I had read between the lines. Nobody had to tell me to recognize.
If I went to treatment I was going to have to finally pick sides: publicly answer incredibly personal questions about myself that I already knew but never wanted to release, or continue to ignore them.
Both options suck.
I wanted to run and ignore. I wonder if this is how Hollywood Execs feel when they know they have a box-office bust on their hands. Like Jawbreaker, or BASEketball, or anything that Keanu Reeves is in. Trust me, I wanted to run.
If I would have [run], where would I be now? Would I be typing this book and sipping a cup of coffee while listening for Lily to stir in her crib? Would I be typing this book and sipping a cup of coffee while waiting for Cole to wake from a long night’s sleep, recharged and over-anxious to start his day? Would Heidi even be in my life, let alone my wife?
Or worse - Maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t be here anymore.
Whichever end-result I U-turned from, Today I raise my hands to God for the blessings that I’ve done little to deserve.
I will keep choosing God. I will keep choosing to be present. I will do the hard work because we don’t know what He’s doing behind the scenes. When I started treatment I had no idea that the payoff was going to bring these kinds of rewards.
For me, it started day one with the 12 step review.
Step 3-Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God. Do you know how many times God is mentioned or referred to in the Steps? 10 times, at least, by my count depending on which version you read. That didn’t turn me away, but, I wasn’t running towards it either.
Growing up, we went to church either every saturday at St. Rita, or every sunday at Our Lady Guadalupe, where, if you remember, we would also win the 1990 talent show, performing The Blues Brothers and finishing the night in a dance-off like in West Side Story. Tom would have been Tony and some local would have been Bernardo. It was fun. The Jets won that too.
Then I became an adult and you let me decide for myself if I would continue to attend church or not. I did, and didn’t. Let’s just say when I did, it was for reasons other than God. Call it guilt, points, staying on your good side, fear, or meeting a pretty senorita. Other than making sure my butt was in church for sure twice a year, church eventually fell off my radar.
Treatment was similar. For the first few weeks I sat there in my chair. Indifferent. Not fully participating, not fully absent. I wasn’t a mute in group, I laughed at what was funny, I jaw-dropped during stories that were jaw-dropping, and I raised eyebrows while sliding down my seat enough to be unnoticed during stories that made me feel like the elephant in the room.
In other words, I recognized behaviors of other addicts that sounded almost identical to how I felt inside.
Nobody knew I could relate to how they felt inside and that’s how I liked it, but from my chair and down deep deep inside me where absolutely nobody has ever been allowed - I knew I was like them.
I mean, I didn’t look like them.
I didn’t dress like them.
I didn’t live like them.
I didn’t have the same beliefs as them.
I didn’t party like them.
I didn’t do drugs like them.
I didn’t treat others the way they did.
I didn’t have the same childhood as them.
I didn’t hate myself like they did.
I didn’t skip out on work the way they did.
But it didn't matter becuase I had the same switch as them.
My personal examples aren’t so much evidence of an alcoholic as much as they are evidence of an incredibly stupid drunk that nobody wants to be around, but they are the result of what happens when the switch flips and you continue to drink without knowing you're still drinking.
The switch. The switch is something inside me that goes off - or maybe - goes on - when I drink. I don’t know when it’s going to happen or if it’s going to happen, but when it does go-on, or go-off, I lose control of myself, my drinking, my words, my behavior, my brain... I completely black-out.
It was the unbelievable horror story of someone in my group recalling his rock bottom experience that scared me the most. Scared me because there is nothing to say it couldn’t have happened to me, can't still happen to me, and scared me because I could relate.
I have to tell you this story:
He had been sober for close to two years. Some old friends came calling and being that it was Thursday, he would have to be back home for work the next morning, so what an ideal time to show his friends, by example, that they didn’t have to use to have fun.
Off he went. Kissed the wife, kissed the kids.
Half-way through the night he loosened his grip and ordered a drink. His buddies loved it and he felt comfortable with it
When morning came he opened his eyes from the pain in his head and in his arm. Fresh tracks, that hadn’t been there for almost two years were back. He says that to this day, he has no idea what he did or how he ended up so far away. He collected himself as much as you can when your clothes are ragged, wrinkled and stink. He gathered himself, and walked around and it was only while he was walking around aimlessly that he started to recognize nothing. He was so lost that he finally had to ask a street-walker where he was. This man looked at my group member like he was a plate of leftovers before revealing, “Philly, man.” Just before the street-walker walked away my group member touched his this strangers arm and asked him what day it was. “Tuesday, man.” My group member lost the color in his face, lost the spirit in his eyes, lost the breath in his lungs. The stranger asked, “Do you need help?” My group member said yes, I need to call my wife.
