Horseface Steve: Bender of Truth

Bend:  To turn from a straight line; cause to swerve.


The thing about telling the truth is that you never have to remember what you've said.


My job as an independent contractor gives me the freedom to conduct my business as I see fit.  The company that I work with doesn't really know that I now live far, far away from my territory (ed. note: by "doesn't really know" I mean "definitely doesn't know").   In theory, I can conduct my business any way I see fit as long as I meet the quotas and other general requirements that they set for me; in practice, in the Real World, where I hate to hang out, it doesn't work that way.  If they knew that I now live far, far away from my territory they would boot my ass into next week, so I haven't exactly told them what I'm doing out here (ed. note: by "haven't exactly" I mean "definitely haven't").   Just because they haven't specifically told me I can't do what I'm doing doesn't mean that it's the right thing to do.  Laws and rules can help me tell right behavior from wrong but more importantly I have that %$#!! internal mechanism that speaks to me quietly and is increasingly hard to ignore.  I can't just slosh a bunch of beer on top of it to shut it up anymore.


Some of the time I can convince myself that I'm telling the truth by artfully using words to give someone the impression that what is happening is not happening.  Most people call this lying; I call it . . . well, lying, too, I guess.  I still hold on to the idea that if I can dance around an issue and make someone believe something that isn't true, it isn't lying if I don't actually use lying words.


This is the logic that I employed to convince myself that smoking crack cocaine wasn't technically a relapse.


Anyway, I told some people a few weeks ago that I was taking a vacation last week.  This morning one of them asked me if I was back in the office, and I said something along the lines of: "What are you talking about?"  That was bad enough but when he mentioned the vacation I was supposed to be on I said something along the lines of: "I wasn't on vacation."  In case I hadn't done enough damage to my reputation I said something along the lines of: "Where did you come up with that information?"  I remembered after I hung up the phone.  I looked foolish.  I looked like a liar.


I believe I have mentioned that the biggest motivator for me to behave well is that I hate getting caught behaving badly.  Regrettably, I don't think it's the lying itself that upsets me as much as the getting caught lying.


Homer Simpson: "I HATE being called a liar unless I happen to be lying or contemplating a lie or I've just finished telling a lie."

Type Cast

Type A Personality:   The theory describes a Type A individual as ambitious, aggressive, business-like, controlling, highly competitive, impatient, preoccupied with his or her status, time-conscious, and tightly-wound.  People with Type A personalities are often high-achieving "workaholics" who multi-task, push themselves with deadlines, and hate both delays and ambivalence.


I hear a lot of people in The Program protest when they're characterized as Type A individuals.  I thought I was a mellow, laid-back, easy-going Type B personality when I first started to get sober.  I was pointedly told that I was none of those things.  I had confused sitting in front of The TV, drunk and stoned, as an indication of a low key personality.  It was an indication of someone who was too drunk and stoned to get out and do anything, or too hung-over to tolerate the pain and nausea that any movement or sound caused.


I bet it's a 10 - 1 ratio in The Program, Type A to Type B.  I don't see too many low achievers in The Rooms.  I see folks with two speeds: off and 218MPH.  Not doing a Step or service work is more a consequence of fear or rebellion than laziness.  We have full schedules and busy lives and we accomplish a lot.  If you want to keep up with me you better have on your running shoes.


Lace 'em, boys.

Ka-Boom.

Non-alcoholic beer is for non-alcoholics.


Yesterday I made a casual remark about the laundry and SuperK bit my head off.  Now keep in mind I haven't done a load of laundry in maybe 10,000 years so it's in my best interest to keep my mouth shut if the topic has anything to do with clothes, washing clothes, drying clothes, or putting clothes away.  I haven't ironed anything sober.  I don't know where the laundry room is anymore.  For all I know, she goes to a laundromat.  I don't know what she does exactly when I shut the door to my office to give her a break from my presence.  I figure if I hear screaming or glass breaking or gun fire I'll come out, but otherwise I'm not budging.


She came in and apologized shortly after.  Earlier that day I had taken a phone call from someone in the New City and she was, quite frankly, jealous, thinking I was edging ahead in the new friends department.  We're both working away at reconstructing our lives here and we both get a little competitive about it.  Which is a bizarre thing to do to your %$#!! spouse, the person you love more than anyone in the world.  


