With the Wind at My Back

Toll Free

Like many of us, my terrible decision making and selfish addictive behavior affected others. In my case and more than likely several others it wreaked havoc on my mother. So many phone calls where she’d hear news of some catastrophe, jailers calling her to come get me when I was young, girlfriends saying that I was out of control, other family members that were just plain worried. As a new parent I have so much guilt and feel so much pain that I have caused the one woman who has never done me wrong, and the notion that her little innocent baby grew up to be an alcoholic drug addict hurts me to the core. In a new life of clarity and acceptance I feel the burden of those phone calls lifted and it is one of the many things that I can appreciate with sobriety. When the dedicated ring tone sounds on her phone she need not have that sinking feeling that something terrible happened, and although I know all to well the conditioning that I have laid for our relationship it is a gift to be able to reach out and call her with normalcy and happiness on the line. This ugly fucking devil of addiction takes many without regard to family, friends, or anything else that stands in their way. I am grateful that I was able to turn it around and love the life she wanted for me, and that is the greatest gift that a child can receive.

Get out of your own way. Live your life. Love your life.

This one is for you, Mom.

Alcohol is the worst gateway drug.

Truth. We all know it. It will take millions more time to do their research to come to the conclusion that the bottle will destroy their lives. I feel fucking blessed to have finally found my truth, I sincerely hope that you do too. Keep fucking fighting. #aa #sober #soberlife #soberasfuck #recovery

60 days.

As with every endeavor that I start, I slacked off on this project lately. I doubt anyone reads these, but still I wanted to continue on with something of importance. Today I have 60 days sober. I was very irritable the last couple of days, kind of depressed, but now that I have a number that I can be a little proud of I feel better. I hate the day counting when I have nothing compared to others, but as they are growing it’s something I can get behind. I’ve had a few drinking dreams this last week, always super disappointed until I wake up and still have my sobriety and the days attached. Nothing really important I have to say right now, other than grateful and this should be what I need to kick myself in the ass and finish my 1st step. Again. #sober #60 days #recovery #alcoholicsanonymous

Beware the dogs…

When I was in my 20s I had a dream. My father was issuing me a fair warning to ‘beware the dogs’; advice given to me subconsciously from him, a bonafide extremely high functioning alcoholic. At that time I hadn’t really felt the grip and terror of alcoholism. It was still a parlor trick that I could get shitwasted and still wake up to the bells and face the morning music. I wasn’t held captive from anxiety, never got the shakes while trying to put toothpaste on the brush, hadn’t looked in the mirror to see how exactly my foundational situation was starting to crumble. That dream sticks to me this day, and I still see the black clouds behind him, billowing out underneath like the Darkness in the Never Ending Story. He wasn’t quite worried, but I could tell that he didn’t want the same troubles that plagued him to befall his only son. I would remember that dream during the sleepless nights when during a breakbender, dripping with sweat tossing and turning trying to get to sleep but afraid of the night terrors or worse yet the sleep paralysis. I kicked heroin by myself in bed over a weekend before going to visit my dad for the weekend. I secluded myself in my room, 4 liters of water, one valium, one bedpan, and a few towels. When I finally exhausted my body and was able to sleep I was suspended between waking life and my raw id, and I swear to fucking christ I saw the blackest darkest demon that I knew existed in the moment. It was like a boss battle in a video game; the monster had several legs that had screaming terrifying faces, and at each victory a new one would spawn. It was like a black plasma adorned its body and even though I could barely see some glimmer of light inside the body I felt defeated at every turn. I felt like there was some sort of David and Goliath moment, and during the course of puking, shitting the bed, and sweating through two sets of sheets there was a culmination of power, like overloading a power plant and the black carapace turned to glass and shattered into a million pieces. The only thing that remained was the sly grin that this ‘defeated’ demon had plastered on his face, torn from the body laid on top of the rubble. I always remember that, and no matter how far ahead of addiction I am those dogs are always on my heels, and that demon will always reside inside me. Unchecked it will win, but fuck me running if I will allow a life this beautiful to be ransacked from that motherfucker again.

Les Miserables.

