alcoholish

Which came first? The alcohol or the alcoholic?

My old friend Fear

The Great Escape Artist

I vaguely recall being in the Garrett Memorial Hospital chapel room, while my grieving parents were taken down to the morgue to identify my brothers body. I didn't want to exist, I wanted to crawl out of my own skin. Not in that room, not in that hospital, not in that small town, definetly not in my own head. I just didn't want to be me. Hospital staff, family members, friends of mine, friends of my brothers, etc shuffled in and out. I was just there, hazily existing, the conversation around me sounding like Charlie Browns teacher.. 

I finally had a reaction to the news I had heard an hour earlier, but prohibited myself from accepting. I ran outside to the parking lot and threw up the greasy El Lobo's meal I had eaten a couple hours earlier. About the same time my brother was being ejected from the car he was a passenger of, exhaling his last breath, left lying lifeless on a grassy bank, I was sitting in a grimy dive joint inhaling pizza.

Call me crazy, but somehow pizza is still my favorite food group

After I finished dry heaving, I noticed someone smoking, so I bummed a cigarrette. At less than a week away from my 16th birthday I decided to start chain smoking in the parking lot outside the entrance to the hospital. I didn't really care who saw me, as adults, my parents, everyone witnessed it and didn't seem to care either. At that point I think it made them & more importantly myself realize I was alive & breathing as each exhalation of smoke dissipated into the cool air of that April evening 19 years ago.

Upon leaving the hospital & arriving back at our house on Pennington street, I didn't believe anything could ever change this feeling, this all consuming pit in my stomach. A doctor had apparently offered my parents something to help them sleep... any kind of rest was out of the question of even being a possibilty as my mind was spinning out of control. My mom then handed me one, and just like that cigarette I put it in my mouth & swallowed without hesitation. 

I woke up sometime the next morning to the sounds of Spring, robins singing in our yard, the sun shining softly through the blinds of my second story room. I had apparently slept. Was it all just a bad dream? I didn't want to open the door or walk downstairs to find out.. If this nightmare was our reality, I wanted more of those pills. I wanted all the pills and to fall into a coma until the second coming of my older brother could happen.

Elias Black #85 after catching the game winning touchdown. Circa 1995

If reality is the iron shackles that bind us like prisoners being force fed the truth, then I was about to become Houdini. I would liberate myself from any pain, discomfort, & the truth. I remember the wave hitting me as I looked out the window and saw a row of visitors cars parked outside of our house. My mind trying to bend so it could wrap around this concept of death in our immediate family. I wanted to break out. I wound up searching for escape in many forms, but the freedom I found in mind altering substances always worked best. It delivered relief as promised & it was usually instant gratification. 

I have always thought of death to be the ultimate escape. I didn't even believe in a heavenly after life, I just assumed that when you died, it was all over, the pain of living was alleviated. I have been so selfish in my own pain, struggle, & existence, that I began to idolize his death. Not always to the point of being suicidal, but always to the point of being reckless in my escape to where I wouldn't have minded if I had "an accidental overdose" that would allow me to fade into oblivion.

 This being the 19th anniversary since Elias' passing & marks a point at which he has now been dead longer than he was alive at 18 years 7 months young. It is still as surreal today as it was back when I heard the news and the world turned a few shades greyer.

There have been two people close to me in life that have passed away before their time, that I have always looked up to, always admired.... though recently to the point of being jealous that they escaped before life had a chance to chew them up and spit them back out over & over again like it has in my cycles of 

addiction.

I do not have the need to run away today. I can rely on something greater than myself, and I like to think my brother Elias has had a hand in "assisting me" on my path to spiritual enlightenment so to speak. I just have to walk, wade, & sometimes swim through this pain & not escape one day at a time. This is the second anniversary of his death that I have been able to stay clean & sober. I have surrounded myself with friends, my daughter, my mom, and most importantly my recovery. 

Your Loving mother, niece, and brother on this day 4-27-2015

Innards

TUNE IN TO KFUC FM RADIO

There are times when being in my head is like driving through an infinite desert in the middle of the night while searching for decent radio stations to listen to. All you seem to pick up is dead air, then a crackling noise, some static, inevitably followed by a Christian talk Radio show telling you to repent or burn in Hell.

KFUC radio can be tuned in from seemingly anywhere on the planet, I have the worlds most powerful antenna right between my ears... Voices that are constantly fucking with me, berating & belittling my self worth. Telling me that I only deserve to be in agony, pain, confusion & chaos. I am not good enough to have that healthy relationship, to keep that job with a steady pay check, let alone have luxuries like health insurance, a  house of my own, or a car manufactured in this decade. I feel I will always struggle in the lower class of society but never qualify for welfare, food stamps, medicaid, or an EBT card because I essentially suffer from the disease of ignoring reality.

