The Last Chance Texaco

Posts Tagged ‘Acceptance’

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.

I hate confrontation, but I’m afraid I find myself in a position where I have to have one.  With my boss.

My paycheck bounced.

I’m trying to save up some money so that I can declare bankruptcy and my paycheck is bouncing.  I can’t stand it.  My student loan and my car payments are due as is the bill for the attorney that kept me out of jail two years ago and my “Cost of Supervision” – the surtax I pay for being a dangerous criminal.  It’s Christmas.  And I’m barely getting by.  And my paycheck bounced.  I’m so mad I could spit.

This happened about this time last year, too.

You don’t bounce payroll.  I mean it’s just not done.  It’s probably time for me to be looking for a new job but with unemployment in my area at 3 times what it was 2 years ago, and not having graduated from college and being a felon, the chances of me getting another job at the wage  I currently make are very slim.  It might be a good time to think about going back to school, too, but it’s too late to get financial aid for the spring semester.  Without financial aid it will be impossible for me to go to school.  I already have $10K in student loan debt – what’s another 20 more, right?  If I end up with a decent job that has health insurance? Seriously, I don’t think that will ever happen.  I think I’m stuck where I am.

I’m stuck where I am and I have to talk to my boss about getting paid and worry about when this is going to happen again.  I just hate that.

You know, the whole last year of my recovery I’ve been in the grips of the thought that I should be weller than this by now.  I should be more comfortable in my own skin and the world should somehow be more manageable.  Or if I’m feeling anxious or depressed or fearful or angry there ought to be something I can take to make it go away.  The Big Book is rife with claims that as recovering people we should be happy and I guess the fact that I’m not, or that I haven’t been, makes me feel like I’m doing something wrong; that I am failing at the program.  It doesn’t really register that life is sometimes difficult for everyone.

I’ve been reading an old Grapevine interview with Dr. Paul, the author of “Doctor, Alcoholic, Addict” – the story that spawned the Cult of Page 449 (acceptance is the answer) and I really like what he has to say about overcoming stuff like this:

“I grew up thinking that I had to perfect my personality, then I got into AA, and AA said, no, that isn’t the way we do it: only G-d can remove our defects. I was amazed to find that I couldn’t be a better person simply by trying harder! Read the rest of this entry »

There is a fantastic post over at the Trudge Report about being careful about the difference between our needs and wants as they relate to others.

When I did my 4th step, I recognized that my needs are not met by other people, but by God. I don’t think it’s overstating that case to say that I need some washer & dryer from somewhere. It is God’s determination where that comes from. This takes him off the psychological “hook” for me. Now of course I don’t like debating all this stuff, but it passes, and I need to not develop a resentment from it.

Now some reader out there is thinking, “But M, he’s trying to screw you!” Well, maybe he is (finally), but that’s not the point. Other people are going to disappoint me in this life, even though I am trying to stay sober. I don’t get some sort of pass on assholes because I like alcohol too much. I have to stay sober in spite of what life presents me.

And that, by the way, is an appropriate use of the phrase “have to”.

Since shortly after I got sober I’ve bee taking modafinil, a drug that has been shown to improve cognitive function in people with many kinds of brain injuries and CNS disease, is suspected to be an effective treatment for methamphetamin dependence, and is incredibly effective as a treatment for ADHD; basically this is the drug for me.  I’ve done really well with this drug.

For the last year I’ve been on the Provigil patient assistance program, administered by NORD, because Provigil is pretty expensive.  The price has come down by about 50% in the last year so that means that a month supply is about $250.

I contacted NORD yesterday because it is time for me to recertify for the program and they told me that the  program is closed, even to current participants.  They said it may be open again after the first of the year.

My first reaction was panic.  I know that days I don’t take modafinil that there is much less of me to work with.  The other drugs that are used for ADHD are not indicated in stimulant addicts or I don’t tolerate well (Stratera makes me ill).  Perhaps it is time to find out if I can live and thrive without pharmacological support.

I don’t like it, but it is what it is; an opportunity to grow or change.  If I start falling apart 8 days from now, when I run out, please say something, because I may not notice.

We always talk about recovery as being a program of paradox.  I had never really thought about it before today but I think that addiction is paradox, too.  For 23 years after my first introduction to the solution I persevered in my effort to exhaust every possibility I could think of to control and enjoy my drinking and drug use.  I must be some kind of genius to have that many ideas.  I absolutely would not give up on that, in part because I could control my use or I could enjoy my use.  I just couldn’t seem to navigate that ‘and’.

