Monkey Frocks

   I didn't want to leave the monastery. Oh. I'm sorry. I mean "the rehab". You see, there was,
for me, a sort of monastic quality about this rehab. Shuffling along, feet dragging along the tile floor and simultaneously hovering two inches above this earth.  
   Giving up my worldliness, like a monk. Separated from "people, places and things." The hospital gowns like monkly frocks (or monkey frocks.

   Living this aesthetic life, not even sacrificial wine would touch these rehab lips. A living saint was I, sustained on the holy water of an intravenous drip. Each patient nun and monk holier than thou.

   Here comes another needle.   
   Ouch! And ow. And om. And wow. Not high on life. Not now. Inject me slowly....  from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 67)
 





Victims

“The human heart in its perversity finds it hard to escape hatred and revenge.”

Moses Luzzatto

          Morning Meditation:

I must not let my being an alcoholic be an excuse to manipulate others through emotional blackmail. I want to stop being a victim of alcoholism and this should include not making others victims of my sobriety.

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day, 66)

Time Line

Workaholic/Alcoholic. Alcoholism became my full-time job. Putting together a time line, going from the primordial ooze to the caveman to homo erectus, as seen in all those cartoons and parodies, became painful to me in my early recovery. Between years of blackouts and job changes and being thrown out of apartments and one-night stands and lost loves and firings and on and on: no time-line was remotely possible for me.

But I did the best I could. And it was a tool that helped me stay sober for just one more day. Just one more day sober. That’s all I wanted. That’s all I was capable of. That’s all I could do. And I could not do it alone. Alone, to me, at one point meant only
one thing: alone with a bottle.

It is so easy for me to become estranged from my past. After all, the person I had become could never be my friend today. I would find him intolerable.

As manipulative and conniving and wanting as I was in my drunkenness then, surrounded by enablers (blame them, Jim, blame them), today I would not, could not be fooled. Today.

Half ditty, half prayer: I do not want to go back there.

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 65)




Insane Oranges

Evening Meditation:

I can remember when gasoline was 32.9 cents per gallon in the 1950's and when it was $3.29 per gallon after the century's turn. That's a magnitude of ten increase. All things considered, that progressive increase in prices has been relatively sane. The progression of the disease of addiction is nothing like that. It's irrational and insane. That's comparing ordinary apples to insane oranges.

My oranges were not oranges anymore.

I did not drink today.

"All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room."

Pascal

Question for Today:

 

   "Emptiness" and "More" and "Me". Is it any wonder that finally I could not juggle? Is it?

 

 

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 64)

A Diseased High

    A diseased high. A poisoned high. Daily surrender to my alcoholism always meaning another drink. A daily chipping away at my selfhood by my disease. And what was left after the chipping away? Not Mount Rushmore. My brain fragments on this sculptor's floor. The dust of my disease. The oxygen masks, the intravenous drips, the sedatives.

    How, having barely survived all of this for years on end, can I have come out on this other end today, feeling whole, joyful, alive?

    I cannot doubt this good and goodly end result.

    Gratitude.

Evening Meditation:

 

    I stand before the firing squad and am asked if I would like to smoke a cigarette before the execution countdown begins. "No thanks, I'm trying to quit."

    This is my insanity. Part of my insanity. Addiction has rearranged reality. The new normal is insane still, if substance-free. Insanity will forever be part of my sanity.


    "No thanks, I gave at the office."


    "No thanks, I'm trying to live."

 
    "No thanks, thanks."

    “Let the measure of time be spiritual, not mechanical.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

 

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 63)

How Does He Do It?

“They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.” 

 

Source Unknown

Morning Meditation:

    Ego is the crack cocaine of recovery.

  At some point in what I thought would be later described as a glorious drinking career (I had accepted that I would never stop drinking and that I would never let it get worse), I had to up my game by introducing other drugs to improve my skill, my cunning, my power, my control.

    Once, I was so proud of being admired for being totally annihilated and yet, like a cat thrown into the air, able to land on my feet again. I was a walking miracle. I was the baffling magic man.

    "How does he do it?" Everyone asked.

 

    I did not know then that my drinking career would soon make me implode and that eventually, once I got sober, my ego would have me implode again and put a new, first drink into my hand. from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 62)



Sober Knowledge

    One persistent complaint I have about my Twelve Step recovery meetings is their very anti-intellectual mindset. "Don't think, don't drink, go to meetings." That's a commonly heard anthem. Religion is talked about in a 'spirituality' kind of way. And psychiatry and the medical community are not wholly admonished. But at no Twelve Step recovery meetings have I ever heard anyone suggesting to a newcomer the value of the library for books containing studies on the subject of this disease I have called alcoholism.

