June 2007

There is this fun game I learned from my mom, a game she likes to play with everyone but most especially with her children. You’ve heard the phrase “everybody loves a winner,” right? This carries the opposite to a dangerous extreme. I like to call this game “Kick ‘em When They’re Down.” In this game you win points by hurting the feelings of people you “care about” or “love” when they are especially vulnerable. You win the game by actually causing harm to that person. By causing harm I’m not saying merely allowing them to experience the natural consequences of their own actions, but by causing those consequences to be unnaturally exaggerated or creating brand new, artificial consequences. My mother plays this game at a professional level.

Fortunately it’s not a game that gets played in any 12 step meetings. Even people who don’t especially like you in 12 step recovery will go out of their way to help you stay sober. They understand that the consequences of playing Kick ‘em When They’re Down are sometimes fatal.

The reason I mention this is twofold. First of all, I have myself been playing this game so long that I have internalized it. The person I am best at kicking when they’re down is me. It is so ingrained in my character that I often don’t realize that I’m playing it. Usually when I’m in the middle of a game I don’t recognize that there are causes and conditions that have prompted me to initiate the game. It starts so automatically that before I know it I have kicked myself into a level of pain so intolerable that the only way to stop hurting is to return to the one behavior that, when all else fails, makes me feel much better immediately; the behavior of using alcohol or drugs, especially crystal meth, to run away from the pain I’m in. Escape through a return to active addiction though, which may seem like a forfeiture, is actually one of the ways you lose the game. The actual way to win the game is to forfeit; to simply stop playing; to stop kicking myself when I’m down.

One of the salient features of my early recovery from crystal meth addiction, and by early recovery I mean at least the first year clean and sober, is frequent illness and physical pain; illness and pain that were blotted out of my experience by the massive amounts of dopamine (the neurotransmitter of euphoria) that I bombarded myself with while using. If dopamine were a grand piano, we meth heads have been playing it with a sledge hammer. Sickness, pain, fatigue, dysphoria, lowered or absent libido, grief, loss of ‘friends,’ having to deal with feelings and fears that I suppressed by using are all things that make me unconsciously initiate a game of Kick ‘em When They’re Down with ME as the opponent.

I don’t even know I’ve started the game but I do notice that my relationship with my Creator seems to vanish. I notice that my grip on sobriety loosens. I feel hopeless and alone. I feel like the only way out is to use, rather than to stop playing. The only reason I was able to stop playing today is that I recognized that perhaps the lack of connection I’ve felt recently has more to do with having the flu than an absence of God in my life. Even then I didn’t really recognize it until

1. I prayed (vociferously) to be shown that my Creator really is with me and actually has a purpose for me. And:
2. I received a phone call at 4 AM from an old using/drinking friend who was trashed and sick of it and wondered how I was managing to stay sober.

So my Creator is NOT not with me. I have the flu. No need to kick me anymore.

The other reason I bring up the topic is that I have noticed a lot of addicts, both in active addiction and in recovery, are experts at this game, too. I just wanted to take a minute to remind you that you lose by escaping and you win by forfeiting.

The new job starts today.  I have to leave in about an hour.  I think I was sick yesterday.  I still don’t feel quite myself today.  And I seemed to sweat all night.  I spent the last of my pennies last night on a pack of cigarettes and had to go to a meeting and ask for a little economic assistance, which I got, of course, but that was a very difficult thing to have to do.  Then I stopped and bought some groceries on the way home.  At least now I won’t starve and I have bus fare home after work.  It’s going to be great to have a little bit of economic freedom, again.
Today is also Dan’s interview at S.H.I.P. so he should be home right after that.  It may take the Parole Commission up to two weeks to do the paperwork but as soon as that’s done he’ll be headed back.

I should be feeling more grateful but I’m actually scared.  And disappointed.  Yesterday I learned that my dear friend Tom will not be coming back to Boise to do a play he had been scheduled to do.  It’s sad.  He would have been so perfect for the role he was cast in and I miss him deeply.  When I wrote the post about the most difficult conversation I ever had when I was out there using was with Tom.

Anyway, I’ll let you know how work turns out later.

Tom Sizemore has been sentenced to 16 months in state prison for violating his probation in a previous drug case.
California Superior Court Judge Cynthia Rayvis said the 45-year-old actor “abused the privilege of probation” and “needs to be in a lockdown setting.” She recommended Sizemore be sent to the R.J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego County for its noteworthy drug treatment program.

Hope the dude gets it.

I’m a fuckin’ whiner!