In every other area of my life, though, I exhibited an extraordinary lack of tolerance for frustration.  I would give up at the drop of a hat.  Perhaps the only skill I had that surpassed my ability to give up was my ability to never start. Read the rest of this entry »

First of all, thank God for the steps! I wouldn’t be able to tell this story without them. I wouldn’t because I would be trapped in the story; sucked in to the familiar familial drama of the tree from which this nut fell.

Last Friday night I had dinner with my sister and her two boys, my brother and his growing family and my aunt and uncle. I don’t remember the last time all of us were together to break bread. I was especially happy to see my sister as she is moving to Iowa City this month where her husband is doing his fellowship. Other times this opportunity has presented itself I have been way too strung out to show up. Seeing me would have been more painful than not seeing me. So to be able to show up for my family, sober, happy and present, was really wonderful for me.

As the sister and children of an alcoholic and her husband, though, the conversation took a dark turn almost from the very beginning and mostly stayed there. My family has been very protective of me and very supportive. Knowing the seriousness of my effort and knowing the gravity of my mother’s condition, they have been vigilant about not disclosing any specifics of my life to my mother. They have never passed along my phone number which she has asked for several times. They only answer her questions about how I am in the most general way. And perhaps more importantly, they spare me the details of the insanity going on in mom’s luxurious little rabbit hole.

I had no difficulty sloughing off the story of her arrest in her own driveway a couple of months ago. The scene that had been described to me was really nothing out of the ordinary – except that there happened to be police at her home at the time. I actually took a little (guilty) pleasure from it, particularly since part of her ranting had been about them harassing her when there were people like me out on the street. At dinner, though, the scene was illuminated more fully and details of the continuing downward spiral were revealed. It was not the police at her home, not in the usual sense, but rather the S.W.A.T. team. More recently there have been public urination accidents, car accidents, accidental falls down escalators resulting in knee replacement surgery, accidental falls at home leaving her husband with his femur broken in two places and passed out on the floor until the maids came in and found him (when he was admitted in the ER his BAC was .38).

By all outside appearances the gates of insanity have swung wide open and my mom and her husband have passed through, sprinted up the walk, gone through the front door, fixed themselves some drinks and gotten comfortable. For three days afterward I hoped that death wouldn’t be far behind. I imagined ways it might happen. I tried to figure out if you could get a wheel chair over the Lido deck and if a life preserver would be visible at night.

This time it only sucked me in for a couple of days. I was spared any direct contact with the dark side. All I had to endure was a 30 hour headache, an evening of plotting a final scene to the tragedy, and a few hours of step work and in return I was given a miracle, a change in perspective and the 4th step promise of being able to view my mother and her husband as spiritually sick and to think of them with compassion. Genuine compassion. I actually discussed with my sponsor ways that I might be able to be helpful to them without placing myself in the eye of the hurricane. On principle he agreed but we both though it would be better to talk to his sponsor and his sponsor’s sponsor who happens to know my parents and had parents like them.

After becoming willing to send people to my mom’s house to see if she needed anyone to go to the store or make dinner or bring in the mail I was given specific direction about cleaning up my part of this insanity in my head and in my mom’s life:

“‘Fuck off’ is an amend.”

I can live with that. I’m grateful that I was given the change in perspective from resentment to compassion. And I’m grateful to know that the most compassionate thing I can do is allow them to be on their own path.

embrace

c.1300, from O.Fr. embracer “clasp in the arms, enclose,” from en- “in” + brace “the arms,” from L. bracchium (neut. pl. brachia). Replaced O.E. clyppan, also fæðm.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper

Last night, late, I stepped out on my front porch to smoke a cigarette. I still smoke cigarettes. For some reason cigarettes have been harder to give up than booze and crystal meth, but I digress. I was standing on my front porch in a cold fog, looking across the street, watching two neighbor couples embrace.

The first couple live in the yellow clapboard house with the white picket fence on the corner across the street. I’m guessing they entertained last night because at this unusual hour the wife, a petite blond in her early 30s, was in the kitchen washing dishes. I saw her husband walk up behind her and place his arms around her and nuzzle her neck while they swayed. It was a picture of the kind of domestic happiness that I have often longed for but never really had, at least not for any meaningful time. I’ve never really touched life that deep. It feels like no one has ever really loved me like that -all the way through. Perhaps it is that I have never loved them back. One would think I could get the direction right since in some ways it is my most obvious and most painful disappointment.