    Knowledge may not keep you sober, but ignorance certainly played a large part in keeping me drunk.

    Done. Another burden has been lifted.

Evening Meditation:

     My relationship with myself is much better sober than drunk. That damn Alcohol sure got in the way of my relationships, including my relationship with myself.   
 
   "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."

Albert Einstein

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 61)

An Unremembered Emptiness

   I’ve been robbed of my gratitude and my optimism by a chemical concoction, a chemical addiction. Killing me and wanting more. There was never a thought of letting go, of quitting. Quitting? That would have had to include admitting defeat and the alcohol itself seemed (and somehow still seems) smart enough to prevent the possibility of thinking, simply, “I give up.”

    How is that even possible? For me, it simply was not.

 

     *     *     *

 

    Memory. Memory. Memory.

    My life has been so much an unremembered emptiness. 

 

 

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 60)

A Certain Art

(Sotto): Librium shuffle, at the bottom. Brain cell shuffle, out at top.

 

If there's something to get, I've got it.

 

If there's something to forget, forget it.

 

There seems to be a certain art to madness, to Jim's madness. Construction paper and art class paste.

 

Congratulations to Jim. He has just graduated the seventh grade.

 

Alcoholism is a developmental disability.

 

Slowly, Vatchi, I almost hate to say it: Jim is getting a little better, day by day.

 

 

 

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 59)

Connect the Dots

(Vatchi): Dipsy-doodle, apple strudel. He is a little nuts, I guess. He most certainly does have "lapses in his synapses."

 

    I think Jim gets unhinged once in a while just to reshuffle his own cards, the brain cells he's got left.

 

    Sotto, don't go anywhere yet.

 

    It's not over 'til the fast synapses singe.

 

    Connect the sober dots. The dots that are left. Punch holes is these papers to put in a three-ring binder. Collect the dots left that the paper punch makes. Collect the dots and connect the dots.

 

    "For this I am responsible."

 

 

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 58)

(Potatoes on a Train: Simulation)

(Potatoes on a Train: Simulation)

    Here I am old and sober, just one notch above dead and drunk. But I really, really can't do this alone, no matter how sober, no matter how long sober. Being responsible is neither a command nor a suggestion. I am a novice in November, the November of my years, learning so late in life to live soberly.

    I am living responsibly today. One day these clothes may fit more loosely, less restrained. Free.

Evening Meditation:

    Rest and relaxation. Exercise and action. The ebb and flow of life. I could have none of that balance in my drinking life. Alcohol was my clock. The time between drinks was not the time drinking. Blackouts: black lines where the time should have appeared on a train or bus schedule. Alcohol does not stop at this station. The train does not stop at this station. Please proceed to the club car.

    Wake up. Go home. This is the last stop.

    “When we allow ourselves to feel our feelings, what should be intolerable becomes intolerable.”

Kenny Loggins

 

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 57)

 

Recipe for Disaster

Evening Meditation:

    My recipe for disaster was whatever I was doing whenever I was drinking, which was always. Short term disasters, long term disasters. Before, during and after disaster there was always the drink. In an odd way, it's no wonder that I didn't blame it on the alcohol. Certainly, I sometimes mouthed the blame on alcohol when it served some purpose. Jim-alcohol's latest victim.

    From victim of alcohol to living responsibly in recovery. Now that's a recipe.

 

    "Every wrong attempt discarded is a step forward."

Thomas Edison

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 56)


Petrified

    The Librium wore off. The after-effects of alcoholism are lingering within me these many years later. Coming of Age. Now. Coming to terms with my disease. Now. Learning to live. Now. To struggle. Now.

   It seems like the world around me is changing. But I am also changing as the world changes around me. I'm thinking of Charles Darwin's assertion that it's not the strongest or the smartest species that survive, but those which best can adapt to change. And sobriety is the biggest change this dyed-in-the-wool alcoholic faces.

   When I drank, I slowly turned to stone, a fossil. Each molecule of me replaced by a molecule of alcohol. Petrified in that true sense, replaced by alcohol, bit by bit.

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 55)

Forgive Alcohol

 (Vatchi): That attractive numbness enticing you, Sotto, that is not where the fear starts, Sotto. That is where the fear is buried. In that dumb numbness.

