Reasons to avoid swinging dead cats

Well, I started working at a new job this week, and it’s at a job I love. I’ve been blogging about how my physical fitness is a real important part of my overall spiritual health – I can’t imagine staying sober with a body that hardly performs (or looks) the way it should. I mentioned once that in terms of managing an addiction, there isn’t one thing that works for everyone, and so, part of the trick is to find several things that work for you and then calling upon that list whenever you have moments of weakness.

This goes for smoking, drinking, gambling, whatever. And I am less inclined to want to abuse my body with a bottle of sugary rum knowing what kind of work I put into it to maintain it. I don’t know if this will be my sobriety method forever, but for now, its something I have grabbed on to.

And, so this brings me back to my job – at a company that’s all about fitness (with a significant ‘cool factor’). I am not going to add a bunch of details about where, but I am happy to say, I am doing something I love in an industry I really love, with people who I respect and like, and I have a kick ass office to boot. My mom and sister came to visit me yesterday, and remarked that they, “expect nothing less.” I suppose reaching small successes is part of the reason I did this to begin with, so I should be relieved things are beginning to work out.

A funny story about the job, as a side note, my boss googled me and the first thing was the article in the Denver Post. He asked me about it, I was honest with him - as I am when anyone asks me about this process - and I think he respected that. But I am going to own this, its who I am, its real. As I said in an earlier blog, if I had cancer I would be applauded for seeking treatment, and so I would hope that this would be received in the same way. It’s entirely likely that many people still will see this as negative, and slowly, I hope my message and more like mine will begin to change attitudes. One thing I’ve come to realize in the past few months is that no family is immune to addiction. Not even yours.

But he asked. The interesting thing is that I am almost relieved that it played out like that – that he asked ahead of time so it was never a surprise to him, and this adds a layer of accountability to me that I had not counted on. Its less likely that I am going to fall into old behaviors and casually toss them aside to someone who knows that might happen.



I am a little unnerved about my paycheck though. Having money again is going to open up a whole new set of circumstances where something can get tripped up. I mean, you can’t swing a dead cat in this state without hitting a liquor store. I am counting on the fact that I am going to employ all the things I’ve learned the past few months in order to continue on this path. The temptation to leave the program is going to be there, the temptation to even grab a beer with friends after work is going to be there, and though these things have crossed my mind in the past, the opportunity hasn’t been there – in terms of time or money. And I haven’t run across a dead cat I really feel much like swinging.

And I am going to have to figure this out relatively quickly because I will be paid in a few days. But, I’ve always known, I am going to have a job again in my life, I am going to have money again, I am going to have freedoms, I am not going to be in the safety of this program forever. But I hope I approach this in much the same way I have approached other milestones at the ranch – from my first venture off the ranch for my first 2 hour pass, to my first weekend at home, I am just gonna have to remind myself what I am all about, and do it. What skills will I be employing? Well, in those addictions classes, I mentioned something about the lesson on stimulus vs. response. Dave, our addictions teacher, really pounded in the idea that stimulus vs. response is a natural occurrence – if you don’t believe me, ask Pavlov’s dogs.

BUT – here’s where the skills I have practiced and learned at the ranch come in to play. Here’s why a good rehab is important not only because it allows you to dry out and work through the emotional mess, but a good rehab works because it arms you with tools and weapons to keep going. You see, as we practiced, as we studied, and as we were told (a most obvious solution, but, the simplicity escapes you until you see it on paper – or a computer screen). The thing about the natural stimulus vs. response mechanism is simply, the freedom to choose. The freedom to NOT respond the way you always have. Its not easy to put into practice, but when you do, its makes you feel amazingly powerful.

There is a certain rush of energy you feel when you make a blatant, obvious, uncomfortable decision to respond differently to an age-old response. I know you are reading this gem of genius on a blog dedicated to addiction, but this is something you can employ to ANY part of your life.

When you are tempted by that last piece of cheesecake, you don’t have to eat it – you can just decide NOT to eat it for no other reason that its OK to NOT eat it. When you want a cigarette after a spicy meal, you can just decide NOT to smoke, and you can NOT smoke just because it’s OK to NOT smoke (yes I split the infinitive, shhh). You won’t die, there will be other opportunities to smoke again in the future if you really want it, there will be other cheesecakes in your life, I G-U-A-R-A-N-T-E-E it. And each Friday I deposit my paycheck and the stimulus to go grab a drink hits me, its OK to NOT drink that one time – not because I will end up in jail or dead – but, just because.

I am not going to spend my entire life coming up with complex reason to NOT drink. I am just not going to drink. Maybe someday in the future there will be an opportunity for it, I don’t know, I don’t think about that, but for now, I don’t want to drink – and the reason is super duper complex right? I just choose not to. Sobriety for me isn’t going to be a lot of work, it isn’t going to be a daily argument with myself to not drink. When it’s like that, then chances are, I am not finished drinking. If I have to come up with a reason every free moment to not drink, then I am not done. And I am done.

