It's OK To Get Tired

"I am really, really, tired." ~ Jackie Chan

Life is beautiful. Life is hard. Recovery is a bitch. Recovery can have its beauty as well, its victories along with its sine wave roller coaster peaks and valleys.

Watching someone in recovery is exhausting. Hope is eternal but can be the cruel ally of The Addiction lulling us into a guarded sense of false, or even real security when everything appears to be turning into daisies and butterflies for our children. It's not that we are naive or let our guard down. It is simply loving our children as we do, we will hang on every victory as if their life, not ours, depends on the outcome of whatever struggle in which they might be engaged. Our far-off view of our children  - two joined souls on different pathways - does not always shield us from feeling their pain, anxiety and depression. We can be empathetic without inserting ourselves directly into their lives or restarting the bad-news cinema in our minds.

But still, our recovery can be so hard and exhausting. Even as we get on with our lives we cannot help but keep that sidelong watchful eye on our children. It's like the sports fan who follows a losing team year after year patiently awaiting the turn around, the dream season every enthusiast hopes for and deserves. Like the fan, we can hang on every loss, each strike out, dropped pass or missed opportunity.

Unlike the fan, thankfully, we have learned not to insert ourselves imagined onto the playing field, our better talents turning the lost season into a playoff run. It is a fruitless proposition and one The Addiction wishes us to pursue to divert us from our journey pathways.

Our players, our sons and daughters, know we're there. He hears us when we cheer his triumphs, she when we acknowledge positive changes in outlook or behavior. We've simply stopped the catcalls, the Monday morning quarterbacking, those insulting "you've GOT TO hit the cutoff man" admonitions.

The worst, when I coached, was when I would witness a fellow baseball manager remind his pitcher to "throw strikes" when in the midst of a tough inning. I always wished the kid would turn toward the dugout, take his cap off , hit himself in the forehead with the heel of his hand and say, "Of course, it's so simple. Why didn't you tell me to do that before I got jammed up!"

Each day for us is the beginning of a new season. For many of us we're like the fans of American baseball's Chicago Cubs or the faithful followers of Aston Villa Football Club in the English Premiere League. Our seasons are played out one day at a time. We're Bill Murray in Groundhog Day hoping for a different result.

Did I mention this can be exhausting?

We learn to breathe. We carve out time for meditation. We seek out kindred spirits, others with whom we can share the experience strength and hope of parents in recovery.

And still we remain ... tired.

And this, as with so many seemingly insurmountable obstacles we encounter along our pathways is OK. It's OK to reach the point of exhaustion. It's OK to feel the effects The Addiction has thrust upon us and our families.

What's NOT OK is when we insinuate ourselves into the situation. Unlike the stalwart fan, we can and must resist the urge to take personally the ups and downs of our children's lives while we hope for that winning season. We have no control. We are handicapped by The Addiction, a bad front office that simply wants to maintain the status quo.

I live in a baseball town that each season amazes opposing teams with its appreciation of the game, the struggle, the competition. I've attended Cardinal games where the crowd has given both teams a standing ovation after a Redbird loss as a tribute to a game well played - an extra inning Cardinals loss to the Mets in the 80s comes to mind where both starting pitchers worked masterful games. The look of astonishment on the faces of the Mets players after their 1-0 win will be forever etched in my mind. Player and fan were exhausted after the hotly-contested game well played, yet tribute was still proffered.

Let me be clear, just like any city we hate to lose in St. Louis but we can appreciate the struggle along with the successes The reaction that day can be summarized in two words: Shit ... Wow!

All we can hope for when we become exhausted from the effects of The Addiction is to Seek and See the victories our children manufacture on their playing fields. Even in seemingly losing efforts our children may be heroically striving for a breakout season. We can rise and recognize the triumph of a hard-fought battle on any day even in the face of an apparent loss. We can offer our children our love, that standing ovation, that reverent cheer affirming their heroic journey along an exhaustingly treacherous recovery pathway.

It can bring shivers down your spine.

Imagine the utter amazement deep inside our children's souls as we rise up and applaud our son's or daughter's little victories as if to say, "Even in the face of apparent defeat we stand by you."

The Addiction will not know what to do with the ovation.

Just remember it's a long season.

