Recovery + Laughter + Spirituality + Relationships + Plant Medicine + Chronic Illness and Pain
Author: Jana Greene
I'm Jana and I write about the things that give me joy, help me cope, set me straight, and light my path. Recovery, relationships, spirituality, plant medicine, and assorted struggles and passions.
I don’t know what to do with the grief I’ve felt since November, so I’m sharing my heart the only way I know how – by writing about it. This is just a stream-of-consciousness share – it has no cadence or resolution. Just words. My heart is breaking for my country, which so many fought to keep free, but now accepts fascism as an acceptable American value. Jesus weeps, I’m sure. And so do I.
By: JANA GREENE
Forgive them, Father. The know not what they do.
Except that some of them know damn well.
And therein lies the crux of the matter.
Some of them know damn well.
And what do you do with that?
Some of them knew that this would happen –
the loss of basic human rights.
They just didn’t think it would happen
to them.
It’s a ball of confusion, this world,
as Marvin Gaye crooned.
Evolution, revolution, gun control, sound of soul,
shooting rockets to the moon, kids growing up too soon,
and politicians say more taxes will solve everything,
Good morning, dear readers. I was perusing my “memories” on Facebook, and came across this video I’d made in 2020. Ain’t it just like the Universe to remind me of my own words, in this season of pain and loss? So I thought I’d share it with you – it is a blog post I’d written from the heart. I am hoping it gives you a little comfort today too. Blessed be.
In my town, there is a little hippie-dippy church – open to all peoples, no matter their belief system – that hosts “healing nights” once a month. I like to go with my grown daughters when I can, and our eldest daughter accompanied me to the healing night last Wednesday.
Each “service” is different, but all of them would have been too spooky for my former evangelical self. There’s still a little fun-killing gremlin inside me that says, this is hokum! But the funny thing is that that little gremlin gets hushed like a kid in church when the yoga mat comes out, and I actually remember to breathe.
So we roll out our mats, and brought out the blankies we brought, in case it was cold in there. We pulled out our journals, as the teacher welcomed us all. What will it be tonight? We’ve done Spirit Animals, Reiki, even past life regressions.
These are all things that Evangelical Fundamentalist Me would have at the very least bristled at, and at worse, would have marched up to the altar in a fundie church until someone laid hands on me and “delivered me.” If you don’t know, deliverance ministry is… well, that’s a blog post for another time. I digress.
This session was Yoga Nidra, which – as the instructor described it – is the art of doing nothing. After some calming words, incense, and breathwork, we began. This guided meditation was about colors, he said. “I’m going to take you through the color wheel.”
We started with white. “Quiet your mind, and imagine the purest, cleanest white light you can.” So, after much intrusive, non-relaxing thoughts (where did I put my glasses? what about the state of our country? Are we out of laundry detergent?) I sank into the exercise.
The purest, brightest of white light was conjured by my desperate mind. I thought of Jesus emerging from the center of it, resplendent in white robes, arms outstretched. I thought of my wedding gown (which technically, is off-white,) and for some reason, meringue cookies. I was hungry, I guess.
Next was yellow. I visualized running barefoot through a field of daffodils. And then I focused on a big, ripe lemon. And the craziest thing was that I could almost taste the tartness. Then something unexpected. Something I have not thought about in at least forty years – a flower girl dress when I was little; festooned with little yellow sunflowers and gingham, a green ribbon tied in the back. Just like Holly Hobbie.
When we moved on to orange, I though of…an orange, because how original is that? I sunk back down in my mind and stopped trying to think.
Then I stopped trying to “conjure” visions. I guess I let my mind wander off-leash. You know how in a dog park, when a dog is released to run free within the confines of a fence? And when the leash comes off, they run batshit crazy all willy-nilly, not a care in the world? Yeah, like that. And a flood of imagines bombarded me.
Orange. Orange is the warmth of the sun at the beach, cheetohs, a threat level. I let it fill my mind – all the shades of orange. My breathing was steady. Hey, maybe there is something to this!
And red? The velvet pew cushions at the Baptist church my grandparents attended. Red is the blood in my body, tainted by leukemia. A rich red wave filled my mind, and I tried to think of something less traumatic. A nice cup of Red Zinger tea. I could smell the tang of it, feel the steam coming from it. It’s weird where your mind wanders, when you’re relaxed.
Purple? The sunrise over the ocean, if conditions are just right. Twice I have seen sunrises that are made of pinks, and yellows, and purples. If you are very valiant in war, you may receive a Purple Heart. I get purple bruises all the time. But I also imagined Tudor period dress in purple, laced in gold, as purple was for royalty, as indigo was at a premium. (Nerd thoughts of the history of indigo scribbled all over my nice little meditation.) Get back on track, Jana.
Blue. The sea, where I imagined floating in warm, salty water – turquoise waves moving me gently through ripples. The blue Froot Loops I used to pick out of the cereal to eat first, convinced they tasted best. And then I visualized sitting cross-legged in a field of bluebonnets in my beloved home state of Texas. “Yeah, but the last time you did that, you sat on an anthill in that field,” my brain whispered. Shush, I told it, going back to the field. No ants allowed in my vision, thank you very much.
I hung out there for quite a while. Felt like home.
My daughter and I melted into the floor, splayed out in relaxation. This isn’t hokum, I thought. This is as close to God as I have ever felt in a church. He is found in our imaginings and dreams. I think the hippies are onto something, ya’ll.
I’m sharing this because the experience blessed me, calmed me, comforted me. And God – always in our visions – can choose any number of ways to hang out with you, inhabit you. If I – with my wild anxiety and unfortunate neurosis – can let my mind wander off-leash, then maybe you can too? Maybe we are made for meditation, which I was warned about all my Christian life, but turns out to be a holy experience.
The church may be the “house of God,” but it’s not his only residence. He inhabits our thoughts, hears our prayers, and dare I say – invites us to explore our minds. Are our bodies not the temple of God? Our minds share in the divinity, but we go about or lives paying taxes, working, entertaining ourselves with empty pursuits just to pass the time here. But that’s not all we are here to do. If the body is a temple, the mind is the playroom.
