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This BLOG is duplicated from my website and can be pretty random. Philosophical. |
| I have found that the writing I initially did for therapy and catharsis has been of some interest to others so I started a blog on my personal website. I will be copying those here to get feedback as well as entertain. |
Hope Why do I keep going when things get tough? Why I would place my life, standing, finances, etc. in jeopardy to help another? These questions have plagued us all at various times, I’m sure. At the ripe old age of 62, I feel like I am beginning to reach an age of understanding that qualifies me to begin to answer those questions as they relate to me. I’m also at an age where these questions have begun to beg for an answer. I’ll start with why I think I keep going. To be honest I have chosen not to keep going in life several times as I am a suicide survivor. Today I just need hope to keep going so I think the primary reason I have chosen suicide over life several times was lack of hope. There was a famous study done with rats to determine their ability to avoid drowning and we will leave the ethics of that experiment for another day. In the study, among other things, it was determined that a rat that was saved close to giving up and drowning was able to hold out for much longer the next time. I believe that I emerged stronger after surviving each of my suicide attempts. This also gave me hope that was similar to the rats in that study by surviving when I thought I had given up and died. All of the successful suicides that I have known the details of have similar parameters in that they all had a component of lack of hope. My Mother took her own life and reading through her writings of those last couple of months showed me that she was out of hope. So, if it is hope that keeps me going how do I find it? I was abandoned by both my Mother and my Father in my youth, so I spent considerable time in institutions and orphanages. I also spent several years in mental hospitals as well as incarcerated. I was also sexually and physically abused so much of my youth was filled with hopelessness. In hindsight, my behavior and decisions during that period were really a form of psychological suicide because without hope I had no sense of the future and had very self-destructive and potentially life-threatening behaviors. During that period, I didn’t care if I lived or died because without hope my life had no meaning. I emerged from that period into what from the outside would seem like a relatively normal life. Even though I had the trappings of a life such as a job, car, apartment, etc. I still had no hope because I had skipped growing up and the emotional growth that comes with it. During this time, my alcoholism really took off and I drowned my fears and anxiety in alcohol, drugs, and false relationships. Since these were not effective coping skills I still had no hope and had a few suicide attempts. In each of these attempts, I woke up grateful to still be here. Much like the near drowned rats I emerged knowing that I could survive more than I thought I could. Unfortunately, while this did build a new resilience in me it did not equip me with better coping or living skills. Because of this the next many years could best be described as a determined grind in that although I would push on in the face of adversity I still had not much hope of things getting better. The vague hope that things would get better coupled with overdeveloped survival instincts was why I kept going during that period. In my book, I describe the next few years in a chapter titled “Narrowing” because that is what was happening. I was slowly losing or giving up things and my life became a meager existence with my only hope coming from a bottle. The only way I could face another day was knowing I could get drunk. I guess weirdly it is similar to how I live my life today with the one day at a time philosophy. I can get through today knowing I could get drunk tomorrow but back then I got through the day knowing I would get drunk again tomorrow. Fast forward to me getting sober and I found hope in the eyes of an old man who told me his story while doing my intake at a drug and alcohol rehab. I could finally relate to someone else about my alcoholism, saw life and hope in his eyes, and I was no longer alone. And while it has dimmed a few times over the last 9 years that small ember of hope I picked up that day is now a bright flame. I see hope kind of like a credit card in that I have to have enough on the card to make withdrawals when I need to. Before getting sober my only hope was in the form of an afterlife better than the life I was currently living. That kind of hope wears very thin very quickly because it is the same thing I was doing in my youth, hoping for better days without doing anything to help make it happen. While I do still believe in an existence outside this one, by enlarging my spiritual and emotional life I increase the limit of my hope credit line because I am finding true happiness. With that philosophy in mind, I have faced many hurdles in recovery and after making a withdrawal from my hope card I was able to refill it quicker each time. I have said many times that gratitude is my superpower, and nothing will fill or increase my hope balance quicker than gratitude. When I am grateful for what I have and what I have achieved it reminds me of what I am capable of. I still depend on my higher power for strength but more and more I am seeing that strength dependent on my actions. In the end, the final stage is where I now have a very good sense of my hope balance, and instead of lamenting over a lack of hope I actively rebuild it by going to more meetings, talking to support friends, or acts of self-care. This has been proven out recently as I navigate easily through what I would have seen as show-stopping tragedies a few years ago. Life is tough, but it is a lot tougher without hope! |
