Late Night Thoughts On Addiciton

My church put together a series of videos based on the 12 steps. I have long loved the 12 steps of AA, and love the church's spin on them just as much (honestly the differences are negligible). And as I'm trying to sleep tonight I can't get these thoughts to stop spinning around in my head. Usually I just get out a pen and write in my journal. Tonight, however, I can't help but to think this message needs to be shared.


Addiction is a deadly disease. It is claiming the lives of thousands. And I believe this is largely because of shame. The moment an addict brings their problem to light, hope floods in. But the shame and stigma associated with addiction often causes the addict to continue to hide. I am certain my brother died because he was too ashamed of himself to get help. He didn't want to be where he was in life. He wasn't just loving living life, with no cares about who he hurt, as some may wrongfully believe of addicts.

Addicts live with more pain than we could ever realize.

I grew up with an alcoholic father. I am so grateful that my mom put me in Alateen when she did. Learning the 12 steps as a teenager absolutely changed my life. Especially Step 4. If you're unfamiliar, watch this video... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FcZyje9n74&feature=youtu.be or if you can't... it's, "Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves." (The church adds the word "written") I did this when I was about 15. I started by just writing my priorities. My list looked something like this...

My Priorities

1. My boyfriend

2. My friends

3. My job

4. School

5. Basketball

6. My Family

Pretty messed up, huh! And as I made that list it dawned on me how messed up it was. For one thing my family was at the very bottom of my list, and more importantly God wasn't even on it. I remember deciding right then to rewrite that list. With God at the top. And that single decision has directed the rest of my life.

These 12 Steps are life changing. For everyone. They are the Atonement in action. They are inspired. Please, if you are struggling with any kind of addiction, or know anyone who is, encourage them to forget this false sense of shame and get to a meeting. 

Now these thoughts are floating around with some other thoughts from a Max Lucado book I'm reading, Facing Your Giants. There is a chapter about the Brook of Besor. This is a lesser known David story from the Bible. I think everyone is familiar with how he slew Goliath, but then what happened? Well after he went through a lot of stuff, he finds himself with an Army of 600. And then he and that army are raided by some bad guys. They take the women and children. The Army turns their anger on David who should have protected them. David could easily just give up at this point. This is like the millionth time he is finding himself in a situation where people want to kill him. It would have been easy to just give up. And that would have been the end of David.

But he doesn't give up. He turns to God, and he is directed and listens! He directs his army's anger at the true enemy and they faithfully go out and search for their families. This isn't easy. They have no clue where the enemy could be. But they have faith. And eventually they are led to the enemy's camp. However, right before they find out where their families are, 200 of them give up. They decide not to go on. They are just too tired. They're worn out. They lack faith. But I think more than anything they are tired of fighting, what seems like a hopeless battle. I imagine this is how addicts feel. That hunger is always there. That justification that it's okay this just one time, that always gets out of hand, is always playing over and over in their minds. And sometimes, they just can't fight it anymore, and they give up. They let the world go on without them, and they check out.

Eventually David and the 400 who went with him find their women and children, and score a bunch of loot. As they head back, they find the other 200 still there. Initially the 400 do not want to share the spoils of their victory with those who chose to stay behind. In fact, just read the words straight from the source... (1st Samuel 30)

And David came to the two hundred men, which were so faint that they could not follow David, whom they had made also to abide at the brook Besor: and they went forth to meet David, and to meet the people that were with him: and when David came near to the people, he saluted them. 22Then answered all the wicked men and men of Belial, of those that went with David, and said, Because they went not with us, we will not give them ought of the spoil that we have recovered, save to every man his wife and his children, that they may lead them away, and depart. 23Then said David, Ye shall not do so, my brethren, with that which the LORD hath given us, who hath preserved us, and delivered the company that came against us into our hand. 24For who will hearken unto you in this matter? but as his part isthat goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff: they shall part alike. 25And it was so from that day forward, that he made it a statute and an ordinance for Israel unto this day.

The first thing that I noticed is that David saluted them. And then he rebukes these people who felt like these losers didn't deserve anything. I imagine the men who stayed behind probably agreed with them. I am sure they felt so ashamed of themselves. Those were their families they let down, because they were too tired to go on. I imagine they spent a lot of that time beating themselves up. I imagine a few probably tried to follow a few days later, greatly regretting their decision to stay. But soon lost hope and turned back. (If I'm not being too obvious in my analogy, forgive me for over explaining, but in my mind, this is like those addicts who try to stop on their own. Who maybe go days, weeks, even years without slipping up in their addiction. But then they fall back into the grasp of addiction.)

