Is It Time To Admit Defeat Again?

"Sometimes it takes a quiet, temporary admission of defeat in order to win the war." ~ Patrick Benjamin

For many of us defeat brought us to this journey of recovery. Beaten, bewildered, flattened and flummoxed we began to find ourselves and in doing so, embarked on our personal search for happiness. Eventually we learned we could begin a pilgrimage to self actualization even while our children walked their tumultuous pathways of self destruction and occasional epiphanies.

We began to feel things. Best of all we began to feel … happy.

After so many uphill climbs it seemed as if we were bounding along waist-high meadows of daisies and butterflies. Our children could see that we were no longer cajoling, lecturing, or attempting to fix. We left them to their own wits. We knew they could figure this out. We embraced a new behavior where we no longer insulted our children with belittling suggestions or dire predictions for their futures.

Today, the directions our children take on their journeys, for good or bad, are our children's decisions. They are progressing, ever so slowly, with the occasional visit to the darkness, because of the choices they make.

We know this now. We cannot own our children's journeys. Our recovery is difficult enough without the meddling into others' affairs we had become so accustomed to in our past lives.

We coast a bit. We'd been through so much. We deserve the respite, don't we?

Yes we do. We deserve happiness. We deserve a rest, to take a load off, to "Take 5."

But let's not get complacent.

Perhaps it is once again time to remember how we began our journey. Perhaps it is time to find again the feelings that brought us here.

Perhaps it is time to once again admit defeat. There are times in our recovery that we have an obligation to acknowledge our victories, growth, new awareness and restored passion for life have not been accomplished in a vacuum. There has been a Universal force at work guiding and nurturing us through our journey. Any hubris we bring to our journey is an insult to our Higher Power and may allow The Addiction to reinsert itself into our lives beckoning us to again insert ourselves into the lives of our addicted.

It is time to once again fool The Addiction.

It just may be time for a tactical withdrawal.

It's time once again to admit defeat at the hands of our children's addiction whether or not we are in a "good place." We can once again admit to our powerlessness to fix, change, control and save our children. As we acknowledge this we do not divert entirely or permanently from our path. We simply take a side trip of our choice, on our own terms, to collect ourselves, to remember a long and difficult journey traversed and honor progress achieved. Like a character in a novel who travels back through time we may even catch a memory of an earlier version of ourselves reminding us of how far we've come.

The Addiction within our sons and daughters may see this as an opportunity to strike at a perceived weakness. We know we are simply using this time to regroup, become stronger and even better prepared for our continuing journey.

What might trigger this tactical withdrawal? It can be a prolonged silence from our addicted son or daughter who is no longer at home that activates the evil projectionist's worst-case-scenario movies to play in our minds. It can be other family issues precipitating the need to take this deliberate diversion. We may be taking for granted the strides we have made. The Addiction is a resourceful and cunning foe and may not attack through the accustomed battle lines of the children who brought us here.

We are not denying or mistrusting our inalienable right to happiness. We are simply appreciating with gratitude where we are at this moment and how far we have travelled.

We are on guard. We realize complacency can drive us back, back to where we were, where we never wish to return.

We will emerge from this tactical withdrawal stronger, energized and ready to keep moving along our recovery pathway.

… keep coming back

"By yielding you may obtain victory." ~ Ovid

"Retreat hell! We're not retreating, we're just advancing in a different direction." ~ Major General Oliver P. Smith at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir - Korea, 1950

Becoming Militant - Resuming the Journey

"Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their situation. But when they get angry they bring about change." ~ Malcom X, Malcom X Speaks

Parents of children who have spiraled into addiction have a unique perspective on life. Parents outside our circles may attempt to empathize with our struggles but often lose patience with our seemingly endless plot lines of ours and our childrens' journeys. Even friends who have witnessed addiction within immediate or extended families, but not with progeny, cannot totally relate to our experience. We accept well-meaning smiles and encouragement knowing even the kindness our friends show us cannot mask the unspoken.

They just don't get it. If we could read the thought bubbles they would say, "Thank God that's not me."

