Steps

"A knowledge of the path cannot be substituted for putting one foot in front of the other," ~ M. C. Richards

If you have ever seen a toddler walk it's easy to see what the action actually entails. Moving from one place to another is simply an act of falling forward and catching oneself with one's lead foot. The toddler walk is the reveal that makes it clear that the "where am I going" is less important than the knowledge that the pursuit of simply continuing to move forward is what is critical.  The toddler doesn't care where he or she is going although they may act like the goal is to stumble into the parent's arms. This is a ruse. We're actually an impediment to the toddler's wish to keep moving at all costs.

The toddler just wants to get there, wherever there is. The joy is in the journey, not the destination, especially since to the toddler there is no destination, just the delight of the progression forward. They WILL stumble. They WILL fall.

And that's where the magic begins. Unless alerted to the danger of falling by overly concerned adults the toddler simply picks herself up and without wondering what the hell just happened to make the floor or Earth come crashing up to their arms, continues on.

We can learn a lot from the toddler. As a grandparent I watched one evening as our granddaughter  continuously walked from our living room to our kitchen and each ... time, stumbled over the small rise in the hard wood floor from the one room to the other. This actually happened the entire evening we were watching her. She would fall, get up, each ... time, and continue on her way. It was both hilarious (she never whimpered) and a lesson to us all.

Keep moving.

Many of the self-help programs that abound for addiction recovery and support for those impacted by addiction talk about steps. You never hear about 12-Destination programs. The point is to continue on, to persevere, to soldier on even if the end game is not in sight or even comprehended. The journey is the thing, the joy of discovery of what ourselves can be if we are only open to the glories of the the unknowns.

The toddler knows this. Everything is new. Everything is there for the taking. Marathoners understand this as well. Yes, we know the final destination, yet every race is different, each with its own challenges, surprises, frustrations and triumphs.

The journey is the thing, and that IS the magic of our continuing exploration of who it is we really are as parents, as human beings. The Addiction may lead us to believe we should be all in for its agenda. It wants us to think we shouldn't stumble and fall, that any shortfall in our travels is a failure, an I told you so moment proving we have no business looking for the next adventure, the vista we never thought attainable.

Like the toddler we can continue on after stumbling, dust ourselves off - or better yet, leave the dust, the muck, the grime on as a reminder that life, the journey, must go on even after the failures. Strong in the knowledge we love our children unconditionally and are ready to step in when THEY are ready, we can keep moving along our journey pathways to the joys The Universe has placed ahead for us.

If we channel our inner toddler our journey becomes new with each step, each slight forward fall. Pick yourself up and go!

. . . keep coming back

"As long as I was falling forward and getting up to fall again, I wouldn't come in last in the race against myself." ~ Ultra Runner, 2018

Holding it Together By Finding Gratitude

"Anyone can give up - it is the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone around you would expect you to fall apart, now that is true strength." ~ Chris Bradford, The Way of the Sword

Our national day of thanks is upon us although you wouldn't know it. I defy any advertiser - that isn't a vendor of turkeys and such - to develop a campaign around Thanksgiving instead of leapfrogging the mythic Pilgrim tribute to rocket us directly into the other holidays of Christmas and Hanukkah (with apologies to those who celebrate Saturnalia, Solstice and Festivus, etc.). How many of us have seen the eye rolls at the Thanksgiving table if we would have the audacity to ask everyone to state just ... one ... thing they are thankful for. It's as if gratitude is something that has been lost in our culture.

Or do we all feel unworthy of being thankful?

Parents of addicts and addicts in recovery understandably find it hard to seek the joyous vistas that might be over the horizon if we would just take those few extra steps along the pathway of our parental recovery. There is so much shit and other barriers in our way we can come to believe there is no way out of the muck, the negativity and darkness in which The Addiction would like us to dwell indefinitely. Our children have found that place and reluctantly remain, joyless, seemingly incapable of finding any gratitude or sense of thankfulness in their lives.

But in order to hold it together in our lives, our workplace and for the other family members who are watching where we are on our life journeys we MUST find the gratitude and know there are things to be thankful for. Sometimes we have to dig deep, even if simply acknowledging a blue sky after a long stretch of rainfall. We can find thanks even in the darkness - where there's life there's hope is an Al-Anon slogan that has kept me grateful in times of personal despair.

