Twelve years ago I was rushing into a grocery store, trying to get a few things on my way to my next errand.  I, as usual, was moving at the speed of light, thinking about what I had to do next….when I saw her.  There she was, a big, black, furry dog with small deep set brown eyes and a face that reminded me of a black bear.  It only took one look, for both of us.  I knew.  She knew.  She was mine.  I was hers.  I brought her home to my little town house which already was home to 3 other dogs.  She walked in slowly and laid down in the dining room.  The other dogs sniffed, pawed, barked - “Who the hell is this, and she is she doing here?”  None of this seemed to bother her in the least.  She was not haughty, afraid or aggressive.  She just looked at me.  “I’m home now.  Everything’s gonna be okay.”  And it was.

As some of you know, I have a lot of dogs.  They have come to me in every way possible and each one has been a very special gift from The Universe to teach me, to care for me and to give me total bliss.  Irish, however, was a very old soul from the beginning.  She was steady, always present and never gave me a bit of trouble nor did she demand anything from me.  All she asked was that I love her.  And that I did.  I would sit with her head nuzzled under my chin, kissing the top of her head for what seemed hours and she never moved.  Tail gently wagging, she would just sigh every now and then as if to say,”This is what I came for.  This is why I’m here.  Isn’t it good?”

When I was sad she would absorb my pain.  Just holding her gave me a release that was always calming and rock solid.  I would grab her around her deep chest and bury my tears in her fur.  She never moved until I let go, my sadness, anger or frustration having been dissipated by her serene presence.

When we would all go to the park or the lake, I would love to see her lope ahead of me, always looking back to make sure I was there.  She was not a petite dog, nor was she feminine in appearance. She was often mistaken for a male, simply because of her body structure.  But she was neither male or female - she was Irish - a temporary gift sent by God to let me know that I am loved.

You have taught me well, my gentle giant. I will miss you so -

Till Next Time -

Your Humble Road Warrior

]]> http://www.thesecondroad.org/tsr/2010/02/09/5646/feed/ http://www.thesecondroad.org/tsr/2010/02/08/5637/ http://www.thesecondroad.org/tsr/2010/02/08/5637/#comments Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:10:31 +0000 Steve E. http://www.thesecondroad.org/tsr/?p=5637 SOME MORE STUFF!

Winter will soon be but a memory…WHAT a memory!  Having lived in Naples, Florida 45 years, I can tell you, yes, I still remember.  Even now, when I allow a thought of those 32 years I spent in Cincinnati to live a moment with me–I can “feel” my fingers frozen, my body shaking with the cold.  And I might be exaggerating here, but I seem to recall being often in a gloomy or semi state of depression–the SO many overcast days of bleakness.

It is sort of like having been alive on December 7, 1941– Pearl Harbor–you can never…

Well, once again it is snowing like @&$%# where I live and I am homebound.  It also looks like no one will be moving out of their abodes for several days, due to the “inclement weather” we are experiencing in the Mid-Atlantic.  Being hold up in my home with six dog and two cats makes for some interesting circumstances and it is a constant effort to keep the back deck shoveled so the dogs have somewhere they can walk and not get totally lost in the snow.  That cats, on the other hand, could care less - after all, they are cats.

I have spent quite a bit of time on the phone as a result of this imposed confinement and I have realized what social creatures we really are.  I have spoken with many friends in recovery, since no one can get out to a meeting and have found how much I really need to connect on a daily basis with those who share my “situation.”  I go to several meetings a week and have come to depend upon the community that my recovery has afforded me.  I often choose to be alone, but when it is forced upon me it can sometimes feel like an oppressive heaviness that darkens my spirit and weighs on my soul like a smoke-filled room in which I cannot find the door.

We so often hear the worn out phrases like “We can do together that which we cannot do alone” and in times like this I come to hold those words close to my heart.  A call from a friend, a text, an e-mail - our modern technology has made it easy to connect when we cannot physically come together.  Like writing this blog.  I don’t know who will read it, but just knowing that I am communicating with someone is a reassurance that I am not alone.  And if you are reading this, you are not alone either.  I don’t consider myself a “technie” in any sense of the word but I am grateful for venues like this when I just need to get out of my head.

Thanks for letting me share.

Till Next Time -

Your Humble Road Warrior

“Never ever plan to NOT go to a meeting.”  It is alright to not go, for one reason or another–just do not PLAN it that way.  Ya never know!

When I take some time out to meditate–somehow I always ALWAYS end up with more time that day.

Out of the 86,400 seconds in a day, did I bother to take even ONE of them to thank my Higher Power?

“Don’t die on Third” (Third Step, that is…)  Too many of us go back out, because we stayed for months trying to work perfectly the Third Step.  Guys, let’s get ON with it.  The Third Step is REALLY worked by doing the REST of the steps.  PLEASE believe me on this.

“I’m ‘pretty sure’ I’m an alcoholic”…

Yesterday’s ANGER is
Today’s RESENTMENT is
Tomorrow’s FEAR…
And could possibly be my next DRINK!

Some Peeps are “morning drinkers”
Some are “night drinkers”
I was BOTH!

At 3 AM…
Husband to wife:  “My friend got stinking drunk and puked all over my shirt.”
Wife (putting his clothes into laundry basket):  “And I guess it was he also who crapped in your pants???”

On giving a lead at an AA meeting:
Remember that how I GOT here is not nearly as important as how I STAY here.

How to stop behaving like a fool:
Daily I must do a check-up…from the neck up.

The “second moment of silence” at an AA meeting:
You can tell the depth of the topic, by the length of the silence….
Been to jail.  Been sober.  SOBER is BETTER!

There are two kinds of alcoholics:  WOMEN and MEN!

Peeps in Recovery from whatever:

Stay clean and sober with me today.
Let’s find happiness in this day’s activities.
Today….Let us LOVE!
We shall at PEACE today!

God loves you all, and so do I,
Steve E

A “good” blogger I am NOT.  I got really hooked, became obsessive, and spent 8-10 hours a day writing, reading, and commenting…for a year-and-a-half.  Three weeks ago I stopped blogging, just left it–with a goodbye message, of course. http://steveroni.blogspot.com if anyone’s interested…

In my blogging “career” I went from reading ONE blog post daily, to checking on about sixty per day, commenting on as many as I could. During this time I went from enjoying 1 follower to 164.  (How many really followed I don’t know.) But my daily readership went from 1 to 101, then leveled off at about 70-80 per day. Daily comments began at a rate of 3, went up to the final, 50.  Here is the punch line:  I lived for the comments, positive and negative. Whether this was out of a certain pride, or self-imposed, sick need for validation I do not know, nor care.

I chose to begin posting here on The Second Road, because of course, I know the lovely, wonderful, friendly, helpful, generous, managers.  But more, I agree–finally–with the concept of learning about and helping more than just my Druggie-and-alcoholic Peeps. I feel at home in a group of addiction Peeps who suffer from many uneasy diseases, and suffer from results caused by them.

My point here–I guess–is that comments, even discussion in commenting, are for me, what MAKE a blog worthy or not.  If there is not an exchange, I might as well be writing emails to myself.  I–and others–spend the time to pour out our hearts, our most hidden secrets in the postings. At this time, I have not the slightest notion whether anyone but ME has read my blog post. (Well, a few comments lately are happening!)

A law of averages must declare some readership is involved here, but who, how many, and from where do they come here? And the larger question I might have is:  Why do they not leave a comment, if only to write, “I was here. Thanks for your effort. Although I disagree with everything you say.”

It may even be an anonymously posted comment.