So, on to other things. Someone wrote to me and told me that they did an intervention on their brother and he didn’t respond to it. I asked this woman what they offered her brother in terms of a solution, she said she didn’t have one.

I am only going to say this because I put myself in her brother’s shoes so I could maybe offer insight to what he might have been thinking, and I am no expert by any means when it comes to this stuff. I am ONLY an expert on my own experience, and from my experience, if people you care about sideswipe you with an intervention (and believe me, it is sideswiping, but that’s why it might work), but then they don’t have any solutions like, “We have gotten you into this program, we have put you on the list for this program, we have looked into this program and it fits your needs, we are going to go right now to a meeting,” if you don’t do that, then your intervention is just a group of people who gather around you to call you out for being drunk. And what the hell is that all about?

So, in my very unprofessional, very un-expert opinion, while I think an intervention can be very effective because it really forces you to face your loved ones head on, an intervention without a solution is just a group of people you trusted who gather around to tell you what a lousy drunk you are.

My family tried an intervention on me several years ago after a camping trip and that VERY afternoon I went to a bar with one of the people in the intervention and we got hammered. I am not sure if I would have gone anywhere anyway, but had they been armed with real answers, like ‘You can enter such and such facility in 5 days for a 40 day program, etc.,’ I might have been more inclined to at least think about it.

As a note, I am not slamming my family in the least bit for this. Heck, they didn’t know what to do, staging an effective intervention isn’t something you really get a whole lot of training on and not the kind of thing you learn in business college. I am grateful for the repeated attempts my family made to get me sober.

But when you do make those attempts, be prepared for your addict to reject your attempts. I will say, it wasn’t until everyone left me alone, to my own devices, to my own conscience, to my own tired spirit, that I stopped making excuses and looked into this program. I am not saying this is how it needs to work for everyone, but for me, it wasn’t until I felt completely alone, that I didn’t have to answer to anyone but myself, it wasn’t until I had to look in the mirror at the one person on earth who really knew who was looking back, only then did I decide this was it.

And I will also say that one day in March, I was talking to Alex, and I said I was having second thoughts, that I wasn’t sure if I was even going to come to the Ranch, and Alex looked at me and said, ‘OK, but I think you can do it.’ And I don’t know why that stood out to me, I don’t know why that moment meant a lot to me. Perhaps its because Alex didn’t say, “You NEED to do this, you SHOULD do this, blah blah blah.” Alex said, ‘I think YOU CAN DO THIS.’

Almost as if Alex knew that my defiance wasn’t defiance, it wasn’t even denial, it was fear and a lack of confidence. And those words really fixed me up on the idea. That day was Friday, March 27th, I know this because I wrote about that comment in my journal.

You see, having the confidence to do this isn’t easy. Heck, I recently heard of someone who decided not to come to the ranch because he was worried that if he decided he couldn’t do it, he’d be too far away to escape. That’s a lack of confidence and fear. (I will say that if anyone decides they can not do this, the ranch is VERY accommodating about getting that person to a safe place, there is no ‘escape’ – we arrange a van and drive that person, with dignity, to any location they need to go – including other cities – even one guy all the way to the airport – escape isn’t something people ever need to do from the ranch, participation is completely voluntary)

So, I ran a race today. It was my first official race, I was there with the running team, at 8am, in 20 degree weather. I finished in a respectable time, and it felt AWESOME crossing that finish line, a bunch of guys came along and greeted me in the final 1/5th mile, and they ran along side me and cheered me, then as I crossed the finish line, other guys from the ranch were there to take pictures, hi-five me, and chant my name as I made my way down the winner's corral.

And my finish time?
Is ‘ABOUT TIME’ a time?
Well, that’s all I am saying, I ran a race, I crossed the finish line and ….. ITS ABOUT TIME.

Peace all and have a great week.

Get REAL! I'll never steal grapes again....

Well, folks, I am now a phase 3 guy. I learned that I was approved to phase on Wednesday and I had the phasing ceremony on Friday, its official. I will tell you, if you asked me 6 months ago about getting to phase 3, I would have laughed and said 'Probably not,' and yet, here I am.

One of the perks of being in phase 3 is getting our cell phones back. I checked mine on Friday afternoon and had a text message from a girl friend, a former co worker, and someone that I consider a great confident, that said, "I need to talk to you, but can't right now, can I call you later?"

It sounded urgent so I texted back, "Sure, is everything OK?"

The reply, "Yes, I read Tina's article."

The shock this sent through me was immediate. I had done a fairly decent job of working on my rehabilitation and not having this bleed into my other life, the life I planned to leave in tact so I could return to it, seamlessly, and no one would be the wiser.

