Tag Archives: recovery

Time to Make a Move

Greetings from Oxford, Mississippi! This is a post written by Vince about his move. It will be bittersweet to come home to an empty house.

Time to Make a Move

Just shy of seven months as a free man, I am happy to report that, as a 37-year-old, I am moving out of my mother’s home. Again. Maybe for the fourth time in my life, and hopefully for the last.

I alluded to this in my last post but not before because I didn’t want to get overexcited about it until it was actually approved by my agents. Now it is official, and I can proudly relate this information to you: I AM MOVING! Just two short days from now.

I have written about this move before, but as a failed attempt at leaving the nest possibly too early. I’m moving into a house with two sober guys from the program, one of which I was in prison with, and I’ve worked with for some time. He no longer works with me, but we remain friends. I don’t know the other guy, but he’s sober, and that counts for a lot.

I’ve been to see the house once. It’s small as you can see in the picture, but I’ll have my own room, so it isn’t like a sober house environment. There isn’t a house manager that watches over us, or anybody to give us random shakedowns and breathalyzers. I have my agents for that. This is a step forward.

It couldn’t come at a better time, in my opinion, as I will be moving on to the next phase of Intensive Supervised Release program soon after. That will open up a lot more time that I can spend doing things I want to do like go to more meetings, and spending more time with my family. I am also finishing the last three hours of my community service this week.

It’s all lining up. Everything is going well in so many ways. So I need to be really careful. For somebody like me, good news can be all I need to trick myself into thinking I deserve a reward. Maybe I can go out and celebrate with just one drink, or just a little crack (“A little” crack doesn’t actually exist. It’s an all or nothing drug. For more information, go here). I mean, at this point I’ve built myself a pretty good network of people that I can reach out to if the urge hits me, but it’s always good to layer on the protection.

This disease of mine can also be described as an allergy. When I drink or do drugs, things just go haywire. My body responds differently to them than normal people. Also, my allergy in particular is a little more severe than say, a gluten allergy. Oh, also I don’t believe that’s a real allergy, but I’m not a Doctor. Anyhow, let’s say that somebody with a gluten allergy accidentally ingests some flour. Well, maybe an hour or so later, they fart a little and that causes some slight discomfort or embarrassment. Well, when I ingest a little alcohol, or maybe some meth, my world flips upside down. I can no longer take care of myself financially, mentally, or physically. And this allergy affects others, too. For example, if I smoke crack, you may no longer have a television, and some of your smaller valuables may go missing as well.

Simply put, chemicals make me not give a fuck about you or me. And I’d really like to avoid all of that so that’s why I’ve immersed myself in this program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I’m not worried about relapsing because of my new place and my new freedoms, I’m excited to see what I can do with them. And I’m really happy to be able to share this with you people. For you that are new to this blog, I encourage you to see where it all started almost two years ago with just five pieces of writing paper and a 3” flexible safety pen behind the unforgiving bars at St. Cloud Men’s Reformatory/State Prison.

Easter Interlude

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I was Skyping with someone at work who is an attorney who documents torture and other human rights abuses perpetrated against Syrians. I loved this quote she had on her Skype account:

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

It was said by E.B. White, who along with William Strunk wrote The Elements of Style, usually just referred to as “Strunk and White.” It was first published in 1918 and is considered one of the most influential English language books. It was like a Bible to me when I first began my career. Basically, in a little over a hundred pages (1999 edition), they tell you everything you need to know about punctuation, grammar, composition and commonly misused phrases and words.

Here’s another quote from White: “Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.” That’s a great affirmation from someone who basically inscribed the Ten Commandments of writing on paper. As someone who often wonders, “Why am I writing this blog?” I appreciate this one.

And finally, “It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.” I hope I am both.

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I’m going to share a couple posts from my son Vince in the next week or so. We started Breaking Free as a co-blog, to write about his experiences in prison and mine as a prison mom. Is that a thing? It is now.

