Finishing What You Start

 Active addiction doesn't exactly bring out the best in people.  A common refrain I've heard amongst 12 Steppers, "As an addict I can violate my own standards faster than I can lower them."  I've also heard that dabbling in your drug of choice is like dancing with a gorilla.  Eventually the gorilla will take over and you'll have no say in the matter.  That can be a scary prospect.  

One of the chief ways my addict behavior would show is that I became a blue ribbon quitter.  I took apathy and stretched it until it fit into the textbook definition of sloth.  Just like commercial weight loss programs, I would frequently just bail when things got too difficult or required what I determined to be an unrealistic amount of effort. And trust me when I say, what constituted an unrealistic amount of effort was a low bar.  It wasn't pretty.  

I've often heard the saying, "Don't quit before the miracle happens".  Depending on my spiritual fitness when hearing that encouraging affirmation, I'd either hope or want to wring their neck.  However, as I slide into 90 days of abstinence 3/23/23, I believe that slogan with every cell of my body.  Because I was absolutely 250% HOPELESS 12/19/22.  I was on the tail end of a relapse that made my world incredibly small and petty.  I was bingeing on an average of $74/day of Taco Bell that I couldn't even get into the car to go pick up.  I had to have it delivered to my home so that I could eat it in my bedroom, in the dark, alone. The breadth of my life could have fit on the head of a pin. 

But by the grace of a Higher Power I occasionally feel like I don't deserve, the moment came when  I was finally ready to concede defeat.  The literal moment I did that, the obsession was lifted from me body and soul.  The neutrality I felt around former binge foods was surreal to say the least.  That experience convinced me beyond a shadow of a doubt to dive head first into building a relationship with an entity that I could neither see, nor feel.  Because I was in hell.  The only reason I didn't take my life was because I was a coward.  And that's not attention seeking bravado.  That's the Mike's honest truth.  And in that moment of surrender, I was free.  

And what does a free woman do you might ask.  Well, one of the first things she does is begin to become acutely aware of old patterns and behaviors that no longer serve her. And so I became very aware that I had an overwhelming tendency to not finish the things I started.  It was just another arrow in Guido's quiver that he could use to render me useless with self-loathing.  And the longer I was stuck in the quicksand of relapse, the more useless I became.  Because if you don't value yourself, integrity is an easy thing to sacrifice.  And so I could just hate myself more because I was a quitter.  It just made Guido's access to my heart and soul more immediate.  And he did a lot of damage, let me tell you. 

As I now have my 87th consecutive day of entire abstinence, I am even more amazed at Mike's power than I was on day 5.  I am exceedingly grateful for days that are very emotionally tumultuous but do  not have the added shame of a binge heaped on top of them. Because GURL! Let me tell you I have had some days where I feel like my fair Irish skin is being loofahed by a very angry porcupine.  And I can smile because I realize even that's a Miracle!  Because in order from to feel like I've been exfoliated by a rodent with an anger management issue, I have to NOT be killing myself with food.  Cuz if Guido and his mariachi band of Taco wielding murderers could have their way, I would have been dead long ago.  So feeling physical/emotional/spiritual even feels like an accomplishment.  Because it is.  But let me be clear, it's Mike's accomplishment way more than it is mine.  I can barely keep a houseplant alive, let alone a suffering addict.  I had been playing Russian Roulette with a loaded gun for way too long.  As this disease is progressive in nature, always getting worse never better, I knew I was playing on borrowed time.  I'd eventually shoot myself. 

But I was finally able to admit to Mike that w/out Him I am completely, utterly, irrevocably screwed.  And Mike believed me 100% because it was the truth.  And once he saw defeat in my eyes, that was all he needed to sweep in and pick up the heaviest burden I have ever carried in my life.  He makes it look effortless.  And I will do whatever it takes to keep the freedom that Mike so graciously gives me one day at a time.  Part of what I do to stay in the middle of the herd is to do service at the meeting level.  I am a zoom host for a meeting that can be personally challenging to me at times.  And there are times when I'd rather be doing anything other than having to show up and do the service position I had committed to. Yeah, I'm mature like that.  

But I have finally learned my lesson.  I can't think my way into right acting.  And truthfully, no one should believe anything that comes out of my mouth if I am in relapse.  To say that I have minimal to non-existent street credibility is 100% the truth.  My integrity is solely based on my ability to keep a commitment I make to another human being. 

Because the self-talk I employ when I am about to break my word should be registered as a Crime against Humanity by the UNHCR.  It is Guido at his lethal best.  The accuracy with which he succeeds is incredible. If I continue to behave in a way that whittles away at my self respect, Guido and his henchman have already won.  And the only price he claims is the satisfaction of knowing that his intended targets were as likely to cave as to fight.  Those are the odd and they're always in his favor.  

