Heart Song

Last Saturday, I was feeling itchy, edgy.   It was a typical Saturday - full of soccer games, errands and playdates.   Nothing was particularly wrong, or particularly right.   Everything just was. 

I get like this sometimes, and when I do, I go to the bookstore. 

This is not a new habit.   I have always loved libraries and bookstores; the peaceful atmosphere full of whispering words calms my babbling mind.    Even the smell of all those pages warms my spirit. 

I wasn't looking for a particular book, but I was hungry for something; I wanted just the right book to leap off the shelf at me.   I wandered the spirituality section for over an hour, then the biography and recovery sections, perusing titles, flipping through pages.   Nothing stood out to me; I didn't know what I wanted, but I knew I would know it when I saw it.

I left the store a couple of hours later, empty handed.

As I pulled in the driveway, I decided to check the mail.   Sitting innocently in my mailbox was a padded mailer, addressed to me, with an unfamiliar return address.  

I went inside, ripped open the package, and a book fell out.   It took me a moment to remember an email exchange I had earlier in the week with a woman who read my post about God and spirituality, and contacted me to say she was sending me a copy of her book, which she thought I would enjoy.


The title grabbed me instantly:   Let Go, Let Miracles Happen; The Art of Spiritual Surrender, by Kathy Cordova.   I knew immediately that this was the book I had been looking for, just waiting for me in my mailbox.

I finished the book in two days.

It was exactly - and I mean exactly - what I needed to read.   Kathy writes beautifully about her own experience with spiritual surrender, and shares stories from dozens of others whose lives have been transformed by the power of letting go.  

I've been feeling a vague sense of something missing lately, and I haven't been able to put my finger on what.   As I read her book, I knew what has been bothering me:  I haven't surrendered to something important in my life:  writing.

Earlier this year, I was all fired up about writing a book, a memoir.   I tackled writing it the way I approach so much in my life:  full of determination and an exacting desire to get it done.  I stayed up late into the night, clacking away at my keyboard.    This went on for a few exhausting months, then the doubts started to creep in:  What are you thinking?  YOU can't write a book!   The world doesn't need another addiction story.  What if you spend all this time writing it, and nobody will publish it?   Even if it's published, what if you don't sell any?  Who do you think you ARE?

Eventually, the voices wore me down.  Without consciously realizing it, I stopped writing.

In her book, Kathy Cordova writes about following your intuition, learning how to ignore the babbling ego:

The ego tells us that it's only looking out for our best interests, and that can be a tempting argument.   The world has trained us to listen to our egos at the expense of our intuition, so it seems like we're doing the sensible thing when we let our ego be our guide.

So how do you know if you're listening to your ego or your intuition?   The key question is:

Is the message one of love or fear? 

This last sentence hit me like a punch in the gut.   My ego, which I do indeed think is looking out for my best interests, whispers to me that it's better to stay safe, to stick with the familiar, rather than to stick my neck out and risk injury, insecurity or rejection. 

She goes on to write:

But what if we believe we hear our intuition, and we're too scared to follow it?   We must ask ourselves,  "What is the overriding factor:  fear or love?"

Are we hesitant to make a change because we love the situation we're in now?  Or are we just scared of the unknown?

I have thought about this a lot over the past week.   Deciding whether or not to write a book isn't one of life's hard choices, not when compared to making decisions about love, work or family.    But it has been tugging away at my periphery for a long time now, and I want to get to the bottom of it.    I realized, reading Kathy's words, that I'm afraid, and it's my ego's fault.

It's very difficult for me to write without thinking about the endgame, especially when the subject matter is intensely personal.    I couldn't get my mind around the concept of success.    What makes a successful book?   Profits?   Sales?   Rave reviews?   Fans?    My ego, childishly jumping up and down, answers Yes!  Yes!  Yes!  to all of these.  So it's no head scratcher that when I'm listening to my ego all I can think about is the ways that I could fail following these criterion.

But my heart speaks differently.   My heart tells me that writing is healing, that it doesn't matter if I even publish a book, that getting my story on paper is cathartic, cleansing.     It tells me to surrender to the process, and just write, dammit. 

Is the message one of love or fear?   

It's love.   I love to write.   When I sit quietly and listen to my heart song I know that I don't write out of a need for validation or popularity, no matter what my ego says.     When I'm writing, I feel complete inside myself, like I'm filling up my skin.     When I'm not writing there is a whistling void somewhere deep inside, one that calls to me in dreams, or in supermarket aisles when I'm hit with an idea clear out of the blue.  