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Easter Interlude

The anxiety started a little over a week ago, when I found out how soon Easter actually was this year. I was finally going to jump over another big hurdle. I’ve been out of prison now for almost seven months and haven’t had the opportunity to attend a gathering with the extended family, and today was that day.

I don’t actually know what it was that I was afraid of. I guess it’s the fact that I haven’t seen them for a decade and I really don’t know that any of them have any idea where I’ve been. I visualize a hundred conversations all ending abruptly when they ask what I’ve been doing, or why they haven’t seen me in so long. And of course it’s not their fault that they’d be curious, we’re family. My grandparents are wonderful but as far as I know, they didn’t really spread the word about my trip to prison, or my years of alcoholism and drug addiction. And there’s the shame factor for me that I didn’t really want to go into any of that at Easter (or ever). I mean who wants to hear such a sad story on Jesus’ Birthday? Or whatever it is.

All the worry and apprehension was for naught. I was greeted with hugs, handshakes, and warmth. And truth be told, I felt some connection with a few of them that it turns out I really missed. And once again I was sitting at the table with my family, laughing, conversing, and feeling all the uneasiness dissipate. I didn’t recognize a few of them as they had all literally aged ten years and were just kids the last time I had seen them.

I think what I realized is that it doesn’t matter where I’ve been for so long, only that I am here now. Not just in this particular situation, but in everything. It took me a while to adapt to life outside the walls, but now that I have been away for a while, I think I can let that go. That time of my life is over, and even though I constantly need to be work on recovery, it’s not so much about not going back, but being able to move forward.

I just got home from the gathering and wanted to get those words down while the event was still fresh in my mind. I feel really good right now. As if a weight has been lifted off of me. But like many of these weights, it was put there by me. I need to quit that. I’m a work in progress.

Telling It

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It’s always difficult to transition back to current life after writing a series like the last one about camping in Wales and Mini extravaganza.

I love traveling, and then I love coming home—so I can start planning the next trip. When you read this, I will be in Chicago on my way to New Orleans from Minneapolis/St. Paul. Live blogging a road trip sounds good, but I really just want to be there, in the moment. My friends are coming all the way from Scotland, Oxford, and Wisconsin—I think it would be rude and weird to say, “Sorry guys, I’ve got to rush back to the hotel to write a blog post.”

But it’ll be fun to write about afterwards; travel writing is a way to enjoy the trip again.

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A few updates, and back to the other theme of Breaking Free, my road trip with my son through the worlds of mass incarceration, addiction, and redemption.

I saw a notice for a lecture at the U of MN by Dr. Christopher Uggen, Martindale Chair and Distinguished McKnight Professor of Sociology and Law. It quoted him, “We think of probation as a humane alternative to incarceration. It’s not.” This is a concept I can’t emphasize often enough—just because you’re out of prison now, doesn’t mean you’re “over it.”

So I was a little concerned about Vince talking with Jewish Community Action, a local group advocating for prison reforms. I had shared the blog with them, and they invited Vince and me to meet with them, which we did a few days ago. It happened to be in the same building as Vince’s probation agents. Would he be “triggered” by rehashing his story? He still seemed uncomfortable in social situations sometimes.

We met with a young woman named Angela, who listened intently, asked questions, and filled us in on their plans. She talked about the changes they want made to sentencing, and Vince had some insights she hadn’t been aware of. I can’t explain what he said, but the depth of knowledge you gain about these things by actually being inside is like a mini master’s degree program.

She talked about how they are trying to block the privatization of the prison in Appleton, Minnesota, which has been closed for years. It wasn’t true, she said, that it would create a lot of jobs, or that conditions are better in private prisons.

“Word is,” Vince said, “among the prison population, that conditions are much better in the private prisons. Better food, better paying work, more activities.”

