NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION

Thirty-four years ago today at this time I was driving the mysterious Regina and myself to the Portland Jetport. I was popping a few pills along the way and only dozed off four or five times. We said a strained goodbye at the airport, she drove home, and I boarded a plane for Minneapolis, Saint Mary's Rehab, and the beginnings of a whole new life.

Had to change planes in Chicago which meant half-running from one end of the airport to another, and one concourse took me right ...through a huge circular bar. Didn't stop to get a drink, though. I didn't have an alcohol problem, see. I was merely misunderstood. I finally got to my gate, took a handful of pills, passed out, woke up in a taxi in a strange looking city not quite remembering why I was in a taxi or that city, took another pill, woke up screaming at a rehab nurse, then watched as she patted me down, took away my pill caddy, then went through my luggage and confiscated the other pills and medications therein.

"Anything you need will be prescribed for you," the nurse said. I was to find out over the course of the next few horrible days that Saint Mary's definition of the word "need" was considerably different than my own.

That pill I took in the taxi was my last use of mood altering drugs. It seemed like one hell of a price then and for quite a few weeks thereafter. I spent part of the night alone in my room staring out the window at a street light and one of the worst snowstorms to hit Minneapolis that year. I remember very clearly thinking that I was jammed right into the middle of the worst moment of my life, and if there was ever a time that I could possibly change to make this not to have happened, this was it. Turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. Shows what I knew.

Lots has changed. The building which housed the drug rehab is now the Fairview Hand Center. I don't know if they fix hands or it's named after someone named Hand. Home is where you do most of your growing up, and that event took place in this building. So, it's the old homestead to me. Those of you familiar with my novel Saint Mary Blue will recognize that entrance, although the big concrete shrub pot in the center of the stairs was added some years after my attendance at this particular academy.

The world has changed radically since then as has technology all for better and worse. I have changed, too, pretty much for the better.

I should have been dead thirty-four years ago, and tomorrow night at Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington, Maine, the Mysterious Regina and I will be celebrating the coming in of the new year with a bunch of clean and sober NAs and AAs and their families. Food, games, good talk, and music. New Year's resolution? Same as last year's: Don't pick up, go to meetings, and ask for help.

Lots of love and Happy New Year everybody whether or not this particular date coincides with your particular new year.

HAPPY NEW YEAR . . . and, what?

     Yeah. I know. Christians, Jews, Muslims, the Chinese, Hindus and Buddhists each have several kinds of New Years, and there must even be some pumped up minor revolutionary chieftain somewhere who has picked July 13th as the beginning of the New Year, the fact that it happens to coincide with his birthday mere coincidence.

     Whatever your pick, have a Happy New Year. And if you are really desperate for an issue about which to become enraged, try this: On planet Earth, where some farmers are actually paid not to plant crops, over forty thousand persons die of starvation every day.

     Back when I wrote my science-fiction novel Sea of Glass, featuring a world over populated and running short of resources, I needed to come up with a number of persons starving to death each day. The purpose was to underscore just how absolutely horrible things had gotten. So, what figure to use?

     I was a new writer, this was before the internet, and it was fiction, I thought. So, with no research I reached up into the air and picked a number that was so incredibly high the horror of it would strain credulity. That fictional number of persons on Earth starving to death each day was "over one thousand."

     Silly me.

     So, if you have the opportunity to have a Happy New Year, regardless of the date, take it and begin your gratitude list there. 

    

HAPPY . . . Whatever

Big controversy about how to greet others during the Christmas season. Happy holidays, seasons greetings, and so on. The reason?

Some people are offended by being wished a "Merry Christmas."

Some atheists, some Jews, some Muslims, and some Christians who don't believe that Jesus was born on December 25th. Some non Christians who don't want their children to feel "left out," are also among this number. Anti-capitalist, Communist, anti-materialistic folks often join the offended. Schools, businesses, college campuses, town halls, courts, even in some churches can be heard complaints about how someone was greeted.

Just what does "Merry Christmas" mean? It is short for, "I wish you a Merry Christmas." In other words, during this particular part of the year, I wish you happiness." Not a cause to start either a religious or a non-religious war.

The proper response to a "Merry Christmas" is, for folks who prefer loving their fellow humans to hating them, is to say either "Thank you," or "Merry Christmas." That is also the appropriate response for those who are indifferent about others and who simply wish to cruise through life without complication. For those who hate Christmas, Christians, all religions, or who believe that all those who do not believe in their particular deity should be beheaded and their corpses urinated upon, the proper response to a "Merry Christmas" greeting is either "Thank you," "Humbug, but thank you," or mutter into your beard, go off into a lonely place, and trigger off your suicide vest.

