Sharing and Caring - ESH

[MajestyJo]

Some of you may have read this, but this is part of how I got to AA.

A lot of my early childhood is heresay, because I don't have a lot of memory. My mother was very isolated on our 199 acre farm and never got to see many people, so anytime she met someone she kept repeating the stories, good and bad and they were very much reinforced.

The 199 acres is one of the reasons I always felt less than. It always seemed stupid to say it, yet to say it was 200 acres was a lie. My grandfather had 550 acres and he gave an acre of land to the Township to build a school on when the old one where my grandmother taught was burned down. My grandfather was a farmer, trucker, lay-minister (built the local church) and had his own lumber business. He bought machinery as it came onto the market and hired it out to other farmers. I can remember the Clydesdale horses being there when we moved to the farm a mile from his when I was six.

I have no memory at all of the house I grew up in the first five years of my life. I know what my grandmother's house (she was the controller) looked like where my dad's two older brothers, who married two sisters lived with their children. We lived in the house which was more like a shack in comparison, which was only a few hundred yards away. When we moved to the farm, I no longer had anyone to play with as my sisters were 2 and 3. The little house was stuck by lightning when I was five, and I have just realized that was one of the reasons I reacted so strongly to smoke when I got sober and quit smoking nine years ago this coming December.

When I was one year old I had a birth mark removed from the back of my head. It was the size of a tame strawberry and my mother repeated many times over that if I had fallen and bumped it, I would have bled to death before they could have gotten me to the hospital. That was a big fear growing up, and I am sure I was protected prior to the operation and when it was over, a lot of the attention was no longer there. Being a true Aires, I must have missed that extra TLC, and perhaps that attention seeking was the cause of my wraping my arms around my dad's leg when he came home from work, and catching the cord of the hotplate along with his leg, I pulled the hotplate off the counter along with the kettle which was full of hot water at boiling point and the water went down my back. My mother pulled my t-shirt off and the skin came off of my back, my father fainted and when the doctor arrived, he had to attend to my dad first. This was a big resentment for years. The start of my father not being there for me when I needed him. The lack of thought and supposed caring of my mother as to the end results of her actons.

As a friend in NA said when I shared with her, that was the probably beginning of my first taste and connection with drugs. I had no awareness of it. Yet over 60 years ago, I would have been given some pretty heavy duty ones. When I stole a glass of communion wine at 10, I was probably good and primed for it. I will always remember that feeling. That "ahhhhh" feeling of total heaven, after all it was from the church, and I searched for that feeling for the rest of my life. I also carried the guilt of doing wrong, along with the guilt of trying to make a gulp look like a sip when I was babptized at 14 and was given permission to have the wine. Alcohol was not in our home, I had no contact with it, and communion was the only chance I had for this taste of ephoria. By the time I was 16, I was having major head aches and pains in my stomach. So bad that they put me in the hospital again, put me under with ether (which I had a violent reaction to) to examine me as to the cause of it all. They came to the conclusion that I had a nervous condition, that I was unable to cope with life and they put me on valium.

I missed over 30 days of school the year I was in grade 11, I failed the grade with a mark of 49.5%. I was devasted, I had received honor marks all through public school. The teacher never taught us study habits and never gave us homework. When I got to grade 9, I was devasted, I got less than 60%, then in grade 10, I was able to get my grades up to the mid-60s. Along with the old tapes that said I was stupid, this reinforced it. I went back the next year, but my mother took ill, I was sick and missing school and I asked to stay home and look after my mother and my father went off the farm to work, so I did a lot of the barn chores. I left the farm to come to the city at the age of 17. I was given a job with the understanding that I would go to school to learn how to type. I went for one term to night school, then took two terms of bookkeeping, and it was the beginning of another life.

