Mike Doughty is a musician in long term recovery. When I was first in recovery, I could not get enough of listening to him, and did not even know he was “like me”- not until the release of his memoir, Book of Drugs.
I also finally watched The Anonymous People this week, which I highly recommend for anyone in recovery or who advocates recovery.
This is something I wrote four years ago in response to the death of my best friend. We had been friends off-and-on for 10 years. We both battled our mental health and addiction demons, and became incredibly close when we went through treatment together five years ago. I want to turn this into a personal essay but I can’t: it’s a time capsule of love and loss in early sobriety. She died on my old sobriety date, and although I wish I had not relapsed for four months two years ago, I am glad I have a new sobriety date. If I had not relapsed, I would be celebrating 5 years of sobriety today, and grieving her death four years ago. I try to keep in touch with her daughter, who now has a daughter of her own, but I am terribly human at it. But having a selfish day of suffering from the should-of, would-of, could-of’s will not bring JED back, however I can try to stay better connected with her daughter in the future.
A Beautiful Mind with Tits
I’m so sad and still wrapping my head around your loss. I am so blessed to have had you in my life. You were my closest friend this year. I hope you knew that. I got a year Jed! You should be fucking celebrating with me ~ with a Diet Coke. I have a roll of quarters; we could be at “The Big L” right now, raiding the pop machine, ensuring that there are no Diet Cokes left for the rest of the residents. And clear out the Reese’s Peanut Butter cups as well. I hope you know how much you meant to me. I wish you had called me one last time. You would not have been a burden. Here are some random memories of you from the past year:
I fear fanny cancer. Fanny is English slang for vagina and sounds less anatomical than the V-word , and less insulting than pussy or cunt. Cancer……well I can’t think of any funny slang for that disease, and putting fanny before it does not take away the fear.
This fear is a tsunami, which runs deep and long in my emotional waves, surfacing again and again as an overwhelming sense of dread crashing the calm surface of gratitude I so desperately want intact.
The cause of this particular fear tsunami happened 25 years ago with the earthquake/landslide/ volcanic emotional eruption that was my mother’s death. She died suddenly at age 52, when I was 17, of uterine or cervical cancer. I do not know which one because my dad did not keep track of such things. He’s very academic, and theoretically she died because the cancer spread plaguing her inner surfaces.
She died on Father’s Day, approximately two weeks after she was diagnosed. She did not take care of her health, was my understanding of the situation. She had a fear of doctors, I remember family members telling me at the time.
It was a blessing and a curse. Losing a mother is extremely emotional at any age. At 17 the loss was unbearable at times, but I lost a depressed, alcoholic mother who I never thought loved me, except that one time she soberly told me so on her death bed.
Blame is an easy reaction to life events when you are 17. I blamed the doctors for not catching my mom’s cancer sooner. I blamed my mom for not receiving health care sooner. Their timing was all off, and consequently my mom died.
As I got older this blame turned to shame. I became an alcoholic myself because I did not want to feel. Shame on me. I would occasionally get physicals and pap smears performed, but after one bad biopsy experience didn’t follow-up on the bad paps. Shame.
Shame damned-up my emotions. Slowly I’d let the emotions flow when I found sobriety. Then an ego-based tidal wave of fear would rip my sobriety away. This time after six months of sobriety, I faced the fanny cancer fear and had a pap smear done. It came up negative. I let nearly two years pass before following up.
The fanny cancer fear tsunami washed away my calm surface after I finally saw a gynecologist, got a colposcopy done and four biopsies. Four minuscule pieces of my cervix that were once intact and then sat in separate petri dishes in some lab.
“Two years too late?,” I asked myself as waves of tears surfaced, again and again over a week’s wait. The lapse of time it took for me to get the procedure done was illogical, which I told myself again and again. New shame surfacing its ugly unproductive head, spiraling my emotions, wreaking havoc on my serenity surface.
Calm came again with the results, which proved I was fanny cancer free. My feet are again planted firmly in the sand, faced forward, away from the tide. I will let my feet get wet with the passing tides of emotion as I maintain my two plus years of sobriety, but for now the tsunami of fear has ceased.