When we finally spoke, she brought it up, and her reaction was one I had not prepared for. I had prepared for the snide comments, and the mocking comments, I had prepared for the concerned comments and the comments from people who were wishing me well.

Her reaction was almost apologetic. She said, in a somber tone, "I'm at a loss, I didn't even know that you were having any problems, I feel like I should have known," And the shock this sent through me was super charged. We spoke and she told me that she read my blog and I mentioned my cousin who killed herself, and she told me that she had a close uncle who did the same thing this past June, less than 6 months ago.

Her story and her comments were familiar to me. She spoke of the confusion of not knowing, of the loss, of the resentment, of the sadness she felt, she spoke about her regrets with it, and how that death has put her life into some semblance of order, she prioritized things.

And what struck me about this conversation is that, it seems to me that everyone has a story to tell about this. It seems to me that everywhere I look, once people know that I am doing this, other people are eager to describe their anguish, loss caused by addiction. I know that they tell me this because I am someone who will not judge, and I think they tell me because it might help me to feel that I am not alone. I will tell you, living with my addiction was the most alone I have ever felt, and recovering from it is the most comfortable I have ever felt. The support is amazing, and when people learn that you are being real about it, they seem to come out of the woodwork and help you get through it.

And I mention this because I have been getting a lot of letters and comments about treatment, good questions like, "Is it like prison," "Do you guys chant," "Is there a lot of therapy circles, touchie feelie stuff," and I am glad people are asking - when I considered coming to rehab, these were the kinds of real questions I also had. And I hope this blog addresses some of those things. Its not scary, its not a bad environment, my experience has been positive - but I have had to work at it - and work very hard - and dig - and reach out - and face certain realities about myself and my past and my heart and soul that haven't been fun.

But, in the end, I am healing. And the people around me are healing. And there is no better reason to do this than that. There has to be an end in sight, then you jump off the cliff, and you do the work, and then you get the reward - health, happiness, forgiveness, and you get to be real - the real you that you know you are.

We are beginning a component of therapy called 'Band of Brothers,' and this is a spiritual look at the roles we have as men once we're sober. This part of the therapy deals with things like what kinds of husbands, boyfriends, sons, brothers, fathers, friends we need to be. It kind of gives us a blueprint of how to apply the things we learned about living like a decent human being to our relationships with people. This isn't about repairing your past, its about preparing your present and future.

The thing about this component is that it really helps us to remove some of those deceptive masks we wear as addicts and make ourselves vulnerable to reality. We wear masks to get people to believe we are a certain kind of person, we wear them because we are often afraid of showing who we really are, and removing those masks is about the only way to live, its how we become real, take it or leave it, like us or not.

I thought that I had already been doing this, but one thing about the past week is that I am finding that people, like that girlfriend who didn't know I was even having a problem, are still looking at the mask. It felt cathartic to have the article in the paper, but the masks to my close friends and family still remained, and this component on the ranch is about removing these masks. It's raw, and it's real.

It doesnt mean calling everyone up and making a bunch of uncomfortable statements either. Geezus, I hate when drunks do that. I mean, that can get a little bit creepy if you ask me, and just because I am here and exposed doesn't mean everyone else is in the same place emotionally - in fact, most people aren't. One thing I can NOT stand about a recovering addict is how they try to force their changes, their rawness, their new perspective on other people. For chrissake, I will NOT do this. No one wanted to hear my emotional episodes when I was drunk, I can guarantee no one wants to hear about them now that I am sober.

Real change doesn't mean that you need to wear this on your sleeve. It's not about making everyone see that you have changed. Living the change is when you know and believe in your own progress. Living as a new person, living according to the standards I set for myself and have put in place through my recovery is how I maintain change. I don't need to spend my time proving my changes or looking for opportunities to enact these changes at the pleasure of my audience. If I decide I am not going to walk around the grocery store and eat grapes out of a bag before I've paid for them just because it's right, and not because I am afraid of getting caught - well, thats a perfectly acceptable reason not to do that. Right? If I decide that I am not going to drink ever again because I don't like what it does to me and not because I am afraid of loss or disappointment, well, that's perfectly acceptable.

True realness is looking at the man in the mirror and saying "I kind of like the guy who's staring back at me."

And, these days I do, but it hasn't been easy and it hasn't been fun.

Oh, so I got a job, I am excited about it, I begin next week. Its great to begin living like a real person again and saving money. I am also running an 8K race next week, my first official race. I was reading this blog a few days ago, and I joked back in May, 'Hey wouldnt it be funny if I ran a marathon by this time next year,' and.... well, this plan looks like it can happen, the Colorado Marathon is in May of 2010.... This plan is real.