Some could well believe I am way off base with my rant, and disagree. That is fine. OK!  But please tell me, OK?  While surfing yesterday I came across this paragraph in a posting by a photographer/blogger named Owen, lives in England.  He can be visited HERE at  his THE MAGIC LANTERN SHOW.  He wrote this, and I have his written permission to copy:

“PLEASE FEEL FREE TO LEAVE COMMENTS ! Comments are the icing on blog-cake… Comments are the UFO in the twilight sky bearing news from other planets… Comments are raspberry vinegar in salad dressing… Comments are the cool balm of after-sun moisturizing lotion… Comments are the moment the band comes back out on-stage to play an encore… Comments are the gleam in the eye across the room in a smoky bar… Comments are the rainbow after the rainstorm…”

In the spirit of what I wrote here, I have been trying to comment substantively  (maybe with MUCH TOO LENGTHY substance–grin!) on each new daily posting.  I sincerely hoped some others would follow suit…or not.  After all, we are now happy, joyous, and FREE!!!! …it says here.

Today, with me–PEEPS!
Be FREE
Be HAPPY
Be LOVING
Be at PEACE
PLEASE!!!

Our roommate recently purchased an XBOX 360. He and my husband play and play and play, all day. Here are the things that I fear around the XBOX 360:

I am afraid my husband will pawn it for drugs. We have few fancy electronics left, and I keep the ones that I have under my guard at all times. No matter how well my husband is doing, I am always wary of expensive electronics left unattended. He has paid for lots of heroin with other people’s electronics, and it feels pornographic to see fancy, electrically alive things sitting around, waiting to tempt him into a relapse.

I am afraid of the way my husband checks out when he is playing video games. I find it upsetting whenever he is mentally or emotionally absent, as it’s similar to when he checks out to addicted fantasy land, or when he checks out because he’s nodded off from being too high. I am afraid of the way he looks when he’s playing with their new toy, and I’m afraid of the way he doesn’t seem to be able to hear me talk to him while he’s playing.

I am afraid of how testy he is around the video game. If he’s playing and has to stop, it makes him incredibly grumpy and nasty. I hate watching him get wrenched out of that checked out state…it’s like seeing a worm squirming after you lift a rock off of it.

Mostly, I know these things are not my business, and I know that as long as I’m trusting in my Higher Power to take care of me, I’ll be fine. I know that it’s normal to have these kinds of aftershocks from the trauma of addiction, and that I should go easy on myself in the meantime.

I’ve had the same experience with religion. I had bad experiences with Christianity growing up; it’s just not a good fit for me. And I’ve had people evangelize me over the years: “You’ve never tried my church. It’s not like your church. You haven’t been to the right kind of church. You don’t really understand what Christianity is about. You haven’t been approaching it the right way. Try this. You’ll like it.” But I haven’t. Fortunately, there are a lot of other belief sets and practices in the world (from Hinduism to atheism) that allow people to connect to something beyond themselves, and to practice many universally beautiful principles, in a way that does work for them. In my experience, there’s no one path to the good and the divine.

And I’ve been thinking of this recently, as I’ve encountered a few situations where I want to (or have) 12 Step evangelized. When a book says Al-Anon is bunk as it repackages powerlessness as powerfulness, or when an article says that addicts need to look into the origins of their addiction and claims that it’s psychotherapy and not 12 Step that does that, I start saying all of those same things: “You don’t get it. You’re not approaching it the right way. If you really understood the concepts, you’d see that what you’re talking about is already included in 12 Step. Give it a chance. You’ll see it does have what you want and need.”

But 12 Step doesn’t work for everyone, not even me or my husband. It’s been a part of our toolkit, but we’ve used it in conjunction with other therapies and spiritual practices. My husband can recognize that fish has lots of excellent nutrients, but that they just aren’t presented in a way that is most palatable to him. I can recognize that Christianity incorporates the principles I hold most dear, yet they aren’t presented in a way that works for me. And while I can see that 12 Step has great tools, they aren’t presented in a way or in language that works for everyone. Nothing does. There’s no one path to recovery. Fortunately, there are lots of different foods and religions and recovery programs that give us all those same basic nutrients — whether they support our physical, spiritual or mental health — in a way that works for each of us as individuals. And for that, I am grateful.

“Every day is not Christmas Day
Every night is not New Year’s Eve
Some days, chill and dreary,
Some nights cold and unlit, Steve” :

The night has fallen
Dark has descended.
My whole f****ing life
Seems so upended.

Will there be ever
New, better ‘morrow?
Will there be never
One without Sorrow?

One day, all I ask
Happy, Joy and Free:
Day without your mask
Happy, Joy for me!

Sobriety…Yes
Serenity…No
It’s a time for change,
It is  time to go.

The time to withdraw,
To be a recluse.
Finally I saw…
No longer of use

To the sufferer.
To the one in pain,
Nor e’en another.
Not ever again!

TOMORROW WILL BE A BETTER DAY!

Peeps!
Please stay SOBER and CLEAN
Please…with me, KNOW
That every day is a NEW BEGINNING!

Yesterday it snowed all day.  It was as if there was a giant flour sifter in the heavens that just endlessly dusted layer upon layer of light, pure, dainty snow powder all over the land.  I stayed in the house, the grey sky telling me to be still, enjoy the quiet and just listen.  I did as I was told.  I spent most of the day in my bed, reading and just being quiet - letting the stillness speak.  This is what it said:

Our time in this place is temporary.  We do not know when we will leave, nor do we know the circumstances that will cause our departure.  We have so little control over so many things that enter our path and change the direction of our journey.  Some will teach us well and will provide a platform from which we can learn to fly.  Some events will lift our spirits and our hears will fill with a tenderness and joy that we don’t think our bodies will be able to contain. Others will overwhelm us like an unseen tsunami, throwing us into a whirlwind of emotions, thoughts and actions that we never saw coming.  And many will make their appearance as the normal day-to-day joys and struggles that compose this life, each appearing on a regular enough basis so that balance can be maintained and we can continue to stand upright and steady and walk at a comfortable pace that will keep us moving forward with the peace that comes from knowing we are doing the best we can with what we have.

This is not an easy traverse - this walking in the middle of the road.  Our given human “beingness” is a perfect venue for the goodness of existence to be absorbed and then released to others in expressions such as acts of kindness, compassion toward each other, laughter and delight in all the gifts we are given, and empathy with our companions as they, too, try to chart their own expeditions without a map.  Sometimes this is a wondrous adventure and sometimes it is like walking into a dark, overgrown, eerie forest, with no protection, no sense of what dangers might be lurking in the shadows, and not knowing if there is an exit.  Sometimes we come upon a beautiful waterfall and splash in its crystal clear, warm waters, refreshed and eager to see what awaits us around the bend.  But at other points in the journey, we find ourselves trying to climb a mountain of rock and ice, alone and naked.  Sometimes we walk in the warmth of beautiful shafts of light, on a grassy knoll that is soft under our feet.  And at times we will stumble and fall on shards of pain and sadness that mark our path of suffering with footprints of tears.

My mind, like that of all of my human sisters and brothers, can be a place of unbridled rapture; a golden chalice where I am filled to overflowing by the delights of creation, a  soft, downy grove where I reside in gratitude, or a Disneyland for all my emotional, spiritual and physical pleasures.  But my mind can also become a courtroom where I am condemned, judged and sentenced by a jury that knows no justice, follows no laws and disregards evidence that does not fit its agenda to destroy me. Sometimes that jury is a group of faceless enemies.  Sometimes it has only one face - mine.

The snow also told me that I have the choice to run like hell from the tsunami, to take time and explore my options before climbing the mountain, and start to remove any impediments from my path or at least walk around them and look for another route.  And if I find myself in the courtroom, demand another jury - one that is objective, will consider the facts and will justly conclude what actions are to be taken which will be in my best interest.

It has stopped snowing.

It is time to get dressed, go out into the cold and shovel my path today.

Till Next Time -

Your Humble Road Warrior

There is no shadow of turning in thee.

Thy changest not, thy compassions they fail not,

As thou hast been, thou forever will be.

For the last few days, I can’t stop singing this old church song, especially the part about “no shadow of turning.” I think of how much I long for that full, unconditional love, without a shadow of turning. I’ve looked for it my whole life. It’s hard to imagine how I’ve always had it if I’d just looked in the right place. Even when I feel as close to God as I’ve ever felt, I only feel that complete acceptance and unconditional love in flashes. There’s so much garbage in the way!

