The good old days (part 2)

*Trigger Warning* 

 

Just some a few brief vignettes of other things I did or that happened during my drinking and drugging days:

 

I liked to climb things. Once I climbed up a crane, for no reason that I can think of. Another time I climbed up to a second story window of an apartment building and fell; someone I was with had lost their keys, so I volunteered to climb up and get in the window, and I guess they all thought it was a good idea.  I got up there but then lost my grip and fell backwards, hitting my head on the cement. I lay there looking up at the others, who were asking if I was okay, and I was fine. They say God protects drunks and fools, but I do wonder if it may have contributed to my memory problems. 

Other things I did when under the influence; tried to choke people (never hurt anyone) pushed my best friend into a pool, scream and swear at people (always someone important to me, usually a boyfriend), cry, and run for no reason. I took whatever drugs I could or were given to me but was proud I never used a needle. I was promiscuous.  I had blackouts, once coming to -- to find I was sitting in my kitchen talking to a strange woman – in the middle of a conversation.

Another time I came to on New Year’s wondering where my boyfriend was. My sister and her husband were still there, and when I tried to call him, angry that he’d left, they said I’d kicked him out and ripped the phone cord out of the wall.

 

Once, I was with my sister, her boyfriend and my brother, we took some acid and went by Lake Michigan; in the harbor we saw a big dead fish.  My brother and I totally tripped out on that fish, and it became a running joke between us -- ‘big dead fish’. Guess you had to be there. 

 

I had befriended coworkers at a new job, a big hospital and health center. Once I was invited to a barbeque, got really drunk, and I was dancing and crying at the same time, thinking about the baby I’d lost.

 

I used to wander around in a rough area neighborhood, back in the days when pot was illegal, asking strangers if they knew where I could buy some. I almost always found some, though not the good stuff. 

 

 I was a victim of rape, at least three times. The first was a stranger; I’d been friendly to him because I was lonely hungover, and new to living in the city. Next day he was waiting in my hallway for me with a knife. Because I cooperated and pretended to be friendly, he left after many hours, and I wasn’t hurt -- physically.

Some years later, after my brother died, I went on a date, went back to the guy’s apartment, and he hid my glasses so I couldn’t leave. I eventually found them and got out when he fell asleep, which took a while because he’d been doing cocaine. He lived in the same building as me, and the next day he was in the alley screaming that I was a ‘fucking bitch’.  I was terrified after that; I moved out as soon as I could. I had to break the lease which led to my wages being garnished. I think I was working at a university then. I had many jobs, would go to school or take classes periodically and then move on to something else. 

 

When I was in college in the 80's, I had plenty of friends to drink and get high with, but once I was raped by a group of men. The one who didn’t participate, a friend, told me about it, but mercifully I don’t remember, because I was in a blackout. He said it looked like I was enjoying it.

The thing is, I put myself in all those situations. I just wanted to have fun, drink, get high, and get attention. In the first instance I was lonely and hungover - just wanted a friend. I didn’t think about what could happen. The others, I was just trying to have a good time partying.  I carried a lot of guilt and shame for years. This gradually diminished, especially after one of my AA sponsors explained some things to me:  she said you can take responsibility for your actions but don’t blame yourself for what was done to you. It was a process. It was also confusing because I often wanted attention from men – nothing wrong with that – but I there were many, many times when I experienced unwanted attention or worse.  I know many women can relate to this. 

But I will say, therapy helped me to process some of this, and it was most helpful to be told ‘it’s okay to be angry’. When I was growing up, I remember being told to ‘go to your room and don’t slam the door’ – expressing anger was not allowed.  

 

I’ve had some flashbacks, but that has diminished. I saw myself as a victim for many years, full of self-pity and wondering what was wrong with me. I still wonder at times, but I know I’m not the only one. I have learned how to connect with people – adults as well as kids – through knowing pain, and healing (and a sense of humor).  Maybe it’s not the best or only way to relate to others, but it’s human.

  

no mud, no lotus

Continuing on

 I am now in my 63rd year of life. I have been clean and sober for over 31 years now, and I am still looking behind me, to a certain extent. I am the second of four children, three girls and a boy, and all that's left of us are the women, three very flawed women, two who live in the same house and more than halfway across the country - along with our mother. Out of the three of us, only one had a living child, a boy who is now an adult. We are all separate and yet irrevocably connected by that familial bond, though we are not close. 

