MAXINE ON THE MORNING

Regarding the previous post, this was sent to me by a friend.



IS TODAY THE DAY THAT I DIE?

Weak, so incredibly weak I can hardly stand. I cannot stand or walk without hanging onto something. I feel my life slipping through my fingers, and no matter who I see, what I change, nor how hard I try to hang on to it, it seems the flow through my fingers continues. Today I feel the currents increasing as the clocks paradoxically seem to slow. It took a few seconds for me to remember how to start my computer and open a new document.


 Pain is not a problem today. Most other days it is a hammer swinging demon clinging to my back, slamming my neck, my head, my spine, my joints until I am driven into darkness, immobility, tears, or to pills: Prescription drugs that either do too little or risk doing too much, always making the payment for reduced pain that nauseous, sleepy wooze that divorces me from my feelings, sucking every last scrap of joy and gratitude from my existence.


 When I reach that unpredictable wall of weakness and weariness, the pain usually goes away. From the time when I died before, I remember the meaning of pain's end. It is death. That's when all the aches, stings, troubles, and concerns of life end. What happens after that is still mysterious. I remember when my heart stopped I seemed to fall into an ocean of warm black cotton, then found myself flying, exploring the universe, and filling myself with knowledge that no longer had a point. It became knowing for its own sake. But that could have been imagination, a dream, or coming off whatever medications they were using in Intensive Care to treat me.

I do not know what comes after dying. I am quite certain, however, that it does not involve writing. It does not involve being with those I love. There are things I still want to accomplish, books and stories still to be written, men and women whose company I still cherish. As circumscribed as my life is, I want to live.


 But I feel like I am dying. I have felt like this many times before, and each time thus far I have come out of it still alive. Playing the odds, I should come out of it alive this time, as well. Judging from the paragraphs above, I can still write. Perhaps I can tap out a few more pages on that next book. Time to get on with getting on with it.


I heard a speaker once at an NA convention remark, "Some days it's simply putting one fucking foot in front of another." So, back to writing, go to the meeting tonight, hug those I love, take a run at a gratitude list, and if I should see another day clean tomorrow morning when I open my eyes, thank my Higher Power for extending my ticket on the ride.

THE SIZE OF THE BOAT

Blogger.com  blogs have a neat statistics page through which I can see from where the Life Sucks Better Clean page views come. Today's page views, for example, come from the United States, China, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany, India, New Zealand, Bulgaria, Denmark, Russia, France, Japan, the Netherlands, Ukraine, Gabon, and Slovenia. It shouldn't surprise anyone that the disease of addiction is universal. No country, no social or ethnic group, no particular class, no one rich or poor, smart or dim, strong or weak, religious or reasoning is exempt.

If you've got the bug of addiction and then pick up the substance and use it, the dark-side adventure begins and continues day-after-day, year-after-year, decade-after-decade until you either die, kill someone, get imprisoned, or get into recovery. I have no doubt that once we make contact with beings from other galaxies, they will have addicts, and they will do the same dumb, sick, cruel, self-destructive things we all did. If they have recovery programs that work, chances are they will involve the addict putting down the substance, reaching outside of him, her, or itself to a Higher Power for help, and going to meetings (or perhaps melding with the nest consciousness).

I write a lot of science fiction. The one universe I have yet to create is one in which addiction in all its forms (Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior-OCB) does not and never had existed. I can't imagine it. If one is a living being, one seeks pleasure. Given the opportunity, a certain portion of any group of beings will seek their pleasure to the exclusion of anything else; In other words, they are addicts.

Back in the Late 'Sixties, I watched a news item on TV in which a rat had an electrode implanted in the pleasure center of its brain. The rat could stimulate this pleasure center by pushing a button in its cage. On the screen it showed the animal pushing the button again and again. The voice over mentioned that the rat would continue doing this to the exclusion of any other behavior until it died of thirst or starved to death.