On the flip side of the AM/FM dial, I occasionally hear that I am doing well in life, even though I can't seem to see my life as they do. I have a close group of people that I have let into my world of recovery. From the outside, these people are supportive. On the outside these people are compassionate of my struggles. On the outside I may seem ok on the surface. On the inside, I am doing all I can do to progress and keep my demons at bay.  my outsides do not match my Insides. . . 

I am realizing that when people tell me "You are doing fine, why do you need 12 step meetings?" or "You have everything going for you, a thriving business, split custody of your beautiful daughter, and everyone who knows you, loves you!" that they probably have good intentions.  The problem I face is, that is the exact same crock of shit that my internal addict tells me when it tries to sell me that lie. The one where it says I don't have a problem anymore, and that things are good enough to go out & party again.

I am tired of hiding that my insides don't fucking match my outsides, and that is why I am vulnerable enough to write it. I have to wake up everyday  and surrender to that fact, then lay my head on my pillow sober every night after thanking a power greater than me for getting me through one more day.

I am becoming more and more aware that I can't run from myself. It wasn't that I was born with the gift of ignorance, I was cursed with the character defect of ignoring. I knew better, but it seemed much easier to check out, effectively escaping the reality of problems. Which also means that you don't have to come up with any immediate solutions. .. even if I intended to eventually.

I chose instead to escape with sex, drugs, & Rock n' Roll as the solution to numb my insides enough that it never fuckin mattered what the outside looked like. No matter the situation, the geographical location, whether it was out of joy or frustration, escape in any form fucking worked.

I use to say stupid shit like "Patience is a virtue, that I don't have time for." and "Ignoring is Bliss" while I stacked failed relationships, lost loves, unfinished plans, unpaid bills, unfilfilled promises until they all couldn't fit under that industrial sized rug I swept them under.

This is why I need endless hours of recovery, therapy, yoga, meditation, self reflection, long walks on the beach. while having limited social life & spilling my guts on this blog. In the faith that one day my insides will match my outsides and both will have progressed to a level that surpasses my wildest intentions.

Touch of Grey

Truth Serum

I am guilty of having a perspective problem. What I take in, the way my brain processess events, the way I experience them is different (however, I am not unique) My first though is wrong. My ideas get me in trouble. To get closer to the illusive truth I have been searching for, I first must be open to the idea that I am not actually in control of situations.

 Can I do anything about the russian military flying over Alaskan airspace?

Could I stop ISIS from filling massive graves with bodies?

All I can really control is my actions... including not putting a drink or drug in or around my body.

For the past two months I have managed to do just that.

All You need to Know.

The truth is, I am sober today. The truth is all we really have is today. Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery. Today I choose to be present. That is enough for everything else to fall in place as my higher power has intended.

What is your truth today?

Research & Development

How manys days would you suppose it takes to get a 30 day chip of continuous sobriety?

Many drops make a bucket, many buckets make a pond, many ponds make a lake, and many lakes make an ocean.

And yeah, this cryptogram could be like asking, "which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of gold?" but the reality of recovery is, that it can take decades, years, months & many days of relentless work. The mental evolution required within ones self to aquire anything substantial to the outside world can wear your soul thin. "But if nothing changes, then nothing changes" This last go round it has taken me 116 days, 3 ER visits, 2 neuro-pyschiatric observations, and being incarcerated to get 30 days in a row of clean time.

A Beautiful mind is a terrible thing to waste..

 I have been sober at various times (sometimes months or years) in my life by will power, but that looks & feels much different than working a program of recovery. The basic distinction is that the white knuckle way of abstinence from drugs n' alcohol leaves you feeling restless, irritable, & discontent when you are left to cope without self medicating. 

Recovery has a beginning, goes in order, and maintains structure... however there is no end. You never graduate, there isn't a diploma or certificate of completion.  What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. Those early days, just like drops of rain gathering in a bucket, could someday add up to a sea of sobriety.

If long term sobriety & dying sober is the pot of gold at the end of the recovery rainbow, then what must does the beginning of look like?

Recovery is not all Butterflies-n-Rainbows-n-blowjobs...

I will attempt to explain:

It is climbing out of a pit of dispair.... a deep, dark hole with a broken shovel in the bottom of it after you didn't have the strength to dig anymore.. . hopefully. But once you climb out of that hole and see the sunshine for the first time in days, saying that you are going to "give up digging your own grave" like so many times before this. But this time IS really the last time. You're shovelin days are over, no more slave to the grind. 

