Do Something Dorky

Illustration by Zetwe (This is not Dave. Dave cannot do this. :) )

Illustration by Zetwe (This is not Dave. Dave cannot do this. :) )

As happens to me fairly often, I tried to write something helpful for today and ended up battling a bunch of bully paragraphs—and they won. So this isn’t a real post. I just thought I’d update you on the book release and a few other things.

I’m making it through my interviews without panic attacks or vomiting. Thank you for your prayers! I think I’m saying things about recovery that matter. And because it’s mostly radio, I get to pretend hoards of folks are listening in rapt attention.

So far as sales, I try not to pay too much attention, but my ego is very worried. Ignore her. Instead, let me tell you about some of the emails I’ve been getting. Lots of you tell me the book makes you feel less alone and that makes me cheer. I’ve also learned that many of you are sneaky like me when it comes to your addictions. Fair warning: Once you start to reveal your secrets, it’s hard to stop. Like lies, the truth has a tendency to snowball.

I’m also hearing from people who aren’t addicts or alcoholics at all, but have been repeatedly hurt by one of us. Someday I’m gonna take out an ad in the paper where I apologize to the world on behalf of all of us who can’t or won’t ever say they’re sorry.

A few of you have asked after my son Noah who is also in recovery. He’s doing well these days. And —brace yourself if you know Noah—he recently got a girlfriend. I can’t even tell you how much I approve. Or how cool and amazing Liz is. Or how hard I have to work to mind my own business.

In recovery, we tell each other to imagine yourself inside a hula-hoop—and then remember that nothing outside that hoop is any of your business.

This is especially hard for moms like me. Plus, I was at a party last year where a bunch of adults were having dorky fun with hula-hoops–and I noticed how big they actually are. I could fit any of my kids inside here with me just fine! :)  

This Memorial Day weekend, Dave and I are going away to camp. We’re staying in an RV park in a rented “cabin” that looks more like a tin can. It will be cramped and hot and dorky and we will probably have a blast. But then, dorky fun is underrated (Maybe we should bring hula-hoops!).

It’s going to be really good for me to spend several days getting my mind off all things blog or book related. I’ll post again for real on Tuesday or Wednesday. And in the meantime, I hope you have a fun Memorial Day weekend. Do something dorky. And please do come back.

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Even in the Dark

shutterstock_122337820On a recent morning walk, I asked Dave what he was thinking about. I expected him to mention one of our grown kids or else his work. But no, he was thinking about trees.

Dave likes trees a lot. He knows their names, where they grow best, and a whole bunch of other boring stuff about them. Here’s what I know about trees: The ones with pointy sharp things might be pines. Oh, and they’re typically green.

“I had a little revelation about trees,” Dave continued. “But it might sound sort of dumb.”

“Tell me,” I urged. (I love it when Dave sounds dumb.)

He started with something I already knew—that he has been watching all week for new leaves on the trees. Spring has been confoundingly late this year, so it’s been a long watch. (Last year, he suggested we throw a party to celebrate the emergence of leaves on the big trees that line our street. Seriously. You were almost invited to a Leaves on Tejon St. party).

“Anyway,” he continued, “this time of year, when we get a warm stretch, they come out so impossibly fast. One day, no leaves; the next, leaves. How do they do that? And then it hit me. The leaves have been growing all night long. Even in the dark, the sap is still rising, doing its thing. I can’t believe I just thought of that.”

I laughed and agreed that it seems rather obvious. But of course, I couldn’t resist the also rather obvious spiritual metaphor. “So do you think we grow at night too—in our soul, spiritually—even while we’re sleeping?”

“No,” Dave answered quickly.

“Then again…” He thought a moment. “I guess that’s a pretty ego-centered response, isn’t it? To assume that I can’t possibly grow unless I’m thinking. Like our minds do all the work, not God.”

I don’t know about you, but I often forget this truth. Years after moving out of a faith culture that promised more holiness as a reward for more effort, I still sometimes forget that I am powerless to transform myself. I want to believe I can see a defect of character, and then take steps to fix it. I’m grateful for God’s help, sure. But my version of transformation has me in control. Me taking credit, too.

Think my way to change? It might sound promising until I remember that my best thinking got me drunk. What I learned in recovery—and I’m embarrassed to admit it came as a surprise—is that changing me at my core is God’s job, not mine. In recovery, we open ourselves to the miracle of transformation in many ways, but perhaps none more directly than when we say the 7th Step prayer. It goes like this:

“My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character that stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen.”

Of course, we all have a significant part to play in our spiritual progress. We get to do our best to create the ideal conditions for growth to take place in our soul. We get to read spiritual books, pray and meditate, and take part in a spiritual community that will tell us the truth.

But maybe the most important thing we can do is act like trees. Let our roots go down deep into the ground of God’s love. Let God’s Spirit flow like sap into our being. Believe he’s at work, even in the dark.
I’d love hear from you today. In recovery we say you can’t think your way into new actions, you can only act your way into new thinking. Do you find that to be true? 

P.S. Elizabeth Esther is introducing me and my story to her readers on her blog today. She is amazing and one of my favorite bloggers out there. She has a new memoir coming out soon with Random House/Convergent. You can find the post here.

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It Was Me Who Reached Out for You

Art by Magaly Ohika

Art by Magaly Ohika, used by permission

Recently I heard from a couple readers who know they’re addicts or alcoholics, but just can’t find the willingness to reach for help. Their emails came with heartbreaking confessions. One began, “I’m drinking as I write this…”

I’ve so been there: you know you have a problem, you’re desperate to quit, you might even see the end coming, but you’re not quite ready to give up and reach for help.