I shudder at these things, but Junkie’s Wife has tagged me with a meme and out of respect, and guilt, I am finally getting around to complying with her request. I always think I’m an open book, that coming up with things that people don’t know will be difficult, but I guess there are things that are curious about my experience in life that make good fodder for amusement. So here goes:

The Rules:
1. Each player must post these rules first.
2. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Here’s my list:

1. I used to be a member of the now defunct Screen Extras Guild. Being an extra used to be a union gig and I worked a lot and made pretty good money in my teens and 20′s. The most recognized bit I ever did was in the film Pretty in Pink where I threw Ducky (Jon Cryer) in the girl’s bathroom. If you happen to pull the movie off your shelf I’m the strawberry blond who follows Ducky out of the school and puts my hand on his shoulder to drag him back into the school.
2. In the same profession I worked for years on Knot’s Landing. The only time my picture was in People Magazine it was while working on that show.
3. I love Sunset Blvd. more than any other movie and can (and DO) quote it extensively. (‘Nonsense, there’s a room over the garage. I’ll have Max make it up for you.  Max?!’)
4. I rarely wear them but I love neckties. Like in an unhealthy way. I collect them. I usually sell the Hermes ones I come across. Apparently there are Hermes collectors out there who pay through the nose for vintage specimens. Even so I’ve hung on to over 100 ties, gorgeous ties. I love men in ties. I love ties as restraints. I have no idea how I got this fetish but that’s what it is. A fetish. Shoes are a close second. But nothing turns me on more than a great smelling guy in a beautiful suit and spectacular tie and beautiful shoes. It makes me forget my name.
5. I married a woman who my boyfriend had introduced me to. It was a catastrophe. I’ll explain in #7.
6. We owned a florist shop in West Hollywood, making me the only heterosexually married florist in West Hollywood.
7. My wife and I found out that we were pregnant and that she was HIV positive on the same day. Doctors recommended an abortion, and we took their advice. The burden of her illness and the grief I felt, not only about the abortion but of being HIV- was overwhelming. Two of my greatest regrets are the abortion and having freaked out and leaving her before her death. I often wonder how different my life would have been had I had the strength to see that through or if I had fathered a child; if I had even fallen into addiction. Active addiction for me began at that point in my life and I think it was fueled by grief.
8. I am a high school drop out. My stepfather threw me out of the house at the beginning of my senior year and I just couldn’t support myself and attend school. Most of my trying to be brilliant is just an effort to compensate for my insecurity about not finishing high school.

That might have been cooler if I were cooler but I’m afraid I’m a bit of a dork. Now finding people to pass this on too is going to be a bit tricky. I don’t imagine that many of us has the time to do this and I’m afraid our little circle is a bit incestuous. I think Junky’s Wife and Wayward Son may have already tagged everyone I know. But let’s try.

Synaptic Blue Which is not only well written and timely but has been very supportive to me.

Slice of Pink which I always find a cheerful break from grey.

Steel-eyed Vampires of Love provides me with a refreshing (liberal) look at my own region.

F-Words another local look at local liberal politics, food and feminism.

Over-the-Wall a dude in recovery who obviously ‘gets it.’

Brain Dead Genius who is well grounded in 12 step recovery. I want to be like him when I grow up.

Hemodynamics who I’m secretly crushing on because I want to take my shoes off and wade through his vast and shimmering mind.

And finally:

Miss Wishful who has written vociferously about crystal meth and it’s evils. She IS a good Samaritan.

Know what I mean? Not that I’m dragging my feet, though that’s true, too. I’ve had a tension headache for about 24 hours. Tylenol doesn’t touch it. I’m too poor to buy Aleve. I’m tired, in spite of the ‘wakefulness agent’ Provigil. And I have a new outbreak of toe herpes in spite of the acyclovir I’m taking. Thankfully that’s not painful. Just a heavy drag to get through. Eventually I’ll come out the other side (and change my pants).

I was thinking last night though that it’s been an awfully long time since I’ve had any kind of craving for crystal methamphetamine. The book says that when I’m really better I’ll “recoil from it as from a hot flame.” I’m afraid that if I were faced with the opportunity to use at the moment I’d have to work really hard at tearing myself from it, rather than recoil.

There is a woman who attends many of the same meetings that I do who just celebrated 18 years of continuous sobriety. From all accounts she was pretty wild in her using days. She’s pretty wild now. But she said that for the first six years the thing that kept her sober was that she wanted to stay sober more than she wanted anything else in the world. It wasn’t until then shat she had the “deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized [her] whole attitude toward life, toward [her] fellows and toward God’s universe.”

I’m afraid that my intellect may stand in the way of having that sort of thing. I trust few people. Learning to trust my Creator is a challenge. I’m not unwilling to keep trying. Perhaps it’s that my expectations are high. In “Bill’s Story” the change is overnight; the ‘burning bush’ variety of experience. I usually joke that if you have a burning bush your experience has either involved nudity and a campfire or crabs. That’s probably indicative of some sort of prejudice, don’t you think? I’m sure my upbringing has played a roll in that. I was raised in a church that claims to be the only path to God, the only true church on Earth. At about 14 I rejected that. I couldn’t see how a loving Creator would reject so many hundreds of millions of Buddhists, Muslims and Jews, not to mention Catholics and Protestants. And the fact of the matter is that the leaders of my congregation had failed me and my siblings entirely; had failed us when it was important not to. I assumed that meant that God had failed us, too. I’ve gained some understanding of what happened but I haven’t entirely let go of the resentment.

