Honesty

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Surrender

July 6, 2008 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 6 comments

I don’t normally duplicate work I produce elsewhere, but there are only so many ways you can say the same thing.  In this case, it’s something I need to say in every channel I write in.

Just like with drugs and alcohol, it seems to be a natural part of my character that until I have exhausted every other possible means of doing something, tried out every tiny, mad idea about how I can manage on my own power to get my life to work out the way I want it to, entertained every lurking notion my ego can generate, and laid waste to every reservation disguised by unwillingness, I am incapable of surrendering that part of my life to the Higher Power and the principles that got me sober. I simply do not surrender unless I have failed in every possible way I can think of. Read the rest of this entry »

Who is the Devil?

June 25, 2008 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 9 comments

I don’t get to see my sister often; usually at family events with our dad. She lives in Alaska with her daughter and husband. She has maintained a close relationship with our dad over the years, and I have only recently restored that relationship. Stephanie and I, the two oldest of four siblings, most closely resemble each other in many ways. Part of that is the fact that we are close in age and have experienced great hardship at close developmental stages. In many ways we are only separated by differences in personality and gender.

Stephanie actually went to treatment before I did. While I went to the Walker Center, a facility that specializes only in addiction and alcoholism, Stephanie went to Sierra Tucson, which offers more comprehensive treatment for a variety of disorders. Though she went believing she was going for treatment for addiction, she was quickly transferred to the trauma program. Read the rest of this entry »

Choosing the Difficult

April 30, 2008 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 4 comments

The Man With the StarTo choose what is difficult all one’s days, as if it were easy, that is faith.
W. H. Auden

I’ve chosen to import all of Methed Up along with some historical stuff from an old, long ago deleted blog and some private e-mails. There are things here that will require a password, but for the most part I’ve opened things up from the night of my moment of clarity; a pretty heartbreaking post. I revisit it occasionally and have debated consolidating all of this for some time. My intuition tells me it’s time.

Stark Raving Sober

April 3, 2008 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 7 comments

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.

Love Is Not All

March 12, 2008 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 6 comments

 

feetLove can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.

 

Edna St. Vincent Millay

 

I’m moving. At the end of the month I’m moving. And I am moving in to my own apartment. I realize that all you ‘grown ups’ out there have already done this, probably by the age of 18 or 20. But I have never successfully navigated this particular rite of passage. And it is time.

Among the considerations in choosing to live alone over moving in with a roommate was my desire to make it easier to begin dating again. Aside from the fellationship with the Imaginary Future Ex-Husband at the end of my using, there hasn’t been a man in my life, a man of any consequence, in about ten years. Sure, there have been tricks. I’m not a saint. I don’t know who would want to be a saint, really. If it was a trick I was interested in having I’m sure I could find a way to navigate that, anyway. I want to open the door a bit to the idea that if someone worth sharing time and space with should wander into my field of opportunity, that field is not cluttered with 3rd party agendas. If some Sunday morning desires to be spent with us in bed, drinking French roast and doing the NY Times crossword puzzle, I’d like it to be privately.

Somewhere along the line in this progression from ‘stuck’ to ‘recovering’ something has happened that I suppose I could have anticipated but didn’t. The age of the men who capture my attention has changed radically. In my late teens and twenties, all the way up to 40, really, the men who caught my attention were without exception older and richer than me. I had a fierce need for security. One of the 12 & 12 talks about those who place too much dependence on others, describing me perfectly.

I ran away from home when I was 17 and somehow landed in West Hollywood. Young and cute and smart and Mormon and a Boy Scout. I was a commodity, which was a good thing. It helped me survive. It helped that I was intensely attracted to men who could, and who wanted to, take care of me. I certainly couldn’t have done that on my own then. That insane need to be taken care of, the scar on my heart where my father belonged and miscellaneous other quirks landed me solidly in the arms of men over the age of 35 right up till I was 40. Even the IFX, though he was much younger than me, was a father figure of sorts.

In treatment I got a relationship with my father back. I’ve been moving toward ‘growing up’, and this bizarre phenomena has occurred. I am suddenly deeply attracted to men that are approximately the age I was when my addiction kicked into high gear – the men I would have been loving if I hadn’t been an addict. I’m really hoping that by doing the work the 4th step calls for that I’ll find myself accelerating quickly past this quirk. I’d like to get to the point where I’m most attracted to men my own age and am mature enough to relate to them, but that seems pretty far fetched when the object of my affection is another 20 year old straight boy.

At least I haven’t acted on that. At least at the point I figured out that he was straight, something that isn’t readily obvious in this boy, that I backed away and made sure that I hadn’t inadvertently upset him; that we were, indeed, friends.

Perhaps more surprising to me, in light of the off the chart, insane lust I have for, had for this boy, when I discovered he was straight it didn’t make my heart bleed. I was OK. The preoccupation, the intense desire, simply vanished.

I no longer feel, as I once did, that I am dying from a lack of intimate companionship. Though I haven’t been intimate with a man in 15 months I am not too tortured by it. I notice it. I know that I am alone. I am largely accepting of that. But I am still going to get an apartment of my own. I’m still going to create a path for him, whoever he is, should he choose to take it.

CANNOT OR WILL NOT COMPLETELY GIVE THEMSELVES

February 24, 2008 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 13 comments

2007_02_06t141103_338x450_us_italy_embrace.jpgembrace

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

John 8:44

February 21, 2008 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 12 comments

530937528_29fc5e1489.jpgYou 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.

Juvie

February 19, 2008 in Living in Recovery by Chris | 4 comments

Zach is intelligent, charming, good looking, cool – and he knows it. Young people from the end of the fabric he’s cut from have these shiny Tyvek exteriors reinforced by all the self confidence and self esteem that money can buy. I’m not really sure how it happened but I recently became “the cool sponsor” to a small group of hipsters that have gotten in trouble and who are trying to keep their parents off their backs. That’s how I met Zach. I agreed to sponsor him last Wednesday. We were supposed to meet with each other on Thursday. He called in sick. To his credit he really did sound sick and since I’ve been recovering from bronchitis myself I allowed it. Friday, at Zach’s request, his mother called to tell me that he’s in the little Big House till at least tomorrow.

Right on! I don’t know how cool a sponsor these kids are going to think I am if they figure out that when their parents call me I’m going to speak honestly with them; or if they find out that I am there to help their family as much as their families ask me to. Mom and I had a nice chat about letting her son pay the consequences for his actions. I told her that everyone who tried to save me from my consequences only prolonged the misery. I told her that I’m there to support her.

I know that with Joe, my first sponsee, that I was blessed beyond measure. Joe came to me entirely willing. Joe has done all of the work. I just gave Joe instructions for his 8th step. Joe was the perfect sponsee for me at the perfect time. I suspect that with some of these other kids, kids like Zach, what I’m really shooting for is to help them to such a thorough understanding of the first step that when they get one they’ll recognize it. Maybe to help them recognize it sooner than later. I guess we’ll see. Part of me is really hopeful that a couple of days locked up will help Zach understand ‘unmanageability’ a little better, maybe make him a little more willing to carry on with the work. I hope he’ll let his cool facade down enough to get a little taste of what recovery has to offer.

Then again, part of me just thinks having a sponsee go to juvie is funny. I get to be young and dangerous and cool vicariously, which for an old nerd like me is . . . sweet.

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