... keep coming back

"In Nature's world, every loss has meaning." ~ Julia Cameron

The Ripples of Our Recoveries - A Postette

"People get ready, there's a train a comin' | You don't need no baggage, you just get on board | All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin' | You don't need no ticket, you just thank the Lord" ~ People Get Ready - Curtis Mayfield

I am not sure I fully grasp the concept or usefulness of social media, though I am getting close. I know I have connected in unexpected and wondrous ways with people worldwide via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. Occasionally I'll see a cartoon on a post or tweet that will be a HaHa moment as opposed to those Ah-Ha's of deep insight very deep people seek during moments of deep introspection.

Sometimes I just need a laugh.

I was recently tweeted (sic) to a cartoon depicting two riders on opposite sides of a train travelling along a mountain ridge towering above a lake as picturesque as one could ever imagine. The passenger on the ridge side saw only darkness and gloom, rock after rock passing dangerously close to his window, a continuously foreboding scene of peril. His fellow passenger was witness to the expanse of the valley, a lake teaming with life above and below with mountainsides folding in one after another in the distance creating an endless cascade of valley after valley after valley.

These were two riders on the same train with totally disparate perspectives on life, one dread filled and depressed, the other, as full of wonder as a child experiencing her first taste of watermelon.

You might call this an Ah-HaHaHa! moment.

This train scene is the perfect metaphor for the hope living our lives can bring to our children who have stumbled into the vortex of addiction. We all know the addict's outlook. It is a perspective born of zero possibilities. This is understandable. When the initial payoffs for leaving the comfort zone of The Addiction are withdrawals concomitant with nightstick-like pain into every body part, the incentives for recovery can be few or nonexistent.

It is the trap of addiction. This is a life no one ever consciously desires yet once imprisoned, for the addict, it can be an existence seemingly impossible to escape. We realized this once we were able to separate our children from The Addiction.

Love the addict. Hate The Addiction.

We are travellers on similar but much different pathways - riders on the same train. We see the lake vistas, our children only bear witness to the crag. There is no reason for us to move ourselves to the other side. We even avoid the nausea-inducing seats facing backward where we can watch the cinemas of the what-has-been obscuring the what-can-be.

One day our children might take that glance to the sunlight, to the windows of the possibilities we see and live each day. This may be a first step for our boys, an entry to an initial epiphany for our girls to embrace what The Universe, the Great Creator, God has available to all of us.  There is no need for coaxing. The sunlight reaches all the way across the aisle of the passenger car, as does the moonlight off the lake and snow-capped mountaintops far in the distance of our vistas.

And they know, they know it is there. This other side awaits them. All we can do is to keep open the window shade, continue loving them while we live our lives as fully and dynamically as possible each day. One day they may notice. They may want some of what we have discovered.

They may just join us to view our vistas.

There's plenty of room for both of us!

"Smile warmly at everyone you meet today and make a difference in the collective energy of the planet." ~ Marion Ross, PhD

... keep coming back 

An Unexpected Miracle, And Hula Hoops

"And we are put on Earth a little space | That we may learn to bear the beams of love."  ~ William Blake

When I learned I was to be a grandfather I was reluctant to accept the banner. Not that I had any say in the matter, this baby was going to arrive on its own schedule no matter my misgivings about taking on the new role. My reservations had little to do with any responsibilities grandfathering might bring. I was simply not old enough to be called "grandpa" by anyone, much less this new person with whom I had no history!

"How's it feel that you're going to be a grandpa?" I was asked, repeatedly.

"Old," would be my response.

This all changed when she was presented to us outside the delivery room, a beautiful swaddled little flower with a head of thick, jet-black hair.

She continues to bloom, this flower, her hair now strawberry blond like her mother's. On that day, June 3rd, my journey would become broadened, richer. On that day the Universe extended it's hands and provided me a gift I would not be aware of for some time. This gift, this miracle would unfold before me as gently and unhurriedly as this baby would begin to grow and embrace the love, the life and the world surrounding her.

We were building a history together. I became a rapt spectator to her every move, each new word she would say, every new song she would sing.

And one day she called me, "Grandpa!" as I was met at her door, she running to me, all her tiny arms, hands and fingers wrapped around my neck.

I was GRANDPA. I had arrived.

