About Alcoholism
As a recovering alcoholic, I must be
careful with the tradition of anonymity.
When someone recommends a twelve-step-
program, he takes the risk of stumbling
another alcoholic should they fall. That
being said, I will quote from Page 320:
"I make no promises. I don't believe in magic. This program will only work for me if I work it, which I plan to do to the best of my ability - One Day At A Time.
However, if through my book I could
reach even one person and steer her in the
right direction, I would be offering her a gift
for life that is able to transform us from sad,
fear-driven, hopeless people into women of
strength and dignity. If you are interested,
please CLICK HERE
And please share some of my personal
experience, strength and hope in the following excerpt from a the chapter on my adiction:
"Today is the First Day of the Rest of Your…blah, blah, blah"
“God, grant me the serenity…” to not run screaming from this smoky room. Today was my first time at a twelve-step meeting. I sat rigidly, as far away from everyone else as the outer walls of the building would allow, waiting for I knew not what. If anyone had observed the struggle I had with myself in the parking lot, they would have thought I was deciding whether or not to check into a concentration camp. My hands shook, and I kept walking to and from my car, muttering and scowling at the other people in the parking lot as if I held them personally responsible for my discomfort. By the time I finally gritted my teeth, uttered several expletives, and hurled myself through the front door, I felt embarrassed, anxious, and angry with myself for even thinking that I belonged here.
Because, of course, I didn’t. Coming here was merely a knee-jerk reaction—a kind of self-inflicted penance—to atone for the alcohol fueled rage I visited on my sister the previous night. When I drink too much, the line that separates the rest of the world from my pent-up fury dims considerably. It doesn’t really matter what lights my fuse or whom I feel has wounded me. What matters is that I drink ten glasses of wine while I obsess about it. Then I blow.
Now, I never actually saw myself as a problem drinker. Who does? I customarily had a couple of glasses of wine after work to relax, and a couple more with dinner, and maybe one or two while I did the dishes. It seemed a moderate amount to me simply because it did not cause me to be drunk (although a breathalyzer test might beg to differ). All it did was make me mellow, relaxed, and easier to be around. However, on the rare occasions when I exceeded that amount, someone dreadful often got loose. And when I added a dose of adrenaline to the mix (because I was too sad, too mad, or too scared), I had a recipe for disaster. However, I felt certain that sitting there, suffering in that strange netherworld would miraculously cure me. At the very least, it would cure me of the idea that I belonged there. At the same time, it would be a fitting punishment for my bad behavior the previous night.
The meeting was called to order, and I began to look around. The room was dark and dingy. Almost everyone was chain smoking. There were about eighty-five visible tattoos. Most, but not all, of the people in the room were in dire need of fashion advice and dental care. Some looked like they had spent the night under a bridge. Some had court orders forcing them to attend. I drank white wine out of crystal goblets. What was I doing here? Today, these memories are still accompanied by the fresh smell of vomit—which was the inevitable outcome for me. I made it a habit to throw up outside because I didn’t want anyone to hear me in the bathroom. I can still sense the clean, cool feeling of the snow when I passed out in it. The passing out part was never planned, especially in winter. After an undetermined period of time, I would regain consciousness and find myself on the cold, wet ground—a dead snow angel beneath me—and wonder how long I had been missing from the party. My biggest fear was not frostbite or alcohol poisoning, but that someone would know I threw up and therefore didn’t have the tolerance for alcohol they thought I did. I would stagger around, fall down a couple more times, and then sneak silently into the bathroom to adjust my makeup. I was sixteen.
At the end of the hour, one of them read a list of promises that a person could supposedly look forward to in sobriety. They sounded way too good to be true. I mean, even with the help of alcohol, I had never been as happy and peaceful as that list promised. Without it, I was sure that it was utterly impossible. Without drinking, life would seem colorless and flat. For me, drinking wasn’t the problem—it was the solution.
I became attracted to toxic spirits at about the same time I became attracted to toxic men—early in high school. The booze helped me pretend I liked the men. It was a package deal. I would drink to get up the nerve to go to a drinking party. I would drink when I got there to look cool so I could get a cool boyfriend. Then I would drink so I could tolerate him.
