IT WAS 30 YEARS AGO TODAY…
Reflecting on My 30-Year Recovery Journey
by
Terrence Shulman
I’ve never kept track of my exact “sobriety” time by days. I never felt called to do so. But I have kept track of the time of my recovery in years. And I have declared March 3, 1990 as the day I “hit my bottom” and took a leap of faith from living in the denial, silence, and shame of addiction to living in the truth, openness, and hope of recovery. On March 3, 1990 I’d sunk to one of the lowest points in my then 24+ years of my life:
I’d been living a secret and double-life for just over a decade marked by shoplifting and continuing to pretend that I was okay and I didn’t need anyone, really. I was in the second of my 3rd year of law school-not liking it at all but scraping by as I had no other plan for my life. I was taking out more student loans. I’d cheated on my girlfriend of 3 years and she broke up with me. My Dad-an attorney himself-had been in a wheelchair for a year from a stroke at age 48 and it didn’t look like he’d be able to walk or practice law again. I was staring into the proverbial abyss: I hated myself, I saw no hope for my future, and I began seriously to contemplate suicide for the first time in my life.
Fortunately, this scared the shit out of me and prompted me to come dean about my predicament–the shoplifting and all-to my Mom who firmly and lovingly got me into therapy for the first time within days. And, for what it’s worth: I was arrested for shoplifting a second time on March 10, 1990.
So, here it is: 30 years later. I was almost 25 in 1990 and now I’m almost 55 in 2020. I’ve been in recovery from compulsive shoplifting and stealing for over half my life. (I also consider myself to be a recovering codependent for 30 years). Through guts and grace, I am here, alive, free, and able to express confidence (but not overconfidence) that my life is going pretty well. Certainly, it’s a far cry from my “bottom” three decades ago.
I did not have my life mapped out over the past 30 years. I only knew that I’d become sick–just like my Dad before me (though he had every other addiction besides stealing) and that I didn’t want to end up like him.
Sad and hard to say but true. I didn’t know if I’d get married or have kids (I have been married 17 years and my wife and I have a 4-legged baby: Bam Bam, a 15-year old blind Shih-tzu) but I knew I wanted to break the cycle and legacy of addiction for myself and my family. I feel I’ve been moderately successful at achieving this but know that recovery is a lifelong journey.. and that’s okay. We all have some burden or cross to bear and, well, I don’t even look at taking my meds for depression and ADHD and/or going to weekly.
CASA and Alanon meetings as a burden. It’s an opportunity for me to meet interesting people, learn about myself and humans beings, and to keep on a path that allows me to have more choices and opportunities to live the life I want to live. It’s not unlike people going to church, the gym, or therapy regularly.
I did not have a plan for my life over the last 30 years except staying relatively sane and sober so I could figure out my calling. I’m not the first–and won’t be the last-recovering addict to feel called to help other recovering addicts. The last 23 years of being a licensed social worker and addictions therapist have been immensely challenging and rewarding. Starting my own private practice 16 years ago has as well. And you know what? I couldn’t have done it all by myself. I am truly blessed to have had supportive family and friends throughout my journey. Nobody tried to talk me out of starting a first C.A.S.A. (Cleptomaniacs And Shoplifters Anonymous) support group in 1992, or leaving my 3-year law practice in 1995 to enroll in a masters program in social work; or leaving my 7-year job at a local alcohol and drug treatment clinic in 2004; or self-publishing four books, or putting myself and my story out to local, national, and international media.
Andy Warhol famously stated: “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” I’ve certainly had my 15 minutes and more. I don’t know how much longer I’ll work in the field of addiction counseling. As I approach my 55th birthday in June, I’m thinking I can work 10 more years until I’m 65. But who the hell knows. But I’ll always be in recovery. I’ll always want to stay humble. I’ll always want to have trusting and
meaningful relationships. And I hope i’ll always be gently striving for that delicate balance of being happy and okay with who I am while also prodding myself to keep learning and growing.
I sometimes wonder what my legacy will be, what I’ll be most remembered for among my loved ones as well as among my common family of humanity. I imagine i’d like to be remembered for my achievements and for turning my life around at a relatively young age (and not falling back into the black void of addiction). But it would also be nice to be remembered for my kindness, humor, creativity, loyalty, realness, generosity, and commitment to helping others in various ways. No life is perfect but I’d like to live a well-lived life.
