Comings & Goings

I will be 45 this year. I have witnessed a few things come and go. Fashions, trends in music, styles of cars, genres of pop culture. I think it was in ‘Return of the Jedi’ when Yoda told Luke Skywalker: ‘Hard to see the future, always in motion it is’.
The past can be that way as well. Time has a strange way of either making us anticipate things to come, or fade the pain of events gone by.
A couple of days ago a person sent me a ‘Friend’ request on Facebook. When I saw the person and the request my initial reaction was, ‘Why in the hell is this person contacting me after 27 years’?
The last time I saw this person we were selling dope out of a hotel room in Ohio. A paranoid 2 week run of dope, guns, & girls. It ended badly. One guy disappeared, one guy went to jail, & I would run 60 miles to get out of that town before all hell broke loose.
I looked at his picture. He had 3 girls standing with him, this time in a family portrait. He looked old, unassuming, and had gained weight.
As legendary or exciting I can make an old story seem we have all been through it. There are people I no longer associate with whether in life or social media. I moved to a new state 3 years ago and one of the freeing things is that it is highly unlikely I will run into an old acquaintance. Does this give me an excuse not to make amends? Certainly not. Did I make amends to the person who sent me the request? No.
The reason is I choose whom is in my life today, and to be honest I wasn’t willing to let this person back in my life. It would cause more harm than good,. See I have that power in my life today, the power of choice.

Take Care,
Bob D.

I am Free

It’s been a long time. I was sitting here at the house, unwinding after another long day and thought I haven’t written in an extremely long time.
I’m not sure if anyone still reads this link or not. When I first started writing I said I would do it first and foremost for myself, and if anyone else got something out of it, so be it.
My life changes daily, not the circumstances of my life, but my perception of life and myself. I can’t be trapped in leftover feelings of yesterday nor the anxieties of tomorrow, it suits no purpose.
Today is all I have, it’s all I’ve ever had, and that can be freeing or condemning based on my perceptions.
A friend told me long ago that perception is reality. That has never left me. The building blocks of recovery are based on my willingness to open my mind, my spirit, and my willingness to recognize the reality of my addiction and what I am willing to do about it.
This does not change no matter how long I stay clean.
Today is one of those days that I find myself pondering, contemplating my life, my existence, my successes, my failures…
I can beat myself up for my shortcomings, my lack of willingness, anything I choose to but the bottom line is that I AM CLEAN. I did not use, I have not used for 7 years, 2 months, and 11 days.
I have clarity of thought, freedom of choice, and a level of sanity has been restored in my life.
I have the ability to love and be loved.
I have been set free. For all the bitching I can do, all that I may think is wrong, for all the emotional fucked up mess I think I can be……

I am ok.
I am worthy.
I am free.

Take Care,
Bob D.

A Falls Count Anywhere Match with Depression

Some of you may know from past posts, and others not that I am a fan of wrestling and have been since like 1978. Before we go any further this isn’t a post of wrestling or a debate of whether its real or not, it’s more just the basic idea of what wrestling is based on…..Emotion.

The basic premise of wrestling is good guys versus bad guys and reaction’s to their actions. If its a boo or a cheer, an applause or throwing popcorn, it’s all based on reaction.

When I am depressed I have no reaction. It’s my thoughts of ‘This is just another event that solidifies my feelings’. I guess in a sense that may be a subconscious reaction. My physical reaction to depression is isolation. I just want to be left alone.

I forced myself to go to a meeting Thursday and didn’t talk. That in itself is a good thing for most people in a meeting as I tend to ramble about nothing, but when I don’t talk a strange thing happens…..I listen.

I heard some things, not about depression, but about gratitude, perception, thankfulness, and how it’s egotistical of me to thing I am actually in control of this. All of these things are really relative to how Higher-Power Centered I am. That being said why does a HP allow me to be depressed?

I don’t believe a HP allows this to happen. I believe this depression, this state of mind is factored by something medical and in something psychological. I’m not a doctor, I am just stating this from my own experience. I don’t take medication, I never have, and I know it will pass it just takes time.

It feels like a lot of things are just stacking up against me. I feel like the positive things aren’t positive enough. I feel irrelevant and that no matter how much effort I put into anything it won’t matter. This is in all areas work, home, recovery. Everything. That’s why this sucks so bad.

I know it will end at some point. Maybe today or tomorrow. It might be next week, who knows. I will continue to move along as I have been. Something will change, it always does.

Take Care,
Bob D.