Today I celebrate two years of sobriety for the third time. I believe the third time is the charm, but this is where I need to be cognitive of maintaining my mental health, my sobriety and monitoring my behavior by practicing mindfulness and other DBT skills. I cannot, for even a second, believe “I got this!” because that is my downfall. My ego takes over and I think “I’m normal.”
And by normal I mean someone who does not have alcoholism or bi-polar. This time around, I know there is no normal and I am not less than nor greater than anyone else on this planet. My goal is to continue to stay on my path, one day at time, and make it to four years of sobriety AND BEYOND.
Four because the first time around I maintained 3 ½ years of non-drinking and the second time around 2 ½ years. In two years my son will be graduating from high school so maybe a mom & son road trip for my fourth soberversary. Or a trip of my own if I am still in the uncool mom status.
Having another two years is scary, for which I am grateful. This means I still realize that alcohol can make me her bitch when I take that first sip. I need to remember that I do not have another suicide attempt, “get out of the hell you made” for free card left in me. Life is very precious. And I’ve almost successfully ended mine in the past, due to not maintaining my mental health and trying to numb the feelings away with alcohol. By the grace of God (Goddess, Mother Nature, Great Spirit, Buddha, and Father Sun) go I. Alcohol NEVER has given me grace. She’s made me her BITCH. May she rest in peace.
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Oasis.”
A sanctuary is a place you can escape to, to catch your breath and remember who you are. Write about the place you go to when everything is a bit too much.
A few years ago my oasis would have been the woods or Lake Superior. Somewhere in nature where I could escape; rejuvenate and let go before returning back to “my real life”.
As some readers know, I went into treatment in February 2013 for alcoholism and bi-polar. My home and room had never been an “Oasis”; it was a place of chaos with a bed of shame. A place where I drank too much in “secret” and passed out; where I whirled around like the Tasmanian Devil then succumbed to a paralyzing depression.
Today my bedroom is my Oasis. I cannot take credit for the bedding, curtains or other furnishings. My care provider decorated the room, providing an inner-child sanctuary. The PEZ, books and “stuff” are mine. It’s my 14-year-old girl’s room I never had. If it had Cory Hart posters on the wall, it would be a time capsule. Except even at 14 my life was chaos. Alcoholic mother, alcoholic & abusive brother, loving but often absent father; I raised myself, resulting in a chaotic adult.
At 41, I gave in and accepted help. I thought I “got it” in 2010, but really was still “raising” myself poorly; putting other suffering people’s needs first, caregiving without yet being whole. I had to give up my independence in order to find sanctuary.
This room is in a home where my needs are met. This room is an introverts dream. In the last week it’s literally been a place of recovery. I had a bad car accident and this refuge is where I am recuperating. In Minnesota, it’s well below zero but I have a heated mattress pad that not only keeps me warm, but helps with my aches and pains from injury.
I will have to leave this oasis in a couple months. I’ve been able to save money, shown myself to be a responsible adult, and am well enough to leave sanctuary, with hopes that it will serve another as well as it has saved me.
I’m sitting on a red velvet couch, in dim lighting, at our collaborative artists’ salon. Every Monday we have our writing group. I’ve missed the last two weeks primarily because it’s cold and dark now at night and I do not want to leave the coziness of my room.
Even though I only see these people once a week (unless I participate in other salon events) these are my peeps. We sit, we write, we share. It’s a social introverts dream; socialization in silence. A time to write alone with others.
We begin with a prompt. Some days we write on this subject, then pass our work to the right every five minutes; each writer beginning where the last left off. I love these communal works of fiction.Today we did a short prompt followed by 45 minutes to work on our own stuff. We are a diverse group; a film writer, a poet, sci-fi writers, the undefined, and I, the blogger.
Before group tonight I was at home daydreaming about Bass and not wanting to post anything on my blog. But here I am, on a comfy couch, in total silence, writing for you. Well, not total silence; just heard the helicopter bring some poor soul to med city central.