How about you?
AN EARLY 81ST BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE TO MY MOM
by
Terrence Shulman
My mother, Madeline (maiden name Nisenbaum, first marriage name Shulman, and second marriage name Jacobs) turns 81 years old on March 17th–St. Patrick’s Day. (We’re not Irish but on this day, everyone’s Irish!). After having celebrated my Stepdad’s Jim’s 90th birthday on February 12th, I’m looking forward to celebrating my Mom as each year that goes by feels more fragile and precious. My Mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s about 10 years ago and, fortunately, it’s been a relatively slow-progression. My Mom and Stepdad moved into a nice, local senior living complex about 3 and a half years ago where my wife and I visit them nearly weekly.
A few months ago, my StepDad had successful colon cancer surgery and during the two weeks from his diagnosis to his recuperation, we moved my Mom into her own room on the 3rd floor of the memory-care building in the complex. She’s adjusted fairly well. She is still healthy and mobile, she takes only one pill–for high cholesterol–and she’s pretty good natured. She still recognizes people and calls us from her room or we call her. Her short- and mid-term memory is almost non-existent. Being in relationship with someone with Alzheimer’s is the ultimate exercise in living in the moment; for that is all there is.
My Mom had always been the rock for me and my younger brother. Our Dad was alcoholic and had bipolar disorder but didn’t follow-through with treatment, My Mom divorced him when I was 11 and my brother was 5. Compared to my Dad, Mom was stable, reliable and present. Our Dad remarried shortly after the divorce and had a son-our half-brother who is almost 40. My Mom starting ating Jim when I was 12. They’ve been together for 43 years and married nearly 22 years ago.
My Mom was there for me when–at age 25–1 broke down in the middle of law school and told her I was severely lost and depressed and needed counseling. I also admitted to her that I’d had a decade-long problem with shoplifting. She was shocked but non-judgmental. She found a therapist for me and has stood by me through my father’s stroke in 1988; my second shoplifting arrest in and charge in mid-1990; my law school graduation in 1991; my father’s death in 1993; and, really, the last 30 years since I “hit my bottom.”
My Mom has expressed consistent pride in me that I’ve been able to take lemons and make lemonade out of my life. Over the last few years-almost every time I’ve met with her–she’ll ask me what I do for a living: “what do you do again? you help shoplifters?” Yes, Mom, and others. “That’s good. I’m so proud of you,” she’ll say.
My wife Tina often comments on how lucky I am (and she is) to have Mom and Jim model a healthy, loving relationship; how lucky we are that they were financially responsible and can live in a nice place and pay to be taken care of so the burden doesn’t fall on us; and how lucky we are that-despite her difficult situation (they don’t call Alzheimer’s the “long good-bye” for nothing”), that she remains fairly positive and good-natured. The irony is that when she’s most lucid is when she’s momentarily aware of her disease and the helplessness she feels. But that usually fades and she’ll say something like “I’m the luckiest person in the world to have loving sons, a great daughter-in-law, and a wonderful husband.” It’s these moments I think about as I write this that bring me the most solace.
I can only imagine what it would be like if I developed dementia; well, actually, I have thought about it. My first thought has been to take my life so nobody would be burdened by me or suffer “the long good-bye.” It gives me insight into the many stories I’ve heard of people doing just that-like the late comedian Robin Williams who took his life while he struggled with the early symptoms of Parkinson’s. But then I think about celebrating my Mom’s upcoming birthday and how-even though she’ll forget each moment of celebrating as quick as it passes… even though it will be bittersweet… I’m still glad she’s alive and with us. I would like to think if I were in her shoes later in my life that my loved ones could feel the same about me.
THE SCIENCE OF LUCK:
Is The Phenomenon Real? Can It Be Harnessed?
by
Alexandra Ossola (Popular Science 3/17/15)
Finding money on the street may seem like a lucky break, but it might be more accurate to thank yourself. Researchers across various disciplines have attempted to decode whether there’s an actual measurable aspect to what we understand as luck. Many of these studies have found that what a person might perceive as “luck” has more to do with psychology than probability; “luck” is actually just her own positive attitude that keeps her open to new opportunities or perceiving patterns in random acts of chance. Here are some of the latest findings.