I am now a full fledged therapist with five whole years of experience. I find that to keep my sanity and not be overwhelmed I must keep those hard-won boundaries, in spite of being easily available by text message or phone, as I use the phone for virtual sessions.  Seeing clients from the comfort of home, at times I feel like I am carrying them with me, especially the younger ones. Though in fact they are all younger than me.  I am boundlessly thankful that I can understand nearly every problem that is brought to me, most especially the emotional difficulties:  The loss, the grief, the insecurities, the fears, the anger, endless and circular thinking, the over attachment to, or distancing from, others, the feeling the that the world owes you something -- all of it is me. 

What I have lost in terms of intimacy, of being childless, of stability, of any real sense of permanence, I have gained in acceptance, flexibility, and at times actual peace within myself. I don't know why, after all the years of searching for love, both trying to get it and trying to give it, I don't feel the need to search any longer. One could say that I have given up but to me it feels more like giving over. Yet I still feel the need to examine my life and find some meaning, and perhaps pass some of it along. 

I needed a better boat, not an anchor, not a safe harbor

Twenty years ago I had my last drink of alcohol -- Hopefully, for good. It is still a bit of a mystery how I got here, in this sober world – how I have been able to seek and find help when so many do not or cannot, even if they want it. What I know for sure is that my life had become full of fear- terror, really, and liquor was my medicine, my life, my comfort, my curse, and so much more. It took me to places I never thought I would go -- Hazy nauseous experiences. Bold and spontaneous actions. Giving up of all illusion of control, being a victim, a willing victim, of circumstances and life and people -- especially of men.

Once during those years of promiscuity and desperation, years of of continually believing I was falling in love, that I was going to find the one man to save me – or maybe I was going save him - a man said to me “you need an anchor”. At the time I really didn’t think much of that, but it stuck in my head.

For years I had nightmares about water. Small waves, tidal waves, flowing water, calm water, and even ice – I was afraid of it all, in my dreams. Therefore it is interesting to me that, years later, I heard a boat analogy to describe addiction. The simple version is this: those who have a genetic predisposition to addiction start out life with a smaller boat, and it tosses them upon the big and powerful ocean. The experiences life throws them can make it even harder to stay afloat, and to navigate. If one is not an addict (or without other illness) the boat they come into the world with is larger, or built better, and they have better control over the journey (even when the oceans get rough).

In real life I loved water and loved to swim, in spite of my brother’s drowning. They say in dreams water represents the spiritual, or one’s emotional life. Over my years of being sober the water gradually became less fearful to me; at times I could put my feet in and wade; later, I was able to swim. Now I have some of the old dreams but much more of the new.

It was fear that got me sober, really. Fear that my life would never be what I expected it to be, fear that I was going to be a victim, again, of rape or worse, fear that while I wasn’t sure I wanted to live I was not ready to die either. I saw myself going down the road of losing what little self I had completely; I was tired of working, paying rent, trying to keep up the appearance of being “normal. I was drinking and smoking pot alone at night in my studio apartment with the burglar gate locked to keep people out, having been broken into. I was effectively locking myself in my own prison.

When I began my recovery, the neighborhood I lived in was not good; there were many liquor stores (convenient for me, since I didn’t have to go to the same store every day - didn't want the store owners thinking I had a problem) and there were frequent drug deals and gunshots in the area. I had a job that I loved, and I was still able to go to parties with my coworkers and no one thought it odd that I would pass out on the floor and get up in the morning and get on the bus to go home. They were those kinds of parties. Outside of that, though, I didn’t like going out anymore. Having been a victim of rape more than once, and in general not wanting to be bothered with strangers in bars, I drank at home. I was less into to the parties as well, because of the shame I felt about my behavior (often raging), the passing out, blacking out, and of course at times throwing up. I was thirty years old and in despair.

I’d fallen in love once again, or so I thought. This time the man was much younger than me, and he was sweet and kind to me. In spite of trying to cut down on drinking, I caused him embarrassment and treated him badly. I had to give him up -- but I pined away, wishing I was not such a mess.

Drinking at home alone, smoking pot, listening to sad songs, and watching old movies, and crying. These were my common pastimes. I knew there was something wrong with me but could not figure out what (even though I had called AA some years before, and had thought and even wrote that I might have a problem with the booze). Like depression, alcoholism/addiction is a disease that tells you don’t have a disease. Because it wants to destroy you.

