Thursday Thoughts - it's like glass when we break

1. Perpetually under construction. Dead stop traffic at every and all times of day. I'm always shocked there has not be a serial killer triggered by the traumatic events of traveling 95 through Philadelphia.  

2. I got one front flower bed cleared under the cover of darkness and two left to do. And the weeds. Always the MFing weeds. Mums from Jen's girls' dance fundraiser are out and some Halloween stuff. MFD cannot locate my hanging skeletons in his shed of disorganized horror. 

3. At the shore, he missed trash day on the rug and has added a second chair to his driveway living room. I am not amused.

4. Billy Hicks is very interested in the driveway living room and outdoor happenings. Disregard the glass door that has perma sludge from humidity and salt air.

5. Since we are falling into longer pants, I thought it would be a good time to review my non-fashionista stance on 

• jeans: no, not at any time
• Jeggings: yes, pull on only not stretchy jeans with button and zipper masquerading as jeggings
• leggings: yes, and definitely under dresses instead of tights...and while I am looking forward to the LulaRoe documentary I would like to say that their solid black leggings are still king and I own multiple pairs with no regrets. Also into these garment died ones from Old Navy. I can never find navy so these please me very much.
• bootcut pants: Yes if they are the Duluth Trading Company NoGA Boot Cut Pants
• joggers: fuck off out of here, no

6. My mom and Rich were at the shore this week and before they left they dropped off the triple threat from Johnson's which is carmel corn, buttered popcorn, and cheese popcorn. I learned about it from Aubrey and shit is it good.

7. I've been reading one book all week. A few times a year I go into the declined requests section of Netgalley to make sure I've added what I want to Goodreads, and I am pleased in a petty way when I was denied for a book that has like an average 3 review. Bye. I've been reading one book since Sunday. My brain was tapped out Monday & Tuesday. I have library books on deck next. 

8. I shared this on Instagram yesterday but wanted to make sure I put it here for the last day of Recovery Month. I was a trash person who said junkie in the past and used to ask people why they weren't drinking. Know better, do better. If you didn't know, now you do. 

9. Reminder, 

10. Ecards

I'm reaaaalllly looking forward to Friday. 

What appears beyond the hyphen in Thursday Thoughts titles is what I'm listening to when I'm starting this - this week is Am I Wrong by Love Spit Love. It's the 90s up in here this week

Five years of sobriety - a check in

Monday marked five years sober for MFD. He knows four dates: his sobriety date 11-12-13, his birthday, my birthday, and our anniversary. His sobriety date is most important. It is the bedrock of everything else and takes priority over everything else. That's how vitally important sobriety is to his existence and our existence together.

Six years ago, if you told me we'd be here, I would not have believed you. Six years ago I was preparing myself for divorce. Five years ago I was certain I was headed for divorce. But the days went on and MFD worked his program with commitment I had not seen from him before. I offered no encouragement. I sat back. I waited.

About six months into his sobriety, I kept my eye on the door and waited for the other shoe to drop. Nine months in, I exhaled. A year in, I felt my shoulders move down from around my ears. Five years on, we have problems and challenges, of course. Everyone does. But nothing like we did before. Five years of sobriety for MFD is a good place for us to be, marriage-wise. He is as committed today to maintaining his sobriety as he was then, and know that it is a daily commitment. I don’t worry about it because I have always known that it is up to him and him alone to grab it, live it, and maintain it.

People do recover.

Five years of sobriety is also a weird place to be. The weird place has to do with external forces entirely: people making light of something our life is contingent upon, most of them probably not even realizing they’re doing that. Our life, in the sense that there is no marriage without his sobriety. His life in the very real sense that he'd likely not still be alive or living outside of prison if he didn't get sober five years ago. That’s how serious this is. I’ve come to understand that people who are not sober or close with someone who is are unfamiliar with what sobriety is and what it means.

I distinctly remember someone many years ago telling me he was sober and me being like What? Oh. Okay! Well if you change your mind, there’s beer here. I cringe when I think of that now. I was an idiot who still thought drinking was part of life and everyone did it some just more than others. I didn't understand sobriety and how much it meant to someone to say they were sober, to live that. How hard it is for people to get to that place and then to stay there. How sacred sobriety is. 

I never fully understood what it meant and the commitment it took to be sober until MFD got sober. I'm sharing it with you so you also know and maybe won't respond like I did once upon a time - like it was no big deal or an option that could change day to day, minute to minute. When we ourselves don't have a problem with substances, it can be hard to understand that there are people who do, and that it is a big fucking deal. It is life or death to them. 

Five years in, people have started offering Michael drinks, like they forgot he is sober for a reason. Lots of sober people are private about it. He is not, so it's not like it's an unknown thing. This summer someone who has known us for YEARS implied Michael got sober five years ago and became religious so he could use it as his political background story, that he didn't really NEED to be sober and was just doing it for attention. And then my favorite, the people who talk about how much more fun MFD was when he was a drunk, usually said in an effort to shut him up on something he's passionate about.