So that's why I am so intent on being a woman who walks her talk.  Because self-respect is Guido's kryptonite.  It's the one thing that lets him know that his presence is no longer welcome and if he could just kindly fuck off that would be lovely.  And because I know the pitiful, incomprehensible demoralization that is Guido's esprit de corps, I will do whatever it takes to shut that chump down.  The down side is that his favorite pastime is ding pushups with brass knuckles in a torrential downpour.  He's honing and crafting his skills so that when I give him that split second moment of dropping my guard, he will be able to capitalize on it. He has an excellent track record. 

But I have the one thing he doesn't, Mike.  Mike loves me, cares about me and for me  He laughs with me and occasionally at me.  He is compassionate, understanding, forgiving and patient.  Hell, he waited 20 years for me to finally give up the fight.  He's the ultimate corner man in this fight for my life.  He's always there to hold up my flagging spirits, to make sure I'm taking care of His precious daughter and showing me that His love is already received.  It's not dependent on any effort on my part.  It is just because I am.  And knowing that there is someone out there who believes in me like that makes anything possible.  for 87 days I have had no sugar, no flour and no delivered food.  A miracle anyway you slice it.  And so to keep this precious gift I will finish every job I start.  From teeth brushing, to promises to friends, to meeting service positions, I will do what I have told others I would do. Quietly.  Humbly.  And with a heart of service.  

Because that's how I can take down Guido.  By finishing what I start. 

Emotional White Water Rafting

 So, you see, there's this boy.  Now before you roll your collective eyes at the computer screen, let me explain to you why that's such a miracle in my life.  I am 48 years old.  And I've never been in love before.   There are a couple of reasons for this.  1) My parents didn't exactly have a "perfect" marriage.  They had a significant amount of conflict during their marriage.  It showed up most frequently in verbal confrontations.  Loud, mean, cruel verbal conflicts.  Unfortunately for my father, when my mom was drinking which was VERY frequently, she would be particularly cruel in her attempts to chop my dad off at the spiritual kneecaps.  She'd go in the direction of his upbringing (not nearly as $ as hers), or his family (imperfect but very genuine). Therefore, to say I had a good model of a positive and uplifting primary romantic relationship would be untrue.  The other reason is that for whatever reason, the simple and most convenient one being my mom projecting her dissatisfaction about her own body image onto an impressionable young girl, I did not believe a boy/man would love me at a higher weight. It was just a gospel truth I held in my brain as a God's honest foundational truth about my life from adolescence until not too long ago.  It was a lot of weight to carry around if I am being completely honest. 

Now as I approached my 40th birthday, I was panicking.  I had not at that point even kissed a boy let alone done other more "physical" things.  And I felt time was running out.  I did not want to qualify for a sequel to the Steve Carrell classic movie, "The 40 Year Old Virgin".  So like any good ego maniac with basement level self-esteem, I decided that I "must" lose my virginity before I turned 40.  In retrospect, feeling so differently about myself today, I'm a bit sad about my insistence to get experience first.  If there are any of my SFHS alumni reading this, my personal choice to have some frosting before the cake, left a lot to desired.  For the very simple reason that I didn't value myself as a precious child of Mike and acted accordingly.  I made what seemed at the time to be an intelligent choice; to get experience with physical intimacy out side of a committed romantic relationship.  Because at the time, it was progress for me to even be entertaining the idea that a man could find me physically/sexually attractive.  That I was willing to be seen sans apparel with lights being on was a huge miracle in and of itself.  I had sort of a defiant "take it or leave it" persona oozing out of my pores that dared a man to speak critically of my body.  Or at least more critically than I talked about my body.  Which was setting a VERY high bar.  

Well that extremely late in life attempt at a "slutty" phase of my life fizzled out and I just got back to the regularly scheduled program of killing myself with food.  And during that time I met a guy.  And he liked my body exactly as it was, and wasn't particularly shy about sharing his opinion with me.  It was disarming.   It was a matter of fact thing about our friendship that he simply didn't question, even if I did.  And he would contact me to check in with me intermittently.  And I found his enthusiasm     l found it almost annoying, more than once.  Because didn't he know he was interrupting my bingeing?  He had the audacity to drive up to my home town from a considerable distance to see me.  When he got here, I hadn't showered in multiple days, my hair was a wreck, and he was interrupting my sleep because of a lengthy binge the night before.  To say I was more unwelcoming that Kevin McCarthy at the Democratic National Convention would not be too dramatic.  We did see each other and he left.  I was secretly horrified he'd seen me at what I now know was my absolute worst.  My ego retaliated by making him responsible for something he clearly was NOT responsible for and told him in no uncertain terms, to kick rocks. Being a gentleman, he respectfully abided by my request. 

