my fifth step

[honeydumplin]

My name is Kevin, and I'm an alcoholic.
This may not be everything, but it'll be most of it.
Some of it isn't pretty, then again whose is?

"We pocket our pride and go to it, illuminating every twist of character, every dark cranny of the past.
Once we have taken this step, witholding nothing, we are delighted. We can look the world in the eye.
We can be alone at perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall from us. we begin to feel the nearness of our Creator.
We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience.
The feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly. We feel we are on the Broad Highway,
walking hand in hand with the Spirit of the Universe."
p. 75 Alcoholics Anonymous

Step four for me, was like a series of charts and graphs, exposing behavioral patterns,
and offering some balance to an otherwise unbalanced awareness.
It makes me conscious of my liabilities, and paradoxically, a few assets.
If four is a map for my transgressions, then five is the eye-opener;
the liberating confessional. That rocket that propels one into the fourth dimension.
After several pages of columns and descriptions, five provides a pathway through
the restrictions built up over the years and carried out by all of those resentments,
fears, and sexual suppressions, which were revealed in four.

Acceptance is another plausible reason to do a fifth step. For once in my life,
it actually felt like I was a part of the human race. It is truly a leap of faith.
After doing a fifth step, it makes all the more sense, that some of the most
sickest alcoholics in the world can really be happy, joyous, and free.

Before I was old enough to walk, there were two television commercials
that would send me pushing, walker included, down the hallway of a single-
wide trailer, in hopes of catching a glimpse of the TV. One was for double-
mint chewing gum, and the other one was the one for Valleydale. It was the
one that had the dancing pigs.

Anyway, that walker would get hung up on something in the hallway, and
my face would immediately turn beet red, because I wasn't able to get my
way and see those two commercials. But when my path was unobstructed,
I would sit in front of the screen with this huge grin and watch in bliss.

Now I'm talking about a child, but this pattern of behavior continued on and on
into my drinking and drugging. I've come to the conclusion that I was just
as high, if not higher, before I took the first drink or the first hit of crack, than
I ever was after the last drink or the last hit. By then, it was just so,
I dunno, five minutes ago.

Five minutes of anxiety. Five minutes of a pink cloud. Still five more minutes
of being completely terrorfied, then wanting to do it again. The anticipation.
The euphoria. The fear and pure hell that followed the next hours, and
ran on into the next morning. The absolution of total resolve, to withdraw
from certain situations, swearing up and down to never, ever do them again,
only to find myself actually doing the same thing that very next night.

Wow, what a vicious cycle.

Changes in the weather, in locations where I lived, and even
different acquaintances while working different jobs, didn't prove to be
the magic I'd made them out to be. Blame had been placed on everything
from my upbringing to the situations that I felt were out to get me, to
the economic conditions that were here at the time.

Against the advice of others who knew far more about the process,
I filed papers for a personal bankruptcy owing my creditors less than
twenty thousand dollars. I was looking for the easy way out, and the
quick fix. Slowly digging my way out and actually paying the banks
and other creditors was out of the question. So I scraped up enough
money to file and proceeded to ruin my credit for the next ten years.

It was like that. A pattern of decision made, second thoughts,
usually attached to a person that I felt hadn't done his or her
part to provide the vital information that was needed to supposedly
help me make those decisions, as I played the victim, followed
up a refusal to take necessary responsibility for the predicaments
in which I so often landed.

The ambivalance was also loaded with excuses and alibis that would start out
firm, but gradually develop into layer upon layer of nothing more than this
litany of ifs, ands, and buts that would turn into such a huge pile of b.s.,
it didn't even make sense to me anymore. It had become so easily repeated
though, it was like pressing the play button and hearing myself say the same
thing over and over.

"If so-and-so had just been smart enough to tell me about the this-and-that
before I did such-and-such, maybe, just maybe the thingamajig wouldn't have
got completely screwed up in the whatcha-ma-call-it."

"And the crazy, good for nothing bank. Had they credited my account like they
were supposed to before that stupid two o'clock cut off, then my atm card would
have worked, and I wouldn't have bounced those two two dollar checks for those
last two beers I drank at two am."

"But it was raining. The road was slick. I didn't damage her car that much.
But her witness got my plate number—she was a drunk looking through the
window of a bar. But I had to leave the scene. I had no choice but hide the car.
My wife started the fight.”

What I usually heard were words like those of my defense, “don't look at me son,
look at the judge."

[honeydumplin]

In something read recently, I came across a passage that stated the following:
Step four is a spiritual exercise; not an immoral inventory.
This exercise has also reminded me of another interesting process in going through the steps.

That being the fact not expecting a sudden change, and accepting the gradual experience of allowing the steps to work in my life.
Progress, not perfection has been the key to unlocking obvious results, and not waving some sort of magic wand
in order to make it all go away. It is not an overnight matter, etc..., etc.

Another thing that has been pilfered can be recited from a book I’m reading, which essentially says
that a lot of my anger is generated by fear of not getting something that I want, which mostly revolves
around my inability to ultimately control practically everything—another illusion.

Nearly every resentment that is revealed stems from not accepting my powerlessness.

The act of putting in black and white, on paper, and on this screen, demonstrates and removes
a certain amount of control, and power that the resentment has over me. At least experience of
past fourth steps has proven this, and this has been the case with this one, because after about
48 hours there was this feeling of peace and tranquility that began to settle over me.

Serenity, in its form of trudging along the daily path in a tolerant view of society in general seems
to me a more conducive existence, than wasting all of this energy fighting the imagined extremes
occurring only in my own head.

More step 5
_________________________________
A nearby country store sold beer to minors. Usually, out of the house required a
stop there. I had been driving for about a month when I got drunk for the first time.
It was a six pack. My head was light, the music was loud, and I got to see just how
fast my car would go. My driving skills stone sober were less than average, even
for a sixteen year old.

I didn't wreck that night, but before I turned 21, I totalled a pick-up while meeting
another vehicle head on in a blind curve, and later on ran another vehicle into an embankment,
while swatting at a fly. In the summer of '85, I collided into the back of a tractor and trailer
after falling asleep at the wheel on the freeway.

One of my first jobs was a busboy, where I discovered wine, and more liquor. I drank
what people left in their glasses, and made sure all of the wine buckets were stowed
properly. Every now and then, I'd take a full bottle from the walk-in cooler, and hide
it somewhere.

Although not seriously injured, in October of that same year, while trying to impress
one of my friends by showing him how I could climb into my second story apartment,
a steel hand rail broke and I fell about fourteen feet on my right arm, fracturing it in two places.

Writing with the other hand was another excuse used to avoid paying attention in class.
I didn't fail out of college. I gave up. This was a pattern. I was a hard worker, but if things
got the least bit out of sync, or confusing, I'd be off on another adventure.

College allowed the experience of drunken fraternity episodes, and a part-time job as a waiter,
and helping out my father in construction. My drinking increased significantly, and the drug use
began to take off. When I wasn't partying after my night job, I was partying after my day job with my old man.

We both drank rather heavily, and would get into these knock down, drag outs sometimes after working hours.
Of course we didn't need much to drink in order to fight, because we didn't care much about each other's
company anyway.