But we get it. Nobody wishes the journey of the addict on their sons and daughters.

When we make connections with parents who do share stories like ours we realize we are not alone. Many journeys have not begun until these bonds have been embraced. It is comforting to have someone with us as we take those first few tentative steps to escape our self-made quagmires. Soon we identify our journey is moving us toward self awareness, self actualization and personal presence. The perception of the communal journey gives way to the realization that each pathway traveled by a parent of an addict is extremely personal. We have found the support of multitudes of brothers and sisters along our way who love us and appreciate our experience, strength and hope as we cherish theirs. The staggering experiences that once survived, made us stronger and gave us hope for our lives are ours and no one else's. We are alone, together, but alone all the same. This is the way it must be. We cannot rely on others to tell us how to keep moving along our pathways any more than our children can rely on us to show them how to move beyond the disease.

So there we are, progressing toward our destinies, amid those metaphorical pits, tree falls, cliffs, danger-laden rain forests, energy-sapping deserts and other distractions. All we want is to be whole, to live lives that are full and realized. So why aren't we getting anywhere? At some point, it can seem like we're going in circles, retracing our own footsteps.

All we want is to be happy. Is this to much to ask?

No!

We get pissed. "Haven't we moved beyond anger as the go-to emotion to frustration?" we think to ourselves. We wonder if this is a reasonable response to the constant roadblocks and detours addiction in its many guises places upon our recovery paths.

This, traveller, is not just a reasonable response to The Addiction. If harnessed correctly and with the guidance of the Great Creator it I can be a healthy response.

Perhaps it's time to get militant about our recovery.

Similar to the way we were treated by the medical profession before taking ownership of our bodies and demanding to know what is going on "in there," recovery without a certain militancy can often fool us into thinking that everything is fine when it just may not be. Complacency about our recovery can leave us feeling unfulfilled and often exhausted. As we work harder and harder on our self improvement and progress along our pathways, if we are not careful and vigilant The Addiction will divert us through detours maddeningly similar to where we had been. We find ourselves in familiar situations and behaviors we thought were abandoned long ago. It is a spiral. We go in circles, we find ourselves in those accustomed surroundings until we stop and say, "Enough! Yes, I've come so far but I want more. And I know what I have to do!"

In a sudden surge of self awareness we dig deep and acknowledge shortcomings we have avoided or ignored. We realize we had bought into the playbook The Addiction wished us to follow, using our child's addiction as an excuse for stagnation. Complacency had moved us again to focus on our child's journey and not on ourselves. Those deep-seated character flaws took a back seat. We have endured and persevered. We may have been gentle with ourselves. We may have deserved this after enduring so much.

But recently we found we're not getting anywhere. We've plateaued. We're not improving.

We have nowhere else to turn but within.

These imperfections, these life patterns, often family conventions and norms have been with us for generations.

It's time.

It is time we jettison, shed, exterminate and eradicate what is holding us back from within. The personal and solitary nature of our journey takes us full circle. We make changes, slowly and in a determined way and not for anyone but ourselves.

We become militant about our happiness. This visceral response to stagnation is the impetus that can propel us past our own self-defeating and destructive behaviors.

We become so self aware. We show up. We are at peace. We become a force true to the truest of our natures as human beings. Everything becomes clearer, gentler and more loving. We are self assured. We surprise people, most of all ourselves.

Those obstacles and diversions of the past seem scattered as if with a wave of our hands.

Militancy is a powerful life approach when applied for Good, and the Good that results will be felt throughout our small corner of the cosmos like ripples in a pond. Our worst demons confronted and our journeys resumed we emerge stronger. We are more comfortable with ourselves and our imperfections. We become a force for our own happiness and a beacon to those we care for.

When we look ahead we are once again amazed at what we see. Our pathway is much clearer now. Smile. It's time once again to move on with a renewed determination! With the Universe by our side and our focus revitalized we will become militant masters of our own destiny and happiness.

… keep coming back

"For my ally is The Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the force around you - here between you, me, the tree, the rock. everywhere. ~ Master Yoda

The Wounded

"You think it's a weakness. Make it a strength. It's part of you. So use it." 