I also remember my wife's reaction to the story: "What a terrible thing to do to an animal." I remember my reaction, as well: "Where can I get one of those gadgets?"

Drugs or life? Health or sickness? Being a monster or being a human? Existence under slavery or existence under freedom? Life or death? They are all very real choices. We are all in the same boat whatever our spoken language, color, politics, economic system, or available substances. The forms of recovery, however, are different from culture to culture depending upon how much reliance the addict can place in his anonymity. One is reluctant to share about one's use and abuse of alcohol in a society in which alcohol is forbidden and using it has serious consequences at law. You don't want your using exploits to find their way into the files of the secret police or the local news media.

What is the state of recovery from addiction in your country? What changes or adaptations did you find necessary? Are there any stories of hope and recovery from all these different countries? Twelve Step Recovery programs were born in the United States from seeds planted by the Oxford Group, which had it's roots in England. But just as the disease covers the planet, so does the opportunity to create and take advantage of recovery.

I'd really like to hear your stories.

Perspectives

A thing I realized after passing my 70th birthday is that I had reached some kind of universal cutoff point. When one is 69 years old and dies, everyone says: "Aw, he was so young!" If you die at 70, though, what they say is: "Well, he didn't have a great run, but it wasn't bad."

When he would be in a bunch of recovering addicts who were pissing and moaning about aches, pains, medical problems and all the crap associated with aging, my late sponsor used to grin and remind them all, "Hey, remember, we aren't even supposed to be here." When you take an addict and add the addict to recovery, the best you can hope for is a recovering addict who is getting older and older. The resultant old addicts are something new on the scene. In the past, addicts never had to worry about getting old.

This is the gift of life; A gift, incidentally, for which those in Twelve Step programs have to work their asses off to receive and maintain. The disease never sleeps, though. Instead of being grateful for still being alive ("If you wake up in the morning, congratulations! You have another chance!"), the disease wants us to look for the flaws in our lives. Got a new medical problem? A bad back? Chronic cough? Allergies? Hair falling out? You can't get it to comb right? Those tacos turning into muffin tops, then into beach balls?

"Don't stop there," urges the dragon. "What about the economic picture? Unemployment? Monetary inflation? Debt? What about politics?"

It doesn't take a lot of effort to feel like crap. The disease will do all the work for you. For the recovering addict, however, gratitude needs to be earned. The work one needs to do is incredibly burdensome. Can you take a piece of paper and write down five things for which you are grateful? No?  Look again.

Is there anyone you love still alive?
Do you have any fond memories about anything?
Could you feed yourself this morning?
Are you able to dress yourself, wipe your own ass?
Are there any musical artists whose work you like?
Any movies, plays, books, paintings?
Do you have any friends ? (and if your answer to this one is "no," get your ass to a meeting and begin making friends.)

The disease wants to find that single fly speck on that huge, lovely clean wall, and focus on it until that fly speck fills your universe. The antidote is gratitude: reminding yourself of all the parts of that wall free of that fly speck.

If that can't move you off the pity pot, there is a twelve year old girl named Anna King who was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, was restricted from strenuous activities, and told she needs a heart transplant. Now, that's what I call a fly speck! What a great opportunity to go into a self pity wallow. Watch the video and see how Anna dealt with the news:

Looking For The Light

"Had enough yet?"

Were there ever before three words calculated to piss off people quite as much as "Had enough yet?" To the person using those words, he or she is looking at someone in an incredible amount of pain and well down the road to the destruction of everything and everybody of value to the one being asked.

To the using addict, though, the view is different. "Yeah, I'm in a lot of pain, and things are coming apart pretty much, but you want me to quit using the only answer I've got. You just don't understand."

No. We do understand. We've all been there. The difference is that we have learned that when the only answer you've got is to use the stuff that's causing all the problems, that is the definition of late stage addiction.

The answer, of course, is pain; Lots and lots of pain. Pain can turn on that lightbulb, and the hope is that the light goes on before death turns it off forever.