I love that image, too: a shadow of turning. I see it in my husband’s face more than anywhere else, and I fear it. It makes me sick with fear, that slight heaviness around his eyes…that sensitivity to everything I say…that darkness that descends over him and fills my home. There is a shadow of turning.

The phrase is interesting, too, in thinking of the way I show my own love. I have a shadow of turning, too. When I am afraid of being hurt, I begin to turn away. When I am feeling like I’m being taken advantage of, the shadow shows up. It is hard to maintain that perfect, open love while keeping good boundaries. I believe that it can be done. I know it can be done because it is the way God loves. God doesn’t give me everything I want whenever I demand it, as he knows that I sometimes am not ready for what I think I want. God patiently puts up with my whining and fussing and complaining while he tills the soil in my life, preparing me to receive his next gift. God loves me, even when he’s gently shaping me.

I want to learn how to love like that in my marriage - without a shadow of turning.

She wanted to know the answer to the first part, and if I left out that second part, it was easy enough for me to answer: no, I didn’t think she was being unreasonable or crazy in her interactions with her colleagues. I thought she had some pretty healthy boundaries and was sticking to them. But I didn’t want to tell her that, because what I think doesn’t matter.

I know because I’ve been in that place before: tallying up the yes and no votes in my favor. Sure, I could tell her she wasn’t crazy. But her coworkers friends were busy telling them they weren’t crazy either. So, she’d go in to work the next day and say, “My friend Mary says I’m not being unreasonable,” and her coworker would say, “Yeah, well, my friend Tom says you are.” And then she’d have to ask someone else in order to continue having the balance fall in her favor.

To really feel better, I’ve found that I have to be ok with where I am, regardless of how the score stands. So, what I really wanted to tell her, more than that she was being reasonable in this particular situation, was that it was reasonable for her to have her own boundaries, regardless of whether or not I (or anyone else) agreed with any given boundary at any given moment. But I found myself unable to articulate that part. Sure, it seems easy now that I have time and a keyboard, but it’s a different story when I’m fumbling for words on the phone. And it seemed so hard at the time to put what I wanted to say into a nice neat little sentence, rather than launching into a really long philosophical treatise. So, what I actually said was the ultimately unhelpful external validation thing, “No, you’re not crazy.”

Then I thought, “But it doesn’t matter what I think! Oh, wait. There’s a program slogan, ‘What other people think of me is none of my business.’ That’s what I want to say!” That’s never been one of my favorite slogans, but it did state the crux of the issue in a nice simple little sentence. Oh. I guess that’s why we have slogans in 12 Step. They’re pithy and easy to remember.

I’ve had my share of frustration with slogans. They can feel canned. They can be tiresome. But some of them inspire me. Some I repeat daily. And some, even the ones that aren’t my favorites, can come in handy sometimes.

SHORT STORY

Well, I’m still sober after another (umm!) day.  Nights are so good–like an escape. As a child, I would wander about the farm after everyone was asleep, talk to the animals, sigh at the moon, and frighten the hens and hogs.  Sometimes I’d saddle up my horse Mickey (not really mine!) and ride out beyond sight of the compound of house, barns, pens, sheds and  machinery.

Riding under a high and full moon in July or August, was utter heaven for me, the “poor, deprived kid”, who played a violin before he ever even heard of baseball.

After these rides in the semidarkness I’d make it look like nobody had been even near the barns, fields, or animals. Then would begin my 1 AM search for any of the pints of Muscatel or Old Grandad, which had been discarded, or hidden, left over from a cache of one of the live-in hired hands: “room, board, and laundry, and $14 a week for hard work and long hours. Sunday off.” Sometimes in a half full drum of hominy meal I’d discover my elixir for the night–and with a few gulps of Thunderbird or White Port, I’d soon be also sound asleep in my bed, unheard, undiscovered, unnoticed.

Come morning I would recall that lovely and glorious feeling which came to me as the result of a few swigs of muscatel.  I had trouble wading through the day, wanting desperately to renew that feeling, the euphoria, the–well, yep–that intoxicating feeling!

In a matter of few years, I parlayed my nightly excursions into drinking when and where I wanted–most of the time…and everywhere!   All the Peeps became like, afraid of me, or so it appeared to me LOL!  However, I was peace-loving. but I was LOUD about it–grin!

Of course there is much more to every life than drinking some stolen wine in the dark night, and years later walking bruised, beaten and defeated, into the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous.  As time continues its march, how do we say it? Yessss, “more shall be revealed!”

LOVE today.
Be ENTHUSIASTIC today.
PEACE today.
SOBER and CLEAN today.
And do all this with ME, today!

I went to see “Avatar” last night.  I originally hadn’t planned on going, but heard amazing things about how beautiful the movie was and that the message was profound.  I know absolutely nothing  about all the technical voo-doo that went into making this  $300,000 million dollar movie, but I do know that it has left an imprint in my heart.

The movie takes place in the 21st century and tells the story of a mission by U.S. Armed Forces to mine an indispensable mineral that is plentiful on a moon called Pandora, somewhere out in the universe.  The inhabitants of Pandora, the exceptionally tall,  golden eyed, blue skinned Na’vi, live in harmony with their surroundings and a mutual respect exists between the land, the Na’vi and the other creatures that call this sphere their home.

The scientific part of this mission involves creating avatars that are identical to the Na’vi, but that are given life from the transmission of the physical energy from a human, whose genetic code has been duplicated and can therefore, be transferred to its avatar by placing it in a pod and pushing the “red button.”  The head scientist’s avatar has been learning the Na’vi’s lifestyle and even though she is not accepted as one of their tribe, she has been allowed to move freely among them.

Enter Jake Sully - an identical twin of a would-be avatar who was killed in the line of duty and who has been recruited to take his brother’s position as head avatar who will infiltrate the Na’vi tribe, gain their trust, and basically, get them out of the way before the U.S. bombs the crap out of their territory to get the precious mineral.  But, of course, Jake and the scientist come to know and care deeply for these “people” and see the intricate connection of all the life forms on the planet and how each supplies the energy needed for the continuum of life to exist.

I won’t spoil the rest of the movie, but needless to say,  as Jake and Grace (the scientist) and their small group learn to love these creatures and their peaceful co-existence with their environment, there is major tension between the U.S. Mission to get the mineral and the compassion of the few crew members who now see this endeavor as nothing more than a grievous act of greed.

Okay.  So go see the movie to find out what happens.

I left the theater cloaked in a quilt of sadness and hope.  I was saddened by the blindness of those who only think of their own wants, needs, pleasures and overall narcissism, and are unable or unwilling to see the bigger picture that we are all in this together.  But I also was warmed by the hope that there are many who do see the interconnectedness of the energy of life and who respect and maintain a reverence for every living being, even those who play the role of predator.  “Avatar” is not just a tree-hugger,  I love you man, anti-war movie. It is a metaphor for the way we often live our lives, and the way we can change our outlook toward those with whom we share this sphere called Earth, and that includes our own selves, as well.

What does this have to do with addiction and recovery?

You do the math.

Till Next Time -

Your Humble Road Warrior

Reviewed by Ginger B.

“A Piece of Cake” is a memoir written by San Francisco attorney, Cupcake Brown, in which she painstakingly chronicles her life beginning at age 11, when her mother suddenly dies, through the hell of the next 15 or so years,  and eventually to the awakening she finds in recovery.

The reader is immediately plunged into the violent, malicious, sexual world in which Cupcake will live, with a description of Cupcake’s first foster home - a place where she is repeatedly raped, physically assaulted and verbally and emotionally abused by Diane, and her daughter and nephew.  She runs away over and over again, starts using drugs and alcohol in amazing quantities and turns tricks for anyone from strangers to cops, who are supposedly there to help.  At the age of 13 she becomes pregnant and loses the baby after being brutally beaten by her foster siblings at Diane’s.  She has also become a garbage head drug addict, drinking and imbibing everything from alcohol to crystal meth, crack, and PCP.  Her using escalates throughout her ensuing years and at times I found it difficult to believe that she didn’t die from the sheer amount of drugs she  used.

