Freedom of Choice

[MajestyJo]

What a gift! Freedom of choice. When I was using, my choice was taken from me my drug of choice became the Master at the helm of my life.

In recovery, I am also given freedom of choice, and I can still lose that choice by giving up my power.

When I surrender to this program, I am empowered to do what I need to do for myself. This was totally impossible for me when I was using and when I was in a relationship. Even sober, before I had the time to heal, to let go of my past, I was still living out my old patterns and behaviors.

I believe I posted somewhere on the board about asking the bouncer at the dance hall I use to go to why no one danced with me any more, when before I never missed a dance except when I excused myself. He said, "It is because you are Ken's girl!" I couldn't believe it! I was furious. I believed he had total ownership of me, and although he could go and do 'courtesy dances', I had to sit there until he asked or allowed someone else to dance with me. I had no idea or concept that this was abuse. I had another boyfriend isolate me from all my friends and I became the whole center of his world and the phone stopped ringing and people stopped dropping by.

I stayed in an abusive marriage for seven years, but I didn't think by then I could take care of myself, that no one else would have me and that I was completely worthless. When it got unbearable, I waited for the perfect time to ask him to leave, and there never seemed to be the right moment. The day I asked him to leave I had 50 cents in my pocket and no food in the house and my son was sixteen. The reason I made the decision was he complained because I bought bread, milk, cereal and peanut butter for my son to eat. Thank God for peanut butter and Kraft dinner or my son would have starved. It is a wonder he is still talking to me today. The reason I made my choice was that my son and my husband were getting to a stage that my son was going to protect me and there would have been a fist-a-cuff if I didn't ask my ex-husband to leave.

The Legion provided me with a food voucher until I could see a Mother's Allowance worker on the Monday. We stayed in the village for two years after that before we left to come to Hamilton. I would come home at night and my ex-husband would be at the door asking me what I had been up to and coming home at such and such an hour. He accused me of relationships with different men, and I said, "Why would I want another man when I just got rid of you!"

Anytime I was in a relationship, I lost my identity. I lost my freedom of choice. I am an individual, and just because I choose to have a relationship with someone doesn't mean that I have to give up the freedom to be myself. I refuse to compromise myself every again.

Something I posted on another site in 2004

But for the Grace of God...

[MajestyJo]

The following quote from Zen says it best:


Quote:
Don't be clever, otherwise you will remain the same, you will not change. Half-techniques on the path of love and half-techniques on the path of meditation will create much confusion in you. They will not help.... But to ask for help is against the ego, so you try to compromise. This compromise will be more dangerous, it will confuse you more because, made out of confusion, it will create more confusion. So try to understand why you hanker for compromise. Sooner or later you will be able to understand that compromise is not going to help. And compromise may be a way of not going in either direction, or it may be just a repression of your confusion.


I have found this to be very true. I can come to an understanding with someone. I can see their point of view, and recognize where they are coming from and accept their rights and opinions, but I can not compromise my sobriety, my integrity, or sense of self.

Without me, I have nothing. I believe if there is true love there, options are always there, alternatives, and plan B if two people are willing to work 'together.' The man in my life will have five years clean in CA and will be celebrating on the 30th of July. He has asked me to share my story at his anniversary. He said it was my persona, my sense of self which first attracted him.

He has been a firm foundation for me over the last year, because many times due to my pain I have wanted to give up and give in, and I felt very weak and very depressed yet to him, he said all he saw was a woman of strength and courage. I am not sure I believe him :-[, but one thing I have found out about him that if there is one person more honest than me, it is him.

He has loved me unconditionally, and I am not sure I could have lived with me the past year, even if he only sees me one day a week and on weekends. All I had to do was put up with is his snoring, while he has endured listening to this woman who complained about being fat and ugly, useless and some days not the most sociable of beings, while on others, he brings the kid out in me and I have learned to play, to laugh and to enjoy life. I no longer have to control my actions and am free to express myself, be silly, dance up a storm and hang loose! Not bad for an old lady of 62, who didn't think she would live to be 40.

Last year at the AA Autumn Leaf Round-Up here in Hamilton, we danced up a storm. We are already anxiously awaiting for September to arrive so we can go again. I will be there supposing I have to stay in bed for two days before. The last time the bottom of my feet still hurt on the following Tuesday morning, but it was okay. I had just been on a CA boat cruise and that evening I had four members, two friends from NA, and my boyfriend at the table. When a gal has seven men at her table and two friends at other tables who insisted on dances, she never lacks for dance partners.

I walked in fear all my life. I feared letting myself go and making a mistake, of taking the wrong foot forward, of making a fool of myself. When I was using, I would go into the bathroom and make myself upchuck, so I could drink more, if I thought I was going to cross that line and lose control of my emotions. I can still remember the horror one night of a fellow at a house party saying, "Gee, we should get you drunk more often, you are lot of fun!" I had a feeling of total terror come over me, and it wasn't long until I left the party.

Yet recovery gives me that freedom, and when I see my son acting out in his disease, I can go into the guilt trip and beat myself up royally for being such a good teacher. In today, I know I don't have to pay for the rest of my life. I know he also has freedom of choice. I chose to get clean, and he has seen me change over the past twelve years, but he is not willing to stop. His words were, "I identified with you more when you were using mom than I do now, but I don't ever want you to go back to the way you were." He has a mother today he is beginning to know. I taught him to play pool, play darts, to play cribbage, euchre, rummy and crazy 8s. Today he loves it when he can say, "Mother the pupil has now become the teacher!" As he said, "I bought him his first 'legal' beer and asked him if he wanted an earring in his ear, and I am the one who gave him the fear of driving! I tried to teach him to drive and he just about lost my car in some bull rushes.

Why do I share? Because I care, and because I don't want anyone else to have to walk the road as long as I did. I hope that from something I share and say, you can get off that big broad highway, and follow the narrow winding road called recovery. It has it's ups and downs, it's hills and valleys, but the scenery is wonderful, the friends are awesome, and the freedom is priceless.

[MajestyJo]

Ironically, I found out that he was not honest at all and was telling me what he thought I wanted to hear and what I wanted him to say, and or what would make him look good.

He got very angry because I said, "I didn't need him in my life, he was there because I wanted him there." He blew his top and blamed me for causing me to trigger his anger. He thought that I should need him, yet two needy people together, does not make for a healthy relationship. When I get needy, I get greedy and want more. He relapsed at 7 years sober. He stopped doing service and going to CA and went to the church. I was so grateful when I heard he had come back to AA.

He was trying to make space in my space, instead of working on his own recovery. I think he felt as though if he stayed with me, my recovery would rub off on him. This is not a copy cat program, we each have to choose our own way. It is freedom of choice. There was nothing wrong with going to church as long as he continued to practice the spirituals of the program in his life. It isn't a program of substitution, it is what is good for the whole, and looking at all aspects of my dis-ease.