The detox portion of my recovery tour had been billed by my interventioneers as "5-7 days". It ended up being closer to two weeks.
I don't recall ever seeing the inside of the facility for the first time. What I remember is this: a sassy black nurse overseeing my admission, taking my vitals and "Oooh Lawd!"-ing all over the place. She handed me a dixie cupful of pills, and the next thing I knew I was being jarred awake from the bed I had been sleeping in. I didn't know if it was day or night. "Don't get up", another nurse said. "I just need to take your blood pressure and give you..." she confirmed something on a clipboard and satisfied, handed me another dixie cupful of pills, "...this". I took them, noticed I was wearing bright orange hospital scrubs, and went back to sleep.
The first two and a half days were like this, apparently as much for me as for anybody. I woke up at one point during these two days and the guy next to me, looking terrified, asked me "is it 2:00 PM or 2:00 AM?". "I really have no idea", I'd said, before noticing that the plastic, e-z wash sandals I'd been issued were the exact same ones I'd been issued when I went to jail that one time. Something about the fact that the manufacturers tossed a clumsy bone to aesthetics, in the form of a monochromatic faux wicker pattern covering the foot's instep, struck me as a little generous, but mostly funny. Like if we really put on our thinking caps, we could mentally transport ourselves from a farty, clinical detox facility to brunch with Blanche on the Golden Girls' Sunshine State lanai. Annnnd... back to sleep.
When I finally started getting up to get up, instead of just getting up to get my pills every two hours, I began to notice that the facility wasn't so bad. Smelly, yes, and marked sonically by the moans, groans, and wet farts of my 40+ roommates in the throes of acute withdrawal. But, you know, it was painted a nice sage green. The food was okay. The people serving it were not surly. My survey showed that my temporary home consisted of three rooms: the farty dormitory room, the small cafeteria (less farty), and a tiny movie room (least farty of all).
We were not permitted outside, so these three rooms were our everything. There was a floor to ceiling bank of windows about 12 feet wide in the dormitory, but it was covered with a white coating so that nobody could see in or out. Though we could watch the movies provided by the facility, there was no TV, no radio, no newspapers, positively no internet, and extremely limited telephone communication via a wall mounted pay phone in the cafeteria. If this sounds about as disorienting as being captive on a far-flung, low-fi spacecraft that may not have the juice to make it safely back to its landing strip somewhere in rural, late 80s USSR, then we might share a hive mind because I was TOTALLY THINKING THE SAME THING.
Late one night something happened with the heating ducts and the fire alarm went off. We were all herded out into a back parking lot as the nighttime floor manager, I'm sure in total compliance with his state-mandated safety training, screamed behind us in a narrow hallway "RUN!!!!!!!!! GO GO GO GO GO!!!!!". The *right* way to do things must have held over from frequent grade school fire drills, or maybe it's because we were still all pretty high on our meds, because we all just kind of calmly lumbered outside.
But outside we were, in our threadbare scrubs on a 31 degree February evening. With chattering teeth and blueifying complexions, we noted every sensation to one another as though it were an uncommon revelation:
"It fuh-fuh-feels like it's going to s-s-s-snow-wuh"
"th th the air smell-smell-smells so c-c-c-clean"
"I d-d-didn't realize you could suh-suh-suh-see the conv-v-v-vention center from here"
It was marvelous, and really a bummer when we were called back inside.
This is not to say that the isolation was wholly unpleasant. On the contrary, it was a pleasure to take a break from everything. No emails to respond to, no calls to return, no bills to pay. There were no personal problems. I've never taken a vacation like this before. Even during an actual, recreational vacation, you've still got your cell phone. In New Orleans you're looking for the complimentary executive lounge in your hotel because someone just texted you about a hilarious youtube video, or you make sure your room in Vegas will have free wifi before booking the ticket in case someone tags you to an unflattering facebook photo. Rich people pay for this, to be away away. Though the personal care products were not, the isolation was nice for a change.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
Sorry for not responding to your very awesome email
Bored: 22 days
I'm sure I'm not the only one who has received a great, lengthy email from a friend. It's such a good email that you re-read it three times when you could have been composing a reply, but you realize you only have 15 minutes or something and you feel like it deserves a really great, lengthy response (an aside: I am currently reading "A Confederacy of Dunces" for the first time and am now wondering if, instead, friends dread my lengthy responses. You'd tell me if I had spinach in my teeth or if I was starting to act like Ignatius J Reilly, right?).
Later, during the time in which you have still failed to respond, something significant happens in your life and you want to tell your friend, but you haven't responded to their great email yet. Somehow you feel the expiration date on that email has passed, but then you feel weird telling them your dog just barked "I love you" or whatever when you haven't responded to them yet. The result is that the person who most deserved to hear from you, your great email friend, is cheated out of both a reply to their email, and the fascinating news that you have had a stroke and now believe that your dog is communicating with you like a human. Maybe they could have sent for help before you lost the hearing in your right ear. Now your nickname is "Def-Jam" and you have only yourself to blame.
So much has happened in the last 21 days, and more keeps happening, and I keep waiting for the right time to sit down and get it all out there (the counselor says journaling is critical). But I'm feeling the same stresses associated with the email situation illustrated above and so I'm just going to take a chronological word dump and sort things out later. Here goes. Ahem.