My immune system was shot, I suppose, because I kept getting some bad sinus infections. When I‘d go to the doctor he would give me a shot of antibiotics before sending me home with more in pill form. One day I mentioned to the doctor that I thought I had some emotional problems, and I needed him to refer me to counseling. I don’t know why but he asked about my drinking, and I answered honestly. At that time my tolerance had changed; whereas for most of my drinking years I was able to consume large amounts of alcohol, but now I was able to feel drunk on two or three drinks. Not drunk in the wild and crazy sense but it simply felt normal. The marijuana also made me feel normal, and I smoked it daily for about ten years. I would keep a bowl next to my bed and smoke first thing, when I work up. I told the doctor that it was starting to scare me, because I was worried that if I were not able to get pot that I would drink in the morning -- and all day long. The doctor told me “You’re an alcoholic, call AA”. And he even told me a little about it, that there are open and closed meetings, that I don’t have to say anything if I don’t want to, and some other tips. I wonder, now, how he had such detailed knowledge.

My first thought was, “fuck you”. I went back to my usual way of living and drinking. But there came time for a trip with my job – I was working with Greenpeace and the toxics campaign was in Kentucky to bring attention to a highly polluted area. We were planning a large march and I stayed at the campgrounds helping out, making signs mostly. Though I wasn't at the office I tried to wait until noon each day to start drinking (there was plenty of beer everywhere). I remember waiting for noon, craving it. Almost everyone drank at least some, but I had been throwing up and doing other embarssing things. I had a big chunk of hash and I gave most of it away to someone while drunk; the next day I wanted it back.

The details aren’t as important as the feeling I had, which was growing and consuming me, that I was just going through the motions of living, that I was putting on an act, and not a very good one, of someone who had a life, who enjoyed life, who knew how to live life and take care of herself. In reality I was drawn to that other part of me, the dark part, that was getting stronger. I found the idea of living in alleys and selling myself for booze and money, attractive. I was always drawn to the underworld, I was always a risk taker and often enjoyed living on the edge, but this was going to take me further down – to a place from which there would be no return. And I literally could visulize it, and the sick part of me longed to embrace it. In my mind, I could see a crossroad.

Back in Chicago the drinking and crying continued. I went back to the doctor. He again told me I was an alcoholic and told me to go home and call AA. And this time I did. A woman called me back, and I agreed to go to a meeting. I was a little high from pot when I went to that first meeting with those two ladies, but I have not had a drink since. I was offended because while driving they were talking and gossiping and hardly paying me any attention; I thought they should respect the fact that this was a momentous occasion in my life. I think in retrospect, had they been very serious and attentive, it might have scared me off.

At the meeting people talked about being violent, going to jail, divorces, throwing up, blackouts, and shame. And they laughed about it all. They said “it’s the first drink that gets you drunk” -- I'd never even suspected such a thing! They said “when you drink, if you cannot predict the outcome, you’re an alcoholic”. And I knew that was me – because sometimes things were fun with no consequences, and sometimes I appeared calm, though I wasad twisted up on the inside. They said “this is the beginning of a while new life for you”, and I believed them. And it was.

Now, to say it has been all smooth sailing and wonderful would be false. For one thing I did not quit smoking marijuana for a year; there were months of being clean followed by getting high (also once took hallucinogenic mushrooms, the last thing was cough medicine with codeine - and I did not have a cough) I tapered off my daily pot smoking with the help of a therapist. I did start attending to the emotinoal issues, which were quite real. To say that I’ve gotten the life I always wanted would be false. To say that I’m happy, finally, would almost be true, however. The main thing is I have been, over the years, learning to be ok with myself.

It is hard not to go into a long dissertation about alcoholism; but what I do know is it's a mysterious and chronic disease that is always present. I know there is no cure. My dreams tell me so – in my dreams I sometimes drink, and I make excuses, I tell myself its ok to have just one, that no one will know, that it isn’t affecting my life. But in those dreams when I drink, or think about drinking – or smoking pot – I feel like I am a piece of garbage, not a human being at all but some kind of monster masquerading as human. They say if you drink you die. It’s true. Not physically but inside. Twenty years later I am still learning how to live. Happiness is not the point -- that much I know for sure. Having the things I want – a man, a house, a good car, vacations, a family – that is not the point. That much I also know for sure. These are things I have learned over years, and have spent years trying to accept. Recovery, for me, is about living a spiritual life. It comes from the inside, it’s about those sappy things like love, tolerance, forgiveness, and understanding – and learning to apply those things to myself as well as to others. It's about healing. It's about being able to give, at times, with no expectation of getting anything in return. For me, it’s not about religion; I like to say God is much too big for any one religion. I don’t always care for the term “God” (and often say “higher power” instead) but it’s convenient. I have not done everything you are “supposed to” in AA and I don’t believe it is necessarily the only way to stay sober – but that would be a topic for another time. But I will say that AA is one of the tools, the primary one, that I have used to get help.

