Toilet Seats, Lightbulbs, and Me.

I'm in the process of applying for health insurance. It's a very pleasant process. As an individual with absolutely no bargaining power I'm in a powerful position to dictate terms to huge corporations run by people with Phds in Advanced Evasion. The insurance companies are spending a great deal of time -- a great deal of time -- scouring my medical history to make sure that I don't have a condition that may cost them money in the future. That's their business model, of course: to make money.

But I can see their point of view; it would hardly be fair to learn that I had some rare form of bone disease (which I'm pretty sure I have, by the way and if I don't I'm going to catch it) and then try to sign on for their benefits. But is the hangnail in 1972 really that important? Apparently so. They're probably going to put an exclusion in place, assuming they deign to cover me, for any hangnail related surgery in the future.


We are using an insurance broker to do this. This kind and decent man helped us in the past, and I got to know him a little bit. He was going through some shit with an ex-wife and I always inquired after his well-being. He has been shepherding our application through the maze this time. Yesterday, he sent SuperK an encouraging note about his progress, adding: "I feel like you guys are family."

I just keep clumping all of this stuff under the heading of "being of service." I wonder how often he feels that way about his clients. I bet he hears a lot of bitching.

I was at my parents house this week and Dad asked me to fix a broken toilet seat. I thought of Shorty changing a light bulb at his father's house. I'm crouched on a hard tile floor, my face in my parent's john, thinking: "I am too important to be doing this." It took me like a half an hour. A normal guy-guy could have done it in like 5 minutes. I got the lid and the seat all fouled up. The lid pointed up, but the seat was pointing down. I had to take it apart and do it again. I closed the bathroom door so I could swear in peace.

It's not like I don't have any experience sticking my face into a toilet. At least I wasn't retching this time.

Radical Asymmetrical Amputation

A few weeks ago SuperK got out of bed and felt something pop in her ankle. It's not that she's old but . . . well, you know. I'm just sayin'.

"My ankle hurts and my heel is sore," she said.

We decided that the best course of action would be to research the problem on the internet. It's my understanding that there's no misleading information on the internet; it's all vetted somehow. We mixed in some discussions with friends who have no medical training whatsoever; people who may have heard something about this condition on The TV. If it's on The TV, it's definitely true. That is without a doubt a highly regulated medium, and thus to be trusted without question. We topped this dysfunctional sundae with an EM suggestion or two provided by my best friend, the doctor, who gamely chimed in to the best of his ability despite the sketchy, incomplete information we provided. He was further hamstrung by the fact that he hadn't actually seen SuperK. God forbid we make an appointment and pay for his services.

"Now there's a tingling, pins and needles feeling running up my calf," she said. "My ankle feels OK but my heel is killing me."

Being good alcoholics we start the diagnosis at radical amputation just below the hip -- if they're going to take some leg off we might as well get our money's worth. The cost of the whole leg is actually a little less than just above the ankle. It's like if you buy a big bottle of detergent the cost per ounce is less than the smaller sized bottle. We assume that they'll want to cut off the other leg for symmetry sake, taking advantage of this month's Two for One sale, but Act Quickly! it's only good in January. Insurance will reject everything. "We're sorry," the letter will say, " but here at Big Insurance we don't pay for procedures of a purely cosmetic nature."


"My other heel hurts today, she said. "My whole leg is numb and my ankle is swollen."

"Wasn't the problem with your left leg yesterday?" I asked.

"I don't think so," she replied.

"Are you going swimming today?" I asked.

"I'm thinking about it," she said. "But now I'm short of breath and there's a sharp, radiating pain moving up my arm. I think I'm losing my peripheral vision, too."

"That doesn't sound good," I said.

"Didn't you have the exact same thing last year?" she asked.

I think I did.

What Do I Know, Anyway?

Last night a guy that I like a lot pulled me aside after the meeting, and asked my opinion about a woman in The Program that I also like a lot. The woman, not The Program, although I like The Program a lot, too. He had gone out on a date with this woman -- both are single and not in the newcomer category, as if either of those facts would justify me telling anyone what to do -- and wondered what I thought about her.