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About Cancer
* A percentage of all profits earned by my book will be donated to The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation *
As I said on the Home Page, not a few of my chapters deal (humorously when possible) with dark subjects like cancer. I have included some excerpts from these chapters as my way of bringing this frightening and life-changing topic into open view and showing with my own small example how it may be squarely faced. On page 335 of my book, I reflect that:
"Cancer demanded of me a courage I had never known before. In the wee hours of the morning, when sleep is invaded by dangers real or imagined (the possible lump, the persistent cough, the colonoscopy results), I was forced to pull myself back from that cold, dark, lonely place, and be willing to admit that I can’t control the future (because we all secretly think we can). I learned that when we try too hard to craft what lays ahead for us, we lose our now. I never used to have a now. I lived with unrelenting regrets of the past, and morbid fears of the future. I no longer intend to allow myself that dark indulgence. I plan to become more miserly about my time, and to waste none of it on exhausting emotions like envy, resentment, and self-pity. In the years I have left, I will have a now. I will also be content to stay sober and smell good. If anyone expects more than that, tough luck. I smile."
That being said, I am a strong advocate of women's cancer support groups. To come to know and love women who have or are walking in your shoes is a mighty weapon in conquering the fear and discouragement and anger that accompanies cancer of any kind. I was a member of THE CLEARWATER HOOTS (get it? Not 'hooters' because most of us only had one boob left) and they saved my sanity. Cancer supports groups are wonderful and I strongly suggest that women who receive this dire diagnosis try to attend a few sessions BEFORE hey are called upon to make life-altering, body-damaging, life and death decisions.
For more information on support groups, CLICK HERE
Below is an excerpt from one of my most popular chapters about cancer.
One Lump or Two
Here I was at forty-eight, the product of the quintessential fun house family; an experiment in abnormal psychology my mother cooked up in the basement; on my third husband and consumed by emotional and spiritual shipwreck. Every day I wondered what would go wrong next. Don’t ever ask that question out loud.
For most of my life, I had secretly planned on getting cancer. I viewed that as being the worst thing that could ever happen to me, so naturally it would. That being said, I can’t understand why I was so shocked when I actually got it.
The day finally comes for your biopsy. The doctor had warned me ahead of time that there would be nothing pleasant about it. He had written me a script for a five-milligram Valium pill to be given to me when I was admitted for the biopsies. He said that by the time I had filled out all the paperwork and he was ready for me, I would be nice and calm. Of course, he had just met me and had no way of knowing that this could not possibly happen.
As soon as Don and I entered the hospital, I showed the woman at the desk my paper saying “Patient to receive five mg. Valium upon arrival.” I asked her if I could have it. She looked at me for a minute, and said she was just an information clerk. Admitting was down the hall, she said, and perhaps they could help me. I went down the hall in the direction she pointed and, sure enough, there was the sign that said “Admitting.” I was greeted by someone who said my name was on the intake list. I said, “Good, could I have my pill?” She politely ignored my request, and after getting all the intake information and doing our Visa card some serious damage, she said, “Please have a seat in the waiting room.” No Valium.
Soon, a medically attired young woman did, indeed, call me and I immediately asked her for my pill. She said she was just a candy striper and wasn’t allowed to handle drugs. I mumbled a cuss word. We finally got to the intake nurse, who said before I had a chance to ask, “I heard. You want your Valium.”
I should interject here that I had already taken two muscle relaxants before I left home, since calming me down in the face of this procedure with five milligrams of Valium was just a bad joke. But they didn’t know that, and eventually I was awarded the second Valium. Pretty soon I was feeling really good.
Not for long, though. I got real alert real quick when they took me into the Mammatome procedure room. It was a scary, white, cold, quiet room populated by a scary, white, cold, quiet staff. It reminded me of what the torture chamber on a spaceship might look like. They put me in a gown the size of a handy wipe that opened in the front, and then told me to get up on the scary, white, cold table on my stomach and dangle my right breast through a hole. Once I was properly situated and several people had yanked on it to make sure that it was as far though the hole as it could get, they raised the table and all of them disappeared underneath. The whole procedure was performed under the table, just like at the Jiffy Lube.
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