With the introduction of each color that we were instructed to focus on, my senses participated in the practice as well. But those five senses we know in the flesh pale in comparison to the thing that’s truest about us.
The truest thing is that we holy already. We are holy. And we have been given these beautiful minds. Not to make an enemy of it (“lean not on your own understanding”) but to meet God in the Temple. The Holy Spirit lives in you, and not to condemn you, but to guide you through scary thoughts, and say, “You are already enough. Meet me at the playground, which is your mind! It’s colorful there.”
When my daughter and I got up to leave, incense hanging in the air, everyone seemed sleepy and contented, like a baby after the milk she has been screaming for. Most all of us were also smiling. Like having just had the best massage of our lives, our legs were noodley for a bit, hair just a little bit mussed, and a cacophony of yawns.
Because we allowed their minds to wander off-leash and go batshit crazy with the freedom that comes from exploring the beautiful mind God gave you. It’s okay to be all willy-nilly. It’s a colorful world, hons. Don’t let fundamentalism convince you that there is just black and white.
The birds are singing outside my window. The audacity of them, having joy, when the whole world seems to be on fire.
When I was a little girl, living with my grandparents, the windows were never open. I loved them very much, but it was a depressing place. The drapes were always drawn. My grandparents watched the 6 o’clock news when my grandfather would come home from work and then watch an entire lineup of shows until it was bedtime. My grandmother would watch her “stories” all day – the holy trinity of 70’s melodrama – The Young and the Restless, General Hospital, and Days of Our Lives.
In the evenings was The Rockford Files. Little House on the Prairie. Quincey. And to wrap it up, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. But it was always dark in the house, save for the glow of the television. There was a myriad of dysfunctional happenstance in that home, but one thing that stands out – the darkness. The isolation. What I now know to be severe depression and agoraphobia, but at the time seemed a willful boycott of fresh air and light.
The only time I knew my grandmother – whom I called “Gaga” – to voluntarily leave the house was for one of three things: Church, twice a week. The grocery store. And Foley’s department store salon, so she could get her bouffant hair-do done. She took me with her for those appointments, proud that I was her granddaughter. “Look at that auburn hair!” she would tell her hairdresser. And I would beam, because there was something unique about me that she was proud of.
The odd thing is that she collected bird figurines. She loved birds but could not tell you why. But later – much later – she and my grandfather changed. They didn’t just wake up one day and felt the sun on their faces by chance. They changed deliberately.
Seemingly blue, they became mall walkers. They got out every day to walk the Sharpstown Mall, wearing coordinating outfits (they went through a cowboy phase – it was Texas after all, which mortified me then, but seems adorable now,) holding hands the whole time. They started visiting interesting places, some of them outdoors. They took to eating healthy. And my grandmother’s favorite thing about being outdoors? Birdsong.
When I had my first daughter, they came to visit me. Gaga accompanied me on a diaper run. Just a casual jaunt to the store, so we could spend all the time together we could before her return to Texas. She gave me one of her ceramic birds on that visit. I’m so glad she did.
Out of the blue, she said, “You know, for most of my life, I didn’t hear the birds sing. I was too depressed to even hear it. Now I sing alongside them!”
And then she proceeded to sing a hymn, as if birds sang hymns. I guess to her, they did.
I miss my grandparents. And I also miss hearing the birds. Because recently – even when I hear them – the birdsong is muted with anxiety and worry. Yeah, yeah, yeah…it’s Spring. The birds are tweeting away. But did you know everything is messed up right now beyond repair? I have leukemia, and our country is being hijacked, and our environment is poison, and my pain level from EDS is BONKERS, and….
And, and, and.
We cling to our anxiety; at least I do. Without realizing it, I snuggle up to the Worst-Case Scenario, who – like a toxic ex – is unhelpful and mentally abusive. I know better, but I can’t help entertaining ideas of doom, doom, DOOOOOOM.
Funny, how we think sitting in the proverbial dark will hasten the light.
I’ve been doing a little isolating myself. And although the drapes are not drawn, they may as well be. The world seems so dark, so broken beyond repair. I leave the house to go to the grocery store, medical appointments, and the occasional dinner date with my husband.
But today, I sipped my coffee and deliberately listened to the birds sing, thinking of my dear grandmother and her curious collection in her China cabinet.
The bird she gave me is one of the only physical things I have to remember her by. It is chipped and the paint is faded, but it is perched on a stand that plays “Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head” when you wind it up. And that’s the song she used to sing to me when I was very little. It was released by B.J. Thomas the year I was born.
“Raindrops keep fallin’ on my head. But that doesn’t mean My eyes will soon be turnin’ red, Cryin’s not for me ’cause I’m never gonna stop the rain by complainin’, Because I’m free, nothin’s worryin’ me.”
May we not lose our humanity because the world is on fire. May we deliberately seek out sunshine and mall walks and the outdoors. Out of the house, yes. But also out of the gloomy inner”indoors” cling to.
May we hear the hymns of birdsong and not count it as noise, but as a harbinger for HOPE.
It is Spring, after all, which “springs eternal,” even when we are hiding in the dark.
That is what I believed about myself, as an unplanned child. I carried the message that I was an “oopsie” for as long as I can remember. Nobody in my family outright said it, but I carried the shame as if it were by my own doing.
Once upon a time, I was s a very religious teenager, I carried my Bible to high school each day, hoping it would let everyone else know who I was – a Christian. I would not realize until much later, that Bible was a talisman to keep me safe from my peers, because I was scared of the world.
Once I was a young mother, absolutely certain that this – THIS! – was my true identity. All other things I had identified as melted away. This is it. I was a mother. I threw myself into raising my daughters with my whole heart. So, this is who I am, I thought. But I was a mother with a secret.
In a land far, far away, I had somehow also become an alcoholic. I could go through a box of wine (classy, eh?) in two days. Chardonnay was my savior, I could not function without either the promise of, or imbibing in, alcohol. I was not the mother I wanted to be for my kids, so when they were 5 and 8, I decided to get sober.
Then I came to identify as an alcoholic, albeit one in recovery. In each of the hundreds of AA meetings I attended, I would introduce myself to the group with, “Hi, my name is Jana and I’m an alcoholic.” So that was my identity too, in the early years of my recovery.