~ Actor Jon Huertas as Detective Javier Esposito - Castle, "Kill Shot"(Written by Alexi Hawley)

I admit it. ABC's Castle is one of my guilty pleasures. With an engaging ensemble cast and plot lines riveting, but not grotesque or depressing, Castle is a show I can enjoy. The episode "Kill Shot" centers on the pursuit of a sniper who is terrorizing the citizens of New York City by shooting in broad daylight seemingly indiscriminate targets - a kindergarten teacher, an attorney and a third who is the lone survivor.

Interwoven throughout the drama is Detective Kate Beckett's struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome triggered by an attempt on her life in a previous episode. This current murder investigation hits home. Her assailant, likewise a sniper, remains at large.

Beckett is a mess though she believes she is fine even announcing this to her team, her captain, therapist  and her consultant/writer, not-quite-yet (spoiler alert) lover Richard Castle. Worst of all she truly believes she is not affected by the bullet through her chest that miraculously sidestepped her aorta. Kate Beckett is in total denial.

Sound familiar?

In a scene pivotal to the episode and the series, Beckett is pulled away from the squad room by Detective Javi Esposito, a former U. S. Army Special Forces sniper who served in Iraq prior to joining the NYPD. Esposito escorts Beckett into a far corner of what appears to be the precinct evidence locker.  He presents her with a sniper rifle. It is Beckett's sniper's rifle.

"You are way out of line," she says to him.

Esposito explains the rifle he is holding is simply a hunk of steel with no magical powers. He confides to her he has been where she is now.

Beckett repeats her mantra: "Javi I'm fine."

"You're not fine," he responds. The sniper, he explains, isn't all powerful. "He's damaged goods."

After a long pause Beckett responds, "So am I."

Esposito jumps on the chance to begin closing his team leader's wound and says, "That's right, and that's OK. You think it's a weakness. Make it a strength. It's part of you. So use it."

He hands her the rifle and begins the healing process of Detective Kate Beckett.

We have all of us been wounded, seemingly mortally. Our hearts have been pierced by our child's spiral into addiction. We've been knocked down but not out, sidelined perhaps, but not eliminated. At some point we determined we were fine but knew we were not … fine. We thought we could recover alone from the attack that could have knocked us permanently out of life.

We lied to ourselves and the Universe. Then, the Universe handed our Truth back to us - our own private sniper rifles. We'd been offered help countless times before, there had been hundreds of angels close by for so long and we refused to accept the invitation to begin our healing.

We needed to be backed into a far corner of our own evidence locker to see our Truth, the proof of what could destroy us if we let it, if we gave The Addiction the power it wanted. The remnants of our defeat, helplessness and sorrow brought upon us at the hands of our child's addiction can bring us permanently DOWN unless we accept the Truth:

We are parents of addicts. Ours lives have been changed - permanently. We're still here. The Addiction, the damaged goods that has taken our children from us isn't all powerful. We are also damaged goods and that's OK. What should have eliminated us from life and living, permanently, has not. Our defeat by our child's addiction is now a part of us. We may think this a weakness but since the experience is inextricably fused to our inner-most being, to our souls, why not use it? 

Why not make it a strength?

What is the sniper rifle the Universe presents to us, the linchpin, the essential of The Addiction that felled us, that brought us to our knees?

When we look around the evidence locker we will be horrified to be presented with the image of our children as they once were and as they could have been in our hands. The Great Creator is with us and hands us our babies and says softly, "He didn't pull the trigger. She didn't take the shot."

The image transforms. We see it clearly now. It is The Addiction. The Addiction is just the tool. It is not all powerful. Yet, it remains out there, at large, stalking us.

But we have lives to lead. We can lay down the memory of our children, for now. We can keep it in the evidence locker, for now. We can move on.

Our strength comes from separating The Addiction from the memories of who our children once were and could have been, who they are now and where their journeys are leading them.

We are who we are. The shadow of addiction is a part of us. Don't run from it. Don't deny it. Make it a strength. Use it.