Yes, tons of fun...to everyone who didn’t have to deal with the fallout of someone systematically destroying themselves and your life as an unfortunate side effect to their struggle. If anyone who has ever said anything like that lived through some of the nights I've lived through they would know saying he was more fun when he was a drunk is less a knock on him and more wishing direct harm on me. Five years on I still feel like tearing people from limb to limb when I hear it, it's that visceral of a reaction.

These comments roll off of MFD - his sobriety is his responsibility to maintain. Someone else's opinion of it simply doesn't matter. He doesn't get upset or angry with people. That's all me. Some things don't change. I am 100 times more protective of our life post-sobriety. If you knew how hard I’ve fought to keep things together through everything, you just would never.ever.ever be so casually cruel.

I think it's easy for people who aren't living right up against substance use disorder to make thoughtless comments. I’ve been that person. Once you live inside the belly of the beast, you're not so flippant. If your life depended on your sobriety, it would never be a joke to you or a remark you'd toss out. When you do, you’re not just slagging the person who has this issue - you’re invoking harm on everyone close to them who is an innocent bystander if things fall apart. We’ve been through enough, trust me.

Yesterday I read something Glennon Doyle wrote and it struck me. 

When I first wrote about addiction, I realized it couldn't be off-limits anymore because we can't end the stigma of addiction if we don't talk about it, all of it, including old behaviors and attitudes that aren't something to be proud of and what it’s like to live with it from a family perspective. I want to be really clear that when I write about this (it's only the second time in over seven years, but I am planning on not avoiding it anymore) it's not a look at what he's done/look how strong I am/ look what we've made from a pile of shit - this is a we're here, with you, you're not out there alone if you have this in your life, no matter where you are in the spectrum of addiction. It's not shameful and it doesn't have to be isolating. And since it's me and not MFD writing, it's specifically about being a loved one who has been through this. This is a huge part of my life, so not writing about it because it’s not “mine” is not showing myself. It’s not letting people fully see me so they can be less afraid if they feel alone in this. Anyone out there living with or closely related to an active substance abuser, I see you. I was you. You are not alone down here. People living on the other side of it, I’m here with you now. All of us: we can talk about it. This is the substance abuser’s story, certainly, but it is our story too. If you want or need to be heard, I will listen. 

As for me, I still drink, and I think that surprises people sometimes. It shouldn't. I don't have a problem with alcohol. Michael can be around people drinking and not drink - it's a concept that is lost on many because people use alcohol as a social lubricant. He simply removes himself from the situation when he feels uncomfortable or gets tired of it. We don’t keep alcohol in our house but we don’t avoid where it is.

What I don't do anymore is romanticize drinking or elevate its importance. I actually hate when people say they can't get through something without alcohol, like they won't survive the day or homework or an awkward or stressful situation or whatever - because you can, and saying you can't feeds into the drinking culture and there are people out there that will spend years without a drop of alcohol to preserve their very lives, their sanity, their health. THAT is survival. Not clutching a wine glass to make it through new math. You like your wine. You’d survive without it. There’s a difference. That's my thoughts coming from where I am now. Experience and perspective of living with an alcoholic has changed my thoughts on a lot of things related to alcohol.

Five years of sobriety for someone other than myself has been one of the most unexpected gifts of my life. I’m thankful for it daily. As with the first time I wrote about this, if you would like to talk privately email me at lifeaccordingtosteph@gmail.com. And as with the first time, I am okay, I’m just writing. I am happy to help you find resources for support or to just listen and support you in any way I can. 

Happy birthday to Melissa today and happy anniversary to my brother & Aubrey!

Thursday Thoughts - Seem like the whole world walking pretty and you can't find the room to move

Purging: Dresses, and a bin in my bedroom that I've ignored for an eternity.

Painting my nails OPI Cajun Shrimp

Reading:  Tear Me Apart by J.T. Ellison c/o netgalley. My Amazon First choice this month is I Will Never Leave You by S.M. Thayer and my Book of the Month Club choice this month is nothing although I'm intrigued that they categorized one of the choices as Appalachian Noir. I wasn't aware that was a thing, but since it is, it's certainly a thing for me. One of my favorites that would fit in that category that I own is Back Roads by Tawni O'Dell.

Anticipating: A two day work week next week. I'm at the shore Monday and Tuesday and at the lake for girls' weekend Friday so this cookie has crumbled in a wonderful way for me. I can't wait to see how Bruce Springsteen likes the lake. 

Wanting this ceramic Christmas tree nightlight to add to my ceramic tree collection.

