I have taken 12 steps forward over the last 1892 days. I will continue these 12 steps One Day At A Time (ODAAT) for the rest of my sober life. Sobriety is more than the steps in a book or meetings with peers. It is a growth and adjustment of Mind, Body, and Spirit. One of acceptance and surrender.
*It is unreasonable to have expectations surrounding that which we cannot control. Rather than listing the myriad of things, people, and institutions beyond my control, I will list what is in my control: My actions. Yup, that’s it!
I seems a harsh reality to someone who ‘rules’ Life via control. Perfectionism worsens the need for control. Both are a myth. ‘If I just tried this’; ‘if I just did that differently’… maybe he would love me / maybe I could make enough cash to not worry every month / maybe I would be unwaveringly happy. It’s a battle I cannot win; mostly because it is non-existent.
EXPECTATIONS: He cannot love me because he does not love himself: The tale of shattered self-worth and self-esteem. The perpetual hustle, never clearing that bar. Boiling it down to expectations. Expectations = premeditated disappointments.
If I am to avoid these disappointments, I must first steer clear of the expectations. How do I plan ahead without creating expectations? Where is the line between goals, desires, and expectation?
Cyclical thinking often plagues this discussion. We are back to control. Having an expectation where additional factors are a part is a losing bet. Still with me?
If I expect a person to act or be a certain way I am forgetting the individual factors that create us. Biological, Psychological, and Social influences are what shape us each.
That introduction launched, the steps backward are what both perturb my perfectionism and activate my fears. The backsliding steps appear to obliterated those of forward progress. In fact, they are a part of the lessons we as people learn throughout Life.
Cognitively, I am aware that “perfect” is unattainable through my flawed human endeavors. Sure, I can score a 100 on a test created by memorization or critical thinking… Pattern recognition, analysis, or statistical empirical verification.
The expectations I created in my past all led to disappointment. The illusion of perfection in my Timeline left me hungry for more, striving to be the best, and full of feelings of “not good enough”. This in turn caused conflict with my core values and beliefs. Let’s take for example an expectation that I held for the people around me. I assumed that my sobriety was a common goal for people closest to me. Stay with me here:
What I failed to enter into my equation was that codependency and self-esteem/worth in others fostered their belief that they mattered more as the savior, rather than as a partner.
That belief left them feeling as if they were without purpose once my alcoholism entered remission–sobriety based on a daily reprieve. Alcoholism is a symptom of my disease. People whose bond to me was my behavior when inebriated; people who garnered sympathy and pedestal placement for “enduring, caring for, and fixing” me were left without these roles once there were none to be filled. Once I was whole again, there were no pieces to repair.
Yes my unhealthy behaviors were being replaced with healthy boundaries. As each ODAAT (One Day At A Time) of sobriety fostered a rekindling of my appreciation for Life and Connections to others in it, so did grow the distance between the Dethroned Savior and his now healthier partner. Perhaps feeling less important, less necessary, the codependent partner turned to other “causes”. These causes took him further from home. Until he disappeared from it entirely. This post is not about his journey, but mine.
Though I have seen ups and downs in sobriety, they have been no where near the extremes and catastrophic sags of those influenced by active addiction. In my state of Restless, Irritable, and Discontented (RID), “Obnoxious”, “Bitch”, “Ridiculous” had become the only attention–and I craved ANY attention. External validation was all there was as I could not muster any from within.
Fast forward to sobriety, I had created new expectations. Knowing I will never be cured, I still maintained the hope. At least that “everything would be better”. While the improvement in manageability can not be denied, “better” is subject to interpretation. In 2025, on the other side of the most painful year of my Life, I can look behind and acknowledge the growth from experience and rediscovery of dormant capabilities long muted by learned helplessness.
At the time, everything in me was shook…to the bone marrow. This testing period was that reminding me that EVERYTHING IS BETTER SOBER, EVEN THAT WHICH WREAKS DEVASTATION.
