Michelle shares tools that she uses in her recovery! One of the things I enjoy most about making this podcast is the opportunity to hear people’s stories.
I find, like in a Twelve Step meeting, if I stay open, I hear something that is an asset to my recovery program.
I so value Michelle’s humility in sharing the evolution of her recovery program through different meetings. She also shares strategies that we can implement, making this episode of her series most helpful!
I believe hearing stories and telling our stories offer us so much healing and help.
If you have a desire to share your story as a family member who loves someone with the disease of addiction no matter where you are, or they are on the journey, please reach out to me at margaret@nullembracefamilyrecovery.com
Find your recovery community, or start by reaching out to me at https://embracefamilyrecovery.com/work-with-margaret/
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 to The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast. Today Michelle will continue her story, sharing her work in the rooms of Adult Children of Alcoholics. I love some of the strategies and tools Michelle shares with us and also the hope of generational recovery that she demonstrates through her interactions with her children and grandchildren. Let’s get back to Michelle!
The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast!
Michelle: Once I got through, I got quite educated with OA then I discovered Adult Children of Alcoholics. Actually, I had seen it before and touched the waters last century, but you know I was too busy trying to fix my alcoholic so Al-Anon was the place to be then.
But ACAA you just need a desire to recover from the effects of family dysfunction. And the value in understanding your childhood experiences and how they how they shaped my attitude and behaviors and especially naming the abuse and the abandonment. Cause although my father loved, and adored me he did abandon me, he didn’t come back. Well actually he left when I was eight, he turned up when I was 27, the week my husband died, and he got drunk cause he couldn’t cope.
Seven or eight years later when we’re trying to reconnect, I never felt quite safe enough to do it, when we ended up in the same cities. So again, a ACOA has given me the opportunity to recognize the recurring struggles, the negative messages um also to wake up to the fact that life is more than survival, that by living in the present I have the chance to be in the merriment of the moment versus the game of dissociation. Um and also, I like one of their tools ‘gentleness break’ where you smell and I use the essential oils for that or you taste something like have a piece of citrus or just look at the sky and the cloud art or go for a swim in the ocean and be just hugged by the by the saltwater. Um you get to feel you know the love and being valued, and understood, and heard. So, these are things that were missing from my life but also in relationship I was turning up not knowing what these feelings were and they could be scary for me because you had to trust someone to be vulnerable enough.
Margaret: So, correct me if I’m wrong what I’m hearing Adult Children and the work you did there, helped you do was be gentler and kinder to you?
Michelle: Absolutely. Also, there are you know behind the weight, behind the ancestral trauma, the cellular memory is all this grief and although I was widowed very young, I found my grandfather dead and I’ve had a lot of lot of close brushes with death, grief is not just the loss of people, places, and things, but also that longing that longing for that kind of mother like June Lockhart. Um realizing that you know you can feel the grief and move on. You can revisit the grief like you know as I said looking in the rear vision mirror not staring too long, because ahead of you is the joy, the way out of the darkness and into the sunshine of what we call in the program the true self or the true parent. That can only be found in the present, in the moment.
And I really want to, really want to touch on although I am not addicted to external substances. What I discovered in ACOA, the best gem of all was recognizing we all have this internal drug store. So, for example for me um I shared with you I was racing cars at 15.
Margaret: Right.
Michelle: I was an adrenaline junkie. My dad had left seven years ago, my mother would have her rages but there were no big, you know big blow ups like we used to have. So, I found that racing cars. And then you know in relationships the drama llama getting caught in my own relationships with people who were not in recovery, or you know we’re very happy where they were, you know people with addictions sometimes they’re living a life of Riley because we’re taking good care of them and they still can escape into those addictions, until it goes very wrong.
But also if you are addiction is relationships, and other people’s, other people and your living with the insanity of trying to be the master manipulator and controller of those people. And let’s face it some of us like a challenge and I have really had to work hard to recognize that my drug of choice I haven’t escaped a disease maybe you know the cortisol which causes the weight gain. The adrenaline which causes the fatigue. I am actually gotten to stage my life now right do not find it attractive or enticing to be around people who are living in crisis. And professionally I expect decades helping people in crisis. I kind of decided to know a lot has been done and more could be done towards the quality of my life. That’s not a place, there are other, there’s so much more I can do that would be a quality contribution without the cost, personal cost.
