It occurs to me that, although I’ve clearly struggled to a greater or lesser extent throughout my life with substance abuse, I haven’t really written any specifically recovery-oriented posts here. One reason shouldn’t be hard to divine: I’d like to actually be living in recovery for a while before I do so. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t have anything of value to say (I want to qualify that statement: I’ve had up to 1.5 years of sobriety time under my belt, which, according to addiction science, bodes well: Anyone who can put together 12 months of sobriety is said to have crossed a certain “threshold.” I have also kept sober for longer periods with some relapses in between, which is still living in recovery as compared to a person who is not trying at all).
In my latest post for paid subscribers, Rushin’ Roulette: Chapter Two, I touch on the concept of an “Old Guard” in certain subcultures (to include “occulture” and BDSM), and of bringing waves of change. One other place where I’ve seen this specter rear its head is in the culture of Alcoholics Anonymous, by far the most widespread and dominant self-help and recovery program. In many rooms, there is a prevalent attitude that newcomers need to shut their mouths, keep their heads down, and above all else, endeavor more to listen to others than to speak. And I can understand some of the reasons for this, but I also think when this takes root in a given group’s culture, it probably decides, right then and there, who will recover in that room and who will not.
In early recovery, there is often a need for people to speak out about things they have bottled up for years. It’s a time of extreme change and deep self-exploration, usually engaged in by people with longstanding habits against those two things. Telling that person to sit down, shut up, and then shaming them indignantly when they do dare speak, is setting a person like that up for abject failure.
And the old timers say, “Too bad. My sponsor has 30 years sober and this is how he did it. Don’t tell me it doesn’t work.”
Yeah, I will.
It worked for you. It doesn’t work for a lot of people. And the fact that you toughed it out that way doesn’t make you any better than anyone else bothering to try getting sober. The person is in the room and demonstrating the necessary openness to recovery just by being there. Maybe you, old-timer, living in Step 12, meaning service to others, could stand to be more open-minded yourself? Try listening to newcomers. If your sponsor, with his 30 years of sobriety, is so exemplary that he’s pretty much the only person in this room with that kind of recovery behind him, then maybe y’all are doing it wrong. By placing him on that kind of pedestal, groups like this are reinforcing the idea that recovery is elitist, and only a certain rare few deserve to make it.*
That’s bullshit. And even with my *checks SoberTime app* approximately 6 hours of sobriety, I will still make more sense than that Big Book Thumper.
*This statement needs qualification; the truth is, long-term recovery rates for alcoholics and drug addicts are pretty low across the board, and it does seem like long-term, continuous, abstinence-only sobriety is rare indeed. That being said, the attitudes against which I speak in this post do need shaping up.
Spring Cleaning
There are two times of year that are particularly challenging for me and my sobriety. If I’m sober, I am much more likely to relapse during them; if I am actively using, I am more likely to hit it really hard and then sober up during them. One of those times is Winter/Christmas, for a host of reasons, most of which centering around my life-long battle with Seasonal Affective Disorder. When that sun gets low, so do my spirits.
The other is around my birthday, and I’ve done a pretty good job so far here at Dark Twins establishing some of the reasons for that.
The trouble seems to start right around Valentine’s Day, and the reasons for this are compounded by my current living situation. To explain this phenomenon, I’ll need to go all the way back to high school and tell some stories.
I started High School at Morton West High School in Berwyn, IL. If you’ve seen the movie Wayne’s World, you’re familiar with the area; in one of the opening scenes, Wayne and Co. drive from Aurora to the city in what seems like about 10 minutes (LOL), and in the city, they drive past a stack of cars impaled on a pole. This is Spindle, a famous art installation that once stood at Cermak Plaza in Berwyn, IL. Cermak Plaza is at the intersection of Harlem Ave. and Cermak Rd. (22nd St.). Morton West H.S. is right behind Cermak Plaza, so I walked past Spindle every single day.
At that time, I had two friends who were the “ride-or-die” type: Matt and his girlfriend, Raven. We hung out every day after school, and they loved me despite my constant swallowing of entire boxes of Coricidin Cough and Cold on my way to school and the way they’d have to babysit me while I was robo-tripping.
There was a girl in our friend group, Kate, and I was smitten with her. She was tall, thin, and very, very pale. I remember, when I fell for her, her hair was in a red bob. I mean red. Fire engine red. Now that I know more about such things, it’s distinctly possible it was a wig. But anyway.