I will reflect for a moment to the time I was 14. It was at 14 that we got TV and I saw how much of the world I was missing. It was at 14 that my mother broke down and allowed us to go to drive-in movies even though she had a lot of guilt about it. We went to see a movie and it was about forest fires, and I went into total terror and we had to leave the show, never to be allowed to go again. I visited my aunt when I was 14 and had my first taste of coca-cola. I thought I had died and gone to heaven, but I was forbidden it. It was not good for me, and when I went to the city at 17 and had my own money it became my first addiction. From that time to do without it was to die. Even in later years, you could take away my rye, but you couldn't take away my cola and expect to live in the same house with me. It was at age 14 that my mother went into the hospital and I was left with the responsibility of the house. We had a teacher boarding at our place. In today, I am sure my mother had fibromyalgia, back then I was sure she was a big, fat, lazy slob and I didn't realize that she used food to deal with my father's alcoholism. My mother died when I was 20 at the age of 40. She died the first of June and would have been 41 on the 28th of June. I saw my father drunk when I was 8 and couldn't figure out why I couldn't ride in the car with my dad after being away on holidays. Why did I have to drive in the car with a stranger instead of my daddy? When I was 14, I came down to get a drink of water and my father stumbled across the kitchen floor, upchucked all over and my mother said, "Go back to bed, Daddy has the flu, he will be okay in the morning." When my mother died, my father started bringing booze into the house. I returned from Hamilton when I was 26 to become his drinking buddy.

But I am getting ahead of my story, so I will pause and reflect more will be revealed.

My years from 17 to 21 were years were spent looking at the world, but it was hard to be a rebel when you are living with an old maid aunt who you love dearly even though she has very narrow outlooks on life.

I guess those years were as close to being 'normal' as I have ever experienced life as a whole. Getting a job, going to school, advancing from file clerk to accounts receivable clerk. A couple of boyfriend here and there, and then I met the man who was to become my husband and the father of my son. He came to be two weeks before the wedding to say he wasn't sure if he was ready to settle down and get married. I said, "Perhaps you had better think about it, better to change your mind now than later." Three days before the wedding is was really sick, I had a temperature of 104% the night before the wedding. A tall blonde stood in for me at the wedding rehersal. The doctor came and game me a shot in the btm and said, "If you walk down the aisle tomorrow, it will be a miracle." I replied, "I'll make it down the aisle supposing I have to crawl!" The signs were there, it was my conscious decision to go my own way, and as a result I ended up in an abusive marriage. Put downs, running around with other women, along with physical abuse; didn't prepare me for him being with another woman the night my son was born and moving in with that woman when my son was two months old. When my seperation papers went through, I stood in front of the liquor store with my sister tossing a coin to see who was the one to go into the liiquor store. Neither of us had been in one before (remember we are good little Christian girls who don't drink), I won/lost the toss. I went into the liquor store and continued going there for the next 25 years.

I went out and drank socially with my husband in TO and had eight rum and coke. When I came to the program, they said that wasn't social drinking. I said, "It was social drinking compared to what I drank when I made the decision to quit drinking at 41. My social drinking constituted of "If you are going to have a drink, so shall I." I had two 60 oz. bottles of white wine and a mickey of rye and I came to the conclusion that I couldn't afford to maintain my habit in the style that I would like to be come accustomed and I wasn't willing to live the life style that would allow me to afford to maintain my habit. I would quit for three months then go out and reward myself with a bottle of Crown Royal to reward myself for good behavior. I could stop, but I couldn't stay stopped. Slowly, but surely, my drinking decreased but my pill intake increased.

Pills were like dried up alcohol for me. I didn't have blackouts with alcohol but I did with pills. I didn't drink every hour of every day, but I used pills in one form or another since I was 16, and in the end it was for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week since I was 24 and my marriage ended and my son was born.

My son says he never saw me drunk, which means he never saw me sober.

After my marriage, I partied and made up for all the lost time I figured I lost in my teens and during my marriage. I was able to go to shows, dance, smoke, drink and make merry any way I wanted. I took several hostages along the way, and a couple of people who abducted me. When I was 31, I was dating a 24 year old. The older I got, the more insecure I came and the younger the crowd was. I didn't realize that my second husband had the same problem, and even though I always looked young for my age, I often wonder how come he chose to marry me. Perhaps to bring some maturity to his life, which of course didn't happen. I was looking for someone to keep me in the style that I would like to become accustomed, and the same thing happened that happened in the first marriage. My husband lost his job after we were married for three months. The same thing happened in my first marriage. When my husband got a job it was for less money than I was making and that was a really good reason to abuse me and put me down to make himself feel better. When he got a better paying job was when he met the 'other' woman and one of my resentments for years was about the fact that I never got to be able to spend his money after years of him living off of me. He told my 'supposed' best friend who inturn felt the need to tell me, that he would have left me sooner if it wasn't for the money I was bringing in. Husband number two told me when we got married that he didn't want any wife of his working, that he was the 'man' of the house and he would provide. After five years of marriage that tune changed to "Get off your fat ass and go get a job."

