Powerless No More: Memoir of a Recovering Woman

By Jody Yarde

Powerless No More is a story of hope for anyone dealing with a history of broken relationships, destructive addictions, or families who have almost given up on the addict in their lives. This memoir details the painful work the author needed to do in order to become happy, joyous, and free.

Part of growing up in an alcoholic home meant moving a lot because landlords would not renew leases. Because of the police in the driveway every weekend and the damage done on drunken rampages, the alcoholics in the family always hoped a new location (the geographic cure) would help them turn over a new leaf. The author, until her junior year in high school, attended a new school every year. In addition to the violence in her home, the constant moves made it difficult to make friends or to even know how. She and her sister, years later, recalled a drunken scene in front of a friend, which taught them never to invite anyone in the home again. While these moves gave her lots of experience in being in new situations, it only added to her insecurity and always feeling like she never quite belonged anywhere, including in her own family. She grew up being told she was the cause of her mothers death; it took years later, looking at it from an adult perspective, to forgive herself. In addition to guilt from her mothers death, she spent years wondering what might have happened if she had been the one to call for help sooner when her first stepmother died.

By the time she reached her twenties, she discovered the release she could get from all these feelings of guilt, grief, and insecurity: alcohol, and lots of it. Of course, she was going to drink differently from her parents! She was not going to get drunk, make a fool of herself, and have people call the police on her. She was going to drink like a lady and be as sophisticated as the glamorous stars on the big screen in the 50s and 60s.

At the time of President Kennedys assassination, the author was just getting ready to celebrate graduating from business school and turning twenty-one. The birthday party was cancelled, along with everything else that weekend. But her drinking career had started three years before, so it wasnt such a big deal to be turning twenty-one! In the next twelve years, she married, had two beautiful boys, and moved nine times. But a childhood of abuse and alcoholism, and the loss of the two most important women in her life, had already set the stage for core issues of abandonment, insecurity, and rejection.

With insightful references from spiritual authors Jody admires, she tells how she reached her dark night of the soul and how she managed to come out of all the chaos feeling grateful. One of her most poignant memories is of a reunion with her siblings after a fifty-two-year separation. Over a period of a week together, the three sisters and brother finally talked about the elephant in the room and found healing.

Women she finally came to trust and love later made up for a mother who died much too young, a stepmother who died when Jody was only sixteen, and another stepmother she loved who left because of the battering. Her growth in recovery and her spiritual life are supported by some of these same women. She credits her wonderfully supportive husband whom she says believed in me long before I believed in myself, with the joy she has in her life today. Though she tells of feeling like she had no power as a child to change anything, as an adult she consistently gave up her power to those around her and to her addiction. Today she not only feels powerful but has changed in ways she would never have thought possible. Paying it forward is what it is all about now, says the author. While the past twenty-eight years have certainly not been without challenges, losses, and health issues, they have been easier because of learning to ask for help. Life is no longer meant to be struggled through alone. With the God of my understanding, my husband, and m

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 27, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469167831

Jody Yarde

The author discovered some twenty years ago the sheer joy of watching other women grow and become the women they always hoped they would be before addiction took over their lives. That passion is her reason for telling her story. Losing herself was enough, as it was for many women she worked with. Getting help early before all is lost, she believes, is key. For those willing to be fearlessly honest about their addiction, there is hope in Jody’s story. Today she enjoys most being with family and “her ladies.” She also enjoys reading, gardening, traveling, painting, and staying fit in body, mind, and spirit through yoga.

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Copyright © 2012 by Jody Yarde.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2012902829

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4691-6782-4

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4691-6781-7

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4691-6783-1

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Notes

Suggested Reading

Acknowledgments

This book would not have been written were it not for the encouragement I have received at all levels:

First, I have to thank my husband Tim, my biggest cheerleader and, lately, my computer guru.

Second, recovery would never have happened had God not put exactly the right women in my life at just the right time—including the Toledo and Grand Haven WEST Groups and my Journey Group.

And third would be my siblings, who helped fill in the blanks and welcomed me back into the fold.

Introduction

Every generation wants to do life better than the one before. This is especially true when it comes to raising our children. How many times have you heard, I’m never doing that to my kids!? How many parents have said the same thing, only to catch themselves one day sounding just like their parents? Some of the things I said I would never do or say to my children, I haven’t. Other things, I have said and done. One thing I thought I was certain of was that I would never become alcoholic like my parents were and give my children the miserable childhood I had. But lo and behold, at age thirty-eight, I had to look myself in the mirror one morning and admit that I had, indeed, become what I prayed I would never become: an alcoholic.

A few weeks before Thanksgiving Day 1979, I got a call from a dear friend I was going to be with over the holidays. He wanted me to know that he had started going to Alcoholics Anonymous, had been sober now for several weeks, liked how he felt, and would not be drinking with me when the family got together. What a shock! Not only was it the first time I had heard of Alcoholics Anonymous, but it also made me wonder about my own drinking if he thought he was alcoholic. I had never seen him drunk, hungover, or suffering from drinking as I already was. But when I hung up the phone that night, I quickly dismissed any relevance this had to do with me and my drinking (denial). After all, I could stop whenever I wanted. I just hadn’t really wanted to yet. I had to admit that I had terrible hangovers and blackouts, but I was not a daily drinker and did not get violent like my dad. My faulty reasoning and denial told me I couldn’t possibly be that bad yet.

But just a couple of weeks later, I found myself in a totally unacceptable place. Not only had I started drinking with a client in the middle of the day, but I also had continued drinking when I got home, knowing we had friends coming for dinner, and was in total blackout the whole evening. My drinking had already been a problem in my marriage, though I continually minimized it and denied there was a problem. But getting that drunk in front of good friends was a new low for me, my first bottom. For the first time, my hangover was as bad the second day after that fiasco as it was the first day after. I believe this was my first experience with withdrawal. It scared me so badly that I came home from work early and looked in the yellow pages for help. I found it under alcoholism counseling at our local hospital. When I called to see if I could get an appointment sometime, the response was, Come now. Thank God. If I had to wait, I am sure I would have talked myself out of going.

Why are you here? The counselor wanted to know.

I think I might have a little drinking problem, but no way am I alcoholic. I had a screwed-up childhood and now a bad marriage, so occasionally I drink too much to cope. I’m hoping you can help me save my marriage, figure out what’s wrong with me, and fix it.

Until then I had been in survival mode with few tools given by my parents to deal with life’s problems. It took weeks in counseling before I was ready to go back to childhood memories. But one day, I realized it was time. I, for the first time, felt in a safe enough place with this counselor to finally be vulnerable enough to share my whole story.

What is your first memory? she asked.

I was holding my mother’s hand as she walked me to my first day of kindergarten. I remember it so clearly it is like it happened yesterday. Because what I remember is how I froze when she said I needed to walk up to the door alone from the corner. I remember the terrible sense of abandonment I felt as I listened to the sound of her steps walking away.

Once in recovery for alcoholism, abandonment was one of the biggest issues I dealt with, and still do, on occasion. The good news is that in the years following that counseling, I learned so much about alcoholism being a family disease and the consequences of growing up in an alcoholic home.

That night, I