(Surimi): Vicious Cycles. Vicious circles. No vicious virtue. You're right, Vatchi. Slow down, Jim. Impatience. If there's one "character defect" I've seen in most, if not every, addict and alcoholic, it's impatience. Always waiting and wanting the next hit, the next drink. The waiting and wanting have become character traits that have not yet stopped, even after the drinking and drugging stops. The waiting and wanting continue. It takes time to decelerate.
The child I was before I began drinking, to a certain extent, is the child who must start rebuilding, building anew. The building blocks of recovery. No wonder I need help in my learning how to live. In A.A you hear repeatedly that "It's a 'we' program," and that is so true to my experience.
At my second two-week Rehab at the Institute for Human Development (now John Brooks), high on Librium as we detoxify on alcohol and other drugs, one guy gave five or six of us a new haircut, one after the other. That was the symbolic start of the emergence of a new and sober self for me. An aboriginal ritual. "Today you are a man. Free of alcohol and drugs. Go forth. Build a new life."
None of that was said aloud, of course, and the symbol of the haircut and the reality of the haircut were quite different things.
Am I splitting hairs?
Yes, but wisely (Har-de-har-har hair).
from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Day 81)
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