Christmas is one of the few times during the year the human race gives itself permission to be happy by making others happy. Who cares what the occasion is? Don't want to participate? Fine. Just smile and move along, or look grim and move along. No reason in the world to spread your sterile gloom over the rest of us, and no, I am not a Christian. However, I do belong to the Cult of Santa Claus.

Interesting fact: The one place I have never heard a cross word in response to a Christmas greeting is in a Twelve Step meeting. Worst attitude cases in the world, many of whom have profound injuries caused by religionists, many of whom look upon the season with dread and profound loss. But they are in AA and NA to get clean, become human, and thereby become happy. Someone wishing happiness for you tends not to be taken as an offense.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, and the happiness is supposed to last until the New Year. That is my sincere wish for everyone. Come January 2nd, working our programs, we should be able to come up other reasons to be happy.

Special greetings to all this blog's Russian viewers. This month, for the very first time, the number of views from Americans was exceeded, and this by our Russian viewers.  с Новым годом.

CHANGES

In drug rehab, hour two after coming out of his latest blackout:

 

"I don't belong here."

He said it, and it sounded friendly.  Reasonable.  Rational.  Sane.

He glanced at the pile of books.  I'll Quit Tomorrow.  He remembered reading that one before, but couldn't remember anything about it.  Ann had given it to him.  Some coincidence.  The Recovery of Reality.  Hmm.  A big blue book: Alcoholics Anonymous—

He bolted upright, his eyes widening.  "They told me that Saint Mary's has nothing to do with A.A.!"

There was a skinny light blue book titled Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions: A Co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous Tells How—

"Damn!" Living Sober: Some Methods A.A. Members Have Used—

And every rock Jacob turned over exposed another snake.  A Day at a Time, a tiny tome filled with daily doses of religious claptrap; and Twenty-Four Hours a Day, more daily doses of more religious claptrap.  Even a handy wallet-sized item containing the selfsame twelve steps and twelve traditions on the inside, and a little prayer on the outside: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change—

"Well, goddammit, I can certainly change this!" Jacob shredded the little white card.

"There's no smoking in patient rooms."

Jacob tossed the pieces of the card on the floor, pulled the pipe from his mouth, turned and saw another female clad in slacks, but this time the woman was wearing black curly hair instead of blond.  "What do you mean, no smoking?"

"Smoking is allowed only in the lounges designated as smoking areas." She smiled.  "It's the Minnesota Clean Indoor Air Act."

Jacob shook his head as anger reduced his despair and confusion to righteous certainty.  "That tears it."

"What do you mean?"

He pointed at the mountain of treatment texts.  "What is this shit?"

"What?"

"This."  He slammed his hand down on top of the texts.  "I was told Saint Mary's didn't have anything to do with the A.A. program!"

"The program here is based on the A.A. pro—"

"I sort of figured that out for myself!" Jacob turned abruptly, his eyes narrowed, the tip of his beard an inch from the woman's nose.

"Honeybuns, do I have a news flash for you.  I'm no spook-sucking religionist.  This halfwit bible society doesn't have a godfuckingdamned thing to teach me."

He stormed around her and marched down the corridor past the nurse's station.  He needed a cup of coffee, a smoke, and to go home.  "I am in the wrong place," he muttered.  A blond woman in a lavender jogging suit came out of a room.  Jacob said to her, "Why is everybody around here so stupid?"

Her expression didn't change.  "Don't worry about it.  If you stick around long enough, they'll smarten up."

—From Saint Mary Blue by Barry B. Longyear

 

The above scene from my novel Saint Mary Blue was taken from very real, down-and-dirty life. My life. I was the original trapped monster roaring and shaking the bars of his cage, a long way from understanding that there were no bars or locked doors at the rehab. I could walk out any time I wanted. The prison I was in was a disease called "addiction."

All those at the rehab with whom I disagreed weren't stupid, I learned. I did stick around long enough, they did appear to smarten up, and the knowledge they possessed was the key to the door of the prison that was killing me and torturing everyone who loved me.

Change. Recovery from addiction depends on it. Given sufficient reason, people can change. Addicts can change from active to recovering. Millions have done it through Twelve Step programs. The first time I noticed myself having changed was in rehab only three days later than the scene appearing above:

 

"Jake?"

Jake opened his eyes and looked at the door to his room.  Brandy was looking in.  "What?"

