I’m sitting in a tattoo shop while my husband finishes his first tattoo in a shop in several years. Perhaps I shouldn’t be as excited for him as I am.

I missed this world. I have missed sharing this world with him. I have missed the smell of latex gloves, the smell of the green soap, and the grimy, colorful artwork. I have missed the artists and missed the customers. I’ve missed the stories and the lies and the drama. I mean, I’ve had plenty of stories and lies and drama.

I was talking with one of my spiritual leaders today about…

I spent the weekend at a Nar-Anon convention in another state, and it was spectacular. I had a hotel room gloriously to myslef, with lots of quiet. It had a big sliding glass door that opened out to a beautiful vista. I watched the ocean waves roll and smelled the salty air.

The time alone in the hotel room was as wonderful as the time in fellowship with my Nar-Anon people. My sponsor, my best friends in recovery, and one of the girls who I sponsor were all there. I lead a meeting on the 11th step, and I got a…

Creative Commons/ photo by Self-portrait_Girl

One of the girls I sponsor was having a nasty time yesterday with a boundary she has been struggling to set with the addict in her life around money. It’s a new boundary, and it’s one she wants desperately so that her own finances can be safe. She’s struggling in the ways that all of us in Nar-Anon struggle with financial boundaries…she doesn’t want to hurt the addict in her life’s feelings. She doesn’t want to seem bitchy or cold. She loves this person, and she hates for him to suffer. She doesn’t want to enable…

Last week, my Nar-Anon group had our quarterly group conscience meetings. We voted on new organizational strategies, coffee, philosophy, and all kinds of things. I love the way group conscience meetings work. I’ve never experienced anything quite like it.

We agree and disagree. We respect each other. We vote. We discuss. We listen and offer feedback, and we’re all passionate about what we’re discussing. It is, after all, a life or death deal, these meetings.

One of my best friends proposed that we have a tradition meeting once a month. I thought it sounded like an awful idea. I don’t like meetings…

We had a minor crisis this morning, and it reminded me of how very much I love being a part of a support network.

I was out of town for a few days, and the homeless family that is staying with us had said that they’d give my husband a ride to the methadone clinic in the mornings until I got back in town. They took him the first morning without a hitch, but on the second morning, they decided that they weren’t going to be able to take him.

It creates complicated feelings for me. These folks are living in my…

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…

Today, I listened to some of my favorite people in the world do another part of their fifth step, and I shared some of my own story with them. It’s the third time I’ve been through this process now, and each time, I feel like it gets me closer and closer to the truth…the truth about me and about the people around me.

Today, I shared the part of my story that involves sexual abuse. I shared about my resentments toward my mother and father, and I talked about the new set of resentments I have for my husband since he’s…

I can get enough of the Responsibility Declaration of AA:

I am responsible. When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand of AA always to be there. For that, I am responsible.

We discussed it yesterday at a meeting I attended, and it was funny because I’d chanted it to my husband who kept interrupting me and wanting attention while I was on the phone with a sponsee who was struggling. At the meeting, everyone shared on our thoughts of our own 12 step work and the idea of being responsible for passing on the tools we’ve learned through…

My new Al-Anon sponsor hasn’t yet been impressed with my nerdiness, not one time. She dishes and dishes out homework to me…be grateful for this…pray for that…wait a million years and pray a billion times before making any decisions…read a thousand books…and I do all of it, well and quickly, and not once has she ever given me a single gold star! Not an A+, not a 100% score…nothing! Every time I’m done with one thing, she just tells me to do something else!

What in the world is going on here? How hard do I have to work and how…

As I continue to grow in my recovery, I am finding that lots of people who I seek to advise me have lots of opinions about what I should do with my mornings and nights. Last night, my husband was waiting for me to go to bed as I went through my long, laborious ritual of self-care and God-seeking, and he finally had a mini-mantantrum to get my attention after an hour had passed.

When I began meditating with my guru, he started me out with 10 minute meditations in the morning and evening. I’ve now moved up to 20 minute…

Tonight, I am very, very angry at my husband’s disease. I’m angry because I remember the sweet man I married, and that man is nothing like the man I’ve been living with over the past few weeks.

The reading in our Nar-Anon daily meditation book today, which was about detachment, said:

The addict has to take care of his or her own life struggles, as we have to take care of our own lives. They may not see there is a problem if they never have to experience it. It is my responsibility to take care of me and my life. By…

We went to his parents’ house to have dinner tonight. It’s the first time I’ve been around them in a while. I didn’t deliberately decide to stop hanging out with his folks…it just kind of happened. I’ve been working like crazy since last May, which is around when I stopped spending as much time with them. Once it happened, however, I recognized that there was a significant drop in the drama factor in my life. His mother and father are both addicts, and so engaging with them is exhausting.

His mother and father have both made little remarks to let me…

There is something going on with my husband, and I’m not sure what. He’s got a lot of opportunities facing him in terms of work. He’s gotten all of these opportunities on his own, and he seems to be doing a good job of suiting up and showing up for all the projects he’s found. It’s nothing steady yet, but it’s the kind of situation where one gig leads to another, which leads to another and another. If he doesn’t blow it, it might just turn out to be a great thing.