[honeydumplin]

Although this will be something, it is still uncertain, at least to me, exactly what it might be. I only know that some housecleaning needs to be done on my part, and that if (and we both know what a big word that is) an inventory of some kind isn't made pretty soon, something else will build up that well,
could lead to other things of which I have no idea, but am pretty positive that it would be bad.

To start off, a suggested exercise has impeccable timing. And here it is in all its here, been, there, and now. This is all the different roles we are, and hopefully an honest grade of our inventory in
such aspects. A report card.

The report card for me personally, is what kept me from "beating myself up"
so much during the steps, preventing me from wallowing in this pit of self-pity, remorse, regret, and so on. It keeps my eye on the goal, so to speak,
and allows me to see the good, with the bad, if you will.

What I am Grade
Christian F
Son D
Son-in-law C
Brother-in-law B
Husband C
Employee B-
A.A. Trusted Servant C-
Sponsee C+
Writer C-
Reader D
Movie Critic Novice A+
Artist C
United States Citizen B

Let me begin at the bottom. As the list proceeds back to the beginning, a more honest evaluation will
be revealed.

The love that I have for making art jettisons me in ways that nothing, with the exception of what is located at the top of the list and often plays off of one another, ever has. Creativity evolves, it seems,
when the two (the top and the bottom co-exist) side by side. It is also prevalent in the other extreme,
where when one suffers, the other does as well. But there again, what other category plays well with a daily walk in the spirit? All of the above. With the exclusion of the critic of course. If anything, offering a critique of a movie, especially one made in the last five years, takes away the spirit. Or should I say, it prevents me from the seeking God's will.

The defined key, or the ideal, or the enchantment of a personal report card to produce a recognizable improvement resides hand-in-hand in the progression of what the big book describes as walking with the spirit of the universe, which introspectively simply means being guided by Christ. And until my will is exercised into that direction, and I'm honest with my self, the report card does not exemplify that.

The inability, or should I say the outright refusal, to be honest with myself is what keeps me drunk.
It is what keeps me in the insanity of step two, and tells me I can still run the show. It follows me like a ball and chain into step three, reminding me ever more that if I can just turn over 99% per cent of my will instead of all of it, that I may somehow be alright. Wrong I have been to assume this. For it is in the friendly confines of my one per cent refusal that I find myself making the decision again, and again, this time with more vigor, more rigorous honesty, which also allows me to see not only how I have failed at whatever it was that I sought to find, but that the power greater than myself, as God I understand, has enough mercy to let me try to do it over.


This dishonesty within my core is the same culprit that rears its ugly head by using my own ego-driven head, to tell me everything is okay after I am in the rooms for awhile. You know after doing four and five, seeing the defects, and doing the amends, that I have got this A.A. Thing all figured out, and that with the help of offering my unique perspective, recovering drunks can more appreciate my expertise and start showing me a little respect. This is poppycock.

The only way I can get a glimpse of what Moses saw from the other side of the Jordan River, is to humble myself honestly, before God and my fellows. Period. Until then, what I have to offer is “as Kevin sees it”; a steady stream of pontification, rambling on into an eventual evaporation into a secluded desert of gradiosity, and hyperbole, surrounded by self-seeking vainglory, pity, and shame. I do not wish to encounter any of those along the road of my happy destiny. Yet I do. And it is only through an inventory, or a housecleaning, that my common romantic idol of complacency can be more clearly, held at bay.

When it comes to taking another person's, I do that instinctively. It has come from the obvious years of thinking of myself as a good judge of character. The problem is, by the time someone's character has been revealed, I've already assassinated it. This too has changed. But not nearly enough. And so more honesty is sought, and more inventory divulged, and so on.

Fearless, and searching moral inventory of myself has a categorical means of displaying before you my utmost vulnerabilities. Thus, the clearing on the happy road of destiny awaits me just ahead, and in my own foolish pride, I try to avoid it. Why? Is it because it makes me look bad? No. That's been done before and I lived through it.

Is it more along the lines of preserving my fine reputation, merely another mirage in the desert? Yes, yes. Oh now we're getting somewhere. Okay then, why don't I just come out and say it. No. Heaven forbid I say anything so preposterous. Well, is this, you know, an inventory. Well alright. I think I know a lot more about it than you do.

Ah, so there it is, you self-sponsoring jerk. You reveal yourself through your story. I can see clearer now. The rain is coming. But this is so weird. So strange opening up. Yeah, but it works every time. And so see, now I've got some faith. And yes some more courage to take that leap.

You see, I'll try to use an “artistic” analogy. Picture the inventory as a blank canvas, representing the world in which I exist. Now I can show up at meetings with my colorful blue big book, and my 12 & 12, and draw lines in there, and can and have, even share from time to time, in a somewhat guarded manner, holding my palette and brush closely to my chest. I can be a blank canvas in Alcoholics Anonymous, and somehow manage to not take a drink.

So what do I do? I read the books, make a black and white trail of activities, which by the way, I reference whenever possible. And when the black and white doesn't work anymore, and I find all too well that it doesn't, I'll simply take a broad brush, and paint the whole thing gray, That's it. That's it. I won't go to either side of any one issue, I'll exist in this misery of never taking a stand on anything and then begin to try and convince you how great it can be. A gray man with a blue big book. Yeah, now I can talk a talk of experience, strength, and hope.

But see, my buddies, they know better. They've seen the unadulterated, real me. And if I'm being honest with myself, I've seen the real me too. I'd rather take a drink than be a phony. Wow, now I'm seeing revelations. Did that for years. Actually saw myself more real, as a drunk, than I ever did sober. But then I despised what I saw, and since I was the drunk, I despised my own self.

What the third step gave to me was that blank canvas. The fourth turns and hands me the brushes. Then I realize God ain't going to do it for me, and neither is my sponsor. But when I leap out in five, both are there. And then I'm broad-sided in six and seven with something that I've yet to see. No longer is it black, or white, or even gray. There's color.

What was listed on the report card as a United States Citizen.
Grade: B

I'm proud about the fact that I'm a contributor to a variety of things. I pay my fair share of taxes. I vote. I get up and go to work. But I do complain a lot at the status of things. Off-shoring, out-sourcing, NAFTA, CAFTA, SHMAFTA. Globalism, internationalism, and a foreign policy based primarily on intervention, extortion, bribery, and generous monetary hand-outs from a country that is financially broke is about the worst thing to ever come down the pike. About twenty years ago, so-called economic experts were selling the benefits of the euro, a common currency, and touting the advantages of a European Common Market, and a New World Order. Something about this didn't smell right then, and now it appears even worse. Yet it remains a euphoric triumph, and a mantra often repeated during failure.

I want to protect our borders. When George W. Bush said that the Hispanics were here to do jobs that the American people wouldn't do, I was insulted., and also felt ashamed of the whole mentality that lower-skilled jobs should occur under the table, that everyone should go to college, and that we're all basically a bunch of spoiled rotten brats, too lazy to pick our own vegetables.

I don't hate the immigrants. It's the system that needs to change. The politicians are the ones who are too spineless to change it. They're bought off, and paid for with more money from greedy bastards, whose primary addiction to cheap labor, re-election, and endless profit margins that have resulted in illegals turning into pawns on a chess board, sacrificed, and taken advantage of for political gain, by people in Washington both out of touch, and self-absorbed. Lawmakers need to do something besides sitting on their hands, and passing a lot of bull**** legislation that the majority don't want, and can't afford, while standing idly by, watching our currency and culture become nothing more than a nostalgic remembrance of days gone by.