Margaret: So, Michelle do you think that’s because you’ve evolved in your own recovery to get to a point where you’ve grown and healed matured if you like in recovery to say that’s just not serving me?
Michelle: I think that’s one way to look at it. Another way is it’s really a gift from my higher power to put the right teachers in front of me as in sponsors, the right programs in front of me, I just needed to show up. With Al-Anon it took a couple tour of duties before I got it. We never graduate so you know there is way more to learn. And every new person and you know long time traveler all have much wisdom to share and often a Higher Power speaking through someone in the rooms or crosses your path. In terms of have I evolved I feel like I’ve still got a long way to go, there’s a lot still to learn but showing up is one of the best steps I can do on a conscious journey.
Um but I have to, I have a debt of gratitude to the addicts and alcoholics in my life because they made me take notice. They made me take notice in my family, in my relationships, in my community, in my society that this is not, you know not speaking this truth, not sharing these stories is it’s to be of service. Yeah.
Margaret: We never mature to the point of we’re never done. it’s an ongoing journey. We relapse on the family side as an addict does on the disease side if we don’t work our program and stay diligent to our recovery. What I’ve experienced is say that triggered me in the past lose the power through my growth and work, but then new triggers show up that I have to keep growing and working through.
Michelle: Sometimes I am a slow learner. Those triggers just they get me back on the track but sometimes it takes a bit of time for me to get over that denial or dissociation. Triggers for me can be the smell of alcohol, a loud voice, um no food in the house, yeah different things. Distrust, trigger my distrust and the hyper vigilance starts for sure. So again, it’s the effects of the family dysfunction cause these childhood experiences they shape our attitudes and beliefs. And these can be reoccurring struggles because as we as we face those struggles and learn a little bit more or maybe we graduate to the next step, um we have the chance to feel into it and learn. And again to keep it you’ve got to give it away.
Margaret: Out of all of the growing stages, the relationships with people with the illness that have passed through your life. Would you say one was more challenging than later or equally so?
Michelle: When, the children. Yeah, my children, my grandchildren I find that really tough, really tough and that is when prayer and meditation soothes my soul. Because I can’t live their stories, I can’t necessarily protect them from everything as much as I will try.
Margaret: Right
Michelle: But yeah the children, when I had children but also, and this is why I’ve done a lot of work, still doing a lot of work with single parents is, from time to time and not all of the time someone would cross my path and they would do something to help me. You know they would do something to help me, and they did they had no idea they had no idea what they had done. So just east just someone saying come have a cup of coffee, come from walk on the beach. Um a sponsor saying write that letter to whoever and come and read it to me you know let’s complete the circle get this off your shoulders.
Margaret: So, in reflecting on the challenge with the children, grandchildren. What do you think makes that so much more challenging? Cause I hear that all the time, that parents especially really struggle even if they lived it as their life, their marriage or their childhood. It was a very different journey for them once it was their children with the illness.
Michelle: Oh, life lessons to be learned. As I said in the 80s, I did the genogram and I immediately saw all this ancestorial trauma, and let’s face it past histories are a predictor of what’s coming down the future. I got my kids to Alateen, I got them into any programs that would support them being drug and alcohol educated. I gave them everything I could do, but this stuffs in the DNA. They have their own lessons to learn. I’m very proud that all my children are in a much better place than I was at their age, and I’m absolutely delighted with my grandchildren. The things that happen I have to remember they are alerting me as the serenity prayer tells me to change things I can. So, I can only lead by example. I can show up, I can be balanced, I can be healthy, I can do listening conversations so the children can just chat away without me interrupting, advising, guiding. Uh I can take them on adventures, I can have fun with them those were not my experiences of childhood but that’s what I can. If challenges and struggles are gonna cross their path then I can be the welcoming arms, the listening ear and if asked with their permission I would share my experience strength, hope.
Margaret: I love that the welcoming arms. You know it’s loving the person while detaching from the illness and being present through your own recovery to be able to greet them and comfort them and love on them.
Michelle: Absolutely I mean my mother, all the people in my life have gifted me these lessons and I have made huge strides that I would never have come to if my life had been just flowy and happy and you know that wouldn’t have happened. And my children and grandchildren as much as I’ll probably need therapy for life I am leaps ahead of where they could have been if I had raised them like my mother raised my brother. You know I took the lessons learned and I grew through it you know, I had to go through it, but I also chose to grow through it. But you know if this was if this was where I was going to be placed and these are the challenges then ok let’s do what needs to be done. Let me do my work, let me demonstrate how I do my work. Let me show up and again as I said share my story even if if it’s uncomfortable, it’s a choice point you?