At the age of 14, Cupcake runs away once more and joins the Eight-Tray Gangster Crisps, a well known, hard core gang in South Central Los Angeles, while being harbored by her great aunt.  It is here that she finally finds what she considers to be the love and acceptance she has always been looking for and becomes a full-fledged “gangsta” - doing hard core drugs, stealing, dealing, and using weapons as a source of power as well as defense.  On her 16th birthday, she is shot in the back twice by a rival gang member, and overcomes the initial prognosis of paralysis.  At age 17 she is legally emancipated and ends up in an abusive marriage to a fellow addict.  Her horrific lifestyle finally culminates when she finds herself  living in a dumpster after having been beaten bloody and contemplating suicide.

Ms. Brown finally starts to turn her life around with the help of a saintly sponsor and a boss who believes in her and continually gives her “another chance,”and  slowly works her way out of the quagmire of addiction.  Even though the “system” fails her miserably, she continues to push (and I mean that literally) her way forward, and ends up graduating from college and law school.

Ms. Brown’s narrative contains no fluff - she writes rough, tough, down and dirty….just like she had to live.  In the first 300 plus pages that are devoted to her life before recovery, I was amazed at her recall of detail, given that she was in a constant drug induced haze.  I was, frankly, unable to believe that this young girl could endure so much endless horror and continue to come back for more, although I must say, it sure kept me reading.

Cupcake’s remarkable metamorphosis only encompasses the last 1/4 of the book and after finishing it, I would have appreciated  a little less drug/gang/abuse/crime-related graphics and a little more emphasis on the remarkable turnaround that she fought just as hard to maintain.  But that does not seem to be Ms. Brown’s  style.  Her language, like her life, is an ” in-your-face, this-is-who-I-am, ain’t-takin’-no-crap-from anyone” declaration of who she is - a woman who has fought like hell to get where she is today.

Cupcake Brown was, and still is, a hustler.  It’s all she’s ever known and she is now using her “skills” to advocate and inspire, rather than degrade and destroy.  If her memoir is, in fact, completely true, this is one remarkable woman.  If, on the other hand, this memoir is embellished and not completely factual, this is still one remarkable woman.

I had a bit of that “I’m right” feeling when I was reading the article “Sex Addiction: A B.S. Excuse for Not Thinking” by psychologist Michael Bader, who writes:

“Traditional addictions like those to alcohol or heroin always involve the presence of tolerance and withdrawal; that is, increasing amounts of the substance are required to achieve the same effect, and in its absence the addict suffers an increasingly painful psychophysiological state as the body and brain rebound. But when it comes to sex addiction, physiological tolerance and withdrawal are usually not present, and if they are, they don’t govern the addict’s life in the same way that, say, opiates do. Sex addicts get anxious when they can’t get their “fix” — they don’t go into DTs.”

My first thought was, “Ha! WRONG, Michael Bader! Sex addicts do experience both tolerance and withdrawal! No, not the DTs, but if you want to get technical about it, heroin addicts don’t experience the DTs either; that condition is specific to alcohol and barbiturates. So there.”

After all, I had my own experience to back me up. I saw first hand how my husband Mark required increasing amounts of the substance to achieve the same effect: how his porn use and affairs escalated over time. About a year prior to learning about his sex addiction, I discovered him engaging in pornographic online video chats. When I asked him why he was doing it, he told me that he couldn’t get the same feeling from looking at pictures that he used to, so he escalated to video, but then he found that video by itself wasn’t enough and he really needed interactive video to get that same feeling. If I had known about addiction and tolerance at the time, I might have realized then what was going on. Instead it just seemed strange, confusing and disturbing that he wasn’t satisfied with just pornographic images anymore, that he seemed to want more and more.

And when Mark stopped porn use, masturbation and affairs, he did go through withdrawal, and it wasn’t just a little bit of manageable, run-of-the-mill anxiety. He thought death was coming from him in the form of houseflies. He screamed. He cried. Sometimes he seemed suicidal and sometimes enraged and violent. It was real. And it was terrifying. The fact that he’d hidden so much from me made me feel as if I didn’t know the man I married, and the way he acted — completely unlike anything I’d ever seen from him before — in those early weeks of recovery only added to my fears that the man I shared my house with was a stranger, capable of who knew what evils.

I know the way my world used to look, and I know how it felt to have that all turn upside down, and I know that concepts like “addiction” and “tolerance” and “withdrawal” were what helped me make sense of things again and set my world right. So when someone says those don’t exist or minimizes them, I feel my world tilting again. And I want to set it right by making Michael Bader wrong, but there’s another way: I can let Michael Bader have his own experience with sex addiction, and I tell my story. I can look at that paragraph and say: “That may be someone else’s experience. And that’s ok. There may be ’sex addicts’ who don’t experience tolerance or withdrawal, or who don’t experience it the way Mark did. In fact, maybe most so-called sex addicts don’t. That doesn’t change me or where I am. That’s just not my experience.”

And sometimes I can even say it without adding “P.S. My experience is the right one.”

Pretty clear indication that I need to amp up my efforts. I’m looking for comfort in the wrong places, leaning on chemicals instead of truth, people, program, and my Higher Power. When my cousin quit, cold turkey, a couple of weeks ago I thought I should do the same. I later found myself digging the discarded little tin out of a trash can full of, among other things, dog shit. I thought of Charlie in the first season of “Lost” digging through an airplane toilet where he’d hidden packets of heroin. I also thought of this video by 80’s sketch comedy troupe “Kids in the Hall”: Kids in the Hall: “No Chocolate Diet”

I know the solution, too…it’s the same old solution to everything. The solution is to pray. The solution is for me to pray for faith - faith that God is going to take care of me, no matter what. Faith that I will find my way. Faith that my husband will find his way, too.

Sometimes, I still believe that God is out to get me. I know that the abuse of authority in my childhood trained me to fear authority, to fear power, and to fear the vulnerability that comes from submission to a higher power (or a Higher Power). I know, too, that my experience of my God is one of infinitie kindness, unconditional love, and gentle instruction. My God is not a vengeful, smiting God.

I know that when Jesus asked the 5,000 what they had to eat and he took the few loaves and fishes from the one boy who had something to eat, he didn’t duck out the back door and eat the fish and bread all by himself. He made a miracle from the little that the boy was willing to submit. There was enough for everyone. There was more than enough…my God doesn’t punk folks. My God loves.

Yet my guts tell me to prepare to be punked. One day, my guts will catch up with my reality.

IF a girl–who never speaks to me–walked up to me on a Saturday night and said, “Steve, my husband will celebrate his sober anniversary tomorrow morning at 7 AM meeting. Could you be there?  My husband would like that very much.”

I would answer either, “OK.”…or…”I don’t come to meetings on Sunday morning.”

Well, I approached a girl who is actually very unfriendly toward me, who never attends meetings on Sunday mornings, and asked her, “My wife will celebrate 24 years Sunday morning at the 7AM meeting.  Would you mind being there?”

The girl smiled, and cheerfully said (only) these very words: “Sure, I’ll be happy to come…I’ll bring a card…Thanks for inviting me!”

WOW!  It’s those little things, after all.

OK, Peeps, THAT’S the kind of person I’m trying to become, one who unhesitatingly puts myself behind me, and “becomes the other person” in order to please them–and God. Ya see what I’ve been observing, practicing, and learning? And I can finally write about it.  Those simple little things.

Today….
Stay clean and sober with me, Peeps.
Forgive, Live, and Love with me, Peeps
And let us be Peeps of PEACE!

Why not? The best point Bader makes (which I’ll get to in a future post) is that it (in his opinion) makes for less effective treatment. For today, I’ll stick with one of his two worst points, one that comes up in every critique of the concept of sex addiction: sexual behavior is just too complex — we all have too many different reasons for engaging in it and too many moral beliefs and hangups around it — for the label “addiction” to fit the way it does with drugs or alcohol.