My civil rights should be protected. So should the articles of the Geneva Convention. The whole idea of conjuring-up a frenzy, just to to bomb whomever we please, is simply more provocation for our adversaries. Holding people regardless of who they are, for the rest of their life, under some sort of suspicion, while running around the world hypocritically spreading a facade of democracy that we ourselves fail to adhere to, is nothing more than provocation for friend and foe.
And exactly who are our adversaries anyway? People who don't agree with our way of life? And what is that? Is government subsidized illegitimacy, publicly sponsored sloth some ideal that we wish the rest of the world to emulate?

Perhaps an argument ought to be made to clean up our own back yard, before we chose to dictate the course of action for other nations. No, non-intervention does not necessarily translate into a pacifistic approach, a bit more than nation-building should be aligned with imperialism, or colonization. If we are under an attack, then we have every right to defend ourselves. But shedding the blood of our own people, and maiming them on the soil of a people with which we disagree via a nuclear stance based on mere hypothesis is just another road that Americans, as a whole, do not wish to go down again. By not interfering in the processes of other countries, we are not detached from the rest of the world, but are much more inclined to take the bull by the horns, and sit the example that we, as a people should represent.


I truly believe that the electoral college is an archaic exercise invented during a time of civil unrest. It needs to have a gigantic knife put through its heart, and abolished forever. I also think that all the primaries need to happen on, or about the same day, or the same week. To heck with a bunch of momentum. This ain't a football game. It's a presidential campaign for crying out loud, and after a few thousand empty promises, and a few thousand trips through Iowa and New Hampshire, one might see enough of all of these turkeys in one place. Wonder if those people up there are sick of looking at them yet? I know I am, and I'm not even there.

I still believe that the way things look now, most of us are in for a raw deal. It will be like watching a train wreck happen in slow motion, especially if neither side of the aisle wishes to pursue a balanced budget. Most people would be excited just to see social security preserved by some means, which is another way the government has run amok against the desires of its own people. We should also take issue with its reference to an entitlement. The only way that the media, or anyone can lay claim to it as an entitlement, is the people who draw off of it, when they haven't put forth a red cent to the fund. Those who work all of their life though, have paid into for a long time. There's literally millions of them who have to depend on that in order to live. It's theirs, not the government's to go through like a sailor on leave in Australia.

But I still believe in things like promise, and potential, free markets, and what the country used to be like. Call me old fashioned. Call me an isolationist, or a xenophobe. But time comes to pass, and I'm like a poor bastard caught behind enemy lines, listening to the birds chirp in my own head, while being bombed by friendly fire, and lead by a bunch of war-mongering Zionists, who've stolen God's will, claimed it as their own, and have done everything within their power to accelerate the apocalypse.

But as usual, I've strayed way from the point of being an American Citizen. The real reason that a grade of B has appeared, is the fact that I am proud of my country, and actually enjoy contributing both my time in helping others and what little money I can afford to worthwhile causes. With that comes a sense of responsibility not only to my fellow man, but to myself, both in a united ownership of
a nation presently, and in its results for future generations to come. It is when I'm able to open my mind up in order to see both sides of an issue, that I feel best about being a citizen.
************************************************** ********************************
Reader and Writer
Grade: D and C-, respectively

In the reading and writing department, the grades are substantially low. This is because I see myself as extremely limited in both categories. The usual reading that I do consists newspapers, quite commonly the local one, and the Washington Post. And even though the Times is great for keeping up with bite size pieces of current events, the Post never ceases to stimulate my mind in a much more objective manner. The Outlook section is first-rate in its political coverage, and the entertainment and arts sections are very interesting. Since I don't get drunk anymore, I have found that my attention span has increased a bit, but my ability to retain information after having read it still needs improvement.

The more I read, the more I want to read. When I am able to sit down with a book, fiction, generally short stories, and somewhat twisted tales are appealing. But I've still got a whole bookshelf full of stuff that I do very little but walk by every day. Thus the low grade.

I've also given a low grade to myself as a writer, because most of the time I see it as stale, and boring. My sentences are elementary. I ramble. And there's really no clear cut method to an origin, a course of what I'm saying, or a mission involved. I can spend five hours writing five paragraphs, and another fifteen minutes editing it. I do much better when I don't think about everything that I write, and just do it.

This has already been a terrific exercise. I look forward to getting into the deeper parts of myself, and discussing it openly.

[honeydumplin]

What I'm about to tell you has rattled around in my head for a very long time, going into so many different directions as to how exactly to reference the subject matter, and in what way it can be discussed without portraying myself as something, that in various social circles, I will be considered just
the same.

To say that it hasn't been analyzed inside of my own head would be an understatement. In hopes of some sort of personal transcendence, I've searched for origins, suspicions of childhood abuse or anything that could be used as a determing factor that would have the potential of these results, to no avail.

The bouts in and out with the guilt over the years are something that I do feel has more of the "nurture" aspects than that of my personal "nature". And this is just my opinion, but maybe it is because the majority of our society automatically label something like this as a forbidden taboo, thus multiplying animosity that often accrues through narrow-minded hatred over certain sectors based on indifference.

This is where recovery has played a much more major role than anything I could have possibly imagined to accept. Acceptance of what it may be like to "walk a mile in another man's shoes"--to accept the concept of what some other person may have been born like, or what he or she, through the course of both childhood and adulthood, had to endure by either choice or powerlessness, and to be grateful for the fact that we are not all the same, but that through our differences, we can build unity, adapt and grow.

It is here that I wish to begin yet another journey into the unchartered
waters of the past that has not begun to yield itself to that aforementioned
vacuum. Oh the outside, albeit obscure, has been revealed, which enabled
me to relinquish the guilt and the shame. But the context and the in-depth
analysis, of what terms I have until the present point, deemed unmanageable,
were embedded in my psyche, that through the passage of time, prohibited
the ultimate fruition of one ninth step promise.

In detail, my conscience continues to tell me, that maybe further amends
are needed. And given the circumstances of what demons due haunt me,
perhaps the amends is to not only myself, but a living amends, to members of the human race; those which are cerebrally held in contual contempt for who and what they are, regardless of my own either skewed, or equal, nonjudgemental self-perception.

Subsequently, as long as this prejudicial, discriminatory criteria to broadly brush about which, for the sake of discussion, could only be termed as a sexual continuum, I would have forever been at odds with my own sexuality, and thus unpervasive. Regretting the past; sealing the door shut. That is the thorn that threatened my early recovery, usually in the heat of a restless, irritable, and dicsontented night. It was imperative to shed the light on this, lest I lie, tormented in its wake.

It is when I geniunely see other people as God's creations, and try to sincerely love them the way they are, and live as an example, that I really feel things that up until the point of sobreity, were completely foreign to a drunk like me.

Be assured, I do not wish to use this venue to defend myself, nor do I wish use this revelation as any kind of metamorphosis. It is really just the biggest secret of my past.

At a recovery workshop awhile back, during the first stages of being sober, when I couldn't figure out what was so funny. A guy shared from the podium a story about picking up a woman, and later discovering that she
was really a man.

At that point, I wanted to stand up in the middle of everybody and go, "Oh yeah, buddy? You know what? I was your nightmare. I was the drag queen!"