At the same time, two doors down, the shirtless figure of the muscle boy who my friend Lindsey is engaged to, was on the front porch of their house being held, the way you hold someone who has suffered a sudden and terrific loss, by a woman I didn’t recognize. Behind him was a tall, older man with his hand on the boy’s shoulder, telling him he was fine. It’s OK. You’ll be alright. The older man opened the front door and asked if muscle boy had a shirt. It was, after all, only about 40 degrees outside. A hand reached out a shirt from inside the house. “Dad? What are you doing here?” the boy slurred as his father dressed him. Father and mother held their drunken son up as they walked down the steps and to the car and drove away from the young couple’s house. I see this boy in meetings. My friend Lindsey just celebrated 2 years clean and sober. Obviously she’s no Lois Wilson. She told me this morning that she’s broken off the engagement.

One couple clasped in the arms of love, the other in the grip of this disease.

I guess it has had me thinking about which is worse and how; to long for the embrace of an undiscovered beloved or to be in the embrace of hopelessness and futility. They are both awful. They are both lonely. At times I’ve felt like both were killing me. Lately I’ve watched people I love struggle with each of these and I’m finding it harder and harder to watch the struggle in a detached way -probably because the struggle still exists within me. The examples are all around me but two of them in particular seem to have ‘embraced’ me. One of these young women is pretty and smart and sweet and she is sensible in many ways. However, she is obsessed with what she cannot have. I think my suffering over the IFX demonstrates that I know something about obsessing over what I can’t have. Unlike my own experience though, the object of her obsession suddenly became available to her. She responded by running away, forcing this amazing man who loves her to retreat. She has responded by chasing him again.

The other young woman has been in and out of the rooms for over two years but can’t seem to stay sober for more than 30 days at a time. Yet she insists on calling on herself at every meeting and actually giving people advice. She yammers on endlessly about having a wonderful relationship with her higher power (lower case mine and intentional) and how she is working steps and has a wonderful sponsor and how much she has endured and remained sober and “what this program has given” her. Her first or second sentence always begins with the words, “I can honestly say.”

I must care about the first woman more because I haven’t pulled her aside to say, “You stupid, selfish bitch. Can’t you see what you’re keeping yourself from?” I wasn’t so well behaved with the second woman who I did pull aside last night. I believe my words were, “You don’t know shit about shit. You can’t “honestly say” anything. And shut the fuck up. You need this as bad as anyone here and you’re not going to hear it if you’re talking.” The rule I observe about not sharing in a meeting unless I’m called on or unless I’m dying has saved me more than once from either being her, with something to say on every subject and on every occasion- or unloading on her at meeting level. G-d seems always to make sure that I am not called on or (on a couple of occasions) called out of the room for some reason right before my head pops.

Why, I wonder, can’t they simply embrace the truth? Then again . . .

why can’t I?

Photo Credit:  unknown

You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

It came to my attention a few moments ago that there exists a link to this blog from another blog written by Mickey Clontarf in a post entitled “Agents for Satan”. Many of us who blog about recovery are listed there. The Last Chance Texaco is listed below the scripture from the Gospel of John, Ch. 8, v. 44. This disturbs me on so many levels that I’m not even quite sure where to begin addressing them, but I guess I’ll try.

First, I should point out that among my thoughts and feelings around this, anger and revenge are markedly absent. I know that by addressing the situation at all I may create the impression that this isn’t so, but what I want to examine has nothing at all to do with Mr. Clontarf and everything to do with my fears, my insecurities, my pride, my program and my relationship with G-d. The strangest things sometimes prompt that kind of self-examination. That being said . . .

In sharing my experience of a Power greater than myself, as I understand that Power, I believe I have remained very general. I believe everyone has the right to get sober, regardless of their religious beliefs. I don’t believe I have the right to force my beliefs on others. I am frustrated by those who do foist their beliefs on others. There have been times in my life when something like what Mr. Clontarf has done would infuriate me. Yet today, in whatever halting and small way I can, I try to live by a certain set of spiritual principles and that means showing love and tolerance to those that disturb me and showing pity and patience to the sick.

As the basic text suggests we do, I asked G-d to show me how to be helpful to Mr. Clontarf. I briefly considered leaving a comment on his blog; something compassionate, but it occurred to me that no matter what I said he would likely view it as a challenge or a threat and respond even more vigorously. My saying anything could only create more harm, so I didn’t leave a comment.