And so, I'm writing.  I'm letting go of the outcome, seeing where the Universe takes me.  After all, it delivered me the perfect book at exactly the right time, through Kathy's generosity, and I try to pay attention to the messages sent my way.   

I'm giving my ego one giant time-out, and letting my heart take the wheel for a while.

Answers - Part Two

Thanks again for all the great questions!   Here is Part Two of the answers:

Question: how'd you come up with your kids names?  Both times we used a baby name book.   We decided on Greta's name right away.    We were reading the book together, and both pointed to her name and said, "That's it!" at the same time.    What is great about her name is that my mother's heritage is Swedish, and Steve's father's side is German, and "Greta" is both a Swedish and German name.     We had a much more difficult time deciding on Finn's name.    We wanted something unusual, but not so far off the page that it would get him beat up on the playground.     Steve's mother's side of the family is Irish, and we loved the Irish boy's names.    We narrowed it down to a few finalists, and after a few weeks "Finn" just seemed to fit perfectly (his full name is "Finnian").     It suits his personality perfectly. 

Question:  favorite book?   Oh my.   I really can't come up with just one.   I did a post a while back about the books and authors that have influenced me the most, so I guess it's easiest just to direct you here.    It's easier for me to name some of my favorite authors, and they include  Sue Miller, Jane Smiley, John Irving, Kelly Corrigan, Jodi Picoult (some of them), Stephen King and the Dalai Lama.

Question: what inspired you to make jewelry?   Again, I blogged about this here.   It's easier to send you to the post than to describe it all again.  :)

Question:  on facebook/twitter/etc. i often see status updates that say something like "gosh i need a drink" or "settling down for the night with a glass of wine!" do statements like that bother you, and do you try to distance yourself from people who update like that frequently?   In early sobriety, reading things like that was a punch to the gut.   They made me feel "other than", different, broken somehow.    They amplified the feeling of loss I felt that I couldn't drink.    I stayed away from situations that involved drinking, but in main stream media (commercials, magazines, social media, television shows) references to drinking are everywhere.     With time, I was able to see a wine commercial without wanting to cry, or read a facebook update like "Is it 5 o'clock yet?  Mama needs a drink!"  without feeling a profound sense of loss.   Now I'm able to take all that in stride.    I think, though, that if I wasn't working a program of recovery, things like that would quickly become difficult to read, because it would poke at the feeling of not fitting in, not being able to have fun, not being normal.    When I read things like that now, I think about the amazing sober network of friends I have - of all the compassionate, smart, funny, loving, brave women I know who are out there rockin' it sober, and I feel grateful, not like an outcast.    I think about how if I hadn't stopped drinking, these amazing people wouldn't be in my life.   No matter how badly I may want to drink at any given time, the fear of losing those people is far more powerful.

Question:  Have you noticed any financial benefits to quitting?   Absolutely.    When I was about three months sober, Steve came across one of my bank statements from the last month of my drinking.   He showed it to me, and I nearly fell over.    Just about every single line item was a liquor or convenience store, and the total amount spent that month on alcohol was staggering.     When I was drinking daily, I never bought alcohol in bulk (it was a way to keep up my denial - if I'm buying a case of wine I must have a problem, right?).   So I would go to a different liquor or convenience store every day, trying to make the people who worked there (like they cared) believe it was my once-weekly stop to stock up.     So every day I was spending anywhere from $8 - $15 on wine.   If that averages out to $12/day - that is $360 a month, or over $4300/ year on alcohol.

Question:  How did you handle pregnancy and abstaining?    I didn't drink during either of my pregnancies, even though when I found out I was pregnant with Finn I was drinking every night.    Part of it was a protectiveness of the baby - it's one thing to destroy my own health, it's another thing to destroy the health of an innocent fetus.     So that was definitely a big part of it.    But another thing was equally powerful - I didn't feel an urge to drink when I was pregnant.   When I was pregnant I felt a sense of identity - the pregnant mother.    Everywhere I went, once I was visibly pregnant, people were exclaiming over the pregnancy, gushing with congratulations and stories of motherhood.   It all gave me a feeling of belonging I had never felt before.    So that 'hole in my soul' that I carried with me when I wasn't pregnant just kind of evaporated.    Within three months of giving birth, each time, I was right back to where I had been before with drinking, if not worse.     I used the fact that I could just stop for nine months as my strongest argument that I couldn't be an alcoholic.    I know now that alcoholism is a progressive disease, and it doesn't matter how long you abstain - the minute you pick up the first drink it is only a matter of time before you're right back where you were.     I learned in rehab about the physiological reasons for this - I won't get into it here, but it has to do with how the narcotic effects of alcohol travel through the brain.     It was comforting to learn the physiology behind it, to know it wasn't because I'm weaker than everyone else.    It also helps me stay sober, knowing that no matter how good I feel now, the disease is lying in wait - in my brain - and it will wake right up if I drink.

