In today’s episode, Michelle returns to continue sharing her story. Michelle shares the benefits of working with a sponsor in Al-Anon and how her recovery journey brings her to attend another 12 step program.
The famous Ralph Waldo Emerson quote says, “life is a journey, not a destination.” Michelle’s story embodies this truth.
She does a fabulous job of sharing some of the recovery tools that have worked for her.
You can find it on all podcast streaming platforms and on my website
https://embracefamilyrecovery.com/podcast/
See full transcript of episode below.
You are listening to The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast. A place for real conversations with people who love someone with the disease of addiction. Now here is your host Margaret Swift Thompson.
Intro: Welcome back. Today we return with Michelle who if you remember last week had hit a bottom of anger with her estranged father getting sober for which she was really happy. And he built a family a new family that looked very much like hers which hurt her deeply. Let’s get back to Michelle and see where her recovery journey takes her.
The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast.
Michelle: Well, it gave me my next travel of work basically back into Al-Anon and let me tell you (laughter) I found a sponsor. I am so grateful for sponsors they are they carry the message but not the person, because you know even if you are not the actively user of external substance the disease is physical, emotional, and spiritual. You know you you’ve got to you’ve got to own your side of the street. Yeah so I got into outlook for the second time I’ve got a sponsor and was absolutely blown away when I went through the 12 steps, especially the 4th step where my first amends was to God, for playing God.
Margaret: Oh
Michelle: I discovered that I could do a really good job at playing God and I was gifted with the knowledge that, there was no need for me to play God.
Margaret: When, when you look at that transformative step and really identifying that. What do you think it was that gave you the willingness to surrender the job you had been so good at?
Michelle: Well full confession here. I was terrified of the 4th step. I think if anything was keeping me in my dysfunction it was the thought of having to do the 4th step and making amends to very scary people. I did not realize you could do a living amends; you could do a letter; you could do all sorts of different things.
Margaret: The 4th step is taking a personal inventory, a thorough inventory of your entire life, and I I’m with you Michelle I had the biggest block to that step, out of all the steps I had to work.
Michelle: My sponsor had me do an assets list as well as defects list and that was really the tool that helped me start to see the real me, not the problem being me. I also learned a great tool and that was to keep my hands off, and my heart on. You know Al-Anonics are amazing at fixing and impossible situations, they’re a godsend in the crisis. They are the executioners of drama, and the whole bit and they’re doing nobody no favors, and I happen to have been an excellent person in that role.
I do not willingly go near any of that stuff now because it did not benefit anybody, and it gave a lot of fuel to that inner critic. The inner voice, the itty-bitty shitty committee (laughter) gave me, gave them a lot of fodder and I had to learn to humble myself and just be the secretary. Let me take the minutes, what’s here then I need to deal with. You know put on the action list, what can I say, these are thoughts and feelings that are visitors. Thank you for help saying your piece, please move on. Thank you, doors that way.
Margaret: Michelle, I really love that, and I wanna tease that out a little bit cause I haven’t heard it said in that way. That I became the secretary. Expand on that a little for people who may not have heard it either like how did that work for you to get out of the God role to be the secretary? Talk about that a little bit.
Michelle: Um,I think one of the things that have served, some of the things that have served me well as I’ve always been a person of prayer, knowingly and unknowingly. Because let’s face it when you’re in a household where the people who protect you are beating each other up, you learn to pray even if you don’t know you’re praying. I also have been a person who’s done yoga, meditation, and contemplation. So, in essence I’m using the word as the secretary to the itty-bitty committee but in essence what I’m doing is bearing self-witness. I’m listening to the stories that are running around in my head and I’m deleting them or de-storying them. But I’m also listening for those pearls of wisdom because there are times, like when I’ve been in unhealthy relationships, those voices have warnings to deliver that I may not be wanting to hear. So, by playing the secretary I take the notes, just like if you were secretary for a board or a charity, you write down you know who’s said what, and what are the action items and then you table them. But not everything gets tabled. And one of the greatest gifts that have come to me actually during this pandemic, it has been that thoughts and feelings are visitors, they’re energy they come in and if I don’t let them hook on me, they’ll flow through. Take what I want and leave the rest as they say in the programs.
