We need more time

Today is a beautiful day. The sun is shining, blue skies everywhere, birds flying in and out of the bird feeder and pond in my parents' back garden and you could easily be fooled into thinking life is good. I went into my mom's bedroom and lay with her for a while. We chatted about the events of yesterday and she commented on the beautiful day it was. "I must get out today", she said, "but after I have had a bit more rest, I am tired today." Comments like those are becoming more frequent.

My dad is frustrated. He believes that we are all giving in. He wants a remission and I feel for him. We all want that, but he feels he is the only one who is trying to fight for it. I left my mom to rest and my dad went into the room. Their room is actually inside a conservatory. Light floods the room and mom has a wonderful view of their beautiful garden. I would love that view when the time came for me to go. I hear dad say that he won't allow her to stay in their room all day and her pleading with him, saying that she is not giving in, but just needs to rest.

I understand dad's frustration. He has been the patriarch of our family for ever. Always in control, always the problem solver. Volatile, but passionately in love with his family. Now, faced with a problem he cannot solve, frustration and vulnerability have overtaken him. At times, we have caught him crying and as my sister and I have approached to comfort him, anger flashes in his eyes and he orders us to leave him alone. Even now, the only person he can let close to him is my mom. I fear for him, for how he will really cope without her. The cracks have started to show - some of his behaviours have been irrational and not like him, although the way he is handling the stress is very much like him, only ten times worse. I have assured my mom that he will be taken care of, that he can come and live with us, if he wants to.

Mom is so worried about him. In fact, she is worried about everyone. This process of watching mom die seems to have brought out the worst in us, rather than the best. I am usually the peace keeper and healer in the family, and yet I have turned into a ball of anger, finding fault in everyone except myself. I feel martyred at times, resentful of all that I am doing for everyone else and feeling like no-one appreciates me. My sister, struggling with so much outside of this journey, seems to me to be a shadow of the person she was. My brother has retreated to the sanctuary of his family and who can blame him. Watching someone you love ebb into death is not easy. My poor dad is trying so hard to keep us all going. To keep us believing that mom will find a way to go into remission, to give us more time to have with her. I, sadly, do not have that faith and my lack of religion/God belief does not allow me to pray for it, what is the point?

I love going through to my mom in the mornings. I lie with her on the bed, in my pyjamas. I find myself studying her. Her eyes are so blue and so kind. They are eyes that have seen heartache, but have loved so much. I study her hair, now shaved. I love the shape of her head. Her ears stick out and I absolutely love them. She seems so fragile lying in bed. I usually suggest we do something for that day, she usually agrees but asks for time to rest, just a bit longer.

I have noticed that she is wanting to sleep more. Our palliative nurse said this would happen. She said that the cancer needs energy to grow, and that it draws this from the body. This starves the body of energy and so the body's response is to sleep, since the lack of energy will make you tired. Bit by bit, the body will shut down as the tumour grows and your body is starved of more energy and eventually, you will slip away. Watching mom sleep fills me with dread. I know that while she sleeps that monster growing inside of her is drawing energy from her increasingly weak body. I know that when she puts off going out with me on a beautiful summer's day to sleep, it is because the monster is willing for more of my mom to help it grow.

A frustration rises in me again. Why isn' she getting the treatment she needs, even to just keep the tumour at bay for a short while. Why can't people see the urgency? Why can't they see that we need more time, mom needs more time?

As I sit here looking out into the beautiful clear sky, watching the birds, and admiring the glorious garden, I wonder how much time we have. All of our days are numbered, for certain, but mom's days are much fewer. Each day I wake up and think, another day gone. I do celebrate her life and the wonderful person she is, but, perhaps selfishly, I look to the skies and rue the timeline that is our life and the shortened version that is my mom's. My mom is so gentle and kind and I can't help thinking, "We just need more time".

A hope that once was but now is lost!

Waiting for someone to die is crap! And that is what I am doing. I am here, in the UK, separated from my husband and children, waiting for my mom, who happens to be my best friend, to die.

We have been told that her lung cancer is so far advanced that there is no way of curing her, that there is no hope. Okay, I try to process that. Having been a nurse for a short stint, I know lung cancer is really not the kind of cancer you want to get. We are then told though, that all is not lost because the cancer is treatable. Treatable, but not curable. What the hell does that mean? Well, it means that they can offer palliative (not curative) treatment, which basically means she is being offered a very diluted form of radiation therapy or chemotherapy, which may or may not reduce the tumour to a size that will alleviate some of the symptoms she will experience whilst on the journey to death. I note that the news is kind of delivered in a tone that says we should be grateful for this 'life'line. My parents struggle to understand and initally believe that they are being offered a chance at survival. Impatience is detected in the doctor's voice as he, again, reiterates that my mom is going to die.

This news was delivered six weeks ago and, yet, my mom is still waiting for this so called treatment to begin. In fact, in that time, we have been told that unfortunately the cancer has spread to the brain and that the original treatment being offered to treat the tumour in the lung has to be put on hold, so that radiation therapy can be started on the brain tumour. That was three weeks ago! The treatment only begins on the 28th June which will last for five days. She then has to wait another three weeks before she is able to start the chemo on her lung tumour, and only then if she is well enough.

My mom was informed of her diagnosis on the 12th May and given a prognosis of around two months to live. This then begs the question: Why are they even bothering on the 28th June, since, really, according to them, she only has another two weeks to live? Mom is of the opinion that they know she is going to die, and they are actually delaying treatment in the hope that she will die, so the NHS won't have to pay for any treatment. At first, I believed that to be a very cynical point of view, but now I totally agree with her.