A four day blackout. A binge that took days to run its course. This persons bottom started with a drink in Minneapolis and ended by waking up on the sidewalk next to a garbage dumpster with a headache in PHILADELPHIA.
From that day, I’ve considered myself lucky on two fronts: 1. I’ve never done drugs, and 2. my bottom was not as deep as his.
So, how do I relate with that story? It’s embarrassing and it’s immature and it’s selfish and it’s reckless and I don’t buy the decree that it’s not all my fault, but, I’ve blacked out before.
Reckless & Immature: Freshman year of college I gave a friend a ride home from the most crowded bar in town and I only remember getting in the car. Freshman year?!! How old are you as a freshman, 18?. Reckless.
Embarrassing: More than a couple years ago, I woke up downstairs spread eagle across the futon with an entire tin of Long-Cut Skoal spilled all over me as if I thought it was a blanket to keep me warm and I only remember waking up flat on my back spread eagle across the futon smelling an entire tin of Long-Cut Skoal spilled all over me. I figured that you knew for sure about the spilled chew and was waiting for me to show face, but to this day I’ve never cleaned a room faster than that one hung-over morning. I don’t want to know if you knew about this.
Selfish: Summer of my sophomore year at college I lived on Como Ave on the UM campus. I went out to North Mpls and time, not booze, erased the memory of who I was with. I was told it was a good time, and apparently I had fun. All I remember was that I was trying to walk all the way home. I saw some guys sitting on their front stoop. I didn’t know them. I’d never seen them before. I never knew they existed on this planet earth until the moment I spotted them from a blurred distance. I walked up to their porch that was being used as a smoking station. I managed to explain to them that I was lost and needed a ride home. Miraculously, one of those guys offered. I was grateful, and so upon entering the car of a guy I had no idea ever existed on this planet earth until the moment I spotted them from a blurred distance; I told him how to get me home, if I were still living in Cottage Grove. I simply didn’t notice my mistake until he merged onto 94E and I said:
Where are you going?
“You said get on 94 East”
Careful, there’s a cop behind y---
And he was immediately pulled over and busted for possession of marijuana and driving under the influence. Me, I gave the police the correct address and they brought me home. I never knew this kid before that night. I never even knew his name-so I’ll call him Tim, and if I’ve ever seen Tim again in my life I would never know it. He knew me five minutes and was charged with marijuana possession and arrested for DUI. I don’t know the rest of Tim’s story but that night may also have been his best night because he would never see me again. Sorry, Timmy.
For no reason at all, I’ve kept that story secret for the last 18 years.
So, the story from my group, about the guy ending up in Philly is the story that scared me straight. Blacking out is serious business. How many times do I still think back and make myself sick with worry about the damage I could have inflicted to an unknown number of people? How easy it would have been for me to ruin countless lives, or even my own?
I’m convinced that God was watching over me.
Why was God watching over me?
Mid-sentence of that thought: “Why is God watch--,” my counselor summed things up this way:
“You don’t have to be a fall-down drunk to be an alcoholic. It doesn’t matter if you drink every minute of the day, or once a year during Thanksgiving; if you can’t control your drinking, you have a problem.”
If I would have been staring at him instead of my feet, my money says he was looking directly at me. He should have been. That was my beef with the term ‘alcoholic’.
As an addict, if I had a few different options for what to do on any given night, I would rearrange whatever schedule I had so that I could hang out with the crowd that was going to be out drinking. That means, if I had to inconvenience my entire day, just to ensure that by the end of the night I ended up where the drinking was - consider it done. Didn’t matter to me who got the shaft.
Spend the day together as a family? How about we spend just a couple hours together so I can make last-call. Drive together out of town? How about I meet you there so I can do my thing the night before and still have time to heal before meeting up with you. Want to hit church together Sunday morning? How about I change my entire Saturday schedule so that we can hit the early service, that way I can still make it out for the night and not have to worry about showing up to church in noticeably rough shape.
Those examples don’t even begin to scratch the surface to what lengths of deceit and selfishness we’re capable of.
On the night of my third DUI, we went out to the MOA for Dad’s birthday. I think it was “Players” at the time, but even if it wasn’t, I remember it was on that top floor that is now basically closed down. Everyone was there... Toni, Angie, Nick, You, Dad, me. I was the only one who cut out early, remember? I don’t even think anyone was done eating before I cleared my plate and walked off. I still think about that night, but now my thoughts are on how much that might have hurt Dad. And you. It was so disrespectful and rude. Let me come clean Mom, my mind wasn’t on Dad’s birthday in the Mall of America. It was on Coach’s Bar and Grill in River Falls, Wisconsin.
Dad, not only did I cut out early on your birthday, but I went out and got arrested on your birthday, with your truck that you let me borrow.
Stupid.
That’s all I have to say about that.