This took her, and me, by surprise. “I wonder if there’s a marketing campaign to spread that idea,” I suggested. “After my experience with paying for phone time and email, I know those companies are good at promoting themselves.” But how could anyone get access to the population inside? I was Vince’s mom, and it had been maddeningly hard for me to communicate with him.

Vince talked about prison drugs (common) and rape (uncommon), MyPillow and Bob Barker products, not being able to vote, and his terms of probation. It was very relaxed, and I give a lot of credit to Angela—turns out she was a former social worker.

Vince had told us he had to be home at 6:30. Suddenly Angela said, “I just remembered that clock is slow …” It was 6:21. Vince jumped up, ran down the hall and waved at his agent, then bolted out the door.

Later, at home, he said, “I could have talked for hours.” I was so proud of him. He’s doing so well.

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He’s doing so well, in fact, that he announced he may move out soon. Another ex offender lives in a three-bedroom house that has an opening. The landlord is accepting of ex offenders.

I felt sad. I know it’s normal for a 37-year-old man to want to live on his own, and I fully support that. It was really rocky in the beginning when he came to live here. We had been separated by miles and drugs and prison for so many years. Now we get along fine. I enjoy having him around. He could do more cleaning, but no one’s perfect.

Updates Part II

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In the prison good news / bad news” category, I’ve got some doozies.

First, I was highly amused to read about a brilliant project in which prisoners create portraits of people they think should be in prison. This was in The Guardian—a liberal British newspaper that reliably reports on the most embarrassing elements of American life:

“To find the artists, the activists approached art rehabilitation programs in prisons, but those groups were not interested in being involved with something political. So the pair turned to eBay, where there is a section devoted to art made by prisoners and sold by family members. They found similar prison art networks on Facebook and began conversations with the families of people whose worked they liked. From there, word spread around prisoners and other artists began sending them work.”

No surprise, they’ve captured (ha ha) the usual suspects (ha ha ha) in art: the Koch brothers, Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein, BP’s former boss Tony Hayward. But then there was the CEO of one of my favorite companies, along with Pillow King and Bob Barker Inc. (that’s sarcastic, in case you can’t tell): JPay.

I was disappointed to see that the guy’s name is Ryan Shapiro. He must have a Catholic mom and a Jewish dad. I hate to see stories that reinforce the stereotype that Jews are better at making money than most people. Exploiting—oops, I mean “providing services” to prisoners and their families is very, very lucrative.

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Speaking of Jews and prison, a local organization called Jewish Community Action (JCA) has taken up two prison-related issues:

“Jewish Community Action is currently working on two campaigns related to criminal justice reform and the impact of mass incarceration: One addressing the for-profit private prison system and seeking to push back on the building and opening of private prisons in Minnesota, and one demanding the restoration of voting rights to felons who have completed incarceration and are living and working in their communities.”

I wrote to the executive director and shared the link to this blog. I can’t remember exactly what I wrote; I share the blog with a lot of similar organizations and usually hear nothing back. I mentioned that we’re Jewish and that we’d be happy to support their efforts if we were able. The executive director and two staff members replied—first, to assure me that ours is not the only Jewish family that’s had a run-in with the law or the prison system and second, to ask if Vince and I would come in and meet with them. That will be in a couple weeks and I’ll write more after we meet.

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I am not a big fan of Oprah; I have nothing against her but she tends to promote books like The Book Thief, which I regard as one of the most poorly-written books I’ve ever read. But she is currently promoting a book written by an ex offender, Shaka Senghor, called Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death, and Redemption in an American Prison. Next week, Oprah will air an interview with Senghor on her network, OWN TV. I haven’t read the book; I’m only mentioning it because it’s written by an ex offender.

I’ve only ever read one prison memoir, and I can highly recommend it: Willow in a Storm, by James Peter Taylor. The writing is just okay, but the story is harrowing and heart breaking and he tells it real.

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Finally, there is this (in the end) uplifting story about Albert Woodfox, who spent FORTY YEARS in solitary for the murder of a prison guard at Angola prison in Louisiana. He maintained his innocence all these years. He was released on his 69th birthday.