Games of Chance
You just flipped four heads in a row, so the next one has to be tails, right? Wrong-the odds of flipping heads or tails is still 50/50, exactly the same as it has been every other time. This is called the “gambler’s fallacy,” and, according to a study published earlier this month in PNAS, our brains may be seeking out these sorts of patterns. “A major function of the human brain is to deal with the uncertainty in the real world in order to find regularities,” says Yanlong Sun, a professor of microbial pathogenesis and immunology at Texas A&M College of Medicine and one of the study authors. Our neurons detect these patterns naturally and pay special attention to their timing, Sun says. Neurons prefer alternating patterns-it’s the brain’s way of “regressing to the mean,” to correct for patterns that seem statistically unlikely. “Our study shows that our brains are probably smarter than we previously have thought, in that they are able to automatically pick up some very subtle yet important statistical structures in the environment,” he says. But this new understanding doesn’t change how Sun feels about luck overall-” As both a scientist and a person, I do believe in luck, that it is something I cannot manipulate or operate on.”
Lucky Streaks
When you’re placing bets on a game like craps or roulette that is based on chance, it turns out that your betting shifts your odds. A person who wins two bets in a row has a 57 percent chance of winning the next one, but a person who has lost two bets in a row has only a 40 percent chance of winning the next. Why?
According to a study published last year, people again fear that their bets will regress to the mean-that if they won, they are more likely to lose the next time, so they compensate for it by making safer bets each successive time.
When people who have been winning take safer bets, it means they’ll probably keep winning; when people have been losing, they take riskier bets to try to win, which means they actually lose more. The actual event the gambler bets on doesn’t become any more or less probable, but past outcomes affect how the bettor allocates funds the next time around.
Superstitions
Crossing your fingers, knocking on wood-most of us don’t know where superstitions like these came from, even if a lot of us practice them fairly often. But several studies show that superstitions might work, though not in the way that we think they do.
In one, from 2010, golfers who were told that they were using a “lucky ball” performed significantly better than those who were told that theirs was “the same ball everyone else had used so far.” The test subjects also performed better when they were allowed to hold on to their “lucky charms” from home while solving an anagram problem. The researchers hypothesized that the people with their lucky charms by their side persisted at problems longer because they felt more effective, like they had the assistance of some other power. It’s the same logic that Alcoholics Anonymous has used to help people get sober and stay that way- people feel empowered when they think that someone else is helping them, so they actually do better at the tasks at hand.
Lucky People
Luck doesn’t just “happen,” even for people who consider themselves lucky. Richard Wiseman, a professor of psychology at the University of Hertfordshire in England, has done a number of studies to figure out what distinguishes a lucky person from an unlucky one. In one study, he asked people who identified as luck and as unlucky to read a newspaper. On one half page of a newspaper, he wrote in large letters: “Tell the experimenter you have seen this and win £250.” The people who said they were lucky were more likely to see the ad, Wiseman wrote, and the “unlucky” people seemed to demonstrate more anxiety, which detracted from their powers of observation. Now, Wiseman has “four principles” of luck on his web site, and they all have to do with being open to new experiences and observing opportunities as they present themselves. “Unlucky” people seemed to demonstrate more anxiety.
Serendipity
Running into an old friend could be fortuitous, resulting in a profitable professional partnership, or a rekindled romance, Stephann Makri, a lecturer in information interaction at City University London, has done a number of studies to determine what serendipity is, based on how people perceive it.
“I think that luck means different things to different people-some people use it as synonym for serendipity,” he says. “But others were clear that the two were different-luck was totally out of our control and there’s nothing we can do to influence it. They think that serendipity can’t be controlled but it could be influenced.” In one study published last year, Makri asked a number of creative professionals what they do to increase their chances of a serendipitous encounter. “They included things like varying their routine, working in different environments and with different people, mixing things up in the workplace, and just generally doing things differently to avoid getting stuck in the same routine,” he says. When we think back on a lucky event,
it’s often accompanied by the understanding of how that changed our lives for the better, which Makri calls
an insight. So while these chance encounters can’t be controlled, people can do a lot to put themselves in a
particular place and time and hope that it’s the right one. An open, positive, go-getter attitude also makes
people more likely to appreciate an opportunity and to take advantage of it.