David's reaction is a great example of how we can treat addicts in our lives. He gave them their dignity back. He treated them like humans, who were equal to those who didn't need to rest. They didn't get just some of the spoil, but "they shall partake alike". They were treated as equals. They were saluted. 

How would you feel if you were one of the 400 who fought, and went on, even though you were pretty darn tired yourself? Angry? Resentful? Jealous? How do you feel about people who struggle with addiction? Perhaps you've had the fleeting thought that a heroin user deserved to die. "One less junkie in the world." Or you've thought, "Man, I'd like to just check out of life for a while like that, but too bad I care too much about my family, that I could never do that!" We need to change this attitude, and realize that yes these people did make a decision to stay at Besor (or start using a numbing mechanism of their choice) but once they made that poor decision once, they were stuck! You can say a heroin addict chose to do heroin, and you would be correct. That first time, they were absolutely in control, and made a horrible mistake. I am sure there are few heroin users in the world who wouldn't do anything to be able to go back to that moment and undo it. And I'm using heroin as an example for a few reasons. Obviously one, because of my brother's particular addiction. But also, because I believe there is more of a stigma associated with that word, and I'm trying to end that. I think the more I use it, maybe it will help. I know even in my own family we have a hard time saying the word. We would say, "that stuff" or "crap" or whatever... no one wanted to use the word heroin. And we still don't. But that's a whole other post! My point here is, yes, those who chose to stay at Besor made one bad decision. Do they deserve to be judged for the rest of their lives, and never get any kind of love or respect ever again because of that one poor decision?

Addiction knows no boundaries these days. There is no shame in having a problem bigger than you. There is so much help available. Start with these amazing videos. Find a meeting. Break your silence a reach out to someone. The moment you let go of your shame, you are back in the fight. 

I know it's too late for my brother. I wish so much I could share these videos with him. But I can do it in his honor, and live the rest of my life trying to speak out against the way addicts are treated. I can try to help whoever crosses my path. Hopefully some day on a grander scale. But it's my prayer this blog post reaches someone who needed to see it. 

Hawaii 2015

This page might take a while to load. I embedded the pictures from our One Drive, and it's loading kind of slowly on my computer, just fyi. And if you click on it, it should let you see it bigger. Sorry, this is the easiest way to get lots of pictures from phone to blog.


Heard a really cool story about why this is popular in Hawaii... From Wikipedia, "According to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,^[4] prevailing local lore credited the gesture to Hamana Kalili of Laie, who lost the three middle fingers of his right hand while working at the Kahuku Sugar Mill. Kalili was then shifted to guarding the sugar train, and his all-clear wave of thumb and pinkie is said to have evolved into the shaka as children imitated the gesture."  So basically this guy lost his three fingers, and he waved at people as they passed on the train, and people thought he was doing this with his hand, and did it back, not knowing he was really missing those fingers. And now it's a widely used symbol used to convey the Aloha spirit. 



Buddhist temple... this place was one of the most beautiful I've ever seen.





Hawaiian palace. Learned a lot of cool history here. Like, did you know this was the first palace to have electricity? Even beat the White House!



Doing a moonlight hike of Waimea Falls.



Yummy fruit from a little overpriced, rip off the tourists fruit stand... but still worth it.


Had to get in a game of disc golf. Which is not very popular in Hawaii, they only had one course, and we had it all to ourselves. And I think we learned why... the wind was killer! But who am I kidding, I don't think I would have done much better without it!


Dole Plantation was another highlight... mainly for these whips! TOPPINGS! So heavenly.











Shark's Cove... we saw lots of beautiful cool fish here. And also cut up my fingers, toes and back on the sharp rocks!


Best fish and chips ever.







The view from the top of Diamond Head. It was a way harder hike than I was prepared for. But the views at the top were beautiful, and were debatablely worth it.





This was the closest we got the Arizona, at the Pearl Harbor memorial, due to lightning. It was still a very beautiful, solemn place.


Polynesian Cultural Center luau. It was delicious! And such a wonderful beautiful place.













One of my favorite things I learned here was during a video about Hawaii. There was just this one quote that kept ringing through my mind for the rest of the trip "We already have everything we need." And it seems the culture of Hawaii is that the Earth takes care of us, as we take care of it. I loved that.


Did an awesome temple session. The people here were amazing, and I just loved how they didn't seem to take themselves as seriously as a lot of temple workers. It was just a different feeling, and so fun.