I've written before to put in writing three daily gratitudes, even if they seem inconsequential - "beauty all around", "Friday" and the names of family members are frequent flyers in my little gratitude notebook.

Finding gratitude and thankfulness is a natural way to keep moving, to continue our journey to fulfillment, to saying "No!" to The Addiction while loving our children with our hearts, minds and souls. It is our quickest path to a life that may now seem foreign and unattainable, but the life we know we can achieve that will show our children they too are worthy of the same.

Take that first step. Be grateful for what you have right now. Hey, it's the weekend after all - that's one! Write it down.

Happy Thanksgiving.

. . .  keep coming back

"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is awaiting us. ... The old skin has to be shed before the new one is to come." ~ Joseph Campbell

Connected

"The leg bone's connected to the - knee bone; The knee bone's connected to the - thigh bone; The thigh bone's connected to the - hip bone. ~ "Dem Bones," James Weldon Johnson

Stay with me on this one...

When I first started training for half marathons, then for the marathon, my body greeted me to many of the requisite injuries concomitant with running long distances: runner's knee, hip soreness, ankle twinges. The ankle tweak came about on the opposite side from where my first injury had erupted, my right leg runner's knee - also know as the dreaded floating patella.

This is when I was introduced to the wonders of the iliotibial band, a lovely fibrous ligament that (in layman's terms) extends from the butt to just below the knee, holding everything at each end and in between together, albeit tenuously.

I would joke to my fellow runners, "I guess the hip bone IS connected to the knee bone," incorrectly paraphrasing "Dem Bones".

I've come to realize in my short but oh so joyous half and marathon running career that everything in our bodies is related, connected and must work together for a successful run on race day. Mind, body and spirit must come together, muscles ligaments, tendons, internal organs - ewwww!, must work in harmony, any negativity that pops into one's mind may appear but must be quickly purged, and the calculations of how many miles,  hours or minutes remain to the finish, the glorious end game of race day, have to give way to remaining in the moment, taking every mile as it comes and relishing in the exhilaration of accomplishing what few can.

Marathoners and half marathoners are a positive subset of our population, yet we fully understand the daunting task ahead when we embark on each training session. Whether 13.1 or 26.2 miles, or the challenge of the 50 or 100 mile races (I am definitely happy to not have to go there - but maybe someday...?) so much can happen between the inaugural training run and race day. Even each training day, each track workout, each ping in the knee, twinge or tweak in the ankle, hip or hammy must be taken at face value. There can be no looking beyond. Each successful run builds on the next, each failed run is a lesson learned and a caution you are not Superman, you're no Wonder Woman, pull back, rest, listen to your body, "YOU'LL BE FINE, GIVE IT TIME."

For a runner patience is not a virtue or an option, it is requisite. And this has all become oh so clear this year as I resume my running schedule after cervical vertebrate and carpal tunnel surgeries. I'm not quite starting over, but I have been provided with a very humbling "Back To Running" schedule by my Fleet Feet Running Club coaches  - 30 minutes max for the next 4 weeks increasing the run to walk minute ratio until the fourth week when I will be running 30 minutes without a walk interval.

As I mentioned, this is humbling, but exactly what is needed, what I NEEDED.

Runners rely on each other. We share in each others successes and relate to and support each other during our times of failure. Runners are raving optimists. I've written about the marathon training kickoff meetings where the air is electric with anticipation. The newbies who have never crossed the 26.2 mile finish line actually think they can do it. And they will!  The community of runners is a positive and joyous force to be reckoned with and I firmly believe training with a group of runners greatly increases the possibility of success while for some odd reason decreasing the risk of injury. Did I mention community?

So what does all this have to do with our journey as parents of addicts? Apart from simply substituting the words parents of addicts or parents of addicts in recovery for the word runners, there are almost endless parallels between our journeys. There are a lot of us out there. We can choose to know we have power over The Addiction if we simply acknowledge we cannot do this on our own.