Funny story -- when we swim it's very compelling for both of us to try to beat the other.  That's not the funny part -- the funny part is she beats me most of the time.  And when she doesn't I rip or tear or wrench something, since she's so much younger than I am.  Actually, she's not that much younger than me but I'm getting beat by my wife, for chrissake, and by most of the other women in the pool, so I have to say something.  I'm going to start drowning some people before too long or just giving in and start wearing skirts and hose.


Most of the time when she snaps at me I don't say anything because I figure it's not really about me.  Most of the time when I get mad at my friends and family it has very little to do with them.  I'm mad at myself for something I should be doing but am not, or something I shouldn't be doing but am, so I take a shot at someone else.  It's easier blaming another person for some imagined slight than doing any work on myself.


Eventually, I did tell her I was just as jealous when she went out to dinner with a few friends earlier in the week.  I do the right thing, usually, after I have exhausted all other options.

OK, Boys, Get Out There and Surrender!

Surrender:  To give oneself up to another's power or control.


Normally, I write for a bit and then look up the definition of a word that intrigues me.  But with surrender I had to do some investigation first.  It is not a concept that I am intimately familiar with.  This is a word that commonly implies the giving up of something completely after striving to keep it; as in, one's freedom, or one's will.


It was the topic of today's meeting.  It's a really irritating topic.  It implies powerlessness, the driving force behind Step One and by extension, our entire program.  I don't give anything up willingly.  I know when the fight's over because I'm lying on the floor trying to find my teeth.  I don't get beat up a little bit -- I get whaled on.  I get stomped into the dust.  I'm always the guy charging up the hill with a knife in my teeth, right into withering machine gun fire.  


Reminds me of the old alcoholic joke surrounding a Vince Lombardi type figure who is trying to fire up his team to go out there and win the big game: "OK, men, let's go, let's get out there and surrender!"  The obvious point being that our society doesn't give us a lot of reinforcement when we try to give things up willingly.  We're taught to be tough and self-sufficient, to solve our own problems, to put our efforts behind achieving whatever it is we want to achieve until we achieve it. 


This is admirable, of course, until the machine gun fire becomes especially withering.

Those Poor People

It sure is easy to blame our families for all of our problems.  They’re an attractive target: accessible, convenient, in possession of well-established quirks and defects of long standing fame.  They know how to push our buttons and we know how to push theirs.  

And in a lot of cases – most cases, probably – these people have done some damage.  After all, they’re fallible people just like us.  Some families are train wrecks, too, with active addiction and alcoholism and all kinds of other problems.  Some of us grew up in horrific circumstances and have suffered mightily as a result.

I was at a meeting once where someone was complaining mightily about their parents, and everyone was piling on, as we so love to do, and an old-timer said: "You know, when I start getting resentful about my parents I realize that I wasn't such a great son myself."  This was a great reminder that there is only one person we can work on.

I often wonder how difficult and perplexing it must have been trying to raise a nut job like me.  I got depressed and euphoric and my moods were all over the place.  I demanded so much and was so ungrateful.  I think my folks were just bailing water, trying to keep the row boat from sinking.  I don't think there was much nuance in my upbringing.  I think they were flailing about, trying to minimize the damage I was doing.


It was damage control.

Garden Variety Drunk

Same:  Alike in kind, quality, amount, or degree; not different.


"I'm different."


What a great battle cry.  The battle cry of the wounded alcoholic.  We proclaim this all of the time.  It's one of our most powerful excuses not to dry out and clean up.  We try to make ourselves special and unique.


I cringe when I think of some of the conversations I had when I was getting sober.  There I was, a common garden variety alcoholic, trying to convince old timers that I had problems so unusual that there couldn't possibly be a solution to them in this ridiculously simplistic program.  They were very patient with me, these men, as I talked about the reasons for my drinking: money, jobs, sex, relationships, all standard stuff.


"My parents were terrible!" I yelled, except they weren't, and if they were, it surely didn't make me a special case in the world of the alcoholic.  My parents were fine.  I was terrible.