I’m disturbed also by the particular scripture that was placed above me. No part of it, to me, has a ring of truth in it. Because I love my Creator, I love the truth, and one of the tools I use in writing 4th step inventory is a way of taking the thinking out of my head and examining it to find the truth, for it is always there. Often what comes out on paper initially is the truth, but inside out or backwards or both, so I find the truth in any of those 2nd column statements by twisting them up. (Just a quick example: If I start with the statement “D. should take care of me.” it seems pretty obvious that this is not the truth. It is simply the crap in my head. But the truth is in there. “I should take care of D.” hmmm. also not true. “D. shouldn’t take care of me.” Now this IS true – remember, nothing happen’s in G-d’s world by mistake. Now because I am a child of G-d I have been given the divine power of choice, and here I am, not being taken care of. Perhaps, and here is the greatest truth in the first statement, “I should take care of me.” THAT is the truth.) So because this scripture is so uncomfortable to me, so subjectively different than my experience of my Creator, I have done that inventory technique on it, and found that it perfectly matches my sense of the Truth.

“You are of your Creator, your G-d and you want to do His will. He was the Creator from the beginning and He stands in Truth, because He is Truth. When he speaks it is the Truth because there is only Truth in Him.”

My experience is subjective, though. Can I know that this is true? I don’t know. What I do know is that the first spiritual principle I try to live by is honesty, truth. And I know that since I have embraced that I have not had the compulsion or the desire to get drunk or high.

The most uncomfortable part for me though is that if I am truly living by the principles that I say I embrace, I am forced to concede that Mr. Clontarf may be right. I don’t think he is, of course, but I’m open to the idea.

One of my great, if not my greatest character traits is intelligence. I’m smart, damn it, and I know it. I was also raised in a family, a community and a culture that all place a high value on intelligence, so I feel valuable. Another trait is perseverance. “Quitters never win,” was an oft repeated admonition in the society of my youth. Taken together these are the kind of qualities that governments and industries are built of. There is little that cannot be achieved with intelligence and perseverance. They are qualities to be admired.

In an addict or an alcoholic they can be fatal. Alcoholics and addicts of my description often die rather than embrace the truth; that “we were powerless over alcohol; that our lives had become unmanageable.” To finally and completely admit the truth about me, that I was entirely without ability, influence or control with regard to drugs and alcohol and that as a result of my drinking and using the ordinary tasks of living became impossible to deal with was a pill too bitter to swallow. Me, the one who prided himself on his ability to solve even the most difficult problems, the one who never gave up till the obstacle was overcome or the difficulty mastered, admitting that I had been defeated by such a trivial thing.

I saw other people having wine with dinner, going out for drinks with friends or having a beer on a hot summer day.  I even saw people who occasionally smoked a joint or did a line of coke or crystal meth without anything terrible happening and I couldn’t understand why I was unable to do the same.  I didn’t understand why when I did the same things I saw other people doing I got different results. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize that when you take culturally reinforced personality traits like intelligence and perseverance, a hereditary brain defect and a powerfully addictive substance that the result is someone who has to go pretty far down the scale before they cry “Uncle!”

Ultimately I did surrender.  After I had tried absolutely everything I could think of to try, I did admit complete defeat, and asked for help.  People who understood me and my problem took me to the solution and showed me how to apply a simple set of spiritual principles to my problems.  But I didn’t or couldn’t  ask for help before I had done some pretty outrageous things in an attempt to satisfy the craving and manage the outcome.  I am still paying (dearly) for the consequences of my addiction.  Today my head (my disease) is telling me that the price I am paying is too high, that the world is unfair, that the behavior that placed me in the position I am in is the result of a disease, a brain disorder really, and culturally reinforced ‘virtues’; that I am being punished for being biologically defective, smart and persevering.

That insane idea is as much a part of the problem as anything else, and luckily there is a set of simple instructions that I now try to follow to override it.  Following those instructions can take me from thinking how upset I am that it will be years and years before I get my passport back and go to Italy, to thinking how grateful I am that I get to be useful to the people around me outside of prison walls today.  The problem is still that I don’t always pick up those tools and follow those instructions right away.  I seem to have to reach a certain level of misery before I understand that the only effective solution I have today to the problems that trouble me most is the same solution that they showed me how to apply to my drug and alcohol problem.

What I’m saying is that someone showed me how to apply the solution and yet today I am miserable and unwilling to apply that solution to the thing that is troubling me.  Today I am miserable.  It isn’t something I’m going to drink over.  I may just do some extended pouting.  Hopefully I won’t wallow in this too long.

Any Texaco Man Will Show You, originally uploaded by nyctreeman.