And then, a funny thing happened.  I got abstinent.  Like not just "Oh I don't eat 'X'" abstinent.  I'm talking spiritual experience of the lightening bolt variety.  Psychic change, freedom from the obsession type of abstinence.  Recoil as if from a hot flame, there is nothing more important than keeping what Mike has given me, "My abstinence is the #1 thing in my life without exception" sort of abstinence.  And just like that, the huge rucksack of shame and guilt that I had been carrying around about myself was just removed from my shoulders.  Mike said, "that looks a bit heavy Kathy. Can I carry that for you?"  And in a sign of progress, I said, "sure". 

So with about 15 days of this new entire abstinence I was driving out to the airport to pick up my best friend.  I had just hosted my oldest brother and family for lunch and got to meet my adorable 3 month old twin nephews.  I was in an excellent mood when my car phone rang with a number I didn't recognize.  I had blocked the guys number and hadn't give it any thought really so I picked up the number.  It was the guy.  And I had learned about "having contempt prior to investigation " and didn't automatically hang up.  And another magical thing happened.  My eyes were different.  Because where I once saw a guy who was annoying in his harassment of me, I now saw a good friend who'd maintained contact with me over a multi-year period because he cared. I saw a man who'd seen me at my absolute gutter level worst and still contacted me.  I saw a man who was good, smart, funny, caring and kind.  When I expressed my reservations that he might only be attracted to me because of a morbid fetishized attraction to fat women, his response was, "Can't I be attracted to you without objectifying you?"  (I admit there was a antebellum worthy level of swooning that occurred when he said that.  I mean how good is that?).  We started chatting with some regularity.  

I was terrified of sharing this with my sponsor because of the perceived hard and fast rule that most 12 Steppers have, "No dating/sexual relationships w/in the first year of program". And I was worried she was going to take my new toy out of my proverbial toy box and not let me play with it.   Perhaps it was more than a little bit of projection on my part.  Because I had forgotten that Mike had delivered to me that most perfect sponsor that I could possibly ask for.  I don't mean a perfect sponsor, but the right one for me. We had a terribly vulnerable and real meeting where she expressed her concern that many more recovered people have gone out of the rooms based on a romantic relationship.  But that there are also no mistake, just lessons or blessings in the program.  That if I am surrendering my will to HP to the best of my abilities  ODAAT, it was perfect and already ordained.  I exhaled through my tears entirely grateful for the God's with skin Mike had put in my path, yet again. 

The other thing I was supremely grateful for was that I knew, in my gut/core/heart, that I was not willing to give up the abstinence I had for anyone/anything.  And that in and of itself is a precious miracle because I had envied those people who could sit in the meetings and say with a quiet confidence that, "their abstinence is the #1 thing in their life, without exception". And now I was one of those people.  If even talking to this guy was going to risk one millimeter of the precious recovery that I had, I would walk away.  Because Mike has only 3 answers when we want something, "Yes." "No," or "I have something better planned.  Stay patient".  Although I was already 48 years old never having felt feelings for a guy, I'd wait longer if I had to.  

Because the third miracle that was occurring was that I was developing feelings for this guy.  And they weren't the atypical "Ooohhh...He's HOT!" sort of feelings.  They were quiet, and timid and real.  The type of real that sort of makes you feel like your heart is being scrubbed with a surly porcupine.  It felt raw and slightly painful.  I had held centurion guard over my heart for my entire life.  And now, with just 15 days of entire abstinence, my heart was deciding that perhaps Mike was a better judge of what I needed in my life.  Whatever was ahead, I was willing to go along for the ride. 

And I've decided that I am basically on one of those lazy floats down the American River so many got to experience in their youths.  I'm in a rubber raft, with this guy and we're floating down this river.  Mike is our rafting guide.  With much more experience in rafting, he knows how to protect us from the danger zones while also ensuring we have a thrilling trip.  As long as we look to him for guidance this is going to be a worthwhile trip that I will remember.  And it's a trip I've been waiting my whole life to take.  I only get to take it if I stay focused on the next "steps" ahead of me.  The fruits of recovery are only for the diligent and prepared.  They are not, I have learned, something you earn through any virtue or special state.  They are truly available to everyone at any time. The price of a ticket is your control and using food as a crutch.  Being willing to start doing His will, one day at a time also helps. I don't necessarily care where we end up, or how long it takes to get there.  I am just enjoying the ride. It is a ride that I'm showing up for with a flutter in my heart, a smile on my face and a twinkle in my eye. 