The Grey Lady Stumbles

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This is the seventh post in a series that started here.

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I left Cuernavaca having learned a lot of Spanish and with a new vocation. Off and on since then, I have worked in international development. That doesn’t mean I don’t care about causes here at home. I just think that, as a mission driven person, I do better work if I’m passionate about a cause. And for many reasons, I am passionate about trying to end poverty and suffering in the developing world.

Before I left Cuernavaca, I booked six more weeks of Spanish immersion through Amerispan. This time I would go to Morelia, a beautiful colonial city that is no longer an Amerispan choice. I’m guessing this is due to Morelia’s unfortunate #1 ranking as the city most caught in the drug war that has erupted in Mexico since I was there.

And that’s my transition back to one of my favorite subjects, addiction.

The New York Times published an article a few weeks ago about an alternative treatment approach to addiction. I read it, cut it out, and was saving it to write a post about. My initial reaction to it was, “Why not? Why wouldn’t you try both traditional treatment and AA and this thing, if you could afford the time and money.” But now I’m having second thoughts.

In a nutshell, the article profiles a psychiatrist who has opened a new addiction clinic that approaches addiction as a chronic disease and treats it with drugs, in place of the Twelve Steps and AA.

At least three people have brought the article up to me in conversation, so it’s causing a stir.

When I revisited it for this post, I noticed it was in the Science section, which implies that the content is scientifically valid. Plus it’s the New York Times, right? It’s got to be true.

When I searched the NYT website for “addiction,” I found that all the other articles about addiction are either in the Opinion or the News sections. So you’ve got news about a big drug bust in upstate New York, for example, and then people ringing in with their opinions on what should be done about the drug crisis and the related problem of mass incarceration.

I scrolled to the bottom to read the comments. There must be hundreds, I thought, and I wondered how many commenters would hail this as a godsend or criticize it as irresponsible. But there was no comments, and no way to make comments. That’s strange, I think.

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Among other things, Dr. Mark Willenbring states that 60 percent of addiction is attributable to a person’s genetic makeup. The NYT adds that this is “scientifically unassailable” but offers no evidence.

Dr. Willinbring, a psychiatrist, is no slacker. For five years he headed the federal agency that studies addiction. Coincidentally, he’s a Minnesotan and he opened a private clinic called Alltyr in 2012. It’s within walking distance from my house.

Alltyr treats addiction as a chronic medical condition. Its treatment plans include drugs used to treat depression, anxiety, ADHD, or chronic pain; family “training,” and cognitive behavioral therapy—which, as I’ve written, was a worked miracles for me. Alltyr also uses anti-relapse drugs, and I wondered what that meant.

I didn’t have to wait long to find out.

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A friend and her husband have been struggling with his drinking. He was on a wait list for Hazelden Betty Ford, one of the world’s premier rehab centers, also within walking distance of my house. Then he read the New York Times article. Alltyr got him in the next day, and after pooh-poohing Hazelden, he cancelled his reservation there. (Despite Alltyr dismissing traditional treatment, I can’t find any evidence in the article that its method works.)

Alltyr put him on two anti-relapse drugs. I spoke with my friend the next day. “He must have still had alcohol in his system,” she said, “because he was so sick he couldn’t get out of bed—much less go to work—for two days. He said it was like all the worst anxiety he’s ever had in his life rolled into one giant ball and stuffed into his chest.”

The Nitty Gritty

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I wrote in my last post about how you can find adventure close to home. But you can experience it even closer—inside your own head. The best example I can give, for me, is the rush of adrenaline I get when I am planning a trip. Not on a trip, just anticipating it. Looking at maps, checking airfares, considering the pros and cons of various destinations, imagining all the fun I will have with my friends.

I’ve written about how these kinds of thoughts cause physical reactions in my body, like a racing heart and sweaty palms. But I’ve never known how that works.

