LET’S TALK ABOUT ADDICTION

There are many types of addiction to be sure. Smoking, drugs and alcohol are the obvious ones. Food can be one, chocolate, sex (I wish), personality disorders and pretty much anything you can conjure up including exercise.
I’ve never been a smoker. It always made me sick and green just wasn’t a color that looked good on me. Like most people of my generation I experimented a little with drugs and quickly discovered I could take ‘em or leave ‘em. They just weren’t that interesting. Unlike Bill Clinton I did inhale marijuana and for some years (I quickly discovered I could smoke that), due to the stressful circumstances in my life at that time, and was the next best thing to a chain smoker for a while to stay calm. I bought Nabisco stock hoping to make some of the money back I spent buying Oreo’s back then years later. I went into therapy for a while only to be told by three different therapists I wasn’t an addict…just confused (really?). Talking about my past went nowhere because neither of us had any clue what we were supposed to be looking for (that answer was recently answered as you well know by this time) so I was pronounced cured handed a ridiculous “Chip” and sent on my way. Truth be told I think we were all tired and frustrated with each other at that point. I don’t think entities like AA, NA, Alanon and so on aren’t useful things. I’ve known far too many people who have lived better lives because of them to discount them in such an abrupt way.
In spite of the life I’ve lived sex, unfortunately, has ever been an addictive issue. I believe sex addiction exists but not nearly to the level people would like to believe it exists. It makes for a great fantasy or punch line to a joke but the reality is far more troublesome in the light of day. I’ve noticed a trend over the past few years where if you’re rich enough, famous enough (and apparently have a big enough putter) and you get caught with your pants down you can claim sex addiction and pay someone a ridiculous sum of money to cure you (Thanks Tiger….not) and hope everything goes away quickly.
For the rest of us, famous or not, addiction usually brings a rather unpleasant means to an end. Bob Crane (the Hogan’s Hero’s guy) was a legitimate sex addict that was beaten to death with a camera tripod while doing a dinner theater gig here in Scottsdale. Rumor has it because he filmed a few too many people having sex in his hotel room one night. Hardly a stellar way to go much less remembered by, his “drug of choice”, to use a PC term, seems to have the same outcome regardless.
I had been cautious of my drinking most all of my life going so far as to not drink at all for several years as a pious way of thinking I was better than my mother who was a full blown alcoholic a large portion of my growing up years and at times belligerent, other times suicidal.
I swore I would never become like that. In some ways I’ve lived to regret that oath.
When she became sober she was like most reborn alcoholics and after apologizing to everyone she ever encountered in her life (including the garbage men). She dove head first into religion as part of her penance and to make amends for her sins (real or imagined). To be around her was tedious at best and I found it difficult to determine if it were genuine or simply lip service in hopes of bluffing her way into forgiveness by whomever somewhere along the way. It made me stop and re-think my own views about religion. For that I must admit I have to thank her for.
Because of that I stopped being the dutiful eldest son. I had done all of that to this particular point in my life and was done with trying to be what I really wasn’t. I had the wife, the two kids (I love to death), the house with the mortgage, the two cars, at least one “regular” job to pay the bills, a couple of dogs romping around the yard, the Sunday School teacher and for a brief moment chairman of the board at the church. I had stuffed the real me into that box I wrote about some time back and only allowed bits and pieces to come out and play to maintain my sanity. All of that came grinding to a halt one day without notice or fanfare. My wife, at the time, woke up one morning and had no clue who I was. To be honest I’m not sure I knew who I was at that moment either. We went down in flames but emerged friends at the end.
I began to look inward and discovered I was not Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu or any other religion organized or otherwise yet at the same time I was all of those things.
I am agnostic by definition. I believe in God…end of story. I don’t feel a need to go to a building and sit there to talk to God nor do I feel the need to have to pay for the privilege of doing that. Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed and all the others are interesting people who like Republicans and Democrats all say pretty much the same thing in different ways and different practices and symbolism…hardly reasons for wars to be fought or laws to be written saying that one interpretation of something is better than the others. Keep it to yourself, believe however you want to believe and in whoever you want to believe in and shut the hell up and concentrate on something important like feeding people, giving them clean water and a decent education regardless of where they live or what they look like. For the cost of one military ordinance bullet you can pay for three math books.
How I ended up in real estate for nearly twenty years during this time is as much a mystery to me as it is anyone else. My best guess is the dutiful son snuck back in for one more shot at redemption and stuck around a lot longer than anyone could have predicted before the real me arose like a Phoenix bird once again and began pissing people off even more.
I never quite succeeded in making my parents entirely proud because of all of this and resulted in a love/hate relationship that was often times tense but cordial. Just as my mom’s health was diminishing due to her heart problems I was getting the first subtle twinges of my own. I was becoming easily fatigued and had to have a couple of extra drinks at night to try and turn my brain off so I could sleep and things progressed that way for almost a year.