It’s funny, I never really thought about how shitty my circumstances were. I thought it completely normal to crawl through the day, reeking of booze and hoping to keep down whatever little pull that I took in the morning but inevitably puking it all up. Never getting too close to people because if they could smell me I would feel ashamed, and rightly so. I work in the service industry so many people I work with are still actively drinking and doing it the same extent I was, and looking into their eyes I can see myself. I don’t tell people that I am in recovery. Not because I am ashamed, but because I don’t want the focal point. I know that feeling, just whisking through the shift cracking jokes and looking great, but miserable on the inside. Just yearning for that sensation of warmth to course through my belly and to my veins when I finally got the first drink after work. Or let’s be real, usually I would have a bottle of vodka or cheap wine in my car and go out to take slugs a few times a shift. The damp cold forehead that would glisten when I strolled through the dining room. The deep breaths that I would have to actively inhale to get my blood oxygenated. I don’t miss that at all. I am not worried about relapsing today, not because of a higher power, not because I went to a meeting, b because I remember how fucking miserable I was.

The history of ranch dressing.

You know what is extremely fucking difficult? Relationships. Sprinkle in the added bonus of two people having chemical dependency issues, a dash of mental health problems and bake at Poor-50 for 5 years. I got sober a little over a month ago, and while my wife supports me she is not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to live a full life. We both met in AA years ago, our first ‘date’ was me visiting her in detox. I considered it AA based fellowship work but in reality I was falling in love quicker than a tree that falls in the forest. Our using years were nothing short of a beautiful disaster- while I was already headstone about opioids I had never done heroin, and her mistress was just that at the time. We spent over a year smoking dope, fucking like rabbits, and pissing away almost $40k of my savings and every inch of credit that I could find. I don’t hold her accountable for any of that but now that I am sober and she is still drinking it does kind of irk me. We got into an argument and she likes to claim ‘being sick’ while hungover, and I am sorry but I have zero sympathy for that. I have made appointments for half a dozen couples counseling sessions but I don’t think that she really likes them, afterwards she claims that I am the only one talking, that I hijack the meeting, that I paint her in a bad light. I am striving for truth in this new life and I would be fucking flabbergasted if I was not going to be truthful in those intimate settings. I wonder what the success rate for marriage is when one gets sober and the other stays out? Her father is 35+ years sober, and while I have his support I desperately wish that she would listen to reason and go to a meeting. Get some new healthy friends instead of our 25 year old babysitter who has no added value outside of what she is paid to do. How many people have succeeded at the end game of happiness in marriages, and beyond that if they are living on the advanced setting of being an addict alcoholic? I know that we like to control everything and while I would like to puppeteer this right into being right lovely with puppies and rainbows some days are just pretty god damned bleak.

Alcohol fuels anxiety.

I had always struggled with massive bouts of anxiety. Conversely I had always consumed massive amounts of alcohol. And drugs, but I never really thought that they were a contributing factor. The mornings following a bender were always the worst. I would usually still be drunk when I would first wake up, but as the effects wore off the worst part set in- terrifically terrible anxiety. Usually centered around work and how the night before went, who caught on that I was drunk, if anyone saw that I was putting bottles into my bag. Restaurant life is always hectic and for some reason we get a pass for being boozehound drug addicts. Its as if everyone almost expects it and we all agree that we all have a work hard play hard attitude. Some days I would be consumed so much that I would call into work, sit on my comfy couch and Netflix the shit out of my day. This pattern would play it self out many many times, and the streaks would become longer and longer. If I just drank in the morning I wouldn’t get the shakes, I could stave off any anxiety, and I thought that I found out the secret. But then as the years went on the panic attacks were worse, and then I think that I was compromising my body. I had to start taking antacids to quell a shaky belly, the bags under my eyes were like Samsonite luggage, and people would step back when I approached them on account of reeking like a distillery. Every time that I would take the time to detox I would have a terrible first nights sleep rife with horrific nightmares, sweating through the sheets and waking up absofuckinglutely terrified most nights. Sleep Paralysis was something of a regular occurrence and it made me realize that demons were real.

what was I really thinking?