Reality seemed so scary at one point, and now I'm happy to embrace it. The thing about reality is that you don't really have much opportunity to escape from it, it's there, its not even a matter of hiding from it, it is what it is. And the thing I like about what's happening is that we are being taught that who we really are isn't all that bad, and that all that time I spent trying to not be me was pointless. This is how sobriety has to work this is how recovery works - I've identified the problems (physical and emotional and biochemical), I've faced many issues, I've solved many issues, I have rectified where I could and let go where I have had to, and now, the solution isn't a nice neat package, its a jumbled hodge podge of things that I could fix and things I couldn't, but either way, it is what it is, and I have to live with it. That's real life, baby.

It was such a waste of time, all that drunkeness. It makes me laugh at myself through a few tears - I just nod my head in disbelief sometimes. I like this life now, it's real.

Anyway, have a great weekend.

Contact Information

Some people have been trying to get ahold of me to get more information and I can't write you back through the comments section, so you may email me at: SnapshotsFromRehabRanch@yahoo.com -

The curtain has been lifted....

DISCLAIMER: THIS PHOTO IS NOT OF ME!!!

I took a very public direction in my recovery recently, and I gave an interview to a respected (and apparently widely read) columnist at the Denver Post about this blog.

The article choked me up a bit, it is unnerving to see my words and my story outlined so well on page 2 of a major daily newspaper – plus I am a sucker for good writing, and Tina Griego painted a detailed picture in 850 words of a decade of grief.

I wrote a while back about the deceptive curtain that alcoholics hide behind, and that eventually, the greatest fear, and the best blessing is when that curtain is lifted and its discovered that the wizard is just a man. Well, suprise, I am not a wizard.

I was extremely hesitant about using my real name in the story – at first it was because I write about several of the guys on the ranch who are with me and didn’t want to compromise their privacy, and, deep down, it was because I was a little ashamed that the whole city would know what I was doing, why I disappeared, and be public participants in a personal, intimate struggle.

The greatest rewards come when you take the greatest risks, and I permitted my real name and the blog address (which I kept confidential from the ranch guys), and closed my eyes, plugged my nose, and jumped right in.

I suppose I was ashamed because developing an alcohol addiction is so tied up in shame, in failures, it seems like it only happens to ‘those kinds of people,’ and now, here I was, one of ‘those people’ and the whole city knew it. They would laugh at me, or shake their heads and say, “Oh that explains it.”

None of that happened.

I received letters and messages from friends and family, all but one of them positive (the only snide comment came from a fellow alcoholic who’s bitter sentiment was to be expected. As a side note, I find it the highest form of hypocrisy when a seasoned alcoholic tells a recovering alcoholic, “Isn’t part of rehab making amends? Its OK, I forgive you”).

I received notes from former co-workers that wanted to reconnect and keep in touch with me. Strangers offered their stories of how alcohol has affected them, how it has affected people close to them. Families wanted to know how to get the kind of treatment I was getting and where. A dialogue had been opened because an undeserving victim of alcohol decided to tell and even embrace the story of an alcoholic, to get some insight, and to offer hope that not every story has to end the way hers did.

Tina wrote to me after the article had been published and said, “By now, I should no longer be surprised by how many people alcoholism/addiction affects, but I still am.” This comes from a seasoned veteran of daily news, in my estimation she’s seen it all, and yet, this still shocks her.

And the article strengthened my resolve that this is the only solution for the problems I had created for myself, that the absolute end to the part of my life that included alcohol as a companion was the only was I would live. I don’t look at my recovery as a shameful venture, as something that I need to hide or avoid in subject. Alcoholism affects so many people and when people talk about it, there is a relief, a collective exhale. That feeling of, “I am not the only one, my family isn’t the only family,” lifts a great burden.

One person wrote, “Alcohol wants to kill you, but first it wants to get you alone,” this resonated with me. It certainly tried to isolate me. I cried a little when I read this because it was so true, in my case and the case of most of my friends. And perhaps the systematic rehabilitation of entire families lies in the ability to talk openly about it, like people talk about cancer.

I’m thinking too globally at the moment, but when I get out of here, it may be one of my goals, to make something like this happen. To create awareness, to lessen burdens, and to help people get help. It all started with an article superbly written by a journalist who wanted to deliver a message of hope, and she used my story to help her tell it. In the process, I have gained a friend and I hope she gets some insight to her father’s torment when she reads the blog. She told me that she knows that her father knew he hurt people, and this contributed to his depletion of spirit, it certainly contributed to mine. But the cathartic release of this knowledge by acknowledgement in this blog is sucking the grief out of me. To share this with Tina, well, this is the greatest honor.

Life at the ranch has been hectic to say the least. Today is the LAST day I will spend in phase 2 – tomorrow I phase to phase 3 – all my homework is finally finished. I think I have an awesome job lined up. I’ve got to wait (and this time I don’t mind).