My family is no different than anyone else’s. At times when you need it most they have your back but that doesn’t mean they can’t gossip about you behind you’re not around. It must be a sick way of showing they care about someone and no one seems to be exempt from this process. In spite of that fact you can’t help but love them anyways…besides…it leaves so many opportunities open for paybacks later.
Whispers of me “becoming just like mom” were widely circulated and in some cases with “holier than thou” exclamation points attached to it by some members of the family. Nothing could be further from the truth but who cares when “expert opinion” (not) is sooo much more fun.
My mother passed away several months before my own physical deterioration began to run its course so she missed all of the recent fun. My last memories of her was watching her sit at the long dining room table (that sat about twenty people) filled with every imaginable jar and bottle of more pills than any one pharmaceutical company makes with several of those weekly pill compartment things four or five deep and seven across and color coded with an oxygen line stuffed up her nose. In these she would put all of her assorted pills in by when they’re needed. Pink box for morning, blue for mid-morning, green for afternoon and so on, I remember thinking to myself “that will never happen to me.”
As the Zen master once said “We’ll see.”
I started having heart attacks during the day at odd times. They weren’t anything like you hear, read or see on TV and stuff at all but I knew instinctively what it was and my reaction to it was classically male…I tried to ignore it and figured they would go away on their own. When they became persistent I went the classic asshole direction and decided I could cure myself by making my body do what I wanted it to (a discussion my heart and I had a short time later and guess who won.) and just drank a little more at night to sleep. Eventually that didn’t work either and I would be woken out of a sound sleep by my heart shouting “Hey dumb shit! Pay attention to me!” My rational mind told me I could meditate the problem away…which in all honesty worked in the short term (translation…until the next night). Truth is…I was buying time. Our goofball bookkeeper had told us I couldn’t be added to Wendi’s health plan but just once a year and that wouldn’t be until October (almost three months from then). Being self employed health care was a luxury I couldn’t afford at the time. We found out later it could have been done at any time but…
The rest of that sad tale you know so we’ll skip ahead a few months. My meds were still in a constant state of tinkering over the next eighteen months it took to get back to “normal” (I love that word…don’t know what it really means but it’s fun to say now and then). They gave me meds to help me sleep but all they did was make me more awake. They let me start drinking small amounts of alcohol which made the med experiments interesting to say the least. I didn’t abuse the alcohol, in fact in some ways it helped. My first, now identified as a, seizure incident happened during that time. The family, including my wife, was quick to jump on the “alcohol as the culprit” bandwagon. As it turns out…nothing could have been further from the truth yet again.
Like I mentioned a moment ago they tried several things to help me get to sleep and turn my brain off at night and nothing worked. A topic of conversation that continues with my committee of white coated advisors to this day and probably will for some time yet. With all of the recent changes they’ve made to my meds as Howard says it “We’re reluctant to put more wood on the fire until we know what we’re up against.”
With sleep hanging in the balance I eventually gravitated back to the one thing I did know would put me to sleep…my old friend’s tequila and bourbon and for the most part had done the trick with no significant problems except for maybe one or two.
Alcohol is often called “truth serum” because you might say something you otherwise might defer from saying. God knows I’ve done my fair share of that in an effort to fall asleep and at times been less than tactful in the process. Like I mentioned before my mother had a belligerent side when she drank and I’m hereditarily predisposed to being an asshole on my father’s side. Needless to say that little genetic recipe can only be a hurtful disaster at all the wrong times and I’ve spent the past couple of years apologizing to the people I love for being such a dick at those times in so many ways…especially to my wife. Something I’m still working on at many levels. Not just from the drinking irresponsibly but for allowing it to be a, seemingly, good excuse to cut someone off at the knees when they least deserved it.
Addicts can be an entertaining group. If you ever want to learn how to split hairs creatively spend some time talking to one. They’ll give you a hundred and one reasons why they aren’t addicts at all except for one thing…why they couldn’t (or can’t) stop if they needed to. It doesn’t matter what the substance or activity there are some great excuses to be had.
I like to think that’s the difference between me and them is I have walked away from drinking so many times by my own choice without prompting and without withdrawals, regret, remorse or any other feeling of emptiness. I have many advisors I check in with periodically who know a great deal about subjects like this than I do and can give me straight honest answers and also tell me when I’m full of shit. Over the course of the rest of my life I probably will continue to back away now and then many times again in my life but not necessarily because someone said I had to but more because I see doing so at that time is the right thing to do. There’s a difference between doing that and enjoying a glass of wine with dinner or a few drinks with friends now and then than feeling you need to do to that excessively to feel complete or have the courage to do what deep inside you tells you is wrong for you personally.
Before you think about anything else ask yourself this…does this apply to me and my life? If so why? Am I right? Am I grounded or am I fighting windmills disguised as dragons? If not blow it off.
My family so wants me to be the scapegoat and whipping boy of their own dysfunctional lives that they may or may not believe what I’m saying or trying to say. They’re in dire need of someone to point a finger at and feel superior about. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter either way with me personally but how they ever reconcile things like this for themselves…
Like the old Zen master said…”We’ll see.”