Question:  Not an addict (well, chocolate), but a child of an alcoholic and with an addictive personality. So, what I want to know is, how do you cope with all the stress of life, the universe and everything now that you're not drinking? What helps most?    Talking.   Hands down, talking about how I feel helps the most.    Not just talking about how I feel about drinking, but how I feel about everything.    Before getting sober, I never talked about my emotions - I barely acknowledged to myself that I had them.    I didn't know what to do with anger, sadness or resentment - it's as if I felt like somehow I wasn't allowed to feel badly.   So I stuffed everything down, buckled down, moved through life without ever processing anything.    When the negative emotions got loud, I'd drink to manufacture a better state of mind.     As a result, I never learned how to move through bad feelings, how to be vulnerable, how to ask for help.     It's still something I have to work on - A LOT.    When things are tough - like the witching hour and the kids are driving me nuts, etc. - the first thing I have to do is acknowledge to myself how I'm feeling - cranky, bored, angry, frustrated.    Just putting a name to the emotion helps a lot.    The second thing I have to do is talk about it - call a sober friend, or a regular friend, talk to Steve.    Putting words to my feelings diminishes their power over me.    Left to my own resources, I turn molehills into mountains, I start thinking I'll never feel better again, I 'kitchen sink' my emotions - they snowball out of control quickly.   I need help keeping things in perspective, and my support network helps me do this.     With time, I can do this on my own sometimes - find a quiet corner and meditate, or pray - but if I don't stop and acknowledge my feelings I'm in real trouble.

Question:  Some people feel alcoholism has a genetic component to it - what are your thoughts on this? Do you talk about alcoholism with your kids yet? Or if you don't, do you have thoughts on if/how you will in the future?    I personally believe alcoholism is a disease.   I know it's kind of a controversial topic, but the American Medical Association and other organizations have acknowledged alcoholism as a disease since the early 1950s.    I also believe it runs in families - I see far too many families ravaged by addiction to believe otherwise.    I'm adopted, so I don't know the medical history of my biological family, but I'd be willing to bet addiction is in there.       As such, I am very concerned about my kids being more susceptible to addiction.   We deal with it by talking openly and honestly about it with them.    We don't tell them any more than they ask, because we don't want to give them more information than they are ready for, but we answer all their questions honestly.     As they get older, we'll keep talking.   I hope my experience gives me some street cred with them as they get older - I know from which I speak - but I'm not naive enough to believe there is anything we can do to stop it from coming, if that is the way things are going to play out.    All we can do is be powers of example, I hope, and keep communicating as honestly and openly as we can.     I want them to have a healthy fear of alcohol, but it's not up to me alone, of course.    

Question:  Tell me it will be okay.    If I quit.    I saved this one for last, because it hit me hard, and I've given a lot of thought to my answer.    I wish I could say it will be okay, but of course life isn't like that.   I can say it will be hard - the hardest thing you've ever had to do, probably - but I can also say that it will be worth it.    That you will be free - freer than you can possibly imagine now.    You will live an authentic life, be present for everything - good and bad.    It's hard to find words to say what a gift this is.   Sometimes I look at people who aren't alcoholics or addicts, but who I feel live an unexamined life, and I say a prayer of thanks that I was forced to stop and take a good hard look at what my life means to me, what kind of footprint I want to leave on the world, what I want to mean to other people, but more importantly what I mean to myself.      No matter how difficult things get in sobriety, I am present in the moment, in touch with my feelings, and able to surrender and be free.    It's amazing.   

Truly, staggeringly, amazing.