The next twenty years were a blur of trying on identities, macro and micro. I strove to be a career woman, which was a terrible fit for a person who would rather daydream and create art than push for corporate success.
I buried myself in church activates, becoming a prayer leader, a recovery coach, and a door greeter.
I was playing Identity Whack-a-Mole. Just keep moving and hitting on various things, until I hear DING DING DING! We have a winner! I’m a __________ after all!
Now, once upon a time – in a place not at all far away – I have become angry. Not angry as in a passing mood. Angry as in a whole-ass personality. I am mad all the time, since November 4th.
Every day, I worry and fret about what all of this means for the futures of my three daughters and granddaughter. Every day, I have flashbacks of being obsessed with the Book of Revelation, which I furiously studied way back in high school. Doom. Doom. DOOOOM. Anger is my least favorite emotion and the one I am poorest at.
Hi. My name is Jana, and I’m an angry woman, trying desperately to not become bitter.
And I hate that journey for me. I truly don’t want to be mad. The anger comes from a place of fear for the country I love. But even so, it is transformative in the worst of ways.
I will not get stuck here. I will one day move past anger, and I’m giving myself grace until then.
I now understand that we are all an amalgam of every experience we live. Every “identity” that makes us feel temporarily “special”, just a lily pad jump away from the next thing that will also reveal who we are. Not for us to cling to, but to learn from.
It made me feel special to be a teenaged evangelist, a mom, and even an alcoholic. Looking for ways to prove to myself that I alone – on my own merit – have worth.
And I guess I’m writing this to remind you that if you feel like a mistake; if your hardest struggles cause you to slap a label on yourself, you don’t have to cleave to it.
We are wondrously complex visitors in a place that is equal parts amazing and terrifying. A place that – as you enter and leave – erroneously insists you be labeled for safe consumption.
A society obsessed with asking “how do you identify?” lest your mark on the world be for naught, and your search for identity be rudderless.
Dear Reader, I’m glad we are on the planet at the same time, so that we can remind each other that we are not a fleeting identity, but a PERSON. A messy, floundering one, perhaps. But all the same…
Hi. My name is Jana, and I am not a mistake. I am a life-long learner, a grateful mother. I am indeed an alcoholic. I am a writer who doesn’t get paid a lick for her craft but does it anyway so the feels have somewhere to go. I’m a wife, a partner to the dearest of all to me – my husband.
I will hold doors open for people, even though I’m not a greeter at church. I will be a shoulder for the addict and alcoholic. And I will – heaven help me – learn how to manage anger in healthier ways, so I do not identify as such.
Two people step on an elevator, exchanging pleasantries, 2025-style:
“Hello,” says Mr. Smith.
“Hello,” says Mr. Jones.
“I noticed how at the meeting this morning,” says Smith. “You crushed it! I’d have never even known your whole world was falling apart!”
“Thanks!” said Mr. Jones. ” I just read the book, ‘How to Mask When You’re Freaking Out on the Inside,” and it was life changing. “
“Ooooo,” marvels Smith. “I recently started reading ‘Stuffing My Feelings When the World is Ending – Smooshing Down the Doom.”
“Cool,” remarks Jones. “Have you taken the required Continuing Education class on “Losing Friends for Political Reasons?”
“Yikes, I have not. That sounds intense. I don’t think I could mask through losing friends.”
“You’d be suprised.”
“Have you listened to the Podcast, “What the Actual F*ck is Even Happening to Us?”
“No. Any good? Do the hosts deduce what the actual f*ck is happening to us?”
“Not really. They just recommend moving off-grid, shunning society, and becoming one with the wildlife.”
“What about bears?”
“Psshhh, those bears ain’t worried ’bout no politics.”
“No, I mean, bears are scary.”
“Not nearly as scary as American reality.”
“But what of the checks and balances that are supposed to protect us all from fascism?”
“Oh, the government program that enables checks and balances has been dismantled, like so many other prgrams.”
“By WHO?”
“The fascists in leadership, of course.”
“What now? None of this makes any sense!”
“It makes perfect sense if you read, ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes.”
“The book for kids by Hans Christian Anderson, wherein the emperor, along with his court, pretends to see the nonexistent clothes, tricking an entire kingdom into going along with the foolishness, leading to a comical climax when a child shouts that the emperor is naked?”
“The very one.”
“Good Day,” said Mr. Smith, pulling his mask back on as he steps off the elevator.
“Good Day,” said Mr. Jones, doing the same.
And from the elevator, a hollow, tinny rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” echoed, but neither of them recognized the tune.
Then, like so many Americans, they went their very separate ways, smooshing the doom down with another day of pleasantries.
We are always trying to pull contentment out of the ethers, somewhere – anywhere – but within. But when all the parts of Me Within feel confused, alone, and despaired, the last thing that seems natural to me is to go inward.
FOOL, THAT”S WHATG I’M TRYING TO ESCAPE FROM.
But I’m thinking I get lost sometimes on my way to my heart’s Eden. Took a wrong turn in Albuquerque, as Bugs Bunny would say. I have ended up in a wretched place, yelling “YOU CALL THIS EDEN?? Psssh.
INWARD is where I learned to be scared. That neighborhood is where I got lost in the first place.
INWARD is where I take to my bed, like an eighteenth-century woman who simply CANNOT with this world anymore.
INWARD has historically been a chasm rather than a resort.
It is a place I was warned against by the church proper. God is on high. He is above us, they say, after also reminding you that God also lives in our hearts.
But they say your heart is also full of deceit, so remember that. Remember that within you is The Creator. But also, indomitable darkness.
What, now?
Finding my way to the God inside me is quite the expedition. I still get turned around sometimes.
But through prayer and meditation, I am finding…
Surely, if God lives within our being, perhaps we all harbor an inner Garden of Eden. A garden where a holy Kudzu takes over, covering the darkness.
A place with so much air to breathe, you don’t feel choked by cruel realities.
A place where it’s safe to rest that was formerly a void.
A place where the grating anxiety has been buried in lush soil, and in its place, becomes a tall willow tree.
A place where the rocks themselves cry out in glorious praise, and music fills the atmosphere.