"Telephone."

"Thanks."  He sat up, rubbed his eyes, and felt sick.  Fear.  The outlines of the fear were in sharp focus.  The things Ann could say to him; the things she had every right to say to him.

He pushed himself up from the bed.  "C'mon, Jake, keeping those tongs hot forever wastes energy.  What with the price of whips, bamboo splinters, and rack straps these days.  The Office of Inquisition was terrific basic research for opening up a rehab."  He left the room and headed for the phones located in the corridor between the third floor kitchen and east wing.

Two of the phones were occupied.  The center one had the receiver off the hook.  He picked it up and held his hand over his left ear to block out the voices of the other callers.  "Hello?"

"Jake, honey?"  It was Ann.  She had been crying.  "Jake, I want you to come home."

He lowered his receiver, found a chair, and sat down with a thud.  He felt lightheaded, his gut in knots.

"Jake?"

"Yeah, Ann.  I'm here."

"Did you hear me?  I want you to come home.  I'm so frightened, and I miss you so."

Jake nodded silently.  Take his ticket, his money, pack his bag, he could be home before Monday.

"Jake?"

"Yes.  I heard you.  Ann.  I can't.  I can't come home."

"Why?  You said you were coming home two days ago."

"I know."  He shook his head and wiped his cheek with the back of his hand.  "I'm where I belong, Ann.  I can't come home.  Not yet."

There was a long silence on the other end of the line.  Then Ann's voice, tiny, puzzled.  "Goodbye, Jake."  A click.  A dead line.

Jake reached up and replaced the receiver.  He stared at the telephone, stunned that he had flatly turned down his free ride out of recovery.  "That was a stupid thing to do," he muttered  He debated calling her back and saying that he had changed his mind, but the spiders and worms were still fresh in his mind.

—What would I be going back to?

The patient on the phone to his right began shouting, "Look, you told me this place didn't have anything to do with A.A.!  Shit!  The program here is based on A.A.!"  He looked like a cross between a hippie and a U.S. Marine.  "I'll let you know when I'm coming home, y'hear?"  The patient hung up his receiver with a bang and looked at Jake.  "Can you fucking believe that?"

Jake stared as the angry man stormed into the east wing hallway.

—From Saint Mary Blue by Barry B. Longyear

 

In the three decades of recovery since those scenes took place, there have been many changes in me, each one unwiring the program of addiction and moving me closer to existence as a human being. That phone call, and my response to it, however, was the moment where I realized I wanted life, love, happiness, and becoming a useful, productive member of the human race. I wanted that for the people in my life, but mostly I wanted it for myself. And in rehab and in recovery was where I was going to learn how to do those changes. I was exactly where I belonged.

 

GRATITUDE AND FOCUS

"My name is Harry and I'm a grateful recovering alcoholic."

     ---a what? I thought. Grateful? Grateful? What bullshit! 

     It was one of my first AA speaker meetings I was required to attend while undergoing treatment in rehab. The first speaker introduced himself as a "grateful recovering alcoholic," and I heard almost nothing else. I couldn't get my head around that word "grateful."

     Grateful? Yeah, man, I am just tickled pink to have the disease of alcoholism (which I would later learn to call "addiction"). Who was this guy kidding anyway? He was, at the very least, I believed, kidding himself.

     By then I had gotten far enough along in treatment to admit I was an addict, but I still hadn't quite gotten around to accepting it. I was still in a self-pity/rage fest about life, the universe, God, or whoever singling me out for this particular gift: Addiction. I mean, how could something like this happen to a nice guy like me?

     There was no need for me to total up all of the things I was damned ungrateful for. I had that list carved in stone and chained to me so that I dragged it around and had it weigh me down wherever I went.

     Physical problems

     Legal problems

     Loved ones I had hurt

     Pets I had hurt

     Employees I had hurt

     Endless valuable things I had trashed

     The money I had wasted

     The money I failed to make, opportunities lost through loss of productivity, all of the stories that never got written.

     This helpless, hopeless, dark little universe in which I was confined; a place where the world was shit, nothing worked, there was no such thing as a temporary problem, a world in which I was convinced everyone hated me, and where I punished those who still dared to love me.

     It was a world in which I stayed in bed for two weeks trying to figure out how to kill myself without making a mess, and failing.

    Yeah, I had my anti-gratitude list up and running all right. Any time I needed an excuse to use drugs, all of my reasons were right there in glorious black and blacker. Gratitude my ass!