Strangely enough it was an article about solitary confinement that explained the phenomenon. Solitary confinement: the opposite of travel, right? The full title of the article is “How would you do in Supermax? The answer may lie with imagination and grit.”

First, here’s the negative side of solitary, which will be no surprise to anyone with a shred of empathy:

“Solitary confinement has been linked to a variety of profoundly negative psychological outcomes, including suicidal tendencies and spatial and cognitive distortions. Confinement-induced stress can shrink parts of the brain, including the hippocampus, which is responsible for memory, spatial orientation, and control of emotions. In addition to these measurable effects, prisoners often report bizarre and disturbing subjective experiences after they leave supermax. Some say the world regularly collapses in on itself. Others report they are unable to lead ordinary conversations, or think clearly for any length of time. The psychiatrist Sandra Schank puts it this way: “It’s a standard psychiatric concept, if you put people in isolation, they will go insane.”

But here’s where the article veers away from the usual, “it’s horrible, we should stop it” article about solitary. This article examines how some prisoners use mental imagery to survive, and even rehabilitate themselves.

Mental imagery is basically imagining something so vividly that it affects you physically or psychologically. Lots of us do this involuntarily—for instance since I am terrified of public speaking, if I have to give some remarks I will probably have involuntary flashes of imagining myself stammering and making a fool of myself, and this will make me even more nervous, and it may actually cause me to do what I feared.

On the other hand, controlled mental imagery is considered so effective that it is used by athletes to improve their performance. Before a competition, for instance, they will close their eyes and imagine every detail of a successful performance, and this contributes to their bodies and minds performing successfully in reality.

With all external stimulation stripped away, some people in solitary use controlled mental imagery to stay sharp, pass the time, and keep their spirits up. No one tells them about it, or how to do it; they somehow figure it out on their own.

Why are some prisoners in solitary able to summon controlled mental imagery to improve their lot, while most are at the mercy of involuntary mental images?

That’s the second point of the article. The thinking is that this small subset of prisoners possesses a quality called grit. I’ve always wondered how it is that I overcame the odds and became as successful as I am, when there are so many other unmarried teen moms out there who are still mired in poverty. Well, I’ve got grit. If you want to find out if you have it, here’s an online test. Apparently I am in the 90th-99th percentile of other users who have taken it.

What is grit? I would call it “stick-to-it-tiveness.” An innate persistence, perseverance, single mindedness, and diligence despite setbacks.

So some prisoners, who happen to have grit, are able to use controlled mental imagery to improve themselves and leave prison better, not broken.

Where does grit come from? Why do some people have it and others don’t? Can it be learned? I don’t know the answers to these questions. I do know that if I could bottle grit and sell it, I would be a wealthy woman.

Two Lists

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The New Orleans trip is beginning to take shape. My English friend Lynn will fly over to St. Paul from Aberdeen, Scotland, where she lives. We’ll hit the road and wend our way south, taking about three days to reach New Orleans. I booked a suite in a B&B. Our friend Christine, an Australian who lives in Oxford but spends much of her time working in Africa or Asia, will fly over to join us, as will my cousin Molly, who turns 50 that week.

So it’ll be four of us all together for French Quarter Festival, then Lynn and I will drive a different route back. My friend Ferruh also lives there with his wife. They’re Turkish. He’s a drummer who used to play in a belly-dancing troupe, then moved to Denmark and then the US, all the while working on his PhD. Now he teaches at Tulane. He’s a great guy and I hope we can all have dinner together.

I alternate between worrying: “What if the car breaks down in rural Tennessee?” and feeling excited about the music, the heat, riding in a swamp boat and feeding marshmallows to alligators, touring a creole plantation and one of New Orleans’ fantastic cemeteries, maybe getting in on a second line, which I was lucky enough to do last time I was there.

