve never done it before. I know lots of people who have, and I’ve always thought, “Why in the world would anyone stop attending meetings?”

And now I find myself stopping attending meetings. I don’t mean to be stopped, but I am stopped, anyway.

I’m not sure why. I heard from my sponsor tonight, and she said that folks are asking about me. I should call folks. I miss my friends, but I can’t seem to get myself to a meeting.

I’m working on my steps with my Al-Anon sponsor…

I’ve been in an odd place lately, where I feel like I’m in some kind of siginificant transition. I’m not sure what’s ending and what’s beginning, but it’s sure gotten me reflective.

I met some new friends tonight, and we were kind of talking about our life stories. I realized that I have something of a testimony, now. I’ve been brought to my knees, and seen the light…like what I always heard might happen to me in my childhood, in hymns and sermons and stories. I heard these things, dismissively. I heard them like background noise…like so much blah, blah, blah.

Until…

After my husband’s last episode of doing things that hurt me, I found myself compulsively cleaning him. Every night after he came back home, I asked him if he’d like to take a shower together. We’d get in, and I’d scrub him from head to toe. It felt good to wash off all the deception, all the hurt. It felt like I might be able to shed a layer of skin that had been on him. I might be able to purify.

Next, I washed all his clothes. I had a good reason…our washer is broken, so I piled all his…

My husband has taken to his bed for the last several days. He is down-dosing from his methadone a milligram every other day, and it’s been tearing his mood to shreds. He wakes up in the morning, and we go to the clinic together. He comes home and watches a little television. I usually fall asleep with my head in his lap. I get up a little later, get dressed for work, and he goes outside and works in the yard. I come home between classes to be with him, and we usually hang out until it’s time for my…

A few days ago, a friend had come over to my house to meet my kitten. It has happened a number of times that a friend has dropped by, and I’ve apologized and excused myself repeatedly about how messy the house is. I’d like to blame my husband for the mess, and truly, much of the mess is his. His clothes move around from room to room, as if he never can quite believe that he’s going to be staying here for long. One or the other of us, inevitably, will decide that he and his clothes should go stay…

There are a few parts of my life where I feel qualified to give advice to  others.  I love to give advice to the wives of addicts. I feel comfortable in that arena. I also love to give advice to people who are struggling with writing projects. I’m good at helping them overcome their humps.

There are some areas, though, where I’d rather saw off my own arm than offer advice. Particularly, when my husband asks me for advice or feedback, it scares the hell out of me. First, it scares me because I truly, madly, deeply want to give him…

My husband and I are in the refractory period. After each crisis, there is a period of respite. We are kind to one another. We are self-reflective. We have faced a world without each other, and we have been afraid.

He’s sorry for hurting me, and he’s sorry for the mistakes he has made recently. I’m lapping up his sorries. It’s a stupid dance, but it’s a dance that addicts and partners have been doing for hundreds of years.

I wonder sometimes what my bottom would be in this relationship. Every time I think there’s something that I couldn’t take…some bridge that…

Sometimes, when my husband smiles, it is my favorite. There are small creases around his mouth and eyes that show up only when he smiles. Sometimes, I am able to make him smile. It is my thing, then, a thing I have created, just with words and touches. I always want to be able to create things in him with words and touches. That’s kind of at the core of codependence…I want my words, my lips, my hands and all to be magic for him. I want them to inform his feelings, his choices, his thoughts. I want to be…

“You just need to be a flea against injustice. Enough committed fleas biting strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation.”

-Margaret Wright Edelman

I’ve been looking for more and more ways to use my time for service. My new schedule will mess up some of my meeting attendance, so I’m looking for other ways to serve than through my 12 step groups. Last weekend, I donated some time to an organization that helps to repair houses for folks in need. I sanded some walls, scrubbed some floors, and left feeling a little better for having…

I’ve had a busy day today, and even managed to squeeze in some time for affection from my husband. He’s not done with me. He thought he was for a minute, but he’s not. Part of me thought he might be, but part of me knows that it’s kind of impossible for us to leave each other alone for very long. Something in us is knitted together, and it’s not unraveling very easily.

I worked this morning, rushed off to a therapy appointment to adjust my medication, rushed back to work, rushed off again for counseling with my trauma recovery therapist,…

It’s still patient, and that patience is paying off. Today, my husband and I had a good, long talk. He’s still crazy and in a pretty complicated place these days, but he is at last acknowledging it. He has stopped laying the blame of all his complicated feelings at my feet, and he told me a lot of the ways he’s feeling confused. He also assured me he loves me, always, and that he doesn’t understand why he’s treating me so unfairly.

It makes me proud of him when he is owning his stuff. I know it’s a little crazy to…

My husband has been home for 3 nights in a row now. Am I supposed to be happy? I am happy. Maybe. I’m at least content. I know where he is. I am glad to know where he is.

Today, I cleaned a room in my house. It’s been a while since I’ve had a room in my house that was presentable for other people. I’m making a project: for the next several weekends, I’m going to clean one room at a time. Eventually, I’ll have a whole house that doesn’t look like it’s for animals.

I listened to podcasts of old…

I am getting a haircut today. Tomorrow, I’m going to pick my yoga practice back up. Maybe I’ll get some hair color, too.