We are all connected. Even if we don't know each other there is that connection we can find whether or not we consciously reach out for help, through personal counseling or the myriad of groups built to walk parents down the pathway to our own recovery. Simply making that decision to say "ENOUGH!" to The Addiction is enough to connect us as parents affected by the disease.

We must find the positive in our lives as we navigate the tightrope of loving our sons and daughters while hating The Addiction that has, hopefully temporarily, taken over their lives. This is never an easy endeavor. We'll have our good days and bad days. Our spirits WILL become injured. We can listen to our hearts and our souls, find the gentle spaces that remain even after Addiction's oh-so-personal attacks on our psyches, rest, recover, and move on along our recovery pathways. We can find other parents with whom we can laugh, cry and collectively despair over the battles won and lost. Through these connections we can heal. We can become that positive force to be reckoned with who have that raving optimism our children will, with our love and by their own devices, actually beat The Addiction, rendering it irrelevant. We can keep our positivity in the moment, not obsessing about what has passed or what might be, but relishing the little victories and taking a pause to learn from the failures. Know this, the task of our recovery may seem daunting, but it IS doable. It's a marathon, not a sprint, with long periods (plural) of training, but we can all make it to the finish which in the case of parents of addicts can lead to more vistas and joyous experiences.

One big difference? The subset of the population who have or have had a loved one dive into the rabbit hole of the disease of addiction is much larger than the .1% of the population who have completed a marathon. Remember, over half the people you will see in any public place have been directly touched by addiction. You are only alone if you wish to be.

Did I mention community?

. . . keep coming back

"I am a part of all that I have met." ~ Lord Tennyson

The Fable of the White Room

"Do not feel lonely, the entire universe is inside you." ~ Rumi 

The last thing he could remember is a struggle, a long struggle, then saying, "NO!" as loud as he could as he fought off the adversary.

"Have I died?" he wondered.

"Am I dead"?

"Is this heaven"?

"Or hell"?

With much difficulty he tried to look to his left and saw only a white nothingness. His movements were clearly restricted, but he could sense no shackles, bindings, fetters or ropes confining him. He felt as though he was wrapped in some sort of invisible cloak or sheathe. Perhaps this was a cruel joke played on him by one of many enemies encountered over countless travels. Or perhaps this was the result of his pursuit of something, anything different from the life he had been living - a punishment of sorts, or just a sign his body mind and soul had given up, failed, expired.

"Perhaps I am not dead," he thought. "But perhaps I am dying."

As he struggled to look to his right he perceived his most recent foe, slain, next to him, motionless and prone.

"What the hell is going on?" he thought.

When he had said the single word sparked by endless battles against countless opponents that seemed to constantly confront him, that word, "NO!" pulsed beyond the confines of his personal arena, dispatching the beast and delivering him to this place. This single word precipitated a transformative experience, instantly conveying both him and his latest antagonist to this ... place ... whatever this place is.

"Where the hell am I?"

He had grown tired of the constant struggle, the never-ending and pointless battles. He had come to believe this behavior had become part of his go-to lifestyle, an easy continuation of a life he had never asked for but had no idea how to depart from. He would ask himself if continuing the pursuit of a life in which he constantly got in his own way was a result of fear of an unknown beyond the familiar, or simply laziness. Was he too stupid to break free? Was he not good enough?

"Stop it," he thought. "Purge these thoughts from your mind!"

As he lay, motionless, still unable to move, he realized for the first time in his memory he considered fighting the negativity that had consumed him for so long. He had for too long embraced the negativity, a blanket of consistency that had dictated his every thought, action and reaction. It was a shroud that shielded him from something.

"But shielding me from what?"

This internal conversation made him wonder if he was losing his mind. He shook his head in effort to achieve some clarity and noticed his encumbrance still encasing him, but loosening.

"Fascinating."

His thoughts then turned for the first time to what had been before, before the turn of events, before his dive deep into what had ultimately led to a life of nothingness, with no landscapes, colors, tastes or textures - the life had led to this place, white, soundless, with no depth, neither a positive, nor negative. His former life of nothingness had been replete with experiences he couldn't clearly recall, things acquired, yet now gone, friends ...

