They say March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. (Apparently this is weather-related; I did a single Google.) Well, a fair number of our readers got mauled in last month. The incredible — no, the opposite, the wonderfully credible thing, because in fact it did happen, is that they made it out the other side and decided to tell us all about it. Thanks for that. It really does matter: to bear witness, every month, to suffering survived; and to celebrate the formerly suffering, now thriving. —TSB Editor

By The Small Bow Family Orchestra

The word “rhyming” in this month’s call for check-ins made me cringe. Last summer, I got big into 12-step programs and thought I had a spiritual awakening. I started writing poetry — researching topics, connecting dots — for hours on end. I posted the poems online. Simultaneously, I burned down my finances and most relationships. Depression hit in November. I left a job, got back into therapy, took the poems down. I put them back up, took them down again. In January, I wrote a sleep check-in for TSB that echoed a lifetime of swings. Despite a family history of mood disorders and a diagnosis in 2018, I’d chalked it up to substances and stopped taking meds a few years after I got sober. Yesterday I started taking them again. When I want to change the way I feel, I play a song by Billy Joel on repeat. I’ve played it a lot this year. It doesn’t have a chorus, just returns to the phrase, “it’s either sadness or euphoria.” I guess where I’m at with my recovery is trying to find out if there’s a middle ground. I want to show up for the people in my life (myself included) and that requires stability.

It is Easter and I woke up to a horizontal snowstorm. It did not last long; it was soon replaced by torrential rain. There was snow on the ground when I woke up yesterday and also the day before yesterday. The snow quickly melted. Still, April is miserable because I am in a place that postpones true spring for far too long.

Yesterday I was able to lure a grandchild to my place with the offer of playing Pokémon GO. He had stopped playing maybe a year ago, but is back at it. This kid is neuro spicy just like me, and his life is not an easy life. So I don’t take his rare visits personally. He brought his younger brother who missed Dad after a few minutes, and so I walked the little one back home. We mostly walked hand in hand. At some point, he lifted my hand to his lips and gave it a smooch.

Very soon he will stop doing that because children get older and usually stop being so affectionate. I am cranky, I am getting older, too many friends have fatal illnesses. But I got a kiss on my hand yesterday and a fair number of hugs. Then the oldest grandchild sat next to me to share his favorite Pokémon. Today I’m in a bathtub, which is very warm compared to outside where a freezing wind howls. All things considered, I’m doing great.

I visited my grandma for her 93rd birthday, and as part of mandatory family time, we all went to the megachurch a local relative attends. A woman with an aggressive 70s flip hairdo (complimentary), clearly a “greeter” meant to assess the intentions of unknown weirdos, came by to chat. When informed of the birthday, she smiled at Grandma, gestured to the row of family members, and proclaimed, “What a legacy you’ve created.” There was a time in my life when I would’ve laughed — joked that my grandma’s legacy was some fucked-up kids and even more fucked-up grandkids — but I tried to use my “wise mind.” We’ve got pills and booze and process stuff aplenty, but we’ve also got some folks making an earnest stab at recovery, Grandma included. Her two husbands and three siblings all drank themselves to death, but after 30 years of hell, she got sober in her 50s and has stayed the course. At the end of the day, that’s a legacy to be proud of.

March was my lost month. I was just discharged from the hospital on Friday after three weeks. I suffered acute respiratory failure for no known reason that the doctors could make sense of. There were a lot of theories but nothing concrete that really solved the mystery of my lungs boycotting my body.

Here is the kicker though. My mother died in early December from pulmonary fibrosis. She could not breathe and was on high doses of oxygen at the end. I don’t know if I ever really grieved her. For the past few years, I was her main caregiver. I would go to her house several times a week to run errands and help her. I should also just disclose that I'm an active member of Al Anon and also attended CODA meetings, though I am not active in that fellowship. My husband is my qualifier. My mother probably would qualify me as a co-dependent as well. The fact that I now, very viscerally, understood what my mother was going through, makes me wonder if I’m grieving physically — by literally losing my breath the way my mother did. That feels heavy but true to me.

My husband has been amazing. Through all the shit we’ve been through in our marriage with alcoholism, the lies, the cheating. We are still together. My getting sick just shattered him. He never imagined that I might not be here. He’s been so there for me throughout this ordeal. I am so very grateful to my Al-Anon fellowship, my family and friends. Everyone has just shown up for me and it absolutely humbled me. One day at a time.

I will have two years sober on April 24th. I cannot believe how quickly the second year went. In some ways, my life is much less put together than it was before I got sober. I am nearing the end of my disability leave and still don’t have a job after a year of searching and 250+ applications. I have gained 20 lbs (damn you, sweets!). I have no idea what I really want to do next, so I am even debating grad school at 40 years old. However, my life is mostly pretty great. I would take all of this uncertainty over the misery I had at the end of my drinking. I have amazing friends, therapists, AA fellows, and family. I have made huge strides in therapy and am really starting to notice how the promises do come true. My sponsor told me I can start raising my hand to sponsor others. I still have plenty of free time to do the things I love (go to the movies, be outside, sleep). I rarely get depressed and I have learned how to stay present and focus on what I control. The gifts of sobriety are seemingly endless, and I can’t wait to see what my third year will bring. 