It is incredibly good to be me. 

Thanks for reading.

Every Goyim Needs a Mohar

 I am Catholic. Like really Catholic.  We're talking 150% Hotel California, "You can check out anytime you like but you can never leave" Catholic.  It's in my blood.  It's in my cells.  When we had the funeral for my mom, my brother who'd probably last been in that church either when he graduated 8th grade from St. Mel's, or when mom had asked him to go for her, was only sightly jesting that he would be struck by lightening upon crossing the threshold. And my mom would probably watch down from heaven laughing. But she never got to see my brother excitedly tell me about how he'd told his now partner of 10 years that he loved him. My brother learned from my dad, that the larger the gesture, the more appropriately large the scene should be made to acknowledge this act. So my brother found the chicest custom stationary he could, wrote a love note to Tom and had to sent to the travel agent of his upcoming trip to Norway.  So that when Tom was on a cruise going through the fjords of Norway, he would be given a letter from my brother telling him that he was loved in a big and real way.  How could mom even think of not celebrating her son's courage and spirit?  Because she was raised in the pre Vatican Council II Catholic church.  That tells its congregants that while they should love the sinner, they should hate their sins.  And because the person that he was choosing to "sin" with happens to be another man, my brother lived in constant fear of losing the approval and good favor of the most cherished woman he had in his life.  That is just W.R.O.N.G.  Any way you friggin' slice it.  As we walked out of the hospital the night we took her off the ventilator after a valiant 7 1/2 week fight with pneumonia, my brother with profound tears in his eyes, asks my best friend Krista, herself a mom of three boys, if mom's "knew".  That he'd even have to ask that question breaks my heart in a way that I'll never have to worry about.  He had gone through life, on a path of accepting then embracing who he really is as a person, and it was a process so potentially shameful that he couldn't share it with the most important person in his life.  It that's what religion did, he'd have no part of it thank you very much.  I don't blame him. 

I, on the other hand, just sort of drifted away from the Catholic church in a haze of apathy and sloth.  But when I was back in the church where I spent so much of my childhood for the funeral of my best friend's father the memories came flooding back.  It was about the old school mates that also came to show respect for a very honorable, funny and caring man. It was also about being in a sanctuary where I learned, accepted and then eventually turned away from the tenants of organized religion.  As a spiritual but not religious person, that building just held memories.  Though I was paying attention to the Mass of Catholic burial for a man who chose to convert to Catholicism so late in life, I drifted between the psalms and my childhood.  From the Gospel to my Confirmation.  It was a rich trip down memory lane.  

Now Sacramento is a pretty segregated county.  It certainly was in 2000 when I originally went to my first OA meeting.  One of the very largest OA meetings in Sacramento was held Saturday evenings at Temple B'nai Israel down over in the south part of the city.  Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather.  "We have Jewish people here in Sacramento?" I asked in what is now a painfully naive memory.  Sure we do.  We have communities of Jewish congregants who gather to pay to a God that doesn't necessarily worship in the same way as us Catholics, but still inspires devotion and piety equally to any devout Catholic I've ever met.  I'm lucky to be dear friends with a woman named Hope.  Such a GREAT name for someone who represented the fellowship of Overeaters Anonymous AND Judaism for me.  

I will honestly admit that I have always been fascinated by yiddish.  It's a great language.  I think it started back when Mike Myers was doing this Linda Richmond skit on SNL.  He'd dress up as the archetype of every Jewish mom out there, complete with the bouffant hair, press on nails, and hairy upper lip.   He'd famish about an interaction so traumatic he'd get 'schpilkas in his ganeckta gazoink'.  The audience and watchers at home thought it was hysterically funny stuff.  It was a send-up that wasn't mean spirited but lovingly honest. He's said in interviews that it's an impersonation of the women who were friends with his mother-in-law when he'd married his now wife.  That it's based in real-life to any degree shows how brave and loving Mike Myers was.  It also showed a time when SNL was actually funny and not just painfully funny but lame impressions of our 45th President.  But like the two houses of the US Congress working in a bipartisan fashion, I'm afraid those days are long gone.  

So the longer I'm in OA, I become better friends with Hope and she'd always smile and laugh a bit when I'd try to "flex" my yiddish on her.  I was young for being in OA, like 25 when I entered, so that a relatively young kid would know so much about yiddish was surprising to her I think.  It was a source of giggles for us to be sure.  

