Creating Fate

‘There’s no
limit to what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.’
Jack Goldman, Founder of Xerox PARC

 

‘Sometimes a blank TV is not such a bad thing to stare at.’
My Dad

 

I hope you have all been well. I really can’t give you a full explanation as to why I stopped blogging. It was a combination of things, I suppose.
I felt as if though I was rambling, aimlessly, at the obvious and wasn’t in a place where I felt I had much left to offer. I guess first and foremost my blog had become as lifeless as I was becoming. Going thru the motions and not getting at the heart of what was or is going on. Not talking about how I really felt about things. Covering up emotions and using excuses like Kleenex’s.

I am still clean. How I have no clue. Well I do and I don’t. I give the credit to God and to my family whom have both put up with me infinitely. The Basic Text talks about how desire cannot be measured and I am grateful for that, because in reality, desire has really been the only thing I have been using.

I have a desire not to use. I believe that to be different than a desire to stay clean. I have not been to a meeting in several months, I have not read, nor written on steps. I have not done anything related to recovery in a while and surprisingly my behavior hasn’t changed. I credit this to a firm foundation in early recovery and the stark realization of I know what the consequences will be if I return to what brought me on this road to begin with.

I do not recommend this to anyone; in fact I don’t care for it much myself. I now know what the literature means when it talks about ‘apathy and procrastination being 2 of our seemingly inherent enemies’.  I know that things will change, I know that what worked in one phase of recovery may not work in another, and to be honest I am tired of beating myself up over this issue. Right now in this moment in time of my life, I can’t create fate. I can’t ‘make things happen’. I can’t create time that isn’t there; I can’t manipulate others to make my schedule easier.
What I can do is get off my ass and do what I can; everything else will fall into place……

Since my last posts my wife and I celebrated our 20^th wedding anniversary. I celebrated 6 years clean time and Thanksgiving and Christmas have come and went.
My daughter’s tirades have reduced to a minimum and she is working for Subway. My son continues his art and his winter campaign to ‘Kill Them All’ on MW3.
My wife and I are enjoying our relationship now more than ever. I am still working way too much. I am still at 2 jobs and hope this will change in April or May. We are more than likely going to have to file bankruptcy. I don’t want to but the figures in black and white don’t lie and I honestly can’t keep up this work life forever. My day starts at 5:30 am and I usually don’t get to sleep until 11 pm, 6 days a week. This may have something to do with why my recovery has been lacking but I knew that going into it.

I hope you all are well. I hope that your Holidays have been well filled with memories and laughter. This year mine have. I have enjoyed these holiday’s more than I have any other. For some, the cheer may not have been as anticipated. My words for you are that Everything is Temporary.

Take Care,
Bob D

I will be returning…..

Despite rumors to the contrary…my demise has been greatly exaggerated.

I took an impromptu, lengthy break from blogging and will be back after the 1st of the year to refocus on what brought me here to begin with.

Recovery.

I am still clean (6 Yr anniversary was on December 19th) and a lot has happened since I last posted. I will fill you all in. I have some great new stuff coming and some revisits to some older material with new thoughts on it.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Bob D.

Shadows and Light

The past couple of nights I have been restless…unable to sleep, or at least fall into a deep sleep….So I get out of bed and walk….

I walk through the house to the back door and switch on the back porch light. For a brief moment I see it…a shadow moving across the lawn…just for a moment I see the silhouette of a figure…not of an animal. My throat closes thight…My breathing becomes labored…my heart races…as if death has crossed my door and brushed by my side again. I am frightened…literally scared to death to open the door, but I do, and the shadow is gone.

It has happened 2 nights in the last week and I believe it to be a sign. Afterall, there are those who believe to be comforted, and others who are comforted to believe…….

The above is true. I believe it to be a sign from my Higher Power. Trying to reach me, trying to talk to me. Telling me I am heading down a dangerous path from which there is no coming back from. I can continue to use excuses, I can try to justify my rationale and at the end of the day I will be left with nothing more than I put into it.
I have to get back on my program. I can’t sit here anymore and try to counsel myself. Be it AA, NA, or a combination of both I can’t do this by myself on willpower, exhaustion, and willpower. The truth be told I have been operating on willpower way too long, like it’s a contest to test my own resolve, my own desire and I am at my breaking point. I know it will only be a matter of time before I use if I don’t do something.