It is possible that a lot of his crappiness in…

So my husband is back home, somewhat against my will. He’s home against the part of my will that is sane, healthy, and serves my best interest. The other part of my will is thrilled. The other part of my will wanted him to come home for sure, with no reservations, no hesitations.

So far, it’s been ok. The sane part of me set some boundaries and made sure that we have a deadline for checking in to see if those boundaries are being met. The crazy part of me couldn’t wait to get my clothes off, get his clothes off,…

In our most recent Group Conscience meeting for my Nar-Anon, we discussed a need to clarify our stance on feedback and crosstalk in our meetings. While it’s rare that these events occur, there are some folks who have felt criticized or felt like other group members offer advice that is unhelpful and unwanted. We have been noodling through some ways to clarify the wording, and I volunteered to take our Opening Statement and add a few sentences that clarify what we mean by “We do not give advice, dialogue, debate, or crosstalk” in our meetings.

There have been times at meetings…

I don’t know what I want. I’m struggling to figure it out.

I want to be happy. I’m not sure if happiness and peace can come together. It kind of seems like happiness might only be available in a bundle with misery.

I haven’t seen my husband since Sunday, and we’ve only spoken briefly on the phone. I’m not sure when we’ll see each other again.

I am trying to determine what is my bottom line. There are lots of things that I want from him…but I am not sure what is the baseline that I’ll accept for him to come back home.

Part…

I’m working, writing restaurant reviews, and watching Tyra. The Kardashian Sisters are on today. I’ve never seen their television show before, as I don’t have cable…but I’ve heard of them, mostly of Kim Kardashian because she has a sex tape. I can have whatever I want on television, since he’s not here.

My dogs are outside, barking. I let them in and out as I please. I can go get in bed or not. I can wear clothes or not. I can talk on my phone or not.

I asked him to leave on Sunday night to give me a bit of a…

“You have a thigh, but you are not your thigh,” our yoga teacher explained. She was coaxing us deeper into our Warrior stances. My thigh was talking to me. It was telling me not to push further. I told it to be quiet…that it was going to get stronger if I kept pushing. I have a thigh, but I am not my thigh.

Often in yoga class, I find tools that translate well to the rest of my life. The teacher was encouraging us to push our limits with our bodies, but that phrase she used…You have a thigh, but you…

After tonight’s meeting, which I attended solo because right now, my husband isn’t like “those people,” I went out with a friend from my program and her spouse, who is among “those people” in the rooms across the hall. It is so wonderful and exhausting to be among people in recovery. I always love these folks…people who are acutely aware of themselves, their issues, their ups and downs…and I remember it most when I’m in meetings. It’s nice, though, to get away from the meeting setting sometimes, and to get a break from all the meeting rules. It’s nice just…

“I’ve got a lot of papers to grade,” I told him. “I’m going to go find a coffee shop where I can sit and get some quiet. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

“Don’t go! We’ve got all these movies to watch…”

“Why don’t you watch one without me? I’ll be back soon. I’ve got to get this done before the class tomorrow.”

“I’ll grade them with you! Just give me the answer key, and I’ll grade them for you! Stay here!”

It was very sweet of him to offer to help me with my work, but it made me realize something.…

I got back from out of town to find our toilet clogged. There was a giant turd stuck in the bottom of the toilet…the kind of turd that only can be produced by an opiate addict…and a great wad of toilet paper floating in brownish-gray, greasy water. I didn’t say anything…clearly, my husband had clogged the toilet. Clearly, there was some good reason why the turd would be sitting there, stewing in its own juices…maybe he was waiting for the large, sticky, opiate-tainted log to soften in the water so that it might flush more gracefully…I tried everything to think…

I’ve got four days off from being a junky’s wife, and it’s delicious. I don’t have to be doing much anymore to feel like I’m really having an exciting vacation: Look! I can leave my purse lying around! Wow! I don’t have to carry everything with me every time I leave the house! Holy crap! Nobody wants me to pay for his stuff!

I’ve been spending as much time as possible outside of my house, which is good for me in so many ways, but it’s exhausting, too. Even the thought process behind not wanting to go home, ever, is exhausting.

He and…

I was telling a friend about how my husband pushes all my buttons, and she asked me, “What are you doing with buttons?”

Funny, huh?

Then, I was reading today’s post on Daily Om, and it made a lot of sense:

Buttons are just soft spots that have been touched one too many times, and they symbolize some pain that needs to be acknowledged and healed. This may be a wound from childhood, or some recent trauma, that we haven’t adequately tended. Whatever the case, when our buttons get pushed, the person who most needs our attention and caring is us, and blaming…

I was at a yoga class a few days ago when the teacher reminded me of a nasty science experiment with boiling frogs that I’d forgotten all about. If you throw a frog in boiling water, it will jump out immediately. If you put a frog in tepid water, however, and slowly raise the heat to boiling, the frog will stay in the pot and let itself be cooked to death. (Yes, I know that Snopes says it isn’t so, but let me have the metaphor for a moment, ok?)

At a Nar-Anon meeting a few weeks ago, a woman who is…