Do I sound pissed off? You can be certain that I am spitting nails right now. This is a system that has totally failed my parents, and my mother especially. No-one cares. We have spoken to so many people, right from the oncologist to the MP of the local area to try and expedite the treatment that offers her no real hope and for which we should be eternally grateful. But, truthfully, no-one gives a damn about a 62 year old woman who is being taken from this earth far too early. No-one gives a damn about a family who has been given no time to prepare for the end, and who are trying desperately to hold some level of sanity whilst the insanity of death unfolds each and every day. And why should anyone care? She is only a statistic after all. A no-hope case that is just costing the NHS money. Not a woman who is courageously trying to die with some dignity, whilst being a support to her family like she has always been, despite us trying not to need her so much. Not a woman, who despite dying of cancer, shaved her head so that she could raise money for charity for a little girl who captured her heart. No, to the political cogs that turn the NHS, she is just a nobody and there is no denying that the venom I feel towards those political cogs right now is unsurpassed any venom I have felt towards anyone or any thing.

Today, my heart has physically ached - all day. I never used to have this kind of feeling when I felt sad, but my first husband passed away when I was 25 years old and ever since then, when I feel extreme sadness, my heart literally physically aches. Today it has ached more than ever before.

When I arrived six weeks ago, my mom and I were able to take fairly long walks along the beach. We talked and laughed and dared to hope that perhaps there had been some mistake made somewhere along the way. Whilst waiting for the treatment-for--which-we-should-be-grateful, my mom has literally withered before my eyes. She has good days, to be sure. Those are the days that she can get up, shower and dress herself and then retire back to her bed, or to the swing chair in the garden. On occasion, she tries to come out for a bit of an excursion with us, but that knocks her completely. On the bad days, which are becoming more frequent, she cannot get out of bed, is totally breathless and sleeps for most of the day. When she sleeps, you get a glimpse of what she is going to look like when she finally exhales her last breath. I cannot look at her when she sleeps for the pain in my heart is just too great.

I am trying to remain positive, but let's face it, who made up that crap? Who said that in the face of losing a loved one, we should remain brave, strong and positive. Hello, there is NOTHING positive about losing a loved one. Not for the person being left behind anyway. Oh, you may find comfort in believing that they are going to a 'better' place, that this is God's plan for them and that their time has come. If you are new-ageist, you will believe that mom has come to learn whatever lesson she was sent to learn, or experience whatever experience in the physical form she was meant to experience and that now her time had come. If you are law-of-attractionist, you believe that hey, she brought this upon herself.

I believe none of that. I don't believe in God. I simply don't. I am busy reading the bible to try to understand the comfort my mom currently finds in Christianity and I see a God that is pretty wonton and not very nice. He shows mercy here and there, but on the whole, I have a huge issue with the whole dictatorship thing who periodically puts woman down. Right from the first book in Genesis, we are painted as the evil ones, and frankly, I find that abbhorent. I have an issue with a bible that has numerous different versions, has numerous different interpretations with each faction declaring that theirs is the right one. I have an issue with a God that basically creates the earth, lets the devil and sin run amock for an indeterminate amount of time and then says but when I do come back to rule the earth, you had better listen to me, or be cast into a lake of fire. Now, I know that there are going to be huge outcries from Christians across the globe (not least my parents) who will say I haven't read the bible extensively enough and then they will quote all the historical markers within the bible that must make it true. But, you see, that is all the bible is, nothing more than a history book. It, in itself, does not prove the existence of God. It only proves our need to want there to be something else for us, other than our allotted three-score-years-and-ten.

Even I am guilty of that. I have spoken to God. It is true, I have. I have asked him why after my mom had spent an entire lifetime trying to lose weight (thanks society for that, by the way), dieting and denying herself extensively, that, in her dying moments, when it really doesn't matter what the hell she eats, has she now lost all sense of taste. Surely, this one small thing, the omnipotent, omnipresent, God could do this one small thing for her. I'm not asking for a cure, just a simple pleasure for her. The simple pleasure of sinking her teeth into a meat pie and actually revelling in its thick beef sauce and knowing you can eat without a care in the world. Is that perhaps too much for God? I also asked if he could cure her, just in case.

Of course, I will be told that if she dies, it means that God had another plan for her. Of course he did. How silly of me. He had her give up smoking 26 years ago, then afflict her with a disease that was, literally, her worst nightmare, to not be able to breathe and then deny her her sense of taste, just to make sure she couldn't enjoy anything in her last few weeks here on earth. But, hey, God has a 'plan', I'm told. We don't know why these things happen, but it is all part of his 'plan'. So, whilstever we are believing in the 'plan', we are not motivated to find a cure, because the 'plan' shouldn't be questioned, should it.

On the note of finding a cure, why is it that lung cancer is the largest killing cancer in the world, yet is the most underfunded in terms of finding a cure. Is it because, like obesity, we look upon it as self-inflicted? Or is it because the powers that be like the money generated from taxes gained from cigarettes. Why aren't we targetting tobacco companies and forcing them to fund the amount that it costs to treat the 10% of smokers who get lung cancer. Better yet, screw freedom of choice, let's just do away with cigarettes altogether. Smoking is an addiction and like any addictive drug, it should be banned. Sorry, but watching my mother die in this fashion has made me very firm on this. It is a horrible horrible way to die and it is like playing russian roulette, you just don't know if yours is the chamber with the bullet in it.

Anger is the name of the game for me today. Anger, and extreme sadness and helplessness. It is hard living a life that no longer has hope. My mom used to be full of hope. I miss that.

What If...

Such a long time since I have written anything down and such a lot has happened. Sobriety remains strong but no longer is the focus of my life. My mother is dying of lung cancer. That changes your focus and brings a lot of things into perspective.