Problems. Everybody has them. Money problems, relationship problems, health problems. A problem that belonged to last year was a bigger test than any I’d faced. I’ve experienced some things. This was one I’d never wish on another; one I’d witnessed aftermath of tragedies happening to people I’ve known and loved. This event was potential for a much worse outcome. It was proof that God prepares us for what is on the horizon. Trials and tribulations. The tearing down and rebuilding of Ego and Self. The ultimate Fear put a toe over the line. Desperation had never been so personified as in the beginning of 2024.
2024 will be the year of my second divorce. The leaving had begun the year before, absence his cure for what plagued his conscience. That stung. That hurt. That was sad. That tested my vulnerabilities. Divorce was not the worst of it. Nor the cheating or burial of a dream that was once dreamt in a partnership I had believed could weather the mightiest of storms. No. Terrible–not something I wanted–but manageable. I was sober through this. This is the lowest low I’ve lived in this Life. And for it, thankfully, I remained sober.
2024 is the year my baby turned 16. No party. No driver’s license.
A month before my youngest daughter turned 16, she purposefully overdosed on her psychotropic medication.
*I would like to ease the tension now by telling you that she survived, has a sober date, and is thriving today as a person in recovery. This recanting of this episode is not to frighten but to memorialize the actual death of expectations for a future and family that I had expected. It took years of Learning to culminate in this upturned head accepting and surrendering to the total loss of control that is true in Life. I shall visit the telling of Feb 5th, 2024 in a future post. The night that began a roller coaster to which I had no brakes, but would later find I had the tools to survive and care for my babies in the journey.
The next few months included gratitude for the wealth of resources I had available. The knowledge from my own sobriety, Master’s degree achieved in Addiction Studies and Co-occurring disorders, and the amazing purpose in my career that allows me the means by which to help others in early recovery all contributed to how things were handled. Thinking back now, I am eternally grateful to where my higher power had placed me when this went down. I am truly blessed with the people in my life today.
Through the tumultuous turns of each phase of recovery (for a later post), I was able to be present. Present and thoughtful. I lost track of time, did not eat or sleep as I should have, but I was sober and present for my baby girl. Navigating this as the family member as opposed to the alcoholic or the counselor was an entirely new experience. One word: Helpless. Absolutely naked in my hope, broiling with shame. Guilt is “I have done something bad” Shame is “I AM BAD”.
While I had embraced the guilt and the healing brought through working the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, Shame is a more powerful beast. Shame birthed Anger. There was no one to be angry towards. No one but myself. I had put my babies in this place. I had stripped them of their childhood and trust–if they could not rely on their own mother… My behaviors in the throws of my disease had led to this moment.
My vivacious, creative, intelligent, silly beautiful baby had deteriorating mental health for which to her in this moment there seemed no escape save one. The pain and discomfort of a culmination of BioPsychoSocial factors that had altered the chemistry of her brain. Her beautiful brain had been trained to a constant state of hypervigilance and skewed interpersonal relationship values given by two alcoholic parents’ War of the Roses and subsequent poor decisions since had culminated in her Shame and solitude to be too great to bear. Collateral Damage.
My second divorce was a blow to my ego. The women coming forward who had replaced a portion of my marriage and business was depressing and anxiety-inducing. Truly, this was not a loss but a reordering of the Universe. He is on his journey. My daughters and I are on ours. I have reimagined boundaries and our home is now safe, filled with emotional intelligence and grace. Boundaries defining worth.
And so 2024 is the year the Universe has to shake me awake. I was 4 years sober and yet still crawling.
In 2025, I am reminded that we never stop learning. I am emboldened to continue to count my ODAATs and never be complacent. I am grateful to each one day at a time. I am humbled to believe that a power greater than myself would return me to sanity and that I NEED others. Alienation from other people and death is the complete annihilation goal of this Disease. There is no cure… And I am OK with that. Because while my disease is doing pushups in the parking lot or gently napping in a corner, it cannot take me if I continue my program. Acceptance and Surrender. Possibilities abound.
Good Night, my fellows. Dream big, without expectations.
Chelsea Unchained 