"I value your opinion," he said, totally charming me. I'll give up the keys to the vault to anyone who flatters me, even if it's the empty words of an evil manipulator. Flattery is a hot commodity. I'll take it.

"You seem to be successful in your relationships," he added. No one cares how long I've been sober but a lot of people are mightily impressed that I've been married for 20 years. I'M mightily impressed. I can only assume that SuperK is, too, although dismay may better characterize her emotions.

I had to take a minute to gather myself. I'm very, very careful to make sure that I don't gossip about somebody, especially not in The Program. My conversations with other alcoholics are protected by a code of ethics more stringent than the doctor-patient or lawyer-client relationship. I share anecdotes and the like only if I'm sure the other person would approve, and I err on the side of prudence.

To further complicate matters, I can only hypothesize about personal relationships. Sometimes I stare in disbelief when they work out and sometimes I'm stunned when they don't. I remember the advice I was getting when SuperK and I were dating; I had met her at her second meeting when I had a whole 8 months of sobriety. People weren't urging us forward. I think as a general rule we can agree that the odds are long on two wet-behind-the-ears drunks making it work, but obviously they're not impossible.

"I don't think she's going to pull a knife on you, " I offered.

An Evil and Corroding Thread.

Corroding: To eat into or wear away gradually, as if by gnawing; rust; consume; destroy; said of the action of chemicals.

The chief activator of our defects has been self-centered fear -- primarily fear that we would lose something we already possessed or would fail to get something we demanded.

Fear somehow touched about every aspect of our lives. It was an evil and corroding thread; the fabric of our existence was shot through with it.



When our failings generate fear, we then have soul-sickness. This sickness, in turn, generates still more character defects.

Our fears are the termites that ceaselessly devour the foundations of whatever sort of life we try to build.

That's all me. I came up with all of that stuff on my own. I didn't lift it verbatim, word for word, from any literature.

They say that Eskimos have many names for snow and Bedouins have dozens for sand storm. Alcoholics are like that with fear. We're afraid of everything all the while pretending that we're not afraid of anything. We deny its existence; we say that we're mad and depressed and anxious. Those words sound braver and more complicated, more worthy of our complex personalities and tragic nature.

I started to get afraid about something yesterday that I was powerless to resolve immediately. I like to fix problems right away. I don't like to wait for answers. So a guy from the program wanders in while I'm having my post-swim coffee and we shoot the shit. Then I get a call first thing this morning from a different guy and talk some more. A lot of the time if I just get into bed and go to sleep problems start to resolve of their own accord or solutions present themselves.


This requires patience, whatever that is.

Incomprehensible Demoralization!

Demoralize: To lower the morale of, weaken the spirit, courage, discipline, or staying power of; to throw into confusion.

We are given a choice when we enter The Program. We can either continue to drink, blotting out the circumstances of our miserable existence the best we can until we die a painful, slow, agonizing death, unhinged and alone, or we can accept that there is a spiritual solution to our disease. It's not always an easy choice. It's almost never an easy choice. The Book uses the phrase "incomprehensible demoralization." That's a good phrase.

We pause, a few beats too long. The silence gets uncomfortable.

"Uh, can I get back to you on that?"


I went to Costco yesterday. On weekends the store sets up little sample stations where customers can try different food products and infect themselves with the germs of small, sick children who have touched everything on the tray, while simultaneously sneezing and coughing. At one stand I fumbled a cracker smeared with an inoculation of something supposed to simulate a real food product of some kind. It fell to the floor and exploded. I took a napkin, bent over, and cleaned up my mess, grateful that I didn't use one of my favorite expletives to express my displeasure.


"Thank you, sir, I really appreciate that," the nice lady said. I got the feeling that she was surprised. I got the feeling that most people left the detritus there for her to clean up.


I approached another stand.

"How ya doin"? I asked the hostess.

"OK," she replied, a little warily.

I got the feeling not too many people asked how she was doing. I got the feeling they stuffed the food in their mouths and continued to walk. I always thank them for the food sample, like they're handing out stuff they paid for. I pretend that I'm interested and find that, after a while, I become interested. She was a nice woman. We talked for a minute. She was getting off work in a few minutes and was pretty happy about it. I could relate to that.

