A Letter to Dad: Day 22.

    Something really is different this time, Dad. I don’t know how to describe it other than it’s different. Not just different between this rehab and the last. Something different from my whole life up to this point. I am starting to believe that – even if He didn’t intend for me to become addicted to drugs and alcohol (although, who knows, maybe it was necessary) – God has a plan to use my experience to help other people. He protected me up to this point, and I have every reason to believe that He will continue to protect me. That obviously doesn’t mean that life will be easy, but I truly believe that I have been spared for a reason.

    Truth be told, wouldn’t you gladly trade a decade of chaos, heartbreak, and addiction for a lifetime and an eternity of serenity, faith and hope? I think that’s an easy choice. My addiction was a gift; because without it, I would have lived a life of materialism, humanism and faithlessness. I would have wasted my life pursuing success as the world defines it.

    I don’t have any idea exactly what that means right now, but at the very least I believe that God has spared me from the end so many other addicts meet (described in the Big Book as “jails, institutions and death”). You and Mom have spent your entire lives praying for me. God has answered your prayers in a big way, albeit in a different way than any of us would have ever imagined.

    I used to need people to be around at all times to feel happy. But I think that God speaks to us more often in those still, quiet moments. I feel myself becoming a little isolated from people sometimes. Not in a bad way, though. My intellect has always, always, made me feel a different from other people. I could always feel lonely, even in a room full of people.

    I embrace that now; it feels like preparation. For what I don’t yet know. But I do know that great leaders throughout history have always felt isolated from the people they are leading. I know that grandiosity is a trait that alcoholics exhibit in spades. But I can’t get around the fact that – speaking very honestly – I have leadership qualities that I have thus far neglected. And I believe that God spared me for a reason. And maybe that reason was simply to raise my family and minister to the people in my life. But sometimes I feel like it’s something more.

    Who knows. But my point is that I believe that God will continue to protect me. Relapse is a scary word to all of us, and that is the ever-present danger for a recovering addict. But the God that spared me through active addiction can spare me from relapse, or – failing that – spare me even in the event of a relapse. And before you even say it, believing that is not the same as setting myself up to fail. It is simply acknowledging that the God that has power over death has power over addiction too.

    I love you guys, and I think I may have just written today’s blog post, without meaning to.

Honesty. The Only Policy.

In addition to being honest, Abe also spit mad game, yo.

     If don’t start being honest, I will die, and probably sooner than later. I don’t know how to put a finer point on it. If I did I would. Without honesty, I will relapse and die from this disease. I can’t directly apply my free will to an addiction and expect to get a handle on it. That approach would be doomed from the start. But I can indirectly use my free will to tell the truth, and telling the truth can in turn tame my addiction.

   I’m not trying to play cute rhetorical games (maybe a little): this concept is the single most important thing for me to take away from treatment. I’ve been in active addiction for a long time. I do not have a habit of telling the truth. For an addict to continue using, they almost without exception create a world that is built on lies and deception. Sometimes the lies are overt, and sometimes the lies fall into a category we might call deception by omission. But a lie is a lie is a lie.

I cannot tell a lie: I CANNOT tell a lie.

   It’s interesting to me that we have two Presidents who are noted for their honesty. Out of 44. Come to think of it, that sounds about right, and not just because Presidents are by definition politicians (and politicians are by definition – you know – scum bags). I think people who strive for 100% honesty are the exception, not the rule. It’s just not a priority for most people, which is odd, because most people are revulsed by the idea of a perpetual liar. But most people are unconcerned with the concept of “little white lies.” I believe that in my post-treatment world, I can no longer indulge myself that distinction.

Does this make me look fat? Yes. Yes it does.

   Lying is an action that is rooted in one of two emotions, both of which are fatal to addicts: shame and fear. Every lie is the result of one or both of those emotions in some combination. I posit that shame and fear drive most, if not all, of the awful things human beings do to each other. Think about it. Except for the few that are rooted in anger (which almost singularly drives violence), nearly every other negative human action or emotion is borne out of fear or shame. Prejudice, envy, gluttony, gossip, sloth, judgmental-ism, stereotypes, xenophobia; even that dragnet of all negative human emotions – hate – is very often, if not always, rooted in fear or shame.

   So I’m going to take my cues from a character from the real Disney World, a character who sets an example from whom we addicts here in the Notdisneyworld Sober Ranch could all learn a thing or two. So much the more that he – like us – learned his lessons the hard way.

Pinocchio: providing pithy analogies since 1883.

Day 6. Thoughts of Layne Staley.

Rest In Peace

His partially decomposed body was discovered eights years ago today, roughly two weeks after his death, which was most likely a result of an overdose of cocaine and heroin (the level of decomposition was such that toxicology reports were not entirely reliable). Layne struggled throughout his life with substance abuse.  He used substances and routes of administration that were often identical to mine. He self-medicated depression just like I did. I have outlived him by a year.

There is a mother who sees the picture above and sees a beautiful boy who she could do nothing to save. That is why I am writing this stuff down. A force that is capable of  overpowering a mother’s love is something we need to study. It is an enemy we need to know everything about we possibly can. And right now I am fighting that fight, against that enemy, and the stakes are identical. Drugs are a zero-sum game: one winner, one loser. And the house wins waaaaay too often.

I happen to be a fan of Layne’s. I couldn’t overstate my admiration for him, in fact, so I’m not going to embarrass myself trying. For me the fact that he and other people like him are gone forever because of this disease leaves me with an oppressive emptiness. Like there’s just a big void out there in the ether where their art and music were supposed to be. And don’t get me wrong, a lot of these people were complete shits who treated people like shit and reaped what they sowed. But Layne wasn’t like that. I don’t believe so anyway.

The lyrics to Would by AIC are some of the most powerful ever, by anyone who ever tried to explain why we do what we do. We, being addicts. Defending the indefensible. What we really want – just once – is for you to try and see it our way. Which we know is impossible, but we still yearn for that kind of understanding, just that one time, from someone on the outside of the fishbowl.  

 

WOULD

Know me broken by my master,
Teach thee on child of love hereafter;

Into the flood again,
Same old trip it was back then;
So I made a big mistake,
Try to see it once my way.

Drifting body it’s sole desertion,
Flying not yet quite the notion;

Into the flood again,
Same old trip it was back then;
So I made a big mistake,
Try to see it once my way.

Into the flood again,
Same old trip it was back then;
So I made a big mistake,
Try to see it once my way.

Am I wrong?
Have I run to far to get home?
Have I gone?
And left you here alone?
Am I wrong?
Have I run to far to get home?
Have I gone?
And left you here alone?

If I would, could you?