I’m teaching. I’m getting writing gigs pouring in. I’m going to do some serious volunteer work with my new church this weekend. This evening, I’m going to go to 2 meetings. Hopefully, I’ll see my Nar-Anon sponsor and my Al-Anon sponsor. I think tomorrow I might try out a new meeting…

If I keep putting my energies into myself, my step work, and my relationship with God, I will be ok.

In the last several days, I have hardly been…

I got myself a new dress. It’s green. It’s pretty on me, hugs me just right. I put on some makeup. My hair is clean.

Maybe I’ll get a new haircut. It’s been a while since I’ve been to a salon.

I’m at work, and my head is kind of magically clear today. I am sad that my marriage is falling apart. I’m sad I fought so long for something so pointlessly.

But behind it all, I’m happy.

I am happy with who I’ve become. I’m happy with my life. I’m happy with my relationships with everyone except my husband. I’m happy with my…

I’m reading Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growthby Richard Foster, and I just finished the chapter on prayer. One of his recommendations for improving our prayer life is to use our imagination to envision the outcomes we’d like to see happen. It’s contradictory to the 12 step mode of prayer in some ways, as it is suggesting that the pray-er has a vote in the universal outcomes…we can do more than pray only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry it out.

I was interested in the practice, though, and I thought I could…

T’was Grace that taught my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.
For a long time, I measured my life by karma. I looked at the world around me, and I saw that there were causes for all the effects. I’m learning, though, that I fare a lot better on grace than I ever did with karma.

I grew up in a Baptist church, hearing a lot about “grace,” but I never really understood the concept until recently..

I went to a Krishna Das kirtan last year, and he said at the beginning of it that grace is what orders his life so…

I am not letting this latest situation with my husband go. Not at all.

I want him to come home. At this moment, I haven’t seen in in 49 hours and 10 minutes. I haven’t heard from him. I have no idea where he might be or what he might be doing.

I want to know what’s going on, even though I know that it doesn’t matter what is going on. Nothing changes in the knowing. I’d just be more hurt from it. I still want to know.

My Al-Anon sponsor keeps saying that a need to know is a need to control.…

I am on a nearly constant prayer vigil lately. I am praying that whatever has come over my husband goes away. Something is pulling at him, pulling him away from me. Pulling him away from what is best in himself.

He has spent several nights out all night. During his active using, staying out all night wasn’t a part of his repertoire. It’s something I’m quite familiar with from past relationships, but it’s new in this marriage.

I am pretty sure he’s not using, but I am not sure what is going on. There is a part of me that wishes, almost,…

“Everyone else can see how much I’ve changed. My friend noticed it last night…he said that he can really tell that I’m more spiritual now. Everybody can see it but you,” he said.

I am having a hard time these days communicating with him, but I knew the right answer this time.

“I always could see it,” I said. “I’ve always seen the good in you. I’ve always seen God in you.”

It’s true. The diamond core at the heart of my husband has shined for me from the moment we met. Through all the darkest times of his addiction, I always saw…

Lately, I keep finding myself in situations where I am kind of awakened to my own problems. I’ve got some deep wounds, and sometimes it seems like the harder I work to heal them, the more they stand out to me. I keep finding myself telling stories of things that have happened in my life or situations that have arisen, and I’ll realize that there are layers and layers of depression, trauma, acting out, and all kinds of emotional problems that emerge as a kind of understory for each event.

I came home last night after having a slumber party with…

I am afraid. I am afraid. I am afraid.

I am afraid that my husband will leave me. I am afraid that I will leave him. I am afraid that this pain will never stop hurting in just the same way, over and over again. I am afraid he will be with another woman. I am afraid he will relapse. I am afraid I am not doing something right, something crucial. I am afraid of facing more pain, and I am afraid of this pain. I am afraid of leaving or staying. I can’t tell which hurts most.

I am afraid of…

My husband has a court date coming up, and he is blowing it off at hyperspeed. It is impressive to me the ways that he can ignore things that would drive me absolutely insane. I am glad to be in recovery and to approach his problems with clarity that they are, indeed, his problems. I am glad that I’m not obsessing.

His probation officer told him to get in touch with his public defender and to make a probation payment before his court date. He hasn’t done either of these things. I’m not sure what he is expecting to happen. I’m…

At the end of winter, I realized I was depressed. I’d let myself get into quite a state, and I went to our county mental health clinic to get some help. I got an antidepressant and something to help me sleep. The antidepressant did its magic, but I was still struggling to stay asleep, so at my follow-up appointment I asked about other medications. The nurse practitioner prescribed me something else, and now I can sleep and sleep and sleep. I can sleep forever. It’s wonderful, as I’ve been getting increasingly drained by waking up again and again throughout the…

When I first engaged with the wonderful world of bloggery, I was pretty careless with my anonymity. Actually, I was reasonably careful, as I never imagined that people would actually read my blog. I figured a few friends who were worried about me and who enjoyed my writing would keep up with it, and I’d use it as a way to communicate what was going on so that I didn’t have to tell the same story a million times to different people. It felt good to write it all out. I knew that anonymity was important, as revealing who I…

“You’ve got to ask God to forgive you. That’s all you’ve got to do. If you’re ready, ask Him right now,” said the pastor at church this morning. I’ve been attending a new church regularly for the last several weeks, and I’ve come to respect the minister greatly. There’s a lot of talk about being under renovation, being under construction, and doing the work of being remade. It’s the perfect message for where I am in my own life, and I’ve found the minister to be intelligent and the messages to be moving. This morning was all about forgiveness, both…