2 Days In

Here’s a trailer for a movie I want to see.  Thanks to sobercourage for spreading the word!

http://sobercourage.com/2014/02/27/stand-up-for-recovery/

1 Day In

This post is going to be a bit ramble-y. I’ve got a number of things I’d like to talk about, and others I’d like to do, like craft things less. When I really polish the text, I’m trying to impress you, and that’s a problem. It’s “not any of my business what you think of me.” I learned that on the plane. The flight was important, meaningful. In flight, I read “A New Pair of Glasses,” by Chuck C. And I tried to pray. Yep, I’ll use the word, baggage and all. God. I really tried it for real. I closed my eyes and seriously asked God for guidance. I asked to know His will for me, so that I can do his work, and I asked him to take care of me. Chuck says that Chuck’s job is to do God’s work, and God’s job is to take care of Chuck. I thought that old HP might be willing to take care of Eric too, because Eric needs the help.  So I tried it. And I didn’t hold back, or throw in disclaimers, or establish clearly that I was merely doing the action and not actually believing, or any of the other things I always do and have always done. I sought with “all the earnestness at my command,” to find a connection with God.

And I recognized an emotion that I’m not convinced I’ve ever felt in adulthood: peace.

I was OK, right there on the plane, right where my HP had put me, right when he had put me there. I was not afraid. Why have I fought so hard, for so long, to maintain the ideas and behaviors that made me miserable? Why would I ever have thought that maintaining the consistency of my abstract models, or protecting the identity I had constructed, could ever be more important that peace and joy and life, I’ll likely never know for certain. But I do suspect the following. I had to be an alcoholic. There was no other way I would ever have been willing look up.

I had plenty of time to make that 7AM meeting at the Alano club in Shanghai this morning.
It was cool. 6 people from 4 different countries (3 of us were from the states**); I heard nothing but really solid program in that room. Yeah. City of 24 million. One English speaking Friday morning meeting with 6 people in it. And I just happen to have been stationed in an apartment 3KM from the club.  And, it’s an really good meeting.  I’m guessing I meant to work with a smaller group for a while.

The lead guy – I wish I remembered his name (I’d only use his first initial here regardless, but since I don’t remember his name, so I can’t even do that) expressed a certain good natured envy when I told him I was from Cali: “You must have thousands of meetings to choose from.” He’s right. I’ve been ignoring an opportunity to do some exploring in my hometown. When I return, I’m going to branch out more, and check out different meetings in different places.

1100 Paces means 12 Steps. 1100 is twelve in binary. And paces is a synonym for steps. For a week or so there I regretted calling it that. I thought, my blog shouldn’t express adherence to a specific program of recovery as that limits me.

See, I had somehow gotten confused again. I forgot and began thinking about the blog as an end in itself. This isn’t about me. If it were, and when it is, it would be, and is, pure garbage. What’s happening now is about everything but me.  It’s about doing the HP’s work.  It’s about turning over all the anxiety and the shame.  It’s about working with other alcoholics to achieve or maintain sobriety, even if all I can think to do about that is to write this under-edited post.

Might there be someone who is helped by reading this? Can I help you to stay sober? Are there some words I can say to you that will make it more likely that you will go to a meeting, or get a sponsor, or do steps, or do anything that will help you to recover form this most ugly and wretched condition we share? If you are an alcoholic like me, but still out there practicing, I know you don’t want to be in AA. Who does? We are, after all, almost to a person, iconclasts. We tolerate no joining, no belief, no committing to a program, no surrender, fuck everyone all the time if they dare cross me!!!!

That’s the weird thing, and proof that something magical is going on. Those AA rooms are filled with bad-ass crazy mofo’s. Ex-cons, sure, but also businessmen and housewives and teenagers. Some of us look quite harmless, but no wise normal person would fuck with any of us while we’re out there practicing. We’re powerful and dangerous. I was like a firehose on full blast, unheld by any hand, shooting high pressure water all over the place. Sometimes it hit the fire. Sometimes it hit the bystanders. Sometimes, there wasn’t even a fire, but I’d crank open that hydrant anyways.