A Good Place To Start

I get a fair number of emails from people, mostly women and mostly mothers, about recovery. Some are still figuring it out, deciding whether or not they have a problem. Some are new to recovery, and some have been sober for a while. I appreciate hearing from everyone - as I've stated again and again I feel that in sharing our stories, our struggles and our triumphs we go a long way towards combating the disease of addiction. I respect anonymity and confidentiality above everything - I have great respect for the fact that facing fears about drinking, or drugs, and whether or not you want to do something about it, is an intensely personal and private decision. I feel strongly, too, that talking with people who understand, who are safe, is pivotal to finding a strong path in recovery. If you think you may have a problem, it is hard to figure out how to take that first step.

I am often asked about information, books or articles that may be helpful. I have read several books that have to do with recovery - I'll share some of the best here. If you want to understand more about addiction - whether you think you may have a problem, are in recovery yourself, or have a loved one with addiction, these books are worth the read.

My favorite book on addiction and recovery, as it pertains to women, is Drinking, A Love Story by Caroline Knapp. Caroline is an excellent writer, and describes her journey into addiction, the struggle to get out of it, and life in recovery, with honesty and eloquence. I first read her book in 1997 - ten years before I stopping drinking. I wish I had paid more attention to the distant alarm bells that went off in my head when I read her story. If you are a woman who is wondering whether or not you have a problem with alcohol - this is the book to read.

Dry, by Augusten Burroughs (he wrote Running with Scissors, among many other books), was a compelling read. While I can't identify as much with his personal circumstances, he writes eloquently about his fall into addiction with drinking and drugs, a first attempt at recovery and subsequent relapse, and eventual sobriety - all while facing significant personal trials and tribulations.

The Night of the Gun, by David Carr. A reporter for the New York Times, Carr investigates his own history of drinking, drugs and addiction through interviews with friends, families and co-workers who were there through it all. The Night of the Gun is a fascinating exploration of memory, as well as a gripping memoir about addiction and recovery. It is also an interesting read from the perspective of people who love addicts, and a graceful story of regret and redemption.

There are several books I would describe as more in the "self-help" category, but some of them are particularly good. Living Sober, published by AA services, is kind of an owner's manual to early sobriety. Although published by AA, it doesn't deal with the 12 steps as much as how to navigate the tricky waters of early sobriety. I read it over and over as I faced some "firsts" in sobriety: first wedding, first party, first family gathering, and even how to face day-to-day stresses sober.

A Place Called Self: Women, Sobriety and Radical Transformation, by Stephanie Brown, is also a "self-help" book, written with eloquence and compassion by a woman in recovery. Brown discusses addiction and recovery as it relates to how women define themselves, delving deeper into the psychological, social and cultural issues that impact women in addiction (from anything - drugs, alcohol, shopping, sex or gambling) and in recovery.

One of the reasons I wanted to blog about the good recovery stories out there is in response to some of the parenting books that make light of drinking as a survival tool in parenting. Robert Wilder's Daddy Needs a Drink and Chris Mancini's Pacify Me, are examples of this. Interestingly, Stefanie Wilder-Taylor - who wrote Sippy Cups are Not for Chardonnay - recently admitted on her blog that she has a problem with alcohol, and is now in recovery. I commend her for speaking publicly about her journey. She writes with courage and grace - plus she is very, very funny. I recommend checking out her blog here.

This list is nowhere near comprehensive - just some thoughts on the books that were the most meaningful to me as I tried to figure out if I had a problem, struggled to get into recovery, and as I progress through my own journey in sobriety. If you have suggestions of your own please share them here, too.

If you are wondering whether or not you have a problem, reading can be a safe, quiet and private way to begin. Thank you again to everyone who has reached out to me - keep on coming - you all help me and I appreciate it very much.

Reading

I love to read. I will read just about anything. I have been this way since I was very small... I didn't ever have a "lovey" or suck my thumb or anything, but I would ask for a "bunch of books" at the end of my bed before I could fall asleep, even at the young age of 3 or 4.

I grew up watching my parents read all the time, too. It was not uncommon, especially during vacations, to see my Mom or Dad toes up on the bed or the couch totally engrossed in a book. We had a rule in my family ... when someone was nearing the end of a book, they were excused from all regular chores. We called it "thin pages".

"Mom's in the thin pages!" I'd shout to my Dad and my sister. "Don't bother her about dinner!"

My favorite thing to do as long as I can remember is to curl up with a good book. The first series I can remember loving were those ones where you got to control how the book went... anyone else remember those? You would read a few pages, and then you'd have a choice. "If you think the boy will go in the hot air balloon," it said "go to page 83." "If you think the boy will go into the creaky woods, go to page 71." Throughout the book you controlled the momentum of the story. I read these over and over again, for hours.