Kate worked at Value Video, which was right next door to Route 66 Liquors (both on Ogden Ave., or Route 66 itself). I attended A.A. meetings on Tuesdays and Thursdays, first at St. Michael’s church, across 34th St. from MacNeal Hospital, where I spent a lot of time during those years. I would show up hours early to those meetings to help set up, make the coffee, etc. and then just hang out with the guy who volunteered to do all that stuff. I would often stop by Value Video after my meetings to say hello to Kate. I remember one time we had a silly conversation about the porn section, and the condition in which those videos were often returned to the store…
I had it so bad for Kate that I actually stepped outside my comfort zone that year and put together a nice Valentine for her. I had a purple, silk-covered, heart-shaped box. Inside, I put 6 Starburst: 3 cherry (for her hair), and 3 strawberry (for her fair, fair skin), with a poem all about the symbolism.
She liked the Valentine, and smiled and gave me a hug upon receiving it. I felt as though I’d touched a celebrity. I never imagined a response like that.
Soon, I found myself on the MacNeal psych ward again, following one of my cough medicine trips. When I’d get sent to the E.R., typically from school, they would treat these overdoses as suicide attempts as a matter of course even when my mother would show up with a printout of the DXM F.A.Q. from Erowid.org to show them I was taking measured doses for specific effects. Didn’t matter to them.
I remember being visited by Raven one evening, and her telling me the dire situation with Kate: She liked me, she really did. And she thought I was nice. But, Raven broke to me, I was never going to win her over while I was doing the kind of shit I was doing, getting put up in the psych ward every month or so. I’d need to cut out the drugs if I wanted a chance with her.
Then it was decided. I never got my chance with her.
Relapse Season poses some interesting challenges for a guy like me who is so focused on the symbolism of dates and temporally-local meaning of moments. There are so many neat dates to choose from to get a meaningful, memorable Sobriety Date. The first and most obvious is Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day happens to be Veronica’s favorite holiday, and at one time I did claim that as my sobriety date. It was so beautiful and inspiring, until I had to go and ruin it.
Now that I know V, the pressure ramps up at the beginning of March instead of about halfway through; a sober Dan would be a good birthday gift, right? But barring that, the next opportune day seems to be March 14th, celebrated internationally as Pi Day. What a good day to “come full circle,” right? Then, of course, for the likes of me, there’s March 15, The Ides.
Missed those? Get sober on St. Paddy’s Day! That’s totally apropos.
Missed that? Guess sobriety will be your birthday gift to yourself.
Because we couldn’t get sober on, like…just a plain, normal day? Could we?
Here I sit, with a few compelling reasons to accept my new sobriety date of March 19th, stripped through it is of the significance of a date like March 22nd.
Here it is, 2023, and I live literally down the alley from Route 66 Beverage and Value Video. If I step out of my back yard and look North, that’s where my line of sight ends. It crosses Ogden and smashes into the wall of Route 66 [Edit 4/23/23: Nope, Line of Sight crashes right into the window of Value Video. VavaVoom!]. And for several years now, it has been one of my favorite haunts to go stock up on booze. I like to support local businesses, you dig?
I’ve got root causes narrowed down by now, and while that should be a hopeful sign, in my case, it’s not: Why? Because I’ve realized that by now, the primary driver of my addiction is shame, and the dynamic is really much less about “addiction” for me than it is about blatant self-sabotage. I am less than a month away from moving back in with V, and alcohol has been this relationship’s one Achilles Heel (on my end), and here I am, flirting with absolute disaster by continuing to fuck around, tempting fate. Almost as though a part of me is trying to “prove” to myself that I can potentially wear down even the love and patience of Veronica for this lost and wayward soul.
It’s a very deeply-ingrained attitude; I haven’t been recovering because I don’t feel like I deserve to.
It has been over 10 years now since it started to dawn on me that my situation with my aunt was, in fact, sexually abusive and exploitative of me, and have known that I need to deal with that in order to address my addictions.
Finding a safe space for that has been a motherfucker.
After that, it’s been a struggle of trusting that safe space, in believing that a woman as amazing as Veronica really does love me, instead of having some other, ulterior motive for stringing me along.
Oddly, putting any stock in those motives, even if they prove to be false, is a sign that I am recovering…because to think someone would deceive me for the reasons I have been thinking means also admitting that I’ve got some value. Who steals stuff they have no use for? No. We generally steal either things we need, or things we covet dearly.
And that’s not too shabby, is it? It’s an okay starting point, I suppose, for an addict whose disease is driven by shame.
So; it’s Christmas and Springtime that really mess with me, aye?
Here’s what I saw in the parking lot yesterday when I went to buy the bottle of 14 Hands Cabernet Sauvignon that ruined the days of at least 3, and maybe more, people:
March 19th is an okay sobriety date. It’s the day my Spotify Family Membership charge hit PayPal.
I’ll take it. And me and my Lady will make music together.