Ever since I can remember, I've had a fascination of women. The things they wear. Their shoes. Their conversations when they're not around men. The way they lead us on, then back off, again and again. The way that some of them play with their hair in the rearview mirror, when they're waiting on the stoplight to change. I'm taken away by all of it, almost to the point of intoxication.

Of course, like so many other areas of my twisted perceptions, anyone with any grasp of the world in general, knows good and well, that this was not reality at all. Its a magnified imagination, running amok, taking something that is only exposed from the outer edges, and turning it into mere fantasy. I mean, any man that has ever lived with a woman for any period of time is well aware of the fact that it ain't all lingerie, make-up, and high-heeled shoes.

I'm not a transsexual, and have no desire to be a woman. The whole scope of sexual identity has been compartmentalized into practically every possible combination imaginable. You're either a man or a woman. There's transsexual men, who've become and lived as men, and transsexual women, who've lived as women. But as far as someone all of a sudden discovering that they want to become a member of the opposite sex, it's just another psychological disorder. This is just my opinion, based on experience.

I knew something was wierd with me when I excited myself as a kid. And I won't bore you with the details. Suffice to say, it wasn't what I would call "normal". That remained the only tangible key I had in this feeble attempt to understand why I am the way I am.

Sure, the cosmetic transformation, the euphoric rush of nylon, and other superficial qualities about this and that can point recognize for thousands of stereotypes to throw stones at the whole thing. But somewhere therein, grew the sole unlocking mechanism.

I was intrigued with so much stuff that didn't add up. I'm more of a butch,
than a sissy. I don't have a dislike for gays, but I've always had this sorta built-in empathy for them. I've worked with them, lived with them, had drunken encounters with them both sexually, and platonic, and have been basically be whatever I wanted to around them, which made me comfortable. But as far as having a relationship with a man, I can't say that I've ever had the desire to.

Also, I can't tell you a specific point in time when my secret began taking on a much greater part of everything bad in my first marriage years ago. I knew that alongside various other problems we were experiencing, it was the straw that broke the camel's back in that marriage. And when my divorce was over, the drinking, drugs, and chasing any kind of prositute took over.

I've took me a very long time to realize that there's so much more to a relationship than any kind of sexual adventure I could have ever conceive.

Given the fact that I was a crossdresser weighed heavily indeed in an overall
context of my fifth step, debated and dissected similarly to the declarative that I drank a lot of scotch. But the statement comes up short and fails to solidify, the addictive behavior turned into an obssession, and like gangbusters, and destroying people, places, and things in its path, including the addict himself.

All from a man, that upon limited observation, basically took a drink of scotch. Far from a judgment call, it is more cause and effect,
and wrongs done to others.

Beside my own devices, an appetite for abnormality, grazing on
the edge of extremes is not atypical. A specific acquaintance, a frolic
on the beach, the one night stand, or a random fantasy may describe
in a general way what I used to be like. I can even implore you with
reproductions of historical soliloquy, poviding the progressive stages,
and further establish the needed objectives of what actually happened.
It is on the cusp of coming to terms with what I am like now, that
I am suddenly stopped in reality, and it is only through the threshold
of my sociopathic admission, that I am truly allowed to be set free.

Things that read more like a laundry list on the road to debauchery,
than an unadorned guy in drag with his fiance on Halloween. Not the
mere prevailing absence of a father figure, or a family that triangulated
itself during crisis, or the adolescent shower of motherly affection,
but more the man who shaved his legs the night before his first wedding,
got drunk, then jumped into bed with his future wife and her maid of
honor, then trying to have an affair on her with a high school girlfriend
shortly thereafter, and hiding notes underneath the mattress, then getting caught doing both was not enough. I had to raid her lingerie drawer
and try on all of the bikinis.

Every indication that I was somehow a pervert couldn't be
sugar-coated anymore with sweet stories about a shy and lonely,
thin-skinned child, who melted like putty at the very thought of criticism,
and constantly sought approval from his male peers. My pursuit of
infedelity, and blatant disrespect for her personal belongings had nothing
to do with my poor body image, or my gregarious erogenous zones.
Far removed from the quintessential storyline rapturing visions of genetic
girls, discovering that their husbands were transvestites, this woman
had essentially married a morally challenged man, and an inebriated
cactus attached. As far as she was concerned, the party was
over. For me, downward spiral had only just begun.

The bed on the other side hadn't even got cold, when cruising
the streets started the hunt for my next victim. It didn't matter if they
were gay or straight, as long as they somewhat resembled
the pages of my juvenile mind. The looks were deceiving, and so
was I. Finding what I wanted was inevetible, and finding what I
had to have was another illusion, always seemingly, just out of
reach.

And although the scenery changed, the episodes grew worse.
I furnished her with booze and pot, then proceeded to pursue
even more of what she didn't have. Her girlfriends didn't have it
either, but that didn't stop me from chasing them too, along with
any hooker with a pipe and habit. The one-night stands, and
twenty dollar tours only teased the insatiable, leading to more
and more. And so I ran away from everything that lasted longer than
a date on a milk carton, and toward anything newer than a loaf
of bread.


Look, a lot of what I did was just plain wrong. But there's also
the other side of my past that had to be opened. If no honest revelation
about my past had been told, I was to never completely get my head around
all that happened, while I participated in this. That will not only keep me sick in the sense of secrecy and fear. It will get me drunk.


Putting it all into some gigantic box with a ribbon on top and labeling
it does the exact same thing, as another person trying to do it for me; its uncalled for. An unsolicited evaluation, based on nothing more than opinion, which usually borderlines bias misconceptions, often accompanied by a narrow-minded view of society in general: another thing from which, I wish to distance myself. To surround the intricate motives, innate desires, genes, physical make-up, and mental states of those involved, is to navigate a minefield of bigotry designed primarily to distinguish certain sectors in an inferior, and/or superior suspension of equality, and to further sustain the judgement that I had for other people, which was way off base.

Personal adventures have also proven that this demagoguery isn't
limited to outside observers, and onlookers exclusively. Condescension and
prejudice along the different plateaus of this mosaic are frequently regarded
with the same fervor as the ones who originated them. The allied aversion created by a select few militants broadcasting their slights and slangs often runs rampant, identifying people with labels, until they're final label lands them, appropriated into the subculture's lexicon. Nevertheless, throughout the midnight raves, the dyke bars, dance floors, and pride parades, one practicality strikes a chord inside the beaten path. Sometimes a duck is just a duck.

Whether I accompanied a stormy cast of voyeurs walking a provacative plank of prostitution, lip syncing a Donna Summers tune in private, or lying dormant on a couch in front of a psychiatrist confronting the confusion of it all, a common theme will forever carve its niche among the deviant, destitute, and the dominant, and that is to wallow in guilt, shame, and self-pity of it all, or to somehow change the opression and adversity quite common with the entire lot.

Vaguely, I do recall both of these choices hammering their way into the
recovery process. Not unlike the symbolic angel, and devil, that on my shoulders stayed, the compromise and sacrifice, began to temper my unjust nature, into the scarcely scatched surface of a guided obedience, I so desperately craved.

[honeydumplin]

Man, I'm really glad that post is over.

Its important for me to realize prior to a fifth step, that I may
not cover everything at one time, and that I may not do it
exactly right. I'm not reinventing the wheel, but taking what
I have hopefully learned in step four, and using it to shine the
light on five, in looking at it the way that it really happened,
as opposed to how my early sobriety wants to see it.