Margaret: And the other piece that you just said which I think is so accurate to the struggle as a parent or a grandparent. The things that we go through though we wish we may not have had two we have gratitude for if we’ve done the work to heal and grow through them. Then why would we in our selfish need to not feel discomfort, rob them up the same growing experience.
Michelle: Absolutely, and I have to say for my children and my grandchildren they are they are living in very different times with God like technology and challenges like online addictions, gaming addictions, screen addictions. They have their own set of challenges now and I actually write and publish determinately in the digital sands time around those addictions, because I’m watching and wishing that there was something I could do. But their lives are different. They are living very privileged lives better than most 19th century kings and Queens. Uh so their challenges, their choices are going to generate a whole raft of things that I did not endure. But I still need to manage my itty-bitty committee because there are times when I look and I go you’re so privileged, with so much from those who’ve gone through an awful lot to get you here. But and then I pat myself on the back and say well you just thank yourself and get out of the way because they don’t know.
Margaret: Well, I don’t know Michelle for me I mean I have to be humble and admit that losing mum this year, and then um having kids leave the house, it’s been a transformative year of remembering when I spent time with my grandparents. Wishing now in retrospect that I had been more humble and aware of hearing their story and learning from them, rather than just dismissing them out of youthful ignorance and not wanting to do that. You know the wealth of what I could have learned had I been able to, and I think that some of that is just aging, some of that is recovery. But it’s like we all go through a stage God the 20s. I don’t know about you Michelle in my 20s I was so grandiose and so full of myself, and going to change the world, and very little listening.
Michelle: Yeah, that goes with the ages and stages but also like I’m a grandmother of four. So, I show up when I can, and I accept when I can’t. When you know the path is not there for me. So, where I have shown up for example my oldest grandson, I remember once he said to me cause my children and my grandchildren gets so much so I actually choose not to give gifts. I give them the gift of me and the gift of time. I remember when my grandson was like about 7 or 8 it’s like why don’t you give me any presents? And I and if I did give him a present it could be a shoe box with some pavement chalk in it or something you know.
Margaret: Right!
Michelle: And he’s like you never give me presents. And I’m like yes, I do. I said I give you the gift of time and the gift of myself. And he’s like I really like presents, I want you know online game you know and games and things like that and I said for sure if that’s what you really want, I can go and work long hours and you can have the gifts, but you won’t have me. I tell you Maggie he turned around on a dime he said, no, no, no I like our adventures. And this was at seven or eight. So, he already appreciated the quality of the time but and I appreciated him challenging me because of course there are other people saying oh she’s broke, she’s not got money she’s not gonna get you know they were using my strategy you know to judge me. So, I was really grateful he challenged me but also just watching the seven- or eight-year-old going, doing this 360. Oh no, no, no you’re the only one I go on adventures with you’re the one I do music with.
Margaret: How fabulous Michelle that he felt safe enough to challenge you.
Michelle: And that is where I tried to place myself in the zone of safety he can say, do whatever. I tell him I’m not his friend, I hold certain boundaries, but we have conversations, we get real. Well, he’s gone 18 now so we don’t talk, cause he doesn’t need to talk to me and that’s fine. But then I can let him do that without all the judgment and the you know the ratty thoughts running around, I’m just like he’s meant to be doing this. But again, if I hadn’t of shown up, if I hadn’t recognized you know the materialism as a way of buying love it’s not actually loving from my perspective only myself.
Now I’m a child whose grandparents I didn’t get to see they were not able to show up or they were not allowed to show up and so I did not wish that for my grandchildren.
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Margaret: Well and I think there’s such a powerful role grandparents play in children’s lives of you know when there’s so much heartache if there’s addiction in between. With the level of the generation between. So, say I’m the grandparents of their grandchild whose parent is struggling in the disease and you know the heartache of grandparents wanting to make story different for their grandchild and not being able to because at that point their child is still suffering in the disease. I will always speak to the power of , stability, accountability, and safety for that grandchild by those grandparents is life alteringly positive. And do your own recovery so you can be there for your grandchildren.