Bader writes, “Current attempts at diagnosis focus on the extent to which sexual compulsions interfere with a person’s good judgment or are pursued despite obvious risks to health, job and family.” And continues:

“But how much risk does there have to be? If my lifestyle easily allows me to spend five hours a day surfing Internet porn or cruising for hookers, I may experience little risk but a high level of compulsion. If I feel too guilty to leave a terrible marriage and instead have a series of affairs, am I being compulsive or simply escaping a lonely existence? What about a priest who feels compelled to have sex, thereby risking his entire identity and belief-system; is he a sex addict or did he choose a ridiculously unhealthy lifestyle? Subjective experiences are clearly unreliable: Some people with very strict consciences and conservative backgrounds experience almost any sexual impulse as ‘out of control,’ while for others, living in a Fellini film would barely make the forbidden list.”

This conveniently ignores the fact that current attempts at defining alcoholism or drug addiction also focus on the extent to which these compulsions interfere with good judgment and are pursued in spite of other risks. In fact, every point Bader makes about sexually compulsive behavior could also be made of alcohol use: If my lifestyle easily allows me to spend five hours a day drinking, I may experience little risk but a high level of compulsion. If I feel too guilty to leave a terrible marriage and instead get drunk every night, am I being compulsive or simply escaping a lonely existence? What about a Mormon who feels compelled to have drink, thereby risking his entire identity and belief-system; is he an alcoholic or part of a “ridiculously” restrictive belief set?

Whether we are talking about an alcoholic whose difficult marriage “drives her to drink” or a sex addict whose difficult marriage “drives him to affairs,” the problem motivation and the degree to which the problem is situational is always going to be a little muddy, because human behavior, boundaries and tolerances are complex. That’s why, in the official DSM-IV definition of addiction (as I’ve mentioned before), much of the onus for determining whether or not behavior constitutes an addiction lies with the addict herself. Is the alcoholic drinking more than she wants to? Does she feel she’s unable to stop? That is: is she not happy herself?

Subjective experiences may be unreliable, but the fact is, there are no strictly objective measures for most mental health issues. Neurology is in its infancy and the brain’s inner workings are too poorly understood. There is no simple blood test or brain scan that can determine if someone is an addict or bipolar or obsessive compulsive or clinically depressed or anxious. Most diagnostic criteria are frustratingly vague and diagnoses are a combination of several different subjective impressions of the severity of the behavior, whether from a therapist or the patient him or herself.

The label “addiction” may or may not be a good fit, but if there’s anything I’ve learned from living with a self-proclaimed sex addict in recovery and working through my issues around that, it’s that sexual behavior — and our reasons for engaging in it — are no more or less complex than any of our other behaviors. And that the bottom line is not “Is this behavior a disease?” but “Is this behavior part of how I want to live my life and be the person I want to be, or not?”

of being sick and tired.  This time I mean it literally.  I am, once again, velcroed to my bed, and have been for the last several days.  Flu?  Funk?  Stuff?  It boils down to headache, sore throat, nausea and absolutely debilitating weakness.  This pattern has been a natural part of my life for the past several years, especially prominent in the winter months.  I feel absolutely perfect…go to work, the gym, my other classes and everything is fine and then SLAM!!!!! The symptoms appear and I’m in bed….sometimes for 18 hours, sometimes for a day or two.  This time it’s lasted longer than its usual 24-48 hour pattern.  I was all set to go to the gym on Wednesday night and at about 4:00 the nausea started to arrive, followed by the headache.  I came home and thought, “I’ll just skip the gym and hit an 8:00 meeting.”  I crawled in bed at 6:30 and that was the end of it.  Couldn’t get out of bed until the next morning.  I had to go to work, as I had an important conference call, but left after it was over.  Since then I’ve been in bed. Period. Sleeping. Trying to read.  Finally not being able to even read (that’s when I know I’m sick!).  It is now Saturday night and I thought I could at least make it to the grocery story today.  Took a shower and that was the end of it….back in bed for the rest of the day.

I just woke up from another 3 hour nap and started doing some research in immunoglobulins and their various roles in protecting the body from infection.  I have a doctor’s appointment on Monday morning and I want to offer some suggestions as to why I am constantly getting these flu-like symptoms over and over again. This time when I said I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired, I speak the truth.  In my drinking and drugging days I would accept sickness with gratitude, because it meant that I might not drink or drug that day, which, by the way, was never the case.  No matter how sick I was, by the end of the day I was drunk or high, which only compounded the problem to begin with.  These days I just kind of accept the fact that I’m sick, rest (or at least try to rest) and let the little buggers that are causing wreacking havoc on my immune system do “their thing” and wait until my own defense mechanisms can kick their collective butts.  But something is amiss - this is happening with such frequency that I am finally going to see a health care professional.  So far, the only medications I have ingested are tylenol for the headache and “Wellness Formula,” a concoction of about 3,000 herbs that I get at our local health food store. I have consumed vast quantities of liquids and a lot of ice cream (that always helps, you know).

So after approximately 500 words I am drained….pooped….exhausted….ready for another nap and “sick and tired.”  So far I’ve narrowed it down to Epstein-Barr Virus, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, IgG or IgM deficiency, some rare for of immunosuppression caused by all the dog hair I consume on a daily basis…..or maybe just another bug.

I’m probably just a hypochondriac - wouldn’t that be a bite?  That’s all I need - another 12 step program!

Till Next Time -

Your Humble Road Warrior

Let us be happy
And forgiving,
Caring, Sharing, Loving…
And in PEACE! Living
With less stress.
Shall we? Yesssss!

And maybe tomorrow also?

Sorry Peeps. I got slightly hooked on “waxing poetic” the past several months.  But there IS always the “real story”:
A week ago I ran into a guy at an AA meeting–rather new–with “six months”??? of clean and sober.  We became not quite friends, but–friendly.  I picked him up for a couple rides to meetings.  We talked deep into Alcoholics Anonymous program during these half-hour trips.

He had been a “former member” and seemed now ready to (his words!) “get it”.  I introduced him to as many peeps as crossed our path.  He, a very jolly forty-ish and willing soul, told me he was ready to get down–get serious with his life, stop drugging, drinking, get a job and be a productive member of society.  He had memorized (literally) the first 164 pages of our Big Book.  But he doesn’t know what he thinks he knows (sigh!).

I love these “memorizers”, these are the REAL “Big-Book Thumpers”.  But…watch what happens.  Every time I’d try to impart some “AA wisdom”–grin, to this new guy, he kept finishing my sentences for me.  Always!  So often he was not on the same page as my words were going.

We went together to my “cookie” meeting (Polly’s cookies, remember?) and we all really loved the speakers, the camaraderie, the free-flowing spirituality in the room.  This was Thursday night. We left and I got stopped in my old shabby Mazda pickup (expired tag).  I just know the young policeman wondered that he might discover a half-ton of cocaine–but no such luck–in MY truck!

All said and done, the new AA member next to me was absolutely HORRIFIED at the rudeness with which I had been treated by the cops.  He was as horrified on the one hand, as he was MYSTIFIED that I acquiesced so easily , even readily.  He hated “cops”…and thought I should have insisted on my “rights”.  I mean, after all–who broke the law?  Me, or the policeman?

Well, to shorten this–the next morning I received a call from the new fellow, to come to jail and bail him out–or else he would have to spend four weeks there until his court date.  I told him on the phone he was worth only about $50 (bail) to me, in the light of our short acquaintance.  If we’d known each other and been friends for a year or so, he might be worth the 500 bucks he needed.

So there he sits.  Caught shoplifting a pair of sox (according to him), but I’ll bet he tried to beat up a couple officers on the way to jail!  There he sits.  Alcoholism is cunning, baffling, powerful.  He didn’t even have to DRINK to get back in jail. His outstanding warrants in other states will probably keep him there for a long time.

Meanwhile, the guy who found no problem with “rude” treatment by the police–ME–well, I’m sitting HERE writing you the story!  How ‘Bout that?

Love, and PEACE OUT, Peeps!

They aren’t going to stop existing. All I can do about these things is pray, and it would be shameful to pray that they stop existing. I’m pretty sure God wouldn’t like it if I prayed that one of his human beings be wiped off the face of the earth. That’s probably not nice.