There is step ten for daily inventories, and if one desires,
another step five. The most important thing for me was
to start foremost with what was eating at me continually,
which were sex, self righteous anger, politics, and a serious
case of being anti-social, almost to the point of not wanting
to be around anybody.

Problems were something that I ran away from. Wrongs were
swept under the rug. Whatever damage may have been done
to anyone was soon forgotten. As my wife left one afternoon,
as the house sold divided, as the bankruptcy happened, and as
cars were repossessed, all I wanted to do was escape from it all;
wanting to drink, get high, and get the heck out of this place.

So at 27, I enlisted in the navy, not because of patriotism, but for
those neat looking cracker jack blue uniforms, and for thirty days
worth of vacation. What I needed, instead of crawling around in a ditch,
was an easy desk job, somewhere far, far away.

While waiting for boot camp, I moved into the deep southern Alabama
of my early upbringing. During those few months waiting to enlist,
I worked graveyard shift. An afternoon cocktail and a joint before work
were not unusual. I practically stayed high. I went to work stoned,
and usually had one rolled for later. It was the way of coping and
just getting through the day.

The night before I was sworn in, I paced back and forth
in front of a motel in Beckley, WV. I had cold feet, sorta like
the day I got married. But I decided to try. To make the best of
whatever was ahead.

I had been off the dope for 30 days, and had no idea that I would be
tested for anything else. After taking the oath and getting a plane,
I got settled in for the last few hours of freedom for the next eight
weeks. They were used to numb myself up as much as possible.

First there were the two beers on route to Charlotte, and a three hour
layover in the lounge. The flight to O'hare was another hour. After
landing there, and having some dinner there was more time for a few
more. So there were several hours of non-stop drinking.

Then I was informed that a breath test was something in my immediate
future. I waited as long as possible, which did nothing but increase
the anxiety, because sobering up at the point was basically out of the
question. I got on a late leaving van and proceeded to pop a whole
roll of certs during the ride in hopes of somehow hiding the smell, like
that might help. Yeah right. I reeked of alcohol. That unmistakable
smell of booze disguised vaguely with breath mints.
Not to mention that I was simply drunk, and had slight problems
every now and then with something called composure.

We were greeted on base by a group of navy guys screaming at
us, and demanding we stand at attention. I kept as best I could
a low profile, but knew that the inevitable would occur. It did.

After being taken into a classroom with these other recruits,
I saw several of the machines located in the back. Eventually
my name was called. I exhaled a small amount, hoping that
I could somehow cheat the results. Not long after the reading
came through, more of these white-clad men began to
appear out of the woodwork, or in this case, the bulkheads.

Then I started hearing words like, "Wow", and, "You gotta
be kiddin'".

No one ever mentioned a word to me directly. They kept us
up all night, yelling at us, and later running us through these
cold showers. As dawn started to eventually come into
focus, we were processed and given the standard sweats,
some flip flops, and the head shave.

There seemed like so many of us. And yet everyone was
given an adequate opportunity to prove ourselves to be
fit for special companies. If we could march, or sing well,
we could qualify to be a part of the more elite units, that
would travel around, and do different things.

That morning a company commander came up and stood eye
to eye with me, and after giving me the once over, asked
me how tall I was. I was so caught off guard, nothing
at all would come to mind.

"Man you don't even know how tall you are?" he asked again.

The try-out for the glee company was even worse, when
I made a feeble attempt to match a simple note struck
on the keyboard of a piano. The sound was so hideous.
I tried to talk them into a do-over.

"No, we're NOT doing it again!" was the reply.

Later on that same week, I was summoned to the office
of psychologist where an interview took place. I was
given a chance to opt out altogether,
or stay and stick it out. Since I had done such a terrible
job of finishing what I started in the past, I chose to
endure, and after some extra duty, and some more
yelling, I was in. For what, I was still unsure.

[honeydumplin]

A common theme without a doubt, was this feeling that somewhere
over the horizon, happiness awaited, chasing the very thing that
I never wanted to catch. The concept of success was an illusion lacking
the desire to be achieved. Failure became a comfortable venue for
playing the role of the victim, even though the search for pity
was as vacant as my commitment to finding a state of genuine
contentment.

Moments of contentment were reserved for some cynically regarded,
high-class rich dude, pondering a sunset aboard his yacht, or for
people who were frozen in time, on a movie screen or in a book,
never prepared for tomorrow. This twisted, limited attitude was that
I didn't make enough money to enjoy the day as much as the next guy.

I did little to prepare for anything. A whole approach oblivious
to the moment, oriented around the appearance of actually enjoying it.
It didn't matter what kind of torment I carried around inside, as
long as I came across as being capable of having a good time. And
as it turned out, I didn't want that responsibility that came with having
much money. All I wanted was to look like I might be that guy
standing on the yacht, looking at the sunset, with a drink in his hand.

I have had, what my dear mother called golden opportunities, pass
right in front of me, and would be too afraid, and/or too blind to see them.
Even when things took a turn for the better during the darker times,
I had become so accustomed to self-sabotage that I was
fully convinced that something would happened to mess it up,
pushing the the envelope further to see if I could get by with
a more and more of the antics, that I'd gotten by with before.

When I left A-school, my test scores allowed the benefit
of choosing one of the top five billets. I chose VF-45 in Key West,
and arrived there in October of '93. It was common knowledge
that the squadron was in the process of decommissioning, but
that did nothing to stop most from wanting to go there.

Beautiful girls. Tropical breezes. Paradise. It sounded like
a happening place. Besides, it might just be what would
allow me to get back on track once and for all, and prove to
all those people how wrong they were about my never
amounting to anything.

Well I got down there, and after a few trips up and down
Duval, and few more drinks, I went back to the motel
for a decent night's rest. My hopes of starting a new
chapter were just around the corner.

The next morning, a young sailor girl driving a
duty van came to pick me up, but if no one knew any
better, they would have thought that I was headed
to Guantanamo. My happy and joyful spirits from
the previous night had begun to fade away. It was as if
someone had given me their ice cream cone to hold,
while it melted.

Here I was, in my late twenties with this whole beautiful world
at my fingertips, and no capability at all to enjoy it.
No way to cope. No where left to run. No joy at all.
Just sadness, and melancholy.

This song by REM came on the radio called, "Everybody Hurts",
and boy did I get caught in the those lyrics. I got homesick,
depressed, and big old tears started creeping out of the
corners of my eyes.

The girl driving picking up on this, asked if I was okay. I said
I was fine—the line that I so often used to avoid
anything beneath the surface.

[honeydumplin]

My idea of a geographical cure for my ills merely
accelerated my drinking. An anonymous feeling
of no one recognizing me, was intoxicating. I felt
I could do anything I could get by with, and no one
would be the wiser. Manipulation of this was something
used for more than the next two decades. My actions were
based on who I was around and what I could get, whether
it be drugs, booze, sex, a promotion, or an escape to another
place again.

I used a girl from back home. We got married, and I finally
got out of the barracks. We drank a lot, fought a lot, and tolerated
the very worst of one another.

I got beat up in a drug deal one night and begged the guy
that beat me up for one hit of the crack he'd just stolen.
I lied to everyone, telling them that I'd been robbed
so they'd feel sorry for my measly thirteen stitches.