     Time passed, I didn't use, I went to meetings, I got a sponsor, I listened at the meetings and did what my sponsor told me. Learned a few things, too.

     1. If all I look for is shit, shit is all I'm ever going to find.

     2. If in the center of a perfectly clean wall is a fly speck, and all I do is focus on the fly speck, the universe will appear as though it is covered in filth.

     3. That my focus is governed by my attitude, and my attitude is one of the things I can change.

     5. That my disease considers me a crap magnet. It figures once I'm covered in enough crap, I'll use.

     6. It's tough to clean a septic tank when you're sitting in it.

     I also learned how to move my focus off the fly speck by doing a gratitude list. I've covered this before, but Blogger doesn't make going through the older posts very easy, so here it is again:

How To Do A Gratitude List

     There are many different ways to do a gratitude list. This is the way my sponsor taught me thirty-three years ago.

     Take a letter-sized piece of paper, draw a line down the center of the paper. At the top of the left-hand column, write your clean date (If you don't know what your clean date is, go to the NA  link, find out where the nearest meeting is, and go there now.)

     At the top of the right-hand column, write today's date.

     Back at the left-hand column, write down the names of everyone you truly loved on your clean date. Didn't take me long at all because I loved no one, including myself.

     Over to the right-hand column, write down the names of everyone you love now. That usually takes me most of a morning.

     Back to the left hand column. Write down the names of everyone who, on your clean date, you felt or believed loved you. Again, I drew a blank.

     Over to the right-hand column, write down the names of everyone who, today, you feel or believe love you.

     I usually don't have to do any more than that to both eat up a morning and end up feeling wealthy in love. However, if you need more, do the same thing with your physical condition then and now, relationships then and now, possessions, occupation, outlook, and so on with every aspect of your existence.

     This coming December I will have been clean thirty-four years. I am living on borrowed time, and the best thing about borrowed time is, you don't have to pay it back. For that and for many, many other things, I am grateful.

     Two final things to remember: (1) Grateful addicts don't pick up, and (2) If the world didn't suck we'd all fall off.

.

THE FAMILY END

Alex and his wife Edna were sitting in their living room watching a television documentary on heroic measures to keep terminal patients alive and why everyone should have a living will. He finished his drink, looked at his wife and said, "Just so you know, Edna: I never want to be kept alive in a vegetative state, dependent on some damn machine and fluids from a bottle. If that should ever happen to me, just pull the plug. Promise?"
"I promise," Edna replied, got up from her chair, pulled the plug on the television set, went into the kitchen, and threw out all of his whisky. 

~ 

In rehab I learned that addiction is called "The Family Disease." It doesn't matter who takes the drugs, everyone gets sick. If you've ever said to yourself or anyone else, "I'm only hurting myself," if you don't already know, let me be the first to tell you: That is bullshit. "Everyone gets sick" means everyone gets hurt. 

My mother used to blame me for her being "sick" all the time, for which she needed to take horse-stunning pain killers and sleeping pills. My father was the man who was never there. My home was a nest of violence, sexual abuse, and mental torture that left me believing that chronic depression and playing with suicide was normal. I had to twist and bend my perception of reality until I could say to myself that I had a great childhood, almost none of which I can remember. 

Try to do your algebra homework while everyone around you is screaming and fighting. You don't invite friends over to your house to meet your parents because you have no idea what's going to be on the other side of your front door: War zone, drunk tank, boxing match, or fun house. So you do without friends. 

Some family members sneak off to cry, some cope by getting into drugs themselves, some take it out on the world around them through violence and crime, some leave never to return, and some simply end the pain by taking their own lives. 

Addicts: All of the above is not a good excuse to use. Instead it is a call for you to reach out for help. Rehab, Narcotics Anonymous Twelve Step meetings, get clean, and grow the hell up.

Family members of addicts: None of the above is a good excuse to say or think of the addict, "He or she has the problem; Not me." Everyone gets sick. Everyone who is sick with any aspect of the disease of addiction needs help to recover. The programs below are designed to do exactly that.

Nar-anon is a Twelve Step program for those affected by addicts: parents, siblings, employees, employers, and friends.

Al-Anon is a Twelve Step program for those affected by an alcoholic: Parents, siblings, employees, employers, and friends.

Alateen is a Twelve Step program for young children of alcoholics, or siblings of alcoholics. 

The links to the world services of all of the programs mentioned above are over in the "Learn More" box on the right side of the page. Your happiness and the happiness of those you love are what is at stake. What's important is what you do next.