I soon discovered the secret to grandparenting stumbling upon this almost by accident. I quickly found myself falling in love with this little blossom through observation, not interaction. I took note of her laughter, glimpses of her interactions with her father, our son, witnessed her meltdowns, pathetic sadnesses as if she had the weight of the world upon her two-year old shoulders. I watched as her parents attempted to redirect her defiance - sometimes successfully.

"This is so funny, observing this," I would muse. "This is so karmic. This is Universal payback for the Sturm und Drang our kids had so generously gifted us during their adolescence."

How small-minded this thinking was. The Universe isn't petty. The Universe isn't interested in payback. The Universe is about learning, it is about doorways to opportunities and awareness as a pathway to growth and happiness.

Time passed and I still wasn't getting it. I began to watch our granddaughter as she, even at age 2, was stretching the boundaries of toddler propriety. I began to keep a non judgemental watch on our son as he attempted, mostly unsuccessfully, to reign in one of God's freest and fiercest spirits. I began to realize I was missing the point, I was missing the beauty before me by concentrating on the irony, not the joy of my granddaughter.

One day a friend on a similar journey as ours mentioned a secret that had served her well through years of recovery as a parent of an alcoholic.

"I just stay in my own hula hoop," she shared.

This was like a parting of the clouds revealing a heavenly light of understanding and epiphany. I made the leap from my friend's experience with her son to so much time wasted by not simply revelling in our granddaughter's joyfulness. I had been jumping into our son's parent hula hoop. There was a hula hoop waiting for me, emblazoned with the word GRANDPA.

I now watch our granddaughter in her quest for experience, adventure, love, understanding, not a small amount of independence and joyful laughter. I no longer jump into our son's hula hoop to share what he may be experiencing as a parent of a toddler in constant motion. Nor do I discipline or harbor any thoughts of what I might do when a parenting situation arises. This would require a leap combining 2 hula hoops, or two souls in one, a circus act detour off my journey pathway into a chasm of the absurd. I am able to experience the NOW. I do not insert myself. I simply AM with our granddaughter.

This little blossoming flower has provided a metaphor for us all as we continue our recoveries as parents of children addicted to any substance or behavior. We can choose to remain in our own hula hoops, whatever our expertise or attempt to jump into our son's or daughter's circle. It requires a lot of practice to accomplish this, jumping into our children's lives. We know practice makes perfect - perfect misery. It might even require an enlargement of the hula hoop, an expansion of the vortex into which our children have plummeted.

But now, we know. We know this. We would only be in the way.

We know inserting ourselves into our children's lives is pointless, counterproductive and insulting to their abilities.

We have our own hula-hoop momentum to maintain. It takes enough effort to keep our lives in sync without jumping into the lives of others.

There's simply no joy in it.

Who knows? Perhaps our sons will notice our delicate balancing act as we concentrate on keeping our lives moving. Our daughters may understand it is inevitably up to them to take hold of their hoop and make that first push forward to begin the magical momentum of living life.

In the meantime, stay in your own hula hoop. Close your eyes and hear the swoosh-swoosh of life in recovery. It is a sweet sound to behold.

"Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future." ~ Deepak Chopra

... keep coming back

Letting It Happen - Becoming the Human Beings We Can Be - A Travelogue

"Experience is not what happens to you, it is what you do with what happens to you." ~ Aldous Huxley

When I penned Part 1 of the Letting It Happen reflection my wife and I were preparing to send our youngest on his next great adventure - his entry into university as a college freshman. Feeling compelled to share how this hand off and our subsequent trip to the Smoky Mountains had so dramatically changed my life, I was surprised to see I had laid the groundwork for this travelogue post months before. In this adventure I would stretch personal boundaries, overcome negativity and one somewhat scary fall to move further along my own recovery pathway.

There are no coincidences, simply a universal synchronicity we MUST surrender to.

During my mired years I would never have entertained the possibility of letting go of the struggle to enjoy a quick side-trip to a far off land such as the Smokies, a realm as foreign to me as the Midwest might be to a Central African. A life-long flatlander - as I was called only once, thankfully - I would have presented a long list of reasons for not going. This list would include money, time, work considerations, self loathing, the perceived need to be there for our child, money, and a sincere belief that the "F" word, FUN, was not only unattainable, but disallowed.