I’m the partner of an addict in recovery so I hope I belong here too because having been in my own coaddiction recovery group for 13 years I know I belong in that room. Sometimes us Partners/CoAddicts get fooled into the habit of thinking that because our sobriety doesn’t involve a hit, a drink or a wager it’s all a bit cloudy and hard to define but this last month I finally decided to write out those prime examples of me off the rails. I can come up with excuses for checking out on the phone, spending money unnecessarily or mindlessly eating but in truth it’s not keeping recovery at the front of my brain and that is a lack of sobriety. For addicts who might have considered us coaddicts as the lucky ones, we aren’t anything more than the lid to your pot (no pun intended). 

March has been much calmer than the darkness of February. Ups. Downs.

Of course, that’s part of my condition. When up, it is dizzying heights. It’s the rattle and clank of the roller coaster, arms up and giddy screaming. When I am down, I want to find a corner to crawl in and pretend I am a rock. Who needs me? Who would want me?

And when I am there, I only seem to go lower. Raising back up might mean someone would notice me and then it all spirals out again because who could possibly understand?

Therefore, I’m still here, right? Therefore, I must have gotten back up all those times, right?

Also, maybe someone who naturally uses “therefore” in a sentence is just emotionally dramatic enough that if they want to understand what the real problem is, they should look in the mirror and deal with it.

This is where I turn to music, always have. People I’ve talked to in AA about that did like it when I would say that. Something about tying my sobriety to musicians and celebrities, I was actually told. Part of the reason I try and steer clear of those same meetings now, after watching those same people tie their sobriety to different things that I couldn’t point out because I would be taking someone’s inventory.

Goose, meet gander . . . 

Wait, I’m doing it again. Being grandiose.

So instead of spiraling into analysis, I’m grounding myself the way I always have.

“How It Is” by Rush — a reminder that the small traps are universal.

“The Unnamed Feeling” by Metallica — a reminder that the loneliness isn’t unique.

For today, the music is enough to keep me upright.

I’ve discovered, with the help of my therapist, that I “live in the sad perspectives” as she put it, way too much. It’s true — I do have a way of thinking bad things will happen and dwelling upon the negative more than I should. Lately, I’ve been agitated and angry more than usual, picking fights with my husband or arguing with my daughter and it always ends up with them telling me they need me to communicate in a more respectful and less aggressive way, and me crying and begging for their forgiveness. They have been so patient with me for the last several years as I navigate a possible bipolar disorder diagnosis (I say possible because I don’t believe it and my doctor says it doesn’t matter). I do know I have complex PTSD and I’m healing, but some months are harder than others. I haven’t had an “episode” in over two years. I like to think of that as my sobriety day count. I’m doing all the things I know to do to stay stable and healthy. And I live in fear of another episode. I am grateful for my husband and my teenage daughter who’ve stuck with me and have endured so much. I’m also thankful for a few friends who know what I’ve been through and are always there to support or listen. I don’t know if I’ll ever be that positive, joyful person again. The world is on fire and it’s hard just to survive right now. Asking for happiness and joy seems like too much. But I’ll keep trying. For their sake. 

March was a fucking hard month. The world is on fire, my dad added bladder cancer to his Parkinson’s, and I can’t stop picking emotional scabs. The memories are like a radio without an off switch. They’re always on in the background, and this month they’ve been fucking loud. I find myself wondering what the point is, what does it matter to finally get it, what I had and what I would do to keep it, knowing that door has been closed? On the other hand, shouldn’t the simple fact that I deserve to heal be good enough? Some days it is, but I’ve been fighting that a lot lately. My therapist told me I regress to being a child when I don't get my way, that I lash out without appreciating the consequences, that I have to forgive myself and let that kid stop running my life. How do you forgive yourself for causing that kind of pain? I was a terrified little boy who never learned how to self soothe, who never progressed beyond a sick cycle of people pleasing and corresponding resentment, and in so many ways I never grew up. Trying to protect myself by sacrificing everyone else. I told her before the divorce that I wished I could meet her for the first time again, start fresh. Impossible, and a childish understanding of the world. But some days I just can’t shake it, that the real version of me was always in here, lost behind addictions and fear. That he can be a good partner, a good husband, a good friend. I cried a lot this month, but I’m doing the work anyway because I don't actually want to be miserable anymore, I don’t want to hurt myself or others anymore. I don’t know the future, so I try to be open to the idea that it gets better. Maybe April will. Maybe I’ll stop picking the scabs. Maybe I’ll stop listening to Phoebe Bridgers and Matt Maeson on repeat. Or maybe I won’t, but the lyrics will sting a little less. One day at a time, I guess.

fin

ILLUSTRATIONS BY EDITH ZIMMERMAN