On the morning of January 29th D, who had a massive hand in organizing the intervention, explained to my friends the following: "I know this sounds fucked up, but what we have to do is bring B in shitfaced drunk, so that they take him more seriously". That's what I heard he said, anyway. I wasn't there. I didn't know that my friends were meeting for clandestine coffee without me, or that my friend A, with whom I am currently living, had sneaked out of the house while I was in the shower. "Where art thou?", I texted, when I didn't see her in her bedroom. Figuring she must be in the basement without her phone, I cracked and slammed a PBR tallboy in preparation for my friends arriving. I'd been out drinking heavily with an old friend the night before and was starting to get extremely anxious and shaky now that I'd been out of bed for a few minutes, a common enough occurrence over the last two years or so. I followed that up with another when I failed to hear from her minutes later.
Then IT happened, and I've already gone on about that (below).
That night, after a very weird day, it was time to have the most uncomfortable drinks in the world. Except we didn't get to the liquor store in time, so E and B kindly procured 24 cans of Budweiser for me.
I said something like, "Well? Let's get this party started, I suppose", and cracked the first beer.
Nobody else was imbibing and everybody just looked at me, sad. Cheers!
B said, after I'd cracked my fourth or fifth, "You don't HAVE to drink ALL of those". I didn't want to tell them that there was no way I could get shitfaced off of 24 cans of beer, that it could not get me drunk in the time it takes for me to drink it. For me, beer works as a supplement to booze, if you want to continue drinking after the bars have closed. It also works to calm the shakes and anxiety that accompany the very first withdrawal symptoms the next morning. But when they came in the early hours Sunday, around six, five or six hours after they'd left me with my sea of brew, I was still irritatingly coherent after having stayed up the whole night chugging each of them down. Amanda revealed a secret cabinet of high-end liquor that she'd been hiding from me after I'd apologized for not being "drunker". A few shots of fancy tequila and... there we go. Mission accomplished.
What I wanted to have was a screen shot of the paperwork I filled out when I arrived at the detox center to post here. I didn't see or remember it until days later, when it fell out of my file as a nurse was reviewing it in front of me. In the approximate location of the field "ADDRESS: _______", I'd written A's address in magnificent, childlike block letters, about one inch in height, the house number beginning in the upper left quadrant of the page and terminating with "AVE" somewhere in the lower right hand quadrant.
I don't remember much from the following few days except being shaken awake to get a tray of food from the cafeteria or being shaken awake to take my next dose of Librium, which I consumed liberally for the next several days every two hours.
(Spoiler alert!), even though I am typing this at 3:30 in the morning (disruptions in sleep patterns are to be expected, they say!), I'm doing better than I have in a long, long time. The weeks in detox, my foray into freedom, and my first week settling into the new place are all all things I'll be posting about here shortly. In the meantime, though, I'm going to try and get some rest. Night!
I'm sure I'm not the only one who has received a great, lengthy email from a friend. It's such a good email that you re-read it three times when you could have been composing a reply, but you realize you only have 15 minutes or something and you feel like it deserves a really great, lengthy response (an aside: I am currently reading "A Confederacy of Dunces" for the first time and am now wondering if, instead, friends dread my lengthy responses. You'd tell me if I had spinach in my teeth or if I was starting to act like Ignatius J Reilly, right?).
Later, during the time in which you have still failed to respond, something significant happens in your life and you want to tell your friend, but you haven't responded to their great email yet. Somehow you feel the expiration date on that email has passed, but then you feel weird telling them your dog just barked "I love you" or whatever when you haven't responded to them yet. The result is that the person who most deserved to hear from you, your great email friend, is cheated out of both a reply to their email, and the fascinating news that you have had a stroke and now believe that your dog is communicating with you like a human. Maybe they could have sent for help before you lost the hearing in your right ear. Now your nickname is "Def-Jam" and you have only yourself to blame.
So much has happened in the last 21 days, and more keeps happening, and I keep waiting for the right time to sit down and get it all out there (the counselor says journaling is critical). But I'm feeling the same stresses associated with the email situation illustrated above and so I'm just going to take a chronological word dump and sort things out later. Here goes. Ahem.
On the morning of January 29th D, who had a massive hand in organizing the intervention, explained to my friends the following: "I know this sounds fucked up, but what we have to do is bring B in shitfaced drunk, so that they take him more seriously". That's what I heard he said, anyway. I wasn't there. I didn't know that my friends were meeting for clandestine coffee without me, or that my friend A, with whom I am currently living, had sneaked out of the house while I was in the shower. "Where art thou?", I texted, when I didn't see her in her bedroom. Figuring she must be in the basement without her phone, I cracked and slammed a PBR tallboy in preparation for my friends arriving. I'd been out drinking heavily with an old friend the night before and was starting to get extremely anxious and shaky now that I'd been out of bed for a few minutes, a common enough occurrence over the last two years or so. I followed that up with another when I failed to hear from her minutes later.
Then IT happened, and I've already gone on about that (below).
That night, after a very weird day, it was time to have the most uncomfortable drinks in the world. Except we didn't get to the liquor store in time, so E and B kindly procured 24 cans of Budweiser for me.
I said something like, "Well? Let's get this party started, I suppose", and cracked the first beer.
Nobody else was imbibing and everybody just looked at me, sad. Cheers!
B said, after I'd cracked my fourth or fifth, "You don't HAVE to drink ALL of those". I didn't want to tell them that there was no way I could get shitfaced off of 24 cans of beer, that it could not get me drunk in the time it takes for me to drink it. For me, beer works as a supplement to booze, if you want to continue drinking after the bars have closed. It also works to calm the shakes and anxiety that accompany the very first withdrawal symptoms the next morning. But when they came in the early hours Sunday, around six, five or six hours after they'd left me with my sea of brew, I was still irritatingly coherent after having stayed up the whole night chugging each of them down. Amanda revealed a secret cabinet of high-end liquor that she'd been hiding from me after I'd apologized for not being "drunker". A few shots of fancy tequila and... there we go. Mission accomplished.