I have to work today until 10pm so I will find a meeting to go to tomorrow night. I have to, I have to find a schedule, a balance, and re-learn what I have already forgotten. The NA Text reminds me that ‘I must use what I have or lose it’. I have lost some things already…I’ve lost my passion.

When there are shadows present in life there must be light to cast the shadow. I have to find my way back to the light…The shadows are too scary today.

Take Care,
Bob D.

When In Doubt

It’s been a while hasn’t it……..

“Life isn’t fair……A fair is something that comes to town, takes your money, and then leaves….”

Posting, writing, and most other parts of my schedule have been put on hiatus as of late as you can tell. My life seems to revolve around 2 things anymore….Work and more work. All else has fallen into the category of “It will have to wait”. I don’t like it, I don’t like it at all.
Apathy and Procrastination are like twin brothers that walk side by side with me. I also know that they are my 2 worst enemies, because I know me.

My old sponsor from Columbus has been emailing me, calling me, wanting to talk and I haven’t called him back. It’s not because I have used, it’s because of the guilt of not having been doing anything but not using. I haven’t been to a meeting in months, I haven’t read, wrote on a step, been of service, or done 1 thing I was taught over the course of my recovery…..

I haven’t done shit.
Why?

I’m sitting in the Business Center of a hotel in Boston, MA trying to figure it out. Trying to reason with my own excuses and they are sounding exactly as that…excuses. I have no clue as to what I am doing, who I am, or where I am headed. I don’t feel like using, but that is the most difficult part…..feeling. I’m not sure what I feel anymore. I know that perception is reality and right now reality doesn’t seem real at all if that makes sense.

When in doubt I used to know what to do…..run. I want to run. I want to run from the fear of living, from the fear of reality, from the fear in me. Second guessing my decisions, my motivations, my intentions.

Our move into a new place has been eliminated due to others in abilities and circumstances beyond my control. It all fell apart in a matter of a few short weeks. Bids weren’t accepted and resentments have set in, not only on my part but on my wife’s behalf as well. I see a growing divide in the very things that brought us here in the first place. My wife has become disheartened by the actions of some fo her family here and I sit and watch as events unfold. When I met David and Elz in Dallas they asked me about the move in more detail and surprisingly something came out that had been lurking just beneath the surface. I told them I felt that I owed it to my wife to raise her level of happiness due to the misery brought on to her from my using…..That I owed it to her to make her happy, and if moving her closer to her family would do that then so be it. The ultimate in people pleasing…..but is it really?

The kids are being kids. David has gained some weight and Lorna is running her last summer of irresponsibility into the ground. School starts here on August 18th and my daughter is a senior needing only 3 credits to graduate.

My mom turned 70 this past weekend and I miss her terribly. My oldest sister called, whom never calls, and told me my mother was upset that I wasn’t there for her surprise party…..

Bob….you need to come home and see mom.
Why?!?! Is there something wrong??
No, she isn’t sick…but she misses you and wants to see you. Can’t you come home?

I thought I was home…….
When in doubt….run?

Tamalaes, Plantains, and Friends

As I sit in in the hotel and wonder about home there are some things that bring me comfort………

I remember several years ago watching a YouTube video of The Millineum Falcon flying over San Francisco Bay and I thought to myself…Nothing on the Internet is real anymore. That was until I watched the Nick Berg beheading on an extremist website and vomited in the trashcan beside my desk. The advent of Social media, MySpace, Facebook, WordPress, and thousands of others like it have literally sparked a revolution in the way we communicate, do business, and live. But there is nothing that compares to sitting down with someone over a good meal and communicating joys, sorrows, hopes, and dreams which is exactly what I was able to do last night with Elizabeth and David, two people whom I met over the internet.

I first ‘met’ Elizabeth on MySpace some 5 years ago. I was posting random blogs of early, nonsensical recovery when I stumbled across her page. Fo some crazy reason we subscribed to each others pages and the rest is the stuff that Internet Viral lore is made of. The real truth is we were sounding boards for each others joy and insanity. She tested my way of thinking in a way others hadn’t. Most would either blatantly disagree or agree with equal helpings of patronization, but not Elz, as I have come to call her.

I had an opportunity to travel to the Dallas area this week on business and was fortunate enough to be able to sit down face to face with her and her husband. The craziest thing was I was nervous before going into the restaurant. I haven’t the slightest clue why, after all, I really have left nothing out of my posts that I wouldn’t or haven’t shared with others in my life. We met at a great place named Gloria’s which I highly recomend if you are in the Addison area.