I think this falls under the guise of service.





I spit the meat like thing she had given me into my napkin and threw it on the floor, cursing loudly.

WRONG!

I live in a city where the overwhelming majority of people have very different political views than I do. We disagree on matters of a moral, social, and religious nature as well, again overwhelmingly. I'm in a teeny, tiny, vanishingly small minority. It's kind of fun most of the time being a contrarian for the hell of it kind of guy, but it can also be frustrating. A lot of these folks are pretty militant about this stuff. They aren't interested in what I have to say because I'm so clearly WRONG! and they're going to have to spend the time to show me why this is so.

In a way it's like the good old days when I sought out places to drink that were filled with people who thought and acted like I did. If you sit around swapping war stories and slapping people on the back who ape your opinions it's inevitable that you're going to fall under the illusion that everyone believes the way that you do and if they don't then they're WRONG!

This is all well and good. I don't have to talk to these people if I don't want to. If I'm unhappy where I live I can move somewhere else. Where we have to be careful is in our meetings. Last night someone tossed off a dismissive, belittling comment typical of this area that suggested that I'm a bit of an idiot. Now I'm not saying I'm not a bit of an idiot, as so many of you have made abundantly clear over the years. I don't have any trouble with someone calling me an idiot to my face, as has happened millions of times. But not in a meeting. We don't criticize anyone's views or opinions on the outside world.

Shame on me for showing so little spiritual growth that this offended me, but shame on him for stomping all over Tradition 6. Now I look at this dude with a jaundiced eye, and my liver is working just fine right now. This is jaundice by choice. I'm having trouble separating his program, which I admire, from his politics, which I do not.

Early on in my sobriety I was in a meeting where people were tossing around the phrase "recovering Catholic" in their comments. I don't think they meant any harm. Some of the stuff was pretty funny. I think they were trying to explain how we can take anything good and wreck it.

One woman finally piped up: "I'm a Catholic and my faith is very important to me." She was offended by what was being said. If she had been brand new, maybe she wouldn't have come back.

I'm glad no one offended me at my first meeting. I was looking really hard for a reason not to come back.

TERMINATION!

Terminate: To bring to an end in space or time; form the end or conclusion of.

Exterminate: To destroy entirely; wipe out; annihilate.

So I've been trying to get my arms around the fact that SuperK was TERMINATED from her job. I'm sure it's a lot harder on her than it is on me but really, I'm mostly concerned about how it affects me. I wish her well all the while hoping that she's worried about how I'm doing. After all, something happened to her that's affecting me. Hardly fair to me.

To add fuel to the fire her mother is in the hospital and she's been in the middle of a Mexican Standout with her at best moderately dysfunctional siblings. Everyone is trying to avoid doing any work or spending any money while simultaneously trying to guilt and manipulate anyone else into doing the work and spending the money. If you don't think your drinking affects your kids you should watch a group of middle aged adults with well honed manipulation skills trying to run the show. It's quite a dance.


Finally, my mother has been in rare form trying to get the world to run her way irregardless of the wishes of others. I made the mistake of filling her in on SuperK's drama and had to listen to a steady stream of totally inappropriate advice, most of it geared to dealing with sane and reasonable people, which is not the case here. It's so bad that SuperK's the most normal of the bunch. Think about that for a minute.

Do I sound a little bitchy? I don't mean to. I think for the most part I've been pretty even-tempered handling all of this low grade chaos. When we really try to live the Program we do get better. We don't get great but we do get better.

Yesterday, however, I felt a little pissy all day long. I get home from my swim -- during which I had long, furious mental arguments with someone who had posted a comment on a social networking site that SuperK belongs to. It's not even my page; it's her page. I had no business sticking my nose in her business, long and big as it may be. A very stick-able nose.

I reread the aggravating post and sat down at her desk.

"May I?" I said politely.

"Be my guest," she replied, backing out of the room, making the sign of the cross.

20 minutes later I'm finishing up a brilliant, sarcastic, anger-driven grouch of a brainstorm of a reply to this individual on someone else's web page. I'm responding to someone I've never liked about a subject I can't do anything about that doesn't really affect me directly. I'm shaking with self-satisfied scorn. I post my reply while my wife is gone, just in case she objects to what I've written under her name.