A parent mired with The Addiction has neither the time, nor any entitlement to FUN.

Thankfully, this has all changed. We are, my wife and I, well along on our recovery journeys. Though moving along separate pathways, we are, again thankfully, on the same path, though often separately diverted along our way from time to time. We are human after all.

A trip to Gatlinburg after dropping our son off at his university was the perfect getaway, a five-day adventure at the gateway to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. We immersed. We threw ourselves into the beauty, the wonder and the splendor of the town and its surrounds almost to the point of exhaustion. My wife's exhortations to take full advantage of our brief time in the mountains became our battle cry and a frequent source of comic relief.

This trip became a metaphor for our recovery and a joyous, reflective and often lighthearted reminder of why we continue. Thankfully we were both in training for a half marathon. Gatlinburg can kick your ass. Gatlinburg is uphill, both ways.

I allowed my first impression of this new world to be be uplifting in so many ways. Gatlinburg is a very inclusive town, surprisingly so at least to me, nestled as it is in the north central region of the bible belt. The area folklore is all about stills, moonshine and bootlegging, the surrounding hills and valleys having provided perfect nook-and-cranny hideaways for the mostly eradicated grain alcohol industry. The vibe, however is more about inclusion than intoxication. Southern hospitality is everywhere inviting all to partake of a true slice of Americana whether you be American, European, Middle Eastern, African or Asian. We were among Muslims, Hindus, Jews and Christians. The word is out, Gatlinburg is world-friendly and embraceable, whether out of necessity or the very nature of the character of the residents. Gatlinburg is what all of us can be when we are at our best.

This was Letting Go life lesson number one learned from the hill country.

Everyone is in the same boat when existing between 1300 to 6700 feet above sea level - depending upon how much one is inclined to "embrace the climb." All of us were together in this no matter our backgrounds, journeying up and down the elevations, breathing the same rarefied air and battling gravity in measure equal to our individual wellness and fitness. Gatlinburg with its hills, ridges, slopes and vistas is the great equalizer and a gentle taskmaster to humankind!

As I mentioned previously this mini vacation was an encapsulation of where our recovery journeys have taken us. We left the exhilaration, sadness and trepidation of dropping off our youngest at university to embark on an adventure of self discovery. We pushed boundaries, explored and experienced.

On our first hike to 6600 feet, in our first mile as we began a downslope and I transitioned from the previous constant uphill I became complacent. I clipped a protruding rock with my boot and performed a headfirst slide that any major leaguer would be proud of. After being called "safe" by my wife I continued, bloodied, but better for it, better for the fall.

Thankfully, I fell on a hard bed of pebble gravel, not the baseball to SUV-size rocks and boulders we would soon be navigating. You see, the Universe will never give us more than we can take and for some reason, after my stumble the Smoky Mountains became more magnificent and joyous than I was previously willing to acknowledge.

We rode horses, not my thing, but the six-foot perch atop my selected mount provided a perspective of the ridges to the higher elevations I may never have experienced. Our second hike, twice as long as we had planned, became a lesson learned in letting go - letting go of exhaustion, negativity, resentment and competition. Limits reached for both of us on the downhill return leg of our 5-1/2 mile trek, we both gave in to the beauty of our surroundings in the misty confines of the mountains. We slowed our decent, accepted and beheld what the Great Creator had presented to us that day. We allowed other travellers, more adept at mountaineering than we, pass us by. There were those we overcame, possibly newer to the journey.

Always, knowing nods and smiles were exchanged between the fellow travellers.

Each time our return to civilization was a time for quiet jubilation. We had done it! We had travelled beyond our wildest expectations.

Personally, I had stumbled, fallen, and wore a bloody badge to remind me of how I did not, would not quit. My wife and I traversed the same paths up to and back on each of our hikes, but our journeys were markedly different. Footholds were our own, individually to choose. Routes up or down, to the right or left of rock outcroppings were very seldom the same. She, more adept at the downhills bounding down the trails like a pixie, and I more comfortable with the uphills, created an odd dichotomy that kept us both going, uphill as the air became thinner, cooler and more precious, then, downhill as we fought fatigue on the way home.