| What is normal? What is acceptable? In my opinion, there are no such things. What is normal and perfectly acceptable in one situation could be heinous or even illegal in another. The combination of upbringing, education, and current status greatly impacts how one responds and relates to others. Depending on the situation I find myself in I have been described as intimidating, vulgar, and even evil. On the other hand, I have also been described as sweet, nice, and intelligent. I have, of course, been described in many other ways as well. I am equally taken aback when someone tells me how intimidating they think I am or when someone tells me how awesome they think I am. I have been oblivious to my surroundings way too often due to being very self-centered most of the time. I guess that is my point here today, that what I say and do is perceived very differently than I intended much of the time. As I said it is getting better although that is as much from my improving mental health as becoming a better person. We all have masks or personas that we use in different situations to fit in, receive rewards, and for many other reasons. For much of my life, my personas were real persons that took over and at times I had little to no control over them. I think that led to me being less aware of how I am being perceived than most people. What usually happens for me is that I have this general generic persona that I use in new or unknown situations. In that mode, I can be quite charming, disarming, and well-mannered. But, that is not who I really am deep down, and that mask quickly slips. For most of my life, my “normal person” persona was who I thought I was supposed to be, and was always quite frustrated when minutes to days later that mask fell away and I began acting inappropriately. I don’t know if everyone else has a “normal person” mask they use or not, I just know about mine. I also can’t use the phrase “how I was raised” the way most people do because I did not grow up in a household the way most people do. My “raising” was an amalgam of orphanages, institutions, relatives, and even prison rules and discipline. Looking back on it all today I realize that I never had an identity because my environment was always changing and chaotic. I guess that is part of why I forged so many different identities. Once I had enough therapy to integrate and stabilize my personality, 7 years to be exact, I am now able to work on what that integrated personality is supposed to look like. And what I want it to look like! The majority of my youth, 11 to 18 years old, I was locked up quite a bit or in some type of nontraditional housing situation. When I was not incarcerated I was with my Mother or relatives and hung out with the freaks. Freaks was the common slang in my time for the drug and hippie crowd. Hanging with that group I developed certain ideals, vocabulary, and looks. Considering that the rest of the time I was usually in some type of institution with rigid rules and often unfeeling staff my values tended to be very loosely defined and very anti-establishment and anti-authority. I would then spend the next 40-plus years working in professional environments, first as a programmer for pharmacy computers and then as a firefighter and paramedic. I always felt very much like the imposter because here I was this, in my mind, tie-dye-wearing hippie trying to pretend to be a professional. In reality, I was very good at my jobs and perceived as professional and competent, I just left like I would be found out at any moment. I also tended to forget my environment and say stuff that was way out of character and inappropriate for the situation. Sometimes it would be subtle but still noticed. Things like using drug slang with patients as a paramedic. Fast forward to today, having been sober for a while, living in sober living, and working in the homeless and recovery industry. I find myself once again surrounded by the type of people I hung out with in my youth. I still find myself cringing occasionally in these groups as I get comfortable and say something over the top. I still have to remember that even though most of us have similar stories mine is still a bit more out there and tragic. I have to kind of ease people into hearing my whole story. Ironically, I had the juxtaposition of feeling like the adult in the room or the authority figure to the youths when I first started hanging out with the sober living and recovery community. I had been trying to remove myself from my roots for so long that I forgot where I came from. It took a while to realize that these are my roots and where I belong. Because of that I once again find myself more at home with the “freaks” than with “normal” folks. I was at a sober living 4th of July party a few years ago and remember looking out at all of the people partying in the pool. It reminded me of all the keg parties I had been to in my youth with the exception that there were no kegs, and everyone was sober. I was also pretty sure no one was going to jail or the morgue, like what used to happen at our keggers back in the day. So, as I continue to heal, grow, and recreate myself I am finding my true place in the world. Today I am moving more towards what makes me feel comfortable and at home than where society or someone else thinks I should be. It is funny that I left a world behind to enter another one that I thought I wanted only to want the old one back. Some say people can’t change but I say it is never too late to change and change is always possible. So, excuse me while I continue to create myself! |