When I blog later this week, I will catch you up on the Addictions 2 part of the program, I am knee deep in it – and the transition from the safety of farm life to real life is a precarious one, and a misstep can be catastrophic. I’ll also be catching you up on life here at the Ranch. It’s been more than a little fun. I took the picture at the top of this blog of Lane the other night, we were bored and he dressed up in a goofy outfit. I snapped the photo and told him I would post it because in a year, when the stress of real life is upon him, he can look at it and remember what a blast he had in rehab. If you look closely, there is a banner behid him that says 'Hope' - it wasn't planned but its certainly in the right place.

Then I mentioned, when I look back, I will look at this as a SUPER fun year. I used to think of this as a year away from my real life, but this has been the most productive year in my life – the changes, the friends, my health, my growth, I resurrected a spirit, and that doesn’t happen too often.

The guys on the ranch read the article and my celebrity was a good 13 minutes long (I was promised 15 minutes). It wasn’t long before they began hassling me about how long I take in the bathroom, my cooking, I have too many clothes and I am hogging the closet, even about my weight, my friend Brian said, “Its true, the newspaper DOES add 15 pounds to you,” Nothing like good friends to keep it real, eh?

I will say, I feel none of the usual stress of this time of year, and feel hopeful and confident. The fear of relapse weighed heavily on me, but in my conversation with Tina, she predicted something that has really changed my perspective, she gave me a gift she may not know she even offered.

Tina told me with some degree of certainty that she predicts that by the end of this program, I will no longer fear relapse, or fear anything for that matter. She said that in reading my progress from the first blog to the most recent, she believes that I am heading to a place where the fear of relapse no longer keeps me up at night. This, somehow, comforted me. Finally, the end is in sight, to someone at least.

DAYS SOBER: 211 Days

DAYS SINCE I WATCHED BONNIE HUNT SHOW: 203 Days

Thanksgiving Week

OK, so I am going to take the week off from blogging - its Thanksgiving, I have recently returned from weekend pass, I had a GREAT time. But I am trying to wrap up my phase 2 packets and find a job so next week, when I go to my final phase, I'll be ready.

Can you believe it, I am entering my final phase of the program... and I'll write more then. Until next week, have a GREAT Thanksgiving.

This year I have SO much to be Thankful for....

The last thing on their minds.... fuggetaboutit!

One good thing about keeping a blog is that I can go back and look at the speed at which change is taking place while on the ranch. If anyone tells you recovery is a drag, they aren’t doing it right. It’s a really busy time, fixing your past, building your future and navigating your present all at the same time!

There is a sort of urgency in being in a program with a set expiration date, it feels almost rushed. My mom and I were talking a while back and I had to remind her that this is a program that is about half completed for me, and that I am not planning on staying longer than I have to. When I said, “I can’t stay there forever, I have to leave and get on with my life, living on a rehab ranch is NOT normal,” she paused for a minute because I think, somewhere, she thought, or hoped I would remain in the safety of a 250 acre ranch forever.

But, that’s not how this story will end, THAT is the only thing I can guarantee about being in rehab. But until then, I am really busy, as is everyone.

So Brian started working this week, he couldn’t be happier. Curtis got his financial aid and will be starting his degree program in January, Lane tested past several of his prerequisites in school and found out he is a semester further along than he believed. Steve has an interview on Monday morning, and Marty has had five interviews and he is going back this week for round two at a couple good places.

I also had two interviews, both of them went extremely well. I enter my final phase the week of November 30 and would love it if I missed this phasing ceremony because I was, instead, at work.

One of the chaplains said that my physical and mental energy is evident and that he is confident that I will be gainfully employed soon, his exact words were, ‘Your sobriety and health makes you look extremely attractive to a potential employer right now, probably more so than ever before,’ he ended our conversation saying that I wear sobriety well.

Apparently someone told him that playing to my over developed sense of self-awareness (read: vanity) is a fantastic way to keep me on the straight and narrow.

Tomorrow I am speaking to a huge congregation in a mountain town about my spiritual journey to sobriety, Tuesday I will be speaking to a juvenile youth-at-risk facility about what they can expect from a life of addiction and bad decisions. Thursday I will be speaking to another High School in the county, to talk about how the decisions they make now will affect their life forever. I will also be encouraging them to seek help now, to empower them and explain the amount of strength it takes to seek help – statistically, 58% of them have already used alcohol and 22% of them are binge drinkers. Statistically, about 160 of the kids in the school will be alcoholic or problem drinkers. And the number of them who will live with, marry, or have a parent or child that abuses alcohol jumps to about 1400 kids.