Lagging behind on everything except work work, which is the most important in the grand scheme of things. Housework, laundry, shore rental stuff, emails, texts, replies, etc. I am at least a day but likely two to five days behind. 

Thanking you all for your kind words and thoughts on the substance abuse/sobriety/addiction stigma piece I published on Tuesday. My oldest and dearest friend Jen commented on Instagram that over the 38 years she's known me she's always thought one of my best qualities is my ability to never falter from genuinely and un-apologetically doing me exactly how I have felt best. I've never heard it put like that before, but after thinking about it, that is how I live every day. Publishing this pulsating, personal piece at a time when it could most be used against my family is an example of exactly that. Because fuck people who would stigmatize addiction and use it against MFD or me - the amount of people who reached out to me privately to share something of their own experience was staggering but sadly not surprising. It lets me know pushing publish was the right thing to do and that, as Rachael said, now was the right time to do it even though it is the most vulnerable time to do it.  People are out there suffering and if we can help ease that, that is what we are going to do - not worry more about how it presents politically. When MFD decided to run for office, I said the only way you can do this is if you can be who you are, not a whitewashed version of yourself. Despite many "advisers" telling him to be cleaner/better/more polished/more buttoned up/less passionate/less open/more toned down, that's what he's doing. And it sure as shit is what I'm doing because I'm not compromising my own truth for a damn thing or person. We're out here open about who we are and what we've been through because otherwise, what is the fucking point? We are here to help each other as human beings, period. I hope I've started a conversation that will continue because that is how we will reduce the stigma together. 

Recovering from putting in the emotional labor. 

Wishing our BFF Evan a happy birthday. He's in Italy, I'm sure it won't be unhappy.

Wondering where July went. Who Kiki is. When I will finally address the clutter in the basement. How to make Bruce stop before he drops. What will make me interested in food prep again. 

Raging over the people attacking and harassing Shaun King and his family (read his wife's statement), a direct result - no, repercussion - of his pursuit of fairness and equality. When people are too woke and become too powerful, they are targeted. As people who support his work, we can't do much but we need to know this is out there happening to people.

Reminding us all:

E-carding: 

What's new with you?

Linking up with Kristen

I probably should have written about substance abuse before.

But since I haven't, this will be really fucking long.

Back when MFD was abusing substances, or Not the Good Ol Days as I sometimes like to call them, I didn't write about it because I was focused on self preservation and making sure I did not go down with the ship.

When he got sober, I didn't write about it because that was his to deal with and work on. I didn't trust it at first, and when I did I didn't feel it was my place and frankly I wasn’t sure if my place was with him. When he hit a year I didn't write about it. Nor did I write about it at two, three, or four years sober. As he walks day by day toward his fifth anniversary, I can say with 100% certainty that while I have acknowledged it a few times, I never planned on writing about it in depth. It's a million times easier not to write about it.

Maybe I should have.

If I had, maybe I would not have accidentally seen a text that accused Michael of just fucking getting a DUI not REALLY needing to get sober and using this not needed sobriety and spirituality to advance himself politically...over four years later. This from someone who used to be close to us.

If I had, maybe people would realize not 100% bad did not mean secure, safe, okay, bearable, sustainable.

If I had, maybe I could have reduced even a smidge the stigma of addiction and would see much less of the absolutely ignorant shit people say about it that helps no one and hurts many.

If I had, maybe I could have prepared someone else's wife for the gutting path from addiction to recovery, shown her how to coexist without enabling or losing herself and how to prepare to get herself out if recovery never came.

If I had, maybe I could have eased a little of the pain of families who have lost loved ones to this monster, coaxed them out of their secret safe spaces and sat beside them in their suffering.

If I had, maybe I could have peeled back the complicated, nuanced layers of a life lived both with a substance abuser and the life you have to completely rebuild separately and together after that person makes the final choice of sobriety, which is often the only alternative to complete demise.

If I had, maybe someone who didn’t realize how life making or breaking sobriety is would be less flippant about it, would not casually suggest MFD was not still sober, would treat it as the sacred thing it is. 

If I had, maybe plainly acknowledging that maintaining his sobriety comes before everything else, including me, and that I am 100%  supportive of that priority would let people know that his life completely hinges on it.

If I had, maybe I could have helped someone I don’t know who doesn't have the support system I've had, someone who felt like there was no one who could possibly understand the position they found themselves in and felt alone and scared and ashamed. 

But I didn’t. I didn't write about it for a million reasons, most of which start and end with a desire for privacy that is probably not easily understandable given that I’ve put most of my life on this blog. Over the years, the desire to retain a privacy wall on this issue has felt simultaneously life preserving, true, selfish, honest, and deceitful. 

I wanted to stay up on my perch. If I opened the door on this in an effort to achieve understanding and compassion for people who struggle with addiction and the people who love them and for us to talk openly about it, I would also open myself up to disappointment if it only serves a desire for gossip. 