How Lazy I Have Been, or How Not to Run a Blog

It’s more than obvious that I have not been diligent in writing posts. It’s not that the train has went off the track or that I fell off the face of the earth, it’s more that what works in one phase of recovery may not be appropriate in another
There were times that I would or could write 2 posts in a day 5 or 6 days a week. Now it seems I can barely write 1 post every 2 months. What changed

Me. I still have time to write, not 2 posts a day mind you, but I still have time. I still have plenty of subjects, views, and experience to share. I think what is different is my desire. My focus is in other areas these days. I could also be inherently lazy as well!

My last post was mid September. Shortly after that I was sent to New Orleans for 3 weeks to help with Hurricane Isaac. While I was gone my daughter called in tears wanting to come home. The living situation she placed herself in had imploded. We found out yesterday the Uncle she was staying with is looking at 7-10 years for a crime spree he was on. Some family members bought her a plane ticket home.

Since arriving home she has taken a job with a family member and has been working steady and we have had very few problems. I think the situation she was in showed her you can either roll with life or you can work against it and reap those bitter rewards.

I continue to have regular meeting attendance and have a sponsor. God willing in December I will celebrate 7 years clean. These past 2 years have been the strangest, strenuous, and rewarding of my life. I have proved in fact, not theory, that when clean, anything is possible.

Take Care,
Bob D.

Short

It’s been awhile since my last post. Thanks to God I have not used.

Life is upside down right now and has been for some time. I am going to post a lengthy entry this weekend, but wanted to let you know that I am allright and so is my family.

I will talk to you soon.
Bob D.

The Doormat for Resentment

I was listening to NPR this week and heard a story about Suboxone and was going to post the link here but I stumbled across something else on NPR.org/health section that caught my eye. This is a quote from the article.

 

From small towns to big cities, prescription painkiller abuse is a growing problem. The number of drug poisoning deaths in the U.S. tripled between 1999 and 2008. Drugmakers tried to curb the burgeoning addiction, such as coming up with a new recipe for the popular and widely abused OxyContin in 2010 that makes it harder to crush and snort.

 

But the move prompted some users to search for other prescription painkillers, and many have found their replacement in a drug called Opana.

“I’ve seen the mother and the father go to the doctor. It’s a big day; it’s like a festival,” says Stevens. “Everybody’s over at the house, waiting on them to get back from the doctor and the pharmacy. They come in with their four or five different narcotics. Nothing wrong with them at all physically, and those narcotics are gone within 30 minutes.”

The problem is that Opana, which was approved by the FDA in 2006 for chronic pain prescriptions, is so potent. In Scott County, Ind., 31 people have died since last year because of Opana overdoses.

Opana’s maker, Endo Pharmaceuticals, has tried to halt the trend by following in the steps of OxyContin’s manufacturer, Purdue Pharma, and releasing a reformulated, harder-to-abuse pill earlier this year. It’s difficult now to find one of the original pills in Scott County pharmacies.

The reason it caught my eye as well as the article on Suboxone was the manufacturer. I had no idea that Beckitt Pharmaceuticals developed suboxone with money from the Federal Government. I have been long opposed to Suboxone for the simple fact is has been marketed as a ‘Miracle’ solution to prescription pill abuse and is simply nothing more than an updated version of the failed methadone program of the 1970’s. People in desperation are sold misinformation about the treatment and success rate of Suboxone as it is a temporary solution to a long term problem.

My wife and I received some text messages from our daughter last night who continues to move around with the traveling circus that is her Uncle’s life. I am frustrated to the point of anger that she is staying with him and his loser girlfriend. I wanted so much more for her but she is blinded by immaturity and youth as he can do no wrong. That living the way they do is cool and as long as she is comfortable with it nothing will change.

Expectation is the doormat for resentment. Most of the difficulties I struggle with today are based in expectations and intolerence. All I can do is try to be realistic about people, about situations and realize that I am not in charge of what other people do or say. I can only try and maintain a balance in my life of realistic perception of reality and myself.

I still have yet to ask someone to sponsor me in this area, with over 6 1/2 years of being clean I am still being stubborn! I have my eye one one fellow whom makes a lot of sense when he speaks. His name is Ken and I feel he may be a good fit for me. It’s just getting up the damn courage to do it. I know in the long run I need it and plan on asking him the next time I see him, hopefuly on Tuesday.

I hope this post finds you well.
Take Care,

Bob D.