Regardless of the words I used, my core message was:

1. I’m smarter than you.

2. Because I’m smarter than you, I’m better than you.

3. Because I’m better than you, don’t cross me or I will crush you.

Of course this was my message! How could I have been saying anything else? I knew I was an imbicile, and that you were smarter. After all, you didn’t do stupid shit everyday. You didn’t live in constant shame and fear. You said things, and then did them. I couldn’t even understand the meaning of the words I said, apparently, because I rarely followed through on any of them. And I knew I was a worthless scumbag. Not only was I not better than you, I was far, far worse, and I knew it, and figured if I just hated myself enough, then I could even out the balance sheet and maybe get within shouting distance of OK.

But about one thing there was no question at all. You can’t know any of that. I’ll decide what you think of me.

But at some point our power fails us for the last time. And as we age – as I aged anyways – I stayed where I was because that’s where inertia kept me, and massive curtains of words gave the illusion of movement, and kept me trapped, though I thought I was free, because I thought freedom meant manifesting my will. That’s not freedom, that’s hell, in the most specific, Miltonian sense: denied access to God.  My ego was a Satan to keep me where I was.  I couldn’t look myself in the mirror sober.  I didn’t care so much, drunk.  All I had of value were others.  I had my family – my perfect daughter and long-suffering saint of a wife.  Always have I loved them both and lamented that either should have to suffer because of my alcoholism.   And I had some parts of my manufactured identity  – the parts that others had validated.  There was nothing else good.

*Here’s a fun fact: WordPress blogs are forbidden in China. Yep. Fortunately my second in command and housemate for the next 50-60 days is a computer guy, and he set up this nifty VPN (virtual private network) that allows us to connect to the internet through servers in Los Angeles. So, by my reasoning, I’m not even breaking Chinese law, because the DNS request occurs in the States.

**Yes the math is right. It threw me for a second too, but if 3 of us were from the US, that’s one country, plus three others makes four. Or was I the only person to whom that wasn’t immediately obvious 😉

0 Day

I leave today.  In fact, I am posting from the airport.  As I drove here this morning, and my passenger (who would drive my car back after dropping me off) slept, I thought about the journey to come.  I found myself reflecting on what my mindset would be were I still drinking.  Here’s how my internal dialogue would have gone on that car ride:

“OK, so after I get through security and into the terminal, I’ll locate the bar.  I should have a solid two hours before getting on the plane.  However, that’s too much time to drink at the airport – too expensive.  Oh, good!  It’s 6 AM now.  Let me find a promising freeway exit and pick up a couple of little bottles now, on the way there, which I’ll drink right before getting in line at security.  OK, done.  Now, after I drink these, and get to security, I’ll go to the bar and have a double shot and a beer, which I’ll try to nurse as long as possible.  Then I’ll go smoke a cigarette, just to kill some time so I don’t spend too much money at the airport bar.   It’ll take a while to go back through security, so…  Regardless, Eric, self, listen to me.  Once on the plane, you should hit the beverage cart hard the first time it passes – it won’t pass nearly often enough.  So get maybe three little bottles when she passes by the first time.  By the time you are done with those, you’ll be ready to pass out.  When you wake up, just have one or two more from the cart to fix the hangover, because you’ll feel super shitty, but you don’t want to push it too far and get off the plane drunk and have to drive somewhere with work people in that condition.”

But that’s not my dialogue today.  I walked into the airport, and saw the bars, and I actually smiled.  I’m not sure why, but the thought of drinking right now just seems impossibly ridiculous and not at all desirable.  Well, I’m not sure why, but I thinking that all the AA meetings, and talks with my sponsor, and reading sober blogs and such might have something to do with it.  Anyhow, one 14 hour long sober plane ride, coming up shortly.

It ain’t a disease. But it’s something.

When I was drinking, I identified as an alcoholic.  And I also said that the word was just an undefined noise.  Here was my reasoning, more or less:

“Alcoholism, as defined by ‘experts,’ or those who self-identify as alcoholics, cannot exist.  Reality contradicts the contemporary understanding of substance abuse as a ‘disease.’ No one is powerless over alcohol.  If it were such, then each alcoholic would progress inexorably from that first drink to death from alcohol poisoning within a few short months.  The reality is that alcoholics drink too much, regularly, but they are not powerless.  They are habituated.  And habits are hard to break.  That’s it.  Calling alcoholism a disease is like calling nail-biting a disease.  Bad habits aren’t diseases, they are unwanted patterns of behavior.”