So you’re stuck with a thing you cannot change - a person’s continued existence - and nothing to do about it, as you cannot even pray.

Except, I can pray. I can pray for forgiveness. I can do my best to pray to put myself in the offending person’s corner, and pray that she receive the full measure of God’s grace - that she find whatever she is looking for, and that she find peace, contentment and happiness. I can’t pray that she stop being, but I can pray that the rift in my heart be healed so that we can both experience grace.

I wavered a little over whether it was more morally wrong to skim the book in the store without buying it (is that the literary equivalent of downloading music without paying?) or to actually buy the book, in essence rewarding the author for his cheesy charlatanism (however entertaining). After a quick look at the first chapter, I decided it would definitely be more wrong to buy the book.

Like many books of the self-help genre, the first few chapters contain don’t actually contain any helpful information, but are instead dedicated to telling you (aaaatttt gggrrreeeaaattt lllleeennngggttthhhh) how much helpful information you will find later in this book if you just keep reading.

This is to discourage people like me from doing what I was doing. Most people just break down buy the book after skimming the introductory marketing material. Only the persistent skimmer will stick through those self-promotional first few chapters about how Al-Anon is wrong and you are not powerless and you totally can change people if only you follow the four easy steps laid out in this book, which, trust me, are coming, right after a few more of these chapters about how this book is right on the money. (And speaking of money… But I bravely pressed on, both because I was eager to see where I had gone wrong on the whole fixing-my-husband’s-sex-addiction thing and because knew this was totally blog fodder.

It turns out that the right thing to do is to gather together people who love the addict and stage an intervention. You are all, unlike what those suckers in 12 Step tell you, to use lots of “I” language to communicate your message. (Oh, “I” language is a fundamental part of 12 Step? Well, ok, moving on…) The message you are supposed to communicate is that you really love and are concerned about the addict, so much so that you want this person to enter recovery, which includes 12 Step meetings (in spite of the fact that powerlessness is for suckers).

At this point, by the way, your loved one is supposed say yes, you’re supposed to set some very non-12 Step boundaries (damn, that’s 12 Step too?), your loved one is supposed to enter rehab and — with continued loving detachment (oh, wait, loving detachment is a 12 Step concept too?) — is fixed forever. Ta da! You’ve effected change! See how awesome you are!

Of course, there’s this little, tiny section, buried somewhere deep in the book about what to do in the (really, very highly unlikely event) that the addict refuses to admit to having a problem and says “no” to recovery or storms out or tells you you’re crazy. (But really, don’t worry too much about that, because addicts almost never do that kind of thing. That’s why this section is one 200th of the entire book. The chances are that small. But you know, just in case.) The answer? Keep trying. Eventually, one day, if you keep at it, your addict will enter recovery. Because you are powerful, and you can change people. Don’t give up! If it’s not working, you’re probably just not doing it right and should study the book harder.

It’s as simple as that.

Or is it? It’s probably not entirely fair for me to mock this book for repackaging powerlessness as powerfulness and selling it. After all, it does trick people into reading about some concepts that they might not otherwise be willing to explore. Maybe it’s the codependent version of putting a free beer sign on the door of an AA meeting. It’s false advertising, but it still gets them through the door.

I’ve learned in recovery, though, how to honestly explain myself, my needs, and my desires and to make sure that my side of the street is clean in my relationships, and it has made getting out of this job so much less painful than I’d ever imagined. I sent a letter to my employer explaining that I’d gotten a better job offer that I can’t turn down. I offered two weeks notice, and I also offered to help train my replacement and to prepare material to keep the replacement from having to scramble.

My boss congratulated me on finding a better opportunity. She smiled and asked me if I thought I might be available for a bit of consulting work on the side if my schedule with my new job would allow.

So I am leaving, and my bridges are all intact. I feel good about the work I’ve done at the old job, and I am glad to know that I can go back to it if things do not work out with the new job. Learning to comport myself with self-respect, grace, and dignity through the painful events that lead me to recovery make it all worth while.

written by b.e.

I felt moved and compelled to respond to the Road Warrior’s wonderful and very true Jan. 19, 2010 blog “Lighten UP!” Soon, I ran out of room in the comment section (I’m a wanna be blogger). Tonight, I’m tired like many other people with many reasons. It’s been a long day of urgently working on Health Care reform, keeping up to date on my personal connections in Haiti, and helping with funding for immediate rebuilding following this critical time of disaster relief. During difficult times, I and others often dismiss personal struggles with remarks like, “Quit whining. Look at Haiti. That puts things into perspective”. This can sometimes get me out of my “poor me” ruminations, but I find it is short lived and often counter-productive to compare pain and struggle on a global or personal level.

Unfortunately, it often takes a Haiti or Katrina disaster to make people notice our global inequities and immorality - the shadow side of our common humanity. This week, my “monkey mind” is constantly distracted by the pain, grief and loss in Haiti. Every day, I struggle to lift up my heavy heart with hope AND to take care of myself and my recovery.

However, a week before the quake, I was wrestling with another very difficult family conflict. If I replaced “Haiti” with “in my family”, I would write same words. As a former TSR employee, some of you may know that last year my 46yr old, younger sister (by a year) died from breast cancer leaving a husband, a 7yr old son and 10yr old daughter. Once again, my brother-in-law is trying to cut off my family communication. Why? His arrogant, rigid, uninformed, prejudice against the stigmatized medical diseases of mental illness, brain injury, substance abuse and addiction has roared again. He’s conveniently decided that recovery never lasts and at any time I could become violently unstable and unsafe around children. BTW: I work with children with special needs in their homes and coordinate with schools.

My connection with Haiti is through my late sister, the former Executive Director of the Building Goodness Foundation in Charlottesville, VA. BGF volunteers respectfully partner with communities to build houses, medical, educational, and community centers in C’ville, across the US, in Guatemala and Haiti.

Tonight, my tears mingle with those of my niece and nephew. We miss each other and find little ways to stay connected. Our tears also flow for our community, country, Guatemala and Haiti. When my sister first told the kids about her job, they started giving their coins and service to BGF. For many nights, the children and I have calmed fears and fallen to sleep with bedroom pictures of my smiling sister and Haitian children as our nightlights. I let go of my anxious questions about what still stands and who survives amidst all the rubble. Through whispers in dreams I remember. Our Prayers, Light, Hope, Love and Healing are still standing. Our hands reach and grasp others, joining in our common humanity, we lift each other up. Together, our joyful singing and dancing raise roofs to the heavens. Tomorrow is a new day and recovery is possible and lasting.

Now the leader of the Zendo… (Or is it master or priest or teacher? I never know, because everyone refers to him as Bob, which sounds odd when trying to put him in context.) In any case, Bob had built his talk around these slacker volunteers — who remained nameless (but they knew who they were…) — who were occasionally leaving little butt-ends of incense in the burners.

Bob wanted to make the point that we need to put our whole hearts and our full effort into everything we do. But instead of being inspired, I was thinking, “Damn, that job cleaning the incense burners sounds like way too much pressure. Not only that, everything sounds like way too much pressure. I’ve already tried to put my ‘full effort’ into everything. It’s what led me to crawl, broken and bleeding, into both the rooms of 12 Step and this damn Zendo. This is so not a good talk for a recovering perfectionist to hear…”

At the end of the talk, there were questions, and as I struggled to formulate mine, someone else asked it for me. “I don’t understand,” one woman said, “This week you tell us to put our full effort into perfectly cleaning the incense burners, but last week you told us this story about a student who thoroughly raked all the leaves in a courtyard, only to have the Zen master throw the leaves back on the ground and make him do it again. The student raked the leaves perfectly, but was told that was too much effort. How do we know when we’re giving our full effort and when we’re doing too much?”

I have a habit, born of years of training as a straight A student, of always trying to answer another student’s question before the teacher does. I give myself extra points if my answer (as scored by an independent panel of judges in my head) is better than the instructor’s. But in this case, all I could think was, “Good question! Let’s see you get out of that one, Bob!”