Claw Marks

‘Secrets aren’t free Peter, they all have a cost’.
Aunt May from The Amazing Spider-Man

I turned 44 on Saturday and had a wonderful day with friends and family. Part of the freedom I experience today is the ability to be myself, the ability to be with the people I want to be with and be myself.
Addicts tend to live secret lives. They wear masks for different occasions, for different people. I don’t have to do that today, I am free to be myself.

I spoke to my mother and father on the phone. My mom cried. She told me she misses me since we moved, and I miss her. I haven’t seen her in 2 years. This is the longest I have not been able to see her since birth. It pains me to hear her cry. I need to make every effort to get back to Ohio to see her. The problem is the same as it is for most…Time and Money. I need to quit talking about plans to visit and just make the plans.

My daughter called on Friday telling us that her Uncle is being evicted from where he is staying. She moved in with him and like 7 other people, whom none hold down a job, and are involved in bullshit. When I found out about this originally I told her that this situation was not going to last, her staying with them that is. I asked her to find another way and she has chosen not to. She called asking for money. She said they were leaving there and going to Zanesville. I told her that I thought this was a bad idea, that her Uncle had her a job lined up at a car dealership and would help her to get a vehicle and she turned her nose up at it because she is doing what she wants to do not what she needs to do. This whole situation has become frustrating to the point that letting go is putting claw marks on it. Between the revelation that she is gay, that everything we asked her to do she has done the opposite, and this idea that somehow her life is ‘better’ because she is making decisions based on the influence of her burned out Uncle and his trash girlfriend is mind blowing. I’ve ranted enough.

Letting go is difficult especially when we want to control a situation, a person. I can’t make the decisions for her. I told her on the phone that this situation was not the first time or the last time her Uncle and these other folks had been through this. That she was moving further away from herself and her goals. I got, ‘Ok Dad’ and ‘I hear you Dad’, which means she is not hearing me. Sometimes life HAS to be the teacher.

I continue to go to AA meetings and feel better about my perspective on things. I am currently in Atlanta on business and when I get back I am making a serious effort to ask 1 of 3 guys to sponsor me. I have been looking and listening and have it narrowed down.

Work has been a pain in the ass. We have been extremely busy and short handed.

My wife and son are good and I continue on the path before me.
I hope this post finds you well.

Bob D.

This post is from July 2009…I hope you may get something out of it. Thanks for reading.

Beyond The End of the Road's Blog

Jails, Institutions, and Death.
At some meetings it is repeated as it is read. I prefer not to. Hearing it reverberate in my own head is enough.

It’s at the end of the reading “Who is an Addict?”. I am sure these 3 words are not unfamiliar with any 12 Step fellowship in one form or another. There are other words scattered through out as well…

Dereliction
Degradation
Demoralization
Unemployable
Insanity
Guilt
Shame
Relapse

I am also reminded that a relapse, if we survive it, might bring the temporary relief we are looking for. There is no guarantee even in relapse. The temporary relief that it might bring. That seems to me to be a pretty big gamble.
I have known a few addicts who are in and out, in and out, in and out.
I understand that this may be a part of someones story and for those who…

View original post 561 more words

Like a Pillow and Blanket

Returning to meetings has been awkward. The first one I went back to a few weeks ago felt like I was walking into the rooms for the 1^st time. I received smiles and welcomes and at the passing out of chips there was a long pause when ‘Surrender’ chips were offered. Glances in my direction as this ‘new fellow’ has come into the AA fold. I sat with nerves, strange nerves, as if I felt the need to explain myself, and I would just not at this moment.

It never ceases to amaze me how when I need to hear something it has always been presented in some form or fashion. When I walked in I needed to hear something that let me know that all of the negatives I had been stacking up in my mind as to why I should return to meetings were nothing more than my diseased thinking leading me further away from the very ideals, the very principles that helped save my life.

I heard folks talking in a clear and concise manner about the steps, about sponsorship, about experience, about life. I didn’t hear about ‘Drug Court’, and resentments about WSC or how, ‘The fellowship isn’t the same when I first came in’. It never ceases to amaze me to this day how we are reminded that we recover in the here and now…Day to day, moment to moment, and yet we live and feed off of the resentments of the past. Resentments founded in our very own recovery, our own Fellowships.

After the readings were done we went around the room with introductions. The floor was then open for discussion…. I could not wait any longer……

My name is Bob and I’m an alcoholic. I was told when I first came into recovery that if I went to a meeting other than NA, I should respect the house I was in.
It’s been almost a year since I have been to a meeting. It’s not that I have drank or used anything, it’s more that I felt disconnected from recovery after moving here and I just simply told myself each day that I was doing ok. In truth, I felt like I was losing my mind these last few months….So much has transpired over the last 2 years…..