   Like the child beaten by a punishing father. Loving the person who just beat you down if for no other reason than he's your father. A child's forgiveness.

    The alcoholic forgives the punishments that Alcohol metes out. "I will forgive you, Alcohol. I am the bad one. Give me now your love, your forgiveness, your soothing. Numb me now with one more drink."

    That is part of what is behind Jim's words, Sotto.


    Zombie yearnings. Is that all this zombie yearned for? An answer to the more of something? For what?
   The Zombie does not ask or answer or yearn. The Zombie plods forward.

   This is all just so unimaginable.

   My mind, burnt toast, seeks the God of Frozen Yogurt. Zombie security. Zombie peace.
   Where am I? Am I around this next corner?

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 54)

Daily Commitment

 (Vatchi): I guess Jim would have to have an indefinable sense of guilt. He did those things. They were his life. There would have to be remorse, loss, a million emotions dealt with and not dealt with as a result of his disease.

   It's no wonder that most alcoholics need to help each other find a new life, a sober life, a productive life... a self.

   The scariest thing about being a suspected murder witness is that because of my alcoholism, if not a witness to this particular murder, I could have witnessed another murder and never known it. Those more religious than I might be inclined to say that that was God's will. I'm more inclined towards pure luck.  

   It's bad enough that I was the intended murder victim on three different drunken occasions over the years. Intent and outcome unrelated, at least not always a case of cause and effect.

   Cause and effect are almost immaterial. Were not alcohol in the picture, it's more than likely that none of this would have happened. But, damn it, alcohol was behind and in front of everything I did. The important thing here is to remain sober, make a daily commitment to sobriety and live a sober lifestyle.


f
rom All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 53)

An Elephant Never Forgets

   Christ, when I was drinking, I couldn't remember anyone's name because I was always drunk. But now that I'm sober, it seems like everyone wants to remain anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous: now, there's an irony. Wanting to remain anonymous sober and not being able to remember anyone's name when drunk!

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 52)


 

Until Hell Freezes Over

    The myth of Sisyphus, that eternal hell of pushing the exact same rock up the exact same hill, only to watch it roll all the way back down every time. There’s a whole lot of hell going on there, but at least Sisyphus knew the score. With alcoholism, I had too much at stake to admit this reality. The Legacy Effect: I had too much at stake. I had to put a higher worth on my worthless efforts. Protect what was destroying me because my identity was immersed in alcohol.

    I wonder if Sisyphus drank?

    Rolling Rock, no doubt.


from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 51)

"We"

    Alcoholism and drug addiction seem to be our culture’s biggest cancer (double the cases of biological cancer: add ice, stir, ignore).

    Ignorant disbelief.

    It took me decades to admit that I am an alcoholic and another ten years to learn to say “we”.

    “We are alcoholics.” There, I said it. ten years of discontinuous sobriety, then, finally, "We...".

(Sotto): "We," he said. "We." He said it and I’m repeating it. "We."


from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 50)

Invisible Coach

(Vatchi): Such a great coach alcohol is, indeed, Sotto. The invisible coach cheering you on to victory. Except other people know who's coaching you before you do. And the victory you imagine is actually an illusion that will drive you, finally, to complete defeat, thinking you still could somehow win. Until there's no hope left and booze stops working. Still, you will continue to drink.

    The biggest of the "people, places and things" is that 'thing' in your mind, the mind itself and its invisible coach, King Alcohol.  

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 49)

This Pickle Must Change

 (Surimi): Jim must wear his sobriety "like a loose-fitting garment." Not a Halloween costume or mask. He used to get really drunk. Authentic sobriety is far away for him, still. Like French, Spanish or Chinese, living sober is akin to learning a whole new language, a new way of thinking, being and doing.

Dynamic change. "You can't change a pickle back into a cucumber."

Indeed. And yet. And still...

This Pickle Must Change.


from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 48)

Bonsai Bastard

(Sotto): I don't know if I can feel as empty as Jim has felt. Knowing the cause does not erase the effects of his emptiness. I don't think I've ever felt an emptiness quite like that.

    This street on which I live, this street which is my mind, now clean, now calm, now well-lit, could not have been imagined considering all I've gone through to get here. This journey forward that I am on will continue to set me free. I will turn over my fears, let go the falling leaves of time. Let snow begin to fall.