My mom’s husband, Jim, is from St. Louis, so I sat down with him and pored over an atlas. He is 86 now and done with road trips, but they took some great ones and they love to talk about them. It must be hard to know that you’ll never drive to St. Louie again, or fly to Phoenix to escape the winter cold.

Jim had drawn up a list of things to do and see in St. Louis and Memphis:

I find these scraps of the folks’ handwriting endearing.

Jim told me about the great Italian neighborhood I had to visit in St. Louis. “We called it Dago Hill when I was a kid,” he said a little sheepishly. “But now it’s just called The Hill.”

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I also want to write a bit of an update on Vince and how well he is doing despite the challenges he still faces.

When he was put on indefinite lockdown he was phlegmatic about it. “They’re trying to get me to react,” was his take on it. “And I’m not going to. This too shall pass.”

I know it’s called Alcoholics Anonymous, but it’s no secret that Vince is in the program and I think it’s okay to say that he’s really working it—he found a sponsor, who is like a mentor, and they are working on the 12 steps together.

He’s taking care of his health. He hasn’t taken up smoking since being on the outside. Besides just being bad for you in every way except for being an instant stress reliever, smoking is hugely linked to drinking and drugs and can trigger a relapse.

My sister gave him a used Bowflex machine. It’s in our basement, which could win an award for grossest, creepiest basement ever. But he goes down there and uses it. I told him he should feel free to clean the basement up and make it his man cave.

He’s eating decent food. It would be easy for him to buy lunch at the Arby’s that a few blocks from his work, but instead he packs a lunch every day. He even bought lettuce and whole grain bread! We’re talking about bacon sandwiches, just to assure you he hasn’t completely gone around the bend and become a gluten-free, chewy crunchy vegan.

Vince was beginning to meet people and make friends when he was granted more time out of the house. That’s off the table now due to the indefinite lockdown. Thanks to social media, he can still be in touch with the outside world.

Most gratifying of all is Vince’s gratitude—for those who send words of encouragement, read his blog, and in particular to the anonymous person who gave him a new laptop so he no longer has to type his posts with two fingers on his phone.

Road Tripping

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My friend Lynn turns 60 in July—I can’t believe it! I’m not far behind.

She’s lined up some bucket list trips to celebrate. Now, Lynn has been everywhere—she worked for Nokia and routinely traveled from London to Helsinki to Australia and back in the space of days. I think her record was 32 countries in one year.

So you would think it would be challenging for her to come up with a dream list of destinations, but no. Whenever I’ve asked, thinking she’ll be stumped she easily rattles off half a dozen places she’d like to see.

So she’s rounded up a group of people to go to the Glastonbury Festival in June. The line-up is unbelievable: Foo Fighters, the Who, Florence and the Machine, Kanye West, Motorhead, Pharrell Williams, Mary J. Blige, Patty Smith, Alabama Shakes, and Burt Bacharach (!?). The downside? Camping in a heaving-with-humanity, mud-filled field with porta-potties.

Lucky for me, Lynn’s list includes New Orleans, and I’m in on that. I’ve been to NOLA, but will be happy to return. It’s one of those places, like Los Angeles, where anything goes—where no one pays any attention to you if you’re wearing a clown wig or are half naked. Or completely naked. Not that I will be walking around naked, but you know what I mean. In the Midwest we have a narrower tolerance. Maybe that’s why one of our prune-faced stock phrases is, “That’s different” or “That’s interesting,” to mean, “That’s weird and I don’t approve.”

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Lynn and I met in Oxford and shared a house for six months. I’ve enjoyed the generous hospitality of her and her husband Richard’s home in the Scottish Highlands half a dozen times. We’ve traveled together to Prague, Venice, and Berlin, and she’s been to Minnesota. So we know we can tolerate each other’s idiosyncrasies … not that I have any.

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Vince has been writing about drugs lately in his blog. My drug is travel. I think about New Orleans and immediately the possibilities begin to flag out:

“As long as I’m going, why not go down to Shreveport or Baton Rouge? I wonder what they’re like? Or, why not drive down from Minnesota!?”