Bob paused and said, “You stop when it is no longer a gift. In the story, when the master threw the leaves on the ground, it was because the student asked for the master’s approval. He wanted to be praised for what a good job he did. So he did the work, not as a gift, but to gain something: to gain the master’s approval. When you seek to gain something, it is not a gift. And when your work is not a gift, it’s time to stop. That is your full effort, even if the job is not done.”

Oh.

Good answer. Wish someone had told me that about 40 years ago. Maybe I can learn to clean those incense burners better than I thought I could.

My favorite part was watching my husband tutor a friend’s kid on her art portfolio. He was an attentive, helpful teacher, and he was gentle in the way he guided her. It made me love him a little bit more than I did before.

I also did some stepwork with one of my sponsees today, and we did it in one of my favorite places in the world. We were at the prayer center where I volunteer, and she read to me her vision of her Higher Power. “Unconditional love,” she said. Isn’t that lovely?

I got a lot of writing done for a project I’m excited about, and now, I’m watching my husband tattoo one of the pastors from our church. Soon, we’ll go home, and I’ll have a big bath, and then we’ll get into bed together and fall asleep.

Life is easy and good. God is good to me. When I can remember to stay in today, I have peace.

I am realizing lately that I have a lot of empathy for myself, and I don’t mean it in a good way. I look at my past, and I think, “That poor girl! It’s so unfortunate that those bad things happened to her.”

I want my empathy to stay, but I don’t want empathy for my past anymore. I want empathy for others, and I want the strength to remain in this day, soaking in the beauty of my present.

The hardest thing about losing Charlie was handing him over to the receptionist in the pet emergency room. He was cold and unresponsive, wrapped in a towel in my arms, and didn’t even look back at me as he was whisked away through a door marked “Employees Only.” I was wet and cold from the rain, but he wasn’t. I’d been rubbing his little body in the car, driving with one hand, and telling him, “it’s okay little buddy, just stay with me for few more minutes. We’re almost to the doctor’s.” It was midnight. I never saw him again.

Charlie was a “replacement dog.” Just before Christmas we lost our beagle of eleven years. (I’m still not ready to post about that one.) We rescued Charlie from the pound shortly after. He was a spindly tan chihuahua, with dark eyes and a head too small for his body and ears too big for his head. He lived in our home for only eighteen days. He felt it was his right to sleep on top of my head, so I learned to push him aside and let him burrow into the crook of my neck.

He was sick the last couple of days, and James yelled at him when Charlie threw up in his lap. Charlie ran into my bedroom where I was resting, hopped up next to me crying, and nuzzled under my chin. He’d already been in trouble for his house-training mistakes, and this reprimand was just one too many. Despite the messes, that was a good day.

Wrapped in a white towel, Charlie looked helpless and even smaller than he really was, like some kind of Eastern European war orphan, pale and worn and quiet. The x-rays were inconclusive, but the vet knew something was seriously wrong with his abdomen. He was in excruciating pain. I signed papers and left him overnight for a series of x-rays as barium was passed through his system.

What is it about crisis that wakes all my demons? Driving home in the early morning hours was an exercise in choosing to stay on the narrow path. The streetlights and the rain colluded to excite my senses and I felt those familiar tingles of the illicit in that forbidden hour. It is good to know that ultimately I chose not to add the sickening lost-ness of relapse into the unavoidable chaos of that night.

I was deep in a confusing dream or nightmare when the phone woke me up at 4:30. Charlie had “coded” three times, and did I want to continue with life saving measures? “Well, yeah, I guess” was all I could come up with. What do you say to that? Ten minutes later I was finally off of hold. The vet, who had been mostly positive and very competent, was now hoarse and breathy. Charlie’s heart had started, but his brain was probably gone. It was time to let go.

I spoke with a friend in recovery the day before Charlie died. We discovered a mutual secret: that during the rocky chapters of our marriage, when affection was running dry, our dogs helped fill in the gap. Sometimes meetings and books and phone calls just can’t measure up to that warm furry snuggle, to hearing another soul breathing in the darkness. If you’re not a dog person, I’m sorry if that’s weird for you, that’s just the way it is.

Charlie died of a a perforated bowel. Despite his penchant for chewing, there was nothing detectable in his intestines, and I was told it was probably from a defect that existed before we even adopted him. All I heard was this: there wasn’t much else we could have done. It was just his time. He was a gift and a joy. Thanks, my little friend. I really do miss you.

I used to think that being an addict/alcoholic was kind of unique.  After all, we don’t make up the majority of the population, at least I don’t think we do.  And we have a disease,  so we have our own little  suggested practices to deal with our method of keeping that disease in check and continue healing.  And that is still true as I write these words.  But the older I get, the longer I live among the other earthlings on this planet and the more I interact with individual members of the species, the closer I come to realizing that none of us are exempt from the generic trappings that come with being a human.

I don’t think there’s a single person alive today that isn’t dealing with some problem, some dysfunction, some sadness, some dis-ease or some regret.  I could go on with the “somes”  but you get the idea.  We are, after all, mere human beings and that definition includes all kinds of adjectives that are not particularly healthy.  On a regular basis, to some extent, we all have told a lie, done something that we would never want another to see, spoken words that weren’t positive in nature, wanted things we know we could never have, and resented those who do have them.  This list could also go on ad nauseum, but the issue is that we, by our very nature, are flawed.  Having made that omnipotent declaration, I further pronounce that this predicament of being flawed ain’t such a big deal after all.

When I got clean and sober I had the grandiose and completely unattainable vision of being the poster child for integrity, honesty, holiness, gratitude, grace, forgiveness, honor, compassion and Neiman Marcus.  Let’s just say I’m a hair short of attaining those goals at this particular juncture of my life.  Of course I’m grateful, but I’m also stingy.  I’m honorable, especially when it makes me look good.  I’m compassionate if I’m in the right mood.  I can always forgive…..but I  still haven’t gotten down that “forget” part.  I’ve still got a ways to go on the “honesty” thing, but I’m workin’ on it.  And as for integrity - well, let’s just save that one for another blog.

And ya know what?  I’m just like everybody else.  We never know what life will throw in our direction and we can either dodge the ball, try to catch it, or let it hit us right in the head.  We all have “issues” - if we didn’t we would be turtles.  And whether we admit it or not, we’re all in this together, trying, failing, trying, succeeding, trying, trying, and trying again. So let’s put the focus on the trying part, give ourselves a little pat on the back for the good stuff we do, and take life a little less seriously - just for a minute or two.  All that heaviness makes it hard to spin in circles and laugh till you fall down!

Tag - You’re It!

Till Next Time -

Your Humble Road Warrior

A few days ago I stopped spending 8-10 hours each day in front of this monitor reading, writing, commenting, “thinking”, editing, revising, waxing poetic–got the picture?–on the blogs. My blog was (is? since it will stay up for eternity?) steveroni.blogspot.com–but you are not being urged to go there. I am here now, and happily so. Some of my friends are here ALSO (wink-wink!)

I just stopped COLD. Suffering withdrawal for three days, I had exactly the symptoms I experienced when I stopped, after 30 years, using my God-from-the-bottle VODKA, and everything else, including pills of any kind. I stopped drinking. And alcohol has not “touched these lips” since that day in March many years ago.

Well, I’m not doing so well with my abstinence from blogging, so here I am at The Second road (TSR), giving myself a shot. I like it here. Maybe I’ll just stay sober a couple MORE days–grin!

Realizing that posts on THE SECOND ROAD are normally very serious recovery episodes, I hesitate to put out a bit of frivolity on here. Especially since it is my first time writing in quite a few months on TSR.

Well, our Big Book (Alcoholics Anonymous) on page 112 allows me to accept and enjoy humor. And I do JUST that–but not only that, of course. Anyway one quote is “We are not a glum lot.” Another, on same page (dead center) allows that “We absolutely insist on enjoying life.” So, in light of these “go-aheads” I’m putting out a little joke here, my first day back posting:

“I finally got around to going fishing this morning but after a while I ran out of worms.