(Vatchi): Empty is a good starting place when you want to start over, Sotto. You may feel empty, but the things that got you there may still be hanging around, like the drink, always within arm's reach.

    Emptiness is a feeling, lack thereof, and an illusion. "People, Places and Things."

    Hope snowballs. Recovery seems possible. I am becoming a person, a sober person, still young in my sobriety and getting older in years.

    Like an alcoholic bonsai bastard, I am clinging to this rock, well-weathered, alive.

    If I have a drink, I won't have a snowball's chance in hell.

    A bonsai bastard am I.

    And I'm okay with that. Today, today.

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 47)

"King Alcohol"

 
(Vatchi): Even Jim's somewhat inept ability to describe human frailties is at least partly due to his own frailties. Experience trumps talent. At times not understanding the depth of his own remarks, and at other times, over-estimating himself completely.

Like you mentioned before about list making and the illusion of being in control, all of this, all of this, all of this is about Jim coming to grips with himself, with his life, with his alcoholism.

Whistling in the dark. And then...

Enter, stage left, "King Alcohol".

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 46)

Survival of the Fittest

 (Surimi): Guys, Guys, Guys. Sotto. Vatchi. Jim's brain has been hijacked for dozens of years. When that alcoholic plane/brain crashed, his life, his brains, were splattered on the runway. The plane, obliterated. And Sotto, your comments about Jim's 'lists'? That's part of his brain's inventory. He's starting a new life. He's picking up the pieces. This is the deconstruction and reconstruction of a new life for him.

    Jim is Humpty Dumpty putting himself back together again. With the help of others who are like him. That's not irony. "One alcoholic helping another." That's survival of the fittest. Survival for all who band together against a common foe: Alcoholism.

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 45)




Avalanche

    An avalanche and then forgetful snow. This is how I would die. Death by alcohol. It would seem to comfort as it killed….

   I've said it before and I can and I will and I must say it again. Repetition ever reminds me that I must not repeat my actions. I repeat again that alcohol is my poison, my prison. A brick wall, a trap door, a cancer, a bad joke, an empty bottle, an excuse, a leaky faucet, a loan shark, a

broken promise, a cracked mirror, an earthquake, an avalanche, a train wreck, a recurring nightmare.

    Alcohol is my insanity. Yes, I repeat myself. Over and over. I repeat the words so that I do not repeat the actions. Retrain my brain. Repeat the words. To learn, to unlearn, to relearn. To live sober. Over and over.

 

(Sotto): I like Jim's use of words here. Words as approximations of facts. Analogies of addictions. Whistling in the dark: half-prayer, half fear. But Vatchi, I sense a sort of reckless solitude here on his part, don't you?

    "At least I'm not an addict." That's the sense of moral superiority I once had. Today, that statement would be sadly laughable. Too hung over to carry a bar tray full of drinks without spilling them. Asking co-workers to place the straight up martinis in front of the customers' placemats because my daily shakes wouldn't allow me to do so without spilling. Spill. Spill. Spill. Spill. Spill. Avalanche.

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 44)

Presently, Pleasantly, Sober.

(Surimi): Yes, Vatchi, Jim may be kidding himself, even sober. The denial part of his alcoholism seems to have pretty much receded. His old triggers are slowly becoming things he's dealing with on life's terms. His new triggers propel him forward in his sobriety. The trigger of sobriety itself to seek more sober and satisfying things. Call it the anti-trigger, if you will.

    Now, when his expectations and outcomes don't match, he no longer seeks solace in the drink. He's no longer in a "war on drugs". He's living in the solution. In recovery. Bar Rooms, his "cathedrals of consumption" are part of his living memory of his past.

    "Doing nothing is not an option," as he's heard expressed often enough in his recovery groups. Addiction is a patient disease.

    I think he has finally learned to "stick with the winners".


from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 43)




Switch Which World?

 (Surimi): Guys, guys, guys. For someone like Jim, the questions you ask may be interesting. Leave that to science. AA's Big Book says something like "more will be revealed" somewhere. Let scientists have their factual revelations. But for Jim, one fact is clear. One drink leads to ever-worsening catastrophes.

Believing the world is flat does not make it flat. Just because the majority of the world's population can drink safely, does not mean that Jim can drink safely. He must not.

For him, the world is bigger in absence of alcohol.

His world must be round. And sober.

