The Last Chance Texaco

Archive for the ‘Integrity’ 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 »

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.

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.

I don’t know that I’ve ever been so sick and not been hospitalized.  Without health insurance and without any savings I elected to just ride it out, which, in retrospect, was probably a bad idea.  I haven’t had solid food since Monday, but I am finally keeping fluids down and the exhausting cycle of fevers and chills seems to have (I hope) ended.  Hopefully later today or tomorrow I’ll be able to do some laundry. Clean my room.  Wash my sheets. I’ve puked so much over the last 3 days and I hate puking.  Just hate it. I’ll be so grateful to have this be over.  At the moment I’m keeping down Jell-O,  One of the pups I live with works in a restaurant and came home with a half gallon of it.

That pup knocked on my door this afternoon to express some concern over the well-being of our other roomie, who is clearly (at best) over-medicated.  We just got done having a little chat with him about taking medications that aren’t prescribed to him.  He refuses to see that as a relapse.  The best thing for me to do now is nothing, although if it gets any worse I feel I have an obligation to tell his parents.  If I got to have things my way I’d give him ECT.  Moo ha ha ha ha ha!!!  It’s really a good thing I’m not in charge.

The only real bright spot of my week has been the funeral I attended this evening.  I know that sounds weird.  It was for a woman whom I had only ever heard be referred to as “The Dragon Lady.”  I went to high school with her son, whom I haven’t seen in 20 years.  Scott was the first person I knew who was ‘out’ and okay with it.  I had great admiration for him then.

I came across Scott on facebook and he generously accepted my friend request, so I got to learn a little about his life now; his long-time companion David and their daughter, Maggie, named for Scott’s mother.

One of the reasons I went was to affirm my beleief in the power of love to heal relationships; between my family and me, or between Scott and his mother.  Another reason I went was simply to honor Scott.  My being there was merely a small act of gratitude for showing me that coming out is okay, and more recently showing me that people like us can have meaningful and lasting relationships.

I almost did not go.  I barely had enough strength to shower and try to make some clothes match.  I tried to tell myself that it could be seen as an intrusion.  In the end, the thought crossed my mind that, for whatever reason, today may be the only day I ever get to see Scott and to meet his family.  Not any more reasons to drag them out of Sherman Oaks.  So in the end I went.

And I was surprised by how warmly and how lovingly I was greeted.  I was surprised not to see any of the other people we went to school with, whom he is still in touch with, there.  I was so happy to have a tiny opportunity to simply be there for a distant friend.   And right now it has me thinking about my own health condition, and about the condition of my roommate.  How there is nothing anyone can do for me to make me better faster, and how much I appreciate it that some people just show up for me – ask if I can keep down Jell-O or if I’d like some chicken soup.  And there is nothing I can do for my roommate.  Nothing.

Except be there should he decide to reach out for help.

Facebook.  Yep.  Facebook.  I now count Facebook among my addictions.  When I’m at work, I’m at work, and when I’m at school, I’m at school, but the moments in between I’m checking Facebook every 15 minutes.  It makes me feel connected.  Crazy, I know.  Whatever.

Here, at least for the first year or so, I enjoyed a cerain level of anonymity which is so useful if you have a pathological ego.  You can actually really let your existential hair down and, bizarrely, that makes the quality of the work go up because the quality of the work correlates closely with it’s honesty.  And if I knew that anyone that knew me was reading this . . .  Especially at the beginning, when I was hemorrhaging the insanity that my life had been . . .   I couldn’t have done it.  I don’t do it.  Members of my family read this and my actual name is attached to it.

I still feel safer here than I do on the rest of the internet, which is really delusional, but it’s not Facebook, where, to paraphrase the late, great Karen Carpenter, “I’m living out my life on pages with ten thousand people watching.” Read the rest of this entry »

I’m trying a little expirement in extreme practice of the principles in a specific area of my life that I requires specific behavior that very, very few people, addict or no, ever do.

Am I above the law?  The practice of humility requires that I answer no to that question.  And if I am not above the law then practice of the principle of willingness requires me to follow all laws.  Am I humble enough and am I willing enough to follow all laws?  Am I able to practice enough integrity that I can apply the answer to those questions to the small things as well as the large?  Can I practice honesty enough to be really conscious of what that all means?

Do I now, or am I even willing to . . . always observe the speed limit? Read the rest of this entry »

In all honesty the 2 most possible of the three types of relationships that I might have with Dennis are the sponsor/sponsee and roommate/roommate relationships. I’m not so caught up in fantasy as to not realize that once he’s gotten through the steps he’s going to be a different person than he is now.  I’ll be different when I’ve done more work. And seriously, I’ve been free of romantic entanglements for so long now that, while I still have a “happily ever after” fantasy (Jane Austism if you will), I’m not at all sure that I have what it takes to, or even an interest in pursuing that. Read the rest of this entry »

Final answer.

And that’s all I need. While I may (or may not) entertain the suggestions of friends, I do what my sponsor suggests without rebuttal. I’ll question him to learn how to think and hear about his own experience, but I do what he suggests. Period.

And he says, “No.”

Oddly, he’s softer on the dating question.

I think I should start looking for a roommate elsewhere, though.  I’ve lived alone for 6 months now and I hate it. I’m bad at it. And it’s too expensive.