The deal was that I had to endure The Slog for a while.  The Trudge, leading to the Road of Happy Destiny, which is a comforting but oddly ridiculous slogan.  I don't like to trudge -- I like to skip, prance, and mince.  I don't prefer heavy going.  I want things to be quick and easy.  I want to take a taxi to the Road of Happy Destiny.


Taxi!  Taxi!

Battle Cry

Different:  Not the same; distinct; separate.


In Idaho.  Treeless hills rising from a treeless plain.


As a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, I'm one tough son of a bitch.  And I'm serious when I say this.  Life threw a lot of stuff at me -- most of my own doing, unfortunately -- but it taught me  how to take a punch.  You may knock me down but you're not going to knock me out.


This is one of the great strengths of The Program.  As a group, someone has overcome every possible problem and challenge that I'm going to encounter .  My old battle cry: "But you don't understand!" is no longer applicable.  Someone does understand.  This was a total paradigm shift for a guy who spent my whole life trying to convince everyone that I was different, that what I was going through was an insurmountable problem.  


Then I met you people.  There is nothing quite like being helped by someone who has survived similar struggles to your own.  Identical struggles, in many cases.  I will listen to someone with experience.  OK, I don't listen to anyone, but I do watch someone with experience to see what they do, then maybe I'll follow their lead after I have exhausted all other options and am in a great deal of pain.


Ho Hum.

Sponsor: "Are You Still Talking?"

I've always considered myself to be in the general range of a 5 year old emotionally.  You know, lies a lot, throws tantrums, hates pain.  I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm offending most 5 year olds when I say that.  Anyway, the point being that I rarely listen to what people say but I do keep a sharp eye out on how they behave, like most children.


SuperK and I did some hiking last week.  Not overnight, back-country hiking but not a gentle stroll on a paved path, either.  In my mind, of course, I'm scaling Mt. Everest by myself, and I try to give my fellow hikers, most of whom could beat me up while bound and gagged and heavily sedated, the impression I know what I'm doing.


As we finished up our hike we began to overtake a family on the final few paved yards.  The dad was carrying his daughter on his shoulders and the mom was bending over to pick some flowers.  Horrors!  Leave no mark on the trail is the code of the Mt. Everest Scaling Club.  I pondered a corrective statement, then decided to walk on by, silently.


As I passed I could see that the little girl -- cute in the way of all 2 years olds -- was carrying a handful of dandelions.  I'm no botanist but I believe this plant falls in the category of noxious weed.


I really wish I had said something.

Accepted!!

We were on hold with insurance company number one when I tried a little prayer experiment, which in my experience is sort of like trying a little gasoline and open fire experiment.  I asked for what I wanted -- to be accepted by this particular carrier.  It would have relieved me of some mental anguish.  I was careful to pay lip service to the Powers that Run the Universe by adding the qualifier "if it be your will, or wills, as the case may be."


I was only half-serious about this prayer befitting my status as someone renowned for half-assing everything, according to my dad, who is pretty much right on this one.  I'm not the kind of guy who thinks god finds me parking spaces or sends rain clouds packing if I want to take a walk, so I don't often pray for specific outcomes, which tend to blow up in my face if I get them.


I had a discussion with my mother once about praying specifically, which she happily does.
"It can't hurt to ask," she pointed out.


It can't hurt to ask.  What a great concept, I thought.  What if god really does listen to specific prayers and grant specific wishes?  Maybe not every specific wish, but some of them, anyway.  I imagine I would be quite pissed off if I found specific prayers were answered and I never bothered to take advantage of this loophole.  Although I'm unsure what would happen if I was praying for coverage and the person handling my account, close to a bonus for denying her one hundredth client, was praying for the exact opposite.


I told SuperK.
"Uh-oh," she said.


Rejected!


We then called insurance company number two.  This time I ratcheted things down somewhat and asked god to help me deal with this situation which was distressing me so much.


I mentioned this to SuperK, who grimaced.
"Uh-oh," she said.


Accepted!!


Unfortunately, this proves nothing except that I need to get comfortable with a spiritual program and stick with it.

Rejected!

Reject:  To refuse to take, agree to, accede to, use, believe, etc.


