Forgiveness

I got the news today that my uncle has passed away.

It's been a very interesting and emotional couple of days for me. I talked to his daughter, who I consider my sister even though we are cousins by birth, yesterday. She told me he was in intensive care and was not doing well. She was trying to get in touch with our mom to let her know. "I know you don't care," she said.

I thought about that for a moment, and said, "You know what? I do care." And I did. All I could feel at that moment was compassion, for him and for her. This was a man who wreaked havoc and destruction everywhere he went. He was angry and bitter and abusive. He made my childhood hell, and I cannot even imagine what my sister lived through. For most of my life, I have not been able to think about him without being consumed by rage and hatred.

As I have worked through the steps of recovery, I have prayed for the ability to forgive. I have prayed to be released from many resentments and grudges, and I've seen it happen. But I had not been ready to release this one. I hadn't asked for the ability to forgive him, because I didn't really want to yet.

But yesterday, when I examined my heart, I realized that all the anger and rage was gone. All of the bitterness was gone. And today, when L. told me he had died, I was truly free. Somewhere along the way, without me even asking, God took away the burden of this resentment and gave me the peace of true forgiveness.

I can't express how grateful I am to have learned to live this life of recovery. I could never have found my way to this place of serenity alone.

How much harder is it to be kind?

My sister told me a story this evening that really upset me.

My 13 year old nephew was inducted into the Junior Beta club today. My sister, her younger kids and our mom went to the ceremony. My nephew who is ten is autistic. He is a beautiful, sensitive child who is not like most kids his age.

As they were waiting for the ceremony to start, Ryan sighed several times. A "lady" sitting next to him turned to him and gave him a dirty look. Ryan sighed again, and this "lady" said, "What is the problem?" She repeated herself several times, loudly. My sister finally looked her in the eye and said, "What IS the problem? Is he bothering you THAT much?"

She went on to explain Ryan's developmental delays and other issues that contribute to his occasional verbalizations, and ended with the question, "Do you think you could just try to understand his situation?"

The exchange makes me sad and angry. Ryan's appearance is definitely a clue that something is not "normal" with him. His speech is not exactly age-appropriate, and neither are some of his mannerisms. I'm angry that this woman could (or would) not recognize that the "problem" with my nephew might possibly be beyond his control. I'm sad that my sister had to share personal information with a stranger and that she had to demand respect.

Have we as a society lost our ability to be kind? Is it really that much harder to be nice to someone? To be patient, even when we are in a hurry? To be tolerant, even when we feel uncomfortable?

I hope that this woman was just having a bad day, and that when she thinks about this later, she feels a little sheepish.

I want to challenge my readers to go out into the world and disseminate kindness, where the world would sow impatience and intolerance.


"Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. "Colossians 3:12-14

I'm using mine up now.

I have a theory about life.

I think that we are all allotted a certain amount of meanness and profanity to use up in our lifetime.

If we don't use it when we are young and in our right mind, then it comes out later when we are senile.

I've been working in long term care for ten years now, and I've developed this theory after observing residents and their families. An angelic-looking elderly lady sits in her wheelchair with her eyes half closed. Whenever she is approached, she suddenly opens her eyes, glares and lets loose a stream of four letter words and colorful suggestions as to where the intruder can go or where the intruder can put whatever medical device he or she is holding.

Her family is horrified. They have never heard their mother say anything like that. One lady's daughters told me, "We never even knew she KNEW those words!" They were appalled and embarrassed, and asked if we could keep her in her room with the door closed so that no one would hear her saying such horrible things. (No, we couldn't do that, actually.)

One of my favorite residents enjoyed talking about sex in very graphic terms. She seemed to take sadistic pleasure in making male visitors and staff members squirm uncomfortably.

At the other end of the spectrum are the residents who smile beatifically at everyone who passes by. Some of them wave pleasantly, or invite everyone who passes their room in for a visit. Their families are often just as confused as the other families. "I don't understand," one very nice lady told me once. "Daddy was always a mean SOB; he never had a kind word for anyone. I don't understand why he is being so nice now."

Maybe he had a change of heart and decided he wanted to be ready for heaven. Or maybe he had used it all up.

At any rate, after watching these folks that I love so much over the past ten years, I've decided what I need to do. And I am using mine up now, while I can still enjoy it.

I encourage you to do the same.

Then we can sit together at the nursing home, smile at each other and let our children scratch their heads.

Are we recovered?

Someone asked the question today: Are we recovered alcoholics? Or are we just alcoholics?



On the surface, it seems to make little difference.



As I thought about the question though, I realized that for me, the difference is huge. It is very tempting for me to think that I am cured of my addictions, that I have recovered. But that's a very dangerous place for me to go. When I believe I am recovered, then I can convince myself, yet again, that I can drink successfully; that I can drink just like everyone else. And if I choose to go in that direction, there is a steep, very slippery slope waiting for me.



As a nurse, I often use my medical knowledge as the framework for understanding other issues. When the question about "recovered" versus "recovering" was raised today, I immediately thought of chronic diseases such as diabetes or COPD. Both of those diseases are characterized by physical symptoms that can be controlled and/or alleviated with a simple daily regimen of medications, monitoring and good choices. Both diabetes and COPD are also characterized by periods of exacerbation, which can be caused by poor diet or lifestyle choices or skipping medications. The diabetic who chooses not to take her insulin is likely to suffer from high blood sugars leading to ketoacidosis and coma. With proper treatment, she can recover from the acute exacerbation, but will still always be diabetic.