Change There are 3 types of people in this world. There are those who abhor change, those who welcome change, and then there are those who crave and initiate change. In reality, we all probably have a mixture of features from each of these groups. I used to belong almost exclusively to the first group, much like my father, but over the years I have softened quite a bit and accept change pretty well. My father fought and resisted change tooth and nail. As the head of households, companies, and other systems he was able to keep change at bay for much of his life. If he moved, then everything in the house was arraigned exactly the same as the last house if possible. This was most notable in his bedroom. He had a freestanding full-length mirror, Roman statue, dressers, etc. that all wound up in the exact same relative positions in house after house. Everything was immaculately clean as well. Psychologists can have a hay day with this type of behavior. Some of them would say that he must have come from a chaotic childhood with little order while others would insist he came from an overly structured environment. From knowing him and conversations over the years I know that his mother, by his words, was a slob and the house was always in disarray. Some would say that the behavior resulting from a person’s childhood environment also depends greatly on what happens next. In my father's case, he would go on to join the military as well as spend some time in prison. Having grown up in disorder and then later being forced to conform to rigid order caused him to have very serious compulsions about cleanliness and order. His closets and drawers looked like showrooms. Everything was hung or folded with precision and perfectly lined up. Anything stained or worn, especially underwear, was promptly discarded. In my case, my mother was also a bit slovenly although that can easily be attributed to her serious mental health problems. I would also go on to be incarcerated, institutionalized, and then become a firefighter and paramedic. Although our paths seemed very similar from the outside we wound up being very different in that I am a slob. And, while I am not dirty, my environment is always cluttered and in disarray. My cars, bedrooms, and office spaces have always suffered from neglect. Since my father and I came from similar environments, at least as far as cleanliness and order go, and we obviously have very similar genetics then there must be some other explanation for our differences in resultant behaviors. So, the next thing I would like to explore is resilience to change. I can extrapolate from conversations, anecdotal information, and family history that my father’s childhood was relatively linear. That means that while he may have experienced stress from the clutter and lack of cleanliness he at least knew where he was going home to and what was going to be there when he arrived from school or other outings. His family didn’t move around much either, so he had a fairly stable environment as well. My childhood was the opposite in that respect. I was abandoned by my mother numerous times and spent most of my childhood, from 11 years old on, bouncing around between group homes, foster homes, and the streets. I learned to never grow roots and to expect almost continuous change. Unlike a child whose family simply moves around a lot, such as a military family, I was never able to feel secure and expected someone to come through the door any moment and tell me to pack up because I was going somewhere else again. In many of these cases, I would not even be able to take my meager belongings with me, so I would not have even a few familiar things to start over with. Now all of this brings rise to many psychological and philosophical concepts, but I am focusing on change today. In that respect, I see that while my father was used to the clutter and disorder he was not exposed to constant change and therefore did not develop a resilience to change and became one of those who abhorred change and had to control even the change itself. I on the other hand was exposed to constant change and developed a high resilience to change because my life was out of my control and I had to adapt to new surroundings regularly. As I mentioned I was highly resistant to change throughout a lot of my life. I think that was because having grown up in constant change and chaos I avoided change because I have a distaste for change more than fear of it. I also have a lot of mental health problems that resulted from my childhood and part of those survival mechanisms was to avoid change as well. I was also in a position to be able to resist change for the