"Friends," he tried to envision friends, anyone, he could consider held close and cherished. There was no one - nobody there even in the remnants of his deepest recollections.

"But I feel, something," he thought. "For the first time in a long, long time I feel. I don't know what I feel. But it is ... there."

It was then he felt it, the tear, progressing slowly down his cheek.

"I was something, before", he thought. "I was good at it too, I think. ... I had friends, a life, purpose. I had ... parents, who loved me."

He could feel his restraints loosening, his hands releasing from the invisible bindings, his legs now free, his head no longer seemingly pinned to the floor, or whatever he was lying on in the nothingness. He rose and painfully lifted his body to a standing position. It seemed like eons since he had been able to stand with no purpose but to simply be, standing. There was no foe to vanquish, no insatiable need to fulfill for an unknown reason. The thought of being overjoyed by something so simple made him laugh, out loud, another experience that seemed foreign to him.

He began to explore his new world, the nothingness. walking thorough it.  Yet, was he moving, making progress? With no point of reference he had no idea if he was a man in motion or still bound, without the bindings, a prisoner of his past tendencies.

"I have no direction here in this white void. I might as well be on a treadmill."

It was then, seemingly off in the distance he could see arms and hands reaching out through the colorlessness. He had seen these before, in the prior, the before time. Every time he had gone to reach out he could feel one adversary after another pull him, back, back into the void of nothingness, replete with experiences he couldn't clearly recall, things acquired, yet now gone, friends ...

"No one..."

As he continued, walking, "Am I even moving? he did seem to be ever closer to the arms and hands reaching out. This had happened before, he had approached the invitation, the love, but would feel nothing. He could feel it now. The adversaries had never let him feel the goodness, the unselfishness. He grasped the hands reaching into his void. Deep inside him he could hear the words:

"This is up to you now. This is your choice. Your path will be neither easy nor impassable. You will only succeed if you simply get out of your own way..."

"The voice stopped with his words - his own words. How did the voice know this? Was this another ruse of his antagonists? Who could he trust?" 

He still held the hands. the grasp loosening. He fell to his knees, he was fingertip to fingertip yet could still feel something, different. He arose and he, he was the one reaching out, seizing, seeking, restoring his connection to this goodness, this love he could feel but not quite understand, pulling him into something new, something different yet familiar from another time.

With as much passion as when he shouted his defiant "NO!",  he declared, "I WILL follow you. I will trust, even though I do not under..."

. . . keep coming back

"Not all those who wander are lost." ~ J. R. R. Tolkien

Multiple Roads

"Sokath - his eyes uncovered." ~ Captain Dathon, Star Trek, the Next Generation: "Darmok"

Robert Frost may have gotten it right for most in his poem "The Road Less Travelled," but for those of us who have been brought face-to-face with The Addiction, always concentrating on just one road may not be the best formula for our happiness or that of our sons and daughters.

I've written about this poem and how critical it is early on in our journeys as parents of addicts to take the pathway most would think to be selfish, cruel or even self destructive to ourselves, our children and our families. It's the leap of faith we take almost daily as those parents, whether our children have just entered the cloud forest of addiction, have commenced the long, slow crawl out of the bog or even begun one of many possible recovery journeys.

We decided the life the Universe has awaiting us is worth living. When we finally emerged from the shadows of The Addiction we were able to take care of ourselves. And in another of many crazy counterintuitive twists along our journeys of parents of addicts we found we were finally able to look through the haze of addiction's angry and deceitful pall to see our children, lost, struggling and in pain.

Eyes opened, we were able to behold our children with love and compassion.

This led us to another pathway we could take, a fork that takes us closer to our children, for a time, while we remain near and true to our journeys. From this position we have full view of our children, keeping them close without being on their pathway. We may observe without getting in the way, interfering or worse, inserting ourselves into our children's business. It can be a beautiful pathway but with dangers along the way if we pay too close attention to our addicts and abandon our journey - a giant leap backwards from the progress we have made.