There seemed to be no consideration of the fact that he moved us to the country to live in a shack that was two miles by railroad track and three miles by road to the nearest village. I had two cars when I married him, and as a result of him not wanting to do upkeep and repairs on the cars because it would take away from his beer money, the cars gave up the ghost. My VW was totally rotted out although the motor was good. The front seat was sitting on two hockey stick to prevent it from falling through the floor. There was no gas pedal, just a piece of metal coming up through the floor.

I figured my friends didn't want to have anything more to do with me because of my husband. It wasn't until years later in recovery that I realized that I had become just like him. We are products of our environment. I didn't drink beer, he had a resentment because his beer cost 95 cents and he had to pay $1.05 for my rye and coke. It averaged out to $1. a drink, and we would go to the bar with $40. and it was good for 20 drinks a piece plus what ever we could beg, borrow and con, although I never looked at it as stealing.

At the end of the marriage, he complained when I spent some money for food for my son. He was a teenager and would not have survived this time if it wasn't for peanut butter and Kraft Dinner. He said I am getting a check tomorrow, now I don't have any money tonight. He went out with his brother, that night, and tomorrow came but the cheque didn't. He went out again and I had been waiting for the right time to break up the marriage only the right time never came. When I asked him to leave, I had 50 cents in my wallet and not even a jar of peanut butter in the cupboard. The legion issued me a food voucher to get food until I could contact Mother's Allowance on the Monday.

Today I had a memory of sitting in our dining room at the farm, wearing a navy taffeta skirt, a yellow nylon blouse with the dreaded 'frills' down the front, a lacy cameosole, white bobby sox and saddle shoes. I was 14 years old, sitting on a dining room chair, looking out the window. I wanted to go out and play and my mother said, "No, it is Sunday. You know it is a day of rest." It was only in the past year that I realized it was the first time that I used my bed to escape my feelings.

This was to become a pattern with me, pop pills, and if they didn't work, pop more, and if they didn't work, use the ultimate candy gravol to sweeten the mix. My prescription for dealing with life. Pop pills, go to bed and sleep and make the world go away.
I was horrified in recovery when I found out that I had gone to a job interview and did a typing test. I typed 40 wpm because of the errors. The As and the Es looked like Os, or was that the Es and Os looked like As, or maybe it was the Es, looked like As and Os. In recovery, when I went back to school I typed 75 wpm. I went for a computer course. I ended up signing up for Business Administration and Accounting on Computers. What can I say, I am an addict! I still need the computer course to be able to do what I want to do on the computer and that is what I aiming for in today.

I got my Business Administration Certificate, but the stress and the process of the course and the job placement, triggered my fibromyalgai and I was unable to complete the accounting portion. What the course did teach me was that I had no desire to go back into the rat race, and unless I want to start my own business, I don't need the accounting. I also have the books for the course, if I need to do a follow up.

The lady that came into recovery had stopped working in 1988. The bosses son said, "I think your problem is that you take too many pills!" I said, "Well I wouldn't need those pills if I didn't have you and your dad to deal with; I wouldn't need the pills if you guys knew how to do your job, etc." My boss told the woman from Unemployment Service that he wanted another woman just like me to assist me on the job. (He started with two stores and ended up with five when I was working for him). She told him, "When they made JoAnne, they threw away the key, but I will see what I can do." I trained the new girl and he let me go because he figured she had my smarts now and he could pay her lest money. I didn't see that he was paying me for less hours when I phoned in sick and unable to produce on the job. He later requested me to go back when she quit on him. I went back for more money, and ended up trying to do the work of three people, and not being able to measure up, and as a result, I continued to use more. When I started, I was Ms. Super Woman and when I left, I was "Ms. Thankful for Correction Tape!