Who would have guessed that I would be speaking to people about this. A reporter from the Denver Post, Tina Griego, wrote to me and said, “To read your writing makes me think about how when my dad was drinking it was as if he could only play the highest and lowest notes on a piano. But when he was sober, all those notes in between were once again his and they brought to his life depth and nuance and beauty. I just wanted to thank you. You'll be in my thoughts.” WOW! A columnist for a major daily wrote to me!

I also heard from my sister that her brother-in-law had, out of nowhere, just checked himself into a treatment facility. She said she would like to think that my progress has something to do with him deciding to do this. When I saw him three weeks ago, he said he wasn’t ready and I told him, “If you aren’t ready, don’t go, don’t waste your time or their time. But someday, you will say, enough! And when you say that, you’ll be ready.”

Maybe he said, ‘enough.’ Maybe it had nothing to do with me, but I feel rewarded to have at least have had an answer for him that I hope made sense to him. An alcoholic is always told, “You can do it, now is the time, you’ll feel better, just stick with it, do it for yourself, blah blah,” and these things are meaningless to someone who lives with an addiction, because the addiction is telling you the opposite, and who are we inclined to listen to?

AA tells you that the first step is admitting you have a problem, and I am not going to get into why I hate AA, but this is one of the countless reasons. As an addict we already know we have a problem, geezus, we’re alcoholics not idiots. The problems are endless, they’re not some great big shock to us, its not like we wake up one day and say, ‘WOW, this is bad!’ I mean, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that the mornings of dry heaves, the hidden cupboards full of booze, the lack of real world interaction, the falls, scrapes, phantom bruises, job issues, relationship issues are problems. FREAKIN DUH!

The first step to recovery is just simply saying, ‘ok, enough.’

My dad was taking me back to the ranch one Sunday afternoon and I was showing him my running route – its my endurance run that I run each week, it’s a little less than 10 miles. He clocked it and was a little surprised that I do this with ease, heck I ran 4.5 miles today before the sun was completely up, and it was 17 degrees!

And he was silent for a little bit of the car ride, I think he was absorbing the idea that my life is becoming what it is becoming, and the speed its happening.

He spoke up and asked softly, ‘Think back, kid, to where you were last year at this time….’ (its cool that he still calls me 'kid')

The answer broke my heart. I thought about my relationship with someone I truly loved which failed miserably because of the drinking. That person had had ‘enough.’ I thought about the half assed comfort I was able to provide my family when my cousin killed herself because I was so far into my bottle that I could only emerge for brief moments of clarity, take a breath, realize the landscape of grief sucked too bad, and then grab another drink.

I thought about my ballooning weight and the fact that I had completely given up on the hope that I would ever again look in the mirror and like who or what I saw. I remember that I was so uninvolved with my job that I only showed up at work, awaiting the lay-off, I don’t think I even showered or combed my hair, I was relieved when they told me they were downsizing my department. Maybe they had also had ‘enough’

I remembered the strained relationships with my family. The apathy I felt towards them was painful for them, but, I really had lost the desire to stay plugged in or connected. Spiritually I had none of my sparkle, no energy, no real joy at all. I was black inside, a bottle of gin filled the hole where my soul once lived.

Through all this my companions were limited to the nice Asian lady who owned the liquor store and my dog – and even the dog was losing interest in me – she would sleep in her kennel even when I invited her on the bed with me. I remember I was so exhausted. ‘Tired’ is the only word that comes to mind. I had finally, just about, had ‘enough’.

And these memories brought me back even further – two years ago, right about this time, I nearly murdered myself – I word it like that intentionally because it would NOT have been a suicide, it would have been a murder, a manslaughter because it would have been my own carelessness and negligence that killed me. After aspiring on my own toxic vomit, I spent two weeks in the hospital on breathing tubes, unconscious, with a caring family who didn’t know if I would wake in a vegetative state or even worse.

My parents would come to see me daily and encourage me to wake up, Alex would take the bus or walk to the hospital to spend time with me. Everyone prayed and what a great tragedy to have died during the holiday season, Geezus, talk about crappy timing! The consequence would have been catastrophic for everyone, probably forever. What a great legacy that would have left, the guy who selfishly stole the holidays from everyone.

The doctors told me that if I kept it up I would die in 2-3 years.

Its now 2 years later. I am alive and well. Better than I have been in almost 20 years. My mom has always said how much she dislikes Thanksgiving – for whatever reason, every year for as long as I can remember, she laments on the holiday. She loves Christmas, 4th of July, hell, I’m sure she even celebrates Flag Day somehow, but Thanksgiving is a holiday that she really isn’t all that excited about every year.

