Who I Am

I often run into people in The Program who seem to have a hard time releasing their Pre-Alcoholic Downfall persona.  These are folks who manage to work in the details of their various triumphs and successes into their comments each and every time they share.  These are good people, too, by and large: kind, friendly, willing to pitch in and help anyone who asks.  But I get to see how the ego is a tricky master.  I know it was for me.  I was like a lot of drunks: a promising young guy who didn't live up to that promise in the long run or the short run or even a short stroll.  But I was still eager to let you know how smart I was and how accomplished and what I had been on the verge of achieving.


I'm sure people were saying: "Little Stevie Seaweed?  That guy who's living with his parents? And doesn't have a girlfriend or a car or a job or any money?"


Yeah, that guy.  I was totally fooling everyone.


It's hard for me to hide my ego.  My ego is big and boisterous and very comfortable telling you all about it, even if "it" is mostly lies and innuendo and bullshit.  It has been a slow process for me to let go of the need to tell you how impressive I am.  What I want you to know is not what's important.  What's important is transparent and right there in front of you.  I don't have to make stuff up or emphasize my strong points so strongly.  You like what you see or you don't.   I'm not fooling anyone.


I'm sure I've told this story before, but not in the last 20 minutes, which is the length of my short term memory.  I earned my living as a salesman.  I enjoyed it, too, and I was good at it.  I was honest and helpful and a little lazy.  But it's not an impressive sounding career; certainly not as impressive as the career I was close to achieving before alcohol took me down.  Little kids in grade school don't respond, when asked what they want to do when they grow up, with: "I want to be a salesman!  I want to sell power transmission components to plant engineers working in heavy industry!"


Because my ego was so dented I ran through a whole gamut of impressive sounding titles on my business cards: Technical Sales; Senior Territory Manager; Filtration Expert; Account Executive.  Like people didn't know what I was trying to do.  I was trying to sell them stuff.  I wasn't trying to manage their territory or execute their accounts.  I called them up and got an appointment to show them something that I hoped they would buy if it fit their needs, and at the start I didn't even care if it met their needs.  Buy this, goddammit!


For many years at the end of my sales career I handed out cards with embossed with a company name and what to call me: Little Stevie Seaweed.  It helped me.  It took away some of the pressure to be someone who was long, long gone, and start to be the person who I actually was.  Nobody is hanging out with that guy.  That guy never was.  This is the guy.  This is the guy right here.