The Last Chance Texaco

Archive for the ‘Ephemera’ Category

My body has been a challenge from the moment I got sober.  Things bother me that I would never have noticed before.  And I don’t know if it is that I’ve totally damaged myself from my years of crystal meth use or if I’m just some kind of unluckily predisposed to illness kind of being.

Early in recovery it was respiratory stuff; bronchitis, sinusitis, that sort of thing.  It didn’t help that I was still a smoker.  Getting through the first winter sober required several rounds of antibiotics.

The second winter sober required several rounds of antibiotics, too, but I guess they didn’t do much good if I ran around with pneumonia for 3 or 4 months, eventually needing a couple of major surgeries to get me better.  I don’t know how better I got.  I still have pain from the surgery.  I look at my back and side and I feel like Frankenstein.  And all that time, those 2 months of recovery, laying in bed, taking vicoden (as prescribed – but so what, that shit is hard to do when you’re “sober”) losing faith, losing hope, losing “conscious contact”.  All of that is normal, I’m told, for anyone in recovery going through what I went through.  But it’s been a year and some months later and I’m OK.  I don’t have the Burning Bush kind of Higher Power that baptized me into recovery.  It’s quieter now.  I have to look for it.  I miss the Burning Bush – but what I have now is OK.

I have convinced myself that my head is OK – but my body says otherwise.  A week ago last Saturday the skin on my leg became really sensitive, but there was no rash; nothing to indicate that something was wrong.  I thought maybe it was the length of my shorts rubbing that part of my leg or maybe my new detergent wan to blame.

Last Saturday I woke up with a full-on, huge case of shingles that was spreading before my eyes.  I went to the doctor immediately and I started taking medication to stop it within hours, which I guess is a good thing.  It continued to spread, in spite of the medication.  It seems to finally be calming down.

It makes me wonder, am I really the same as I was before I had half my lung hacked out?  Am I still so completely unaware of my mental and physical state that things like this happen.  I thought when I straightened out spiritually I was supposed to straighten out physically and mentally.

I thought I had been taking pretty good care of myself; three meals a day, going to bed at a decent hour, etc.  I thought that I was handling beautifully the pressure I’ve been under at work.  Then my body tells me what’s really going on.

I know that I must be recovering from my drug addiction because when I was using I might not have even seen a doctor.  This could have been much worse than it was.  Like that terrible relationship I almost got in to, I recognize when something is wrong now and I take action.  I put “first things first”.  The first thing to do when you can actually see the blisters forming is go to the damn doctor.  I guess that is what progress looks like.  One of the differences between me on drugs and me sober is that I see a doctor when I need to.

Maybe – just maybe – God is doing for me what I cannot or will not do for myself; slowing me down.

By the way, don’t get shingles if you don’t have to.  This hurts like a . . .

I’d really like a job offer from Current Media.

I’ve always been a skinny person.  Before my addiction to crystal meth the most I ever in my life weighed was 180 pounds.  I’m also 6’4″ so while 180 isn’t exactly underweight it is only a 32″ waist.  Call it narcissism but it’s an aesthetic I really like on me.

Post crystal meth addiction I gained weight like I never have before.  When I got sober this time I came in at 170 lbs. and over the course of 90 days I put on 60 pounds.  That finally leveled off and I lost 15 of it, and I could have been content to continue weighing 215 pounds.  I would have rather that it was muscle weight and not all on my  stomach, but 215 wasn’t terrible.

After my surgery I packed on a whole new batch of weight.  I was all the way up to 245 at one point.  I went from being moderately active to absolutely sedentary.  I craved sugar all the time.  I have no self control, obviously, so I denied myself nothing.  I became so large that I couldn’t bend over to tie my shoes.  I had to cross my legs to do it.

While I was visiting my dad I got on his bathroom scale – 240 pounds.  I had one of those moments of clarity then that unless I did something about the problem it was only going to get worse.   Well, we alcoholics and addicts are people who are given to extremes, or so the tell me, so I guess I can accept the fact that I may be going slightly overboard in my pursuit of a skinny me again.