most part as well. Fast forward to now being sober and many years of therapy helping to relieve my mental health issues and I accept change pretty healthily today. That is fortunate because since getting sober I have also divorced, moved out of the house I lived in for many years, and am unable to continue my former career due to my background. I think that is also why I have been able to adapt to living in sober living houses because it is very similar to my youth and I now have the resilience to adapt to moving from house to house and having new housemates regularly. As I have mentioned in many previous writings today I choose the high road whenever possible. I think a lot of the reason I can do that is because of my resilience to change. Instead of looking at my past as something that beat me up and caused me pain, I can look at it as something that prepared me for my life today. |
What You've Got I remember when I first left rehab a few years ago. I had 30 days sober, a bucketful of determination, and a healthy fear of relapse. I knew from what I had already been told and had seen, that one of the first things I needed to do was get a sponsor. I had a temporary sponsor in rehab, but he was urging me to get a permanent sponsor right away. I thought it was because he did not live in San Antonio but in hindsight, I think he knew I was going to be a handful. Anyway, I went to a meeting right away, well after booking in and out of jail for a new felony I’d picked up while still drinking. By now I was paranoid that I would screw up, so I was still very motivated to do this thing right. I went to at least one meeting a day for much more than the recommended 90 days, the whole time on the lookout for a sponsor. At my second or third meeting, this guy was sharing and recounting the blessings of a recent experience. I thought he was nuts at first because he talked about how he bought a new bicycle and while riding it home from the shop he was hit by a car and broke his arm. He still had the cast on and was going on about how he had medical insurance, the driver stopped and was insured, and the bike shop repaired the bike for free, etc. As I listened to him it dawned on me that he had been just like me not too long ago. I started to see that this was the shit everyone was talking about, the fulfilled promises from the AA 12-step program. It then dawned on me that this would be a pretty good prospect for a sponsor. So, I told him I wanted what he had because problems seemed to roll off of his back like a duck’s. I asked him to sponsor me and he, reluctantly, agreed. Back then I was a hot mess and I don’t think anybody gave me much of a chance of staying sober let alone getting my life together. We worked together diligently though, and I think he started to see something in me that others didn’t. We had been using the AA meeting hall to do step work but always had to leave when the keyholder left. I talked to the group leader and picked up a key to the hall since by now I was coming around regularly and had agreed to be the unofficial janitor. The next day when my sponsor said we couldn’t stay because they were locking up and I pulled out the key he stopped and looked at me for a minute and then smiled. I think that was the moment he knew I was going to make it. We worked together for several months and he walked me through all of the steps. I moved on to a female sponsor after I came out but have stayed in contact with him. Fast forward and I am coming up on 9 years sober which still blows my mind. I was in a wreck with my car yesterday and was just happy no one was hurt, and I was able to limp my car home. As I was getting ready for work this morning I had been going over stuff in my mind. I thought that I was blessed that I had the money to catch a Lyft to work and back, I had full coverage insurance, I already had enough money for the deductible, and I would get half price on the bus pass because I am over 62, etc. I was mulling these things over and it hit me – I have what he’s got! That realization made me reflect back over the last 9 years. If you had told or shown me what my life would be like today, I would have thought you were crazy and at that time I would not have wanted what I have today anyway. My life is simple today and I like it that way. The chaos and insanity have left me. The only thing that the sponsor asked me to do in return is to keep passing it along the way he passed it on to me. Every time I text him or call him to report another milestone and thank him, he asks if I am still sponsoring. I say “Yes”, and he replies, “Then you are still thanking me!”. Never in a million years would I have imagined still being alive today let alone happy and useful. I hope I never forget those first days and what it was like. In that way, I continue to have empathy with the newcomer. I try also to remember what a pain in the ass I was and the patience and grace that was shown to me. So, in the end, I can truly say to that man, “Thank you! I have what you’ve got!”. |