My heart stars to race.

Google maps aids and abets me. A quick search reveals that I could stop in St. Louis, Nashville, and Jackson, Tennessee. I’ve never been to those last two!

My palms are sweating and my breathing is shallow.

Then Lynn throws gas on the fire:

“Why don’t I fly to St. Paul and we can do a road trip together?” I hear her pronouncing “St. Paul” the British way, “Sen Pauuuuls.”

I’m also emailing back and forth with my Turkish friend Ferruh, a former neighbor who now in New Orleans and teaches a Tulane. He’s sending me links to shotgun houses we could rent. Now we need to find a place with multiple beds because our Australian friend Christine, aka Possum, is going to join us.

It’s zero outside today in Minnesota. I troll from listing to listing of B&Bs and boutique hotels with lush courtyards with fountains and pools and all within walking distance of the French Quarter and Frenchman Street.

WOW man! The colors! My head feels like it’s going to explode.

Wait—what if, as long as we’re doing a road trip, I just blow all my vacation time and take us through southern Wisconsin (very scenic in the springtime)? We could see Spring Green, the Frank Lloyd Wright home. Then on to Madison, where my cousin Bob lives … his wife is Native, maybe she could hook us up with a pow wow—foreign visitors love that kind of thing.

Then—on to Chicago! We have to go to Chicago, right?

As long as we’re that far east, maybe we could go through Kentucky—Hey!—When is the Kentucky Derby? I’ve always wanted to go to the Kentucky Derby ….

My mother calls and when I tell her what I’m up to she suggests we go through the Smoky Mountains. Where are the Smoky Mountains? I am clutching a paper map now, my hands are trembling with excitement. Half the day has passed without my noticing.

From AA to LA

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This is the eighth and final post in a series that begins here.

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Vince went to live with my mother, and I attended outpatient chemical dependency treatment. If you are in the “helping professions”—social work, psychotherapy—or if you even just have common sense and empathy, you won’t be surprised to learn that I wasn’t an alcoholic.

The expectation had been that I would go through pregnancy, birth, and adoption without any support, then go on as though nothing had happened. People seemed surprised that I was sad and angry. They were uncomfortable when I talked about it.

“You signed the papers; it’s over—why keep bringing it up? Just don’t think about it.”

Alcohol is a time-honored stress reliever in such dissonant situations.

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Sobriety—and a break from being a full-time mother and student—helped clear my head and face my emotions. I spent the month working the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and reading piles of self help books, and doing all the other things people do to get back on track.

After a month Vince came home. What–you were expecting some big drama? Sorry. In Minnesota we don’t like drama. In fact we are all about avoidance of discomfort, or as I call it, “reality.”

I didn’t drink for a couple years. I went to AA, where the members often listened to my story skeptically and said, “I don’t think you’re an alcoholic.” I should have been referred to Alanon, which is for family members and friends of alcoholics. People impacted by alcoholic behavior act just as crazy as their alcoholics, but there’s no rehab for them. In fact I can recall my mother complaining that my dad got to go to “that country club”—Hazelden, a rehab center nestled on a lake with a pool, wooded walking trails, and tennis courts—while she stayed home with the four kids, the house, and the bills.

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I got a job, moved out of the hi-rise, and started paying back my student loans. Vince began school and, while his grades were never great, he was popular with teachers and students. I made sure he brushed his teeth and washed behind his ears. I took him to baseball practice, religious school, and family functions. We watched Dr. Who together and went on little road trips to Lake Superior to hunt agates. You know, normal life.

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Every spring I would find myself feeling blue and wonder what was wrong with me. Then it would hit me: Ah ha! Isaac’s birthday is coming up. On Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, I would tear up when they read the story of the sacrifice of Isaac. Every couple of years I would send a letter to be placed in his file, knowing it would probably never be read. When my mother talked about how many grandchildren she had, didn’t count Isaac. Intellectually, I knew this was the whole point—that it remain forever a secret—but to me he was always out there, somewhere.