What I wanted to have was a screen shot of the paperwork I filled out when I arrived at the detox center to post here. I didn't see or remember it until days later, when it fell out of my file as a nurse was reviewing it in front of me. In the approximate location of the field "ADDRESS: _______", I'd written A's address in magnificent, childlike block letters, about one inch in height, the house number beginning in the upper left quadrant of the page and terminating with "AVE" somewhere in the lower right hand quadrant.
I don't remember much from the following few days except being shaken awake to get a tray of food from the cafeteria or being shaken awake to take my next dose of Librium, which I consumed liberally for the next several days every two hours.
(Spoiler alert!), even though I am typing this at 3:30 in the morning (disruptions in sleep patterns are to be expected, they say!), I'm doing better than I have in a long, long time. The weeks in detox, my foray into freedom, and my first week settling into the new place are all all things I'll be posting about here shortly. In the meantime, though, I'm going to try and get some rest. Night!
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Hey you guys! Outpatient rehab totally worked!
For one year. Er, almost one year. Outpatient rehab totally worked for about ten months, followed by two months of "normal" drinking, followed by this message that I sent to friends on the night of January 30, 2011:
Interventioned!
On the phone with my mom at midnight (she's a night-owl), I told her how much I didn't want to make the call, and how I had thought all day of ways to avoid it, or lies I could tell to explain it. But she always sees through everything, anyway, so I knew it would be useless to try to explain a mysterious and sudden three-month trip to, like, who doesn't have cell towers these days? Somalia?
I said to her "What I am about to tell you is incredibly difficult, and it's hard for me to form the words. But, have you noticed I've been drinking more lately?". I was humiliated to learn that she ABSOLUTELY had (but in a weird way, also kind of relieved). "Well, E and B were supposed to come to Portland today to have breakfast with me, but instead it was all of my best friends in two cars who came to have a chat with me about their concerns about my drinking, and..."
"AN INTERVENTION?!?!?!"
"Exactly an intervention."
She cried tears of joy, the first time I've heard my mom cry (unless from laughter) since her mom died twenty years ago. Reared in Appalachia with twelve siblings in a three-room shack in the middle of the coalfields, at 5'1'' she has an admirable sense of style and a full on NO BULLSHIT attitude about everything.
So that happened today. I saw everybody arrive and asked, "Uh, is this like an intervention?". A, my oldest friend who allowed me to move into her lovely home in my new city a month ago (fun fact: she used her Wheel of Fortune winnings as a down-payment) while I looked for work and relocated from my old city, confirmed that it was.
Having gone through outpatient rehabilitation in the past, we were able to skip the grit. Yes, I know I have a problem, blah blah. No storming out of the room and having a "chaser" come talk me back in.
I think I tend to associate with hyper-organized people who Get Shit Done because I am the opposite. There was the bulleted list of "focus items" (If he says no, focus hard on #3, if he says yes, skip to #5). There was a seating chart (disregarded). And the whole thing was so well put together. There were many, many tears from my friends who I fucked over, but we were able to joke in no time, as always.
I am terrified. I can't believe I let this happen to me. But I am so grateful to have the best friends in the world and I've been aware of my problems for a long time. Looks like no chillaxy outpatient, "I'll just come in after work" therapy for me (which, by the way, works for LOTS of people, it worked for me for the year I attended and the reason it didn't stick is because I wasn't even a little diligent about using their recommendations afterward). What's been proposed is three months in-patient rehab. It's probably the best option. But it's such a huge new commitment. I'm confused. We'll see.
Interventioned!
On the phone with my mom at midnight (she's a night-owl), I told her how much I didn't want to make the call, and how I had thought all day of ways to avoid it, or lies I could tell to explain it. But she always sees through everything, anyway, so I knew it would be useless to try to explain a mysterious and sudden three-month trip to, like, who doesn't have cell towers these days? Somalia?
I said to her "What I am about to tell you is incredibly difficult, and it's hard for me to form the words. But, have you noticed I've been drinking more lately?". I was humiliated to learn that she ABSOLUTELY had (but in a weird way, also kind of relieved). "Well, E and B were supposed to come to Portland today to have breakfast with me, but instead it was all of my best friends in two cars who came to have a chat with me about their concerns about my drinking, and..."
"AN INTERVENTION?!?!?!"
"Exactly an intervention."
She cried tears of joy, the first time I've heard my mom cry (unless from laughter) since her mom died twenty years ago. Reared in Appalachia with twelve siblings in a three-room shack in the middle of the coalfields, at 5'1'' she has an admirable sense of style and a full on NO BULLSHIT attitude about everything.
So that happened today. I saw everybody arrive and asked, "Uh, is this like an intervention?". A, my oldest friend who allowed me to move into her lovely home in my new city a month ago (fun fact: she used her Wheel of Fortune winnings as a down-payment) while I looked for work and relocated from my old city, confirmed that it was.
Having gone through outpatient rehabilitation in the past, we were able to skip the grit. Yes, I know I have a problem, blah blah. No storming out of the room and having a "chaser" come talk me back in.