There was one fight that my wife and I had in which
the MP's was called. They showed up at my door
with a German shepherd. A glass astray had been
shattered. I was taken away in cuffs, but my wife
came and got me. Oh the joys of drunken marital bliss.

It was insisted that I attend an alcoholic evaluation.
I had to lie as best I could on some questions.
A guy concluded that I may not be an alcoholic,
but there was definitely a propensity to abuse it.
In my nutty way, I left that man's office an illusion
of a free man.

Now I could tell others, including myself, that since petty
officer so-and-so told me that I wasn't an alcoholic, I must
not be one. What a startling revelation for an alcoholic
to be told that he isn't an alcoholic. It granted the permission
I so desperately craved to drink as much as I could.
And that I did.

It also seemed to provide me with this sense of self-
entitlement to do what I felt was the right thing to do,
for the wrong reason, no matter who happened to be
hurt along the way. I can remember refusing to accept
simple gestures of kindness because not only would that
have been an admission that I needed help in any way,
but it would also mean that somehow I would owe the
charitable person a returned favor later on down the road.
Keeping an invisible, running scorecard in my head, I
wanted to owe nothing to others, and in turn didn't want
them to feel like they owed me anything either.

If people were too nice, I was skeptical of their motives,
and if they weren't, I despised them. This kept personal
interaction with other human beings at a bare minimum.
The first Thanksgiving in Florida was no more than a bunch
of regret, and resentment against society.

There was no relationship with God. No reason to be thankful
for the very things that were right in front of me. Two jobs,
excellent benefits, and a nice place to live right on the water,
and I was miserable. Nothing was ever enough.

That Thanksgiving, I went out for lunch and out of cash
asked the manager of the restaurant if they took checks. He declined
but if told me if we'd like, he'd serve us for free. I don't remember what
I said, but it was probably not very nice. I stormed out in a huff,
not wanting to accept anyone's "hand-out".

I went down the street and ate a bowl of soup. So much
contempt and hatred in my heart toward this guy, who
was simply trying as best he could to extend a hand of good-
will to someone he did not even have sense enough to recognize it.
There I was, stewing over it, and wasn't even thankful for the food.
What an awful way to spend Thanksgiving.

In the spring of the following year I sent a letter up through the
chain of command, requesting what was referred to as an
"early-out". The navy did not see it the same way. I had
signed on for four years, and fulfilled only about a quarter
of that obligation.


I was still trying to escape the various choices that were made.
Not even in midstream yet. I was so full of rebellion. Deep
down was this feeling of being caught by a random urinalysis,
which occurred often enough. I knew that if I got nailed on
one, it would be the end, and I really did not care if that
happened. So I drank, smoked pot, and did crack, and
continued to go from day to day on borrowed time.

The next billet came through. Brunswick, Maine was
the destination. My wife moved up there a month ahead
of the transfer, during which I cheated on her with several
so called friends that I had met in bars. I relieved
what little guilt that I felt about it all, by mailing her
quarter bags of pot that were wrapped up in plastic
bags, and concealed in souvenir styled t-shirts with
no return address.

I had nothing but utter contempt for most all of my
superiors. I'd go out of my way to avoid the protocol
of salute toward an officer because of my lack of respect
for them, which had no substantial justification whatever.
I judged my wife as a free loader, my boss as a drunk,
and my family as not giving a **** what happened.
What I hadn't noticed, is that I had become all three.

So it should have come as no surprise that on the night
prior to my transfer, when I decided to take the duty
van out for one last night drinking and getting high
out on the town, I got exactly what was coming to me.

I parked the van in the usual inconspicuous location,
and sometime during the course of the evening, the van
became inoperable. The engine wouldn't even turn over.
And what's really revealing is that somehow in my stupor,
I thought that if I could just get a taxi back to the base
and pick up my orders, I could possibly scoot out of there
unscathed.

Those plans were quickly changed upon my arrival to the base.

An officer on duty told me that I wouldn't be going anywhere,
and that I was to attend an XO mass at 0900 the following morning.

[MajestyJo]

When I see the words geographical cure, I always chuckle. Just me picking me up, let alone all the moving and packing is not a pleasant picture. Just the thought of me taking me with me every where I go conjures up a very vivid picture. Over the years, some of them have not been very pretty. Thank you for your shares.

[honeydumplin]

And, it is now that I realize that this is not some sort of story where a guy finds A.A. at the end, and all of the characters live happily ever after. It is more like a conviction. A confession. A winding stream that goes in several different directions, and by the force of gravity must search for its lowest geographical point in order to flow into the unknown. The only way that this can happen, is through spontaneous revelation. In order to ever see the water moving, and hopefully the river, valleys will have to be exposed in a manner in which that the two of us can see them. Otherwise, it is merely the boring diary of a drunk.

--Anonymous



Talking to people, making minor chit chat, without of course, injecting outspoken opinions and biases, has been difficult for me. I have over the years gone from the extreme of offending everyone, to being so afraid of having what I have said critiqued, I've responded by saying absolutely nothing, often wondering how one could have had such an inferiority complex, and yet unapalogetically think I was the center of attention.

Getting my head around, say the last fifteen years, of being out there, has not only been difficult to remember, but also to look at honestly. It scares me. It isn't so much that I am shameful, or feel guilty about it, it's that I'm fearful of what you might think about me. This is what prevents me, and others, from doing the step. And yet somehow, getting through that fear is exactly what moves us along. Taking the rest of step five did this.

No matter the setting, the occasion, or method used to self-medicate, it was usually a journey into a few hours of euphoric bliss, followed by a depressive withdrawal, an isolation, and a continual anxiety which would last all the way up until the next mind-altering substance could be consumed.

If that following morning did anything, it twisted the knot even more. It had occurred to me that I'd got what I wanted, and had absolutely no idea what to do next. Pacing didn't help. The urinalysis was dirty. My naval career was finished. A few weeks later at a Captain's Mast in Maine, it was stated that my service record looked like twenty miles of bad road. And I started to see myself become that which I vowed to never be.


I've been kind of stuck lately. It is like, in retrospect, a point
has been reached in which I can no longer easily disclose the
facts in this play by play format of what actually happened.
I heard a guy in a talk one night say that it isn't what we do
as much as why he did it. In other words, for me personally,
this step isn't a walk in park regurgitation of past events as it
is an on and off again resistance to dissemble truth and reason.

And too, there was a temptation to skip ahead to the more
recent, to venture into the defects, to start making amends.
Not only can I not afford such a luxury, but I can't help but
to question what good would come from such an approach.
I digress though. Why delve into the hypothetical, when I
need to just work, and yes live, the step, and try and release
this need I have had, and continue to deal with, in blaming
everyone else under the sun for my own transgressions.

Let it be said also, that I may fall short of the mark. But
that too, changes for the better, when a genuine effort is
made to do the work. Somehow, some way, either through
the help of what I hear what is said in a meeting, or through
working with a sponsor, changes can happen. What is important
for me to remember, is that doing nothing doesn't change anything.

Subsequently, I constantly find it hard to believe how
revealing, the program becomes when I'm honestly working
the fifth step. Those moments where the pen is in
hand and I stop sugar-coating my wrongs to myself.
Stuff begins to unfold so quickly that I can't write fast
enough to keep up.