As parents of addicts it is important to remember each phase of our journey may not take us where we wish to be or where we believe we should be. If we SEEK and SEE what is truly ahead we just might find what we are looking for. We can accept our negativism and dismay, we can succumb to the struggle of the uphill climb that so often is what life brings, and then, we can look around. The splendor does truly await us.

We'll stumble, fall and learn. We'll wonder why we ever took that path, accepted that challenge, until we reach the clearing to our personal Charlies Bunion, Rainbow Falls, Clingman's Dome or return to civilization. 

Our struggles are temporary. They forever become a part of us so we may embrace and internalize what we've learned - scars and all.

Where there is life, there's hope for our children. We'll catch glimpses of each other along the switchbacks of our recovery trails. We can, by persevering, inspire them to take the path less travelled, that next step, to pick themselves up after a headlong dive back to the abyss. We can TRUST as we continue on, they too will reach their higher elevation, look down on rainbows from 6200 feet and feel the elation of seeing, finally, what The Universe has awaiting for them.

Let it happen. Let them push boundaries, explore and experience. Let them win and lose and learn. Let them stumble. Let them fall and soon, just maybe, their eyes will open to the possibilities, the splendor and wonder life can bring.

It's worth the trip!

"Life is simple, everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late. You don't have to like it, it's just easier if you do. ~ Byron Katie

... keep coming back 

Letting It Happen - Becoming the Human Beings We Were Meant to Be - Part One

"Where there is nothing right and nothing wrong, nothing 'bout weak or strong and nothing left to prove, surrender, oh please surrender, it's only us giving in to Trust." ~ "Surrender" - Peter Eldridge

Our journey is a collective quest for improvement. When we ceased living for The Addiction, so consuming of our children and our families, a void materialized.

"What do we do now?" we asked. No longer fully engulfed in the business of fixing, cajoling and controlling we found ourselves at a loss for ways to fill our waking hours.

It's like the year when my youngest progressed into high school and my coaching days were behind me. Suddenly I had a lot of time on my hands. I was forced to transform from coach dad to something else. What was my new dad life going to look like?

The same was true when I relinquished my role as controller dad, rager dad and enabler dad and began my slow crawl out my own mire I had so enjoyed with The Addiction and my son.

"Now what am I going to do? Who am I, really?" I asked myself.

So began my journey. And so begins the journey of almost all parents in recovery from the toxic relationship with our children's disease. It then becomes our journey, our quest for improvement, our militant resolve to live the lives our Great Creator meant for us. We are soon confronted with multiple decisions and countless paths to explore. The choices are complex and numerous.

Do I dare to be happy? Do I dare to be happy for an extended period of time?

Do I dare?

How dare I? Who do I think I am?

Well, that's the point, isn't it?

The journey is a sojourn to numerous wonders and places. There is no last destination along our pathway - that would be disconcerting!

"Well, here I am. I guess that's it."

As we dare to search for our best selves we may realize perhaps we have never allowed ourselves the inclination, courage or self permission to burst the boundaries of familial, societal or personal limitations. But can we? Can we TRUST in the Universe' plan for us. Can we give ourselves over to a power greater than ourselves?

Can we give in? Can we give in to TRUST?

Remember surrender? Remember how surrender got us to this place where on our knees or even face down in our own crap we reached out, or up, beaten. The triumph of our surrender lifting us from the mire, deep into and out of the vortex with our children we rose to meet a universe of possibilities. We let it happen. We didn't fight it. When confronted with the possibility of a promise from somewhere that there might just be something good up ahead we didn't know what to do. We were perplexed by the chance of the new and wonderful.

Flummoxed, we acquiesced.

Remember this first epiphany that early in our journey moved us those first few steps along our pathway. If can TRUST to embrace the courage to let every day happen we just might see more clearly the possibilities of every sunrise. When we stop fighting the positives, the challenges, the joys and despairs each day presents to us we might find our truest selves, hiding, awaiting discovery.

Who might we meet today?

... keep coming back

"To be astonished is one of the surest ways of not growing old too quickly." ~ Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette

Just Get Out Of The Way - Revisited, Part Deux

"This is a guidance for each of us and by lowly listening we shall hear the right word... Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which flows into your life. Then, without effort, you are impelled to truth and to perfect contentment." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our Journey is ours to explore. We know this intellectually. Whether we detach with love or merely sidestep our children's travails, wherever we find ourselves on our recovery journeys there are often those little voices in our heads warning us of all The Bad that could or will happen to our children, or to us. These are the maddening voices that can keep us overly entwined and engaged with our children or our own self-contructed obstacles and distracted from our true pathways.