I think I tend to associate with hyper-organized people who Get Shit Done because I am the opposite. There was the bulleted list of "focus items" (If he says no, focus hard on #3, if he says yes, skip to #5). There was a seating chart (disregarded). And the whole thing was so well put together. There were many, many tears from my friends who I fucked over, but we were able to joke in no time, as always.
I am terrified. I can't believe I let this happen to me. But I am so grateful to have the best friends in the world and I've been aware of my problems for a long time. Looks like no chillaxy outpatient, "I'll just come in after work" therapy for me (which, by the way, works for LOTS of people, it worked for me for the year I attended and the reason it didn't stick is because I wasn't even a little diligent about using their recommendations afterward). What's been proposed is three months in-patient rehab. It's probably the best option. But it's such a huge new commitment. I'm confused. We'll see.
Monday, December 31, 2007
NYE
Quitting drinking is not so hard that you can't do it, even if you're weak and dumb. It's not even painful, the way not being able to smoke is when you're in an airport in the middle of the country, on a one hour layover: you're "free to smoke", kind of, but chance striking one up a respectable distance outside the exterior doors of the baggage claim and you may or may not make it back through security in time for your connecting flight. So you don't, because you got the cheapest tickets you could possibly find on Expedia and there's no refund if you fuck it up. That, my friends, is real emotional turmoil.
Not drinking is plain. Don't do it. But I want to. Don't. This would be a perfect moment for a drink. But you can't have one. What color should I paint my kitchen.
Welcome to my internal dialogue. Our leader Bill has talked to us about flat or blunt affect, a very serious psychological condition that affects very boring people. Apparently. Bill says that he always mentions this to his people, because experiencing "recovery" invites all kinds of emotions that you've been numbing with drugs or alcohol forever. Sometimes though, when you stop, what you get is flat.
This is a theme in his classes and I've been waiting for. "What have I been numbing?". I think of driving drunk 40 minutes down a major interstate highway at least once a week for three years. Or getting gross with wierdos in booths at "adult video arcades". I think of my body image problems, how I get skinny, make out with as many people as possible until I've had my fill, then get fat again. I've been hoping for this moment where it would be like, "WHAT IS MY PROBLEM" And Bill would say, "Your problem, it's this". And bam. There it would be. This is that moment for most of the people who, it seems, are my peers. They all seem to be having it, and good for them. They seem eager to explode into life again ("but not too eager!", as cautioned by Bill. Understand your very current situation before you make any major decision that could affect your recovery. To those who are single: NO RELATIONSHIPS...)
This is not the side of the coin I expected to find myself on. I figured I'd either be clawing for booze and avoiding calls from people asking me to go out or get crazy back into the things that made me glad to be alive before I started drinking too much; hiking to a place where snow is from someplace where there is no snow, watching the land that I need to survive from a tiny plastic boat at natural sea level when the ocean can swallow me whole at any moment, going to shit towns in the middle of nowhere by myself, determined to find the one thing there is to love. Always, it was the thrift stores, or the chainsaw art monuments in the weird public parks to the current mayor or an Indian Chief or a grizzly bear that someone attacked and then, BLAMMO, the town was born. Later, it was the bars in these places. It was exciting to go someplace alone, a shit small logging town, and I'd chat up the locals. This was unsustainable, though, because I could not catch a buzz and safely drive down shitty highways alone for very long, so I stopped driving very far or going to too many new places.
And now, there's this third side of the coin I didn't expect. I'm not diving into the old things I loved or fighting urges to do the dumb things that kind of wrecked me in the first place. I just have a lot of spare time on my hands. I'm obsessing about the color of my kitchen.
It's NYE, and I'm spackling. I am painting the trim tonight and preparing the walls for tomorrow. I need some kind of something, so I've had 10 shots of espresso over the course of six hours. It made me a little euphoric at times, but mostly I'm just focused: THESE WALLS CANNOT BE RENTAL EGGSHELL. NOT ANYMORE.
Tonight made me anxious days in advance. I made plans with nobody, and most people didn't invite me anyway, being kindly aware of my situation. A couple-buddy invited me to their hot tub party featuring shrooms. I kind of wanted to go in costume. Like a scientist with a zany mustache observing their activities and making notes. But more than anything I wanted to change my kitchen.
So I bought paint, taped all the trim, antique knobs, antique handles, the glass, the baseboard heater, and I painted a door. I stared at it for awhile and for real, it looks cleaner than it did before.
I am hyped up. Sexy new years espresso shots are pumping through me.
I'm done. I'm not doing anything else. New Year's fireworks just exploded downtown and I don't care that I wasn't drunk at a friend's house or a bar. I also don't care that I was sober. I'm just angry that my kitchen isn't painted yet.
A dry drunk is a personality type that Bill also likes to discuss. We're all at risk, he says, and I'm in danger, I know.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
HGTV
Rehab: Days 4/5/6
Bored: 20 days
I did not succumb to darkness this week. I did, however, have to complete 20 hours of community service so as not to go back to jail for three days. I completed exactly 20, down to the quarter-hour, exactly 12 hours before I was to report back to my cell. I do my best work under pressure.
Not that jail was so bad. And, it was only a day. My cellmate who could speak English, I think he liked me before he found that out. After that, we watched Shark Week on the Discovery Channel in our itchy uniforms on top of uncomfortable beds, and that we did in silence. Cable TV, sleeping for hours on end, taking shower after shower for lack of anything better to do, and a steady stream of resentment and silent spite. Not too different from a typical Saturday.