Margaret: And my language would be your Spidey sense, when your gut check goes off and that’s a warning take a look, hello. The hard part I think for a lot of us in early recovery is deciphering between being itty bitty committee and the higher power messaging. Is that where sponsorship became so valuable having someone to talk it out with, so you had an external source to help you navigate those?
Michelle: Great point Maggie. Absolutely. Sponsors carry the message not the person. It’s very easy for people who are not strong in their recovery to get engaged in other people’s lives, whereas opposed to being just the listening conversation participant, not the give advice, decide. So, sponsorship can be hugely helpful but also being a sponsor as early as you can in the program means if you’ve done the first step then please sponsor people for the first step, get them started. Because you know you can’t keep it, until you give it, I think is how the saying goes.
Margaret: Right.
Michelle: What I really value about a sponsor, and I’ve been very blessed to have some sponsors who have you know three past decades of experience is that they have been there and got the sweatshirt and there’s nothing I can think, say, do or plot that they haven’t probably considered. (laughter)
Margaret: Right!
Michelle: So, they’re not gonna sit in judgment you know, they’re not gonna tell me I’m crazy because they’ve had their own dose of crazy.
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Margaret: So, you travel along into this next relationship which it ends up getting you in another seat in Al-Anon but in a different context. You were more prepared and got a sponsor, more surrendered whichever language you would use. Where does the story go from there Michelle?
Michelle: Well, I always try to share about another 12-step program and particularly because my story is not the usual story. I had the opportunity through Al-Anon to go to a very well-known facility where as the person who encouraged me to go said that week worth of therapy will be worth 10 years of recovery. (laughter) I no idea what she meant but boy she was on the money. (laughter)
I had to fill out reams and reams of my story and I had to dig deep, I had to find photos which is not easy because I was the discarded child so just even having some family photos was difficult. But at that one I got blindsided or shall I say they uncovered the blind spot. That I needed another 12-step program, and that was Overeaters Anonymous.
And the reason why I like to share my story is because I am obese, and I’ve been struggling with obesity for over 20 years now. I don’t eat enough to weigh what I do; my lifestyle does not support me being obese. Um, I clean living you know sober lifestyle, the whole bit, you know, emotionally sober and I’m still obese. And when I went to this retreat they said to me you need Overeaters Anonymous I’m like you’ve got to be kidding? Just cause I’m obese does not mean you know, blah, blah, blah.
Margaret: Right!
Michelle: I had the food diaries, and I am not. And they said no you’re under eating that is evidence of the dis ease.
Margaret: Right
Michelle: and I was like what it’s so counter intuitive and I still struggle to this day. So went to Overeaters Anonymous and in the first year just going to meetings, I lost 20 lbs. So just finding myself a place once or twice a week for an hour and calming my system down, I lost weight. I didn’t change one thing, not my diet, not my work life, not my family life, nothing. So, OA for me was another one of those unexpected uhm you know places. And I went again to this retreat to deal with you know an active alcoholic and you know I’m grateful for the struggle because if I hadn’t had that alcoholic relationship, I would not have realized that eating is a necessity and eating wisely is an art. So, for me it wasn’t that I was overeating I was under eating, and I did not realize it even though I had worked with nutritionists and pointed it out to me. In my head somehow, I was gaining weight because I must have been eating in my sleep or something. But you know what it wasn’t what I was eating, it was what was eating me. So, I needed to again get on get on plan in terms of not getting hungry, angry, lonely or tired you know the acronym for HALT, and I found that hugely helpful because that cleared the way for me to get my eating in better order. It’s still a bit of a struggle because if I get working on a project I dissociate, forget to eat and then I’m back in the dis ease of the disease. But you know again even in that program people would hear my story and go, yeah right, and I’m like that’s OK you’re clearly not really in a place that you can hear. But you know another saying in their program is ‘hope is a risk that must be run’, so I take the risk of sharing my story so that people know you may look like a couch potato, but you probably aren’t. (laughter)
Margaret: So,I have a question along those lines Michelle because I think what you bring up is a very, very valid point. I’ve been in the rooms of OA for decades and I think that there are people there who struggle to come in because they are anorexic, I don’t belong here or bulimic, I don’t belong here or compulsive overeater who’s struggling to believe they belong there. One of the things that is very prevalent in this family disease of addiction is cross addiction. So, I’m curious if you feel the relationship with food the dis ease of that, whichever way that was for you through your lifetime, came before, during, after, along with? Did you see it get worse when it came to Al-Anon insanity?