We have trampled external barriers and character defects. We have experienced the overarching power of our Higher Power, there with Universal gifts for us when we needed burdens relieved and comforts proffered, ours for the taking when we were ready.

At some juncture in our journey we have demanded this of ourselves and the Universe. We insisted on being. We eschewed the darkness and muck, and sick and tired of feeling sick and tired we branched out, extended ourselves, took roads never imagined and reinvented our thoughts and actions.

We began to believe we'd be OK. We gave ourselves the gift of knowing that we would be OK.

This is one of the greatest gifts the Great Creator has waiting for us. This is the greatest gift we can allow ourselves to accept, a pathway to a life where we are no longer getting in the way of our own recovery. We begin to realize so many of life's obstacles we have overcome were barriers of our own creation, borne from doubts for our future well being. It is almost comical, the roadblocks to our personal futures we have constructed.

Saying the words, "I'm gonna be OK," may be one of the greatest gifts to ourselves we can vocalize. Believe it, know it, own it!

Now imagine this same gift for your son or daughter. Close your eyes, imagine her lost life, see him struggling in your mind's eye. Imagine you are looking at your child, eye contact made perhaps for the first time in a while. Calmly and with true conviction you say, "You're gonna be OK."

Self doubt is a powerful enemy. Self doubt is a strong ally of The Addiction and along with shame these three unite to spawn a daunting foe. The Addiction may be a formidable adversary, yet it is not invincible.

You have given your son or daughter the gift of empowerment and validation of something they've known all along. Only they can unearth themselves from the chasm into which they have tumbled. They have tools, the ability. They've been to wilderness, to therapuetic boarding, to recovery programs. They have received a firm underpinning for life's challenges from you. They are watching you living a full life. They feel your love, even from afar.

It is up to them. Hearing good news, seeing our example of lives being lived, not simply observed, the positives The Addiction would rather keep hidden from them will at first be totally foreign to our children. But this gift, this proclamation of OK-ness has legs. It won't leave them. It will be filed and stored even if we see no immediate outward change in behavior.

They may discount our validation. They may reject the notion explicitly. But you've said it. They have heard it, the Truth of the possibility. The Addictions hates the Possible. It only wants the current, the status quo. Possibilities do not exist within the addicted mind.

The gift of you're gonna be OK  is grounded in the word gonna, the contracted version of going to, a future-tense message of movement to possibilities. Our addict, trained only to seek out the immediate fix may not immediately embrace this message. The Addiction wants our sons and daughters mired, transfixed in its spell.

You're gonna be OK implies change, movement, action. At the very least the gift may foster in our children feelings of dicontentment regarding their current situation. The Addiction loathes HOPE. Hope trumps despair and Hope might just lead our children to a desire to explore what is out there, beyond.

Who knows? It's their journey remember.

You're gonna be OK" is a message for ourselves and our children, a verbalization that we have reclaimed our selves and given our children the empowerment of directing their lives. It is the separation of duties necessary for both parties' growth and contentment.

Although we have trained ourselves to live in the NOW, the possibilities along our journey pathways keeps us moving forward to the next adventure, the next step laid out by the Great Creator to bettering ourselves and living more full and fulfilled lives.

In a quiet time, in a quiet place away from distraction we can close our eyes and breathe these words, "I'm gonna be OK, and he's gonna be OK."

It is a gift we can give ourselves. It is a blessing we can give to our children.

... keep coming back

"Maybe OK will be our always." ~ John Green, The Fault In Our Stars

Just Get Out Of The Way - Revisited

"Every time you are tempted to react in the same way, ask if you want to be prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future." ~ Deepak Chopra

When our children began their spiral into addiction we did everything we could to stop the decline. We enabled, we passively aggressively ignored, we had so many plates spinning we had no time for our lives. Certainly some of us had to step in to save a life, literally, that selfless act of a parent costing tens of thousands of dollars in many cases, just to get our son clean, to give our daughter a few tools we would hope would serve her well in a sorely anticipated recovery. Our children emerged from inpatient or outpatient treatment, wilderness camp, therapeutic boarding school or other recovery programs cleansed perhaps, but in many cases not sober . Many would soon regress into lives of addiction.