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When Vince was 10, I got entangled with an abusive guy and we ended up losing our home. Three times in one year, we had to move and Vince had to change schools. I chose this time to tell him about Isaac. I thought it would comfort him to know he had a brother out there somewhere, assuming he was alive. Clearly I am not a psychotherapist, or I would have known this would backfire. Vince was devastated—it was a loss on top of losses.

He met his brother, eventually, and some day one or both of us will write about that.

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Did these events have a permanent effect on Vince? They deeply affected me, so why not him, since he was so much younger and couldn’t understand what was happening? If they did affect him, it’s his job now to delve into them and resolve whatever leftover effects may be holding him back, which is what he seems to be doing in AA.

Thanks for reading this series. Several people have commented offline that it’s been emotional to read. I’m ready for a happier subject for the next post: my plans for a road trip to New Orleans!

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This is the seventh in a series of posts that starts here.

If you have read all these posts, thank you. They’ve been hard to write but at the same time it’s liberating to tell the story that’s mostly been kept secret for decades.

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What I have described in this series of posts is a closed adoption. Once parental rights are terminated, the birth parent has no rights, period. Ironically, there was a massive change in adoption laws a year or two after Isaac was born which made open adoption the norm. This is where the birth mother can choose to maintain some level of contact with the child—everything from photos once a year to monthly visits—worked out in cooperation with the adoptive parents. But that didn’t help me, since my case was closed just before the laws changed.

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As my emotions thawed after terminating my parental rights, my predominant feeling was rage. True, no one had forced me to place Isaac for adoption, but I hadn’t felt I had any other option. All the forces of society had been arrayed against me keeping him.

I thought about Charlie Brown, the doctor who had offered to find me a baby buyer; about Judy, the Catholic Charities social worker who had made light of my concerns; the perverts who had hit on me—a pregnant girl at the bus stop with a baby in a stroller; the mugger who assaulted me; Ronald Reagan, who ensured I would start my career with student loan debt; Dr. G., who invited a dozen strangers to observe me go through one of the most excruciating moments of my life; and the judge, who had asked me pityingly if I understood what I was doing.

I wasn’t angry with The Creep; he would soon go on to father three more children. Vince and I have joked that they could form their own support group, “Adult Children of The Creep.” The guy had dug himself into such a deep hole that I figured the rest of his life would be his punishment.

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A few weeks after I signed the final papers, it occurred to me that I should have a photo of Isaac. I told myself this was for Vince—when I told him some day. I called Judy and there was a long pause after I said my name, as though she had already forgotten who I was.

“Why didn’t you ask for a photo before the papers were signed?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I stammered, feeling stupid and ashamed. I hated her but I knew I was at her mercy. “I would really, really appreciate it if you would ask the parents.”

She told me I would have to put my request in writing, which I did. Six weeks later she called to say that the parents had denied my request.

“Since you didn’t request a photo before you signed the papers, they’re under no legal obligation to give you one now. They’re concerned you might see the baby in a shopping mall or something … they wouldn’t want any scenes. It’s for the best.

“They want you to know that they love him very much and they gave him a beautiful name. Of course, I can’t tell you what it is.”

Wow, she was really enjoying herself. I added Isaac’s adoptive parents to my hate list.

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I had lost control with Vince, screamed at him, and shoved him to the floor. I called the county and asked to speak with a child protection worker. She asked a bunch of questions then pronounced, “Based on your family history and your recent drinking behavior, I think it’s clear that you’re an alcoholic.” She recommended I place Vince in foster care so I could go to rehab. “You can say no, but there may be repercussions,” she said ominously.

I didn’t think I was an alcoholic but I placed Vince in foster care and got ready to go to treatment. The next day my mother demanded that I sign Vince over to her, so I did. This time it was only temporary, right?