Heather tells me she learned it from the “Caron Institute.” I write down the name, google it, and read all about this drug and alcohol facility in Pennsylvania that specializes in intensive group therapy in something they call their “Breakthrough program.” I realize this is exactly the missing link in my recovery that I need. Something that will help me be able to live with the at-times-crippling realizations that sobriety brings as you look back upon your past and creates a bridge for you to move on to the next phase of your life in a healthy, stable way.
I ask Scott if it’s okay if I use part of his money to do Caron’s Breakthrough program—at a cost of $2,600—and he fully supports it. Soon after, I spend one week in a tiny town in Pennsylvania, learning from morning to night about what unhealthy relationship dynamics I might be re-creating in my life and how to advance my recovery to a better place.
Part of the experience includes writing letters to my parents, expressing what I wish I could have gotten from them when I was younger—versus the reality of what I did receive.
“Dad,” I write in my letter, “I didn’t just want to hear that I was valuable. I wanted you to show me I was valuable through your actions.”
In a small nondescript room with sunlight streaming through the windows, I stand up, wearing no makeup, no designer clothes, and I read this entire letter aloud to my group. Except when I get to that line, the therapist stops me cold.
“Wait,” he says. “I want to try something.”
In order for me to really reflect on the meaning behind my words—and how they relate to my own self-treatment and care—he assigns another group member to play “me” so that I can then read that statement back to “myself.” We did this sort of thing at Caron a lot. It sounds so silly, but for some reason these “psychodrama” act-outs can make you see a desire you are articulating in an entirely new light. Which is exactly what happens.
“I wanted you to show me I was valuable through your actions,” I tell the woman who represents me, sitting in a chair a few feet away. As the words come out, as I tell “myself” that I wanted to be shown that I was valuable through my actions, the impact is overwhelming.
Mandy, I wanted you to show me I was valuable through your actions.
Do you see? Do you see what I saw?
It’s like a layer of film was lifted from my eyes. An often-repeated principle of sobriety is the notion of “taking care of your side of the street.” Meaning, I can’t change my father. I can’t change anyone. I certainly can’t go back in time. But I can change myself.
So why have I been treating myself so terribly?
A few months later, at the beginning of June, I make my big move out to LA to stay in the apartment set up by Scott, someone with whom I have only spent three hours in person.
He’s a remarkable individual, one of the smartest, greatest men I’ve ever met in my life, but our relationship is complicated. I’m so consumed with my sobriety and self-care during this time, going to meetings all the time and without any kind of structure or schedule, the progress I make on creating this company I pitched him is fairly pathetic.
But I tell myself that it’s okay because I know that he is also shepherding my recovery, and he fully supports that. He loves me, after all. He told me that. But Scott is separated and going through a divorce at the time, and ours is not a true business relationship. I am his fake wife, and when on the night of my second-year anniversary of sobriety I crash the car he rented for me, he lashes out in a way that makes clear how dangerous the blurring of personal and professional can be.
Suddenly, the close emotional bond we have developed is nowhere in sight. Now he is a raging boss who is disgusted with me as an employee who has failed to deliver. It leaves me feeling shell-shocked. I have never seen this side of him before. It feels like a combination of the rage of my father and the vitriol of my ex-husband combined. It is extremely jarring.
“Where is the work you promised me?” Scott yells. “What is wrong with you? Why are you so full of shit?”
When I try to speak, he interrupts me and mocks me mercilessly.
“I’ll pay you back the money,” I tell him, my voice going monotone. “But I’m not going to accept this. I don’t let men talk to me this way in my life anymore.”
I tell him I am moving home to live with my parents in San Diego.
“Keep the money,” he says. “I don’t expect anything. But I’m disappointed in you for giving up.”
Scott says I need to get over his rage outburst and just pretend it didn’t happen. But I can’t do that anymore. My gut tells me that I need to get out. His anger at me is completely justified at my utter failure as an entrepreneur, but the rage he directed at me triggers a sense of fight-or-flight protection I can’t ignore. It feels like a switch has gone off. One minute our relationship is no expectations, take your time, focus on your self-care. The next minute I am deserving of the most brutal and demeaning of his anger. I realize I need to triage the situation before it gets any worse.
I’m happy to say that in the months that follow, a healing occurs. We become good friends again and recognize that the entire thing was a mistake, sparked by both of us being in such transitory, uncertain periods in our lives. I am still fairly new to sobriety, he is in the middle of a divorce, and I suppose
