The Junky’s Wife recently forwarded me a news story about a woman who posted a question to Apple’s support forum about a possible problem with her husband’s iPhone. “Susan042764″ from New Jersey asked if there was any known issue with iPhones attaching and e-mailing photos by themselves. Apparently, when she found naked pictures of her husband attached to an e-mail to another woman, her husband told her there was a porn ghost in his machine that sent them without his knowledge. He claimed to have been as shocked as his wife was to find racy pictures in his outbox and told her…

Anne Lamott (come on, woman, set up a Google alert on your name and come find me already, for crying out loud) is one of my favorite writers. Recently, I have been reading Grace (Eventually) in stolen moments, usually in the bathroom. The kids are not generally detoured by a closed bathroom door, but they seem to hesitate at the sound of running water, or maybe I they waver when the sound of the shower causes a delay in my response. So, I’ve learned to turn on the shower and “wait for the water to heat up” while I read. (Yes,…

When my husband first started recovery for sex addiction, I used to try to give him these helpful practical tips for how to not cheat on me. After all, I was very successful at not cheating on him. In “Not Cheating on my Husband,” I was getting an A+; I had an absolutely flawless record. He, on the other hand, was getting an F in Not Cheating on his Wife and was clearly in need of some tutoring. And who better to get guidance from than me?

In theory, doing such exceptional work at Not Cheating wasn’t easy for me. After…

When I was about eight or nine, I took my beloved uncle’s cigarettes away and started flushing them down the toilet. I didn’t want him to die prematurely (as he did anyway). Even as a child, I was sure that if I showed him how desperately I did not want him to kill himself, he’d stop. He never did. I wanted that change to somehow be within my power, yet it was completely out of my control. Sometimes death comes before change.

When I was trying to have children, I feared I wouldn’t be able to get pregnant. And once I…

In the original (non-Disney) version of Cinderella, the evil stepsisters, unable to fit their large feet into Cinderella’s tiny glass slipper, cut off their toes. I always wondered what they were thinking. Of all the places to try to hide a bloody foot, a clear glass slipper isn’t exactly the best spot. Yet, they are so desperate to be the woman the prince wants that they are willing to grotesquely hack off body parts to do it.

The action is so horrific, it seems unthinkably insane, and yet today, I was thinking that it’s exactly what I’ve done and expected others…

I was recently working with my online step group on Step 8 of the 12 Steps. This is the one where we make a list of people we’ve harmed and become willing to make amends with them. One of the exercises we completed asked us to name the person we’d harmed the most and think about how we were going to make amends.

So, I looked over my list and thought about all the people I’d hurt most in my life. Should my parents be at the top? They’re the ones who have known me and put up with me the…

Step 7: Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings

I’ve been going through the process of working the 12 Steps around my own personal craziness, and last week, I reached the point where I was supposed to humbly ask God to remove my shortcomings. Whew! That has so many problematic words in it. I mean even if we forget about “shortcomings” (because, let’s face it, don’t most of us want to keep on keeping on with the ignoring in that department?), we have words like “God” and “ask” and “remove” and (trickiest of all) “humbly.”

I don’t know about you, but I…

The other night, my husband and I were watching The Amazing Race, a show in which teams of two people follow clues to race to various destinations around the world. Many of the teams view this challenging competition as an opportunity to work together and become closer to each other, and this is true of one of the current teams, a married couple named Ken and Tina.

In the most recent episode, Ken expressed frustration at where their relationship was and said (I wish I had the direct quote, but I’m paraphrasing here) that he wanted to see more rapid change,…

unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy.
I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world
as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.

~Alcoholics Anonymous (Big Book)

This past week has been one of those in which I look at my life, not with gratitude for all that I do have, but in despair for all that I don’t. I have been craving the things that others seem to have: time, money, older independent children (or no children…

As part of the process of working through my Third Step, I did a two exercises designed to help put me in touch with my Higher Power.

In the first, I was supposed to meditate on people I’d admired and the spiritual gifts I’d received from them. But it was like trying to keep the foreground and background of a picture in focus at the same time. I’d think about the people, and God would slip out of focus. I’d quiet my mind and feel closer to God, and the people would slip away. Eventually, fuming with frustration, I decided to…

Someone asked me recently what has changed in my marriage since I discovered your sex addiction, and I gave her an answer — about building true intimacy and closeness in the real world, rather than the pleasant illusion of all that in a fantasy world — that was true, but not complete. One of the things that has changed is the way in which I view you yourself.