I learned a long time ago that trying to live life doing the right things – what I consider the right things alters at times, but I have developed some core values – is more important than trying to be happy. And like Bill Wilson said, along the way there are “moments of real joy”. This is not a small thing.

So here it is December, and nineteen years from the last time I got high, twenty since I had alcohol, and I suppose one could say I found my anchor – something that keeps me grounded. However I would prefer to say I have built a better boat to travel in, or perhaps have learned to better navigate the waters.

A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for”
- John A Shedd

Beyond Forgiveness

"Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is again made clean."

- Dag Hammarskjold

Once upon a time I had a brother, he was my only brother, the youngest of four kids in the family. Jim. James. Jimmy. He was the long awaited only son, but by the time he came along my parents were tired, busy, and as they had always been, emotionally unavailable. Although I was the second eldest I looked after him quite bit. When I was younger my mother read stories to myself and my sister at night, later I read stories to him.

He was a legend from birth in our family because he was born in the car on the Kennedy expressway. My mother delivered him while my father was speeding to the hospital. Dad was in a panic; she was calm. It was her fourth delivery after all. She was on the evening news and few days later there was an article in both major newspapers, with a photo of all of us at home, Mom holding the new baby.

I like to tell people how he was in the newspapers when he was born and when he died, almost 21 years later.

It would be nice to say there was a good story to tell about his life, but in truth I learned more from his death.

The basics about him are; sometime in his mid teens he shot up like a weed, and was over 6 feet tall. He was good looking, sensitive, mischievous, and very intelligent. He loved other animals but kept parakeets as pets. I think he had a hard time in school, with rules and fitting in. He played electric guitar, a little. He started getting into music at a young age; Pink Floyd was his favorite, then David Bowie, but he had quite a varied record collection by the time he left this earth. I know, because I carted those albums around for years, and still have some of them.

He started drinking at the age of 12, and taking pills sometimes. I remember hearing he was falling asleep in school. You could say we started drinking and getting high around the same time, though not together. His Greek friend would steal Ouzo from his father & bring it over. Our older sister would bring him beer & he’d lower a bucket on a rope to her in the driveway and pull it up to his room. I had been away from home and he got my room when my parents didn’t think I was coming back. I came home for about a year to get myself together in order to move out again, and Jim’s room was the party room, where we would drink, smoke pot and listen to music. Then when I moved out on my own, several years and numerous apartments later he came to the city and stayed with me for a while. His first real girlfriend was a friend of my boyfriend at the time. Perhaps a year later, after going back and forth from suburb to city he got himself a room at a hotel that was an “el” ride from my newest home. We spent a lot of time together, talking and talking – about war, life, nature, what it all means. I got him to listen to Bruce Springsteen with me, and he started to appreciate the lyrics. We had both decided we wanted to listen to the blues more, and went to the Blues Fest together; he held my hand in the crowd. He was my best friend.

July 21 1985. He was at my apartment and I was getting ready for a date with a new guy. We were going to a street fair right near Jim’s hotel I kept asking him to meet me there. He had his own plans though. He was going to go to a pier on Lake Michigan he and he his friend had discovered. At night people hung out at the very end of the pier around a garbage can fire; they would climb to the top of the narrow steel tower to drink and get high. So I went to the street festival and all I could think about was where my brother was and why he wasn’t there. On stage the band was playing the blues, it was Muddy Waters Jr. I kept thinking I have to tell him, he missed it. And I kept looking and looking for him.

Next morning I got a call from my mother. With no preliminaries, she said “Jim’s dead”. I said “no”. My parents had already identified the body. It had washed up on the rocks. I then had to call both of my sisters to tell them the news. My younger sister was living in St. Louis. I had visited her only a few weeks prior, for the 4th of July, and I brought back some fireworks for Jim. Being a typical delinquent in many ways, he liked to light them and throw firecrackers in front of people. I specifically told him not to do that when I gave them to him.

But that was exactly what he did that night. He and his friend Alex, who survived and has told me the only account of the incident I know, were up on the tower drinking cheap wine and smoking pot. And lighting firecrackers, and throwing them down at the people on the pier below. There was one guy in particular who became enraged. He and some friends climbed the tower to beat Alex and my brother up. There was only one way to get away and that was to jump into the lake. Alex said he was yelling at Jim to jump and my brother was saying he didn’t have his glasses; I guess they had been knocked off his face. Alex then jumped into the lake and made it to the beach I don’t recall how he got home but he did not wait to see what happened to my brother.