It’s such a miserable place. In recovery we say, “It takes what it takes.” But we also say, “You reach the bottom when you quit digging.”

Another common thread in the emails I’ve been getting is fear of embarrassment or rejection. I so get that, too. It was a huge part of the reason I spent so many years begging God for a huge  private miracle. I wanted him to zap me from heaven and declare in a booming voice, Your faith has made you well, Heather! Go your way and drink no more.

Or better yet, “Go your way and drink no more… than two glasses a night.”  :)

 The point is, I wanted my miracle my way.

I see a little of myself in the woman in the gospel story who’d been bleeding for twelve years. She thinks—correctly, it turns out—that if she can just reach out and touch Jesus’ garment, she’ll be healed. And no one will know.

But Jesus did know. He turns around and asks, “Who touched me?”

His disciples give him a funny look. “Uh, gee. We’re, uh, walking through a crowd?”

But Jesus persists. “I felt power flow from me,” he says.

Trembling with fear, the woman steps forward to confess that she’s the one who reached for him.

I’m pretty sure Jesus already knew this. And I wonder if he didn’t also know that naming her need in public was somehow a necessary part of her healing.

I was sober for a couple years before I understood that God’s power to heal and help me had been there all along. I simply couldn’t receive the miracle because I wanted it on my own terms—in a way that would spare my pride.

And what if God had chosen to deliver me my way? It would have been wonderful. I could have returned to my old life, relieved and grateful. Whew! That ‘being a drunk’ thing was awful! I’m so glad I’m past that now! 

But God would have gotten no credit. And I would never have gotten into recovery, or written about it, or fell in love with the wonderful sober friends I had over for dinner last Tuesday night. I would never have come to understand how good it is to have to rely on God utterly, and on a daily basis.

Today, I’m so grateful that God in his kindness waited for me to say yes to healing on his terms and in his way. And the miracle is still going on. I experience it every time I grasp again for the dusting of grace that lies heavy on God’s cloak.

Every morning, I hear Jesus ask, “Who touched me?”

And every morning, I get to answer, “Me, Lord. It was me who reached out for you.”

I’d love to hear from you today. Have you ever begged God for a miracle on your own terms and gotten one on his?

P.S. This morning, Rachel Held Evans posted my response to the Q & A from her readers (smart people, by the way). I’ll hope you’ll come check it out–and ask me more questions about my answers :)

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Follow Me…

momastery-1359497036_600Today I hope you’ll follow me over to Momastery where I am guest posting on Glennon’s Melton’s blog. If you’re not familiar with Glennon, you’ve been missing out on one of the funniest, bravest, most amazing women on the internet. Her own book, Carry On Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed, debuted on the New York Times bestseller list at #4 last month. And here she is already sharing her platform with me. I’m so honored.

Also, Glennon will be giving away 50 copies of Sober Mercies courtesy of Jericho. See ya there, friends.

The Mothers On My Mind

Art by Duma

Art by Duma

I wanted to write a sweet post for Mother’s Day. I adore my own mother and would love to tell the world why. If you ask me, there’s no greater proof of God’s kindness and goodness on earth than a mother’s love.

But I went to a woman’s recovery meeting this morning. And so the mothers on my mind today are the ones who won’t be celebrating or celebrated. The ones who know better than to hope for a big hug or coveted phone call, much less breakfast in bed.

I’m talking about moms who are estranged from one or more of their kids. Some, through their own bad choices—which doesn’t lessen the pain, by the way. And others who, through no fault of their own, have had children ripped from their arms by the tsunami of addiction.

Last night Dave and I stumbled upon the movie, Traffic. We had seen it in theaters way back, but when I noticed the date—’99—I realized it would seem mostly new to me, since I was still drinking then.

I knew the movie was about drug trafficking. But I was still caught off guard by the brutal but oh-so-true depiction of the insanity and ironies of addiction: politicians fighting the war on drugs while swilling drinks; drug-lords gunning each other down over money; rich kids overdosing because even with money and privilege, life can seem meaningless.

It was impossible for me to watch this movie without thinking, What on earth?! What is wrong with us? Why aren’t we all more alarmed? 

And then, in today’s Huffington Post I read about a new report from the World Health Organization warning that alcohol kills more people every year than AIDS, tuberculosis or violence. If alcoholism or addiction looked like a bird-flu epidemic or jihadists, we’d call out the National Guard. We’d declare a state of emergency. We wouldn’t think of carrying on business as usual.

But instead we sort of yawn and say, “Kids will be kids,” or, “Damn junkies.”

At one point in the movie, the new American drug czar—played to perfection by Michael Douglas—asks an official of the Mexican government, “What about treatment?”

“Treatment?” the guy says. “Addicts treat themselves. They overdose, and then there’s one less of them.”

Sounds cold-hearted, yet it reflects a commonly held view. As soon as a human being becomes a junkie, his value plummets.

Unless that junkie is your child.

Unless that alcoholic is your mother, spouse, or best friend.

So yes, these are the mothers most on my mind today. The moms estranged from their kids, maybe for forever. And the moms whose babies are out there somewhere, but nowhere really.

Are you one? On Mother’s Day, while the world celebrates the awesomeness of moms—as we should—I just wanted to say that I’m thinking of you, and so are many others. You matter. You and your child are of infinite worth and beauty. And God has not forgotten you.

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