I think I've mentioned my disappointment the first several hundred times I heard the famous Promises of recovery lore.  For someone still aspiring to be a rock star or the next Ernest Hemingway, or at least a guy who could afford to move out of his parent's house, all of the talk about an absence of fear and calm insight and enjoying honest, healthy relationships was deflating.  I was hoping for Ferraris and super-models and sleeping on piles of money.


"What am I trying to be, a mystic living in the desert, eating locusts?" I groused.  While I admit to never eating locusts they don't sound that appetizing.  They're insects, for god's sake.


Yet here I am, still sober, and of all the things I'm grateful for, the relative lack of anxiety and fear and angst is at the top of the list.


To wit:  when KK and I moved to the New City we were dismayed to find out that our health insurance didn't transfer smoothly.  While we were still covered -- no small feat these days -- our premiums tripled because we were "out of network," which is insurance company code for "we want to triple your premiums."  I'm sure their legal permission to do this is buried somewhere in the 878 page contract we signed.


We applied for insurance with another company.  I was approved but SuperK was not, due to a minor, normal condition that has never caused her any problems and almost certainly never will.  But this is a right of the insurance company, a private entity that is trying to make money, not reduce the angst of a couple of middle aged hipsters.  We requested some additional documentation from her physician and reapplied, and were rejected again.  As one might imagine, this was quite upsetting, on multiple fronts.  We didn't like to have to pay so much more money to keep our current coverage, and we didn't like someone suggesting that SuperK might be afflicted with something serious.


So we applied with another company.  After an interminable wait, a thin, thin letter comes in the mail.


"Oh, for god's sake," SuperK says after reading the letter.


She got accepted and I got rejected, for a minor, normal condition that has never caused me any problems and likely never will.  Apparently one company's disaster is another company's ho-hum.


SuperK looked at me with some trepidation until I burst into laughter.


What had happened over the last few months -- not quickly, but slowly, because health insurance is an important issue -- was that both of us had just kind of forgotten about the whole thing.  If not forgotten, at least placed it in the What the Hell Can You Do About It, Anyway? category.  We had insurance, fortunately, that we could afford to pay for, fortunately.  We were applying for different coverage.  Those were the facts, as distasteful as they were to us.


So I guess she's making one insurance company happy and I'm making another one happy.  We're happy, that's for sure.

Personal Flawlessness

"To conclude that others were wrong was as far as most of us ever got."


One of the big advantages of a consistent self-analysis is that it allows me to see that this world and its inhabitants are frequently wrong.  This is bad enough, this failure of other people to be perfect, but it's downright toxic taken in conjunction with my own personal flawlessness.  It makes me so angry when people make mistakes that affect me, and it make me angrier still when they don't cut me some slack when I mess up.


Anger, then resentments.  Then I drink, then I die.

Horseface Steve: Analyst

Analysis:  A separating or breaking up of any whole into its parts so as to find out their nature, proportion, function, relationship, etc.


Wow, that process sounds like a bad idea right from the git go for an alcoholic.  Nevertheless, I confess to a burning need to figure out exactly how something works before I can commit to it.   This caused me a lot of unnecessary anguish and trouble when I entered The Program, and it really caused me a lot of problems when it came to the whole Higher Power concept.


"OK, OK, I got it, I'm powerless over alcohol and everything else, and I need to develop a relationship with a Higher Power," I said, tired of people pointing out maybe why I wasn't staying sober or drug free or out of jail or off of the floor.  "Bring him in.  I'm ready to meet him.  Let's start the interview, let him present his proposal, see if it passes muster."


"I'm not sure it works that way, Horseface," the people sighed.  People sigh a lot around me.  It must be something I've said, or maybe it's my appearance, with the horse face and all.


Many things happen to me that I can't explain.  I find this especially true when it comes to stuff that I don't like.  I start right in with the analyzing.  I try to come up with a plausible explanation.  This is often counter productive.  Many of these things fall into the "Shit Happens" category.  


Of course, I find that I've caused many of my own problems, and the analysis is helpful here.  I don't mean to suggest that I shouldn't think about anything, just that I shouldn't think about everything all of the time, and that I shouldn't try to figure out how to solve things or how they were somehow my fault.  I swear I thought that I was being punished when it rained on Saturday.


Like I have that kind of power.

