The Round Up

The overall success rate in the program of A.A. is estimated at somewhere between 5-10%, probably around 6%. Roughly one in 15 people who walk through the doors is able to become and stay sober. Yesterday I was surrounded by over 6,000 people who had made the decision to quit drinking. It was cool.

There were meetings everywhere, food plentiful, and conversant faces all around at the Gopher State Round Up. Whatever XLIII means, that’s how many Round Up’s there have been. I had attended one previously in 2001 when I went with a group in Hazelden. I spent most of my time with a friend handing out pamphlets we had stolen from a kiosk to random people. We thought it was hilarious.

Yesterday, I went to a meeting right when I got there, and then began circling around the main court searching for food and friends. It only took a few minutes before so many memories came back.

Joe, Ben, and myself were alike in so many ways. We were fun, friendly, caring people, who had lost their way. We had all met nine or so years ago in Rochester shortly after I had come back from my cruise. Joe and I actually lived in the same duplex, and we started hanging out and drinking right away. It didn’t take too long after we had a conversation about never doing hard drugs again before we started doing hard drugs again. And that’s how we met Ben. Ben had drugs. Drugs, Ben, drugs.

Like I said, I was pretty fresh off the wagon, but I started hitting it pretty hard. Within a few weeks, my group of friends had changed exclusively from one set to another. I could now stay up all night, because of the active ingredient in methamphetamine. And I used my new found time to play cards and search for agates with my new best friends. Truly, honestly, Joe and I became good friends even in the world of shit. And Ben began to come over, and we went to his place more often because I believe we offered an escape from the reality of his life as he knew it, and there was some comfort for him in having a place to just relax and get high with some “normal” people.

My life, my job, and my family were quickly slipping away, and that’s when I made the decision to start my career as a professional drug salesman. It looked easy, and I would surely reach peak popularity with the masses in no time at all. So naturally my life slipped away from me. I became isolated, alone, and afraid of every movement and sound. People became my enemy, and everything was being stripped away from me at an alarming rate. My pride, my dignity, my self-esteem were all washed away with every hit I took. I could see myself wasting away in the mirror, and I weighed in at 135 pounds. I could see my heart beating through my chest.

Flash forward nearly a decade as I’m wandering through the poolside area of the largest sober get together in Minnesota, and I’ll be damned, there they were. I saw Ben first. He turned when I said his name and I don’t think it quite clicked, I mean it had been a while. That’s when I saw Joe. That’s also when I couldn’t stop smiling for the rest of the day. The last time I had seen these guys we were all so disheveled and desperate I definitely had thoughts that I never wanted to see them again shortly after I got out of that mess. But here they were, sober and smiling. And they had some time under their belts which I was happy to hear. I’m not going into details about an anonymous program but we spent a couple hours catching up and it was by far the highlight of my day, my week, maybe even since my release from prison.

We are part of the tiny little miracle: the 6%. I’ll finish by stating the obvious, that leaves 94% unaccounted for out there. Any of you who know somebody out there still struggling, there is hope. I found proof of that yesterday over and over. It’s never too late.

We Have Nothing to Fear, But...

Fear. It’s a strong little word. It motivates people more so than love, hate, or courage. It is behind anger as its root, and is the cause of failure in my life over, and over again. As part of my fourth step, this week I am doing a fear inventory of myself, and I decided to write a post about the subject to get my mind working. The process for writing out this step, and associated inventories is not a format I am used to, it’s actually quite difficult for me and I don’t think I’m being as thorough as I should be, but it only asks me to be progressive in my action, and I will do this step repeatedly over the years, so I can do a little better every time.

So, what am I afraid of? Well, spiders, dancing, needles, and swimming. But those are not the fears that I am asked to write about. I will attempt to explain some common fears in the following treatise. I hope I’m thorough.

Failure. Even the word itself invokes fear. But why? Failure is in our nature, and has been the building block of human evolution (if you believe in that sort of thing). For me, it ties in with perfectionism. I put unrealistic standards on myself and society, and anything less than perfect is failure, which I beat myself up for. I expect that everything that I do or try for the first time to be flawless. I’ve always thought this way, and I’ve never succeeded. My mother wrote in an old post about my first experience with rollerblades. I put them on, rolled down the garage driveway, and fell. I got up, took them off, and stomped into the house and in a fit of rage threw them onto the ground and proclaimed that they were stupid and I would never try them on again. Or some such shit. I put the blame on the rollerblades. Interesting. A few short months later I was a pro. All I had to do was practice like anybody else would. But I assumed that when I first donned the wheels-on-shoes, I would be an expert, something I still assume about things today, but I see now that I really have made progress in that area. Just in writing this I can see that I have developed patience. And although I still want to be perfect in everything I do, I’m willing to go through the learning process to do it. It’s taken me over three months at work to learn how to run two very complicated machines, and I’m getting there, but every day it seems like I’m finding something new.