I got up and walked around the room a minute.

"Good grief," I thought. "What in the hell?" I added.


Just like that, it can sneak up on you.

The Angle of Repose

I had a guy in The Program do some work in my house recently. He was a nice man and his work was beyond reproach. This was important to us because he was rehabbing a job that had been done initially by someone who needed The Program but hadn't found his way into our midst yet, and whose work was extremely reproachful. There is nothing quite as distinctive as an alcoholic cutting corners and covering up deficiencies. We are good liars. We are good at the old misdirection play. Fake right, run left.

It was funny watching another perfectionist try to do a perfect job. Are alcoholics perfectionists, almost without exception? I think so. I see it all the time. My house is as old as sin and all you have to do is look around to find defects. It doesn't take a certified home inspector, I'll tell you that. I kept trying to convince this man that it wasn't important to bevel a baseboard that would be hidden behind the refrigerator and under several lbs. of dust bunnies, to NASA standards. I was going to pay him the same amount of money for Horseface standards -- quite low, by definition -- as I was for NASA standards. I'm lucky if I can get SuperK's shoes out of the doorway. I'm not worried about the bevel angle.

I like how the phrase "perfectionist with an inferiority complex" seems to describe a lot of alcoholics. I constantly set the bar higher no matter how many times I've achieved my goals. The result is that I always seem to be failing. If I need to dig 3 holes I go ahead and dig 4, then toss and turn all night because I didn't get that 5th hole dug. Eventually I get to the point where I'm knocking out 20 holes a day -- good, big, wide, deep holes -- and still tossing and turning all night. It's never enough with me.

Just do your best today. Screw it.

Drifting on a Sea of Air

Two days ago I used Carl at the coffee shop. It felt good. I felt like a Carl. Then, yesterday, they didn't ask me for my name. The place was pretty empty but I'm wondering if a conspiracy is afoot. Maybe this violates Starbucks ethics. Maybe I'm going to be whisked out of there by Men in Black.

"Excuse me, Carl, or whoever you are, you're going to have to come with us."

They'll carry me out by my elbows in disgrace, blacklisted, banned from Starbucks.

All I want to be is a Rock and Roll superstar. I don't want to learn how to play guitar, though. It looks hard, but I realize that the guitar player is top dog in the rock and roll universe, except maybe for the lead singer, and I can't sing at all. I have never even hummed a line of a song and had it sound reasonable. It sounds awful.

There was a brief confrontation at the espresso machine in the Horseface kitchen this morning. Maybe I should bring it up as a topic at the jail.

I want to be rich. Rich as shit. I don't want to do any work, though. I'm sure I would handle my money well if I was obscenely wealthy.

I'm sure of it.

I Intuit Disaster

Intuition: The immediate knowing or learning of something without the conscious use of reasoning.

I with that I could see into the future. It would be comforting to me to see how things are going to play out. Of course, if something bad was going to happen it wouldn't be such a great plan. At that point I'd rather stay with the old system. I guess I'm saying pass along the good news but keep me in the dark if I'm going to be facing some bad stuff.

I'm not sure how practical this system would be on a day to day basis. If I couldn't see into the future on any given day then I'd know something unpleasant was going to happen. I would imagine that would dampen my enthusiasm for the day. I'd be wondering if it was going to be bad like a bad piece of fish or bad like getting hit with a truck bad. Then again maybe knowing something bad was going to happen would be better than assuming it was going to happen, which is my current modus operandi.

The Book talks about how we develop an intuitive ability to make the right decisions as long as we have a regular connection with our higher power. I'm not sure how this works, either. I know from my own experience that if I don't careen through the day like an out of control race car that I start to make the right decisions. This is the whole idea behind The Quiet Time. It's my feeble attempt to get my mind . . . well, quiet. This at least gives god a chance to get a word in edgewise.

Like I listen to god anyway.

The List

List: A series of names, words, numbers, etc. set forth in order, usually in writing; catalogue; roll.

