Back to Treatment for Me

It’s late. This time of day has recently become ‘outside my comfort zone’ and it’s also a time when I don’t normally write (my girlfriend says that 9pm is only late for old people) , but I had to open up the laptop because I have a feeling of jubilation that I need to share.

For years now I’ve been writing out my story, both from my past and as it becomes my present. For years I have been going to meetings and sharing little bits of my life with friends and strangers, but I’ve never had the opportunity to sit down in front of a group and lay it all out there in one shot. Tonight I had that chance.

A couple weeks back I was invited by a fellow in recovery to bring a meeting into a treatment center and share my experience, strength, and hope with some people new to recovery. Tonight I went with three other men to a facility and got to tell my story without the aid of a computer screen or rehearsal, and I got to hear the stories of the other guys with me.

It all took place in a cafeteria in front of what I estimated to be 70 guys, some of whom had only a few days of sobriety behind them, and some of them likely in their first attempt and changing their lives. The time came and all became quiet. I spoke for 15 minutes on my life: what was it like, what happened, and what is it like now.

Gratitude in action. This is a phrase that I refer to often in my life because it means a lot to me. What it boils down to is that I am so grateful for the life that I have and live now—because it used to be a pile of shit and I couldn’t function or take care of my basic hygiene and I couldn’t control how much of any intoxicating substance I ingested—that I have to share with others how I got out of it all. The saying goes, “We can only keep what we have by freely giving it away.” Well we can’t just say that we have to live it. I want others that are suffering to know there is hope; I want them to see somebody who has hurt, who has been down in the depths of depravity, now living a functional life full of fun, love, and sanity. I want them to know there are people here to help. And it’s important that I tell them how I got to where I am, which includes a lot of painful memories.

These 70 gentlemen were all much closer to the pain than I am, and sometimes it helps me to see where I was just a few years ago. It works for me, too, this gratitude thing. It’s funny, one of the guys that came with to speak, I had never met, but he had been through the C.I.P. program that I went through in prison. So had a number of the guys that were in the crowd, I had even been in Moose Lake with one of them. 

This whole thing, it’s just so much bigger and more powerful than I am. Some of these guys had only days without a drink or a drug, but for an hour, we all sat around in a room and shared together a bond that cannot be found anywhere other than in the rooms of A.A. 70 men so unique and socially diverse that you would never see them conversing in a normal setting unless they were family. We all have something in common just as influential as a familial bond: pain. We have been through the wringer, and we want something better.

It’s sad to know that all of them will not succeed, but some of them will. And that is why I do this. I didn’t write this post to tell you what a great job I did telling my story, or that I saved the lives of struggling addicts. I wrote this post for the struggling addict. I know you’re out there, and I want you to know that we are here for you. I am here, and I have been there. You do not have to walk alone.

Return

For one week it seemed that all of us—at least from what I saw from the posts from my Minnesota friends—got along. We bonded over a thrilling, impossible victory that gave each of us hope for the coming week in Pennsylvania. But all was not sunny for the Vikings in Philadelphia, and we were once again crushed like our hopes and dreams. So for now, we can all go back to arguing over political views, and grow farther apart as this administration continues to push us into chaos.

Aside from sports and politics, my life in a small town continues to test my patience and my ability to focus on my moral code of love and tolerance of others. I find myself praying a lot more than I used to. I’m not asking for things or for health, I’m asking my God of my understanding for patience, empathy, and acceptance.

I continue to be better at giving advice than following my own, and I struggle with the fact that I cannot control how others behave or communicate or interact with me. The only thing I can try to do to the best of my ability is treat others the way I want to be treated, and expect nothing in return. And when I get nothing in return, I have to accept that and move on. Sometimes my reward is love and affection, sometimes my reward is silence or screaming and crying.

At this moment I am in a happy place: sitting in a small coffee shop sipping on a rather flavorful light roast, with some dreamy folk music playing thoughtfully in the background. I’m wearing a shirt with a picture of a coffee pot on it and it says, “Pot Head.” It has garnered a few comments of approval. I know what my day has in store and it’s not what I want, but it’s what I have to do.

 



One of the girls is home sick today. That means Amanda and I don’t have our normal one-day-off-per-week together which is something we both look forward to regularly. Today will consist of me grocery shopping alone, and cleaning—probably for a majority of the day. I miss living in my old house where I had to clean up after myself, and I could spend the rest of my day doing what I wanted.

But that is not my existence anymore, and I know that I am putting more into life these days than I am taking away, and that is a major accomplishment. “What I wanted,” often consisted of me bingeing Netflix for an entire day, and eating several thousand calories over what was necessary for an inactive adult. I let myself do it because I spent an hour at the gym, and I assumed that burned off 3,000 calories. I was wrong. I am much more active now on a day-to-day basis and my body is responding in a good way. Kids don’t stop.