But the Greyhound ride to get there is unbearable. No thank you. I'm happy to do almost anything for free for as long as you want to avoid being the captive audience for a busload of meth-mouths in the throes of acute withdrawal symptoms. Someone says "my tooth!" and you're checking your trail mix under inadequate lighting, thinking better of it and deciding to get a Snickers at the next gas station instead.
So there has been no time to post, and there hasn't been much to write home about anyway.
Horny girl was absent Monday but back on Friday with a black eye and flat-ironed hair, and though he threatened to toss her out of the program if she didn't shape up, Bob went pretty easy on her. Interesting.
Ty Pennington is about to graduate to a more "high functioning" group. Good for him. I never did befriend him, but I did find out that he's only one year older than me which, weird. Anyway, congratulations, TP.
Schlumpy and I are still not friends.
Otherwise, we're still discussing the same concepts, and I'm still writing the same damn thing every day on my feedback forms. "I'm having trouble relating to the concepts we discussed and am eager to speak with somebody one on one regarding this". It's finally about to happen, so that ought to be interesting.
I'm beginning to understand that the first "phase" of this treatment is the one that's supposed to get the people who don't want to be here, who will lose their kids or go to prison and that's the only reason they show up every day, it's to make those people understand that they really belong here. So I'm backwards in thinking that I belonged here on day one, and believing that less so as the program continues. For example:
Bob was talking on Friday about denial again. You all do it. You are all denialists. You should probably start saving big today for all your friends' birthdays, and for all the Mother's and Father's days you might be so lucky to live to see, because you owe everybody BIG TIME because all of you are assholes, manipulative users, and full-up to the brim with denial so rich, thick, and real that it nearly has an atomic structure.
So Ty Pennington says "Actually, I think that was true of me years ago, but I've known I've been sitting at rock bottom for years, and I knew exactly why the whole time". And just when I was relieved that someone had said something I could relate to, Bob sets down the blue and picks up the reddest dry erase marker he can find. With the same righteous fervor a teacher might employ when shaming a dunce by writing "F MINUS MINUS MINUS MINUS" across the board, he writes, "THE PERVASIVE EXCEPTIONALIST". Bob asks, punching the air with the angry red tip of an Expo-brand dry erase marker, "What does this mean?!"
Someone says "That he's perverted?" so he immediately relents and explains.
Apparently, Ty (and I, by proxy) is the most offensive kind of denier, because no matter the situation, It Doesn't Apply To Him (or Me). This is more of a discussion we started Monday but didn't finish about "types", like "the popular me" and the "charismatic user". It was a discussion that left me thinking about the personality quizzes I would take from my sister's Glamour magazine, when eleven-year-old-me would go up to my mom later and announce to her that I was a "dating perfectionist".
Anyway, on the form Friday I wrote "Not to be all pervasively exceptional, but I'm still having trouble relating to the denial concepts we have been discussing and I'm VERY EAGER TO SPEAK TO SOMEBODY ONE ON ONE ABOUT THIS".
So, I see my counselor before class tomorrow. Finally.
Here's this: now that my community service is done and I'm not going back to jail, I'm considerably less stressed, and *that* seems to trigger the urge to drink. Last night after a very early workday and dinner and a movie with a friend, I found myself at home at six obsessing about the Makers and Coke available at the gastro-pub around the corner. It became so hard to bear after 40 minutes that I actually agreed to go to a hockey game to get myself out of the house. And even though we lost, I had a great time at the game. I wonder how many hockey games and other awesome, unlikely events I've missed over the years in favor of staying home and getting drunk watching HGTV.
Friday, December 7, 2007
Habits of the highly ineffective
Rehab: Day three
Bored: 11 days
This is the first time in six years that I can write how long I've been bored using numeric characters instead of spelling it while not breaking the must-spell-out-all-numbers-less-than-ten rule. Kudos, me.
Not sure what I think about tonight. I'm exhausted. My t-shirt was too tight and I was uncomfortable the whole time. After a lecture about our expectations for the class, as well as a brief primer on some of the lingo people have been using (which, thank GOD, finally. So much of Monday and Wednesday was lost in translation because I had no idea what people were saying or how it pertained to me), we talked in depth about the habits and signs of addictive personalities.
I'll say that one thing that's always bothered me about recoveryville, at least the little that I know about it, is that everything you hear is so black and white. I might be off, but my understanding of AA, for example, is that you ARE an alcoholic and you MUST have this deep powwow with everyone in your life about your mistakes and regrets and you HAVE TO submit to a higher power or you WILL end up dirty, toothless, and rooting for cigarette butts in the planters outside office buildings downtown.
I think that things are more black and white than addicts would like to admit, but less so than recovery counselors insist. Tonight we discussed a bunch of major traits, and some I could relate to and some I couldn't. I felt like a failed addict, kind of. I can't do ANYTHING right. No, but seriously, folks. An impulse I had, but did not entertain for long, was that maybe this isn't really for me because a lot of this seriously does not apply. Like, I would never check the box on the form next to "Do you explode with rage while intoxicated or while suffering from the after-effects of intoxication?". I may seethe and engage in passive aggressive mental trickery, but no, I do not "explode with rage". The way this was delivered though, it was clear he wasn't interviewing us, but breaking it down for us: this is how you are.
Here's a better example. One of the characteristics of an addict is that nothing is your fault, and there's always a good reason to be engaging in your addictive behavior. It's always something that's being done to you, and not something you're choosing to do.