Our prompt tonight was “A Superhero whose power is only activated when he/she is drunk.” We had 15 minutes to write. My story is about a criminal defense attorney, who is a non-drinking Mormon, discovering she can read minds after drinking a Long Island Ice Tea. Fifteen minutes is not long enough to write fiction, or even flesh out a concept, but it gets you writing. For this girl who did not want to blog today, that short work of fiction with this group of writing misfits inspired a necessary November post (NaBloPoMo).
My reaction to situations is the only thing I have control over. Knowing this in my head does not always translate into knowing it in my gut and heart. I do not have control over other people, places and things, nor can other people or institutions control me. Today I was faced with a “problem” I’ve faced monthly for the last six months. One where a person in my life is unhappy about the same situation beyond their, or my, control, yet every month this person creates a chaos spiral about this state of affairs.
It is not a problem at all, but an inconvenience, one which no one has any control over. Yet this blame game is played monthly. It’s Einstein’s definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. Living with this person and this inconvenience can cause me to slip sideways; to no longer see the situation straight on but look at it on my back, defeated, and be either pissed-off or think I can solve the “problem”.
But slipping sideways is a reaction; one which will eventually lead me to a bottle if I am not careful. It is at times like these that I get myself to a meeting, spend lots of time repeating my favorite Buddhist prayer, and listen to my “Zen” music channel. And stay the hell away from this person and their chaos spiral. I must accept that this “problem” will continue monthly, and know that it is beyond my control. Slipping sideways, buying into this person’s chaos of their own creation, is not an option. If I slip sideways on a monthly basis, I eventually will lose both my sobriety and sanity.
Age six, small yellow pad and pencil in hand, observing and reporting.
This is your golden year, girl. You began writing because it surprised you how little adults remembered about their lives. Grandpa reveled nothing about growing up in Iowa. In fact you believed he was from Mesa and Colorado because those are the places you knew him to live. Life was in the present and you wanted to remember every moment. You reigned as resident princess mermaid in your backyard. You lived your life in moments. Good and bad would quickly fade. A jump in the pool solved all your problems. Self-assured and self-involved, others actions had yet to affect you.
Your stoned and violent brother was the norm, as was your drunk and belligerent mother. But these incidents happened in moments, ones you did not write down so you thought the memory of them would disappear. The memories remained. You should have kept writing.
In two years something awful will happen. Your innocence will be taken from you. It will change you from an outgoing child to a broken spirit; actions will not be taken to make you whole until 30 some years later. Everyone will act like it never happened. You will act like it never happened. It will happen, my dear six-year-old. You should have kept writing.
You will find other outlets as solutions to your problems. You will stop observing. At six you don’t know what an alcoholic is, you just know your mom slurs her words, walks funny and is mean to you and your sister sometimes. You know your brother can punch holes in bathroom doors when your mom buys the wrong type of soda. You don’t know why. You just avoid them when they are like this. You just keep writing.
Six will become your favorite number. It will take you years to figure out why. Once you do, you will keep writing.
Blogging 101 Today’s Assignment: publish a post for your dream reader, and include a new-to-you element in it.
“Dating is so exciting!” she said, ironically. And by ironic I mean the definition which states “the use of words to express something other than, and especially, the opposite of the literal meaning” (Merriam-Webster). I have found that there are as many types of dates as there are forms of irony (dramatic, Socratic, tragic); exciting just has not been in the mix lately.
It was exciting in the beginning of the dating experiment with the first man I dated; a year after a tumultuous three year relationship had ended. He was all charm. It was summer and everything was warm, fresh and new. We had so much in common; music, recovery…..well just music and recovery. But at the time it seemed perfect. Things rushed along quick. So fast that I asked for things to slow down a bit. And they did; to a grinding halt.
The need for slowing down came from that voice within saying “something’s not right here” and “Watch out! You’re co-dependent!” It went from talking and texting a few times a day to absolutely no correspondence. That was not what I meant by slowing down. And I thought I was bi-polar! It drove me to that “what did I do wrong” and “what if he was the one” crazy-making shame spiral. Until I realized he was a toolbox. With a whole bunch of destructive tools. Excitement has its downfalls.