Michelle: Absolutely and I’m with you 150%. I always viewed myself as the balancer, not the reactor, not the savior, not the manipulator. I am the balancer and like you I’m consistent with my grandchildren. Um for this age and stage for me I encourage them to book my time. Don’t suddenly say I need a babysitter and bounce because then we are in the crisis and drama. Um so you know I’m it’s sort of educating the children my grandchildren by my behaviors but interestingly enough I have a 7-year-old granddaughter and I’ve mentioned screens. and um when she comes to my house there are no screens, we go off screens cause you know once I finish my work I stick my computer under the sink in the kitchen cause I never go there for anything. And then we’re off to the beach or we’re doing stories or we’re having conversations or jigsaw or playing a board game.
Margaret: Yes!
Michelle: People time you know. But you know the first half an hour it’s like, I’m due to have iPad time so where’s the iPad. Then I look at her and she goes Oh yeah right, not now.
Margaret: You’re giving her the consistency.
Michelle: And she has the room to have the arguments but I I’m I go off screen, I go offline, and you know that’s what I need to do for my well-being. But she wants to be with spend time with me that she will try, as she meant too. But it is halfhearted because you know she actually enjoys the time and in fact she called me last night when are we seeing you? When are you picking me up? I’m like it’s Monday night I’ll see you Friday or Saturday. Oh no I need it sooner than that! (laughter)
I’m like uhhuh, I’m thinking yeah and then you’ll get here and realize there’s not a screen to be had cause I put him away under the kitchen sink another place she doesn’t go and look. (laughter)
Margaret: Right, that’s great, that’s great Michelle I am so grateful that you chose to share your story I mean it’s such a rich, rich perspective of the fact that many of us need more than one program and that that may evolve overtime. And that it’s OK you know we learn something. And I also think the way you shared it about Al-Anon that you went the first time with your own agenda and the second time you went with a different sense of surrender. You know it’s kind of like the addict out there they may go to the rooms and say OK I’m going to do this for so and so and I walk in, and I managed to hang on and stay sober and then relapse happens, and then they end up back in there because they want it for them now.
Michelle: Yeah, exactly and I can’t, I don’t know if I’ve done it right, but it has worked for me. So, I like the saying, take what you what you need and leave the rest. And if I need to circle back to OA or I need another program, then I you know there is codependents, there is a whole bunch of them out there. As they say go to six meetings, find the meaning that suits you. If it’s not there keep exploring or circle back. If like I said this if you know if it’s not for now don’t think it’s not ever. And you know, you have help and 12 stepping is 12 stepping the12 steps are pretty much the same.
Margaret: In all the programs, yes and the other piece of it is your itty-bitty committee and my monkey chatter will want us not in those rooms. So, recognizing those first six meetings you’re going to hear things in your head that deter you every step of the way, and resist. And continue for your own well-being even if at first you think it’s never going to be helpful.
Michelle: Absolutely and I remember doing a book with a good friend of mine called the Artists Way and Julia Cameron recommended morning pages, writing for 15 minutes everything in your head. It’s a great way of emptying out all that chatter. You know and there’s so many great tools great people with good ideas successes and failures that you can learn from, and a place for you to serve because that is the magic. If you can give it back what you’ve learned that’s the magic, you can’t keep it if you don’t give it.
Margaret: Amen. And the other thing Michelle that I think you’ve pointed out really well in this in this conversation is the need and value of a sponsor, that is undersold, under discussed, and under shared within the Al-Anon program still unfortunately. I mean it’s definitely better than it was, but I think the power and benefit of sponsorship cannot be under talked about.
Michelle: Absolutely and if you’ve done step one let me call you out. Sponsor someone in the program at step one and, it’s most likely gonna be a newbie and they may be the person who travels through the 12 steps with you, and you learn to be good quality sponsors yourself. If you’re only up to step three well hey, that’s one of my favorites do steps 123 cha, cha, cha. And that will build the fuel to keep going and the experience to keep going. I did not realize you could do that, and I think that basically you can sponsor up to the level have done steps. and in fact, even though I’ve been in Al-Anon for 30 years I’m working on with my sponsor who’s 30 plus years in the program consistently, Blueprint for Progress. So what I did over the pandemic was I bought two books, one for her, one for me and we get together and go over the book. Now we’ve been at it for over a year, so the blessing is we can’t always get together and sometimes you need a bit longer, and it’s only a little book. But you know it’s the consistency of, the practice of doing it and having someone safe to share it with. Just keep your program healthy so don’t think you’re gonna do the 12 steps once. You will, if you’re smart, you’ll just keep doing them with sponsees and keep growing yourself.
