Gliding up the escalator at 12:05 am in the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, I called the front desk of the hotel I booked for the night. “The shuttle stopped running at midnight, Ma’am;” the night desk man croons in my ear. Not the lullaby I wanted to hear at the moment, after driving 4 hours to the airport to…
Searching and Fearless: Step 4 The Work Begins
“Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself.” Lots of folks stop here. This means work–lots of work. It is not all bad. Stopping to look over your life will bring up all of it, the good, bad and the ugly. Courage, my friend, this is where a lot of folks get caught in the…
The Night My Husband Got Sober
Made a Decision to Turn-Step 3
“Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.” How many times have we sat in our puddle of confusion thinking how did I get here, again! Turning our will over to God suggests we are not alone in all the decision making. What…
Stop Beating Yourself Up–Parent Better with Stress Management Tools
I recently contracted an awful head cold from a water park excursion in Texas. Playing, splashing and sliding at the park proved a great time for the family, but getting on a plane the next day sealed the fate of my sinuses. Frustrated, I thought “Go ahead start beating yourself up for knowing better than…
How I Came To Believe- Step 2
Came to believe a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. By far my favorite Step, Step 2 bounces around in my brain on a daily bases. The promise I yearned to accept! Sanity! Sanity! I wanted sanity and serenity. A blogger friend of mine later created the term Serantity. Serenity and sanity together Seranity. I…
Are You Powerless in Your Life- Step 1
Ah the feeling of being powerless. Love it just love it-not! It is an acquired taste at best for a person that struggles with codependency. Here we go! Step 1 Came to believe we were powerless over_________ and our lives had become unmanageable . What does powerless mean? Powerless /pou(ə)rləs/ adjective …
How to Handle Your Life: When Your Husband Enters Rehab
OK, here is the deal. When your husband enters rehab, he needs space, time, and the ability to process his thoughts while learning to live without his go-to drug of choice. What are you doing while your husband enters rehab? The Same Thing You Have Always Done Yes, you, the wife, are left at home to…
Create Community – A Must for Those Living with An Addicted Loved One
I know what made me do it. The church down the road had a nursery. Community, I needed to create a community for myself and my little boys. The tiny country church we attended before our sons were born tried to help with nursery care but I needed more. When my husband left for three…
Finding the Courage to Encourage Your Teenager
If one more person says to me “well that is just how teenage boys behave,” I will hurl. Whose teenage boys? In what country? In what decade? It reminds me of all the wise tales women shared with me during my first pregnancy. Everyone wanted to tell me about having a baby–especially the gory, awful birth gone…