After finally meeting David and Elizabeth I am more convinced now than ever that the path to recovery, in any form, is communication from the heart. I blogged once that Stephen Hawking reminded us that the only difference between us and other animals is our ability to talk. I would go one step further, it is that wordless language that we speak of in recovery called empathy. It’s funny, I did really have to say a word and felt like I was understood rather than trying to make people understand. In reality, that’s what I crave, not the ego driven attention of days of old, but rather to feel comforted by the company I keep. We talked about that, about wanting a sense of comfort in our lives, and knowing that life in itself is a series of events that can take me or place me in that comfort zone based upon my perception of reality and feeling based impulses.

To David and Elizabeth……
Thanks so much for taking the time to finally meet the guy behind the keyboard and a few random photos. I enjoyed our time together and will cherish it until the next time.

Things at home are tiresome. My daughter felt it necessary to cause problems on Fathers Day. My wife told her that she needed to leave to defuse a situation. My daughter feels like she has been thrown out, so packed a bag and left for the night. She returned home yesterday (Monday) for a shorth time only to leave again and hasn’t called.

I no longer bear the guilt of this situation. I am free of it. My wife is having a difficult time with it. I told her….In spite of what anyone else thinks or says about the situation…The only person I lay down with at night…is me. I know what the truth is and isn’t. It doesn’t really matter what anyone else thinks because they aren’t living my life.

The training that I am on for business is long and boring. Boredom leads to mischief, as is evident with a Hotel Bar full of people. I watch and listen as drinks are poured and money is spent in the hundreds and I hear the call of the keyboard one more time so that I can communicate………….

Take Care,
Bob D.

Crimes Against Humanity

‘We are in a war, a shooting war. Consider yourselves all dead men and stop worrying about your lives, once you do that it will be easier for you to accept it’.

Gregory Peck
12 O’Clock High

 

Making sense of life or the events of life can be an all-consuming task. I never really understood what life was until I watched someone die. On a cold, rainy February day I watched my wife’s father succumb to cancer and helped the county coroner remove him from his home where hospice had been providing care. To watch someone draw their last breath is almost like watching a baby take their first. It is labored, forced, and in a strange way surreal.

The recent arrest of Ratko Mladic for crimes against humanity during the 1990’s made me wonder how it is that a man can commit atrocities and hide in plain sight for 16 years?

He strolled thru the streets of Tutsis and passed out candy to children and consoled the elderly promising safety for all. The Dutch Army Commander shared a toast of brandy as women were loaded on buses to be beaten and raped once out of sight. 8,000 men and boys were led to mass graves where they were tied and shot. Not since Adolph Hitler had Europe endured what happened.

The US sent a high altitude spy plane to take photos of the area. The only report given was ‘There are freshly plowed fields on the outskirts of town’. These were not crop fields…….but rather killing fields.
The US seemed not inclined to become involved…perhaps we had no vested interest in the area…perhaps the same reasons we never became involved with Rwanda.

 

It looks as if we will be moving in late June or early July. We are staying here just getting the bigger place I had mentioned before. Everyone is excited. We have lived in this smaller place for too long.

Summer is here and the kids are out of school. Surprisingly all is calm. I feared the worse but my daughter has friends here now and seems to be off and running daily. My son is doing the same. He will be 13 next month and time is passing me by once again.

Most days I am tired. I am still working 2 jobs but we are getting caught up. Moving into this bigger place is the light at the end of the tunnel. It is the goal I need to be motivated. Sometimes it just feels like I am spinning my wheels endlessly. I shared this with my wife and told her my frustration. She understood and assured me that things are getting better whether I see it or not.

My new position is going well. I feel like I am learning instead of filling in and treading water. My boss seems happy and my clients are ok with me.

I am currently not going to meetings. I just don’t see the point in involving myself with NA here. It is a point of frustration and confusion. I haven’t went to any AA meetings either. The funny thing is I just don’t think about them. Between work and home I don’t have time for much else. If I am lucky I have 1 night a week to come home and have off. There are days, like yesterday, I thought about beer. I haven’t thought about beer in a long time, but it was just a thought.