I didn't want to attempt it because it is difficult to write coherently about something you hold so closely to who you are, all the while standing in a hurricane as the ground below you undergoes a seismic shift that will change the landscape of your life permanently.

I didn't want to get close to it. I spent a lot of years separating myself from this. When he was drinking and doing drugs I separated myself out of self preservation and when he got sober I separated myself because I did not want any credit for his sobriety, which a lot of people wanted to give me. I still don't. It is his, not mine, and he works for it and is responsible to maintain it. He got sober for him, not me, and that's how it should be. When he made the decision to get sober it was with the knowledge that I was not sure if I would stay married to him or not. It had nothing to do with me. How he is and the strength he has shown has everything to do with him.

I didn't want to disrupt what I felt was my hard earned peace. I just wanted a fucking break. A very long fucking break from dealing with issues related to substance abuse. I had been to Al-Anon meetings and read books and talked to MY people about it, but never publicly talked about it. The thing is it never goes away though - you will always deal with it, and seeing it stigmatized and how much that enrages me makes me realize I will have no peace until the stigma is gone 

I didn't want to invite unwanted commentary. I have to acknowledge that we have the most supportive fucking people on the planet in our framily who never wavered one step away from us, even if they were scared or unfamiliar or unsure of how to deal with everything. There is such a thing as loving people through it and they did, a million times over. We also had people we had to shed who made light but meant harm and shot arrows to wound. Even though that was a necessity, it was and is still painful. And those were people we know, not the world at large sitting in judgement, which is what you open yourself up to when you share anything publicly.

Why now? 

Everything is out there with this campaign. MFD is basically running to remove this stigma on addiction, to get healthcare for all especially easier/better/more accessible substance abuse programs and mental health services - and he wants to give back to the neighborhoods where he got sober. He's been open and up front about his past from day one. Even though I  knew it would be free game for discussion, people I don't know nonchalantly discussing and using for political gain (not just on the opposing side of the aisle, either - people who are supposedly allies) or personal amusement what has more than once broken my life in a million pieces over the past 16 years feels like such a fucking gross violation I can’t even describe it. 

Time heals wounds, but re-living it and answering to it years later with people who don't know their ass from a hole in the wall regarding addiction issues expounding on them feels more trying than living it was the first time.

This rolls off of MFD because he has a program that enables that and he works hard at it. The man I thought I was stronger than has proven through his sobriety to be stronger than me.

It does not roll off of me. I worry about the collateral damage to my heart and my marriage as I struggle with public commentary on something I as a private citizen who is not running for office consider to be, you know, private. I lived this shit and it was hard enough the first time, having it all brought up again feels like a punishment for ME - not for him. He is so used to talking about this stuff. But it doesn’t work like that, and by extension it is my problem again too. 

I’ve felt like a stranger in my own body, more like the woman I was 10 years ago than the one I am today - worrying in the small hours, resentful of this intrusion, having to continually shake off those weak emotions I am angry at myself for even entertaining. It’s taken a tremendous amount of my energy this year to battle myself over this, because that's what I'm doing - battling the me from 10 years ago who had not yet learned about it or how to walk away from it. The me from today knows we’ll be fine no matter what because we’ve already lived through hell and come out on the other side. This is just the shitty replay.

Maybe I should have written from my perspective all along, because when your partner (or child or sibling or mom or best friend or you get the picture) is a substance abuser, you are in a club you did not ask to join. Why should I allow people who don’t know jack shit about addiction speak over me? How will people understand they should not be so derisive or casually judgmental about addiction because it comes for everyone regardless of race, class, education, upbringing, etc., if people like me choose to sit inside my own walls? I can’t tell you how many times someone who used to call people junkies sings a different tune when it’s their child with everything going for them who is in need of a lifeline and compassion.

There are things in our life that define us, searing our souls, burning us down and remaking us from the ashes. All of the versions of myself I have been throughout this battle stack on top of each other like layers of clothes the coldest winter temperatures cannot penetrate. I've been forged by fire many times over and risen every fucking time. Sometimes I need to remind myself of that.  

Maybe you needed a reminder too. We have a responsibility to each other as human beings. I have a responsibility from my perspective in dealing with addiction to help anyone I can. That requires pulling back the curtain and putting it out there. It calls for an end to my radio silence. I am happy to listen to any of your experiences and talk with you about this. If you don’t want to leave a public comment below please email me at lifeaccordingtosteph@gmail.com . If you would like some resources or books you can read or groups you can join, I can point you in the right direction. Or just listen. Always, I can just listen and acknowledge what you're going through or went through. 

It wasn't pretty and it rambled and didn't have a good flow but it's done. Thanks for listening. This one cost me. 

I need to add that I am fine and we are fine - this post was a long time coming. We live with the repercussions of this forever, but we don't break under it.