What recovery looks like, for me

Someone recently asked me what “recovery” means to me. Meaning my recovery. Not my son’s recovery – though he was the one who brought recovery to our family. Not my daughter’s recovery – though it’s her recovery that’s laying a strong foundation for future generations. But my recovery. I haven’t struggled with addiction, myself, so how does that word apply to me?

What I hear when people ask me this is, “What do you have to recover from?”

Let me tell you.

I’m recovering from the soul-freezing panic I still feel at night, at times, when my phone isn’t near me. What if something happens to someone and I don’t hear it ring? For almost 10 years, I kept my phone nearby in case someone called about a child too drunk or stoned to function. Maybe my daughter needed a safe ride home. Maybe my son needed a ride to the ER. These things happened. Sometimes one or the other wouldn’t come home for days, and I’d sit alone in the darkness with a silent phone screaming at me. Just waiting for them to call. Willing them to call. To say they’re OK. And dreading a call that told me they weren’t.

Recovery, for me, is putting my phone on do not disturb at night and keeping it in another room so I don’t constantly check it. Recovery is letting the world turn without me for eight hours and allowing myself a good night’s sleep.

I’m recovering from feeling responsible for my adult children’s lives. There was a time when I felt that I could save them, particularly my son. In fact, I felt that I was the only one who could save him. It was my job. That’s a lot of responsibility for any mother to bear, even if it were true or possible. I did literally everything in my power to save him from addiction. Healthy things like take him to China to study kung fu, and sign him up for culinary school, and encourage him to go to rehab. And things that were not mine to do, like pay his rent, and write his resumes, and buy his clothes. And things that were flat-out wrong, like giving him money for drugs and driving him to his drug deals. Like tiptoeing around his moods and taking whatever emotional beatings he, in his addiction, needed to dish out. All in the name of love. All so that I could save him, if only in that moment.

Recovery, for me, is remembering that it’s not my job to save my adult children. I still want to, when life throws curveballs at them as it does with everyone at times. Or when they mismanage something and there are consequences to face. My instinct is to jump right in and make it better for them. Recovery is holding space for them and showing compassion while they solve their own problems, in their own way, in their own time, and deal with the outcomes. It’s not taking on their problems as my own.

I’m recovering from being invisible to myself. I’ve spent a lifetime hyper-focused on meeting the needs of other people. People frequently in crisis, whose needs were so much greater, so much more dramatic, than my own. I’ve doused a thousand tiny fires for so many people I loved, but I never stopped the blaze from consuming them. And I never learned to recognize or manage my own needs in the process. I had few friendships and no hobbies. My house was dirty, my clothes were shabby, and I didn’t know where my money went.

Recovery, for me is recognizing and honouring myself. Paying attention to my needs and taking responsibility for building the life I want. It’s working on the basics of being a healthy adult: eating well, exercising, managing my finances, building relationships. And it’s about finding ways to bring joy and fun into my life, no matter what’s happening with the people around me. No more using other people’s needs as an excuse to neglect my own.

For me, recovery is very much a journey with no particular destination. The point is to reflect on my life and find ways to be healthier and happier in mind, body, and soul.

I’ve come a long way in the past three and a half years, since my son introduced recovery to my life. I’ve developed stronger, more satisfying friendships. I have hobbies and activities that I enjoy. I’ve traveled. I have healthier boundaries when it comes to helping other people.

But I still have a lot of work ahead of me. I can’t fix every part of my life I’d like to, all at once. It was only a few months ago that I stopped sleeping with my phone. This month, I’m starting to exercise – again. Soon I know I’ll need to tackle my finances.

“Easy does it,” they say. And, “Progress, not perfection.” Gotta love those recovery slogans.

Gotta love recovery.