I still have a personal program I work. I still read when I can. Most of my support group in Columbus has stopped calling. It is time for them and I to move on in the next chapter of our lives. I am not sure what the future holds for me and 12 Step meetings but I am ok today. I know at some point I will return and be just as involved as I once was, but I also know that the whole idea of recovery is for me to be a responsible, productive member of society. I know that I cannot live and enjoy life without the use of drugs if all of my time is spent in meetings and committees. I remember the guilt I felt for not being available to do the very things I was supposed to early on. I put in the work to get this point of freedom in my life and I haven’t forgotten that. I still am grateful, I still am the same Bob, but yet a different Bob.

Today…I understand rather than needing to be understood.

I am still planning on being in Dallas the week of June 20th Elz. I will call you as the time gets closer.

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

A Steamer Trunk of Fear

‘When at the end of the road we find we can no longer function as human beings either with or without drugs, what is there left to do?’

It seems I have made it somewhat, ‘Beyond the End of the Road’. I can say this because I have the ability today to function without drugs. I couldn’t have said that just a short time ago, but I can today. This is where the title of my blog came from, a quote from the NA Textbook.

I haven’t been to a meeting in a while. The last meeting I tried to go to was about 3 weeks ago. The door was locked and the lights were out. I sat in my car and questioned myself. Maybe question isn’t a good term, I took an inventory of myself. I began to ask, do I really need to go to meetings anymore? I have no sponsor, I have no homegroup, I have my Higher Power, My Book, and My Desire…..Are they enough to carry me?

Realistically the long-term answer is no. I feel that I have a decent understanding of myself, my motives, and my disease. I also have the uncanny ability to lie to myself. I can tell myself things are ok and they aren’t. I can tell myself things are bad and they really aren’t. I guess my point is when I am left to counsel myself in matters of my thinking and behavior I am, well, biased.

All that being said, a lack of motivation has set in. Apathy if you will. I had this in my work career recently as well. Telling my boss I was content in moving boxes and almost passing up this promotion. I’ve done it in learning the town. I have been here almost a year and can still barely get around. What this is, is my inability to be willing to invest myself emotional to things here and I don’t know why. Maybe somewhere in my sub-conscience I have the idea that it’s not worth it, or I don’t want to take risks, or whatever. Now that I know what it is I have to move past this….this fear.

Is that it…..Fear? Fear of what? Fear of acceptance….Fear of success? I know that all of my life I have carried fear with me like a worn out steamer trunk. That nagging feeling that it really isn’t worth it, so why bother? I am a decent person today, I try. I try to do what is right, not for the pat on the back, but because I did just the opposite I feel that it is owed. It is owed to myself, the people in my life, and my HP.

Fear of not getting it right.

I have to remind myself we all live this life breath to breath. Mistakes will be made, things said that shouldn’t have been, decisions made based on shaky motives. In the end….as long as I haven’t used it is all really a success. I am too hard on myself, my worst judge, jury, and executioner. My mind will tell me all is lost, my world is falling apart, and when I step back and look…it isn’t.   

My kids are ok. My wife is ok, and the new dog is a pain in the ass. The weather here this past week has been frightening. My heart aches for those in Alabama who lost so much and I don’t mean a house or a car. It’s like what the President said, ‘We can’t bring back those who were lost, but we can grieve with you’.

My wife and I rode that night out holding our breath. I have never seen storms like that. They swept along the I-20 corridor one after another. Our house shook from the thunder and wind. Having satellite we would lose signal and I kept our radio close. Being it was at night there was really no way to know until it was on top of us. There are no sirens here, just the weather man who lets us know if there is rotation in cells and approximately where they are. I feel very fortunate today.

After the storm moved through here they went on to Miss, and then into Ala. We didn’t know how bad it was because information here via television is sporadic at best. The local news here to be honest…sucks. It wasn’t until I got to CNN I saw what happened. There was flooding and power outages. Our town was fortunate we only lost 2 people. It could have been worse.

School is almost out and summer is almost here. I’d like to take a ‘Holiday’ for all my friends across the pond, or a vacation as we call it here. But I don’t think it is in the cards. I should know something about the new place in a few days. I hope this all falls into place. It’s something both my wife and I have been working towards for a year now.

I hope this post finds you all well. For those who are struggling, questioning, and stumbling….Don’t worry….The end of the road is in sight.

Peace.
Bob D.

Updates

Of all the 4 letter words there is always one constant……..Life.