Where pain can be shushed, if not taken away entirely
Where I don’t have to hide or run.
Or conform to a certain expectation.
I’m learning – very slowly and deliberately – that INWARD is a safe place after all.
INWARD is where all the iterations of me gather in a circle to summon the Grace of God.
INWARD is where I am learning to be calm and quiet, and to search for the trinkets of Eden – calm, peace, balance, hope, and LOVE.
My inner Eden is lush with life, springing forth with new green shoots and popping with vibrant flowers.
It has a bounteous garden, a soft place to sit, and a babbling brook that assures me with each ripple you are safe here.
And in the Garden, which is myself, I find God.
Not so much as an entity of blinding light and booming voice, but as a wise little hobbit, living in a hollowed-out tree, who knows all the answers but whose presence makes me forget I had questions.
He sits with me in the ethers, fully content.
And he will dwell with me INWARD forever and ever, in this glorious place we co-created: my contribution being trust and surrender.
God, being big enough to create all that is glorious in existence; but small enough to come as a hobbit, who has time to sit under a Willow tree with me to consider the miracle of the Most High inhabiting my little human soul.
Can you tell yourself three things today, while standing in front of a mirror and probably feeling silly about it? Can you commit to affirming yourself every day with your own voice, and praising all the iterations of who you are, have been, and will be?
Just three things each day. Easy peasy.
Tell yourself one thing you love about who you were in the past. Childhood to menopause, doesn’t matter – just one good and true thing about the past version of you.
Tell yourself one thing you love about yourself right NOW. Remind yourself that the current iteration of YOU deserves to be reminded she is strong and capable. (It’s kind of a f*cked up time to be alive, but you are killing it, sister!)
Tell yourself one thing you will love about yourself in the future. What attributes do you strive for? Who is the person you want to be in a more evolved state? Be positive and believe it’s true!
I’ll go first:
I love that when I was a child, I was scrappy, and able to carry burdens to heavy for me. I am proud to have overcome the trauma. Wow – that little girl was STRONG!
I love that right now, I am the most spiritually free I’ve been in my life. God reveals himself in nature and in music, in friendships, and in the least of these. It is for freedom we have been set free, and it took me all these years to understand what that meant. Freedom is everything.
I love that in the future, I will be able to use my gifts to help others. I will practice a peace that passes understanding, and my countenance will be calm. I will forgive myself more readily, judge myself and others less harshly, and stand up for myself when I need to.
I challenge you to drag your ass to a mirror every day, look into your own eyes, and come up with three things each day.
(And don’t worry about running out of nice things to say – you’re very lovable and brave and strong. Always have been. Always will be!)
Peace be with you, Readers.
PS: Feel free to share your three things in the comments! We are all in this together.
I hope Trump realizes that this gentle correction he receives in word and deed from followers of Christ who cannot in good conscious support him is not a one-time deal. We believers who see through him? We will continue to speak our minds. So get comfortable with righteous anger, Mr. President. You do not serve the God we believe in, nor do we believe in the god you serve (yourself.) The marginalized you crush under your power? They will rise up, with a legion of supporters, who love in the name of the God you pretend to know. While you get off to hearing your name chanted by “Christians,” there is a whole army of believers who do not, in fact, want to hear your name chanted. You may be the emporer whose nakedness escapes the evangelical masses, but you don’t fool us. You don’t represent followers of Christ, but your own graven image. And I promise you, Sir, LOVE wins. It always wins in the end.
One of my first memories as a child is trying to squeeze into my toy box. I couldn’t have been quite two years old. My parents were teenagers and were fighting in the living room. I know they did the best they could, as they were kids themselves, and I always sensed that I was kind of a mistake everyone in the family was just trying to make the best of.
I cut my teeth on fear and took my first steps on eggshells. None of the adults in my sphere was stable. None modeled emotional regulation. Nobody provided safety.
The world was a crueler place still by the time I was five. The father of the kid I played with next door molested me. It happened again by a female babysitter when I was six, and by three other men before I was 12. But when I was nine, a family member in an authority role molested me, and after that incident, I was a different kid. A different person. Although everyone in the family knew about the violation, it just wasn’t talked about. I was told when it happened, “he was just on drugs, he didn’t “mean” to.” He didn’t mean to? Even as a nine-year-old, I remember wondering, what are ‘drugs,’ and why does that make it ok?
In the violation, the chaos, and the violence, I shrunk from the abuse. I would tell people that I was the happiest little girl in the world, because it made my mother happy when I’d say it. I would have told everyone we were the got-damn Cleavers, if it made her happy. Eventually, there would be siblings, significantly younger than me, and they never suffered any form of abuse, I am happy to say. I was quite literally, the redheaded stepchild.
Throughout high school, I managed to make good grades. I carried a Bible to school with me each day. I was the quintessential ‘good girl,’ on the outside, but that darkness that permeated my environment. The only environment I’d ever known.
After high school, I was waiting tables and started tailgating late after each shift, and at 19 I took my first drink. I was just physically, emotionally, spiritually toast by that point. To hell with the ‘good girl,’ I thought.
I just wanted to stop feeling.
From the very first sip, I felt another compilation of emotions. I believe I had eight Bartles and Jaymes wine coolers that night. I remember thinking “If this is what it feels like to be drunk, why isn’t everyone drinking all the time?”
Alcohol was like ‘other than’ potion. Magic!
If things were bad at home, I could feel other than afraid. If I was feeling compulsive and self-destructive.
I could feel other than anxious.
I could feel like other than a mistake.
I could turn down the noise.
It helped blot out the bad memories, and after that, I drank every day, and to excess. I regularly drove impaired. I am not sure how I never hurt myself or anyone else. I was in destruction mode. And as an “old soul,” I knew I didn’t want to live that way anymore.
At 20, I first darkened the door of an AA meeting, and it was like I’d arrived on the planet I was meant to have been born on. Other people understood the powerlessness against alcohol! That group loved me when I could not love myself. I attended every day, got a sponsor, and stayed sober three glorious months.