I'm a big fan of The List. It helps me to jot down what I'd like to accomplish on a daily basis so that it's looking back up at me, like the shadowy face in a crystal ball, floating in a cloud of mist and smoke, talking in a moaning, spooky voice. I get myself in trouble when I try to organize a group of tasks in my head. They ricochet around in there and compete for my attention, each one of them screaming: "I'm the most important! Do me first! Do me NOW!"

Stupid tasks.

I find myself rather suddenly in a position where a lot of tasks have presented themselves, most of them rather important and some of them on the mildly urgent side. This has historically not been a good spot for me. I'm like the captain of a rickety boat. I'm putting along just fine when all of a sudden I spring a leak, a fire breaks out in the galley or in the kitchen, at least, and some pretty black storm clouds are forming on the horizon and a large seabird of some kind -- maybe an albatross -- has landed on the bow or the front of the boat and is pecking at my organic groats. I run around like a chicken with its head chopped off yelling: "Shoo! Fire! Ahhh! Run away!!!" and nothing gets done.

I don't have a sense of proportion. I don't have any patience or focus or the ability to take a deep breath and assess the situation calmly. I'm a panicker. I'm a panicker in a big hurry.

The list helps me see what is important and what is not. It helps me see what I can do quickly and what is going to take some time. Some of the things on my stupid lists require multiple steps, not all of which can be accomplished immediately. Sometimes I have to wait for someone else to get back to me. Sometimes I'm not sure what to do. I don't always get to sit there and steadily tally up accomplishments. Sometimes when I start digging around on a task that I thought was going to be easy it gets all nasty and complicated.


One thing at a time. I've heard that somewhere.

Just Like That . . .

Lose: To bring to ruin or destruction.

SuperK lost her job yesterday.

Actually, she got fired. It's not like she couldn't find her job anymore. She didn't come home and say: "I don't know what happened to my job. I went to where it normally is and it wasn't there any more." Maybe she should call Lost and Found. Maybe it wandered off like a lost child instead of being accidentally misplaced, like a wayward set of keys.

We try to soft pedal everything these days. We give it the old soft shoe. Fired sounds like a violent action. Fired out of a gun, a cannon, a missile silo; fired off a quick retort or witty comeback; fired up the bong; fired up the troops so they could rush off, yelling, to sack and pillage.

Personally, I prefer "down-sized." If I ever get down-sized, I'm going to object.
"No, you're mistaken. I'm the same size I was before you fired me."

"Letting go" is not bad, either. It makes it sound like they're really doing you a big favor.
"We know you really, really want to be here but we're not going to detain you any longer. You can toodle off now."

While technically I wouldn't consider this good news, it wasn't a total surprise. Things used to sneak up on me all the time when I was drinking. I would behave poorly and suffer some unpleasant circumstances that I would be unprepared for. Now I drive too fast and get a ticket and think: "Huh. I deserved that."

And it's not like we have to behave badly to suffer some consequence. Sometimes we get ground up under the massive leather jackboot of life. Mostly I stay out of grinding range but sometimes I'm asleep at the wheel and get crushed. Sometimes that jackboot just moves faster than I do. It's surprisingly nimble despite the weight of all that leather.

What can you do? People lose their jobs.

Hearing Aid

I am not nearly as interesting to other people as I am to myself.

Well, I personally am as interesting to other people as I am to myself; that opening statement was more of a generalization than a specific comment on my status in the world. Maybe I should have said that you are not as interesting to me as you are to yourself. That makes more sense.

"Huh," SuperK said. "I'm way more interesting to everyone, including myself, than you are," drawing no argument from me.

I try to think about the relative strengths and weaknesses of my person on the Interest-O-Meter when I'm talking to someone. Especially when I talk in front of a group of people, like at a meeting. I should talk some of the time but not every time. I should let other people talk and try to pretend that I'm interested in what they are saying, which isn't very often.

It's come to my attention that when I'm talking about myself or thinking what I'm going to say about myself that I can't possibly be listening to what you are saying.

Haven't we all thought, as we talked to someone who obviously wasn't listening to what we are saying: "This is a waste of my time." Sometimes I can barely hold my tongue to let the other person finish. If there is less than a microsecond of dead air between the end of your comment and your fellow's response, then they probably weren't listening.