As I pen these words, I am sitting in her lounge in the UK. Lee-on-the-Solent in Hampshire to be exact. The lounge is cluttered, but comfortable and, being half past midnight, I am basking in the quiet - a commodity not easily found of late, but more of that later. I have not seen much of her today. As the pressure of the ebbing of her life bares down on me, I feel a much stronger need to withdraw. I don't particularly like this quality, but it is one I am having to face. The irony is that although I am withdrawing, I also have a need to be around people. It means that I want to be near people, but I don't want to be bothered BY them. I want to be left alone, to let the world go on around me, whilst I sit here, in suspended animation in my own thoughts and actions. Of course, that isn't always possible, but today, for some reason, my family sensed I needed it and gave me the space I needed.

So what did I do with this space I had been afforded. Not a lot actually. I transferred all my contacts from my mac book pro contacts to my entourage contacts. There was purpose in this madness. My mother, who is dying, has decided that she would like to help a little girl at her church called Grace. Grace is 19 months old and has Rett Syndrome. She cannot talk, sit, walk and finds eating difficult. She has captured my mothers heart. My mom has to undergo radiation therapy because her lung cancer has spread to her brain and she has decided to shave her hair off before she loses it to cancer. She has asked us to organise an event, inviting friends and family to witness my dad shaving her head. She is asking everyone who comes to please make a small donation and she is going to donate the money to Rett Syndrome research. A local newspaper picked up the story and came to interview her. They asked her why she was doing this amazingly inspiring thing. She replied, "My life may be coming to an end, but Grace's is just beginning. Why would I not want to help her." I am emailing all my friends to make a donation to my mother's cause.

My mom has been given only a few months to live. How does one deal with that information. One day, you are imagining growing old with your mom (who is only 19 years older than you are) and the next you are forced to imagine a life without her. I have decided that I definitely don't like this game. Life continues to be unfair.

My mother has only recently become a Christian and given her life to Jesus and to God. At around the same time, barely a few weeks before her fatal diagnosis, I decided that there was just too much evidence to prove that God did not exist. Like a child that discovers santa claus does not exist, I grievously mourned the letting go of something so ingrained in my socialisation. I felt like I was lost and alone in the desert. But the evidence, or lack of it, was irrefutable, I had determined. Of course, my mother's affliction only served to prove my point of view. What kind of a loving God would put what I consider to be the most wonderful, graceful, beautiful soul through such a thing? Surely, no loving God could or would do this.

I arrived in the UK angry, scared and desperately wanting to be strong. For someone who didn't believe in God, I found myself really angry at Him a lot. I am a Humanist, I declared to my now solidly Christian family. I had gone from being the kind, dependable one in the family to the one who didn't believe - EEK! Yet my mother, who had only recently made this act of commitment to God would proudly introduce me to her Christian friends and tell them with pride that I was a Humanist. They would all nod and smile as if to say 'It's only a matter of time.' At first, this annoyed me, like I was some sort of lemming that would hurl itself over the cliff like everyone else. But, slowly, as I have gotten to know these remarkable people, I have been unable to deny that there is something there. Something peaceful resides within this Christian mob and that peace feeds my mother.

The jury is still out with me. It is a fine line, this God thing. Religion, and the atrocities committed in the name of it, does not sit well with me. But, my research has hit a bit of a dead end. Whilst science can largely prove the big bang theory, there seems to be little evidence of of what caused the big bang. So, what we are left with is no way of irrefutably proving the existence of God but also no way of irrefutably denying the existence of God. Well that isn't any good really, is it? Especially for an intellectual thinker like myself. I like proof, I like evidence, but, strangely, I also like to think that we are not alone. Especially at times like this. I secretly admit to wanting someone/something supernatural to hold me and let me find peace within this seemingly unreasonable predicament. I have dared to hope for a miracle. I have contemplated getting on my knees and praying, although I didn't because I felt that lacked a certain amount of integrity since I would be doing it really just to hedge my bets and not truly because I believe that God will cure my mom, or make her suffer less, or whatever else He has in store for her. True to form, I asked my mom that when she dies, if there is a God and Heaven, if she could please send me a sign. Faith is something, it seems, I sadly lack.

So, where does that leave me? In a vast, gaping, no-man's land, it seems. I don't totally believe there is no God, but I also cannot totally believe there is a God. To support my education on all things religious and supernatural I have done research into other Gods/prophets, etc. I like the idea of Buddhism, that whole cause and affect thing (Karma), really appeals to me. Taoism is also a good one, although not as good as buddhism, I fear. Hinduism is not really my cup of tea and I have yet to do full research on Islam, although my dad, the other intellectual thinker of the family, has been giving me a bit of insight into it. I wasn't brought up Christian per se, but being anglo-western, it is the easiest for me to grasp because it is a part of our culture.

Mortality is funny how it brings up these questions on the meaning of life and where we go when we die. I am selfish. I want my mom to reside with me, so that when I come across life's hiccups, which anyone who has read my blog will realise happens to me a lot, I can ask, as I have always done for her advice, and she can impart it and the balance of my universe will be restored. Why would God want to upset that? If he has the power to create an entire universe, can he not take away the tumour that is ravaging her lung and sapping her of all her energy? It was her biggest wish not to die of a disease that will cause her not to be able to breathe. Of course, the Law-of-Attraction proponents will say that my mother brought this on herself because she attracted that which she most thought about and feared. I can't put here what I think of that (insert any expletive you can think of). But I do ask the question, why would God allow my beautiful mother to die of a disease that has frightened her the most?

Strangely, and like a true Christian, whilst afraid of dying, she doesn't question God's plan. My problem is that we are expected to accept the plan without any documentation of what that might be. Why would He give me a mind that is totally on the go all the time, questioning EVERYTHING, accepting nothing, if He wanted me to buy into His plan? I ask you God, why would you do that. I consider it to be a form of torture. Yet, niggling in the recesses of my thinking brain is the question What If...