We were told the words we did not want to hear, "Relapse is part of recovery." The tools provided to our children would be ignored and we, as parents (read caretakers, fixers) once again would embrace the role of enabler.

We repeated the ultimate insult of doing for our children what they could, should and MUST do for themselves. We stole their consequences, challenges, failures and victories.

This is the consummate tragedy of the enabling parent. We become collaborators with The Addiction.

When we pay bills, make excuses, allow ourselves to be doormats to our addict's addiction-driven abusive behaviors, set higher standards for other family members than we have for the addict and tacitly endorse destructive behaviors we're doing our children no favors. We are playing the game masterfully laid out by The Addiction. We become conspirators in maintaining our children's lifestyle of self destruction contributing to each setback in equal measure with our efforts to assist.

Our lives once again revolve around the addict. We stop living. We fixate. In many cases we become physically sick. We are no good for anyone. We become angry, once again, with our children and miss the point, totally:

They are no more a willing participant in the addiction that has engulfed their existence than a cancer patient riddled with uncontrollable cell growth.

One day we look around and find ourselves in a pit, deep in a dark and dangerous rain forest mired with our children and their addiction.

That's when it hits us.

"What the hell?"

We survey where we are, what we have become. Why have I hit bottom and realize this and my son doesn't have a clue? How could my daughter not see what I see?

What we see is The Addiction leering down at us, its malevolent smile betraying its true intent of bringing every family member down with the addict like a house of cards. What our children see is comfort and stability, a benevolent benefactor of pleasure and predictability.

The Addiction is asking our children daily, "You don't want to give this up, do you?"

We, conversely, realize something at some point, perhaps after three or four nosedives into the shit with our children. We are beaten. We find the courage to say these words:

"OK Addiction, I give. You win. I'm done fighting you."

This is NOT what The Addiction wants to hear.

We step aside and begin to find toeholds out of the morass. Miraculously, we emerge.

We get out. We get out of the way.

Years ago I fashioned a tactic for myself for deflecting the clutches of angry people, those folks who live for the thrill of the confrontation, the competition sport of bringing everyone down with them into their personal pit of crap or dark lair of despair.

I would picture the venom of anger coming at me as if launched off a tennis racket, the 150 mile per hour serve of rage sizzling over the net to my awaiting forehand. I would imagine the ball whooshing past me without lifting my racket. I would refuse to play that game. I would get out of the way. (It works, try it using your own visualization.)

We can employ the same tactic with The Addiction.

We can get out of the way, refuse to engage. The Amazing might just happen. We live, take walks in the park, exercise and explore talents and pursuits previously obscured by our childrens' struggle with addiction.

As we begin to love and explore ourselves we can cherish our children once again. Our hearts soften, we can see our childrens' dependence on the lure of the comfort and security of the addicted life. We lose the bitterness inherent with living in the stink and goo of the mire and find the way to separating our children from The Addiction.

It, The Addiction will lash out in the only way it can, through our children. The services will come fast and furiously with the thump-thump-thump of a tennis ball machine.

It's hard to refuse the service.

This is the secret. The Addiction will NEVER tire of the game. Our children, just might.

This is one of the many counterintuitively magic moments we may encounter along our recovery journeys. If we just get out of the way the beautiful horizons, magnificent vistas and sunrises the Universe has created for us suddenly become visible. We no longer waste time fighting a battle we cannot win, an adversary we cannot overcome. This foe wants us down, but not out.

No longer a willing play toy for The Addiction we emerge into the sunlight to the warmth of our possibilities.

Our children will notice though they may not let on. The life they have tumbled into is not a life they would ever have consciously chosen. They may begin to tire of the muck. Epiphanies may emerge. Bottoms may be reached. They may begin to want to SEE, to SEEK. They may even begin to imagine a way out.

And this, my fellow travellers, is a beginning.

... keep coming back

"Although we have been made to believe that if we let go we will end up with nothing, life reveals just the opposite: that letting go is the real path to freedom." ~ Sogyal Rinpoche, "Glimpse After Glimpse"