I figured out how many net calories I can consume per day to lose 2 pounds a week.  I track everything I eat.  Everything!  I have started exercising – walking mostly, but walking hard, for about an hour a day.  Every day I have come in well below my goal and I’ve lost 5 pounds.  I only need to lose 31 more pounds to no longer be classified as “overweight” – 35 or 40 to look cute in jeans again. Read the rest of this entry »

I can’t believe it. Day 1000 passed without my noticing it. I was in Las Vegas at the time visiting my mom and dad. I spent the day hanging out with them, my great-uncle and his new wife and daughter, my aunt and two of my cousins. Watched some football. Took a nap. I didn’t even notice that the un-official milestone had passed.

It’s so strange. In the first 90 days there wasn’t a day that passed without me knowing exactly how long it had been. Even as recently as day 500 I would as often as not be aware of the time. It is the addictive process in reverse. Being sober becomes your “normal.” Day by day another little piece of the old way of being falls away.

While I was in Las Vegas I went on one of the “thrill rides” at the top of the Stratosphere Hotel – the Big Shot. When you’re on the ride it seems longer than it really is. Much longer. Especially the falling part. For a good part of the time you are falling at the speed of gravity so you get this eerie weightless feeling; this amazing kind of ‘powerless.’

It’s probably not surprising that the first real using dream I’ve ever had in the last 1005 days was that night. That night and the next I actually had a hard time falling asleep. I couldn’t get past the part at the beginning of falling asleep that feels a little bit like falling. That all seems to have resolved itself though. Anyway – the ride is worth doing. Once. Take that off my bucket list now.

On this day, eight years ago, I was in jail awaiting trial on felony drug possession charges.  I was one of a handful of people awake in my dorm watching television.  I called my mom to tell her the world was coming to an end.  That’s what it felt like.  I was on the phone with her when the second tower was hit, live on TV.

I felt like the worst citizen in America that day, and for weeks to come.

I remember the first time I saw a commercial aircraft in the air, weeks later, and how hopeful that made me.

On this day, as on this day in 2001, my thoughts and prayers are with those who’s lives were changed forever.  May whatever God there is be with you and keep you and comfort you.

There may be other ways to stay sober.  There are other ways to make love, too.  You can make love standing up in a hammock, but there is an easier way to do it.

I learned a little while ago that another person I know in the rooms successfully escaped feeling anything ever again.  It happens more often than I’m comfortable with; people try to get sober and can’t and then intentionally or unintentionally end their suffering by ending their lives.

As a group we die a lot.

I wasn’t particularly fond of this cat.  He was crazy.  I am pretty selective about whom I hang around, but this guy was on the periphery of one of the groups I’m kind of close to.  I had sat with this guy, who hated me (I’m not projecting – he told people that), on a number of occasions, while he struggled to ‘get it’.

When I heard that he committed suicide all I could think was, “Now I don’t have to try to be nice to him anymore.” I am not sad for him nor am I sad for myself.

There are people I care about though, who this will really hurt – and that breaks my heart.

Crystal Taylor <crystal@twitter.com> to outofgas@thelastchancetexaco.com

6:23pm

Head of User Support

Hello,

We’ve recently been contacted by the trademark owners of Texaco, who’d like to get started with a Twitter account.  Although your account is not violating our TOS, we do state that we like to help businesses reclaim user names when possible.  Would you be willing to give up the user name in exchange for a Twitter shirt?  If so, great!  If not, that’s fine too, just thought it was worth asking.

Thanks!

Crystal

to Crystal Taylor <crystal@twitter.com>

6:37pm

I want a Texaco t shirt, too. Size extra large – mens. I’m a big fan of their logo and their tag line – as a sort of spiritual truth. You can tell them that. You can also tell them that there are woefully few Texaco stations in Idaho, where I live, but one of them, at Mack’s Inn, Idaho, shares a name with my blog and a song by Rikki Lee Jones – thelastchancetexaco.com.

So yeah, if they can send along some cool stuff with red stars on it I’m thrilled to hand the name back.

Best wishes,

Chris