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 42)

New Math

    I have to pace my sobriety just like I used to try to pace my drinking. But I paced my drinking for all the wrong reasons. To please others and to kid myself that I was not 'powerless' over my drinking, that I had some kind of control. Pacing my sobriety means slowing down, focusing, finding patience, persistence, reassurance, confidence, conviction.

   The reality of my sobriety surpasses any hype. My tenuous moments of tranquility surpass flash, Jack. Just "Call me Mellow Yellow".
 

Evening Meditation:

  
    The old math was calculating how many more drinks I could have and how many less hours of sleep I could sustain to come to with alarm clock blaring. The old math was calculating how many hours it would take the next day before I could continue the vicious cycle again. My old math measured time in ounces and quarts, in urges and surges and blurs, blarings and bounces, bangles and jangles and booze.

    This new math is sane and sober: one is one is won. 
from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 41)



Balance

    
   In recovery, drifting is going backwards. But so is moving forwards too fast. The world of impatience, from Pony Express to Snail Mail- the world we live in- is not especially conducive to recovery. The world we live in, the world of "we want it yesterday" makes recovery difficult, I suppose, our culture changed by the rush of the global economy and the internet seems to bring the possibility of a next drink closer somehow.

    My sobriety is in a delicate balance. Can I remain sober and sane in this insane world? My 'can-do' spirit answers, "yes, we can."

   We alcoholics can do together what most of us seem unable to do alone: Be sober, stay sober, live sober.

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 40)



Conveyor Belt

    My blackouts were stored in the freezer in a bottle of Absolut, freeze-dried in a tablet of Valium. Denial City. An Ice Palace.

    Time was money on a conveyor belt of alcohol.

    What drug shall I do tonight?

    Wash down the pills with a drink. Wash down the drink with another drink.

    Wash down. White out. Blackout. Drown out. Shout out. Die out. Cry out.

    Today, I can remember the pain of addiction, from addiction. I, today, cannot feel the absence of pain that would come (I know the absence of pain did arrive, would arrive).

    Today, the absence of alcohol is better than the absence of pain.

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 39)

Perceived Pleasure

    Neither faith nor lack of faith could keep me sober. I needed a reason for hope and continued sobriety gave me that. Slowly at first. Mistakes. Lapses and relapses. Learning and earning sobriety. Unlearning my alcoholic ways, sober, yet under alcohol's subtle spell.

    So much of my perceived pleasure in drinking, smoking and doing other addictive substances was the anxiety preceding picking up and the relief of getting my fix. Give me my drug and my anxiety and stress were reduced. I called this "pleasure".

    This must be pleasure, mustn't it?

    Unknowingly living to satisfy my level of addiction. Is this how and why and what I lived for?

    Fuck you, Alcohol! Fuck you!

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 38)

Alcoholic, Straight or Iced

    The benign indifference of the guru is what I sought when I was younger. But, first, apathy and depression set up their roadblocks. After time, many years, let's say, it didn't matter whether my emotions or circumstances mademe drink more or whether my drinking caused my emotions and circumstances to mutate. It doesn't matter how you cut the cake: it's still a cake. And I'm an alcoholic, straight or iced.  
(Vatchi): Where can one find home when the very foundation of self has been washed away? The luggage is empty or there is no luggage. No children to go home to. No "where have you been?" from family. Nowhere to go and he does not know all the places where he has been.

    Sotto, Jim is the lost child who does not know he's lost. A drink in his hand is worth nothing in the bush. And nowhere to go.

    Ten thousand nights.

    Ten thousand conspiracies of silence.

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 37)

Alcohol Deficit Disorder

    To try to tell the story of my life, I see there is no story to tell, just episodes united by the disease of alcoholism. Selective recall. I doubt hypnosis would reveal much more of note as most memories were never formed in the first place during my nearly daily blackouts. Artificial excitement, emotions raised and lowered by drugs and alcohol. Opportunities pursued drunkenly or not at all.


    Sometimes I wished I could stop, but I never thought I could stop drinking. Half of my Tower of Babel was my alcohol-induced inability to understand, A.D.D. (Alcohol Deficit Disorder) "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday to stop my alcohol deficit today."

    "Time takes time” because so much damage has been done.

Evening Meditation:

    I do not belong to yesterday. Yesterday belongs to me. I can own it sober or it can own me drunk. Side effects of sobriety may include humility and meditation. Caution: the intersection of solitude and a sense of belonging may result.

 

 

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 36)

Bad Dream?