I love this picture Aaron took. These pools look like they're flowing out to the ocean, and that light beam coming down... just heavenly.


And that's the gist of our trip! Not pictured is our sunset Stand Up Paddle Board Tour, lots more yummy food, fun shopping, laying on the beach, reading books, watching the surfers, and probably some more that I can't think of because I'm exhausted! So grateful for everyone who helped take care of my babies while I was gone. And it's amazing what a solid week just being husband and wife can do for a 10 year old marriage. It was wonderful.

A few pictures from our crazy cousin weekend!

This is my first time trying to upload pictures from our OneDrive thing by "embedding" them. Hopefully this works...










The last weekend before school we had the opportunity to have our cousins come stay with us for a few days (Friday - Monday). It was crazy and wonderful! Kids had so much fun and made great memories. And I loved watching them all have so much fun together. The only times that were really crazy were meal times. Otherwise it was actually quite a break for me too. Yuma has been lonely lately. It's so nice that our kids are such good friends. I grew up with my cousins as my best friends and I love seeing my kids do the same.

Mommy Camp

So we traveled a lot this summer, which didn't leave any time for swim team, or gymnastic camp or any of the other stuff I thought I might sign my girls up for. And I was feeling weirdly guilty about it. I guess you talk to other moms and hear about all these ways they are enriching their children's lives and look at the amount of TV and video games your kids have been experiencing and it leads to certain levels of mom guilt. So in order to assuage myself of this guilt I decided to sign them up for camp for the last week of summer! ... Just kidding, it was too late. So I decided I'd make up my own camp. Introducing, Mommy Camp!

Monday - Cooking day. I had the girls pin some recipes they wanted to try. Together we made banana bread, ice cream in zip lock bags, and then just had them assemble cute plates with fruit and cheese and ham. They had a lot of fun. And I think they actually all learned something. I had them preheat the oven, taught them how to actually measure with dry measuring cups vs wet measuring cups, etc.  In case anyone is interested (or for myself if I ever want to do this again) these are the recipes we used :
http://cookieandkate.com/2011/honey-whole-wheat-banana-bread/ <- banana bread
http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/edible-innovations/ice-cream3.htm <-- ice cream

Today was Reading Day and we went to the library and read lots of books, came home and read lots of books... and it was kind of boring. It was supposed to be art day but I didn't have the stuff I needed. So tomorrow will be art day.

This is the project I plan on doing... http://happyhooligans.ca/stained-glass-painting-2/

Then I'm hoping on Thursday or Friday they can go help my friend on her farm, and learn about the work involved with milking goats, collecting eggs, feeding chickens, etc. I still haven't heard back so we'll see.

Then whatever day that doesn't happen will be a water day. We'll swim, set up our inflatable water slide, put on the sprinkler, do some experiments with sinking and floating toys.

And that's what we're up to lately! I'm really quite content and happy with these people lately. It's so crazy how quickly we can forget the hard times the moment we have some good. Today Aaron got home at 4:30, and he doesn't have to go back until Friday. I swear the world is just a more beautiful place tonight. Had I written this post last night when he was working until 9, I might not seem so happy with my life.

Just an update

So I better update this blog so I can remember when we got this puppy...

This is Minnie and she's a Basset Hound and she's adorable and we still love her, even after two weeks! So that's a good sign. I mean, look at those ears. So cute. And she's completely worn out after like a 5 minute walk around the block, she has to nap for at least two hours after that kind of exertion. She's chubby, and wrinkly and eats everything she sees. She is basically my spirit animal.

We drove up to Mesa last week to visit with family for Aaron's birthday and I got to stay a little longer while Aaron had to go back to work. ^ This picture was snapped while driving up and I was super angry that Eliza woke up after only a 15 minute nap. I was hoping she'd sleep for at least an hour of the drive. And I was so frustrated, but then Nathan looked at her and said, "Happy morning, Eliza beautiful!" And she smiled at him and they held hands, and my heart melted and I couldn't be angry anymore about short naps (at least for that time).

This was on Aaron's birthday. We met everyone at Joe's BBQ for lunch. These are all the grandkids. Quite a task trying to get 10 kids, 7 and under to take a picture! There are actually two parents  hiding in this picture, which cracks me up. Love all these people so much.

Summer has been really busy... looking forward to school starting, but also really still enjoying not having anywhere to be most days. And really there's only two weeks left! But I do think by the end of these two weeks I'll be ready. Hard to believe two of my kids will be gone all day! Also looking at getting Nathan into a preschool so some of the days it will just me and Eliza. Craziness!