And so I told them what was going on. Who I was, where I had been, and more importantly where I was at today. People listened; nodding their heads and making me feel welcome. I described how my mind is able to convince me of almost anything. The justifications I had been using, the behaviors that were becoming more prevalent, and lastly the loneliness and isolation were killing me.

Some people commented and I found I wasn’t alone. I was told of a man from the area that sober/clean decided that it was a good idea to jump off the Vicksburg Bridge in Mississippi because he was unable to come to grips with the realities of life sober without meetings. This may sound like a stretch but I remember my NA sponsor’s-sponsor telling stories of people who were in recovery for many years that simply just stopped coming to meetings. That they didn’t use, but they just faded into the woodwork of denial and behavior that led them to the rooms to start with.

 

I truly believe that using whatever substance is merely a symptom of the disease of addiction. That the behaviors, the feelings, the perceptions of self and reality were there long before the 1^st drug was ever picked up. The mind is truly an amazing, complex thing. Our abilities to reason and evaluate are somehow not in alignment with what reality it is. The obsession or, ‘That fixed idea that takes us back time and time again to our drug of choice, or some substitute to try and recapture that ease and comfort we once knew’. That ease and comfort is our pillow and blanket from reality and self.

After the meeting people came up to me and told me they were glad I was there and had decided to come back. That they needed to hear what I had said as much as me needing to say it. I am currently going to 2 meetings a week and feel much better about things. My next step is to find a new sponsor which I am dreading to be honest. I have so much respect and love for my old sponsor I am afraid I will allow the comparison game to get in the way.

Our house has been quite and we have heard from our daughter sporadically. I worry quietly and try not to alarm my wife. I miss our daughter but I don’t miss the chaos and drama that comes with her. Our lives move forward in spite of her decisions. We have come to find out she told several people here different versions of how and why she decided to leave, none of which are important because I know what the truth is. I tried calling her today and got no answer. I sure would like to hear her voice…..

Take Care
Bob D.

The Closet Close to Home….

Over the course of the past 2 weeks some things have come to my attention. The plans my daughter made in moving back to Ohio I don’t believe were any real plans at all. She isn’t staying who we thought she would be staying with. She has made no effort really to contact the person with whom she had a job lined up with, and she is staying now with a relative I would prefer her not to be around.

She also posted she is gay.

I have a ton of thoughts going through my mind. I find it hard to concentrate at any given time of the day. It’s not the gay part that bothers me, it’s more the fact that I really don’t believe it.

It’s not a denial disbelief, it’s I know my daughter. If you have read any of my posts you will be able to interpret that she truly is the child of an addict. She has her own set of issues to deal with that have nothing to do with using, as we addicts all do after the drugs have been removed.

I believe that she is searching. I believe she is trying to find herself. I am trying to understand the path she is taking and it is for her to discover, but I also know her ability to make consistently good decisions is nonexistent.

If this is truly what she wants, if this is truly what will make her happy than I will support her. I just feel at no time during the time she has been alive has there been one thing that would lead me or her mother to believe that this is her lifestyle choice. It has been a total surprise and shock to our family. I have racked my brain trying to get my mind around this one, but for me it is just another long twist in an ever strange and bumpy road with my daughter.

When she calls I continue to ask if she is ok. I ask if she is looking for work. or if she has been to see old friends and family. We constantly get…’I called so and so’ or ‘I will do it tomorrow’. My fear is that this relative she is staying with is caught up in some shady dealings including prescription fraud and welfare fraud. I am afraid she is going to get caught up in this nonsense and I have voiced my opinion to her only to have her tell me she knows what’s going on and isn’t a part of it.

I was looking through the local directory of meetings online and I see where the Wednesday Night meeting that I went to when I first arrived has been changed to a Text Discussion meeting. What stood out is that it is a 3rd Edition Text Meeting.
I know what has happened here. There is a fellow with substantial clean time in our area who is disenfranchised with the fellowship and has manipulated the group into this extension of his ego.
Some meetings have been cut and due to geography I have decided to switch fellowships and go to AA.

I talked about this at length after my arrival here and finding that meetings were virtually nonexistent and being manipulated by one or two people for their own benefit. I cannot be apart of this and I do not feel I can or should take on a struggle to change something, that in time, will extinguish itself. Our literature reminds me that the self-seekers will ‘Be on the outside looking in’.

I am going to talk to my wife about it this evening.

I hope this post finds you well.
Take Care,
Bob D.