Clarity, messages and facing the truth

It has been a while since I blogged. Between going to college, AA meetings and some new part time contract work, my life has not been my own. I hardly recognise my life right now. I have been sober for 57 days and my life has definitely taken on a new direction. Funnily enough, it isn't probably the direction I imagined. Well, the truth is that whilst I was drinking, I wasn't imagining anything other than whether or not I had enough wine to satisfy the amount I needed to drink. Yes, my life is different now.

The first thing I am noticing is that I have a clarity of mind now. This is not to say that I know exactly what I want out of life yet. What I mean by clarity is that I am starting to remember things that are dead give aways that drinking was indeed a problem for me. Things that in my inebriated state, I had pushed back to the recesses of my mind because I didn't want to remember, I didn't want to face the truth.

In AA, they often talk about identifying rather than looking for the differences, which is what a lot of AAs mostly do when they first enter the rooms of AA. I was no different. That first day, I was praying that the stories I would hear would confirm that I in fact was not an alcoholic, that it was just the endless stream of crap circumstances that had made me turn to wine in such a vehement fashion, and that once they were out of the way, I would return to being a 'social' drinker. It is laughable now, but that is what I truly wanted to believe.

Of course, as each person shared their story on that first day, I could not escape the truth. I could not escape that there were many more similarities and not enough differences. I was indeed an alcoholic and my life had become unmanageable. However, over the following few weeks, whilst still in the fog of unfolding sobriety, I did manage to convince myself that my drinking was not that bad. I heard how people had blackouts and thought to myself, 'I've never had that'. I heard how people stashed their drink here, there and everywhere, to make sure they always had stuff around, and again, I thought, 'that isn't me". Of course, what I was doing is still trying to find the differences, perhaps setting myself up for the inevitable relapse because I still wanted to believe that I wasn't really an alcoholic.

When I first came to AA, I was told that all I needed to do is to not drink a day at a time, don't pick up the first drink because then you cannot get drunk, and to just keep coming back to AA. Thank god, I have taken that advice. In the last couple of weeks, I have had flashbacks of just how bad my drinking had become. I would be driving along, thinking about nothing in particular when I would suddenly remember an incident that would remind me and prove to me that I am where I am supposed to be. These 'memories' are coming thick and fast at the moment, and although a little confronting (well, actually severely confronting at times), I know that they are a necessary part of recovery.

One such 'memory' came recently when I was sharing from the floor of AA. I had not really thought about my 'drinking story' as such and when I was asked to share, I decided to talk about my drinking story. "I took my first drink when I was 14," I began. As I started to share my story, I heard myself say the words, "I didn't suffer from blackouts." I then paused momentarily. Suddenly a memory came rushing back to me. "Actually", I said, "isn't it funny how alcohol robs us of our memories, because, actually, I did have blackouts." At that moment, a memory had come flying into my mind and I felt compelled to share it. I then told the story of when, only five years ago, I was at my sister's wedding. I had travelled from England to South Africa for the wedding and it was a beautiful affair (lots of alcohol, as you do!!). I met my brother-in-law's family and friends, all of whom were lovely people. My sister and her husband shared mutual friends too and it was good to catch up with the few that I knew. I was having a lovely evening.

Toward the end of the evening, a guy I had been talking to off and on came up to me and started chatting to me again. He then looked at me, and said, "You really don't remember me do you?" Innocently, I said I didn't and tried to imagine where we had met when I lived in South Africa. He then went on to tell me how I had been at a bar in my home town, where he also lived, totally drunk out of my mind, on my own. He said that he could see that I was in no fit state to drive (which is what I intended to do - another thing I told people I never did), so he started chatting to me and offered to take me home. I agreed and I assume that I must have passed out in his car, because he said that he took me inside, put me into bed and left. I shudder to think what could have happened and to be honest, it may well have happened, but he failed to mention it, and I am praying that isn't the case. I have absolutely no recollection whatsoever of this event at all. I have no recollection of meeting this person, of talking to him and certainly none of letting him into my home and putting me into bed. It was a horrible, horrible moment and for the rest of the evening, I did my best to avoid him. I had totally forgotten that evening. I had blocked out the blackout, if you will. It came flooding back to remind me yet again, that yes, indeed, I did have blackouts and was on the path to total self destruction.

In the past few weeks, I have had many moments like that, many clear memories of when my drinking was way beyond 'social' and I have been grateful for them. They are daily reminders to me that I cannot get complacent, that I cannot allow myself to fool myself that I am not 'as bad' as the other people in the rooms. It doesn't matter if I am not 'as bad', it was bad enough for me. The joy about AA is that the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking and thank God I got that desire 8 weeks ago whilst my life was relatively still in tact.

It is actually quite funny how delusional we can become about our drinking. I have not told many people about my alcoholism. Initially that was because I was ashamed, but now it is more because I don't feel the need to shout it out from the tree tops. I am on a journey of discovery and I want to keep it personal for now. However, when I have mentioned it to the very few people who are close to me, I have been totally surprised and taken aback when they don't seem at all surprised or shocked. I had seriously not imagined my drinking to be 'that bad'. Although it was not working for me and that I had considered my life to be unmanageable, I truly thought my friends would be shocked to find out that I considered myself to be an alcoholic. When they reacted with little or no surprise at all, I was quite annoyed. I look back now and realise that I wanted some sort of accolade for my sobriety. I had a picture in my mind of how the event would unfold:

I would tell them in hushed tones that I had something to tell them - they would lean in, and I would mention that I was an alcoholic and that I had been going to AA. They would look shocked and say, "No". That disbelieving, incredulous 'No' you see in the movies, you know the one I mean. I would then look down, nod, and say, "Yes, it's true." They would then look at me all doe-eyed, realising the honour I had bestowed upon them for telling them such a massive thing and they would then tell me that they had never known, that I hidden it so well. They would then ask how was I coping and tell me that they are so proud of me. I would then walk away, leaving them still shaking their heads in disbelief, me basking in my own glory.

