Step 8: Faith Without Works is Just a Prayer Without Legs
The A.A. program is one big amend, and step eight forces me to put my money where my mouth is. I said "I'm sorry" so often in my drinking days that it became meaningless, kind of like, "Excuse me for...
View ArticleStep 9: Making Good on the Promises
Becoming a mother taught me more about how deeply I'd harmed my own mother. With Mom facing dementia, the last few years especially have been my turn to host the holidays, to give in different ways. I...
View ArticleStep 10: Mother’s Day Leftovers
It's the morning after Mother's Day and here I sit, chin in hands, reeling with an emotional hangover. I check my e-mail and pick my poison. Here's one from my husband: "The boss says to take you out...
View ArticleStep 11: Caught and Taught by Grace
It was almost the end of the school year when Daniel became the treasured child. Every day for a week he came in from school, dumped his backpack, and showed me the treasure of the day (ostensibly for...
View ArticleStep 12: Awakened by a Child
I don't know how you can be a mother and not feel spiritually awake. I can't take credit for the creation, for the mother love that descends upon me, for the growing boy in front of me. The answer is...
View ArticleTime to Pass it On
On the first day of first grade, Daniel got dressed, tied his shoes, ate breakfast, and brushed his teeth without prompting -- all the things I'd nagged him to get done quickly last year. We were even...
View ArticleStep 1: Hello, My Name is Mommy, and I’m an Alcoholic
New motherhood is akin to the mental, emotional, and physical anguish of sobering up. We need a detox, a 28-day rehab, for new moms. We'd whisk them away with the clothes on their backs, remove blunt...
View ArticleStep 2: Something Other Than Baby
I came to believe in this crazy baby who is becoming a boy before my eyes. More importantly, I believe in an even crazier god, and that bunch of crazy sober kooks, my tribe, in recovery. I get to wake...
View ArticleStep 3: Turning to God
I practiced Step Three on an issue other than alcohol when I said "yes" to pregnancy. It felt scary and surreal. When we chose Daniel, we were willing to give up everything we knew for something...
View ArticleStep 4: Our Naughty and Nice Lists
We all know how to take inventory of our stuff: our books, our clothes, our pantries. Inventory of the self is similar, a check to see what we've got in us, what's still good and what's rotten, what's...
View ArticleStep 5: Taking the Fifth, Not Pleading It
Knowing that I will have to tell the truth about my warped thoughts, deeds, and feelings to another helps keep my behavior somewhat in check today -- a cheap motive, but a powerful one. For me, there...
View ArticleStep 6: Getting Out of My Own Way
Today I'm more willing to give up my hobbling defects in order to show my son how to do the same. I'm ready to quit my anger when I see my son's fallen face, to give up spending money when I'm broke,...
View ArticleStep 7: Unexpected Breaks
Daniel got "the besd pikshr" award for his drawing at school today. It's a somewhat still life of a blue ATV crashing into the back of a truck. I think it deserves "Best Effort," myself. He managed to...
View Article
