The Last Chance Texaco

Archive for the ‘Acceptance’ Category

There will be an end to this, right?  I’m still beating myself up for having been blind to, or simply ignored, all of the red flags that went up with The Bullet That I Dodged.  They were there in front of me all the time, from the very first time we met, and somehow I managed to dismiss them from my mind.

It’s a tricky little machine, isn’t it, our minds?  I can be going along fit as a fiddle, right as rain, and ready for love and suddenly, WHAM!  I become blindsided by something that had been clearly in view; something obvious to everyone but me.  At 41 months sober I feel like I handle most things pretty well.  I’m not sure I “manage” them, but they don’t manage me anymore.  Then along comes something like the notion that perhaps romantic attachment may still be possible for me and I experience all over again the same kind of insanity that accompanied my drug use.  I think this time will be different.  This time it won’t hurt me.  This time will be worth it. Read the rest of this entry »

Today, for example.  After an hour of being yelled at by an authority figure who didn’t know what she was talking about and who was under the false assumption that what someone worthless told her was true, I learned that earlier today my sister tried to kill herself.

By slashing her own throat.

And there is nothing I can do about either of those things.  If “by this time sanity will have returned” means that I’m not going to pick up over this stuff, then it is correct.  If it is supposed to mean that I am impervious to the madness around me, that I am immune to feeling angry, afraid, defensive, and confused then sanity has not returned.

Right now I am going to act like it has.  Keep calm and carry on.

“And those are the words of a gentleman. [Y]our arrogance and conceit, your selfish disdain for the feelings of others made me realize that you were the last man in the world I could ever be prevailed upon to marry.” – Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

It is always hardest to write when I need to most, and this time is no different.  I have done all the things we do and I suppose I have achieved something mildly resembling peace of mind about the subject, yet I am not entirely well at the moment; not even in relative terms. I am not too well emotionally and I am not too well spiritually.  I think the cramp in my back is a good indication that I may not even be too well physically at the moment.  All I am able to do from here forward is to wait and pray… and try to forget.

A good way to put a new relationship to a test is to take a little trip together and so I invited the man I have been so enamored with to join me for the Memorial Day weekend at my parent’s cabin on Payette Lake in McCall, ID, a beautiful, serene, relaxing place where I have always been able to put the clamors of a complicated world behind me and breathe.  I had packed a bunch of food; salads, rib eye steaks, etc., books, there are plenty of board games and satellite TV there.  There is a private beach.  There are trails and hot springs nearby. The place is paradise to one who can appreciate it. Read the rest of this entry »

For the last month or so I have been in the grips of the insane idea that I have outgrown AA.  I say it is an insane idea because 12 step recovery is the only thing that ever got me sober for any length of time.  And even though the idea is insane, it may also be true.  And while it may be true, there is no way to find that out without risking my recovery.  I have to simply trust that my place is in meetings.  My place is in meetings.

My place is in meetings.

In the 900-odd days I’ve been sober I’ve attended well over 1800 meetings.  I’m well versed in what is available to me there.  I feel like I’m in a place where I have to grow beyond what I hear in meetings and I haven’t the first clue about how to do that.

My rational mind knows, of course, that in all likelihood what I’m experiencing is still residual from my surgery.  I spent a good amount of time on pain medication.  I’m better now, but I’m still in pain.  I think I’m probably depressed, too.  I took the QIDS-SR and seem to be moderately depressed.  I’m not really sure if I need to find a way to kick myself out of it, or if I should actually seek help.  Rationally I know that depression would be consistent with my circumstance, but as with the question of spiritual path, I haven’t the first clue about what to do about that.

The thing about meetings, particularly meetings in a town this size, is that it doesn’t take long to hear everyone’s story.  It doesn’t take long  before you can predict what people will say.  You know who works at recovery and you know who pretends to.  You speculate about who is going to kill them self and who is going to kill everyone else.  And when it happens there is nothing you can do about it.

At some point recently I realized that inside the rooms I am never again going to hear anything new.  Sure, the details may be different; an idea may be expressed in a new way, but the idea isn’t new.  The story isn’t different.

Rationally — such an elusive quality for me so much of the time, especially with regard to me and my disease and a Higher Power — rationally I know all these things.  I know that my place is inside the rooms.

But I can’t seem to shake myself free of the crazy idea that I don’t need to be there.

Just for today, I’m not going to test that idea.

It is so strange, and so strange that it is comforting to be again in the company of my family and among people who share my religious heritage. The Church (of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints – the Mormons) take a very dim view of homosexuality and of drug addiction. Now that the addiction part is under control, and now that my father and I have both worked very hard to heal our relationship, I’m a part of this gigantic clan again.

I have a cousin, Nicholas, who I’ve hung out with a little bit, who only ever knew my name before, not my face, and he knew that my name was always attached to trouble or heartache. “THAT Cousin Chris” is what he calls me. The younger ones figure out who I am and their eyes widen briefly. The little kids, and there are a dozen of them, all think I’m great. I think I’m just better adapted to talk to little children.

Another cousin of mine, Nate, was 6 years old when I effectively left the family. Now he’s a giant man with several children of his own, a wonderful wife, and a really cool job in Washington D. C. that affords him a ringside view of our government. (He really likes Barney Frank, whom he knows personally, and he also really likes Larry Craig, whom he knows personally, and wishes Larry would “just come out already.”) We are polar opposites, politically, but because he came by his beliefs through work and reason (as opposed to being brainwashed by talk radio and Fox News) we are actually closer than one might imagine, and honestly I think he’s really cool.