Then I went on a date with a man and he ordered me wine with dinner. I bravely told him that I didn’t drink, and he assured me that there was no way I was an alcoholic and that he was SURE I could moderate. Ah, a challenge! I do love a challenge. And I really wanted to impress him.
So I allowed a man I’d known for a week take my inventory. Consequently, I drank so much that night that I threw up in his car, passed out, and woke up somewhere unfamiliar. That began another downward spiral.
I soon found myself pregnant and was devastated. I’d always wanted to be a mom, but not like this. This staunchly pro-life girl felt pressure to have an abortion, and I was scared. I had nowhere to go. But by the time I got to the doctor’s office, the baby had no heartbeat, and after the D & C, I felt like a shell.
I drank constantly after that. I hated myself with a fervor. I lost touch with God again.
Within a year, I got married. I was 21 and thought I knew what I was doing.
In two years’, time – in which I drank every day and usually to excess (and often alone) – I started to desperately want a baby.
So, the most amazing thing happened – I stopped smoking and drinking cold turkey and it was not that difficult because all of my energies went into creating and nurturing a new life, and not my own. I didn’t think my own life was worth nurturing, but that epiphany wouldn’t surface until much later.
When my daughter was born, I fell so in love with her that drinking was the last thing on my mind. The motherhood high had cured me! Three years later, I had another daughter – every bit as beautiful and amazing as the first, and the motherhood high doubled that day.
For around six years, I didn’t have a single drink, as I was pregnant or nursing. But around 1997, I decided that when my kids were tucked into bed at night, I would simply have a glass of wine. I had matured now, right?
Instantly, I fell right back into six or seven per evening, picking up right where I’d left off. Wine is the socially acceptable beverage of moms everywhere, I rationalized. (What IS it with moms and WINE? It’s a whole vibe, and one so prevalent it’s like a subculture.)
Soon after, we moved to the coast and became immersed in the drinking culture of beach living. By 1999, I was drinking heavily every afternoon and evening, and during the day on weekends. I tried moderating over and over, only to wake up angrier and angrier with myself for not managing it better. I sometimes polished of a box of wine every night or two.
The whites of my eyes were yellowing, I began getting sicker. Nobody – including my husband at the time – knew how much I was drinking. Nobody needed to know. But I was not the mother my girls deserved, and that clawed at my soul with every empty box of wine.
I begged God to help me moderate.
By 2000, I was becoming very sick. It was no longer any fun to drink. It no longer made me feel ‘other than’ the bad things and instead amplified them. I started putting alcohol above all else. I wanted to stop, yet ironically, I found I could not. I required it to stop the shaking.
My body knew when to expect it and demanded it on time, yet revolted it when I drank and I was vomiting every day.
The drinking life I’d romanticized turned on me.
A couple of years ago, I came across an old journal from the time. I’d titled the entry “I can touch bottom now.” I had written it about the night I was at the Christmas party for the teachers and staff at my kids’ school, as I worked in the library.
Please Jesus, please. That was my prayer last night. Crouched down against an unfamiliar toilet in the home of the hostess of the company Christmas party. How did I let this happen AGAIN?
I tried to pace myself, but by the sixth or seventh drink, I casually wove to the bathroom and locked the door behind me. I told myself to vomit quietly, but I kept forgetting where I was and who was with me in the bathroom. I could FEEL someone in the room but it was hard to focus. I wished they’d leave, seeing me at my worst like this. After a while of retching, I noticed that I’d lost my shoes. Where were they?
GET UP, I told myself. GET UP AND FAKE SOBER….but when I looked in the mirror my eyes held the long, strange gaze. My dead eyes, rimmed in crimson and makeup sloughed off with sweat. Since I work at the school, my coworkers are the teachers and staff at my children’s elementary. They couldn’t know my secret!
After a while, I feel the first twinges of becoming more a tiny bit sober and it is immediately uncomfortable.
When I can stand up without weaving, my thought process is simple:
I am thinking, “I just need one drink, that’s all. That will steady me out.”
Before the night is over, the Art teacher will try to wrestle my keys from my hand, so that I cannot drive home, but I do it anyway.
That’s the crazy thing. I keep doing it anyway.
I’m so tired.
So, that is my ‘bottom story’. I know enough about recovery to know it doesn’t have to STAY my ‘bottom story.’ If I pick up again, I risk a more tragic ending. The good news is that getting into recovery is not the end of the story, but the beginning.
My date of sobriety is January 3, 2001.
On that day, two weeks after that party, God again met me on the bathroom floor. This time, my own. As I lay on the cold tile, I asked God to help me and surrendered my will entirely.
And in this full surrender mode, I asked Jesus to please save my life. And in one crystal clear moment, I knew he was with me, scrunched down on the floor, holding me. Not only with me, but in me.
In this broken vessel.
“Just as you are, remember?” I could feel him say.
I knew without a doubt that it had been he who was with me in the bathroom at the party, and as a child hiding in my toy box, and a million other times of peril.
To be honest, I didn’t expect sobriety to ‘stick.’ I didn’t think I deserved it to.
The first few weeks of sobriety were almost unbearable. God and I had” words on many occasions. I was sick, inside and out. My body screamed for alcohol. I informed Jesus that I COULD NOT DO THIS, and yet I relied on him solely and he carried me through. My detox included hallucinations. The devil constantly reminded me that ONE drink would make them all go away. “You’re a liar,” I told him. “I’ve never had just one drink.”
So, I made sure I never had another. It is poison to me, plain and simple. And it was both excruciatingly difficult and euphorically rewarding.
All of my energies now went into creating and nurturing a new life – mine.
I did meetings and got online support from other women alcoholics. That’s where the healing started. I asked God to restore my children and help me be the mother they deserved. Eventually, my eyes and skin lost the yellow tint.
I have had to erect boundaries with people I loved in order to maintain sobriety, and knock down other walls to make room for healthy trust to sprout. I’m still always learning. I had to leave my husband at the time, put space between myself and my dysfunctional family. I didn’t know how to take care of my own soul, but I tried very hard to take care of my daughters’.
To this day, I take it one single day at a time.
I would love to say that I’ve been completely delivered – and I know addicts who received instant healing – but my recovery is daily. My default setting is often to want to numb out. Food tends to be my drug of choice these days. That’s a slippery slope for me because I’ve resorted to bulimic behaviors in the past. My program helps me apply the 12 Steps to many areas.
