The Last Chance Texaco

Archive for the ‘Honesty’ 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 »

“Many of us needed an overhauling there.  But above all, we tried to  be sensible on this question.  It’s so easy to get way off the track.”  Alcoholics Anonymous, Page 69

And some of us more than others, apparently.  After taking a good, long time off  from any semblance of serious dating, dating with the intention of finding a Lifetime Companion, I find that regardless of the work I have done, my “picker” is still broken.  I still find myself attracted to the sickest of the sick.  If it is true that water seeks it’s own level that isn’t saying much about my progress, is it?  Luckily I’ve been buoyant enough to bounce happily right out of the last debacle.

In the part of the Big Book that discusses our Sex Inventory we find the word “ideal” or “ideals” mentioned five times; five times in four paragraphs.

1. In this way we tried to shape a sane and sound ideal for our future sex life.
   
2. We asked God to mold our ideals and help us to live up to them.
3. Whatever our ideal turns out to be, we must be willing to grow  toward it.
4. Suppose we fall short of the chosen ideal and stumble?
   
5. We earnestly pray for the right ideal, for guidance in each questionable situation, for sanity, and for the strength to do the right thing. Read the rest of this entry »

My sobriety anniversary is very important to me and it’s coming up here soon, but it doesn’t quite move me the same way December 13th does.  December 13th, today, happens also to be my birthday, but my God, I’m 44 years old.  My “birthday” is not really a big deal anymore.  No, the anniversary I celebrate tonight, the reason this day is important to me, is that on this night, three years ago, I suddenly saw myself clearly and suddenly had a little hope that recovery would be possible.

The first two years were easy.  This last one has been a bitch.  There have been times recently when I have wished that I had died back in May.  It would have been so much easier.  I’ve even, at times, tried to tell myself that if that illness had killed me that I would be a hero.  I would have died sober.  I would have died doing the things that I was supposed to be doing.  My family and friends would mourn me, sure, but there would be something happy underneath the sorrow; the knowledge that they had known me and that in my last years I had been sober.

Lately things have been much, much harder.  I’ve had to return to being medicated to stop the insanity that has been going through my mind.  The medicines are working, so that is good, but I still have a ton of stuff to face.

Somehow, in spite of everything, I have remained sober.  In fact I’ve been sober longer now than I have ever been since I was 14 years old and I attribute it to that moment at the corner of 6th and Pueblo, under the street lamp, in the snow, when I finally understood that the pain I was in then was the very best that I could hope for, unless I got sober, and when I suddenly believed that it would be possible.

” God, I offer myself to Thee to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt.  Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do Thy will.  Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love and Thy Way of Life.  May I do Thy will always.  Amen”

When I chose my current sponsor one of the things that attracted me was that even with 36-odd years sober, he was still able to share the truth at meeting level, particularly when things are difficult for him.  You’ll hear him at a meeting sharing some tale of woe and how he has faith that it will be resolved and two days later he’ll hardly have a memory of it; the problem will have been solved, usually  by itself, and he will be right as rain.

I, on the other hand, have been mute in meetings and mute (or relatively mute) here, for some time.  I haven’t wanted to contradict what I’ve shared here for nearly the last 3 years.  I haven’t wanted to stray too far from the party line at meeting level – remember we have a solution on which we can “absolutely agree” and join in brotherly and harmonious action.

Blah, blah, blah.  Whatever.

Remember also that we “cannot fail” if we are earnestly seeking this “God” or “Creator” or whichever of the other names it is called in the book.  It promises that it is a “loving” power, but it also says it can be anything I choose, so long as it makes sense to me,

And there is the problem.  Loving doesn’t make sense to me.  Conscious doesn’t make sense to me.

It used to.  Before my surgery it did.

Now I’m just pissed of that I never had a Mojito before I stopped drinking and using.  Or Kettle One vodka.