We have two ears and one mouth for a reason. And we have to eat with that thing, too.

The Lead

I got a phone call a few days ago from someone I did not know.
"I got your name from Ubiquitous John and wondered if you would give a talk for me next Monday at our local clubhouse?" the guy asked.
"How many people are going to be there?" I asked.

He paused for a minute, confused, and I jumped right in, hoping to finish his sentence for him. I knew better than he did what he wanted to say.


"Normally, I try to limit my talks to very large groups. State conventions, keynote addresses, stuff like that. MY message is quite good and I don't want to dilute it by talking in front of insignificant crowds. This is Marketing 101," I replied. "Are there going to b e any important people there?"
"I don't know," he stammered.
"OK, no problem," I mused. "You have a few days still to drum up attendance. Who is going to be handling the taping? Do you have all of the equipment and technical support that you need to make a quality recording?"

"Well, I don't know about . . . "

"How about a sergeant at arms?" I mused, thinking out loud. I had already forgotten who I was talking to . "Someone to make sure that no stragglers try to leave when I'm talking. What are we thinking: 3 or 4 hours? I can probably shorten things up a bit if there's a time limit I need to respect."
He started making static noises. "Horseface, the connection . . ssshhsshhh . . . line breaking up sshsshhshhh. . . "

The connection went dead.

Horseface Steve: Honorable Warrior

Honor: A keen sense of right and wrong; adherence to action or principles considered right; integrity.

Today I'm going to be dishonest. It's just too hard to tell the truth. It's often uncomfortable and inconvenient. I'm going to protect my good name by every means possible. I'm going to weasel my way out of tight spots and exaggerate my accomplishments. My day will go easier if I do this.

There was an old Western serial called "Branded." I think Chuck Connors was in it. That's a great name, by the way: Chuck Connors. I think I'll use it at the coffee shop tomorrow. "Extra-room Americano. OK, what's the name?" I'll pretend I'm squinting into the setting sun: "Connors. Chuck Connors."

Anyway, Chuck was unfairly booted from the cavalry due to some terrible misunderstanding. The commander called him out in front of the entire regiment, ripped the epaulets from his shoulders, and snapped his sword in two, to ominous drum music. That dude was dishonored, although I think he got to keep the broken part of his sword, probably to remind him of his dishonorable actions but it ended up being a very effective weapon, as I recall.

My interpretation is that he tried to tell the truth. Big mistake. Lying is OK if you are trying to protect yourself. And the best thing that evolves from a rich history of lying is that you eventually learn to deceive yourself, which is a major plus. I could justify all kinds of stuff as long as I believed it was OK. Remember: it's not lying if you believe it.

I heard honesty described in the meeting last night as "the absence of the intent to deceive."

Very nice.

My cash.

I'm going to refinance my home today. I'm really quite nervous about it. It's not like I've never signed a mortgage before and this is going to save me some money. But I'm still edgy.

Probably the issue is that money is involved. I have a sneaking suspicion that these people are going to try to separate me from my money, even though this has not been the case in the past. I'm just assuming it's going to happen this time. Maybe it's that these people shuffle documents in front of me like a card shark: "Sign here, initial here. DNA sample -- spit in this test tube. Juggle these three pieces of paper while balancing our pen -- you can take it home with you, too! -- on your nose. OK, we're almost done here, just 38 more legal documents to sign."

I think the goal is to get you so numb with the signing -- "Don't worry about this one -- it simply gives us the right to kill you slowly if you lie or even make a mistake" -- so that when they slip in the rustproofing and undercoating on the last page you overlook it. I mean, have you seen the printing on those documents? It looks like the Magna Carta. I couldn't read it in a day, and I know how to read.

P.S.: Everything went fin.

The Medicine Man

Medicine Man: A man supposed to have supernatural powers of curing disease and controlling spirits.