Surrrr-Visss??

Service:  Work done or duty performed for another or others; the occupation of a servant.


I write about service so often because it is so alien to me, so contrary to my natural occupation as someone trying to get something from someone else, not someone trying to give something to someone else.  I'm talking money, time, stuff, shit, anything! I don't want to give up anything.  Then I hear those little voices of all the past and present Program people telling me that I've been called to a life of service.  And this is one of the guiding principles, as far as I can tell, of all of the world's great religions and spiritual philosophies.  Seek god and serve others.  That's the distillation.  That's the crux of the matter.  Everything else is adornment.


To trot out a story I'm sure I've trotted out. . .   Early in my sobriety it was suggested that I make coffee for one of the evening groups that I had started attending regularly.


"I don't drink coffee at night," I replied, deadpan, entirely serious, perfect poker face.  Lord, I was clueless.  Lord, I was even more clueless than I am now, which is pretty clueless.


Clue: Information which may lead one to a certain point or conclusion.


I don't remember what reply my coffee overlord gave, but it was probably nice and patient.  I made the coffee, which required me to arrive at the meeting an hour early, which annoyed me, and I cleaned up the coffee pot, which kept me there another half an hour, which really annoyed me.


"The meeting is over.  Why won't these people go home?" I groused one minute after the closing bell.  I was really annoyed that no one was praising me lavishly for the best coffee they had ever tasted.


I was unaware that the parlor trick was that I had to arrive an hour early and stay an hour late.  I met some people.  I didn't meet anyone when I arrived right when the meeting started and left right when the meeting ended.  I got to talk about my trials and tribulations, and I got to hear some wisdom from guys who had been through everything that I was complaining about, without drinking or taking a swing at a cop.


But more importantly, whether I understood this or not, which I didn't, I did something for someone else, for free, for no reward, and I wasn't going to get anything in return.  This is the spirit of service.  This was the start of a life philosophy that has made me happy.

Death Head on the Horizon

Smile:  A favorable, pleasing, or agreeable appearance; bright, pleasant aspect.

Today’s meeting had a few fleeting references to the effect that smiling can have on the people that we encounter in the course of a day.  When I look at pictures of myself pre-drinking – a gruesome task not suitable for pregnant women or young children or anyone with a heart condition, really – I am never smiling.  I look surly, vaguely threatening.   And when I do show teeth, my expression appears forced or to be more of a grimace, like I’m unsuccessfully trying to pass gas.  I look like a fleshed-out death’s head.  I don’t think any of us would say a skeleton is smiling.  Smiling is not just the teeth.

A few years back I really tried breaking out the smile when I talked to people, especially strangers.  I don’t know why I didn’t try it earlier.  It has a magical effect.  People smile back.  I don’t even have to smile sincerely for people to react positively.  I can totally be faking it.  I try to smile even when I feel like saying: “Ah, why don’t you go to hell.” 

Part of being happy today is simply pretending to be happy.  I find that I fool myself half of the time.  I find that I start to get happy despite my best efforts to stay pissed, and I so love being pissed, apparently, because I do it all of the time

Those Kooky Monks

SuperK and I took a long hike today in a remote area of a nearby state park.  It was an especially beautiful place -- very green and wet, water washing down a rocky creek, several waterfalls along the way.  The trail was difficult which meant my overactive, ADHD brain had to concentrate on not falling down or over or off.  Hiking a tough trail is like giving my brain a bunch of foam balls to juggle: it's so engrossed in not dropping a ball that it doesn't have time to obsess over something stupid.


I felt the presence of a Higher Power today.


At a men's spiritual retreat that I attended regularly the priest giving the presentation tried to help us become more adept at meditation.  I was getting ready for all of the positions and breathing techniques and visualization strategies, and was surprised to hear him talk about art, then music, and finally nature.


"Why do you think that so many old monasteries were built in remote places?" he asked.  "The monks knew what they were doing."  Mountains, deserts, inaccessible islands, all places where it can be a lot easier to make that connection with a Higher Power via the power of nature.


Keep it . . . ahem, simple, as they say.