We will emerge greater than we ever imagined we could be.

… keep coming back

"You need to claim the events in your life to make yourself yours." ~ Anne Wilson Schaef

Repairers of the Breach

"Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt. You shall raise up the foundations of many generations. You shall be called Repairer of the Breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in."  ~ Book of Isaiah 

We have experienced a breach in our families. There has been an attack on our lives, our souls, our futures. Even the whole of society seems to have been overtaken by the onslaught.

Is addiction such a powerful, unstoppable force?

As parents of addicts, we think not.

A friend recently asked as we were discussing this and other issues, "Is this the end of days?"

Again, we must think not.

There are too many of us traveling, progressing, striving, seeking and seeing, to be throwing our hands up in deep despair, too many of us carrying banners of hope, life and living.

We are repairers of the breach brought about by addiction. We are a most powerful force.

When our children first succumbed to the allure of addiction plunging headlong into its vortex we did everything to fix, control, battle and redirect. We found this was a battle we could never win. Strategically, we began to think differently. We changed tactics. We began to breathe, sometimes reluctantly, to trust in a Great Creator. We laughed, occasionally. We sought the good in ourselves and began to see hopeful signs for our futures and the futures of our children as they traversed their recovery roads.

We let love enter our lives and began to see our lives could be fulfilled, happy and even joyous. We became militant about our happiness.

There may be thousands of us on this journey, perhaps millions if we include those who have yet to warily advance along their uncertain recovery pathways. There are certainly millions if we count those who are just now extricating themselves from the addict's mire like the original gasp of life sprung from the muck of primordial soup billions of years ago.

No matter the headcount we are truly a force to be reckoned with.

As we progress on our journeys of recovery we are showing our children the way. Each day, together, yet on distinctly separate roads we reveal to our children points of self discovery they can enter only through their own devices and initiative.

They'll figure it out, not us.

Repairers of the breach are often misunderstood as we take on our quixotic quests for our own possible dreams. We become SeaBees constructing our recovery roadways and repairing defenses as our children and the rest of the world observe from afar our courage and fortitude. Our hope is that our very personal journeys will somehow inspire our children. We hope also that this army of contrarians will change the way society views the blight of addiction.

This is, however, not our primary journey. Our breach is intimate and firsthand, our recovery focused and necessary for our survival. With each step along our roads the fractures of our lives are soothed, the pain tempered and hope restored. Future generations will benefit from our journey - TRUST this.

Breach repairers say "Enough!" to decades of spirals and vortex diving. We end generational duplication of damaging behaviors. Living our lives to the fullest extent possible we say "No" to another cycle of acceptance of addiction as a way of life. In this way repairers of the breach are also breakers of chains.

We become zealots in the defense of our battlements, of the small tracts of progress won through perseverance and TRUST in a Universal Power greater than ourselves. We repel the negative and embrace the positive. When we least expect, laughter, joy, life and friendship will join us as allies. We will become strong again and send a message to The Addiction that through defeat we have become stronger.

One day we may see a figure in the distance approaching, having left his addiction behind. We can lower the drawbridge and accept her back with open arms as equals, as allies in living life to its fullest. This is the Hope that spurs us on, we band of brothers and sisters, we repairers of the breach!

… keep coming back

"Somewhere in the world there is a defeat for everyone. Some are destroyed by defeat, and some made small and mean in victory. Greatness lives in one who triumphs equally over defeat and victory." ~ John Steinbeck, The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights

When Things Go Right

"When something goes right, oh, it's likely to lose me. It's apt to confuse me. It's such an unusual sight. I can't get used to something so right." ~ Paul Simon, Something So Right

Our journeys take us along pathways with uphills, downhills and wild rides both good and bad. It becomes easier when we travel pathways separate from our children who have brought us to recovery. Though separate on our chosen divergent roads we are, however, never separated.

They are after all our children, whom we love.