Margaret: And I love that you brought up the Blueprint because a little vulnerability of my own, oh gosh I was newly a mom I was floundering in my own monkey chatter and um I bought that. Put it in my bedside table and it sat there. And I think that happens for many of us in the program. And what I love that you just shared which is true of my own experience also, is the difference that it makes when you have a sponsor or even a fellow who’s willing to work through things with you and that accountability. And that sharing it with each other, is invaluable to keep us working our program.
Michelle: Well, the reason I love to share the Blueprint for Progress is because you can never guess what the outcome is going to be. It has that twist the way that it’s designed, has a twist that I promise you, you will be surprised, and you will grow, and it will not be the way it was expected. Well, that’s been my experience. But again I would encourage people if you happen to be able to be somewhere where you can pick up something like the Blueprint for Progress whatever program you’re in. Pickup two, gift one
Margaret: Do it together!
Michelle: on the understanding that you will meet until its done even if it’s gonna take a couple of years.
Margaret: Love that, Michelle. Love that. You know one of my favorite meetings is a study meeting. I don’t you dislike any meetings but one of my favorites is to go to a meeting where we actually work our way through the literature. I feel that’s invaluable to move keep that growth that I need.
Michelle: Yeah ’cause I don’t know about you but I never re-read anything and the Big Book or the Big Red Book in ACOA or any of my daily meditations. You’d think I hadn’t been reading them for decades I always see something new.
Margaret: I love that! Very well said Michelle I agree. you know I’ve not been a person who’s done that either in any other area of my life and yet I can pick up any one of those books and find something new that I’ve missed or forgotten or needed to hear in that moment and I love that.
Michelle: And I’d like to share just one other strategy or two strategies actually. One is on whatever platform you use but sometimes I seem to message typically for me it’s a text that you could send a Facebook message or whatever. If you read something and you know other people are in the program in take the quote and send it to everyone ’cause not everyone has the opportunity or the space to be able to read literature or they may not have literature. So, what I often do and I’ve done it with the text and I text I send it round the world on what’s app or text. And say I read something like, there’s something I read in the ACOA yesterday was write your own prayer, so I had written it a couple years ago. So, I shared the prayer with some people that are fellow travelers for me. The second thing that I’ve always used across the decades in the program, mostly since the pandemic I’ve found this incredibly helpful even for non-program people. And that’s to do an A to Z and again I use text, but you could use messenger or whatever. And I do an A-to-Z gratitude text. So, we start off at A and however many days or weeks it takes through to Z where we each put in what we’re grateful for that starts with that letter.
Margaret: That’s beautiful!
Michelle: I have found that has lifted people out of anxiety or just focus them for a very brief time. So often when someone has reached out and they’re sad or upset or anxious I’m like do you wanna do an A-to-Z text. We’ll just do it daily until it’s finished, or you can just bail when you don’t want to do it anymore, but I’ll keep going. so, in other words I keep sending them even if they don’t, they don’t do it and then the feedback I’ve had is there has just been a sanity saver. So, what I say when I’ve done it with people once or twice, I’m like next time you see someone struggling offered to do an A-to-Z text and you go right through to Z. like you commit for them and it just you know gratitude is just magical.
Margaret: It is! Oh, Michelle those are great strategies. I love that I love that we’re leaving this conversation giving them some takeaways that they can. I think that’s fabulous so thank you!
Michelle: I appreciate the work that you’re doing Maggie, and more wind beneath your sails my friend.
Margaret: And you also thank you so much and thank you for your time!
Outro: Oh, Michelle, I thank you for your sharing. and your words and pearls of wisdom along with some of the tangible activities and strategies we can use on our growing recovery.
One of the things I love about doing this podcast is getting a chance to meet people and hear their story. I believe stories and telling our stories give us so much in the way of healing and help so many when they hear it and can identify with it.
If you have a desire to share your story as a family member who loves someone with the disease of addiction no matter where you are or they are on the journey, please reach out to me at margaret@nullembracefamilyrecovery.com
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!