Waaay before the days of Harry Potter, I lost myself in Lloyd Alexander's series "The Book of Three", or the "Chronicles of Narnia". I also love TinTin comic books. I read and re-read all of these until the pages had worn thin.

So I've been thinking about books and authors that have influenced me over my life. There are authors that I consistently enjoy: Stephen King, Jodi Picoult, Barbara Kingsolver, Jane Hamilton, Sue Miller, Richard Russo. The best whodunit writer I have found is Michael Connolly and his Harry Bosch series. Or Jeffrey Deaver, especially the Lincoln Rhyme books. I am by no means a literary snob. I get enjoyment from just about any kind of book, although I admit I'm not a fan of romance novels. The scariest book I ever read was "Gerald's Game" by Stephen King. I am still haunted by the imagery in that story. The saddest book, or one of the saddest, is "The Deep End of the Ocean" by Jacquelyn Mitchard. The funniest book is "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by the late, great Douglas Adams.

So over the past couple of days, I was thinking about those few books that have had special importance to me. You know the ones you can read over and over and not grow tired of? Each time you read them, especially at different stages in your life, you get something more out of the story. The writing is lyrical, the imagery so powerful it is like the story plays out like a movie in your head. You become so attached to the characters you feel like you know them. When you finish the book, you are sorry you're done, because you know you will never read that book for the first time ever again.

It was hard for me to narrow this list down to only five. So here is a list of six. Six books that have stayed with me, regardless of how long ago I read them, or how many times I have read them since. I reach for them again and again, because I know they will deliver the whole package. So here they are, in no particular order:

1) The Sheltering Sky, by Paul Bowles - I first read this when I was 21 and fresh out of college. It has been made into a movie, but it is the book that really gripped me. I read it again recently, thinking perhaps youthful wander lust is what made me love it so at 21, and it spoke to me on entirely different levels at 40.

2) A Map of the World, by Jane Hamilton - I first read this before I became a mother, and the storyline gripped me and held me from the first few pages. It is a story of human failings and frailties, misunderstandings and regret. It is beautifully written, with a wonderful eye for plot.

3) Prodigal Summer, by Barbara Kingsolver - Barbara Kingsolver is one of the great writers of our time. I loved the Poisonwood Bible as well, but I read Prodigal Summer in the throes of active alcoholism and this book still touched me deeply, even though it has nothing to do with addiction. The writing is so beautiful it reads like a musical score. Re-reading it sober was like receiving a gift all over again. Just beautiful.

4) The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini - one of the more predictable books on this list - many, many people loved this book. I didn't expect to like it, reading the jacket cover. It was about a part of the world and a culture that I had sort of a visceral reaction against. It moved me deeply - it was difficult to believe this story came out of a person's imagination. I didn't see the movie, and I'm not going to.

5) Memoires of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden - Again, not a subject matter I felt particularly drawn to when I read the book jacket. I somehow missed that the author was male, and was about halfway through the book when I realized this powerful woman's tale was written by a man. An engaging and beautiful story, and one that can be read again and again.

6) Nobody's Fool, by Richard Russo - Just read it. It is so good. And don't see the movie until you have read it. If you have already seen the movie - read it anyway.

There are many authors of note that I need to mention - I read all their novels and love most of them: Andre Dubus III - I am currently reading The Garden of Last Days and am in awe of his character development, eye for plot and ability to draw the reader in immediately. The House of Sand and Fog was an amazing book, too. I read all of Jodi Picoult's books - my favorite is still The Pact - she is always great for an entertaining plot line with lots of twists and turns, but sometimes I think she is reaching a bit. Sue Miller, who I have already mentioned, has insight into the frailties of familial relationships, marriages and the human heart that I find moving. Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres is a great read, however I haven't been as fond of her other novels. The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton is a work of dramatic genius. Richard Russo's Straight Man is a work of comic genius.

And I will always have a soft spot in my heart for John Irving's The Hotel New Hampshire. That was the first real "adult" book I read, and I still use a line from this book in my daily life ... "You have to keep passing the open windows".

I didn't even touch upon the classics, because I simply don't have that much time. I need to get back to The Garden of Last Days. I'm in the thin pages.

I'd love to hear from all of you - what books would be on your all-time favorite list, and why?