It never happened that way. I would do the hushed toned "I have something to tell you", and they would lean in, then I would tell them and they would look at me as if to say "Is that it? Tell me something I didn't know". I have tried this only three times, but each time the reaction has been exactly the same. It has annoyed the crap out of me, but I have had to succumb to the fact that my drinking was not hidden at all, that in fact it was as transparent as daylight, and that people did indeed notice. I still don't like to think that my alcoholism was that evident to everyone around me. But life is certainly adept at sending us messages to clarify certain things and in the cold light of sobriety (which is warming up a bit now), those messages come through loud and clear.

Being sober is a humbling experience for me. I am learning every day, with increased clarity, to face up to how bad my drinking had become. It is true that I hadn't got to the point of losing my family or my home, but I had certainly lost my dignity and not only my sense of self worth, but my entire sense of self. Facing up to the memories, such as that guy at the wedding, is a gift because it enables me to remind myself of where I have come from and to reaffirm where I am going. It enables me to look at it for what it is - a moment of total insanity - and put it behind me, because, one day at a time, I am paving a new path for myself, one that won't be filled with shameful memories that come as flashbacks as if to haunt me, but a path that will be filled with memories that are good and wonderful, that in years to come I will look back on with pride. That is what sobriety is giving me and it is something for which I am truly grateful.

Intellect and the Steps to Serenity

Life is a funny old thing, don't you think? This week, I celebrated 30 days sobriety, although to me it felt like much longer. 1 month sounds so fledgling and, compared to the people I have met who have been sober for so many years (something I am battling to comprehend), it is indeed such a short time. Of course, with alcohol being what it is, I am now no longer the 'new' newbie. Since starting AA, a couple of other people have started their journey into sobriety and even though I am still considered a 'newbie' (not sure when I actually get to shed that label), I feel much 'older' because through the love of the members of AA, I am already forming friendships and feeling more connected than I have ever been in my life. I feel like a part of the club, so to speak. However, as I look at those newcomers, I am forced to not forget what brought me to AA in the first place, and that is a good thing, since complacency is an alcoholics downfall, as many will tell you.

Last week, I celebrated my own chronological birthday. It was on a Saturday and on that day I was 28 days sober. It was also the first sober birthday I have had since my 16th birthday. It was a lovely day and I felt totally enveloped by the love of the family around me. It was a truly lovely day, despite the lack of alcohol, or should that be, because of the lack of alcohol.

However, the friday night before had been particularly bad for me. A pattern has started to emerge whereby on a friday night I hit a very big low. Intellectually, I know that this is because that for the last 11 years before my sobriety, Friday always signified the start of my weekend and I always marked that with wine, lots and lots of wine. Now, with four Fridays under my belt, a pattern has started to emerge, whereby 7pm Friday comes around and a big cloud seems to settle over my head. I get grumpy, teary and I don't want to be around anyone. I feel angry too. The weird thing is that I don't have an urge to drink. There is a term called 'white knuckling it' which basically means that you are going through each day wanting that drink and just hanging in there (white knuckling it) going day by day wanting it, but not giving in to the urge. The aim is to lose that urge, to be free of the desire to drink alcohol and to find serenity in your day to day life. I can honestly say that I haven't been white-knuckling it. I haven't had that daily urge to drink, but I have yet to find serenity in my day to day living and this is particularly evident on a Friday night. For some inexplicable reason, come Friday evening, that dark cloud settles over me and I am as grumpy as shit!

What had been worrying me is the fact that I wasn't feeling like I was 'working the program'. I am a proactive person - a doer - and a person who gets things done (except housework, I'll admit!!). When a problem presents itself, I am the type of person who diligently sets about finding the solution. I may need a day or so to process the problem, come to terms with it, so to speak, but then I spring into action. I research, research, research and then try to apply that research, that which I find relevant to my situation, that is, to my particular problem. I also offer this service to those around me and have become quite the 'go to' person in my circle of family and friends. Often, of course, I offer this service even though the other person might not want it, but that is another topic entirely.

So, here I was, 35 short days ago, faced with being an alcoholic. Having had exposure to AA in my teen years and early twenties, I knew that AA was a very successful program at helping people find that serenity within their recovery. I knew that those people who successfully applied the 12 steps of AA found an everlasting serenity and I knew from the very beginning, that I wanted that serenity. Drinking alcohol had been such a big part of my life, had sapped every fibre of my soul, that I knew from the outset that I needed to rebuild my soul and finally find out, come to terms with, accept and love who I am. I knew from past (outside) experience, that those people who worked the steps, did exactly that, they found serenity and themselves. Attending AA meetings as an alcoholic confirmed this for me. I hung on the words of people who had worked the program and who had found serenity. I felt that if I listened to what these people had done, applied it to my life, then I would be the walking embodiment of serenity, something I so desperately wanted.

I am beginning to realise though, that alcoholism is not a disease you can treat with intellect. It is something that is unique to each person and is not a disorder or disease in the usual sense of the word. It is not like having a disease that is treatable with an antibiotic that each person with the disease can take and will be cured - if only alcoholism was that easy. Alcoholism for each person is defined in a totally different way. All you need for membership to AA is a desire to stop drinking. That is it. They don't ask you how much you drank, or how often. They don't care. All they care about is that you now want to give up drinking and they want to help you to achieve that sobriety, and find serenity in that sobriety.