So not me. And he delivered it in a real "Gotcha!" kind of way, like he was totally laying down the truth, and didn't it resonate? I expected to hear the Law & Order "CHUNK CHUNG" sound when he was done. And if anything, I'm the opposite. I drink the same way that, to a far lesser extent, I diet. I know I shouldn't do something, I do it anyway, I feel like shit about it and do it again. Repeat ad nauseam. The whole time I'm doing it I'm beating myself up for it. I know it's my fault and I hate myself for not being able to better control it.
On the other hand, some of the things he said were real home runs. Like how addicts try to solve peripherally, AROUND the addiction. As soon as he said that I thought, "Kind of like how I--"
"For example, you might move to a different city or change jobs". And DING DING DING! Score one for Bob, who just completed my thought for me. Sure, my move fifteen months ago was for school, but I also thought that by quitting my semi-cush job and comfortable living situation and moving to a city where I would be poor and friendless and constantly crunched for time, I'd have no choice but to be sober. Thinking about this point, I had no trouble coming up with dozens of examples in my own life. It's so fucking obvious that I can't believe it never occurred to me before.
But is it like reading a horoscope, where you're like "Oh my god, that is SO ME", and then you read the horoscopes for all the other signs, and a bunch of them apply to you just the same? And aren't you a little bummed when that happens? Like, now that you could be a virgo and/or a capricorn, neither seems all that special?
I'm still getting this party started, so I guess I'll have a more educated opinion further down the road. I can't help but lose faith in somebody's opinion though, when they're looking me in the eyes and telling me that something I just don't believe is correct is for certain.
There's this, though: several times tonight somebody would object to something he said, or just give a really reasonable sounding reason why they didn't think it applied to them. Then, in three questions or less, he'd change their mind. And it wasn't in a car-dealer-y way, mindfuckey way, either. It really seemed to make sense.
But then again, I've never been to a psychic because I know that, by week's end, I'd be forking over my rent money to talk to dead relatives I didn't even know I had. I'm like that.
Bored: 11 days
This is the first time in six years that I can write how long I've been bored using numeric characters instead of spelling it while not breaking the must-spell-out-all-numbers-less-than-ten rule. Kudos, me.
Not sure what I think about tonight. I'm exhausted. My t-shirt was too tight and I was uncomfortable the whole time. After a lecture about our expectations for the class, as well as a brief primer on some of the lingo people have been using (which, thank GOD, finally. So much of Monday and Wednesday was lost in translation because I had no idea what people were saying or how it pertained to me), we talked in depth about the habits and signs of addictive personalities.
I'll say that one thing that's always bothered me about recoveryville, at least the little that I know about it, is that everything you hear is so black and white. I might be off, but my understanding of AA, for example, is that you ARE an alcoholic and you MUST have this deep powwow with everyone in your life about your mistakes and regrets and you HAVE TO submit to a higher power or you WILL end up dirty, toothless, and rooting for cigarette butts in the planters outside office buildings downtown.
I think that things are more black and white than addicts would like to admit, but less so than recovery counselors insist. Tonight we discussed a bunch of major traits, and some I could relate to and some I couldn't. I felt like a failed addict, kind of. I can't do ANYTHING right. No, but seriously, folks. An impulse I had, but did not entertain for long, was that maybe this isn't really for me because a lot of this seriously does not apply. Like, I would never check the box on the form next to "Do you explode with rage while intoxicated or while suffering from the after-effects of intoxication?". I may seethe and engage in passive aggressive mental trickery, but no, I do not "explode with rage". The way this was delivered though, it was clear he wasn't interviewing us, but breaking it down for us: this is how you are.
Here's a better example. One of the characteristics of an addict is that nothing is your fault, and there's always a good reason to be engaging in your addictive behavior. It's always something that's being done to you, and not something you're choosing to do.
So not me. And he delivered it in a real "Gotcha!" kind of way, like he was totally laying down the truth, and didn't it resonate? I expected to hear the Law & Order "CHUNK CHUNG" sound when he was done. And if anything, I'm the opposite. I drink the same way that, to a far lesser extent, I diet. I know I shouldn't do something, I do it anyway, I feel like shit about it and do it again. Repeat ad nauseam. The whole time I'm doing it I'm beating myself up for it. I know it's my fault and I hate myself for not being able to better control it.
On the other hand, some of the things he said were real home runs. Like how addicts try to solve peripherally, AROUND the addiction. As soon as he said that I thought, "Kind of like how I--"
"For example, you might move to a different city or change jobs". And DING DING DING! Score one for Bob, who just completed my thought for me. Sure, my move fifteen months ago was for school, but I also thought that by quitting my semi-cush job and comfortable living situation and moving to a city where I would be poor and friendless and constantly crunched for time, I'd have no choice but to be sober. Thinking about this point, I had no trouble coming up with dozens of examples in my own life. It's so fucking obvious that I can't believe it never occurred to me before.
But is it like reading a horoscope, where you're like "Oh my god, that is SO ME", and then you read the horoscopes for all the other signs, and a bunch of them apply to you just the same? And aren't you a little bummed when that happens? Like, now that you could be a virgo and/or a capricorn, neither seems all that special?
I'm still getting this party started, so I guess I'll have a more educated opinion further down the road. I can't help but lose faith in somebody's opinion though, when they're looking me in the eyes and telling me that something I just don't believe is correct is for certain.
There's this, though: several times tonight somebody would object to something he said, or just give a really reasonable sounding reason why they didn't think it applied to them. Then, in three questions or less, he'd change their mind. And it wasn't in a car-dealer-y way, mindfuckey way, either. It really seemed to make sense.