I have been reading some of the other blogs around here, and first let me say that I am very happy that people have decided on a better life. It thrills me to know that people had had enough, and they wanted to throw in the towel. But as I am reading people who speak of over indulging, maybe blacking out, even throwing up *dear god* I can’t help but do a little compare and contrast. I was a right fucking mess. Although I was in my opinion pretty high functioning, it would take me down a much uglier rabbit hole. I passed out in the entryway to my apartment, people walking over me. I would wake up with bags of blow and strange women in my bed. I would have fallen off my bike and had a broken nose and bloody face. I would have to read my phone to piece the night back together. Embarrassing myself in the bar and being kicked out, remembering the strange looks that people would give me because in my mind I was right as rain, but in reality I could barely stand or speak coherently. The scene in Wolf of Wall Street painted the picture perfectly; taking the quaaludes and thinking that you drove home normally, but in reality you were completely fucking smashed. Granted I wasn’t in a Lamborghini, and I certainly am not millionaire, the ridiculous over the top aspect was always there. It wasn’t pretty. I thought that I was living the rock star life, but having this superpower of being able to consume more drugs and alcohol than anyone will literally get you nowhere. I thought a bottle of Jameson and a bag of heroin or coke was very glamourous. I thought that people would find me more alluring, more appealing if they knew how much of a badass (da fuq?!) I was in my using days.

The morning was always the same routine. Check my phone, frantically. Who did I piss off? Did I do well with the girls that I was chasing? Send an arbitrary text to work to feel out if they knew I had been drunk at work, or even worse robbing them blind. Shower off the night before, drown my eyes in Clear Eyes, brush my teeth and hope not to puke. Find a line off the table from the night before and hav that with my morning coffee and walk down the street to find my car or bike. Usually I would leave it at work and walk the rest of way (read: crawl) once I had made “friends”. At this point my phone would be blowing up from whatever I got into the night prior, then came the deescalation from the aggrieved parties. Depending on how close I was to them, or more truthfully how disposable they were to me would dictate how that went. I had typically no remorse if I felt that you were in no way beneficial to my progress and my goal, and that was usually superseded by getting high or having a drunk, because to me that was my happy place. My secure place. I knew that feeling of a warm tummy growing and glowing red, my ears soon to follow. The sharp wit and quick jokes that would flow from my tongue always impressed me, and even that was a reason for me to keep coming back. I always had ADHD but I was never mediated so for me between being lightly bipolar and that I was dialed in on the self medication game. I found solace in that, and now on the other side it seems like it was a lifetime ago, thank fucking god.

I really truly thought that I had my shit together, but faking it every day is no way to live.

Trading Addictions?

I have thought about this a lot in the past. The people who are completely invested, I mean soaking wet with desire and involvement in the program, more than likely used to be pretty hardcore drunks. Throughout my time in the rooms I have met thousands of people, and I often wonder about the ones who seem so fucking gung-ho about being sober and going to several meetings a day. Did they just trade their vices of yesteryear for a different albeit healthier one? I don’t really think that it matters all too much, but I wonder about the scientific basis of it. I understand that some of us, most of you reading this, have the genetic predisposition for addiction. We have been taught that our brains are wired just a little bit different, and that its a disease. So by that rationale have we just traded up? I completely agree that being ‘addicted’ to going to meetings and involvement in AA is a much better course of life. I agree that my sobriety is at the top of the list for things that I covet. But I wonder with all the scientific breakthroughs of our Brave New World if we will one day be able to change the brain chemistry of those who suffer from addictions and release them from that. God knows I have been afflicted with over indulging… Whether it be good or bad, whatever the outcome, whatever the vice. I don’t quite have a point to this, I just wondered if anyone else shared the same point of view. Do you?

#addiction #recovery #aa #alcoholicsanonymous #genetics #sober #sobriety

“Your subscription did not succeed, please try again with a valid email address.”

Is anyone else having trouble with this? I have started this RPG of following all the NPCs but I have gotten this error message on several blogs. I go to hit the follow button in the bottom right corner and some of the time it works as prescribed, however sometimes it asks me for a valid email (which I give them), or has the option to continue as myself. With either choice it doesn’t work. Again, some sites allow me to seamlessly get in bed with them, so I have no clue. I investigated it with the Googz but didn’t quite find anything solid. My question, or lets be real, its a worry, **what if nobody follows me?! How will I get the validation that I so desperately crave from this new audience??!~** is are you able to follow me that way? Did you have any problems if you were silly enough to join me on this Main Quest? That all for now. More on topic later, 2 year old is crunching a big poop on the toilet and wants me to see.

#wordpress, #errormessage #rpg #mainquest #sobertodaybitches