Today's journey

 My mental health is reliant on remaining sober, and my sobriety is reliant on working on my 

own mental health.  

Caution: Empathy without boundaries can lead to self-abandonment, and constant self-abandonment leads to burnout. Please be careful with when and how you give your energy. -Jovanny Ferreyra 

The opposite of addiction is connection. -Johann Hari

There's a bottom below the bottom; there's no problem a drink can't make worse. -MD

Sobriety begins with one alcoholic talking to another alcoholic. -W

It’s ok to be frivolous with my time. It’s ok to take time for me… -B

They got a bit of the best me that I was capable of…love I’m capable of receiving and giving-E

“Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change”- Brene Brown

“if you put shame in a petri dish, it needs three ingredients to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence, and judgment. If you put the same amount of shame in the petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can’t survive.”-Brene Brown

When you're not used to being confident, confidence feels like arrogance. When you're used to being passive, assertiveness feels like aggression. When you're not used to getting your needs met, prioritizing yourself feels selfish. Your comfort zone is not a good benchmark. 

"“Healthy boundaries aren’t walls or barbed wire fences. They are gates, portals that we selectively open when it is safe and life-enhancing to do so. Sometimes we do have to wall others off—to heal, to get a taste of what it feels like to be protected after a mountain of suffering—but eventually we come into a sacred balance. Here, we make conscious decisions as to when to open, when to close. I think of it as the “art of selective attachment.” Rather than responding from a patterned place that is too open or too closed, we assess each situation on its own merits. We keep the gate closed, when it is risky to open it. We unlatch the gate, if there is a healthy basis for connection. Healthy boundaries are situation specific, evolving and clarifying as we grow. We sift connections through an intelligently discerning filter, only opening the gate to those experiences and individuals that enhance our sacred true-path."

-Jeff Brown at https://jeffbrown42.substack.com/p/healthy-boundaries

“Safety is not the absence of threat; it is the presence of connection.” -Gabor Mate, Hungarian-Canadian physician

"Don't take it personally. Make it personal so you can learn from it." -S. in B.

"Practice Personal Power." -S. in B.

Bio for becoming a LifeRing virtual meeting convenor

 

I’m a Humanist organizer, a retired army veteran, a former army wife, and care giver for my teenage nephew and two adult sons with disabilities. As a caregiver and retiree, I know that mental health suffers in our community, and caregivers who need help themselves have little to no voice, let alone support.

After a long journey, I discovered in Humanism my philosophical home and life purpose. I’ve been involved in the local freethought, Humanist, and atheist community for many years, and believe immensely in the Humanist Ten Commitments:

While I realize I haven’t always lived these values, I believe that my story is one of recovery and triumph, because I’m still here not only fighting the good fight to be a better caregiver for my household (which includes my disabled sister who is now in a potential host home-for whom I am trying to get approval for long term care services), but also trying to give voice and validation to caregivers who ALSO have needs-mental health, physical, self-care. Ours is a unique life experience, and I benefit greatly from my conversations with friends and family who are also caregivers, many of whom are also either in recovery or family members of alcoholics/addicts in recovery. My own recovery also benefits greatly from regular MEETINGS!

My December 2022 arrest was extremely distressing as it brought to the forefront of my consciousness how I was not only jeopardizing my ability to care for my household, but also my family directly.  I realized I didn’t know HOW to remain sober on my own, and that my level of emotional dysregulation was overwhelming- I needed to find others who have similar life experiences.

Since I’d already been receiving different kinds of therapy services through the VA, which was not enough or the right kind of support, I realized by March 2023 that I needed something more. Traditional AA was NOT an option for me, but I’d recalled seeing a Meetup.com listing for a secular AA group, Godless Heathens, which meets nightly; I knew I needed meeting options at other times due to my life schedule but wasn’t yet comfortable enough to try others so I continued to attend Godless Heathens most nights.  

I met LifeRing member Lorraine H. at the American Humanist Association conference in May 2023, and immediately bought the LifeRing books she had available, but stuck with the evening Godless Heathen meetings until a few months ago.

While I enjoy and benefit from attending and volunteering as a host of the Godless Heathens, which is usually a topic/discussion meeting, I have slowly become more confident in hosting and trying out other meetings, and a few months ago found a morning LifeRing meeting that really resonated for me, during which I received information about LifeRing focus groups-exactly what I need!

I understand that not only is my sobriety dependent on my mental health selfcare, my mental health selfcare is also reliant on maintaining my own sobriety- this has to be a priority. Making my own selfcare a priority will allow me to become a better caregiver, to improve my household. Though I know I am still early in recovery (sobriety date January 6, 2023) and am feeling more aware, more confident, more resilient, I know that my mental health/sobriety is lifelong management, and I need other caregivers with similar life experiences in my world. My commitment to hosting a weekly Godless Heathens meeting has given me experience to facilitate virtual meetings, and attending LifeRing meetings has made me comfortable with the LifeRing meeting format. So while I will continue to attend my evening meetings, it is now my turn to give back to other caregivers.

Caregiving is a life-purpose unlike any other; it’s the glue that makes our society a village. I truly hope to give caregivers with all life experiences the opportunity, voice and validation they need to continue doing what we do- sober.