Whether or not our children are at home we are in receipt of constant communiques from their journeys.  The Addiction is an insidiously cunning foe regularly providing unsolicited updates concerning our children's front-line internal battles. Our response will vary depending on how far along our own journeys we've progressed. Notifications of current or pending doomsday scenarios can throw us off our game hurling us downhill into hedgerows or mired in our own swampy crap for a time. Or, we can utilize lessons learned along our long recovery road, ignore the beckonings of our children's addictions to join them in the spiral and make that slow, hard climb to the next plateau, the next steppe in our journey.

We are accustomed to bad news. We've begun to to live our lives expecting nothing from our addicts. We've repeatedly told ourselves the mantra, "Where there's life there's hope." We've learned to tell our children they will figure it out when the Addiction attempts to drag us down with it.

We've fired the projectionist and shuttered the projection room where those awful coming attractions of worst-case scenarios for our children played in our heads for what seemed an eternity.

We've begun to live our lives. We have become the embodiment of change that any soul can achieve if it wishes to be and relinquishes any and all expectations to a gentle universal force. We are a beacon, first to ourselves, then to our families and the children who brought us to this beautiful journey.

Let's face it, we've done all this with a background of negativity, accepting our children's lives to be nothing like we would have wished for them and nothing like they would have EVER wished for themselves. This is a hard road we travel as parents of addicts. It is a hard road we have embraced. And somehow, eventually, we become better for it - better parents, better spouses and partners, better human beings.

There may be a juncture in our travels when something astonishing occurs, something unforeseen. We become flummoxed and stunned by the occurrence. For this we are totally unprepared.

Things may just start to take as turn for the better for our children.

What the hell are we supposed to do with this?

Our first inclination may be to let our negative tendencies slip in and divert us from what we should be experiencing. We wonder how long this will last, this time. We wonder if we can trust the signs, the perceived unspoken or the verbalized - "I'm not using."

"I wonder if that projectionist would come to work for me again?"

When it's different, when the signs indicate apparent attitude changes, conversations that go beyond the lies the Addiction has told us of for too long and we begin to believe our children have begun a slow crawl out of their primordial soup we can simply … Breathe.

With no expectations we can simply savor the moment. We can experience each day's arrival and ending as the adventure the Universe meant for us. We will continue our journey taking in the positive newsreels sent from our children. We can enjoy each small victory knowing that our recovery may have played a part in our son's or daughter's awakening.

There will be epiphanies. As our children become less clouded by their addictions and more self aware they will begin to see the obstacles along their pathways the Addiction had previously kept so well hidden. Hopefully our children will experience the same cycles of frustration, action, victory, despair, exuberance, progress, regress and more difficult action we have come to know along our journeys as they finally allow themselves to embark along a new pathway.

We MUST continue to watch from afar, engaging them only with love and encouragement. It will be tempting to help them along, to tell them what to do based on our successes. Don't insult their intelligence. Remember, no one told us what to do when we first began our new lives, we simply felt the power of our fellow travelers and the Great Creator like a wind across our sails helping us along.

Climbing to our next hillside what we can do is gaze upon our children and with a joyful tear in our eye, BREATHE, smile and enjoy the moment.

… keep coming back

"If I had ever been here before I would probably know what to do. Don't you?" ~David Crosby, Deja vu 

Spring Haiku For You

"If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant. If we did not sometimes taste of adversity. prosperity would not be so welcome."                 ~ Anne Bradstreet

It's been a while since I've haiku'd. What better excuse than springtime to break out one of my favorite forms. Enjoy, have fun with these and relax, the Vernal Equinox is near! Can't you feel it? Look for the secret Parent Depot messages embedded within the 5-7-5 verses!

At five forty five

The Central Daylight Time zone

Will embrace a change

Have you noticed this

I feel Mother Earth turning

Tilting towards the Sun

What is that I hear?

The pop-pop of daffodils

Breaking barriers

I know it's spring, but

The clouds, the cold, still remain

Trust the change will come

Bird songs beautiful

Mixed with awakened squirrel scourge

The Good, with the Bad

A celestial cheer

To the Northern Hemisphere

Warm! Grow! Bloom! Become!