When I first attended AA, I began to wonder if I needed to be there. I was a suburban housewife who hadn't lost her children, house or husband. I didn't drink in the morning (a common myth of what constitutes an alcoholic), and I only ever drank wine - no beer, spirits and definitely no methylated spirits. In fact, I began to feel that perhaps my drinking was not that bad after all. Yet, I had a nagging feeling that I needed to be there in those rooms. It frustrated me, though, that there was no definition, that applied to all, of what actually constituted an alcoholic. I could not apply my research techniques and my intellect to this problem and I was starting to get really annoyed. I had always been able to meet a problem head on and solve it, to the best of my ability. I prided myself on always being able to find an answer.

I think that when I first attended AA, I thought that I would take the 12 steps and systematically work through them and find that elusive serenity. I am discovering that it just isn't that easy. I am certainly learning that this is not something to which you can apply intellect. It is often said that when you enter the rooms of an AA meeting, very often you will hear what you need to hear. This is especially true for me. Even though intellectually I was questioning if I needed to be in AA, something inside of me told me that I needed to keep on going. Even on the days when I have not felt like going, I have somehow dragged myself off to the meeting and walked away with just that bit more understanding and especially a bit more insight into myself.

I am beginning to realise that intellectually attacking a problem was a way of not dealing with how I truly felt about a problem/situation. I went into crisis management mode and needed to find a solution before the gravity of the situation could overwhelm me. I was hoping that finding a solution to being an alcoholic (AA) would produce the same result. I would 'work the program' - i.e. apply the 12 steps - and thus find a solution to alcoholism. Alas, or indeed, thankfully, it just does not work that way. The 12 steps pretty much ensure that. It is a program of physical, mental and spiritual growth and in order to gain that elusive serenity, you do indeed have to apply all 12 steps.

I understood this from the beginning, so, with my intellectual cap on, I looked at Step 1: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable. Tick that one off, I could do that. Right, next step. Step 2: Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Okay, first stumbling block. Intellect has never been able to explain faith, and this is what they were saying, isn't it? That I needed faith in a power greater than myself would restore me to sanity. Firstly, I wasn't all that sure I was insane (refer to my reference to being a housewife who still had everything) and secondly, although I had always 'believed' in a God, I was never sure what form that God had for me or what that higher power meant to me. I knew before joining AA, that it was a spiritual program, but I think somehow that I thought I could apply intellect to getting past the 'spiritual' steps and apply the others to achieve the desired outcome. Slowly, I was beginning to realise that I simply couldn't.

My dad phoned me the other day and asked me how I was going with the AA program. I said that I was frustrated that I hadn't found a sponsor and wasn't working the program. He explained to me that recovery from alcoholism cannot be rushed and that for some the program comes very easily and for others it takes a long time. I don't do 'long time'. I'm a proactive doer, remember. In fact, my psychologist once described me as an underachieving high achiever. Underachieving, no doubt, due to alcohol. I wanted the solution to alcoholism and to be the walking embodiment of serenity - right now! I wanted to be going to those 'newcomers' right now and offering them my pearls of wisdom! After 35 days of sobriety, I am slowly learning that patience is an important skill to have. I am also slowly learning that despite skills in doing and acting, I have never learned the skill of just sitting quietly and accepting the situation for what it is.

If I am honest, I am only at Step 1 - I am only now really accepting that I was powerless over alcohol and that my life had become unmanageable, despite the fact that I had managed not to lose everything. In fact, I am very grateful that my higher power showed me AA at such a young age so that I could recognise the signs in myself before I did in fact lose everything, because I know that it probably could have and would have happened. I am working on Step 2 - it isn't easy. My intellect wants proof of this higher power, my faith has never been particularly strong, despite having a firm belief in 'something'. I do believe that my higher power showed me the way, brought me to this path, I just wish I could have a more definitive understanding of what that higher power means for me. I have struggled with the whole God thing - the omnipotent being who smites us when we step out of line - no, that's not going to cut it for me. I believe in a God that is loving and only loving. I believe we were given free will for a reason, not to be set up to fail, but to learn, experience and grow. This alcoholism is my path of discovery and growth, and with patience, lots and lots of patience, and through my, yet-to-be-defined higher power, I am sure that I will finally find serenity.

Life on Life's Terms

Life on life's terms is a saying that I have learned, but am not ready yet to apply. I like to control, I realise. I don't like to Let Go and Let God and I am definitely not very good at Easy Does It. These are sayings that I see every time I attend an AA meeting. I read them, but I am not sure I comprehend them.

With 27 days of sobriety under my belt, I learned that no matter what the affliction, the world does not stop - life goes on and if we are to survive in a world without alcohol, we need to accept life on life's terms. It is hard.

This week, we learned that our youngest DD, whom had been diagnosed with ADHD/ODD 6 years ago, actually does not have ADHD at all, but a high functioning form of autism called Aspergers Syndrome. He is entering high school next year and we decided that since the original diagnosis was so long ago, it would be prudent to get him re-assessed, just in case there were any special considerations that he may need. What we were told was so far left field of what we were expecting, we were dumbfounded. We stood quietly as we were told that although the results of his re-assessment have to be finalised (through consultation with a panel of psychiatrists and other medical professionals), all indications point to Aspergers. The implications for him are enormous. The dreams we had for him - university, love, marriage, a family of his own, whilst not impossible, do seem further away. With a diagnosis of ADHD he had a shot at a normal life, with medication perhaps, but still a shot. We have a couple of friends with ADHD who have successful marriages and relationships. People with Aspergers are autistic. It is a form of autism that means they are lacking in social, communication and language skills. They also lack empathy, as they cannot read facial cues that let you know when someone is hurt or annoyed.