The other thing that stands in my way is my fear of what I don’t understand. And I don’t understand God. A silly paradox, to see my Creator at work in the lives of others and in my own life and yet to not trust that it will be there when I need it, especially if I should need it to stand in the way of a relapse. I’ve been trying to do this under force of will.

There are things I could be doing to overcome my prejudice. I could be taking the ‘suggestion’ (requirement) that I ‘hit my knees’ and pray each day to be “divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives” and to end the day by “ask[ing] God’s forgiveness and inquire[ing] what corrective measures should be taken.” I don’t actually do that with any sort of consistency.

I’m told that it is in the seeking that one finds. “Knock and it shall open unto you.” I’m here, text messaging my friend who is on her way to a funeral where she’ll be surrounded by a completely toxic family, reminding her to remember that her Creator is with her and yet doubting that He’s with me. Silly.

They also ‘suggest’ (demand) that in situations like mine, that one pray for the willingness to have faith. I guess I’m jealous of those who have the ‘burning bush’ kind of experience. It’s not that I haven’t had experiences. I have. Just not the kind that always lift me out of the pudding.

Perhaps I should just enjoy it and have myself a snack.

One of my closest friends is a young woman who is a survivor of incest. From a young age she was abused by both her father and her brother. For years she drank to numb the feelings of anger and worthlessness she felt as a result of the abuse she had survived. She had long since accepted as fact that she would never be in a happy relationship, never own a home, never have a child and never find joy or peace. She remained enmeshed herself in relationships that validated those feelings. She hid her alcoholism from her friends and family and engaged in sexual relationships with people who didn’t or couldn’t love her.

About five years ago, at the suggestion of her therapist, she began to attend AA meetings. With the support of new friendships she made there she began the arduous task of doing step work. Like so many people she made it to her 4th step and began to stagnate. The work there was simply too overwhelming, brought up too many painful memories that she hadn’t and couldn’t fully resolve alone. Thankfully she didn’t stop showing up and though she slacked on her step work she has remained sober during that time and has maintained a relationship with a sponsor who is understanding of the special burden that my friend’s history creates. “It was apparent was that this world and its people were often quite wrong.” ” If we were to live, we had to be free of anger.” “We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick.”

Fortunately for my friend being around people who are working hard at the steps outlined in the program motivated her to begin anew working on those things which had been troubling her most, her familial relationships, her feelings of worthlessness, the anger and hurt she has carried for so many years. Over the last several days she also had a series of dreams that seemed to indicate to her that she was in fact making progress in that area. In her dreams she was able to view her brother with compassion and be caring to her father.

I was with my friend last night at an AA meeting. As the meeting was about to start she received a phone call from her grandfather. Her father had died.

Because of doing the work, of utilizing the simple tools that 12 step programs give us, she has no fear of going to the funeral. She is able to be present for her grandparents who have lost their son. She is able to be present for and compassionate to her brother who has lost his father. She is able to recognize her own loss, not just the death of her father, but of the childhood he deprived her of, and to forgive him. She had actually been able to forgive him before he died. Nothing but a complete rearrangement of her mind could have accomplished that. I believe that nothing but a relationship with her Creator could have accomplished that.

Getting sober, to me, is not about seeking forgiveness from the people I have harmed. I have to forgive the people who have harmed me. I cannot commence to do that until I have become humble enough to be willing to do what is necessary to right the wrongs that I have done to others, not because I seek their forgiveness, but because without humbling myself in that way I am allowing something to stand in the way of my relationship with my creator. I’m saying that my pride is more important than my God.

There are those in this world who have done me great harm. But through my friends example I can see that my ability to forgive them will only come from gaining humility by clearing away those things I have created that stand in the way of my relationship with my Creator. I believe that my Creator forgives me no matter what. But by repairing the harm I have done to others I can forgive myself. It is not others forgiveness that I’m seeking after all. It is my own forgiveness I seek, and the ability to forgive others.

I guess that admitting there’s a problem really is the place where change begins. I am happy to report that since my last entry about anything that’s actually going on with me, the messy bedroom/dirty laundry/no job/slacking on step work problem I’ve been harboring, I have

1. Done my laundry. All of it.
2. Substantially cleaned my room.
3. Gotten a job, in the not-for-profit sector which always makes me feel like I’m cleaning up some of my karma and being of maximum service to my Creator.
4. Done some step work every day. Sometimes not much, but some.

In addition I have remodeled the women’s restroom at the “Red House,” the meeting house for AA meetings that I most frequently attend. The tasks I completed, with the help of two other men, include laying new vinyl tile, installing a new toilet, installing new cabinetry and a new counter top and basin. Pretty butch for a faggot, eh?

So this morning I’m a little tired. In fact I think I’m going to go back to bed now. I am much relieved, though, that I’ve actually made some progress; moved forward a little. Those things were weighing me down so much that I was nearly unable to carry the burden. I really feel like making them concrete by naming them made me better able to focus on improving them. They say the first step to recovery is admitting there is a problem, right? It seems to apply to more than my addiction, or perhaps part of my addiction is procrastination. Either way, naming the problem is a good starting point to work toward improvement from.