There is an 8 mile running/cycling trail near where I live that includes a branch I call the Nature Trail, a one-third mile diversion from the somewhat exposed main trail, flanked by forest and wetlands on one side and bordered by a creek on the other. It is a beautiful diversion from the bustle of the runners, walkers, cyclists and skaters, visible 200 meters or so through the trees. This nature trail is not without its pitfalls. A portion has been partially washed out by the creek and has been cordoned off, unsuccessfully, by the park service. Intrepid runners can access the forbidden zone, carefully, through well-worn paths around the orange barriers at either end.

The adventurous must take care and be mindful of the entry pathways and the ever expanding washed-out portion of the detour. Once past these obstacles the traveller may concentrate on their current path while also keeping an eye on the multitudes on the main trail if they wish. It's a beautiful diversion, this pathway. It is a new pathway true to my current journey that allows me to remain connected to the mainstream.

So allow yourself the freedom to take the Nature Trail. See new beauty in your life that you may not have otherwise experienced. Your beloved children will be right ... over ... there - just beyond the trees.

. . . keep coming back

"If I had my life to live over again, I would ask that not a thing be changed but that my eyes be opened wider." ~ Jules Renard

Willing Our Way To Ready

"I been warped by the rain, driven by the snow; I'm drunk and dirty but don't you know; I'm still willin'." ~ "Willin'", Lowell George

Sometimes it can seem as though the Universe is coming at us from multiple directions to unlock our souls and move us along our journey pathways. We can be more well-disposed to receiving cues from forces outside our immediate consciousness during certain times in our lives than others. Life events, our obstinate tendencies and busy schedules can all make us blind to signals and signposts that should be as easily perceived as a beautiful yellow-orange sun breaking through the horizon on a cloudless blue-sky morning.

Recently within the period of a day I received much needed gentle reminders from The Universe via a posting of a close friend, through two of my daily readings (yes, I have daily readings as part of my pre-work morning ritual), and finally as a result of my not so easy or swift recovery from my C5 - C6 spinal fusion surgery.

I almost missed all the signposts.

I needed to be reminded how precious is the opportunity called life. I needed to have a slap to the back of the head to move me past talking the talk to walking the walk, some breadcrumbs, a ladder, climbing rope or gravity assist to slingshot me along my own pathway.

You see, as much as I wanted to downplay my recent surgery and the effects it would have on my daily living this was not like snipping a little pre-cancerous bubble off my face. Once the realization hit me hard I was I was facing a three, six or even 12-month rehabilitation, I had a decision to make.

Would I respond in kind to the challenge ahead of me or play the idiot-optimist without doing the work and making the commitment necessary for eventual return to a life devoid of tingling, numbness and pain?

For weeks I was willing. For weeks I understood the enormity of the procedure my surgeon performed. As I mentioned, two morning readings and this post from a dear friend, a fellow marathoner, pushed me over the edge:

"But today I promise you I will get (safely) uncomfortable. I've got goals and refuse to not make them because I didn't get out of my comfort zone."

This, my parents, is what happens when you cross the threshold from being willing, from talking the talk, to being READY. It is a transformative experience moving along a pathway from knowing what must be done to actually doing it, from an all the best intentions call to action, from logical comprehension of what needs to happen, NOW, to a spiritual awakening which can emerge only from trust that what must happen now may not be understandable but is the result of forces beyond our comprehension.

There is a lot of trust involved here, and a commitment to relinquishing control over the uncontrollable.

In my case, I had to come to terms with the severity and extensiveness of the surgery and realize I couldn't WILL my way back to normalcy  - there's that (root) word again. I had to be ready to do the work, to leave my marathoner's ego in the ditch, order a heapin' helpin' of humility and do the tedious hand, arm and shoulder exercises my therapists (yes, therapists, plural, occupational and physical) would prescribe.

Floor dumbbell presses with 2-pound weights is humbling. I have given myself over to my therapists. I must follow their signposts even though the end is not in sight. My recovery is going to be a long process spent not by making leaps and bounds, but by taking small, cautious steps toward a life recovered.

The parallels between my current physical recovery from surgery and my ongoing journey of recovery as a parent of an addict are not lost on this father. Nor is the reminder that moving from WILLING to READY to which an addict must devote their fragile lives is an even more difficult commitment. Both are terrifying acts of trust and purpose that few can succeed at the first time.