So, I am afraid of failure because failing makes me sad, which turns to anger, which can lead to resentment. What a path. I have a lot to look into there.

Next, let’s look at my fear of confrontation. This lead exactly to built up resentments, and can turn into anger. Confrontation isn’t just about fighting. It’s simple, really. I think normal people do not have issues with confronting a bad boss, or a friend that’s making mistakes in life. But not me. For years I worked in a restaurant with a terrible boss that had unrealistic goals and expectations, and paid me less than I thought I was worth. But I never said anything, I just let it all build up in my head until I found ways to get what I wanted in the form of dishonesty in stealing, resentment in talking bad about her to friends and coworkers, and selfishness in doing things my way. Not a surprise, I was terminated with the explanation that none of us were happy in the arrangement, and I went on unemployment, which I blamed exclusively on the boss. I wrote about this in my resentment portion of my fourth step, and will put her on my 8^th step list and I will be willing to make amends for the damage I’ve caused.

I could go on and on, which makes me fairly confident in my abilities to write out the rest of this step for my sponsor. I would appreciate hearing any feedback on this one. Especially from you “normal” people. Do you struggle with the same issues, or have you conquered your fears in life? And if you have, how have you done it? Thanks for reading!

Jobs Part 9 (On the Inside)

St. Cloud Prison, as I’ve written before, is a terrible place to live. Not too shocking, I’m sure, that a prison wouldn’t be the ideal place to rest your head. Unfortunately for most people stuck there, there’s very little time spent outside of the cold steel cells. I was very fortunate to be one of the few selected to be a swamper in B house. I worked with three other guys from 2-10pm cleaning the giant concrete room that housed nearly 200 men, most of whom didn’t care much about cleanliness. Thankfully, our work rarely entailed going inside cells to clean, rather walking by with cleaning caddies and offering the supplies to the offender to clean their own space. It got me out of my cell for half of the day, and I think the best part was that I got to shower by myself most days.

I got to know some of the Corrections Officers pretty well while I was there. Nothing personal because asking questions would be taboo, but some of them had a sense of humor or at least saw the humor in things there, and we got to chat about that. It was nice for me because it seemed like I was talking to normal people even if for only a little while. It was the only place during my incarceration where a few of the C.O.’s seemed like normal people.

That all changed when I was moved to Moose Lake in preparation for Boot Camp. I would spend the next four months there as a seamster, sewing the crotch flaps together on men’s briefs. According to this Word document, seamster isn’t a word, but that’s the term we devised for ourselves as we worked nonstop under watchful eyes for 50 cents per hour.

More than a few times, a C.O. walked over to me and a co-worker to tell us we were talking too much while we were working. It wasn’t disruptive, and we were working while we were talking, but they wanted us to know that they were watching, and that they were in control. We had to fill out a production sheet every day and I was told that I needed to do 200 sets per day or I could lose my job. 200 required me to basically stare directly in front of me at my machine and go, go, go. We were given breaks, but only for standing head counts, and one for lunch. I was never eligible for a raise, but I could have made up to $1 per hour if I had stayed on, never more. Of course if I had applied to sew cases for MyPillow, I could have made minimum wage. Of course, at 50 cents, or minimum wage, the prison took their share of what we made. Thankfully, I was relocated out of that dreadful place to C.I.P. where I started out as a laundry worker, but very quickly traded that job in for one where I would have a little more quiet.

Quiet: Non-existent in every prison atmosphere. But for an hour a day at the Challenge Incarceration Program, I walked the halls of the chemical dependency treatment building where all was as still as night. There were groups meeting, and employees meandering about, but I wasn’t allowed to look at them or talk to them without permission, so I just kept my head down. I wasn’t allowed to use a vacuum, so each day I would start by sweeping the carpet on to the bare floor, then sweep all of that up, then mop. After that, I would clean the bathrooms which were only used by staff and scrubbed twice per day so they weren’t really ever that gross. And at the end of my shift, I would gather up all of the recycling and trash and take a nice slow walk to the pole barn where I would deposit it all in its place, and make the walk back to ask permission to carry on for the day. I did that for five months, and I don’t think I could have had a better job there.

That brings me to now, and I have already written about the laminating job.

Looking back over the years, and over these nine posts I see some patterns. When I’m sober, I am an honest, hard worker who tries to give every day. When I’m not, well you better lock up the expensive dinnerware, because I will absolutely take it.

And that’s it, folks.

Oh, I’ll be away from the blog for a few days while I write out my fourth step. I need to be focused and dedicated to this thing or it might not take. And for me, this is the most important thing in the world, this recovery. If I don’t give it my all, I will likely relapse, and you’ll never hear from me again. So, I’m not sure how long it’s going to be, but I think under a week. You’ll know as soon as I post again.