Alex had jumped into the shallower side of the pier, but my brother was found on the other side, the deep side. We do not know if he eventually jumped, if he fell, or was pushed in. The autopsy showed numerous bruises, including heel marks on his face. My older sister and I didn’t see the autopsy until after the funeral; it explained the thick makeup on his face and why he was almost unrecognizable in the casket. We also visited the detectives and cleaned out Jim’s room at the hotel. The police said they had questioned people who were on the pier that night and no one really knew what happened or were not telling. They did know that the leader of the guys who attacked my brother was a white guy with a lot of tattoos named George. He was familiar to the police, but they had not been able to find him.

My sister picked me up that day we got the news, to take us both to our parents’ house to wait for our younger sister to arrive from St. Louis. Once there, all I remember of that day, of the next few days, was sitting in the dark smoking joints and cigarettes, and drinking. That first night I was sitting in the driveway on lawn chairs with my father. The man who rarely showed any emotion was drunk and yelled and cried and regretted he had been in conflict with his only son. Later, as we sat there drinking Dad said he was worried about me, because I had been closer to Jim than anybody. I said, oh don’t worry about me, I’m happy for him. He got out of this life. I just wish it had been me.

Several years later I had gotten into recovery and was sober for about three years when I met my friend Linda. By this time I had been living by the lake -- very close to that pier. I liked the neighborhood and wanted to be near where my brother had last been alive. I thought maybe I would be closer to his spirit.

One summer night Linda and I were sitting on the beach and, with the pier in our sight, I told her about my brother’s death. When I got to the part about the guy George with the tattoos she said, “I know him”. Not that long ago she used to party with this guy and some of his friends and she knew that they went out on the pier often to hang out, and light a fire in the garbage can. A blond guy with tattoos. She said he was a Vietnam Veteran and he was drug addict. She said she remembered in the summer of '85 he did disappear, left the state for a good long time, maybe a year. She said he was back in the Chicago area, she’d heard, and thought she knew where to find him.

I really only thought about finding him for a moment. What would be the point? This was what I thought, but really it was more of sense, a feeling: Jim was a peaceful kind of guy, in spite of the mischievousness; he’d only been in one fight that I knew of. He and I had talked about the futility of war, especially Vietnam. Then there was George, a Vietnam vet. Jim, with that side of him that liked to push the edge threw down firecrackers, and George reacted, most likely because of post traumatic stress. So if you look at the three of us, I was an alcoholic and addict, my brother I believe was also, and George was a addict. We were the same. Any one of us could have been the other, given the circumstances. Had I been to war and was addicted and someone threw firecrackers I would have been enraged. George could have been he one in recovery. George could have been the one throwing down firecrackers; Jim could have been the person who had been in Vietnam. There have been times in my life, and this was the first, when a feeling has swept over me and, like a fresh breeze, blown away any resentment or anger I might have had. What I have been left with is sweet, clean air.

There was no need to find George, to try to make sure “justice” was done. I know, without a doubt, that he was living in his own hell, not that I wished that on him. My foremost feeling was that, given he was living nearby, perhaps someday he would get sober and I would meet him in an AA meeting. And what I felt, really, about the whole situation was beyond forgiveness – it was, I think, Love.

So there the saga ended and yet it has never ended. I heave never seen nor heard anything about George since that day. Linda did not talk to her old friends anymore. But Jim, well, he’s with me all the time. In fact many days I believe I am living life for the both of us – as best I can. In the beginning I had many dreams about my brother, some were scary, and he was bloated and covered with seaweed. Another type was a recurring dream where he was walking along silently beside me in a field of grass stretching out to infinity on his side – on the right. I was on the left, on the edge of a cliff, below me was a rushing river with a forest on the other side, and there were animals frolicking in water and woods. Jim was speaking, trying to tell me something, but I could not hear his voice.

One day, a few years later, I realized I had not had the dream in months, not since I had stopped drinking. I credited that with helping me to get sober; to choose life. This was what he was trying to tell me. I had gone from wanting to die in place of my brother, to wanting to die because he was gone, and acting in self-destructive ways, to finding something to live for – that had to be some force greater than me. The dreams I still have occasionally – this summer I had them more often, perhaps because I had been grieving - are the best. In them, my brother is alive, and we are talking and hanging out, and it’s as if he has just been away for a while and now he’s back. As if he was never gone.

As for George, if you are out there – I forgive you, and I know he does too.