Farmer Bill had some surgery this week. I hope it went well but if not, eh. It's not like I'm in any pain so I'm having trouble generating any enthusiasm, and I like Farmer Bill. I did feel that it was my duty as someone enjoying Advanced Sobriety to pass along my experience, strength, and hope concerning pain medication. Everybody tells me that they would have trouble navigating through life if I wasn't dispensing advice. Well, technically they don't actually tell me but I know what they're thinking. I know they're grateful when I tell them what to do. All of 'em are.

First and foremost, don't tell anybody what medication has been prescribed. It's none of their business. You can handle it all by yourself. If you invite someone besides me to give you advice, you might get some bad advice, or this person might sneak into your house when you're all groggy from the pills and steal some or all of your medication, depending on how good it is. Handle the pills in the privacy of your own home, with the blinds drawn and the Jimi Hendrix playing softly.

Never, ever take more than half of a bottle at once unless it's a small bottle or you have built up a lot of tolerance and you can handle the contents of a big bottle. Of course, if the pain is worse than you thought it was going to be or you think that it might get worse -- even if you are having no pain right now -- err on the side of excess. We wouldn't want you to be uncomfortable.

And since I'm a fair, balanced and open-minded dude I'll pay lip service to the opposing point of view, which is that all medication is always bad and serves no purpose other than to facilitate a good party. These people are idiots. These people have never needed a root canal. There is nothing wrong with legal medication legally prescribed for an actual condition. The problem is us. We look at the bottle of Oxycontin -- a legal drug -- and note that it doesn't say that you can't grind all of the pills into a powder and snort them in a matter of hours, so it must be OK, right?

Just remember -- the slider is going to be hard on your rotator cuff. Just ask Bill.

Just Shoot Me.

I've been reading some stuff I wrote in the last few years of my drinking. It's not for the faint of heart, I'll tell you that much. It is making me flinch, making me look away. I feel like someone is snapping the bridge of my nose with a ruler, over and over. My nose is now quite sore. I have to walk away and regroup every now and then, take a deep breath before plunging back in. I'm thinking: "Someone shoot this poor SOB and put him out of his misery."

I thought I could pull on my Hip, Slick, and Cool face mask, stroll into The Fellowship, and fool everybody. As if someone in that much emotional pain could pull the wool over the eyes of a bunch of cynical, experienced drunks. That emotion was written all over my face, as obvious to others as the booze oozing out of my pores.



I knew I had a problem way back then. I'm not sure I knew what the solution was yet. I could not imagine a life without alcohol and drugs, although I knew that they were the problem. The Book talks about a "jumping off point." The Book talks about getting to a spot where we can't imagine life with alcohol and we can't imagine a life without alcohol. That pretty much covers everything. There's not any other choices. There's not any other time in the day.


After a while I quit trying to convince people that I was OK. No one seemed to believe me, anyway. They seemed skeptical. It's important for me to keep the wrath of alcohol fresh in my mind. Every now and then a pleasant memory concerning alcohol or drugs will ferret its way into my consciousness. I'll wonder how good the music would sound if I blew some weed, or how relaxed I'd be with a few jolts under my belt.


I need to stay connected to that miserable SOB.

The Taker

Take: To get into one's hand or hold; to acquire for oneself.

Today I am going to be A Taker.


I'm not sure how this differs from any other day to be honest with you. I spent a few minutes thinking about all of the days when I assumed the roll of A Giver but nothing came to mind. I'm drawing a blank. I'll have to go through my notes and get back to you on that one. I'm sure it's happened at least once, maybe twice. I don't think that I'm going to get into double figures.

The world owes me everything. I deserve to be given EVERYTHING! I deserve more than my fair share, which is the whole pie. Screw getting the biggest piece of pie -- I want the entire thing.

Giving is for the weak among us. Those who don't understand that by giving they're losing out on getting more. I was the guy who couldn't remember where my car was but had perfect recall on who had bought how many pitchers of beer. I'm like the Rain Man on that one. Russell stills owes me for one pitcher back in 1972, late fall, I believe, before the rains came. And there was no obvious reason for me to tip the person who brought me the beer. If they were unhappy with their compensation they should have taken that up with management, not long suffering customers.

Isn't it a cruel irony that the things that I want, the things that I think make me feel better, are empty calories in the long run? Sugar versus cauliflower; exercise versus Survivor; stuff versus god?