Michelle: Mm, Intriguing um well for me my mother was a product of the 50s and 60s were being physically beautiful with really important. Um my ancestral heritage just Welsh and Welsh in Yorkshire so my family part of my family is as wide as they are high, so I did not get my mother’s lovely bone structure and all those sorts of things. And I’m just plain curvy you know just plain curvy. But my mother was always on, well no I can’t say that she was very mindful of her figure. She’d have a cup of coffee rather than lunch or something like that. I don’t know if there were issues there or not, but she was a product of men seeing better than they think. And in my lifetime, there has not been my issue I’ve been proposed to 13 times so for anyone who’s listening who’s a curvy girl it ain’t about your weight, if he likes curvy girls, he’ll like you. Now when my father left when we were eight, literally we had no food our church was delivering us bags of groceries. You know the insanity continued he punished her, but we all got cold cocked by him. So, I can remember to this day a trigger for me is to not have any food in the house. I need to make sure that there are couple cans turn are some pineapple, you know there needs to be something in the freezer or the cupboards not a lot. But it doesn’t mean I’ll eat because my issue is the dis ease. So, I dissociate by the doing, which is very harmful, and then I’ll I have to be careful Fridays and Sundays will be a feast day for me and that just puts your body under a lot more pressure when you overeat on a Friday and Sunday, and you under eat the other five days.
Margaret: You bet!
Michelle: So, you’re in a feast or famine constantly. But again, if I hadn’t of had the Al-Anon time to clean up my side of the street to realize that that I couldn’t fix anyone out, anyone else. The serenity prayer says you know God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can’t change, I literally 360 with my finger around me and then the courage to change the things I can I am pointing at myself, tapping myself, like you change you, clean up your act, your side of the street. So that was Al-Anon, OA reminded me about self-care. Um I had the opportunity believe it or not because I’m curvy and it’s the 70s, as a teenager I was invited to be a fuller figure model. My mother was horrified like that was seriously embarrassing and the toxic shame just poured down over me, but being a teenager, I was like why not? Watch me!
Margaret: Was that just a teenager Michelle or is that some of your makeup? You appear to be a person who has been up for the challenge when it’s been placed in front of you.
Michelle: Oh yeah you know I’m I’ve got the heritage of fire people I was born in a city that is got over a dozen volcanoes. I now live on an island of a dormant volcano. I come from fire people from Wales.
My father and my maternal grandfather absolutely adored me so although my mother, my mother and I had issues and directed a lot at me, I had these power players for some of my, my early life that just thought I was I was cat’s meow so that did give me an inner edge of confidence. I was loved and adored.
Outro: Like a sponsor told me when we are green, we are growing and ripe we are rotting. One of the things I love about doing this podcast is learning from others. I want to be green how about you? Join us next week when Michelle dives into her next chapter. Her healing as an adult child of an alcoholic, she also gives us great tangible tools to take forward in our recovery journey.
If you know anyone who loves someone with the disease of addiction and you value this podcast, please share it with them. Let them know about the resources and the ability to hear others’ stories that they may connect with and gain help from.
I want to thank my guest for their courage and vulnerability in sharing parts of their story.
Please find resources on my website
embracefamilyrecovery.com
This is Margaret Swift Thompson.
Until next time please take care of you!