But then again, I've never been to a psychic because I know that, by week's end, I'd be forking over my rent money to talk to dead relatives I didn't even know I had. I'm like that.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
I have to be honest, I never finished "Revolution from Within"
Rehab: Day 2
Bored: Nine days
Well... huh. Tonight may have actually been a little useful.
First thing: After being built up to be something of a god, but not like a sexy Greek god, more like Old Testament god (all wrath-y and imposing), I met the guy who'll lead the meetings for the next month. He was simply on vacation Monday, and if today was any indication it was probably a snowbird jaunt to Palm Springs or a crisp off-season weekend in Provincetown because dude is GAY GAY GAY.
I was a little worried at first, because although my finely tuned internal homosexual detection device* definitely picked up what he was putting down, whether or not he was an angry closet gay or a free-to-be-me gay was still up in the air. Having been supervised in the past by the former, it's bad, unless you're willing to shelve that part of your life and join them in the closet during any time that you spend with them. Old closeted gay people HATE young gay people, as evidenced by the myriad virulently anti-'mo public figures busted getting nasty as they wanna be with dudes in the past few months.
This matters a lot here, because obviously I'm going to be doing a lot of talking about myself in the next year, and at some point or another it's going to come up, and nobody wants to hear about my 45 year old girlfriend John. Especially if I happen to be wearing the same argyle print Michael Kors oxford shirt that I'm wearing today.
Let's call our leader "Bob". Bob is waxy and misshapen, as though Madam Tussaud had once brought him to life in the form of Mike Ditka, but then somebody left him out in a tropical rain. Bob is super commanding, which is impressive with this motley crew. I think they respect and fear him a little, and I get the feeling it's not just because they might go to back to jail if he doesn't approve of them. Interesting.
Bob meets me, and I introduce myself to the group for the second time. DUI, blackouts in the past year? I don't know, maybe three or four (LIE!). Drinking since I was fifteen but with great zest and fervor since about 22 or so. And yes, my first name is D but I go by B. "Why do you people have to make everything so fucking confusing?". I think he's kidding, but his delivery is so dry it's impossible to know for sure.
More talk of chemical dependency being a disease, which I don't really understand and I'm not sure I really buy. Someone asks "So, how do I break that down for people, when I tell them it's a disease and they say, no, you're an addict?" Bob makes fun of this guy for awhile, apparently his MO, before he finally realizes it's a serious question and starts to answer. Why didn't he think it was a serious question in the first place? I'm confused.
He writes a quote on the board:
The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn.
-- Gloria Steinem
"B, would you read that for us please?" I do. "And what do you think that means?" God, the woman who did your job Monday totally did NOT make us participate this much.
"Uh... well, I think it's kind of applicable here in that, like, you know, you really have to like challenge your perception of what you think addiction is. I mean, when you come here. I mean, like you really have to break down what you thought you knew and start to rebuild your... uh.. like when you come here you have no idea what's going on. I still have no idea what's going on".
This is the stupidest thing I have ever said in my life. I'm suddenly feeling a lot of empathy towards the contestants on America's Next Top Model. The last bit kind of gets a laugh, but who knows if it was good comic timing or embarrassed giggles.
"What do you think it means in its original context?"
"Thaaaat... we have to unlearn [Ugh! More Harley's Hippies talk. I'm totally going to sound like Dr. Mosupye, my angry black lesbian communist South African women's studies prof before I get out of this place] our ideas of women's role in society, and that it's a challenge for both men and women? And that what we kind of have to disregard what we know because it will... like.. pollute anything we try to learn on top of it?".
"And why do you say that?"
"Because it's coming from Gloria Steinem, and she was a big feminist?". I seem to have scored correctly, or I have also been detected by his own finely tuned internal homosexual detection device, because he seems pleased. Why we are talking about this outdated, SO nine waves-ago feminist in this setting is beyond me.
"Does anybody else know who Gloria Steinem is?", and because they do not, or because they are smarter than me, there is only the sound of crickets chirping in the distance. To horny girl: "Do you know who she is?" She does not. To the cute black girl: "You?" No. They are then ordered to write a one page essay on Gloria Steinem and turn it in on Friday. The mercury has exploded the top of my douche-o-meter and is traveling at lightning speed towards the heavens. If I was more strategic I would have said I thought Gloria Steinem was Dixie Carter's character from "Designing Women".
There's chatter about men and woman and whores vs. bachelors and just when I feel trapped in an episode of Sex and the City, horny girl says "Most of my guy friends say I'm more like a guy than a girl". Of course. The retorts to this all wash over me, and then I let them fall away. I think it would have been better if the lights had gone out and a single spotlight shined on Bob as a boa fell to his shoulders from the ceiling when he says the following: "Honey, I'm more woman than you'll ever be!". But that alone was pretty good. Ty Pennington puts his head in his hands and says "Make it stop". Everybody laughs, and I feel much relief.
Well none of this sounds very useful, does it? For the next hour we discussed withdrawal, stress management, yadda yadda, and I was surprised but also a little relieved to identify with so much of the material. Kind of like when you find out what that weird growth on your toe is. Yes, it sucks to have toe cancer, but at least now you know what it is and you can deal with it. I don't really have toe cancer.
I really intended this entry to be lots of navel gazing about the last half of the class and what I learned, but Project Runway is about to start.
Abruptly yours...
*You know how some girls feel about "panties", how it's kind of like how people who were fat kids feel about "husky"? That's how I feel about "gaydar". There's a dumb story here. Ask me about the time the closeted gay president of my high school student council killed that word dead to me by employing a stupid reference to it during morning address over the PA system.