That's what alcoholism is like for me. I have a disease which is progressive and chronic. There is a treatment for my disease which allows me to control the symptoms and avoid acute exacerbations. The treatment includes going to meetings, talking to my sponsor, reading the literature, praying and meditating daily, and doing service work to help carry the message to others who are still suffering. If I choose to quit "taking my medicine," the outcome is absolutely predictable and inevitable: I will drink, and eventually I will either die, or I will just wish I had.

I can't "save up" on my treatment and then slack off. Consider the diabetic. It would be pretty crazy for her to give a week's worth of insulin on Sunday and then skip the rest of the week.

I've been given a daily reprieve which is contingent upon the maintenance of my spiritual condition. And I'm so grateful for that. I don't have to worry about tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or next year. All I have is today, every day.

I hope that I'm never "recovered." I always want to have the joy of seeking, of pursuing sobriety as though my life depends upon it.



Because it does.

We will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it

I used to think that the reason I drank and used drugs was because of my past.



I'd rant and rave about the awful stuff that had happened to me, and I'd talk about how I needed to forget.



You didn't understand. You couldn't possibly understand how bad it was, how much I needed to drink because of my past. When I heard the 9th Step promises read at meetings, I would scoff inwardly at that line about the past: "We will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it."



And then, when I was in treatment in 2008, my counselor told me something that really surprised me, and hurt my feelings a little bit. (Which, truthfully, was never a difficult task for anyone to accomplish.) I had written out my little life story, and it was full of self-pity, full of all of my usual excuses about "my past." Linda looked at me and said bluntly, "You don't have a past, Holly. All of this stuff is still in your present. The purpose of the 12 steps is to give you a past. Once you have gone through the steps and cleaned up your wreckage, you will gain perspective on this stuff and be able to use it, rather than using over it."

In my previous "attempts" at getting sober, I had never been willing to go past the 3rd step. I would start writing a 4th step inventory and get all wrapped up in the "woe is me." I also knew that once I quit carrying all of my hurts and grudges around with me in a figurative little suitcase, I would truly not have an excuse to drink or use again. What I never realized though, was that by carrying those things around with me, I was choosing to remain a victim.

When I was a little girl and my uncle abused me, I didn't have a choice. He was bigger and stronger. When I was 19 and almost passed out drunk, I didn't have a choice. The guy I was with was bigger and stronger, and I ended up pregnant.

But for me to continue to use those abuses as reasons to drink was to willingly place myself back into those hurtful situations. It was to continue to be a victim.

I had to choose to move on, to let go of my past and to allow God to place it into the framework of my life. It still isn't pretty, but I've made peace with it. And now I truly understand what the 9th step promises go on to say: "No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experiences can benefit others."

All bleeding stops... eventually

The title of this blog comes from a T shirt I once saw that had the "Top 10 best things about being a nurse." One of them was that all bleeding stops...eventually. I've decided that fits my life. We all have wounds, and they eventually stop bleeding. Either you heal, or you die.

This is the story of how I decided to stop dying and start healing.

I almost always wanted to be a nurse.

There was a period of time in 6th grade when I wanted to be a lawyer. This ambition followed my introduction to Nancy Drew's father, Carson Drew. He was a criminal attorney. That sounded awesome to me. Then I met my dad's cousin Christine, who was a lawyer. She was hip, and smart, and beautiful, and I wanted to be just like her.

But after I read all the Nancy Drew books, my fascination with the law left as quickly as it had come.

Other than that brief flirtation, my heart always belonged to nursing. My parents were both nurses, and I grew up around my mom's job at the hospital. She worked ICU and Recovery Room (now known as PACU, because acronyms are MUCH better at communicating accurately) when I was younger. When I was in high school, she became a diabetes educator.

My dad didn't go to nursing school until I was in school. He graduated in 1974, when I was in second grade. I was so proud of him, and couldn't wait for show and tell. "My daddy graduated from college and now he's a nurse." My teacher argued with me and said, "No, you mean he's a doctor." I stood my ground and was sent to the principal's office for talking back to her. It was pretty unusual. He was one of only 2 "male nurses" in the city at the time. Daddy worked in pediatrics for a few months, then went to work for the Department of Corrections, where he spent the rest of his career.

My parents were always bringing stuff home from work. (I know the statute of limitations is long expired, so I'm not worried about outing them here.) We had suture kits, bandages, betadine... we could have opened a MASH unit in our back yard. I used to do surgery on my stuffed animals and then suture them back together. I read Nursing and RN magazines and knew what to do for acute abdomen as well as the 5 top nosocomial infections in hospitals. I was a candy-striper for several summers, and my first "real" job was at the same hospital where my mom worked.

So, during high school, when we were making career choices and planning our educational futures, I knew that nursing was what I would do. A nurse was what I was going to be. I was awarded several academic scholarships. At the finalists' interview for one scholarship, I was asked, "Holly, with your academic background, you could easily get into medical school. Why do you want to be just a nurse?"

I drew myself up to my full 5' and responded, "I do not consider nursing 'just' anything. I don't want to take care of diseases, I want to take care of people. I want to make a difference. I don't want to be 'just' a nurse. I want to be everything that a nurse can be!" A few weeks later I received the award letter in the mail. At the winners' reception, that professor approached me and told me he was impressed with my response to that question.

I have thought of that moment often in the past 15 years. Somewhere along the way, I lost my way. I was caught up in addiction and lies, and was very close to losing my nursing license permanently. I didn't know if I could ever be a nurse again, if anyone would ever trust me again. I didn't know if I could ever trust myself again.

10 years ago, I began to find my way back. I started working in long term care, and found my true calling as a nurse.

17 months ago, I found my way to sobriety through a 12 step recovery program and began the process of healing my broken past.

All bleeding stops...eventually.