There is really no one that can help you out of this self imposed prison, you have most likely isolated yourself from everyone that cares about you, so distorted was your reality that you might think the drug dealer is your only friend & everyone else is out to get you... and going from feeling like this to actually reaching out for help when all you feel is shame for suffering from incomprehensible demoralization can be a stretch to say the least.

The recovery rainbow looks more like this:  Instead of a perfect upward arch of blissful heavenly rise, it resembles a heart rate monitor. A sine wave / acdc... there are ups, some downs, maybe a plateau. . followed by a cliff. But eventually we hope for a upward spiral.

If I ever want to see that pot of gold I have to evolve, to form a new way of thinking, and surrender to doing things on my own. My way got me a bucket full of newcomer chips & a empty playground full of holes. Slowly but surely, I am figuring out how to live life on lifes terms, how to walk the walk in a new pair of shoes, and how not to grab that shovel.

Common Denominator

"If you could have any person in the world put your life back together, to pick up the pieces and arrange them how you see fit, who would that person be?"

As a person in general it's tempting to blame the cause of your problems onto other people or circumstance. In an Alcoholic and/or addicts brain blaming everything but yourself is considered S.O.P. "If you had my life you would use (fill in the substance) too. If you had my (fill in the problem) worries you would check out of reality too. If you had experienced my (fill in the negative adjective) upbringing, then you would seek escape and live a double life too."

''If you had my life, my problems, my struggles and proceeded to accumulate compound interest on them by abusing drugs, alcohol, sex, etc.. etc..,  going spiritually, emotionally, and financially bankrupt you would think that eating a gun was a solution when the other solutions stopped working too!"  .... Projection much? Dissolusioned slightly? 

 I would venture to say that as infants we relied on our parents to make everything better & safe in our bright, new, and shiny world. Then as adolescents most of us blamed all our seemingly serious issues of the day back onto our parents as the worlds luster began to fade.

 Once we figured out that when we liked someone, and they in turn liked us back, we felt validation & appreciation. Which in turn boosted our self-worth and ego. I suspect that many of us starting relying on outside relationships to build up our world and self esteem at an early age. What happens when that relationship fails? It couldn't be our own fault... we are fucking awesome.

 Once again the blame is usually swayed away from us and onto our former partners. This cycle was repeated into my adult dating life. But I longed to leave the uncertainty of dating behind me, to have something concrete and stable. I wanted to build an empire out of rubble, so when I met the girl of my dreams who would undoubtedly make me feel complete, I married her at 23. After all, I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Marriage is permanent. Marriage is a binding fucking contract of foreverness. 

I was divorced at 25... I was alone in a state I didn't want to be in, lost in a state of fear I didn't think I signed up for when I said "I do", left as a statistic in a category  that I didn't want to fall into after signing the divorce decree.  It certainly wasn't my fault. I was actually sober during my marriage. I didn't even show up to my own bachelor party. (Out of fear of what I would do to screw up my soon to be perfect union) This fact alone should prove it couldn't have been anything this addict did. 

I would spend the next decade trying to live in the bachelor party I had thought I missed out on, the one I thought I should have went to and done massive rails of blow off of strippers naked bodies. I was living lost and full of fear, seeking escape from being alone with relationships I wasn't present for, not caring to much if they failed as I was quite certain that they would.

I started recently thinking that it could be something to do with my behaviors, my selfish way of thinking, and I  actually am at fault. I am the common denominator of every relationship I have participated in. I blamed everything else when things didn't go my way or to plan. I had so much selfish pride mixed with an ego that was not my amigo... I am quick to take credit when good things happen to me or even around me. If the sun is shining, I probably had a hand in it.

On the flip side if a storm rolls through and rains on your parade I had nothing to do with that horse shit. 

Until I accept myself as the problem or the cause of the problems I am facing, I am not able to live in the solution. I am blocked from it. I cannot solve the equation until I except my own value in the problem.

Give up. Own up. Make up. Keep up.

Not Going out Today.

Not on this Fucking day. This is not that fucking day what so ever. This is not that fucking day that I listen to the voice say that it will somehow be different this time getting loaded on drugs and alcohol. That this time will bring guaranteed relief instead of inevitable misery.

I think it's fucked up how I'm still fucked up. It's this tug of war between what is comfortable, and what I really want out of life. I really want clarity, security and freedom from living in fear of being me.

Everyday sober day is a a day further away from living in active alcoholism/addiction. Which is a amazing feat, an amazing accomplishment, but on the flip side of the sobriety coin, everyday sober is another day this disease has a reason to say that things are good now... you would be OK drinking a beer.. smoking some weed. Just kick back and relax. Think of the good times, not the breakups.