I also struggle with major co-dependency issues. Recovery is truly like peeling an onion; one layer is exposed at a time. But you can deal with one layer at a time with God’s help. I get by with a LOT of help from my friends, too. Getting sober meant changing people, places, and things. I did a lot of that, and it hurt like Hell. But things shifted, slowly at first. IJ was very open with my two little girls about Mommy’s recovery. I wanted them to know – should they ever face similar – they too are strong and able to change their lives.
Although God can heal us by any mode, I’m grateful that my recovery requires me to willfully surrender to God each and every day. That’s a sheer gift, because it keeps me humble, having to stay in constant contact with Holy Spirit, in and around me.
In 2007, I married the love of my entire life after meeting him in church. He is my best friend and biggest supporter. I told him I was an alcoholic with five years sobriety, and expected him to turn on his heels. He did not. We have been together 19 years now, and are still deeply in love.
My precious daughters are 29 and 32now, and we are very close. God blessed me with a bonus daughter as well, who I love as much as my own. They are very proud of their mama’s recovery. They call me a good mom. They call me a strong woman. And you know what? I think I am, too.
That’s not getting what I deserve. That’s grace.
We are very open about our struggles. Stigma has no place in our family.
I attended meetings regularly for many years. If 12 Step groups are a “cult,” that cult saved my life. I surrounded myself with people who struggled similarly and found a true family. People who were looking for sane ways out of the chaos, not the stoking of it. People who loved me exactly the way I was.
Life, as they say, marches on. It is not always easy.
In the past several years, I have had to contend with an incurable and painful chronic disease. The journey through this illness has resurrected that urge to default by numbing. The 12 Steps apply to so many situations. The pain has somewhere to go. Very recently, I have been diagnosed with a form of Leukemia. I considered letting it level me. I considered drinking. Because who would blame me? This is TOO MUCH! I shook my fist again at the sky, asked God WTF!? But I didn’t drink.
I’ve accepted that I don’t ‘do’ moderation, in any way, shape, or form, but I’m learning. The upside to an addictive personality is that I don’t love with moderation. There is nothing moderate about my love of Jesus. I just have to tell you about it because it saved my life. I love my friends as hard as I can, without an ounce of restraint, and my family with fervor. I’m obsessed with my husband, and he seems to be with me. Go figure.
And I don’t want anything to do with anyone who wants nothing to do with me, which is a switch. I used to low-key beg people – family especially – to be in my life. It was exhausting and confusing and desperate. And there’s no need for desperation. I get to choose who has access to my peace, and I’m very protective of it these days.
God has fulfilled a lifelong goal, in that I have become a writer and penned two books on recovery. Sharing my story is part of what keeps me clean and emotionally healthy. I wrote a blog for years about recovery, and now I write my blog about a plethora of issues – mental health, chronic pain and illness, marriage, and of course, recovery. I write poetry too, because I have found that creativity truly enables a healthy recovery. It is taking care of self, which we so often forget to do.
For someone who never expected her sobriety to ‘stick,’ God has opened so many doors.
These days, I rarely crave the feeling of ‘other than,” because I’m more comfortable in my own skin. But when it does happen, I’m equipped with my tools to get through it and the support of friends who GET it, and a God who will meet me wherever I am at any given moment.
Whether you are bruised and beaten by your own compulsions or a victim of somebody else’s, the answer is the same: Love. Love yourself enough to get well.
God was working in my favor all along. He wanted to clean out all of the childhood trauma and life crud and hurt that has built up. It’s kind of his specialty. (And it’s an ongoing process.)
I just celebrated 24 years of alcohol-free living, and its equal parts beautiful and messy. What a long, strange trip it’s been – and a wonderful one. I would not be alive had I not surrendered my will to God on that bathroom floor all those years ago. I would not be alive without the support of others.
I still have to stay on my toes. Life is often so difficult, and our disease will not be taken for granted. It’s been a lot of hard work. I remember when 24 hours seemed impossible. It was done one single day at a time, and still is.
If you cannot relate to any other aspect of my story, that’s ok.
Just know this: YOU are designed for the good life, full of magic, radical silliness, and deep abiding love.
In the summer of my 13th year, I fell in love. I fell HARD, much like the object of my desire who wrote so many lyrics about falling to Earth. As a young girl, I’d heard Space Oddity play on the radio and was completely transfixed. What did I just HEAR? I’d always loved music, but this…this? This was another thing altogether.
From then forward, I was obsessed. Everything Bowie wrote or sang, every cameo he made in a film, every poster featuring his amazing face from obscure and punk-ish Houston area shops, every book written about him. I couldn’t get enough. My bedroom walls were plastered with his beautiful visage. I was David Bowie two Halloweens in a row. First, Ziggy – and then as Bowie from his Serious Moonlight tour. Until I could tell him myself how much I loved him – silly girlhood fantasy – imitation was my sincerest flattery.
By the time Bowie enjoyed another wave of popularity even among my peers with “Let’s Dance” in 1984, I resented that other people were just now appreciating him. SO mainstream, ya’ll. Have you even HEARD of Ziggy Stardust?
Still, I played the new album into the ground in my Sony Walkman cassette tape player – always with ear phones in so that I could enjoy it as loud as I pleased and as privately as I desired. Rewind, and play again. And again.
When I went to see Bowie in concert on his Serious Moonlight Tour, I’d spent hours fantasizing about meeting him, and – possibly one day, you know, marrying him and enjoying a lifetime soaking of his supreme and inconceivable amazingness. Pretty standard teenage girl stuff, but it didn’t feel contrived. It felt possible, silly as it seems now.
Bowie made me believe anything was possible. I would try to get my friends to listen (especially to the old stuff) and they would be like, “Yeah, he’s okay.” And I was like, “ARE YOU NOT HEARING WHAT I AM HEARING!?” Everyone was about Madonna and Duran Duran and Rick Springfield and Pat Benetar, and I’m not dissing any of those artists.
But Bowie? He belonged to ME. When I was going through a very tumultuous family life, he was a constant and his music was my therapy. He taught me so much in those tender years, and I wouldn’t have grown up the same person without those lessons.