At the moment, all I can see for my DD is a life of difficulty negotiating the soft intricacies that make an intimate relationship possible. I know little of Aspergers, but what I have read has said that adults afflicted with it have difficulty maintaining long term romantic relationships and find staying in long term employment difficult due to the social skills required to maintain relationships of any kind.

Apparently, social skills therapies do help as does cognitive behavioural therapy. Obviously, these will be made available to our wonderful, beautiful DD. My heart is breaking today. I want to be one of those parents who fiercely says that their child is different and they are proud of it, but right now I can't. I am mourning the future I saw for him. I know that there is nothing to say that he won't have a wonderful future and find the cliched love that I want for him, but I also know that life is hard and that having a disability, no matter how mild, makes it even harder. I am mourning and for now, I am going to wallow in it.

Amongst all this, I am having to still deal with my own alcoholic demons. This is a shock that in the past would have me reaching for that glass of wine, to help ease the pain that I feel for my child. I would have been sitting in my chair, wine glass by my side, telling myself that this is okay; that we can deal with this. Together we can do anything (I felt a lot of bravado when I drank). Of course, the drunker I got, the less motivated I became to move, let alone do 'anything'. Now, I no longer have that option. I have to face the realities of life in the cold light of sobriety. I have to admit the pain is excruciating. The noise in my head is louder than ever and I cannot say that I am not tempted to crawl into bed and opt out of my life for a while. Life on life's terms - damn you!

I am wallowing in self pity - I know it. I know the positives in my life and the stuff for which I should be grateful, but truthfully, right now, I am not grateful. In fact, I am pretty pissed off. Does the universe imagine that I haven't been through enough? More importantly, does the universe not think my youngest DD has been through enough? I have a thousand questions and no answers.

This may all seem a bit melodramatic to someone on the outside looking in. After all, I am lucky. I have a wonderful DH, a wonderful home with two beautiful children. The disability could be worse - it is fairly mild compared to others. Yet, I feel wretched. Luckily for me, in AA they know exactly how I feel. I sat in a meeting today listening intently as tears rolled down my face. They didn't judge or tell me how lucky I should feel. Instead, they comforted me and told me not to be so hard on myself. They totally understood that I could just do without this unexpected turn in life. I just needed a bit more time to come to terms with my own affliction. It sounds selfish, doesn't it? It is. Alcohol is selfish. It consumes you and seduces you into wanting it more and more, regardless of the people it is harming along the way. I just needed a bit more time to gain the energy to start living life on life's terms.

There is a lesson here, of course, that life does go on. It doesn't stop to let you get better. You have to negotiate, and heal, around it. You are forced to face it head on and say 'I can do this, without alcohol, I can do this.' I am trying, but I am not going to say that for me, right now, it isn't hard, because it damn well is. I know that I should be saying 'Let Go and Let God' and perhaps that is the other lesson the universe has thrown my way. Living life on life's terms is all about Taking it Easy, Letting Go and Letting God as well as Just for Today. Someone once said to me that God doesn't give you anything in a day that you cannot handle, and since I am here writing this at 4:40pm, there has to be some truth to that. It doesn't make it any easier I am afraid, but then again, I'm pretty sure no-one said it would be easy, it is just is what is - life on life's terms.

Another day, another challenge

Today I celebrate 20 days sobriety. I use the term celebrate loosely as I am truly not in a celebratory mood. It is Friday and Friday was always settle-down-early-with-some-wine-to-kick-off-the-weekend day. I am seriously mourning that day.

The day started off well enough. Woke up, not having had a good sleep, which is becoming a real problem for me (more of that later), but I felt good. The sun was shining, no college today and all was well in the world of me. I attended an AA meeting, which was stimulating and very enriching, went to lunch with some new friends from AA who counselled me and soothed my restless soul. This day was going so damn well. I looked up at the clear blue sky and truly felt blessed. So, why, just two short hours later am I feeling so wretched? What is it about that fatal elixir that is so alluring that I would be willing to give up all this love, compassion and human-ness that I haven't felt in so long, in a heart beat.

Wondering around the shops, where I was meant to buy fruit and vegetables for the week, and instead came home with a deck of Angel cards, my mood decidedly started to decline. What was it that brought it on? I couldn't tell you. All I can say is that somewhere during my car ride home (all of 15 minutes' worth), I started fantasising about a cask (classy girl, me) of white wine with ice blocks clinking the sides of the glass as I poured it in. It is hot and on especially hot days I liked to pour a big glass (and when I say big, I mean the kind of wine glass that resembles a small fish bowl) of white wine, chuck in lots of ice and sit back into my chair sipping (and when I say sipping I really mean glugging, but let's not get hung up on technicalities here) my chardonnay (that's what I liked to call it anyway - again, people, technicalities!) and imagine I was in a completely different life.

Of course, I wouldn't just stop at the first glass. Actually, I couldn't just stop at the first glass, I HAD to go on to the second, third, fourth, etcetera, etcetera. I would sit for hours, praying neither of my children would bother me (and to their credit, they rarely did), and just drink and drink. I would watch those programs of 'Get a new life in ..." and wish that was me. It didn't occur to me to think that in fact I had done the 'Get a new life' thing - twice. Once with a move to the UK and now with the move here to Melbourne four years ago. Gees, someone should mention when you apply for immigration that the grass is decidedly not greener on the other side!! They should let you know that when you move thousands of kilometers around the world, your problems tend to stick to you like feathers to tar; that no matter where you try to hide, you will one day have to face your demons in order to move on. I mean, really, there should be a warning, or something!