This year, however, after the standard and almost required Thanksgiving family argument, I hope she takes a second and forgets all about me, because this year, I’m A-OK, and back from wherever it was I was for so many years. I hope Alex enjoys the day, drowned in indulgence to the point of sickness (Alex REALLY loves to eat), worry free, and I hope that I am the furthest thing from Alex's mind! Alex deserves a worry free day after all the days spent tied in knots concerned about me. I hope my dad spends his day watching football and thinking about a great meal, not wondering if I am going to spend the four day holiday drunk. I hope my absence is hardly noticed by my nephews and niece and their parents because they won’t need to wonder if I am gone because I am in some altered state of intoxication. Last year, my brother’s son asked where I worked, my sister’s son said, ‘He doesn’t work, he drinks.’

There is something that lightens my load to know that this year I am not the source of worry or anguish for the people I care about. Its kind of cool to know that my well-being isn’t even a thought. For the first time in a long time, I can say, ‘I’m doing just fine!’ and that’s ENOUGH for me to be thankful for!

Peace all have a great week.

Don't microwave a steak.

One of the hardest parts about going on weekend pass isn’t returning. I love to come back. Last weekend, before I even left my parents’ house I was being bombarded by messages and emails from the guys at the ranch who wanted to know when I would be back, I had been away from home for two days and we had a lot of catching up to do.

The hard part about returning is the fact that I know how long it will be before I return for a break, and the minutes after I return are the farthest minutes I will have from the next pass. Waiting!

There’s a lot of waiting in recovery. It doesn’t just happen. If only we could take a magic pill and it would all be fixed! We’d probably have to open a new rehab with people addicted to magic pills. But it takes time. I say this because one of the hardest parts for anyone who is living an addiction is waiting.

(note: I’d like you to notice I stopped saying ‘suffering an addiction’. I started using this term in an essay to my case manager a month ago and he asked me to explain it and my answer is this, I don’t feel like I need to ‘suffer’ from addiction forever. I have one, and I live with it, but it shouldn’t have to make me suffer. He liked the answer.)

Anyway, waiting is real tough. In fact, I haven’t written this blog in a week and a half because I’ve been super busy getting ready to phase in a couple weeks, and so you’ve had to wait; anxiously, I am sure (riiiight)

Part of what makes it difficult to wait is the immediate gratification offered by alcohol or drugs or tobacco or sex or gambling or food or shopping or whatever you are addicted to. Addiction becomes much easier when you can just say to yourself, ‘This is all too stressful, I think I need to go have a smoke,’ and you feel the immediate effects.

Its very interesting to me that one of the best tools in rehab isn’t the groups, isn’t the meetings, isn’t the therapy, it’s the waiting. Sometimes it’s ENDLESS, all the damn waiting. But it takes nearly a year for your brain to detoxify itself from the saturation of alcohol, sometimes it takes longer. Nothing can speed this up, nothing ‘fixes’ it except time. It’s the closest thing you’ll ever get to a magic pill.

Around this point in my sobriety (about 6 months) Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome should be setting in. This is your brain’s last ditch attempt to convince your body that it needs to drink or do drugs or smoke or whatever. At about 6 months your brain is beginning to realize that you aren’t going to be giving it the immediate gratification it’s been expecting and it begins to play tricks on you.

During PAWS, the brain begins to mimic phantom inebriation or phantom intoxication or phantom satisfaction. Its the brain’s way of ‘reminding’ the body, “Hey, remember how good it felt?” This is where the rubber meets the road for addicts, this is where most who will fall off the wagon just decide to pull the wagon over and get a frosty beverage. This is when a smoker will most likely begin smoking, a drinker will take a drink or a gambler will make a ‘friendly wager.’

Its also when it is the most dangerous because the body’s physical tolerance is so low yet the mental tolerance has skyrocketed and many who do relapse in a PAWS episode don’t come out of it with any forgiveness from their body. Many die.

I’m a little bit afraid of this. I haven’t had any real cravings or any real phantom inebriation, but I am clumsier than usual and slightly more irritable and having some sleeplessness and these are symptoms of PAWS. Because I wasn’t a daily drinker, the effects may be less pronounced, but that doesn’t mean that I am not equally as vulnerable as the daily drinker to grabbing ‘just one.’ And the cure for PAWS.... you just gotta wait.

Yes, can you believe that? More waiting! Ugh!

Brian just phased this week, he’s the first of my friends to phase and he’s ready to go to work. He has been looking for a job for a month now. He finally got an interview and then we had snow, it got canceled, they didnt call back to reschedule for three days, then they did and he went but the person who was to interview him was sick, so he had to wait longer. Then he had the interview and they asked him to take a drug test (which he is excited about because this is one drug test he KNOWS he doesn’t have to worry about), and now he is waiting to hear a start date. Waiting.

As an addict who is being forced to wait, he is absolutely miserable to be around I might add. He obsesses on it, he can’t stop thinking or talking about it. Curtis quipped, “I hope they hurry and call Brian back, it will be good for all of us so we don’t have to go ahead and kill him like we are all secretly planning.”

