What a Jerk

When I was in my early 20s, still stinging from my great failure and ignominious ejection from Optometry College I talked my two best friends in the world - brothers - into making a drug and alcohol-fueled road trip from Ohio across the country to California and back.  I need to stipulate that it was me who was being fueled by drugs and alcohol.  I was digging through some old pictures to share with these guys - still my two best friends in the world - and I can confirm that in every instance I was clearly drunk and/or stoned.  There was often alcohol in the picture.  I listened to a man talk recently about trying to hide his cocaine habit from his loved ones.  He thought he was successful in his subterfuge.  Pshaw.  I was fooling precisely no one and neither was he.

One set of photos detailed a hiking/camping trip that we took on a coastal trail north of San Francisco.  I have no doubt that this was my idea because it was rash and poorly conceived.  We are clearly not prepared for camping in this environment.  After many miles we reached the beautiful campsite right on the Pacific Ocean.  Our plan was to put a tarp on the ground and climb into our sleeping bags after heating up some water on a grill for our freeze-dried meals.  The wind was blowing a gale.  There were bear poles at each site so your food could be stored out of any ursine reach. We were getting vaguely worried, out of our element, all the other sites were equipped with harsh weather tents and were up and thriving.   We struggled to get the coals lit and then to heat the water which -  after a while - turned a gorgeous smoky brown, clearly unfit for human consumption.  We peered at the water for a while, our brains struggling to accept the scope of the unfolding tragedy, until one of the brothers said: "So . . . we outta here?"  One of the greatest lines ever uttered in my presence.  We did manage to make it back to our car, night falling quickly as we hustled to gain shelter before it became pitch black . . . in bear country . . . taking a much shorter route but one that climbed and descended a series of ridges on the return trip.

I don't think I carried in alcohol but I was packing drugs.  The older brother really lit into me when we made it back to the car and deservedly so.  This was typical of my life then and can still be today - impulsive, controlling, oblivious, driving myself and everyone around me relentlessly forward with scant thought of the consequences or the wishes of anyone else.  I wanted to blast down the road like a bat out of hell to a new place each night and to run myself ragged doing so, unconcerned about the welfare of anyone else.  It's not like I didn't care about them - it's that I wanted to do what I wanted to do and it was my job to convince you to follow my lead, often stupid and ill-conceived.  Self!  Most of my memories reveal trying to get what I wanted and to force you into line behind me.  Once again: good intentions, crappy actions.  I sincerely wanted you to be happy, too, but I wanted you to be happy following my lead.

So much of my pre-A.A. life reveals a boy/man who wanted his own way.  I was the actor trying to control the set, the dialogue, the actions of all my fellow actors.   Everything would be great if you did what I wanted!

There was another instance on this trip where I fell asleep in the car as we drove through the night from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, too drunk and high to take my turn at the wheel as we had decided to brave the desert drive at night when the temperature was lower in our car with no air conditioning.  When we arrived at a campsite the next morning I pitched a bitch because it was a dusty, crowded place still on the fringes of the desert.  My buddy took my head off that morning, too.  Man, was I a jerk.  You drive all night by yourself AND find a campsite by yourself that meets my specifications  Man, what selfish prick I was.

"Whenever you classify something as 'good' or 'bad' you stop looking at it with an open mind."

Toltecs.