So the point of this post I think is to say that I am still in the process of adjusting my life to include three other lives, and that I have to make sacrifices—possibly more than I initially thought (and especially financially)—but overall I can tell that I am having a positive effect on life.

At this moment, the storm has arrived. The snow will be piling up by the inches today so maybe it is a good day to stay inside and help clean up after two little ladies. It’s literally not the worst thing I could be doing. 17 years ago I was spending my time floating around on couches and under bridges. I was hooked on anything I could ingest which I could only get by stealing anything I could find. Some of the people I hung out with in that period of my life are dead or in prison. I am free, and I am loved. I can give love; I can feel love.

That is my reward.

Footgame

We don’t have TV. I should illuminate that last sentence by saying that there are several television sets in the household, we just don’t subscribe to any satellite, cable, or over-the-airwaves boob-tube programming. I have Netflix, and that is what we use most frequently. The Vikings game was not available on Netflix.

I should illuminate that last paragraph by stating that I have not watched a regular-season football game in years: I really don’t care for the game. I am however interested in the possibility that the Vikings may very well go to the Super Bowl in their own state, a feat which has never been accomplished by any team.

I had no way to watch the game, and I don’t own a radio or even know if the game was anywhere on the dial as playoff games in many sports are not often broadcasted over the A.M. and F.M. frequencies. I do have the internet on my phone, so I googled the MN Vikings score at about 4pm today and saw we were up 7-0. I refreshed the screen probably a hundred times over the next three hours as I was lead through a roller-coaster ride of fear, doubt, and elation. I was finishing my dinner and the screen said there was ten seconds left and we were somewhere in the 30’s on our side. It wasn’t looking good.

I hit refresh one last time, looking for 24-23 to be the final score, when I was surprised to see 24-29 final. I raised my fists in the air and declared victory for the Vikings which was met with a cheer from the older girl and two blank stares from the others. I couldn’t believe it. I knew from the score that there had been a last-minute touchdown, but I couldn’t find any footage at that point. It took about ten minutes for me to find the clip of what I will refer to as the immaculate missed tackle. Hey, it doesn’t matter how you get there, it matters that you got there.

I know nothing else about football. I have no idea who we play next, or whatever teams might have made it in this year, I only know we are where we are because of every minute of every game of this season. Everything—good and bad—that has occurred this season, has lead to this moment.

 

This is how I perceive my life as I know it now. I wouldn’t be who and where I am right now if it weren’t for all of the shit I have put myself through in my life. I have to be grateful for everything, because it all equals me.

There are new stressors in my life now, but I react differently than I would have many years ago. In the big book of A.A. the chapter on the 10^th step contains my favorite sentence: Love and tolerance of others is our code. I love it because it tells me how I should be living my life in sobriety. If I have been honest and thorough in my step work up until this point, this will come naturally, and it has.

I find myself reciting that phrase over and over in my head throughout my day when I encounter things that used to baffle and destroy me. Now I have an understanding that I can’t control what other people do and think, and I don’t waste my time dwelling on things I could or should have done. The only thing I have any power over is how I show up right here and right now.

I kept trying to think of a football analogy to throw into that last paragraph but I couldn’t think of anything meaningful because I don’t know how to properly use the terminology from the game. So, since I’m a fairly decent writer, and I like using new words, I’m going to give it a shot here.

 

My life now is like a nickel formation, because touckback. Up the middle is where my sobriety is and I threw the ball for a timeout. First down. Skol! I’m sober, and there’s a flag on the play. And boom goes the dynamite.

 

Now

Hi. I’m going to try something a little different today. Amanda (that’s my girlfriend) is attending a C.M.A.A. event this evening and I will be watching the girls because, well, that’s part of my life now. It’s just after 4pm, and I’ve worked, worked out, and showered for the day, and I will be leaving in just a few minutes to pick up the two caterwauling tornadoes. The rest of this post I will try to transliterate what is happening around me to you as it is happening. I will embolden real-time events.

 

At the daycare center I walked past a few rooms to find the oldest child. It’s easier to pick her up first because the fewer distractions the better when getting a two-year-old. I find the oldest on the floor of the gymnasium picking up bb’s from a small plastic toy box she has dropped. I can’t imagine why any kids toy would contain bb’s, but here I am trying to find them on the floor of a daycare gym so no other kids pick them up and eat them. The little one is done with her snack that you will read about below, so she is trying to hand it to me. I don’t need it for anything so I tell her to put it on the table.

We leave the big room and head down the hall to get the young one. She runs to me with arms open and I give her a huge hug: it makes my day every time. We gather together her things which include: a backpack; a scarf; various art projects from the day; a hat; and her coat. The little one wants juice now. She doesn’t really want to put on her coat, so I lie and tell her mommy is at home and it works. The lie won’t matter in the long run because she isn’t old enough to remember in the short term, and I can distract her with treats when we get home.