(Vatchi): That's the scary thing, Sotto. When someone gets sober, the mind wants to forget the bad parts. The alcoholic past can seem like a dream, like it didn't happen, like it couldn't have happened, that it couldn't have been as insane as it seemed. Like a bad dream.


    This is one dangerous door, the door of "it couldn't have been that bad."

   Relapse remains an insane possibility.

  Wake the fuck up, Jim.

  It wasn't a dream.

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 35)



Instinct for Survival

    And now I must survive myself. My emotions, hollowed out by my addictions, have survived. I cannot now separate myself from living, from living sober, from moving forward, from learning how to feel again, this time, this time, not under the influence.

   My instinct for survival has, for now, overpowered my addictions.
    I cannot do this alone. I will not do this alone. I must not do this alone. I am not alone. My disease is inside me.



from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 34)

Bang. Bang.

    "Jean-Paul died of AIDS, but it was alcohol that killed him." That's what his tombstone should read. Like Jean-Paul, I did not know then that life could be lived sober, that there could be life after alcohol, life after the party, life after alcohol killed the party. Addiction makes not using seem like a punishment. Jean-Paul did not live to know the many joys of sobriety. I must not drown in survivor's guilt. I must keep pushing forward.

Evening Meditation:

 

    There was a time, living in Atlantic City, early on, when anytime I heard a gunshot, I would automatically assume that the sound was from a firecracker (remembering the experience of my youth in Bethlehem). Time taught me otherwise. Learning, learning what a gunshot is, what a gunshot sounds like, until one Fourth of July after years in Atlantic City. I mistook the sound of firecrackers for gunshot. Sometimes the only news from Now I have is what’s inside me.

   Bang. Bang.

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 33)



Jim's Path...

(Surimi): Sotto, you say, "Jim, don't include this." Vatchi, you say.... Never mind. Both of you. Cut the crap. Neither one of you realize how close you are to the truth. I think Jim wants to exclude himself from his own story, in a way at least. He wants to write it down to expose it. He wants to speak it as a way of letting go. In a strange sort of way, letting go of himself, his story, is a way of letting go of his addiction.
 
    If he could know this, then he would learn that he is already on his way.     His path is the path that he is on.
   
   I do not know where Ted ended up or Cheryl or Bob or almost everyone from my most alcoholic path. My most vivid memories are no more accurate than my most twisted memories. Alcohol played tricks on me, twisted, vivid tricks. My alcoholic brain is all that could remain. Most of my drinking past consists of loose ends which will never be tied again or understood. My alcoholic loose ends will be forever loose ends. The only reality I have is to keep moving forward.
      This is sobriety. This is now. Play it forward, pay it forward.
 

Evening Meditation:

   Emotions flowed through my veins like alcohol. Emotions caused by alcohol.
Emotions distorted by alcohol. Emotions deadened by alcohol.

 
    I did not flow through alcohol today.

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 32)

 


"Functional Alcoholic"

   Dead bodies hung from trees, dragged there by the raging flood waters, caught up in the branches as the waters receded. Parts of human skeletons remained in some foundations of houses swept away among the silt and sand flood's residue.

   Toy soldiers. Dead soldiers: Same thing.

   When I thought of myself as a “functional alcoholic” (and that was for years), I guess I thought that there were two different kinds of alcoholics, those who did function (have a job, a place to live, friends, relationships), like me, and a second kind of alcoholic, who was quite unlike me. I had not been exposed to the knowledge that is behind any 12-step program. I was unaware that there is only one kind of alcoholic and that they are all 100% alcoholic and that if they are functional at present, it is only a matter of time until that progressive, downward spiral jettisons them from whatever functional path that they may have thought that they were on.

    Toy soldiers. Dead soldiers: Same thing.

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 31)

An Emotional Cocktail

(Surimi):

   Sometimes, I just don't know what to think. Jim is full of confusion and doubt. He's reliving much of his past. He needs to go there, to sort through this. But it will not be easy for him to do. Persistence. Alcoholism and Addiction do not take breaks. "Keep it simple" sounds simple, but some problems are irreducibly complex.
　

"You can't turn a pickle back into a cucumber." Many truisms, such as this, famous in the rooms of recovery, scratch the surface of truth.

      It's easy to scratch the surface. What Jim needs is a hammer and chisel.
 

    My past can suck me back into the drink again as easily as my disease can. Guilt, remorse, fear. All kinds of emotions from my past can suck me back into the knee-jerk responses of my past. Drink the emotions away rather than deal with them.

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 30)