Bored: Nine days
Well... huh. Tonight may have actually been a little useful.
First thing: After being built up to be something of a god, but not like a sexy Greek god, more like Old Testament god (all wrath-y and imposing), I met the guy who'll lead the meetings for the next month. He was simply on vacation Monday, and if today was any indication it was probably a snowbird jaunt to Palm Springs or a crisp off-season weekend in Provincetown because dude is GAY GAY GAY.
I was a little worried at first, because although my finely tuned internal homosexual detection device* definitely picked up what he was putting down, whether or not he was an angry closet gay or a free-to-be-me gay was still up in the air. Having been supervised in the past by the former, it's bad, unless you're willing to shelve that part of your life and join them in the closet during any time that you spend with them. Old closeted gay people HATE young gay people, as evidenced by the myriad virulently anti-'mo public figures busted getting nasty as they wanna be with dudes in the past few months.
This matters a lot here, because obviously I'm going to be doing a lot of talking about myself in the next year, and at some point or another it's going to come up, and nobody wants to hear about my 45 year old girlfriend John. Especially if I happen to be wearing the same argyle print Michael Kors oxford shirt that I'm wearing today.
Let's call our leader "Bob". Bob is waxy and misshapen, as though Madam Tussaud had once brought him to life in the form of Mike Ditka, but then somebody left him out in a tropical rain. Bob is super commanding, which is impressive with this motley crew. I think they respect and fear him a little, and I get the feeling it's not just because they might go to back to jail if he doesn't approve of them. Interesting.
Bob meets me, and I introduce myself to the group for the second time. DUI, blackouts in the past year? I don't know, maybe three or four (LIE!). Drinking since I was fifteen but with great zest and fervor since about 22 or so. And yes, my first name is D but I go by B. "Why do you people have to make everything so fucking confusing?". I think he's kidding, but his delivery is so dry it's impossible to know for sure.
More talk of chemical dependency being a disease, which I don't really understand and I'm not sure I really buy. Someone asks "So, how do I break that down for people, when I tell them it's a disease and they say, no, you're an addict?" Bob makes fun of this guy for awhile, apparently his MO, before he finally realizes it's a serious question and starts to answer. Why didn't he think it was a serious question in the first place? I'm confused.
He writes a quote on the board:
The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn.
-- Gloria Steinem
"B, would you read that for us please?" I do. "And what do you think that means?" God, the woman who did your job Monday totally did NOT make us participate this much.
"Uh... well, I think it's kind of applicable here in that, like, you know, you really have to like challenge your perception of what you think addiction is. I mean, when you come here. I mean, like you really have to break down what you thought you knew and start to rebuild your... uh.. like when you come here you have no idea what's going on. I still have no idea what's going on".
This is the stupidest thing I have ever said in my life. I'm suddenly feeling a lot of empathy towards the contestants on America's Next Top Model. The last bit kind of gets a laugh, but who knows if it was good comic timing or embarrassed giggles.
"What do you think it means in its original context?"
"Thaaaat... we have to unlearn [Ugh! More Harley's Hippies talk. I'm totally going to sound like Dr. Mosupye, my angry black lesbian communist South African women's studies prof before I get out of this place] our ideas of women's role in society, and that it's a challenge for both men and women? And that what we kind of have to disregard what we know because it will... like.. pollute anything we try to learn on top of it?".
"And why do you say that?"
"Because it's coming from Gloria Steinem, and she was a big feminist?". I seem to have scored correctly, or I have also been detected by his own finely tuned internal homosexual detection device, because he seems pleased. Why we are talking about this outdated, SO nine waves-ago feminist in this setting is beyond me.
"Does anybody else know who Gloria Steinem is?", and because they do not, or because they are smarter than me, there is only the sound of crickets chirping in the distance. To horny girl: "Do you know who she is?" She does not. To the cute black girl: "You?" No. They are then ordered to write a one page essay on Gloria Steinem and turn it in on Friday. The mercury has exploded the top of my douche-o-meter and is traveling at lightning speed towards the heavens. If I was more strategic I would have said I thought Gloria Steinem was Dixie Carter's character from "Designing Women".
There's chatter about men and woman and whores vs. bachelors and just when I feel trapped in an episode of Sex and the City, horny girl says "Most of my guy friends say I'm more like a guy than a girl". Of course. The retorts to this all wash over me, and then I let them fall away. I think it would have been better if the lights had gone out and a single spotlight shined on Bob as a boa fell to his shoulders from the ceiling when he says the following: "Honey, I'm more woman than you'll ever be!". But that alone was pretty good. Ty Pennington puts his head in his hands and says "Make it stop". Everybody laughs, and I feel much relief.
Well none of this sounds very useful, does it? For the next hour we discussed withdrawal, stress management, yadda yadda, and I was surprised but also a little relieved to identify with so much of the material. Kind of like when you find out what that weird growth on your toe is. Yes, it sucks to have toe cancer, but at least now you know what it is and you can deal with it. I don't really have toe cancer.
I really intended this entry to be lots of navel gazing about the last half of the class and what I learned, but Project Runway is about to start.
Abruptly yours...
*You know how some girls feel about "panties", how it's kind of like how people who were fat kids feel about "husky"? That's how I feel about "gaydar". There's a dumb story here. Ask me about the time the closeted gay president of my high school student council killed that word dead to me by employing a stupid reference to it during morning address over the PA system.
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