We get home. Both children want a snack and I oblige them. They both want Nature Valley granola bars, but they don’t want to eat them out of the package; they want them in Ziploc bags. Again, I oblige. The little one is again done with her snack, so this time she sets it on my keyboard; small crumbs dance their way across the keys until they find a temporary home somewhere in-between the letters. The older one is now by my side telling me she wants to go to her friend’s house because she didn’t see her today at school, and I tell her no because I have never met their parents and I don’t know where they are. The little one is now directly to my left, coughing on my face several times and whining to me that she can’t find her juice which is on the table in front of us,and now she wants a pear. She’s crying again saying, “I want eat”.  The older is now to my right, sniffling because she can’t see her friend. I can’t win.

They are both done crying: It’s one minute later. It’s not dinner time yet, and the girls just had snacks. They are both whining now. It’s not crying, but it’s close. The big one still wants to go to her friend’s, the little one wants her blanky, so I tell her to go get it. She obliges. Nope. She came back without it. I don’t like giving them snacks too close to dinner time because they won’t eat their dinner, so if she actually is hungry now, it is possible I’m being neglectful. Either way, I will start dinner after I finalize this post. The little one found the remainder of her sister’s bar and is chewing on it while she stares at me. She coughs. Her hands and face are sticky and covered with oatmeal and sugar. It is my responsibility to clean her up, so I will do that now.

We are all settled down now and relaxing in front of the big-screen watching Angry Birds. It’s time to do something fun before dinner. Last week I showed the oldest how to start up a batch of agates in the tumbler. Today we get to check the progress and make sure everything is working properly before they get closed up for another three weeks.

We checked the rocks, and we found a blanky. I started a load of laundry, and now it’s time to start dinner. When I started this post I thought it would be fun to sort of write down what was happening in my life with two children on a given night. What I realized was that when I’m focused on something else (this post), I’m not being in the moment with them, and that is the most important thing. So I’m ending this here, and I will come up with something more substantial when I have some free time in the coming week.

 

 

Sexual Education

2017 was a tough year for a number of criminally, and immorally sexually frivolous men. It was a powerful year for the uprising of women who showed courage, strength, and an ability to fight back the men who had oppressed them in every field, and at home for far too long. This applies to life in general, and my life at home now with a victim of domestic assault. It was enjoyable to watch the uprising from the outside as an adult, but it called into question some of my sexual past.

Now, in the fourth step of A.A., we make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. And in the fifth, we share that information with another person (my sponsor) and we let go of all of the defects of character that made us who we were for our lives in addiction. The fourth step includes a sex-inventory. For mine I was told to make a list of every woman I had ever slept with, and then, separately, write extensively on where I had been hurtful, neglectful, abusive, aroused jealousy, etc. I did that, and I laid it all out for my sponsor, and I felt better about things in general when the whole process was over. But it did bring out a lot of questionable behavior of mine from my teenage years and even some tacky events from my drinking and drugging days that all may not have been criminal in nature, but in the position I am in now—living with and helping take care of two female children—I wonder what could have been done differently in my past, and what can be done now to promote a healthy future for women of all ages.

When I was in sixth grade, I remember something called sex-ed. We all laughed about it because some of us knew a little about sex from watching porn from under their parent’s bed, or even then, from personal experience. Me, I had done neither at that point in my life and I giggled when I heard the words penis and vagina (and I still do.) I remember being showed a video on the proper way to put on a condom, using a real erect penis, and that was the talk of the town (of 12-year-olds) for weeks. That same video showed the proper way to mount a woman and insert said protected penis. But looking back I find one very peculiar oddity: nothing in any of the literature, movies, or presentations said that the woman should be awake, coherent, or conscious. Nothing dealt with what you should do if a woman (or a man) says no (even if you’re in the middle of action.) Boundaries were not even vaguely defined. That’s disturbing to me now.

I wasn’t raised with a male influence in the house, and I don’t know if that’s a talk that men are supposed to have with their boys. But I think boundaries are important and should be discussed at the same time as all other sexual education. As a male influence now in a household with only women, I think it’s significant to show the girls through example that mommy and Vince are equals, and that we respect what we say to each other, and for now, that’s what they need to see. I don’t know how early they start sex-ed these days, but I think it’s never too early to teach that gender equality is vital to our future as our culture grows to include so many variations on sexual category. More importantly, I think it’s vital for boys to understand consent at a very early age, before curiosity takes control and an opportunity arises where misinformation—or lack of information completely—can cause an irreversible incident, or worse, carve a path for lifetime abuse of every partner which can cause a lifetime of hurt for every victim.

My lack of education on boundaries fueled decisions I made while young, and under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Some people don’t need an accelerant to feed the flames of sexual misconduct, but if more people can recognize the signs of an abuser before a person becomes a victim, we all benefit, and if future generations are given the correct information at the proper time, instances of sexual abuse can go down.