Even though, I had on occasion, with little regard
for others, been able to walk away from relationships, there
was something about the one with wife number two that I
couldn't let go of. Maybe it was the fact that the two of us
were a match made directly from the throngs of depravity,
from which was borne an allowance to bask in the
co-dependance of our own demons, excusing each other
to wallow in our own fog of complacency when we
weren't walking shoulder to shoulder in a down trodden
path to victim-hood.


Not just to drugs and alcohol, but to discord, distrust. I've
always been somewhat of a skeptic, but somewhere along
the line, I started to dislike almost everybody. I loved to hate
people. If I did, in fact, like someone, it was because I hadn't
been around them long enough to pick them apart piece by
piece. And if you had something I wanted, I could put up
with nearly anything. Even though I couldn't stand the
hypocrisy, I could come up with rationale to justify the
smoke screen of so-called social grace frequently extended
to those of whom I commonly abhorred.

Since my old car had blown a head gasket, and my wife had
what I wanted, which was a vehicle home, I participated in
a common charade quite consistent with the charlatan that I was,
and packed up her car to head down the imaginary
yellow-brick road, where we were sure to find a new beginning,
back home with family and friends who'd greet us
with open arms. What awaited was a rude awakening.

[honeydumplin]

"Try smiling at the joy of your confusion."

"I love to give an opinion on experiences I've never had."

"If you don't care, I can't care...,
If you do care, I have to care."

"Your past is always going to be the way that it was.
Stop trying to change it."
--Anonymous


Very little forethought, if any, ever came to mind.
No carefully laid out plans about where the
next night might be spent, or the preparation for
finding an apartment; just working, eating now and then,
and staying in a fog as much as humanly
possible while still being able to maintain a pulse.

During the trip back down here, the silent tension between
the two of us lay thick in the air. Both of us may have
skimped on certain necessities of life, but pot had yet
to be one of them.

I had no intention of returning to Maine, especially after
sleeping several nights in the passenger seat of a car
and finally landing a job with a local steel erection company.
She, on the other hand had other plans, which appeared
to have involved me working, and she staying high.

Not only the norm during the nomadic life style, but
a prerequisite at work, the mere act of getting stoned
had really become a way of life, supplemented by a rather
meager income, and fueled by a contempt and envy for people
who had more. And it was blatant, too. They had theirs,
where was mine?

Not having my own car, not having a place to live,
not having a care in the world; those were situations
that I thought had be imposed on me by other people.
I never considered the fact that my screwed up
choices, lack of desire for a stable living environment,
or my drug and alcohol problem, had anything to do
with the wreck that was happening in my life.

I did know one thing for sure, if I was ever given a
chance to ditch this woman hanging onto me, it was
then. I didn't really love her. All I was could be summed up
in a dope buddy. The whole marriage was based on lust
for the taboo, the art of deception, and both had been on
the wane ever since caution had been thrown on nearly
everything else and I said, "I do."

My second wife had also become a catch-all for what
was going on with me, and since our two-way
street of convenience had taken a turn for the worse,
she had stopped being any sort of financial advantage
for me.

The woman had her claws dug in deep, and with no
regard for her feelings at all, I began to scheme ways
to be rid of her. Besides I thought, I could get back in
good with my family. She was the reason they had
nothing to do with me anyway. How wrong I was.

I knew if I could possibly sneak away from
the relationship, and allow her a way to parachute out
"unscathed" in ways that may appear to be beneficial
for her, she might go for it. She did.

It was too late for any more arguing and bickering.
My father picked me up the next day, and it was over.


*****************************************

"It is better to know some of the question,
than all the answers." --James Thurber

So another move proceeded, this time in with my
parents, and with that, and their kindness, and generosity,
I began to take full advantage of them by using their auto-
mobiles, using their goodwill in letting them buy my food,
simply using. I wouldn't even bother putting gas in the car
that they'd allowed me to use.

And since this weekly income of mine wasn't used for much else,
it supplied pot for me and the so-called buddies that were
befriended at work. We'd get high before work, during
breaks, after lunch, and usually on the way home.
Drugs were not only addictive for me, but were a forge
for making acquaintances I had.

I used it to calm my often shaky nerves, often from alcohol
consumed the night before. I found that walking around
steel high above the ground, was much easier after
I'd taken a few tokes. Anxiety about the whole routine
of working, and in cohabitating with others, was drastically
increased when I wasn't impaired. I was so far in now. It
was the coping mechanism that allowed me to exist.

The ex had called and informed my employer that I
was using drugs, and my immediate supervisor told me
what she had done. I didn't think much of her feeble
attempt at revenge, and I think the guys she had given
this information to couldn't have cared less. All they
wanted were working bodies to fill positions, and also
given the fact that they got high too, they paid very
little attention to it, which played right into staying
sufficiently stoned.

********************

“When we can release this victim fixation, we can begin
to examine our own role in the chaos of our lives."
--Anonymous


Most of those few months were spent destroying
the relationship that was left with my folks. Oh how I
could put on a front for them, and kiss up to them, putting
on an act that they eventually started to see right through.
I'd convinced myself that I could be around them drunk
and high, and they wouldn't realize how messed up I was.
I was so wrong. They knew. Even so much as to put on an
act of toleration. Everything seemed an act of sorts.
One in which everybody saw what I was except me.

I was a thirty year old punk living off my parents.
I was either angry, or extremely euphoric all the time.
My parents were the ones who'd loved, cared for,
and provided over the course of my life, all I could
have ever needed, and here I was constantly trying to
manipulate them in to giving me more, playing
one against the other, and both sides toward me,
then fanning the flames. Then suddenly I'd disappear
for awhile, going somewhere to have a drink and get high.

The routine was to come home after they'd gone bed, leave
before they awoke, and not have to come in contact
with either of them any more than was absolutely
necessary. I'd lie to them about where I was going,
who I was with, and practically anything else that
could possibly dispel their idea of my intentions, which
usually involved staying lit.

I took what was once a healthy positive relationship,
and proceeded to poison it.

[honeydumplin]

There was a full moon the night I stood at the bottom of my
parents driveway on the side of the road. I'll never forget,
looking up into the night sky at this very large full moon,
blaming it, as if it were to be held responsible for what had
just happened.

I can remember during the middle of fight with my father,
looking at him and telling him that I was the monster that he
created. Nothing else about that argument can I recall, other
than finding myself standing there with a paper bag of clothes,
shortly after the sheriff's office had been called.

I disagreed with her on everything under the sun, and the
rain. When the sun was shining, she'd insist upon an umbrella,
and when the rains came she basked in the glow of the sun.
Her reason behind the decisions, which justified her rationale
hit me in the face often. She was a control freak. I was obsessed
with the abuse.

The only time I chose to be around the woman who'd pick
me up on the side of the road that night was when I wanted
to either eat something from her house, drink her wine and beer,
or sleep in her bed. When I got tired of her company,
the only thing she'd see was the back of my head going
out the front door to chase another drink and a hit.

I used individuals, establishments, employers. Much more
if they were close to me, than if they were strangers.
The bar I'd set for others crept higher. It was a set of standards
no one could have possibly adhered. And so the isolation. And
so the bar for myself crept even lower.

I moved into a garage apartment, a short walk from my preferred
surroundings, party central, the battlefield that choices become.
Those that, for quite some time, laid the ground work for what
was to evolve.