It required a few signposts-in-the-face for me to finally come around. I've seen the struggle of addicts as they tell themselves repeatedly they are willing to stop living the life The Addiction has laid out for them if only someone would intervene on their behalf, until, at long last, they are READY to no longer live the addicted life. Willing is a desire. Ready is a personal and sometimes very lonely decision.

This is when we can see our paths crossing, ours and our addicted children's as they move down a pathway to recovery. Our experiences of moving from a logical understanding of where we need to be and what pathways we should choose for regaining our lives, to a total relinquishing of control to achieve a state of readiness for rebirth are forever etched in our memories. We'll know when our children are ready to stop fighting The Addiction and give themselves over to whatever power will allow them to "stop living like this". We can watch from afar knowing how hard it is at first to take that leap into the unknown and smile as they realize they are not doing this on their own. Whether or not our children will admit it, the Universe, the Great Creator, some force greater than they has been awaiting this moment and will not fail them in the undertaking. Our children will begin to seek and see the healthy signposts and ignore the false markers, the misdirections back to addiction.

It's a great feeling being ready. For both parent and child, it may have seemed too long coming but like the Universe, Ready has no timetable. Ready will arrive on its own schedule.

Get ready ... GO!

. . . keep coming back

"As a rule, we find what we look for; we achieve what we get ready for." ~ James Cash Penney

Trust Your Compass

"Your inner knowing is your only true compass." ~ Joy Page

When was the last time you were hiking or traveling in a place unfamiliar and you didn't trust your compass? Unless you are standing at one of Mother Earth's magnetic poles where I understand a compass can do some funky things depending on how you're holding it - I wouldn't know, the farthest north I've ever traveled is Köln, Germany - you probably trust your compass is indicating the directions, N S E W, correctly, and proceed accordingly.

The compass in its simplicity is a tool to be trusted, not ignored, left behind or dismissed as an unnecessary accessory for journeys to parts unknown. Some are damn near indestructible unless the user purposely takes an axe or hammer to the compass for some crazy reason or if god forbid he or she lends the the compass to another which to me would be akin to loaning (read relinquishing) your grill or smoker to someone.

Digression alert - that, my friends, to be clear, is just NOT done.

Yet the compass is not perfect. The compass is flawed. By its very nature it leads us away from true north to the magnetic north. The magnetic poles are elusive targets, moving from time to time in response to magnetic changes to the Earth's core.

You'll never find Santa using your compass, but you'll get close. For this reason the compass is in its own counter intuitive construct is a freeing instrument. Following the direction provided by a compass will never get you THERE, or even THERE. Once near the destination it is up to the explorer to discern the pathway to where there is.  And that is the magic of the journey.

Do you see where I'm going with this? If not, you'd better start from the beginning. I can't make it any clearer!

As parents of children who have lost their way through addiction it may seem as if The Addiction crushed our compasses with an axe and a hammer. We certainly doubted ourselves in those first few months or years as we wrestled with our sanity amid the muck and tar of the abyss into which we had crawled with our babies. This is exactly why it was so important to start moving toward a better path, no matter the direction. The mission was to emerge, to find the upwards trail way out of the cloud forest to the light, to the meadow, hillsides and vistas we knew The Universe had in mind for each of us.

The direction was not important. The goal was to get on it and keep moving.

And as we began to emerge from the darkness our compasses began to reemerge - resilient things those compasses. As we felt our internal compass become stronger, forces from without and within made us doubt this truth. Spouses, friends, The Addiction, our addicted children and sometimes even their siblings conspired to gaslight us into believing our thoughts and feelings were not true or real.

We've been through too much to have our intuitions invalidated. We have come out of our self-inflicted isolation more self aware than ever, more certain that the path ahead is leading us to a new destination filled with love and laughter for ourselves and our children. With each step along our journey we receive validation we are moving in the right direction as long as we do keep moving. Our hearts know this to be true. We can feel it. Our hearts are inextricably linked to our internal compasses.

Our internal compass may not get us exactly THERE immediately but we're getting pretty damn close. Trust it. It's a wondrous adventure!

. . . keep coming back

"In this world you have a soul for a compass and a heart for a pair of wings." ~ Mary Chapin Carpenter