He made it okay to feel misunderstood. The world is not going to understand you. You are entirely too unique to be fully understood, and thank God for that. Bowie did music like nobody had ever done before. NOBODY. He didn’t really care about topping charts or being popular. It was all about the music, man.
Unconventional beauty is FAR superior to conventional beauty. Pale and pasty? The Thin White Duke fit the bill. His teeth weren’t great. His nose was crooked. But no matter how many ch-ch-ch-changes his persona underwent, I sincerely thought he was the most beautiful man on the planet. You go on ahead and wear makeup and spike your hair and shave off your eyebrows, and dress in an unforgiving leotard, you cool, confident cat, you. Hunky is B-O-R-I-N-G. Keep your Tiger Beat Magazine hearthrobs. YAWN. His eyes appeared to be two different colors. Did I mention that? BRB…SWOONING.)
Reinventing yourself is perfectly acceptable. Do it unapologetically, or not at all. I myself have been a thousand different versions of myself. You get to choose to change your personal, and that’s okay.
Treat everyone like a rock star. One of the things that stuck out to me is that he treated reporters interviewing him with the same respect as he might the biggest names in the music industry. He was by almost all accounts, just a really kind person. A gentleman’s gentleman. Equally at ease performing “Dancing in the Streets” with the venerable Mick Jagger as singing a duet of “Little Drummer Boy” with Bing Crosby.
Whether or not I realized it at the time, Bowie planted a seed of compassion in my spirit for the gay and lesbian community, transsexualism, the androgynous, and the gender benders. Bowie showed me that it’s essential to love people different than ourselves. His sexuality, which seemed to morph as often as his persona, just simply was NOT THE MAIN THING about Bowie. He was so much more. We are ALL so much more than our sexuality.
Don’t let anyone put you in a box. Bowie Culture is that it’s okay to reinvent yourself 1,000 times. You don’t owe anyone an explanation either. Switch it up and let that freak flag fly.
Be the best WHATEVER you authentically ARE. “And these children that you spit on, as they try to change their world, they’re immune to your consultations. They’re quite aware of what they’re going through.” (Changes) A better set of lyrics about the angst of youth I’ve never seen, and likely never will.
It’s okay to be a little weird: Did you ever feel like the weirdest kid on the block growing up? Me too. Bowie taught me that we’re all weird in our own ways. And that it’s pretty wonderful, actually.
Addiction is overcome-able. This lesson would come later in my life and in his. Like a good friend that you keep up through the grapevine, I’d heard that he’d conquered an addiction to cocaine in the ’80s. While not surprising that a great talent did battle with a drug (creative people often do) he inspired to to believe I may conqueror my own alcoholism one day. And I did, 24 years ago. I’ll always appreciate his candor in owning his disease and strength in overcoming it.
And lastly, being a spiritual Seeker is an admirable pursuit. Bowie experimented with all kinds of spirituality, landing on the determination that all paths to God are valid.
May we remember that we can be heroes, just for one day.
“Why can’t we give love Cause love’s such an old fashioned word and love dares you to care for The people on the edge of the night And love dares you to change our way of Caring about ourselves This is our last dance This is our last dance This is ourselves Under pressure Under pressure Pressure”
– “Under Pressure” (compilation with the great Freddy Mercury)
Every year, I am apt to say “well, that was a hard year to stay sober!” Some years I’d say it almost flippantly, because drinking didn’t seriously enter my mind.
Most times, I meant it though, because life is effing hard. Battling chronic pain and illness – all of it really difficult to raw-dog. But raw dog it I did and got to pick up a shiny token for my labors at the end of each year. Wheeee!
This year, staying sober has felt like having your bratty cousin hold your arm behind your back until you scream “UNCLE!” Now obviously, God is not a bratty cousin. But there have been days I’d have sworn he was just as bad.
How else to explain adding a cancer diagnosis to my already ridiculous list of health woes? How else to explain allowing the election results to carry consequences of harm to the most vulnerable among us? How else to explain THIS (*gestures wildly*.)
Even the” good” days felt like wearing wet socks with the seam all wonky, (emotionally.) Something was so off, all year.
On some of the bad days, I felt like drinking. And I thought about it way more than the usual amount, which is none.
“Humph,” said my internal narration.”Who in the heckin’ world would even blame me, if I were to pick up?”
“Nobody! Nobody would blame me! “I concluded, fist raised to the sky. “It’s TOO MUCH!”
I imagined people saying, “Bless her, it was the cancer that was the final straw.” Or “No wonder she fell off the wagon.” Or “At least it’s not hard drugs.” Or some such self-pitified bullshittery.
And then I laughed because silly alcoholic; mind games are for addicts! Of course, I recognized that voice from days of yore! It’s the one that kept me sick.
I’ve decided – for the sake of argument and a slightly fragmented faith – that God is not a fraud.
He is only love, and love has not failed me this year.
Love has shown up, hat-in-hand, smiling gently.
Love was with me during the bone biopsy, while they punctured my hip and sucked out the marrow, and hot, sad tears ran down my face, alone.
Love was with me when the biopsy confirmed that I have a form of leukemia, by lending me a calming essence not organic to my own understanding for comfort.
Love sat and listened to me primal scream in my car, when I’ve had unbearably painful days from Ehlers Danlos syndrome. When I couldn’t walk without agony or stay awake due to fatigue.
Love rocked out with me when I listened to purging metal music at full volume by myself, as if the genre could wick the anger out of me. (Thanks, AC/DC.)
Love was with me, rifling through my recovery toolbox, passing me whichever tool was the right one for the job. And I – much like the father in A Christmas Story trying to change a tire – cussing the whole way. “Again?!! Aw, blast it! Poop flirt rattletrap camel flirt! YOU BLONKER! Rattle feet sturcklefrat!” (Only not quite that wholesome. FUUUUDDDGGGGE.)
Love was with me when darkness enveloped me and hope was a little wisp in the ethers, so faint it barely had form.
Love manifested through my friends and family, who doggedly refuse to give up on me.
Love peeled off my wet, wonky socks, and then proceeded to wash my feet.