A post about Jesse

          I've been kind of quiet on the blog lately. Trying to at least keep updates on my kids and stuff but mostly it's been hard because really heavy topics are on my heart and mind and it's hard to write about the funny things my kids do and say when I really want to talk about my family, drug addiction and missing my brother.

       Tomorrow marks 6 months since I last saw my brother. Words usually come easily to me. I sit down to write and the words just kind of flow and later I go back and read what I wrote and occasionally I'm surprised at what I wrote! This phenomenon does not seem to occur when I want to write about Jesse. I sit down and start to write the words just stop. I don't know what to say. I don't know what's left to say, or why it's important to say it. Not a day goes by that my heart doesn't ache. It aches for my mom, and my entire family who miss him. But it also aches for so much potential that is now gone.

        I think that is what hurts the most. I know once people are gone it seems like all you can say is how wonderful and amazing and what a good person they were. So it feels like a cliche to talk about what a wonderful person Jesse was. I wish everyone reading this knew him, because the ones who did just know exactly what I'm talking about. He had a way of making everyone think they were his best friend. Every girl friend I've ever had, at one point had a crush on him. Literally every single one. Even my best friend admitting to me that she day dreamed about marrying him when we were younger -- and she didn't confess that to me until after he died! He was insanely good at everything he tried, but most notably hockey. He was also infectiously enthusiastic about anything he liked, or felt strongly about. Listening to him and my husband talk about Diablo was enough to put me to sleep. And I made a comment, "Aren't you embarrassed to be this excited about a video game?" I asked, after about a half hour of them talking about their level 40 mages or whatever. And he laughed and was like, "Why would I be embarrassed about something this awesome? If someone doesn't like this, I don't have time for them. I do not care. This game is awesome." And went back to his conversation with Aaron about all the awesomeness of this video game.

       He would never hurt anyone's feelings. My grandmother got him a too-small Rangers sweatshirt for Christmas, a couple of weeks before he died. His face lit up and he enthusiastically put it right on over his dress shirt he was already wearing. It was obvious that it was a bit too small, but he knew Nan would be upset so he insisted it was fine. "It's just this shirt underneath it, it's fine Nan, it's fine." He assured her over and over with a smile. And then he left that shirt on for the rest of the night.

      I wish I had more recent memories of him to draw from. But my earliest memories all include him. I even vaguely remember going to the hospital when he was born. (For the record I turned 2, almost exactly one month before he was born.) I remember teaching him his ABC's, before he turned 2. I remember being at his doctor's appointment and the doctor being impressed that he could sing his ABC's, and my little 3 year old self feeling such a sense of pride in this little person.

          My entire childhood is memories of us playing, imagining, video-gaming, and of course fighting. Nonstop fighting. Fist fighting, yelling, screaming... we didn't make it easy on my mom. We even started a fight club in my basement with the neighbor kids. The only rule was, "No telling Mom". And if you cried you were out.

         He had this puppy dog like admiration for our older neighbor boy, Keith. He'd just wait outside for Keith to come out and then beg Keith to play with him. Nice enough, many times Keith would play with him. But I'm pretty sure Kieth was like learning to drive, in high school, and didn't really have much time for the 5 year old boy who was obsessed with him. Though that didn't stop Jesse's devotion.

      I also remember him learning about illegal immigration when we were in middle school. He went into some ancient version of Microsoft Word on our Gateway computer and typed up these "facts" about the number of illegal immigrants in our country. I don't remember exactly what it was, something like, "FIVE MILLION ALIENS COME TO THIS COUNTRY EVERY YEAR! THAT'S F*&%ING B#$&*@#!!!!!!!!!!!!!"   In like size 200 font. And he hung these up all over the house. My mom told him he could not hang these signs up all over the house, so he put them up all over his bedroom. I think I remember this so clearly because one of those signs was still there years later when I was getting ready to move out. Now regardless of where you stand on illegal immigration you have to laugh at a 13 year old making offensive political posters to hang up around his house. I know as an adult he'd probably be ashamed and embarrassed by this story. But I don't tell it to make a point about his political views, just his passion and silliness I guess. It comes to my mind often and makes me laugh for some reason.

    We used to say Jesse was never a baby. He was on the move before he could walk. We lived upstairs from my grandparents and he'd slide down the stairs on his stomach and crawl over to Poppy's chair. He was riding a 2 wheel bicycle before his 3rd birthday. He really grew up fast. He grew up too fast and he died too soon.
 