Even without wheels, how much ground could be covered
either by walking, getting a cab, or catching a ride, was incredible.
When all else failed I would take the last bit of change I had and
call up this woman, and she'd come and pick me up from a bar,
or in some cases, a street somewhere in a desperate state.




Back at my little apartment there was this steady flow of alcohol,
pot, coke, and any form of humanity or lack thereof that would
accompany it. Ex-cons, future cons, wives cheating on their
husbands, husbands hiding from their wives, cocktail waitresses,
street *****s, and crack queens. Invariably, stuff would disappear,
and I would have no idea if I had lost it, left it somewhere, or perhaps
had it stolen.

This place was not Fort Knox. Half the time the door was unlocked.
One night I remember, I gave someone money to go score. And when
they didn't come back, I thought oh well, guess I was took.
Well, the next morning she returned, and still innocently, what scam
there was continued to work. I let her right back into the apartment.
Something told me though, when she picked up the only cast iron
frying pan I had that this wasn't going to end pretty. Some guy
suddenly appeared as her escort.

Well, after realizing that she wasn't getting any more cash from
me, she gently smacked one of the windows, and walked out the
door with the pan still in hand. When I followed her out, that's
when I spotted the dude with her, and let's just say, I'm glad that
the window was the only thing that was broken. She knew enough
to keep that pan though.

And it was exactly things like this, that fear that was now
beginning to grow. I started looking over my shoulder.
I gained yet another excuse to despise people, even when
their motives were sincere.

If this is what it takes, telling it, sharing it--for once opening up
about it, I want that. If that's what it takes in order for a guy like
me to stay sober, then I want to be that guy. Inventory
does this. It keeps me coming back to the point of not only
recognizing the perspective, but also the true relativity of
taking responsibility for the past in all of its forms.

[honeydumplin]

After what seemed an eternity of silence, the phone finally rang.
It startled me. The last few days spent licking my artificial wounds by
a point about an unorthodox welding skill was in complete contrast to what I'd signed on to do. My limited production was now fixed on peruse of a newspaper. It was October of 2000. The Cole had just been bombed. The telephone was a distraction, yet a welcomed one. Even more so, was the first three digits, and a sense of vague familiarity.

After a brief inquiry into my present state of affairs, which was met with a litany of lies, I then launched into a soliloquy of mostly bull, sprinkled with an undertone of ambiguous, cheap flattery, (a trademark) and informed him, that I was in between jobs. The real truth was that I hadn't hit a lick at a snake since I'd stormed off from the petroleum plant a few weeks prior. Oh there were a few odds and ends that came along from time to time, but I spent most of my days doing very little of anything.

He followed-up with a request. As it turns out, he had a job opening at a con-struction site in Concord, North Carolina at a Corning. The job was to be a liaison between a steel fabricator, which was his company, and the steel erector, which was a company out of South Carolina. I had no experience.

I viewed this as yet another chance to turn over a new leaf. It was time to finally grow up. I was thirty-four. The heavy partying, burning the candle at both ends, the irresponsibility, it was over. It was time to grow up, and for once, be a mature adult. And after conveying this to my immediate family, after getting very little of encouragement or approval, I was determined more than ever to pull myself up by my boot straps, and get this thing right. Admittedly short-lived, this "thing" did in fact take a turn for the better. The progression of my addiction was forced into hiatus.

The job had been left in a mess. The erectors often received revised drawings that, along with the daily delivery of four copies of new drawings, were left unopened, and tossed in a pile on the floor. People walked around small stacks of them. What served as a work space was this desk in the middle of a job trailer and a constant traffic flow of workers. This parade of humanity inadvertently interrupted important, telephone conversations, making it difficult to concentrate. One day I actually turned around and hollered at them to shut up, that I was trying to talk on the **** phone. After a few seconds of silence, the sound level returned, louder than before.

In an attempt to get some peace and quiet, I bought my first cell phone, and started working longer hours. The leg work on site was done during the day and organizing the office could be done in the evening. I was paid a good salary. And faced with the choice of either going to a motel room, or getting some work, it was much easier to choose the latter.

The months that followed were different. It felt like something was happening. Oh I would have a few drinks every now and then, but nothing that got outta hand. But something that I've discovered is that undeniable fact that even though I could experience those periods of so-called "normality", something was also just beneath the surface wanting to blast out. Moderation for me, I found was much more a curse, than a blessing.

This was obvious. After a couple of drinks at the bar, a bottle of wine during a good meal, when a lot people simply call it a night and head on to bed, my appetite would just be getting teased. There had to be a toke, a bump, a hit. So, I would force myself to go to bed. Right then, I was stuck with just the legal stuff, you know. The booze. Then a little more, and a little more, and a little more.


So self-assured I'd finally "arrived" the purchasing power of my disguise,
was none other than the corporate apartment. I bought in to the seductive
charm of what I'd chased for years. Little did I know the financial success
I was building, was sitting on nothing more than a plank I'd chosen to not
only walk, but to also saw off directly behind me. Somehow, I didn't see
this coming. I was always so convinced, that I was okay.

The dwelling did have sort of rather dull appearance. The only chairs which had so humbly graced by this open air, were two adequately placed bar stools. These were seldom, if ever, used, and yet severed the empty boundary between the kitchen
and the island that they occupied. The room itself contained a cable, that ran out along the bare wall, and hooked to a television which also sat alone in the floor.

Since the stools faced opposite the t.v., I'd usually just stand there behind the bar,
in the kitchen watching.

The bathroom was one of those parlor light deals atop a double vanity
where housed a bunch of empty cabinets and drawers below the lights
I used to dim, and see my aura on the beige wall behind
an empty looking reflection. Some days it looked worse than others.
I was used to keeping all the toiletries in a shaving kit, which stayed on the counter top,
displaying randomly the contents,strewn everywhere between two sinks.
There were never any distinguishing features. No flowery frog decorations.
No spring Renoit. No inspirations.

Just as bad, one bedroom bore the same cream carpet camouflaged
with an off white fitted and slightly threadbare cover sheet on a mattress and a box.
It blended well, when combined with the absence of anything or anyone,
including myself.

When the place was finally vacated months later, the only emptiness of the place lay
in the imprint left from the vacated bed remaining
on the cream colored floor.

If a reflection of life flashed before me in six month intervals, those few months
of existence in Charlotte during 2001 would blink of two things.

First, the devils and flyers played a seven game series. I don't
know much about hockey, but used to enjoy listening to the games on t.v.
while I drank, cooked, and drank some more
in the kitchen.

Knock the guy with the puck on the ice and score. I could keep track
of what was going on without having to give the entire game my
undivided attention.

If I missed something good, the crowd would make a bunch
a noise, and they'd show a replay.

Then there was a Italian grill down the street that I occupied several
nights a week.

The food was good. So was the service. The bartender made it simple.

“Beer, wine, or scotch?”

No explanation was ever needed for any of the three, and I liked that. It made me really feel like I was somebody special. A real big shot.

Uneventful, or so it seemed at the time. For I never actually new how much that Italian Grill seeped into the nooks and crannies of my head until years later when I walked into one of their franchises here in town, with only a few months sober under my belt.

The unmistakable aroma from the grill began to play a mind game on my trigger-happy brain, the entire night. It was then and there, that I saw first hand how cunning, baffling, and powerful this thing called alcoholism was.