Being around these people, being in this environment, is so comfortable, and I’m only slightly ill at ease with that. I have some anger about what the LDS church has done to my tribe. I’m even more angry that members of my own family share the political view that prompted church members in Utah (mostly) to pump $40 million into California to pass Proposition 8. I don’t understand how people who love me, who claim to want the best for me, could possibly believe that a world where inequality is the law is morally right. I don’t want to be married in their temple. I am happy to live in a country where they are permitted to practice the religion of their conscience, and I believe in protecting freedom of religion. Freedom of religion is one of the civil rights that our country is built on. Equal protection under the law is another of the ideas that our country is supposed to be built on and until I am truly offered equal protection I will not really be one of them – one among my own people.

So I’m part of our family – but not a full part. Here, in this place I love, among people I love, I am considered to be an inferior.

I’m no closer to coming to believe that “a power greater than myself” is appropriate to turn my “will and life” over to the care of. I still think that “Higher Power” is an unconscious, impersonal, greater good –indifferent to my personal circumstance–the law of cause and effect if you will; cause and effect in a system too large for me to grasp. Perhaps if I were omniscient I could understand all of what has happened and what continues to happen. At the moment the power, I think, resides with me and within the group, and in my relationship with my sponsor. I refuse to concede that the Higher Power resides with and favors the saints and not the sinners –no matter what they believe.

I’m healing – slowly . . . .

I actually went to work today and stayed for almost 4 hours before the edges of my incisions lit on fire and I had to get home and lie down to take the pressure off them.  Even though the big incision is on my back most of the pain is in the front.  On my skin.  The skin on my back is basically numb, like there are dead areas.  I keep over doing things and having to back off again but all in all I guess I’m getting better.  I can drive and I can get myself to meetings so I’m pretty sure things will be OK.

Gracie was just a year old.

She hasn’t been feeling well the last few days.  Her breath has been labored.  She hasn’t been able to eat or drink.  Yesterday she seemed a little better than she did the day before, but this morning she was back to terrible so I took her to the vet.

After the initial exam it was clear that I could easily spend $1K and still not have any idea of what was wrong of if she would even get better.  I’m not made of cash, obviously.  When I got Gracie I understood that there was a very low limit on what I would be willing to spend to keep an animal alive, no matter how much I loved it.

After she was euthanized, the Dr. took a sample from her lungs, which were full of fluid.  He told me that I had made the right choice.  That nothing could have been done for her.

Still.

I went to mom’s house and my step-dad insisted that we give her a proper burial.  So he helped me do that, which was a surprise to me.  And greatly appreciated.

I . . . um . . . I have more feeling for animals than I do people, it seems.

And I really loved that cat.

Well this is my 5th day without smoking cigarettes and it is getting a little easier to navigate.  The cravings that do appear seem to come out of nowhere, but are related to events; finishing a meal, walking out of a meeting, getting out of bed – that sort of thing.  The only place that is a little bit difficult is at work.  Everyone where I work smokes.  We smoke a cigarette and plan the day.  We smoke a cigarette and stratagize.  We smoke a cigarette and train.

I’m still coughing, but I can breath like I don’t remember being able to breathe, and when I cough it feels like a little more space opens up in my lungs.  I have noticed a huge change in my sinuses.  It seems like blood clots and petrified mucus are working their way out of my head.  I am able to breathe naturally through my nose with ease and that is really neat.

The smell of cigarettes is virtually gone from my car and from my clothes and my briefcase.  Can you believe my briefcase smelled like cigarettes?  I no longer go to AA meetings where people smoke and I’m happy about that.

The biggest change is that when I got home Joe was home, wrapped in a blanket on the sofa, with a big stock pot beside his head.

I acted all non-chalant.  “Oh, hey.”

“Hey,” he mumbled in reply.

I went to the kitchen to make some dinner.  Paula, Joe’s mom, stopped by and we had a long, long talk.  She clearly has advanced Al-Anon skills.  I’ve got some writing to do about my own anger, but I don’t feel any sense of obligation to try and rescue him at all.

He’s in the living room watching cop shows, and I have no interest in that, so I’m in my room with my darling cat (who I think isn’t feeling well) and thinking I’ll take a bath here in a minute.  I know he thinks that I’m supposed to entertain him.  He’s said as much.  Too bad.

I also don’t feel like I have any obligation to invite him to or drive him to meetings.  He knows where they are.  He has a bicycle.  I won’t assume any responsibility for his recovery.  No one did that for me.

If he should ASK for help – that would be another story.

I’m glad he’s back.  But if he’s going to be like he’s been then he needs to figure something else out. Our other roommate, Jake, agrees.  His mother agrees.  His ‘failure to launch’ in every area of his life is entirely a product of himself.  Daddy don’t play that.  Daddy’s done.  If he refuses to start acting like a grown up he can find somewhere else to live.  Like his mom pointed out to me this afternoon, Jake and I pay rent here.  We get to dictate the rules.

I’m pissed.  I’ve got huge work to do on this.  It’s one thing to have compassion from a distance and another to have someone poisoning my my space.