I really get it, on a deep level, that my brain tells me this stuff; stuff like “oh, you can have a drink” or “hey! we haven’t gotten high in a long time.  doesn’t that sound like fun?”  I know my brain tells me these things and I know brom experience that it is always – under all circumstances – bad information.  They are ideas that are not to be acted on.

But I feel like a fraud for even having thoughts like that and I feel like a fraud for not believing in a conscious higher power and I wish it would just stop, just for awhile.  Five months of this is long enough.

There are natural limits on what I can compute on greed and will power alone, as I have said before, but greed and will power are my constant companions in the marketplace.  I may be able to set them aside to some degree with respect to my disease and, to a lesser extent, with other alcoholics/addicts, but the fact remains that greed and will power still color virtually everything I do.

Such was the case last night when my sponsor and I went to the Western Idaho State Fair, though I could not have known it at the time.

We went through the livestock exhibits where several of his grandchildren had won ribbons for various things; rabbits, geese, ducks, pygmy goats and the like.  We spent some time with his daughter, the most inspirational, funny, and kind person you could hope to meet and who, though she was born without legs, has never allowed herself to be limited by what other people think she should be able to do.  We ate funnel cakes and corn dogs and wandered the midway where we enjoyed the eye candy and not the rides. We looked at quilts and photographs and tatting in the exhibition hall.  And in another hall we came upon a booth selling 650 thread count egyptian cotton sheet sets – for $20.

Now, first let me let you in on a little secret.  There is this boy coming to visit; this boy I’ve never met but whose voice I love, and whose sense of humor I love, and who’s quirky perspective on all things I find are either endearing or happens to match my own.  This is a rare, rare boy, indeed and though I’ve “known” him through gay.com and facebook on and off for 8 years or so, we’ve never met.  Secondly, you remember that, with one rather short and doomed exception, I haven’t dated anyone seriously for 16 years.  Oh, I know there was the “felationship” with the “IFX” – the imaginary future ex-husband.  We’re not counting that at all.  That was merely an episode of loneliness and desperation – the kind that any serious addiction is bound to lead to.

I could go on and on, but I’m sure you get the picture.  I want this guy to like me, and I think he wants to like me, too, because last week we decided that going on the way we have been is pointless.  We should see if there is something more there.  We should conduct a chemistry experiment.  He bought a plane ticket.  He’ll be here on Friday.  I am excited, and happy and  I am in a low grade panic.

So I want him to be comfortable in my house and I most especially want him to be comfortable in my bed.  When I walked by the booth at the fair with the sheets all I could think was, “Oh my God!  That’s 250 higher thread count than I have now.  I MUST HAVE THESE!”

Now, I’m not an idiot.  I know perfectly well that you cannot sell 650 ct. Egyptian cotton sheet sets for $20.  I know that is not really possible.  And yet I bought a set.  And guess what.  Not only are they not 650 ct., but they AREN’T EVEN COTTON!!!!  The entire package is a LIE.  And I should have known this going in.  On some level I must have known it.  But greed and will power are funny things, and I can hardly blame myself for being suckered in because while I bought one set, my sponsor bought three!!

When I sat down to write this I was still so mad that I wanted to go back to the fair and taser the guy who sold me the 180 thread count microfiber sheets right square in the nuts.

But I feel better now.  I’ve taken a look at where I was wrong.  I’ve admitted to myself and to you that I made a decision based on selfishness and greed – and to some extent fear, and while I haven’t harmed anyone but myself, I am willing to live with the consequences of my action.

I’m also willing to go to Dillard’s later and buy some fantastic sheets, so maybe I haven’t changed that much after all.

A.

Atheist.

Two and a half years sober and I find myself so fucked off about the conception of god that I got sober with that I can’t live joyfully. In all likelihood I just haven’t given myself enough time to heal or something but at the moment it seems like the “power” that got me sober was an episode of magical thinking from which I have been medically released.

I’m two months out of surgery and I’m still in so much pain that I think I need to go back to the doctor. I’ve tried taking a friend’s Neurontin and it had no effect on the pain.