| I remember when I was first getting sober I told my sponsor that now that I was getting a handle on alcohol I guessed I would need to go to NA, SAA, and all the other A’s to get a handle on drug addiction, sex addiction, and all of my other addictions. He just laughed and told me to relax, stick around, and see what happens first. Of course, he was right because AA itself describes the disease of alcoholism as being one of obsession. Therefore, if I find a way to arrest the disease of alcoholism I would most likely arrest the bulk of my other obsessions. In reality, it is only partially true because while I have stopped drinking I have not stopped thinking and that is where my disease and obsession truly live. I also remember talking to Alan, the only real therapist I've ever worked with, and him telling me that most of the things I worried about, watching too much porn, driving too fast, telling white lies, etc. were not necessarily universally wrong. Much of what I have thought was wrong throughout most of my life was all in my head. Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so”. So, in reality, it boils down to harm. If no one is harmed, including myself, then there is no problem. I’m not talking about the bullshit kind of harm concept that I used to spout like my drinking was only harming myself because that was crap and I did harm others by being absent, spending too much money, etc. My problem over the years has been that I used other people’s morality, judgment, or complaints to assess my behavior and ideas and then commenced to assimilate all of that crap into my values. I used to think that values were my beliefs but today I know that values are the actions to back up my beliefs. Once that process is complete, or at least well underway, then I can begin to figure out what my true beliefs are and begin to take the actions to bring it all current. Which brings us back to obsession. When assessing my behavior and whether it is wrong and aligns with my personal beliefs and morals today I have to let go of all of the guilt and shame I dragged with me from my childhood and relationships and think about what is real. That can be very difficult because some of this thinking has been with me for a very long time and has become very real in my mind. When I began working with Alan to clear out the debris from my past, his main test for everything was “Is it obsessive?”. Some things were very clearly harmful and didn’t need much evaluation to judge such as drinking or using drugs again, lying, manipulating, etc. I had to take a long hard look at some other things though and decide once and for all for myself if I thought they were wrong or not. Alcohol and drugs are a no-brainer for me because they immediately become obsessive. On that note what is obsession? I used to think of it in terms of thinking about something. If I was at work and my thoughts were preoccupied with my first drink after work that is a type of obsession but not the only type. Obsession of thought is easy enough to identify once I begin to get honest with myself. But, the type Alan was talking about is allowing some activity, thinking, or other behavior to take the place of something. Using that test, which I did not so much like at first, it was fairly easy to identify the things I was obsessively allowing to steal my serenity, peace, and eventually sobriety. It is interesting that once I began to use that test to look at myself everything seemed to do an about-face. The things that I thought were bad for me didn’t seem so bad and the innocuous-seeming things took on a more sinister look. A good example is a friendship I had allowed to become obsessive. While the connection with this person may have had many positive benefits, I was beginning to skip 12-step meetings and other commitments that were more than outweighing any benefit this relationship was bringing. On the other hand, I had a lot of guilt about my driving habits and was obsessively beating myself up over it all the time. This test helped me see that the obsessive self-guilt was worse than driving a few miles over the speed limit. Once I could take a step back and look at the big picture I was able to set realistic expectations for myself and my driving. I personally believe it is okay to drive a little over the limit and be exasperated over other drivers' obvious lack of skill. In this spirit, I can then look at the rest of my old driving habits and say that they are or could be harmful. I no longer drive excessively faster than traffic, and I no longer “brake check” or use other aggressive driving maneuvers but I no longer stress out about minor infractions either. Which brings me to other addictions. What I found was that the other addictions such as drugs and sex left with the alcohol. I think that is because all of those were used to alter or remove my feelings and the combination of therapy and the 12-step transformational process has made me okay with feeling. I was blessed to never have struggled much with shopping or gambling obsessions. Some would say I can be a bit of a hoarder but thanks to Alan’s test I know it is nowhere near obsessive. Using Alan’s obsession test has allowed me to finally put porn into perspective and get over my unhealthy guilt about it as well. So, in the end, it all comes down to harm and obsession. If no one is harmed and it is not obsessive, then it is ok in my book and I no longer care what anyone else thinks about it. But, the other side of the coin has to be true as well - If someone else’s behavior is not my cup of tea but it passes the test I have to let them be true to themselves. |