Then I saw a cottonmouth with a frog in his mouth, and frogs are good bass bait.

Knowing the snake couldn’t bite me with the frog in his mouth, I grabbed him right behind the head, took the frog and put it in my bait bucket.

Now the dilemma was how to release the snake without getting bit.

I grabbed my bottle of Jack Daniels and poured a little whiskey in its mouth.

His eyes rolled back, he went limp, I released him into the lake without incident, And carried on my fishing with the frog.

A little later I felt a nudge on my foot.

There he was, that same snake…………….with two frogs in his mouth.”

Thank you for reading. And, as one exiting musician said to another, “I’ll be Bach!”

Peeps, I love you all!

Peeps, let’s stay sober and clean today!

Peeps….PEACE!

I used to use that idea — that I was feeling the pain I was because I had loved deeply — to comfort myself. I’d remind myself that — enraged and saddened and disappointed and hurt as I was — those feelings were all born of a tremendous capacity to love. That love was a gift. I held onto that idea in the darkest days and tried to remind myself not to shut myself off from loving for fear of being hurt again. And it’s being able to love that has opened my heart to healing from that hurt.

My husband was imperfect. The church was imperfect. Human beings are imperfect. Their institutions are imperfect. In loving them we are bound to be hurt and disappointed. And yet we love them and ourselves and in that we find what is divine in all of us. And that’s what saves us.

Yesterday it was cold and rainy where I live.  I woke up at about 7:00 and immediately my dogs went into hyper mode…..there is no such thing as gently greeting the dawn in my house.  So I popped out of bed, let everyone outside, administered various contents of the 47 bottles of medicine that my canines ingest on a semi-daily basis, fed them all (which is no small feat I must admit - trying to put 6 dog bowls down in some kind of order so everyone won’t attack dog bowl #1 at the same time).  During this time I must also keep a bodily guard on my smallest and oldest dog, as she is blind, doesn’t have many teeth and is perfect prey for the bigger dogs to descend on her bowl.  Sometimes I think they’re gonna eat her if she doesn’t get out of the way fast enough.  So, anyway, breakfast having been completed, I decided to take a cup of coffee back to bed and just sit and drink the entire cup mindfully.  It’s a little hard with 6 dogs that have just been fed and are ready to play, but I managed with a minimum of success, to feel the warmth of the cup in my hands, notice the heat of the liquid touching my lips and tongue, the swoosh of the coffee against my cheeks and the physical motion involved in swallowing.

Since this practice was fairly successful, I decided to spent the rest of the day “in the moment.”  Everything I did, I tried to do with awareness and gratitude.  I had started a wonderful book and for several hours, sat reading in bed, occasionally refilling my coffee cup and subsequently going to the bathroom (TMI, I know).  At some point in the late morning I mindfully put some doggie blankets in the washer, ate 2 piece of corn bread and returned to my semi-supine position.  The only sound was that of my little “white noise” machine which was occasionally overshadowed by doggie yawns or intermittent barking at a cat in the front yard.  But my dogs soon returned to their zen-like state, as well, as if to honor my decision to be still.

The only interruption I had was driving my son to work.  I didn’t even get out of  my pajamas. When I returned from the 20 minute venture, I put the doggie duds in the dryer and returned to my bed, cranberry juice in hand, back to my book.  I purposely decided to make a few phone calls and had delightful conversations with family members and friends that I had not spoken to in a while.  All done very deliberately.

I stopped to eat.  Just eat - nothing else.  Then I returned to my book.  I finished it sometime in the early evening and just sat there for a while, thinking what a nice day it had been.  Some people would call this an unproductive day…..but they would be wrong.

It was a gift that I used to the best of my ability, with joy, gratitude and mindfulness.

It was also a great book!

“The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kit” by Bill Bryson.  The next time you have a rainy Sunday, I highly recommend it!

Till Next Time -

Your Humble Road Warrior

I just celebrated my third year in recovery, which hardly seems possible.  If you told me three years ago that I’d still be clean and I’d still be happy about it, I probably would have laughed in your face.  I think I’ve said before that when I got sober, it wasn’t because I didn’t want to use anymore; it was because I didn’t want to hurt anymore.  I didn’t really accomplish that goal.  Sure, I hurt less often and for shorter periods, but guess what?  Life is HARD.  Pain is real and pain is not always self inflicted.  I wanted to write something about how wonderful life is sober and how making it to three years has been an unimaginable joy,  and I just can’t.

Most of the time, for the last year, I have been miserable.  That isn’t to say that I have ever seriously entertained the idea of going back imbibing, ingesting, inhaling and injecting things to change the way I feel.  But much of the time I’ve thought, “There should be something I can take for this,” or “I should be weller than this by now” and “Why can’t I feel the way I felt in the first 18 months I was sober?”

The first 18 months I was sober were amazing.  Everything was a revelation.  Every experience was lush with spiritual significance.  I was eager to work my way through the steps and every action I took was fruitful.  I had faith in and felt the presence of a Higher Power and a sense of purpose that I have never in my life felt before.  It was a dreamlike experience that felt intimate.  It made me excited.  It motivated me.

After 18 months things slowed way down.  I began to realize that I didn’t whole-heartedly accept some of the basic tenants of 12-step recovery, particularly as they related to a “Higher Power.”  Having a scientific bent and living in a state where, according to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 34% of the residents believe that their religion is “the one, true faith” (right behind Utah, Alabama and Mississippi), I found myself regularly at odds with the stuff I was hearing at meetings.  I became irritated and argumentative.  I focused on the differences.  I sat in meetings and silently seethed with judgment of the people around me.  That is a miserable place to be in a 12 step program.

I’d hear people use the specific name of a particular historical figure and conception of a Higher Power and feel loathing and superiority.  I’d hear people say things like, “Just don’t drink or use no matter what,” and I would think to myself, “If I could do that on my own I wouldn’t freaking be here, you moron!”

In May I almost died.  Two surgeries in a row, several days in ICU, a couple of weeks in the hospital, and 8 weeks of recovery just to be able to walk around or drive or go back to work, and I found myself in a place where, if there even was a God that I thought I knew from early in my recovery, I pretty much hated It.  I didn’t die then but as often as not for the next several months I walked around wishing I had and the only reason I didn’t actually check out was that it wouldn’t have been worth the pain my death would cost.  I’ve felt hurt and unhappy and “stuck.”  I’ve thought about abandoning 12 step recovery altogether.  After all, their own book says they have not cornered the market on sobriety, but it has been the only thing that has worked for me.  How could I seriously think of leaving.  At this point I’ve been sober longer than at any point in 30 years, and am still happy about it.  I’m still grateful that I’m sober.

So I’ve bargained with myself.  I think, “I’ll only go to this kind or meeting,” or “I won’t go to meetings where that person is,”  I stopped sponsoring anyone because  everything I have to “transmit” has been poison.  I’ve been asked repeatedly, here and elsewhere, to keep writing and the truth of the matter is that I’ve just had nothing positive or optimistic to say.  I’ve only had a bottomless well of misery, and I can’t write that.  Not unless I want to scare people away.

I realized a couple of weeks ago that I cannot simply go on like I have been and be OK.   I’ve accepted the fact that AA is what it is, that I am what I am, and that the only thing I can change about any of this misery is me.  I started seeing a counselor a couple of weeks ago and I was telling her that of all the things I miss about early recovery, I miss God the most.  She asked me who I am, and I couldn’t answer the question.  Then she said that I won’t get that relationship with God back until I figure that out.  So now the hard work begins.

I was having dinner with my sponsor a couple of nights ago, celebrating the 3rd anniversary of my recovery, and he started talking about relationships.  He told me that ALL relationships go through stages; a honeymoon, disillusionment, misery, enlightenment, and respect.  He said that most relationships don’t make it through the disillusionment stage, and of those that do, most don’t make it through the misery stage.  Those who make it through though, he told me, end up with something really wonderful.

Then I realized that the relationship my sponsor was talking about was with God.