As I finally got abstinent in OA this December, Hope was still at zoom meetings being her fabulous self.   Like any good born on the East Coast Californian, she knew the good meetings in NYC and Florida to hit to boost her recovery.  I'd told her that I was helping to pull off a surprise for my BFF's mom with tickets for the whole family to go see the Globe Trotters when they came to Sacramento in January.  She said I was a mensch doing a mitzvah. To non-yiddish speakers that means that I was a solid guy doing a good deed for another.  I smiled and agreed.  The surprise didn't go quite as planned, but my part in helping to make it a reality was still a noble effort. 

So Hope texts me the other day saying that she was my honorary mohar (teacher).  And I realized that this Catholic has a lot of mohar's in the 21 years she's been coming into and out of these rooms of recovery.  Some of them were showing me what I wanted to have, for which I was not willing to do the work required to achieve it. Being in the rooms when I returned 20 years later I was touched by the love and genuine happiness I was welcomed back with.  Watching some well intentioned shiksa (white girl) struggle in this fellowship for 20 years must have been painful and difficult to watch. And yet they still loved me.  Still help out their arms for post-meeting hugs.  Still kept coming back.  

Part of being in recovery is realizing that you're always just a putz who needs a mohar to survive.  While it requires a leveling of one's pride to even say those words, the payoff can be life-saving.  Just like the Promises tell us, "We will know a new freedom and a new happiness". And I can say that on day 72nd day of "entire abstinence", that I truly do know a new freedom and happiness.  I spent this evening  laughing until my sides ached and I could barely breathe.  It was because I was living a joyful, honest, authentic life. 

If you are getting to also live such a joyfully crazy life, please be sure to thank you mohars.  They're out there everywhere, finding one shouldn't be difficult.

Thanks for reading. 

Shalom,

KathyK

Because Game ALWAYS Respects Game

 One of my roommates is a guy named Scott. (Not his real name btw).  He's lived with me for 5+ years and he's absolutely great.  He loves my doggie possibly more than I do and he always helps out with the frequently mundane tasks that women tend to not want to do.  He's a super chill, rent always on time, his only fault is being a LA Dodgers fan, guy.  I like him a lot even if I've not been the best landlord/friend until getting abstinent.  I'm lucky to have him as a friend.  

Scott has a best friend named Wayne.  Wayne and he went to high school in Elk Grove together and have remained friends this whole time.  I've never met Wayne before.  And that's ok.  It's not like Scott's the sort of guy to invite a friend over to see his cool "pad".  That's not Scott's vibe, or Wayne's either probably.  So they spend a fair amount of time playing video games online and being friends.  I like him based on his choice in people already.  

So Wayne has a habit of sending Scott gifts randomly from time to time.  He's done it for years and they're always 100% original and 250% bizarre.  This most current gift is certainly the weirdest.  So Scott comes downstairs wearing a more formal robe than I've seen him in before.  Now if you thought Wayne was the only one with a sense of humor in this friendship think again, because Scott also enjoys taking a leisurely smoke out on the patio wearing a 3/4 length robe that makes him look suspiciously like a flour tortilla.  So he's got a healthy respect for the seemingly absurd as well.  Perhaps a friendship made in heaven? 

So Scott opens up his robe to show me what is possibly the tackiest attempt at a dashiki I've ever had the privilege to gaze at with my own eyes.  We're talking Nigerian Prince, "I swear I can prove to you I am rich if you'll just help me gain access to my account" rich. You get the vibe.  I give a hearty laugh and we go on with our night.  We briefly discussed the idea of attempting to get Wayne back in a good natured grudge match, but nothing was set in motion.  He tried to lure Ellie outside to get cuddles from her while she gave RBF looks to him.  I thought that was it. 

But then, just like all the great sidekicks of super hero origin stories, my best friend Krista enters the scene.  She has had a rather tough life of late.  And to say that she could use a laugh would have been frighteningly accurate.  So I regale her with the tale of Dashiki Scott and she's now laughing so hard she can't breathe and her stomach is cramping.  So, "VICTORY ACHIEVED" was definitely the vibe of the day. She then provided what will hopefully become "Phase 2" of this adventure.  That will be for her to get a fantastic mu mu and get some braids put into her hair.  Then a recording of them both walking around a local Walmart not understanding why they're being stared at will be created.  Once this has been achieved we will gather to give this culturally significant gift to Wayne, who is African American btw, a fact which just makes this story that much more awesome. 

One thing I know for sure.  The amount of fun I've had today is ONLY possible because of my diligence in working the 12 Step program of recovery from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.  No way would I be having any of this fun left to my own devices.  

More shall be revealed.  I can't wait. 

Keep coming back.  Thanks, KathyK