I have always loved you, passionately, irresistibly. You’re smart, kind, attractive and a joy to…

I’ve heard that the first year is always the hardest, whether it’s the first year after you lose a loved one or end a relationship or start recovery. There are all those significant dates rolling around for the first time in your changed life. Last year on your birthday you were chatting with your dad, but this year he isn’t around. Last year on New Year’s Eve, you drank until you blacked out, but this year you’re trying to do it sober. Last year on Valentine’s Day, you had a beautiful night with your husband, but this year you know…

My husband and I have a special association with the weekend that marks the end of daylight savings time (or rather the weekend that used to mark the end of daylight savings time, since the powers that control such things have moved it around lately). Nineteen years ago, on the day we turned the clocks back, I met Mark. We joke that things were meant to work out that way to give us an extra hour together.

And while the time doesn’t change for another week yet, Mark decided to honor the old daylight savings weekend with a gift. He took…

A few days ago, as I was sitting in my living room writing, two smiling grey-haired women knocked on my front door. They handed me a pamphlet titled “Would You Like to Know the Truth?” and told me it had answers to many of the questions people ask about life and about God.

A few years ago I would have been angry and resentful that they interrupted my writing time to try to push their God on me. I would have mocked their pamphlet as full of opinions masquerading as “The Truth.” I would have torn it apart, bit by bit,…

I was out walking with my daughter today, and she wanted to feed the birds. She didn’t want to feed the birds breadcrumbs or birdseed though; she wanted to feed them berries and acorns and pinecones we found along the way: things they could presumably just fly on down and eat if they wanted to. But not trusting them to pluck or find what they needed, she decided to pick these delicacies for them and pile them on the sidewalk where they would be easy to find.

When I was about her age, I lived near a field of tall grass…

It happened in a blink. Years ago, I wouldn’t even have noticed that the feeling came and was stuffed down again.

Today, I was looking for a sharp knife to cut a loaf of bread. There was one in the knife rack, but it was big, and I always like to use the smallest, dullest knife that will suit my purpose, because I have an extreme fear of death, um, I mean, sharp objects. I opened the dishwasher, which I assumed was full of clean dishes. I pulled out a steak knife and found it was covered in crud. The dishes…

I’ve been working the 12 Steps with an online group, and after a few weeks compiling our fearless and searching moral inventories, our group finished Step 4. When I shared some of my work with my husband, he was amazed at how thorough the work was. “You’ve done about a years worth of work in a few weeks!” he said. And he means it.

Mark started working the steps five years ago when he began his recovery and he is currently on Step 7. Part of this is due to the painstaking thoroughness with with Mark approaches problems, and part of…

I have been working on Step 4 of the 12 Steps, making my own fearless and searching moral inventory. This inventory is meant to contain my character defects, but also my character strengths. The problem is, it’s a lot easier to come up with a list of seventy-five million resentments than it is to come up with a handful of unqualified strengths. And I say “unqualified strengths,” because while there are many fabulous things about me, I’ve attached mental qualifiers to them all.

I’m caring, but I can spend so much energy caring for others that I don’t properly care for myself.…

Mark and I recently went to a party. I’ve never been a big party person; more than once in high school and college (at the height of most people’s partying lives), I’ve called at the last minute to tell the host of a party that I couldn’t attend, because (although I never admitted this) I wanted to stay home and read a book.

What I like best about parties is getting the chance to catch up with friends and talk. Oh, and the cake. I like it if there’s good cake. What I’ve never found appealing about them is the noise,…

Imagine (and for those of you that have been through it, this isn’t a stretch) that you are a healthy, moderate drinker in a relationship with someone you come to realize, through great pain and damage, is an alcoholic. After having your life torn apart by the consequences of your partner’s drinking, you might (among many possible reactions) become so sick at the sight of alcohol that it simply doesn’t appeal to you any more, and you might find yourself giving up drinking, even though it is not harmful to you directly.

This is exactly the reaction I had to my…