I've written plenty of posts from work, but I never thought I'd have the opportunity to write one from the kitchen. I'm currently seven hours into a twelve-hour shift, and there's currently nothing for me to do but wait for the Game of Thrones concert to start.
This is a quick shot I was able to get of the orchestra doing some kind of warm-up, taken from three-stories up on the club-level of the Xcel Center. I probably shouldn't have been doing that--or this for that matter--on the company clock, but this is what I do with extra time 😬.
I've never seen an episode of the show, but I would imagine it's much like a video game or something comparable because that is what the music makes me think of. It's pretty awful.
Something recovery related: I walked into one of the massive coolers in one of the kitchens in this gigantic building the other day, and I had a very brief, but powerful urge to get high. Not on meth, alcohol, or weed like you might think, but nitrous oxide. You see, back in the day, while working in many of the kitchens I did whilst in the depths of my struggles with powerlessness over intoxicants, I had a very reliable source of laughing gas through cans of whipped cream. It probably sounds odd to you, but I went through case after case, chasing the eerie, buzzing high that can be achieved by inhaling the gas charge, while holding the can upright.
I never got caught somehow. I can probably attribute that to the fact that I was in charge of ordering it, and often the only one who used it, in the small kitchens down in Southeast Minnesota where that particular addiction took hold. Once I got all the nitrous out, the remaining cream would come out rather liquidous, employees and management were often baffled by that, but at the same time never seemed to catch on. A couple of you reading this now, former coworkers, probably have light bulbs appearing over your heads right now. Yeah, it was me.
So when I entered the cooler and had that urge, it dissipated rather quickly, but now every time I see it on the shelf, I continue to have thoughts of using. Briefly, my brain tells me that it would be easy to get away with doing it because there's so much here, nobody would notice. Than I remembered how my addiction works: I try one, then I need the rest. Whether it's beer, cocaine, or a simple can of whipped cream that I craftily deplete, the monster takes over after the first consumption, and I no longer have any control.
That is what keeps me from trying that first thing; the knowledge I've built up through meetings and sponsorship, that tells me I can't be like normal people. I do one, and all must fall. This is my life, and that is the only way.
The band has stopped. I should get back to work.
