For this month’s topic, “Parenting in Recovery”, I once again had to turn to my internet friend, Google.  There are many kinds of recovery.  Recovery from substance abuse or other addictions.  Recovery from acute mental health events.  Recovery from physical injuries.  What does recovery mean for me?  Google defines recovery as “a return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength” and “the action or process of regaining possession or control of something stolen or lost.”  That last word, lost, is what I connected with.  For many parents of children with special health care needs or behavioral health challenges, the expectation of what we envisioned for our lives and for our children is gone or changed, in a sense – lost. 

I grew up between Helena and Great Falls, after my parents split, when I was around 3, and my brother was 9. I got the gift of seeing two very different parenting skills. My mom hovered and made sure I did what I was supposed to, and when I didn’t, there were consequences. My dad was very trusting and comforting, but very enabling. They both were amazing, and did the best with what they had, but I had one person in my life that gave me consistency, and that was my stepdad. My mom remarried when I was 7 years old. He was a teacher and coach in this community for over 50 years, and treated me and all my family, as if we were blood. What he was one day, was what he was the next, and when he said he would do something, he did it, and he did it with integrity.

I began going to Al-Anon because a family member’s alcoholism was affecting my life. They had found sobriety, but their behaviors still bothered me. The only way I knew to deal with the situation was control. The more I tried to control what I couldn’t, the worse the relationship got. My thought was, “If they would change, everything would get better.” The problem was they weren’t changing, no matter how hard I tried! The tools I learned in Al-Anon and the recovery I experienced prepared me for the challenges I faced as a parent.

The role of being a parent again, in recovery, has been such a blessing! I missed so much of my kids’ lives due to active addiction and I never thought I would have the opportunity to raise children again. I am so grateful I have a second chance at being a mom, of having the honor to help raise my partner’s now young teenagers. However, parenting teenagers isn’t particularly easy for anyone. Add to that us both being in recovery, my current mental health journey, both of our kids having behavioral health challenges, and us being a lesbian couple, and it makes the dynamics even more complex. As we navigate the path of parenthood and recovery together, it’s been crucial that we’ve established open communication, built trust, and continue to foster a supportive environment for our teenagers.

This month’s theme is Service Work/Volunteering.  I thought about writing my article for several weeks, worrying about how to write about something that I don’t have much experience in.  Then I started feeling guilty and bad about myself.  I know that is not the goal, for me or for anyone reading this.  So, I started thinking more about ways that I might have “given back” that wasn’t in a volunteer status. 

Throughout my life service work and volunteering were something I regularly did without a thought. I did it because I wanted to and cared deeply for human beings in general, even just having met them. I can remember volunteering was something I started doing as a young girl. My mom and I would drive from our small town to the bigger city with Wal-Mart or Payless, to buy shoes for children in our community through a non-profit that ran off donations. Or volunteering to help with children in classrooms, buying food for the homeless population, or giving clothes away that I no longer needed to someone who did.

I have always enjoyed volunteering and service work. In Girl Scouts, they were called service projects. I can remember doing clean up projects and singing at retirement homes. As kids, those of us in the neighborhood would pick up trash around a nearby church. I had a reading “grandma” in 5th grade who I continued to visit for many years after. I also volunteered as a Candy Striper at the hospital delivering mail and flowers. As an adult I learned the importance of service work to my recovery, whether that was opening and closing a meeting, sponsoring others, or being the treasurer for a group.

When I did this month’s webinar on the topic “Radical Acceptance”, one of the comments was on the word radical paired with acceptance. Radical commonly can be referred to a person who is an extremist in their advocacy on topics that are less than traditional. So, the thought was, I understand acceptance in life and as events happen that are less than acceptable, but how I am expected to radically accept these events as something I am putting an “I am ok with this happening to me” stamp on it?

We most often hear about radical acceptance in the context of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) but the concept can be applied with other therapies as well. Part of radical acceptance is acknowledging our thoughts about ourselves even if we aren’t in the right space to challenge those thoughts directly as with DBT or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

Here at MPN, all of the Peer Supporters, both in the Family Division and Recovery Division, are tasked with writing an article, or a blog, about the month’s topic.  This month’s topic is Radical Acceptance.  I had never heard this term before.  Many of you may be in the same situation.  It is to you that I share what I learned.