If there is no god then I must have had the power to get sober all along. I must not have known how to access or use that power but it must have always been there.

My sponsor suggested that I go to as many meetings in a row as I am able to until I believe again and I’ve been doing that – 2 or 3 meetings a day. All I really hear is some really soft thinking and bad logic.

Oddly, none of that means that I think that AA doesn’t work. It obviously worked for me, and I don’t think that not believing in god anymore should be too much of a hindrance. There are all kinds of higher powers I believe in. One of those is that groups can accomplish more than individuals.

I’m just tired of feeling like I’m supposed to believe in god to stay sober and tired of trying to make the magical thinking return.

(I just watched a TV commercial where the governor of Idaho said that meth “leaves a tattoo on your brain.” Seriously. )

I’ve written a ton of inventory on the current situation at home and had a nice long visit with my sponsor and gotten some clarity about the situation in my house, identified the causes and conditions within me that create my unhappiness, and gotten  a sense of peace about it.

First of all, it’s clear that if, when I go into the kitchen to make coffee in the morning and do not close my bedroom door and the dog runs into my bathroom and pees on the floor, that is because the dog’s owner IS NOT CAPABLE of caring for the dog.  The dog needs to get to spend some time outside every 2 or 3 hours.  Period.  The dog needs to get to spend some time outside every time he drinks water.  Period.  And if the dog’s owner is not capable of doing that, the responsibility rests with Jake and I.

I’m done with being frustrated about it.  It is just another example of how unmanagable my life is.  One way or another, my HP will solve this, provided I refocus and work on myself.  The roommate has 2 examples of what kind of adult behavior is expected.  I don’t need to explain it to him.  If he won’t conform, or if he can’t conform, he’ll have to find somewhere where what he is doing is acceptable, or I’ll have to find a place where I’m not placing my freedom at risk.

I can see that he’s making a little bit of effort, but I still feel like a hostage here.  A little bit of effort is the same as a half measure.  It avails nothing.  “We believe there is no middle of the road solution.”  Nothing short of completely different will do.

I wrote “Make Friends With Reality” on the chalkboard in the kitchen.  The reality that I’m trying to make friends with is that I get to take care of a dog who’s owner has abandoned him and live in a house where my roommate was replaced by an alien.  My sponsor advised me to ride it out.  He said at some point, probably in the not too distant future, I will know exactly what has to happen and I’ll have the ability to do it.  Whatever it is.  In the meantime, if I get crazy, I can always go back and write more inventory.

It’s the first day of recovery, again, for my first sponsee, Joe, who had the courage this morning, to admit that he relapsed.  Perhaps it wasn’t courage really so much as the absense of an adequate denial.  And perhaps it’s not the first day of a new recovery.  Okay.  Let me just be honest.  He’s acknowledged his relapse but I don’t believe he has taken any steps toward or is even interested in recovering.

It is a “day one” for me though.  I smoked my last cigarette 26 hours ago.  I am using a nicotine replacement product so the cravings are somewhat under control.  It’s not the same as smoking, but the edge is less sharp.  A good written first step on smoking seems like a good idea.  The first obvious, and really irritating symptom of unmanagability I’m dealing with at the moment is the smell.  I smoke in my house.  I attend AA meetings where smoking is permitted.  At one day off cigarettes I am acutely aware of the smell that permeates everything I own.  It disgusts me yet strangely it makes me want to smoke.

I know that smoking will kill me, and yet I smoke.  I think that fits the kind of definition of insanity that the program talks about.  And I have come to believe that a power greater than myself can solve all of my problems.  My experience has been that when I made a decision to stop using crystal meth, I found the strength and support I needed to do it, and I believe that If I make the same decision with cigarettes, I’ll have the same experience.

But it is day one.  I am edgy.  It will pass.  I’ll feel healthier.  The smell will wash out.  The craving will be removed.  I’ll be restored to sanity.  And God, in His infinite grace, will bless me with a little more happiness, joy, and freedom.