| I am realizing I am quickly approaching “that age” where things begin to make more sense and I am seeing the wisdom in the things my parents and especially grandparents said. It is like so many other things in life that something sneaks up on you and you do not realize it is happening until it has happened. Part of it is realizing that my actions are falling more and more in line with my beliefs. For the longest time, I felt like many of my beliefs were outdated and old-fashioned. But, I am beginning to see more and more how much sense they make. Now I don’t know if this process has been the same for others or just for me. For, you see, my life has been a bit different than the average person. I grew up mostly in the streets surrounded by a mostly criminal element. We had different values and ideas than most folks. The idea of doing the right thing because it was the right thing just didn’t fit with our crowd. That was lame or uncool because everything we did was because it would benefit us somehow. The thought of helping someone else without the potential for gain was lost on us. Life on the streets and a criminal lifestyle are hard to describe to the uninitiated. I know this because every once in a while, I will be discussing something from my past or throwing out an idea and realize that the person I am talking to is shocked. They can’t grasp the ideals surrounding the events I am describing. I forget sometimes that I didn't grow up like most folks and that they can’t see things from my worldview. I guess that is one of the reasons I enjoy living in a sober living home because most of the people I interact with have a similar lived experience. Most of them have not gone to the depths that I did but we are still all in the same ballpark. There are a few, such as a dear friend I met when I first moved into sober living, that have enough similar lived experiences that we can be totally at peace and ease around each other. I guess that is part of being at “that age” because I am beginning to have that feeling about other more “normal” people my age. I used to think, and occasionally still do, that those people were naïve, square, or deluded and were missing out. Today I realize that I was the one who was delusional and missing out. By believing that the world was wrong, cold, and out to get me I avoided so much that would have been beneficial and rewarding. After moving to San Antonio in 1985 I consequentially left that life and friends behind. That was when I began to realize that I was not “normal” and that my values did not line up with society in general. I still harbored those same thoughts though and just “went along to get along” for the most part to try to get by as best as possible. I don’t know for sure what the people in my life saw and thought but I always felt like an imposter fearing that I would be exposed at any moment. Like most things in life, I didn’t realize how much that affected me until I began to shed that skin after getting sober. Getting sober and working a 12-step program let me see my fallacious thinking and how it had affected my life for all these years. It has still taken several years of living “as if” for the old thinking to fade away. That kind of thinking can still pop in from time to time and it seems to appear most when I am meeting new people that I will have to depend on or engage with. I still find myself sizing them up for what I can get out of them or what harm they could bring me. The good news is that my defects today pretty much stay in my head and don’t escape. I can still find myself acting upon those thoughts, but those days are far less common and the actions milder than they once were. I’m not sure where I thought I would wind up but all of the working on myself, disciplining my thoughts, and staying sober has resulted in simply becoming a worker among workers, a friend among friends, or in other words a decent human being. I remember when I was younger thinking decency was for suckers, that “nice guys finish last”, and that if anyone had described me as a decent human being I would’ve been insulted. I guess we all get here on different tracks and that most people have some degree of fallacious and errant thinking that keeps them from reaching self-actualization. To me, self-actualization is when my “go-to” thinking and beliefs are in alignment with my core beliefs and when those beliefs are in relative alignment with general society. I say relative because not all societal norms are good for all people and each person's morality is going to differ somewhat from their fellow. The key for me is when those differences bring harm to another. By harm, I mean true harm not perceived harm or ego bruising. For example, if my perceived morality causes me to try to remove a freedom or right from another because I think they are wrong then that is harmful. This brings me back to the topic at hand – “that age”. I remember there was a point in their lives when my grandfather, then my father, and now finally mine where the tone softened, the words came slower, and the judgment lessened. I remember when all the wisdom that poured out of the mouths of my grandfather and father seemed so silly and demeaning. Now those words pour out of my mouth and guess what? These darn kids aren’t listening any more than I did. I see now why they didn’t push too hard because they saw what I see today, and they knew that, if I lived long enough, I would come to the same conclusions. Things don’t change as much as we think they do. |
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