I have not faced my demons yet. I am not really up for it, if the truth be told. I have tried to tell myself that since I am sober now, I don't have any problems, but I know this not to be the case hence the reason for my urge to drink now. I couldn't tell you what is pushing my button right now - walking in and facing a messy house that hasn't been hoovered in over three weeks doesn't help, I can tell you. Actually, on that note, I used to blame my drinking for not doing the house work. Actually, that isn't true. I used to blame my circumstances of my life for my drinking, which had the knock on effect of leaving me too exhausted to do the housework. I can't use that excuse anymore. The simple truth is I am bloody lazy when it comes to housework.

It's such a bloody thankless job. You get up, make the beds, tidy the kitchen, hoover the carpets, clean the bathrooms, do the laundry, iron the laundry, pack and unpack the dishwasher ad infinitum only to have the family come home at the end of the day and mess up the kitchen, pile up the laundry, wee and god knows what else in the toilet, shower (how dare they), eat food which messes up the plates, and then to add insult to injury, they actually get into the beds that I spent a good half an hour making that morning. I mean, how much punishment is a woman supposed to take? I tell you, I give up. Correction, I gave up, long ago.

A few years ago, someone, one of those domestic goddess types (I would personally like to murder the person who coined that phrase, by the way), once told me that she doesn't enjoy housework either but with every thing she did she imagined her family and the love she had for them. I was bemused by the correlation, but decided to try it out. I discovered that I simply don't have that much love. Imagining that I was now not only a failure at the domestic goddess thing, I was also love-deficient for my family, I was racked with incredible guilt for days which, of course, led me to drink, drink, drink that feeling into oblivion.

So here I am, today, 20 days sober with chaos everywhere. By everywhere, I mean every-bloody-where. There are clothes on the floor in every room, dust on every floor and surface, laundry piled high, a dishwasher open waiting to unpacked, with at least two more loads waiting to be packed into it and not a single bed has been made (I mean, what's the point really?). All this chaos would be okay if I was okay with it. But here is the kicker, I'm not. I like my world ordered and neat, but I don't want to have to do it. Like I said, I realise that I am quite lazy when it comes to housework. In other areas, I have amazing motivation, will go to extraordinary lengths to get the job done, but housework? Housework be damned. Maybe this is why, walking into the chaos and having to face my own reality, I have the urge to drink.

So, what is it about alcohol is going to solve this problem for me? Well, it isn't obviously. It is just an excuse - an excuse to pick up that first drink which I have been informed on good authority that if I don't do, I will manage to keep sober and regain manageability of my life. If the truth is known I have been waiting for the domestic goddess in me to emerge. I figured that if alcohol was the reason that I had struggled so hard with this role in life, that life without it should make the role easier. I am a wife and mother and surely there should be some genetic wiring that kicks in to assist a wife and mother do what society imagines a wife and mother should do. I am pretty sure that even hard and fast feminists manage to keep their own homes in order. What is wrong with my wiring? Its apparent misplacement has really and truly annoyed me. When is the domestic gene going to come to the fore? I wonder if there is a test to see if I have it. I'm pretty sure I don't.

I don't even enjoy cooking. Yet, I have an ENORMOUS library of cookery books. I cannot pass a book shop without going in and either buying a self help book or more often than not, coming out with a cookery book. I never use them. I pretty much buy the same ingredients, and wing it on the night. My planning skills are not all that well honed (no time, needed to get down to the wine, you see), so I invariably forget to take meat out the freezer. This results in me defrosting it in the microwave to whines of hunger from the family, and literally throwing together something edible. My specialities are spaghetti bolognese (Mince meat, pasta sauce in a jar, an onion and pasta), Thai chicken curry (chicken pieces, onion, thai curry paste, coconut milk, frozen stir fry veg and noodles) and chilli con carne (mince meat, onions, red kidney beans in a tin, tinned diced tomatoes, chilli powder, tumeric, paprika, cumin and rice). As you can see, I'm hardly Jamie Oliver - but, you guessed it, I have three of his books and even downloaded his App to my iPhone at a cost of $7.99!

It is like if I am surrounded by all these things, I will become that which I am obviously not. Why is it that, at the age of 42, I am unable to accept this in myself. Does anyone care, really, if my house is not perfect (and by not perfect I mean a tip that people have to wade through to make it to the kitchen, but again, technicalities people)? I keep telling myself that I have yet to come across a tomb stone that reads, "Here lies Mavis who was the worst housewife you could ever meet.", or "Here lies Jane whose cooking was really quite bland", but for some inexplicable reason, I feel totally inadequate as a wife and mother.

I wish I could say that at least I have a career. But I simply don't. I used one excuse after another, I now realise, not to finish any of the countless courses I embarked upon, or stay very long in any job - my record is nine months. Somewhere, in the recesses of my brain, I figured I would be a wife and mother. That is the most important job in the world, after all, isn't it? I mean, we are nurturing the world's future generations here, and by doing so, shaping the world's future, aren't we? Oh God, I'm running out of time. Our eldest DD is leaving at the end of the year and our youngest DD is 12. What shaping have I done? What have I taught them? Certainly not how to keep a clean house and cook nutritious bloody meals, that's for sure. And yet, my quest for domestic goddess membership continues. It's exhausting I tell you.

So, another lesson learned whilst typing this blog. I'm lazy, hate housework and am never going to be a domestic goddess. Another thing mourned. I'm wondering when I am going to allow myself to celebrate the person I am and the contribution I must make in some form to the universe. I mean, I can't just be some drunk suburban housewife who hasn't passed on any skills to her offspring, can I? There has to be more to life than that surely? I have to have come to the realisation of my alcoholism for some purpose, surely. I don't want to end my journey in this realm without having made some valid contribution. I thought being a domestic goddess might validate who I am, but it isn't working. I have to find something else and then earn enough money to hire a cleaner and someone to do the goddam ironing :)

My journey continues and just for today, I will not pick up that drink!