Welcome the springtime 

Embrace its immediate

The colors of life

We have persevered

Our Great Creator's reward

Winter's budge to spring

You get out there now

You've been waiting long enough

Your life beckoning

… keep coming  back

Being Willing

"The hard, is what makes it great." ~ Tom Hanks as Jimmy Dugan, A League of Their Own

I often find myself mired in negativity though I've always thought of myself as one who trends to the bright side, the glass half full, a positive soul. I've always been one of those awful morning people to the deep despair of my family, none of whom share that seemingly recessive trait.

In a way, a positive outlook has been forced upon me.

Move, or die.

The journey I traverse has spanned almost a decade, though I have only known it, felt it, experienced it for half that time. It has been a wondrous, incredible blessing that reminds me daily that this journey is a gift that keeps on giving if I persevere. There have been victories achieved, new horizons approached, talents rekindled and joys accepted.  And then, there are times when my son's addiction seems to surround, hover and attack from all sides.

Because we love our children this can weigh heavily on us. We have all experienced negativity and doubt even as we progress boldly along our pathways to recovery.

Committed as we are to our improvement, to achieving a life we had perceived as unattainable and undeserved, we cannot help but catch glimpses of our children in the distance. We see our children stumbling, failing, continuing to travel those roads fraught with danger and setbacks, switchbacks and mudslides.

It's hard, but we have to remember …

"It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard everyone would do it. The hard … is what makes it great."

When I lose sight of my own journey, when I doubt the wonder of my recovery, I stumble into my own negativity. I find myself taking the negativity into the most meaningless of decisions and observations. My vision becomes clouded. My answer to everything is "No," my desires, my horizons become limited. The accomplishments and journeys of others are silly, meaningless and unsophisticated. I become judgemental, lose sight of my journey and self. I fixate on everything but my now and my possibilities.

I find myself like so many of our politicians who seem to be against everything and for nothing, This as we know leads to business as usual. We diminish ourselves and lower our expectations. We have all diverted our journeys down this road. Everything seemed fine then boom, there we are, in the ditch of negativity or sliding down that fifty degree rocky hillside.

It's like the board game Chutes and Ladders without the ladders.

When this occurs we have choices. We can continue to plummet, to be smugly stuck, or we can make an active decision to pursue a course antithetical to our current pathway of negativity.

We can simply be willing.

We can incorporate words like OK, let's do it, and why not? into our vocabulary. This may require us to force ourselves into positivity, digging our heels deep into that rocky hillside to stop the slide back to the sludge of our childrens' addictions we have worked so hard to escape.

We can be open. We can open our hearts, again, to new possibilities, directions, adventures and thoughts. Most importantly and often the hardest, we can stop fixating on others, stop the judging, stop the comparisons and concentrate on that next small step in our own journey.

We can be inclusive, considerate and welcoming.

As we embrace willingness and leave negativity behind we may begin to grow a little, or a lot. We can certainly devote a lot more time and energy to our journey when we cease concentrating on the perceived shortfalls of others.

This is not meant as an invitation to accept everything as right for us as we resume our travels. We can be vigilant to filter out The Bad in our environs and recognize our own shortcomings. We've grown, we can sift The Good from The Bad, the beneficial from the dangerous and detrimental. We can eschew negativity and now trust we can recognize the signposts leading us away from our chosen pathways.

Strangely - and this is a long, strange and wonderful trip we're on - we will find as we become willing we become more resolute in our journey.

We can commit to ourselves a solution to negativity. We can say out loud, "I'm not going down that road. I've been there and that's not the direction I'm going!" We move on, back on pathways true to ourselves. Guided by the Universe to our next victorious plateau we will see previously unimaginable vistas and possibilities.

Being willing is simply, being. A willing soul, a willing presence is the enemy of fear, prejudice, distrust and hatred. A willing heart is the enemy of Addiction. A willing spirit is an adventurous spirit nurturing us to take leaps into the unknown and confident treks down roads less often taken.

And this my friends, can make all the difference.

… keep coming back

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - |  I took the one less travelled by  |  And that has made all the difference." ~ Robert Frost - The Road Not Taken