Love did all of those things, in the form of a God most compassionate.
My Higher Power provided everything alcohol would have withheld from me.
So this year, as I order a 24 Year sobriety chip, I say UNCLE, UNCLE, UNCLE!
I still say it’s TOO MUCH.
But I also say thank you, thank you, thank you. Because after the shitshow that was 2024, I will treasure that shiny 24 year chip. I earned it this year, homies. It was hard to stay sober.
But not impossible, you see. Because who in the heckin’ world would I be able to help, should I fall back into the drink? Surely not my family. Surely not myself. Surely not Love.
Bloodied and bruised, wild-minded and obstinate, and leaning into the Divine Love, I will pick up that shiny 24 Year chip and dance around with it on Friday.
I speak up for myself now. Well, sometimes. As long as it doesn’t rock the boat TOO much. As long as the person I have conflict with won’t stop loving me because I’m mad. Only when I’ve rolled the issue OVER and OVER I’m my brain ad nauseam and have decided I’m with a safe person. Only after I’ve played out the worst case scenario in my head, mini-grieved the possible outcomes. And after I speak my peace (because I’ve learned my peace has value, too,) I will fret and worry that I’ve upset someone. Doesn’t matter if it concerns life events or little frustrations, I speak. Even if it’s a whisper, I speak. Even though I know assertion-guilt will try to make me feel like a bad human. I’m starting – with fits and stops – to say when I’ve been hurt or bothered, even though I’ve been a people pleaser all my life. So… No, You cannot talk to me like that. Little Me had no say, but I’m re-parenting her, you see. I’m teaching her things I should have taught my daughters, and must have somehow over the years. They speak up for themselves, without fear of abandonment, because they know they’re safe. And Little Me is safe now too, finding her voice and using it.
Good morning, Reader. Well, the sun came up again. Damn if it doesn’t just keep happening. You know what that means, right? At your stations! Here we go!
It’s okay if you run to your station, but it’s also okay to inch, crawl, stagger, or be dragged, so long as you rise and report to The Universe you are present. Being present is everything.
Accept that – like Jesus – your holiness and humanity both get to seize this day. He, being 100% divine and 100% human (just like you) equipped to get through the muck. Jesus was the Prince of Peace. He was also a Tipper of Tables.
You get to respond to every new challenge in the way of your choosing. You’re not just rolling with the punches. You’re not a victim, but a participant in this miraculous, jacked-up, eternal production. I know it feels victimizing sometimes.
I am waving to you from my station this morning, hollering at you from over here, “HEY! IT’S ME, YOUR FRIEND WHO IS ALSO EXHAUSTED, BEFUDDLED, FEELING BEAT-UP, AND ANXIOUS! I’M HERE TOO.I KNOW THIS IS HARD. KEEP GOING, OKAY? YOU’RE DOING AMAZING!”
Love always starts the show and always takes the last bow. Remember that when the antagonists seem to be winning. Remember that when the plot is thicker than pea soup and it looks like the bad guys are winning.
What a time to be mentally ill, eh? Depression, anxiety, we got it ALL this year. I have not been okay for a few weeks now. This morning, I awoke and write some poetry, as the angsty of nature are apt to do, and thought I would be okay today. But instead of comforting myself as usual, it felt a little disingenuous. And in the interest of transparency, I came back here to the blogosphere to air my grievances because today I’ve already binged watched My 600 Pound Life, and some show about real-life emergency room drama, and (surprise, surprise) that is not the antidote for feeling down. You know how toddlers behave when they are so maxed out on sensory input that they just melt down? They cannot tell you if it’s because they are hungry, or tired, or the seams in their socks are off kilter. They just whine in C Minor until you could pull your hair out in frustration from trying to console them. Yeah, that’s relatable. I may look fine, but deep inside, the seams of my socks are driving me crazy. The newness of the cancer diagnosis has worn off, and instead of feeling like a stab to my spirit, it’s more of being poked with a butter knife, repeatedly and with gusto. Duller, but still stabby. Just another chronic condition on my already-full roster. My overall pain level from my other conditions this week has been nonstop, as if not to be usurped by the cancer. And I don’t care who you are, everyone has a limit. So, I am fighting the urge to just give in to it, crawl in bed and sleep, and try again tomorrow, which I reserve the right to do, because again – everyone has a limit. I’m long past pleading with God to deliver me, which depending on which denomination you follow, could be construed as a lack of faith, or a surrendering. I am going with the latter. God will not stop the coaster, but he will pull the safety harness over the both of us, riding alongside me while I scream my head off. I imagine him holding my hand as I approach every incline, telling me breathe, we can do this together! And I’m yelling stop this crazy thing! Sometimes we rejoice WHEEEEE! together, other times I feel like my stomach is going to exit my body via my throat. That feeling you have at the top, knowing the ground is all the way down there, and you are way up here I and your heart hammers out of your chest? I have felt like hornking up my stomach since the election, I’m absolutely leveled by it. But days keep coming, they keep happening. So many of my friends – family I’ve chosen for myself – are in crisis mode right now, and my empath spidey senses are all a-tingle, 24 hours a day. Breathe, I tell myself. Focus on breathing. But my thoughts wander from breath to all sorts of doomy things, my depression saying see? I TOLD you everything is awful! So I come here to write. I changed my pajamas from yesterday into a fresh pair today (you expected me to say I got dressed, like a properly undepressed person? Pish.) I pray, the click-click-click of a roller coaster going up an incline the rythm to my mantra. I say, I see you to my Big Feels and realize so many of us are feeling like toddlers melting down right now, not having the proper language to express the groanings of the spirit. Maybe we need to tear off our wonky socks and run around barefoot. Maybe I need a nap and some graham crackers. Just don’t give in to the sadness. Just don’t pick up a drink. This January, I will celebrate 24 years without a drink, and Hons, you’d better believe it’s a hard-won victory this year. Some years are easier than others, but this year has been a helluva doozy. So, all of this ranting to say – If you’re feeling low too, just know that you’re not alone. Tomorrow is indeed another day. Blessed be, fellow humans. I’ll hang on if you will. WHEEEEEE.
Words by Jana Greene 