But until recently, I was largely blind to the incredible strangeness of my behavior from any objective, disinterested perspective.  It’s not at all like the biting of one’s nails.  I get “obsessed” with stuff all the time.  I’ll binge watch some show, or get into a game, or whatever.  None of those things are comparable at all.  They only look similar, but they are as similar as ducks and pudding.  Being “tweaky” about stuff is part of the mechanism of addiction, but it is not addiction itself.   I’ll get tired of that show or game, see, and move on to something else.

But booze?  I’m bound to get tired of it one of these days, right?  Not likely.  Intoxicant addiction is really, really, distinctly, uniquely strange.  Only people actively engaged in such a life can’t see that.  Only they can frame their own respective hells as anything other than profoundly strange and tragic.

But still, disease isn’t a great word for what I have.  Fine.  But neither is “bad habit.”  Neither is “he drinks too much.”  Indeed, what possible word could explain why a man behaved for so long, and with such persistence, in a manner that produced such bad outcomes over and over and over again.  Insane?  Retarded?  Insanely retarded?*

And then, when this man finally stops, and everything is vastly better, and he’s free? What is his state then?  Happy and grateful to know now better, so he won’t make that mistake again?  Hell no.  He’s still scheming, mentally, spiritually, with the deepest threads of his being, to find some way that he can do it again.

Why, why, why, why, why?! It makes no fucking sense.

Except this: my brain is broken. There’s a part of it that doesn’t work right. A guy lives in my brain who only cares about getting loaded. And he’s a non-violent sociopath. He wants what he wants and that’s it.  He’d prefer a clear path, but is OK with strewing bodies around if needed.  He’s not dick-ish in his dealings with others, for the most part.  But deep down?  That guy is a fucking dick.

I’ve only got two choices with that guy. Either I lock him in the trunk, or I let him drive. If I let him up front, he will grab the wheel. And once that happens, it could end up being me in that trunk, all the way until the end of the road.

1 Day Out

I leave tomorrow.  I hope to meet with my sponsor once more before I leave, but the evening’s no good for me and the daytime’s looking like it’s no good for him.  I have a feeling we’ll somehow find a slot somewhere, but if not, so be it.  I’m ready to go.

I started this blog as a little legwork thing.  A symbol of making an effort, more than anything else.  I didn’t realize that it would turn out to play a significant roll in my sobriety.  I read other sober blogs, and I almost always see something that helps me.  For example, girlonthelearn wrote:

“I really don’t know what happened, to be honest.  I sort of just had a case of the fuck-its.  I have had so much going on in my personal life (like deciding to quit my job, which I’ve been thinking about for a couple of years now!) that the effort to remain sober in the face of it all just felt overwhelming.  I missed drinking.  I missed relaxing, connecting with my friends, not having to make excuses for why I couldn’t join at happy hour.  I missed feeling “normal,” or what to me feels normal.

So here’s what I learned.  I learned that I kept thinking about drinking all the time.  I kept feeling shitty in the morning.  I kept waking up at 2:00 a.m. and feeling panicky, sweaty, thirsty, and anxiety ridden. “

Thanks for that GOTL.  It’s important that I remember that lesson.  It’s one I’ve learned before.  I’ve attempted “normal drinking” so often.  The problem is that if I’m drinking at all, I think about alcohol all the time.  I’m always waiting for it, or looking for an opportunity to consume it.  I’m always either drinking or itchy.

Thus, even if I do successfully moderate on any given occasion, it only means that I’m restrained.  That’s what I chafe against, really.  I don’t want to be unable to drink because I’m an alcoholic, but neither do I want to drink normally.  Normal people make decisions about whether to have more alcohol based on things like social acceptability and “not wanting to get too drunk.”  I just want abandon.  I want nothing to restrain me.  I want to consume whatever I want, whenever I feel like it, as determined solely by desire to consume.  But I don’t want any consequences though.

I want all my circles to be square.  Why can’t I have that?  Oh, right, because those two things are mutually exclusive.