Twin Bookends

I've gotten to see The Program in action this week, which means my eyes are open and I've removed the  industrial ear plugs for a minute.  The Program is in action all the time; it's me that isn't in action.  Anyway, I listened to a couple of instances where members had some crappy things happen to them but Surprise! they were still among the living.  There were smiles -- or strained grimaces, at least -- and there was an appreciation of what we can take out of setbacks and adversity.  I never learned a thing from adversity when I was drinking, unless it would be important additional skills to try to avoid any future adversity.  I burn a lot of energy trying to stay in character as a 5 year old spoiled brat in the body of a middle-aged spoiled brat who doesn't want anything painful to happen, ever.


It made me reflect on the twin bookends of our Promises.  On one hand, we learn that we don't have to fear the past or shut the door on it.  Then we learn that the future isn't going to be a total disaster, full of monsters and termites and strangler figs.  The goal, as I understand it, is to try to wedge myself into The Moment.  It's a nice place to be.  I'm always OK in the moment, especially when I can strip away my fear of losing something I have and my fear of not getting something I want.


This sounded a lot more profound when I wrote it this morning.

Changing the System

The people that I work for have asked me to do some tasks that I think are stupid, non-productive, and time consuming in a busy-work, never-gonna-put-any-money-in-my-pocket kind of way.  Now, the fact that I'm a recovering drug addict and alcoholic with no formal training of any kind in business and they probably have advanced degrees in marketing and accounting from fancy private universities, along with practical experience running large corporations, seems like superfluous to me, in my megalomanical world view.


So I did what I do best -- I tried to change The System.  I start out arguing and criticizing and trying to explain why the tasks are stupid.  I'm smart enough to not use the phrase "This is stupid" any more, but my whole demeanor and attitude transmits this information to my handlers.  I get angry and resentful, and I stay that way far too long.  I don't do the work by the required date.  I don't send the information in to help these people track what I'm doing.  In short, I throw a tantrum that would make a 5 year old uncomfortable.


"Jeez," little Jimmy thinks.  "What a baby."


After I had amped up the misery that I was causing myself appropriately, I just did the work.  It did not, of course, take that long or cost that much or put me out in any significant way.  I was timely and I reported the results as requested.  Everyone, of course, was relieved and grateful.  They thanked me and complimented my efforts.


This was much easier.

Brother

I'm at home right now.  Home means time with my birth family which means exaggerated overreaction to just about everything they do or say.  I've done a lot of work on these relationships over the years and I've repaired a lot of damage, or at least I think I have.  I've caused some more damage, too, as long as I'm trying to be honest, which I may or may not be trying to do, but probably not.

Mostly, I'm at peace with these relationships even though they still get me all worked up from time to time.  I talk to my REAL family about the way things are and how I react, and I do get a lot of sympathetic clucking.

"Family is hard," Spandex said, over dinner.  "You don't get to choose your family."  I think he may have been smirking a little.

I try to make sure that I work on myself and not on other people.  I haven't had any luck improving my relationships when I work on someone else's faults and shortcomings.  Still, the other person has to be interested in improving things, too, for the relationships to have much of a chance of changing.  My mother likes to visit her grandchildren -- which I didn't provide -- and do religious things -- which makes me so fricking angry that I splutter spit sputter.  I can't stand my brother in law, who's just like me, and my sister and I have never been close.  The things she thinks are important I can't understand.

"Boy, you need to do some work," said Dr. Death, who was my host during my stay in The Old City this trip.  This is a telling fact.  I had a GREAT time with the good doctor and his even better wife, even when he annoyed the shit out of me trying to tell me what to do.  I choose to stay with friends and not with family.  I stayed up late and talked with them, and hated to go to bed.  I looked at the watch when I was with my birth family.  I probably wasn't subtle, either.

I think some people are like oil and water.  Some things can't be fixed as good as new.  I don't think my birth family really misses me now that I'm gone.  I think they might miss the idea of me, the theory of me, what they think they want me to be.  I bet I irritate the shit out of them, too.

I don't think I'm always at fault.  I realize I can only work on myself but that doesn't mean I have to be a doormat.  When someone treats me poorly, repeatedly, consistently, over a long period of time, I can choose to spend my time elsewhere.  It seems silly to bang my head against the wall.  I can move away.

Sometimes I think I can be of service by leaving someone else alone.