Hello all. It’s been quite some time since my last post. Life can be, well, life. I am well. Things are ok, just extremely busy. My 2 career life right now seemingly has put most other things on hold. My spirits are good and I am holding up as well as can be expected. I know Elz will give me shit but AMP Energy drinks and King Size Payday candy bars are Bob’s best friend.

My daughter had her 17th birthday and Easter has come and went. We are currently working on getting out of this crampt house and into something bigger. If it all works out we will be moving into a much nicer place in the next 30 days. I do mean nice. Some things are lining up that the hard work put in may be paying off.

It will be a couple of more weeks and we will have been here a year. Looking over things it has been the best and worst decision I have made, but I have mulled over it long enough.

The new job position is working out and my boss seems happy with my performance. I have had a few rough spots but nothing that hasn’t been correctable.

I hope this short post finds you all well. I hope to write a little more in depth this weekend when I have some more time.

Peace,
Bob D.

A New Position, A New Dog, and A New NA?

Everything I thought was important isn’t….
And everything that isn’t important…..was.

Those could be someone’s ‘Famous Last Words’, or they could be just the ramblings of a tired guy like myself. My posts have been, well, nonexistent as of late. My 2 job lifestyle kind of leaves me with little to no extra time anymore. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad but I certainly hope this post finds you all well.

I received a promotion at work yesterday. I will be moving up to inside sales. I’ve done something similar in the past and I couldn’t in reality turn down the money. It will afford me some better opportunities for the future. There are some hard feelings about it this with some of my co-workers because another fellow was being considered and was passed over for me. I have only been with the company 10 months but have 13 years experience in this field.

I tried to go to a meeting about a week ago only to find no one there. I came home dejected and told my wife I wasn’t sure what to do anymore. NA in this area is just not happening. I found out that one of the guys here with ‘time’ is one of the folks that is involved with the ‘USSC or USSF’. For those not familiar with what this is it is a rogue group of older members of NA who have become disenfranchised with Narcotics Anonymous and have tried to create a similar fellowship.
The problem with it is that it is filled with ego and driven by self-serving individuals who are on the outside looking in. One of the main players is a person who helped move NA forward in the early 1980’s. He spoke at an ‘Unofficial’ event in Columbus, Ohio shortly before I left at a ‘NA Learning Day’. A question was asked at to what the purpose of this event was and the response was, ‘So that people could show some fucking gratitude for what was done’.
These groups, these individuals are trying to recreate the feeling of what it was like to watch a fellowship grow and mold it into what they feel it should have been versus what it is. Basically, they are trying to change their perception of reality and how they feel with the principles they learned in the very fellowship they are trying to now cause a rift in.
The individuals involved with this seem to be folks who were in large metro areas and moved to outlying areas as well as folks who lost touch with NA as it has changed over the years. The problem I have is simply the principles of NA haven’t changed at all. The personalities and ego’s have. I don’t agree with everything that happens at WSC or on a Global Fellowship Scale.
What I do know is this. There is no ‘Golden Era’ of Narcotics Anonymous. That the best way to honor the past or ‘Show some fucking gratitude’ is to look forward to the future, not try to recreate what is already here.
This isn’t the first time this has happened nor will it be the last. It’s hard to be in a ‘Just for Today Program’ while living out resentments from the 1980’s.

I told my wife maybe it would just be better if I went to AA here. In the very least I know the meetings will be there and maybe I can find the support I have been looking for. I feel a sense of guilt that perhaps I should be doing more to help. I realize I am only one person and my schedule right now just won’t let me be as committed as I would like.

There are 2 months of school left and the countdown has already begun for summer. The kids are doing ok. My son is happy again as we have a new dog. His name is ‘Lucky’. I’d like to tell you what breed it is but I’m not sure. I know it is a mix of 3 different dogs for sure. I will try to get some pictures up at some point of him.

All in all we are doing ok. Some days are a blur. I am sure things will change again, they always do.

How are you? Leave me a comment and let me know how you are.

Take Care,
Bob D.

There are 2 Kinds of Crazy

Charles Manson
John Hinkley
David Koresh
Steve Martin
ALF
Spongebob Squarepants

Charlie Sheen

Wait this isn’t the Charlie Sheen I’m talking about….I mean this one.

 

This kind of crazy I know. This kind of crazy is like a bad car wreck, no one likes it, but everyone stares at it. This kind of crazy is called addiction.