Lane is waiting to take his math entrance exams so he can start school in the spring semester. He is waiting because he wants to get into the math he needs for his degree, and not have to take a refresher course which will require money and more waiting!

I am ready to phase, I am waiting to start work too. I am waiting to have money, pay my parents for helping keep me afloat here, waiting to start living like a normal person. It’s killing me. I am waiting for someone to hurry up and leave so I can move to the other dorm. Once I phase in a couple weeks it will be the last time I ever phase in this program. But I gotta wait.

I think back on all this progress. My body and mind are in excellent shape. My heart is in great shape, my spirit is ALIVE again. I don’t feel polluted mentally or physically. Hell, even my teeth are clean sub-gingivally (that means they fold the gum back, scrape the tooth and fold it back, yes, it hurts like a motha!!) When I get back, The Drover-v2.0 is gonna be one hell-uv-a-guy, friend, son, brother, uncle, employee. And guess what, you’re all just gonna have to wait; just like me.

And all this good feeling is part of the PAWS period in recovery also. Your brain, in all it’s sneakiness, is telling my body – “OK, um, so maybe you don’t remember how good it felt to be drunk.... but you feel GREAT now, you’re cured, go on with your life.”

That feeling of well-being can not get out of control. The guys on the ranch call this the phase 3 slide. It’s when the guys in phase 3 (the phase I am entering) begin to forget the bad that addiction caused, their brain begins to remember the good. We feel great, feel attractive, feel smart, look better than we have in years. We slide. Boom roasted, relapse.

The hard part is staying with the program and working the program because, as I said earlier, it takes at least a full year for your brain to detoxify. I’m only 6 months in to it. The euphoric confidence I am feeling is not real. I firmly believe that if you are trying to change a lifelong behavior pattern, an addiction, a year is a minimum. You can’t relapse if you haven’t been sober for at least 365 days. You can’t ‘start’ smoking again if you haven’t stopped for at least 365 days. Neurochemically, your brain is still under the influence of your addiction and absolute detoxification can take up to 7 years.

It’s a little cliche to say that its worth it to wait, but it is. My sister is finally going to get her chemistry degree after a decade in school. My parent’s are beginning to think about retirement, I can run 5 miles a day but when I started here my goal was to be able to run ONCE to the dairy barn without stopping (um, 200 yeards - shaddup, thats far). Sobriety is like that. It takes a lot of waiting, and thinking, and dare I say it, praying. But eventually, one day you do run past the dairy barn.

Take a steak and throw it in the microwave for 5 minutes and it comes out cooked, but its jerky-like. Its tough, it has no flavor, it does nothing for your pallet. Now take a steak and put it in a crock pot. It takes 12-15 hours to cook. But its juicy, it has flavor, it satisfies the pallet.

One night right before I came to the ranch, I was sauced and my mom went to pick me up to have me stay with her. A rescue of sorts. I asked my mom, “Why is this me? Why do I have this? Why do I have to be the one who drinks?” and she didn’t have a real answer that could satisfy me. Despite what we sometimes think, our parents are only human and sometimes as lost as we are. I was seeking an answer and she didn’t have one. I remember thinking that night that I would need to figure it out. But I would have to wait. Again with all the damn waiting.

I waited and since then I’ve realized the answer was in the question. The curiosity about why I was like that was what lead me to seek help – I couldn't get an answer, so I began to live this question. Its why I work on this all day and night when I am here. I am passionate about understanding this malfunction in my nature. There may not be a magic pill of an answer, but in the quest to understand myself because I dared to ask the question, I am healing.

In all that asking, I’ve begun to conclude that I feel like being here is preparing me for the rest of my life. I feel like I am about to live some real blessings and getting the upper hand on this addiction thing was just to get me ready for it. The weight of real blessings will crush you if you aren’t ready for them. The journey to get them just fortifies your ability to receive them. And, well, you’ve got to wait. I spoke recently to Bob, a trusted chaplain and he helped me make some sense of all this.

Like so many people, I used to believe that every bright morning concluded with a dark night, and now, I’ve learned that every dark night is concluded by a bright morning. You can’t see it coming, dark is dark, then its light, and you’ve just got to wait.

Bob passed me something that Sister Maria Rilke wrote:
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart,
Try to love the questions themselves,
Do not now seek the answers, they may not be given because you would not be able to live them, And the point is to live everything,
So live the questions now,
Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it,
Live along some distant day into the answers.

There you have it, don’t expect the answer, release yourself from ‘suffering’ from your addiction, and quit microwaving your steak; live the questions, live your addiction, live for the juicy meat in the crock pot.

And how do you do this? Well, you’ve just got to wait.

DAYS SOBER: 187 (6 months, 2 days)

DAYS WITHOUT BONNIE HUNT: 178 Days