I’ve dated three guys on exactly three dates since then. None of the dates were what I’d call exciting. All three men are “normies” in the addiction world, but of course no human being is normal.
I’m partial to the first, who we will call “Bass”. He’s five years older than I, has all his hair, and is pleasing to my eyes. We have a lot in common. He’s a sound and light engineer, and I was a sound designer and have run light and sound boards. He plays bass in a band; I like to date guys who play bass in bands. He has a very busy outer life; I have a very busy inner life. We have only been able to date once. Our second date was to be on Halloween but I had Ebola the common cold. As I said he is busy, and we only have talked on the phone a few times in the past few weeks. We will go to a movie this Friday. Unless I die or am put in quarantine before then (that was sarcasm, irony’s cousin).
The second man we will call “Misogynist”. Worst. Date. Ever. But it was coffee at 11 a.m. and I was clear, but not rude, that we would not be dating again. The third date was today, again at a coffee shop. We’ll call him “just joe”. He was fine, but we had nothing to say to each other after an hour passed. Exciting it was not. Was not bad either. Just was.
So I am looking forward to my Friday date with Bass. He’s different from the others because I feel this calm come over me when we are together or on the phone. Our first date lasted three hours filled mostly with talk. Thrills are not necessary any longer. I am a bi-polar recovering alcoholic who has created all sorts of excitement. As well as chaos. And destruction.
When people hear I’m going out on a date I usually hear “Good for You” or “How Exciting”. Since October it has yet to be exciting, and two out of three times has not even felt good. However, calmness has its charm. I’m unsure if I am going to continue dating other men or just stick with Bass. I may find out on Friday, because dating is so exciting!
<a href=”http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_writing_challenge/oh-the-irony/”>Oh, The Irony</a>
In addition to participating in NaBloPoMo, National Blog Posting Month, I am also a student in WordPress’ Blogging 101. My hope is that both will not only encourage my creative juices to flow upon your screen, but give me mad blogging skills.
My first assignment: Write and publish a “who I am and why I’m here” post.
I’m going to take the journalistic approach by answering the “interview” questions posed in this assignment.
Well, Violet, I have spent the last six months on a creative journey to recapture my love for writing, and the last year getting to know myself. There was no “finding myself” for I have been here all along, dulled down by alcohol and bad brain chemistry. Due to consequences both chosen and fate-based, I’ve lived an interesting life. I probably will still keep a personal journal for rants better off not shared, but this blog is where I can share the personal loquaciously.
I chose a simple name for my blog, Sober & Single in Med City, because those are the main topics I plan to write about; my struggles with alcoholism and dating in sobriety. Med City is a term chosen because it is both literal (I live in a city known as “Med City”) and simply describes my mental health. Twenty-one months ago I was diagnosed with Bi-Polar II ,managed by meds and therapy, which I openly discuss on my blog. I’m sure I’ll write about more than these three subjects, but those are the foundational stories I wish to share.
Honest, open people who can relate to my stories, those who may be struggling with recovery (be it eating disorders, addiction or mental health, ect.) and eloquent writers from whom I can learn. Really anyone who connects with my stories due to the subject matter or simply enjoys my writing.
If successful, I will be producing quality posts I publish at least three times a week. Perhaps I may have essays or articles suitable to other places of publication. I will be confident in my mad blogging skills, and have a followship of 200 or so readers who are not just unknown avatars, but web friends.
Violet, are you interrogating me? Well, what will not show up on the screen is my huge, bubalicious laugh, but hopefully my humours spirit will be shown through my words. Also, I am a HUGE geek, which I’m sure will be revealed in my posts.
The World Does Not Validate You....YOU Validate You!!!
Reflections by Plain Jane
Essays Exploring craft and the writing life
the bipolar battle
Exploring the depths of being human.
But it's not a death sentence
“Be compassionate to yourself. That means being gentle to yourself at times when you feel like being self-critical. Think what you’d say to encourage a friend in a similar situation. We often give far better advice to others than we do to ourselves.”
Coming out of the Dark, into the Light
Writing and Speaking for the Pop Culture Literate.
Poetry, Thoughts and Stories
Sober Living in Med City 