After I left that job, (my doctor said, "I can't help your migraines while you continue to work for that "A**hole" so I quit the job on a Monday, I felt better on Thursday and went to my bank and he had bounced my paycheck. Working for this guy, I had to change banks three times. I was running out of banks. I went to make an amend to him for my part "time I stole from him and my attitude" and when I went to get off the bus I found an "Out of Business" sign on the door. God does look after me, all I had to do was become willing. I do admit to a little bit of ego creeping in when I saw the sign and thinking he had not been able to operate without me. I had changed his filing system, designed his letterhead, redesigned the stationary and business forms, and although he called my Office Manager, I was more like a Girl Friday.

I was Secretary, Accounts Receivable and Payable, Payroll, Purchasing, Receptionist, and when he wasn't around, I was in charge of the Warehouse personnel.

Over the years, there wasn't a department in an office I didn't work in. A part of this I contribute to my addictive mind, I always seems to have a thirst, wanting to know more.

My drug of choice is more, so everything that I put into my using, I put into my recovery.

When I quit working, I slowly worked myself into a place of isolation. A new apartment, which was smaller, less light, and away from the center of the city.

From there I ended up in a room in the YWCA, because I gave my apartment to my son, who had lost his apartment. I lost track of my son for six months and didn't know where he was, and it was one of the most fearful times of life, and was a big contributing factor to my escalated using. Stop the world I want to get off, hide in oblivion so I don't have to think, worry, or wonder. I made a vow, never to have this happen ever again, and it resulted in my not being able to say no, and having no boundaries with him or others, because I didn't want to lose anyone again. It didn't matter that it wasn't done out of anger directed at me, it was a fear of abandonment which I didn't recognize.

We reconnected at the YWCA and he had a job and was taking me out to dinner and a movie on payday. As I got sicker, the time got shorter and then I got too "sick" to go out and he would just come to visit me for 10-20 minutes and leave. I was in total nothings, depression and completely stoned! I couldn't communicate with him. The anxiety had started in the apartment. Not wanting to walk three blocks to the grocery store, leaving the cart in the grocery store when the whole concept of shopping became overwhelming and I didn't know what I wanted (I can still find myself in today going totally blank), too many people in the store, too much noise (today I know that is part of my fribromyalgia), and very sensitve to the energies around me, especially smells. My next to last drinking bout was with my son and his friend (who died a few weeks later as a result of drinking, fixing his car in the garage and leaving the motor running) and his friend said, "Gee Kevin, we should go drinking with your mother more often, she is a lot of laughs!" Meanwhile, my son is wanting to crawl under his chair and doesn't know where to put his face when mother goes into memory lane and telling old stories. I had five rye and coke that night and wondered why I felt bombed. I didn't have any extra 'pills' that day because I knew I was going out drinking, with no thought of the fact that I had tyenol, tranquilizers, tegrital and gravol in my systems for many day prior to this occasion.

I was called the "Den Mother" of the fourth floor and girls were coming from the third and fifth floors to come to somone who couldn't help herself, but she could sit there and listen and be a dumping post. A good way to go into further depression, and a good escape so I didn't have to look at myself. The rest of the world was the problem, not me.

I was walking down the hall on August 8th, 1991 when I heard a girl, who called herself my 'unofficially' adopted daughter (I had three), say in response to the Social Workers question, "Why don't you want to take a Tyenol 3 for your migraine?" "Because, I don't want to be like her down the hall!" As I got to my room I thought, "I think she was talking about me! Am I really that bad?" and I realized I was. I picked up the phone and called the same Social Worker and asked for help for myself. I started to see her on a regular basis and she made me aware that my medication was inter-acting with each other, and that started the process of not abusing, and not using my medication. On August 20th, 1991, I went out to Kelsey's and had a steak dinner with this same girl and had a glass of wine. It was my last drink.

I use the 21st of August as my dry date, although I was still taking medication, as far as I know, I stopped abusing it. What I didn't know until later was that my doctor has been mistreating me. My social worker wanted to take away his licence but because he was my aunt's family doctor, I wouldn't let her take action. She wanted me to go into treatment at Mary Ellis, he wanted me to go to relapse prevention at the General Hospital. He told them I needed my medication and it wasn't his fault that I abused it. I filled out eight legal-sized pages of questions only to be told I didn't have a problem. I am not sure if it was because of the doctor or my own inability to be honest or a combination of both. It doesn't matter, I ended up where I was suppose to be, at Mary Ellis.

For me a burden shared is a load lessened.