What we alcholics and addicts have is a perceptual problem. I am a victim of the world and everyone in it. You were always the problem, never me, always you. I have been hearing it said and explained to me that through hard work and a long road of recovery that eventually I will come to the realization that "You can't hurt me. Only I can hurt myself."

Everything out there.... everything outside of the space between our ears is just noise and movement. It is our own choice to see what happens within that movement and what we hear within that noise. Only then can we process if it is good or bad, if it is Heaven or Hell.

We are not bad people getting good, we are not stupid people getting smart, we are sick people getting well.

Jesus take the Wheel

While I was driving down the I-15 the other day in road construction, My dear mother ( who was born and raised in rural West Virginia / Maryland, where there are dirt roads, gravel roads, single lane paved roads, and an occasional dual lane highway) exclaims, "Five lanes of highway, and they are building more?  I will never drive on this freeway or in downtown Salt Lake city. Can't I just take the side streets or Redwood road to get where I am going?"

I retort, "While there may me five lanes on the highway, you really only have to worry about the one are currently driving in. It's like having 7 days of the week, luckily you only have to deal with one day at a time, not all of them at once." 

"It's the other drivers I am worried about, what if they swerve into my lane or cut me off?" 

Another legitimate concern, but it is ultimately out of our control, what other drivers, pedestrians, animals, a falling tree or debris does or does not do on our road of existence. Same thing applies to all people, places, and things, of this fucked up world. The sooner we realize that no one can hurt us except ourself (and I have hurt myself an awful lot ingesting poison and expecting someone else to suffer from it),the sooner we can be on our way to freedom of more self-harm.

It all refers back to the principles I have learned and continue to learn in recovery. I can only control myself and stay in my lane while letting a power greater than me take care of the rest.  We must focus our attention to the present day we are living in, not dwelling on the past, nor worrying about the future. 

"Forget yesterday, yesterday has already forgotten you. Do not sweat tomorrow, you haven't even met yet. Instead, open your eyes and heart to a truly precious gift. Today"


No, I do not have this philosophy or way of life down pat. I struggle with it daily, so I must turn over my will as soon as I wake and then multiple times throughout the day. It gradually gets better, but I need to be constantly reminded that if I try to run the show, I will be the one swerving out of my lane, running red lights, crashing in my truck-boat-truck full of explosive gasoline.

Lost Artifacts.

Free Will

Editors note: I found this in my drafts... written sometime late last April 2014, still unfinished & I will leave it at that, But I wanted to post it anyhow.

What a long, strange trip it's been.... at six months into this stretch of my sobriety, I feel.... I don't know, complacent? I am sort of at a loss for words on how I feel. Things are going amazingly well in most aspects of my life. Some days it feels like the longest six months of hard work in my life, other days feel like it has flown by and I don't know where the time has gone.

I try not to get too comfortable. Even though I am slowly gaining back things I had lost, or rather given away due to my addiction, I can surely lose it all just as fast. I live with my daughter in a condo that I have rented for the past 8 months now. This is pretty normal by most everyday standards, but looking back at my history I have not been self sufficient since 2005. Ever since then I have had roommates, one live in girlfriend after another, then couch surfed at friends houses, and eventually slept in a spare office of my business, mostly waking up hungover if I managed to sleep at all, barely scraping through my days.

I appreciate things now. Having food in my fridge and pantry (not just alcohol in my freezer) having my own place with two rooms for my daughter and I. Paying bills. Having responsibilities is a blessing for me, as there were times I didn't or just chose not to. I had always considered myself a functioning addict / alcoholic because I had a "job" and "friends" and a "vehicle" etc.. But really I owned a business that enabled my destructive ways, when I was hungover or up for days, I could put a sign on the door and turn off the Open sign. I really wasn't functioning at all. I realize I would not be employed for long if I wasn't self employed.

 I now hold myself more accountable, trying always to do what I say I am going to do.

"I was always judging myself on my intentions, while everyone around me judged me by my actions."

It has taken me a long time to realize I really wasn't fooling anyone around me but myself, and the only indication I received of that was when I ended up by myself.  Then after awhile of drinking and using alone, even I didn't want to be around me.

Cure for the Common Monday.

I can't help but be sad when I drop my daughter off at daycare and know I won't be the one picking her up for a couple of days. I know she is in good hands when she is away, but I always find myself hoping she is happy, content and not afraid. I am most likely projecting my own views of how I feel when I am not with my daughter. She is the bright spot of my days, giving me hope, faith, and courage to pull through to the next.

That sadness was alleviated today when I saw that my precious Rosaline Jean also thinks of me while we are temporarily apart.

Bittersweet.