"But I'm not sure I'm an addict."

Uh huh. I was once on a designer-drug panel at a science fiction convention. One of the speakers there said something quite remarkable: "I've been using this drug for over fifteen years, and I'm not addicted."

Believe it or not, using drugs is not really good evidence that you are not addicted to drugs. I know it's unfair, but that's the way it is. If you want to test whether or not you're an addict, put down the drug. No booze, no chemicals, no gambling, no other obsessive-compulsive behaviors (gambling, overeating, raging around, being a destructive bastard, etc.) and see how it fits. Try being addiction free for a few years and see what happens.

Holy Crap! Waddya mean, a few years?!"

If you aren't addicted, then you don't "need" the booze, joint, pill, powder, whatever; There's no point in using, right?

"I've been using these drugs for years and years, and although I don't need them, I enjoy them. I can put them down any time I want, but right now I don't want to put them down. And look at me. I have a job, a house, two cars, a family, money in the bank. Things are all right. Why should I do without?"

You ever hear the one about the guy who jumped off a two thousand foot cliff, and as he neared the bottom a passing eagle asked, "How are you doing?" As the fellow plunged down toward the rocks he replied, "I'm doing okay, so far!"

For those looking for a softer landing, pick up that phone and call that number. It's in the book. Who knows? They might just have a parachute that fits.

What's On Your List?

At Brothers In Spirit, the NA men's retreat every April in Alfred, Maine, I chaired a workshop on "Letting Go of Backdoor Reservations."  So, what are these "backdoor reservations" of which I should consider letting go?

It started with a list in rehab: "Write down all of things which might happen that would cause you to pick up and use drugs again."

Of course, there was a time in my using when it being Wednesday would be cause enough to use. "I'm awake. That's reason enough." One time, trying my best not to use all on my own, facing yet another wet bar at yet another convention, the reason I found, after two weeks of sobriety, for climbing back into the bottle was, "What the hell."

A sincere effort is different. Rehab, followed by regular attendance of Twelve Step meetings in AA and NA, years of being clean and what are the back doors now? Consider your list carefully because you can almost guarantee that one or more of the things on that list are going to happen to you, because addiction is just that kind of disease. If being blind, losing your job, being thrown out by your spouse, or losing your children would cause you to use, watch out! Your disease considers this its shopping list.

Addiction says:

     1. Nothing comes between my user and the drugs.

     2. My user requires that he first wreck his marriage before he can use again.

     3. So long, marriage.

If you have a list of horrors that you cannot possibly survive without using, addiction will begin attracting those horrors ever closer to you until you do use.

The only safe course? Close all those back doors. Tell yourself, "I don't use, no matter what." You'll probably need to repeat this every now and then. You might even want to talk to your sponsor about it. You don't have a sponsor? You haven't quite made it through those meeting room doors? The clock is ticking.

Instead of making a joke about it on Facebook, or tweeting your buds for some Bud, use that phone to call NA or AA or whatever A program is designed to save your A from addiction. Always ask, "What is my next right step?" and then listen to the answer.

Go make a good day.

What's Important

There is a long list of things each item of which once occupied most of my attention because I regarded them as important at the time: Grades in school, pleasing unpleasable parents, another bit of rank advancement in school and in the military, Heaven, Hell,  politics, economics, sex, drugs, money, work, publicity, applause, and so on. In some respects, however, as the years pass, the bullshit thins out revealing the germ of wisdom that had always been there. 

In the end, the most important thing is love: Giving it, allowing it in, acting on it, even using it on myself. Love. That's what's important.

Today, look in that mirror and tell yourself that you are okay. Find someone else and tell them that you love them. And if you should be so fortunate as to have someone tell you that they love you, believe it. Don't make a joke out of it; don't throw it back in someone's face with a sarcastic comment. Instead, take it in, feel it, and join the trend: Love your self, and treat yourself as though you are someone worthy of love.