     While I was back visiting I could really just feel this gaping hole he has left behind. His presence was bigger than I ever realized. I don't know how to explain it. But it just feels so wrong. When we're all together it doesn't feel like just one person isn't there. It feels entirely different. All of us cousins got together one night and it just felt so off. I guess the dynamic is changing, and that change hurts. A lot. It's heart breaking.
 
     We're all growing from this. One way or another. And I can't speak for everyone else I guess, but my empathy for drug addicts has grown so much. I also have an ever growing hatred for secrets and small talk. Life is short, let's be real and talk about what matters. Spend as much time as you can with the people you love and do something silly. Something you'll remember. Because death is a certainty for all of us. One day all we'll have are those memories, so make them and treasure them. This is how I'm growing, and it hurts, but I guess this is how we grow.

Wow that was rough!

So in April I had a breakdown of sorts, due to not being with my family in NJ on Easter. In this emotionally charged moment I made the decision that I would take the kids to NJ this summer, by myself. And it would be fine. It would be great. I had to do it.

Well on June 8th, with only about 2 hours of sleep, we took off for NJ. I rocked the airport. I had this idea the night before to tie ropes to my stroller for each child to hold on to. We looked like this walking through Sky Harbor.

Many people stopped me to tell me how genius this was, and how well behaved my kids were. I was feeling pretty good.

Then the flight was just rough. Olivia did amazing, sat two rows back in a window seat and I literally didn't see her the entire flight. Abigail and Nathan did pretty good, happy to watch shows on their tablets. The biggest issue was Abigail resting her feet on the seat in front of her. But the lady was mostly understanding, and Abigail was trying, she'd just randomly absent-mindedly put her feet out. Eliza however was a handful. She only slept for about 20 minutes of the entire 4 hour flight. But we did it.

Then about two nights into our trip Eliza screams all night. To the point that I'm thinking I should maybe go to the emergency room because none of my kids ever cried that loud for that long. It was really the most miserable night I've ever had. Ended up going to an urgent care type place at 7:00AM and they thought she might have coxsackie virus. She had a few sores on the insides of her cheeks. She also had an upset stomach and puked all over the waiting room. She was pretty grumpy the next week or so, but fortunately didn't have any more nights like that one.

Then a few days later I found myself back at the urgent care with Nathan. He had an ear infection and it was his turn to be a bit miserable.

But despite the lack of rest we had a lot of fun and made some great memories. My kids went to the Liberty Science Center, saw a puppet show of Jack and the Bean Stalk with their great-grandmother, went to the beach multiple times, went to Fun Time America, went to Chuck-E-Cheese, went the St. Mary's Fair, went to the Keansburg Boardwalk, went fishing with their Pop, and spent lots of time outside swimming and exploring. Lots of fun times. Fun for them, exhausting for every adult around them.

Then the day we traveled home was straight from hell. I don't even want to relive all the horrors of that day, but just know I cried, like sobbed, bawled, hysterically cried about 30% of the flight home. It was just so hard. And there was a lack of friendly faces, and people were just mean and I just wanted to be home. I wanted be home so badly that I wanted to drive 3 hours after the 5 hour flight. In my mind the kids would sleep in the car, when we got home Aaron would carry them to their beds where they would sleep peacefully the rest of the night and I would climb into my own glorious bed and sleep soundly. Of course it didn't go that well, no where near that actually. About an hour away from home Eliza starts puking. Everyone wakes up, we have windows down so the smell doesn't make everyone else throw up. About the same time I get a text from Aaron telling me our AC is broken and it's 88 degrees upstairs. So when we finally do get home everyone is wide awake and crazy, we have to clean puke covered baby, car seat and van. I can't sleep in my own bed because it's hot as heck, and I can't stop laughing, then crying, then laughing again. Fortunately my mother-in-law drove me home and she helped get kids in bed, and Aaron cleaned the puked on stuff while I cleaned the puked on baby, and I was so exhausted the couch made a fine bed. And they were able to fix the AC quickly that night.

Then the next day I start not feeling so hot. The day after that I know I'm definitely sick. I have strep throat again, and am living in the misery of high fever, body aches, and a throat so sore I can't swallow my own saliva. My saving grace through this is that at least it coincides with Aaron being off from work and I've been able to lay in bed and rest. Though I miss him so much I wish we could actually be spending time together instead of me laying in bed convinced I'm going to be the first person to die from strep throat.

And that's the start of our summer. Hopefully July is more restful!