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.