Swifty phiphty niner

I am an addict.   You can throw the term alcoholic into the hat too if you want.   But bottom line I suffer from addiction.   Not just the typical drug addiction but behavioral addictions.   It’s not important to offer the nouns or verbs associated with this, I think everyone has their own idea of what I’m talking about.   Today I’m doing an exercise associated with said addiction.   (Exercise 8 from the book, “The Tao of Sobriety”, by David Gregson and Jay S. Stern, Ph.D.)   I’m conducting an interview with the committee in my head to confer and come up with some answers to my thoughts on my particular responses to my addictions.    Here is what transpired: 1.        How would you describe your relationship to your drug of choice? It’s my Linus blanket.   Sometimes my thinking gets really harsh and I find myself going to extremes, all black, all white and I’m afraid of where it will go.   I’ve crossed the line of suicidal attempts and have a frightening fear of standing clos

Another memory of the Peugeot was a bit more violent.   We are back in the states, living in Maine and my brother, Volt and I are going to my sister’s wedding in Farmington, NH.   I brought a friend along who also knew my sister.   His name was Mark (real).   This was my half-sister, DoeRaymee and we had only known each other for the brief custody visits my mom was allowed when we were little kids.   Yeah, my mom lost custody of both her daughters in 1950.   It’s takes a lot of something for a woman to lose custody of her daughters.   Fahsolah was the oldest, DoeRaymee, the youngest.   I never had a close relationship with Doeraymee as I did with Fahsolah.   But that was a long time ago and now as teenagers and young adults, things were changing.   Doeraymee was getting married!   Truth be told, it was going to be free booze and maybe a whiff of some pot knowing her and her future husband.   RSVP big time.   Because of the booze my memory of the actual event is fairly a dot dash affa

The rise and fall of the Peugeot 404.   It might not have been a 404, that’s what my memory is, er, wait, I’m getting a new image, it’s a 504.   Yep definitely a 504.   My dad bought it while on assignment in Germany so it was probably a 1972, brand new.   Some weird Air Force perk where you buy it through the Canadian PX and it is shipped to your address in Germany.   As a young teenager I had zero interest in cars.   Probably as a result of living on base in Germany I don’t know.   Cars and motorcycles were never much my thing anyway.   If it wasn’t rock and roll, alcohol, going to movies, thinking about kissing princesses or reading books I wasn’t interested.   But my dad seemed to be excited about this particular model and I admit it was a good looking car.   It had a midnight blue finish so that may be why to this day my cars almost always have the same paint job.   I don’t recall too much about this auto (pronounced OW-TOE in German) but I have a couple recollections that I wil

It’s 7:00 on Sunday night.   I spent the day by myself.   Except for the morning meditation meeting at Traditional.   I’m glad I made that.   It was a struggle to get out of bed to make it at 9:30 as it just felt so good to lay there.   But no I promised myself that I would go if Traditional started it so off I went.   Even as I sat there I knew I wanted to leave as soon as the sit was over as I didn’t want to listen to what anybody said.   But no, once again I listened to that small new voice that said, “Take it easy dude, you might hear something good.”   I did stay and I heard nothing but wonderful things.   All thoughts from other minds that didn’t cater to my blanched state.   I’m not sure what’s going on but it’s going on.   Winnow passed her licensing test, at least part 1 of 2 and I am so happy for her.   It was a big deal but I had faith where she may have not for a moment or two.   I did pray for her success.    So there is that part of me that does believe in some mig

Well it’s Christmas Eve.   I’m sitting in Traditional’s Christmas Alcathon 6PM meeting.   This is my 30 th year of attending alcathons.   30 years in AA, almost 60 years on this planet, and okay, my right knee feels like it’s 90 so I just hit the trifecta, 30, 60, 90. Ha ha.   This room is full with new faces, different faces and familiar faces.   Some people I can actually remember their names.   Others are just the faces I’ve seen through the years that smile and say hi and then they sit and listen.   I’ve known these people only through the chairs I’ve seen them sit in.   The names don’t come to me as they once must have but it’s the best I have and it’s all right. So many stories in here.   Philip is the chair tonight.   He’s no longer homicidal, suicidal and now a lot more fun to be with.   He’s weathered the Four Horsemen, Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration and Despair and now has a life, entwined with God that he can live peacefully with.   He’s been around for 29 years.  

Merry Christmas.  I guess this is the last Christmas of my fifties.  Sounds macabre.  So far it's just been only another day.  No sleep last night at all and up at dawn doing chores.  Gave a friend a Christmas ride to the airport at 8.  When I got home I tried to take a Christmas nap but no sleep came.  I can't contact my Christmas sister as her phone goes straight to voice mail.  I did my Christmas chores in my rental room.  I did Christmas laundry.  My favorite part of the day was doing Christmas laundry folding.  My favorite Zen moments come from folding clothes.  Lay the inseam north and the next one south and the next one north.  Makes the Christmas piles of laundry even and smooth.  I found the perfect Christmas wire trellis to stick into my barrel vine I'm growing out front.  Now I'm going to get ready to go to a Christmas brunch with Winnow and her Christmas family.  I'm hoping later to see my son so I can give him some nice Christmas presents that I really

Rebuilding myself through Zen, therapy, sponsorship, DBT and willingness to do it.   There are days when the overwhelmingness fatigues me to the point of endless irritability.   Then there are days of non-stop gratitude for the distance I’ve covered and energy I have for the rest of the trip.   Where did the passion come from this time?   I don’t have a woman to impress.   Well I just don’t have a woman. J   That’s growth right there.   “Don’t have a woman!”   Even Firestone doesn’t contact me anymore.   I would hear from her on my birthday but now after 29 years, no sir.   I offer or cough up a little controversy and I’m out the door.   A little moxie goes a long way.   So what about that?   My long standing unease of being manipulated into taking Trojan via dad proxy has turned into something untouchable.   I’m not a dog person.   Tried to do it.   You know like trying marriage because it’s the right thing you’re supposed to do.   I tried it a couple of times (marriage too) an

My therapist has introduced the theory to me of the inner child.   I have to say that as long as I’ve heard of this I didn’t give it much credence.   After several sessions though a light began to glimmer and it started making sense.   Especially when she told me it’s not just one inner child, it’s a bus load of them.   “But you’re not unique in that Pher!”   Knowing me, that was key to say.   When a familiar feeling arises that resonates with one of my “children”, that voice is the one that leads the pack.   Rage for instance, can rally the troops and all in unison they’ll abdicate their place and the screaming eventually finds its way out of my mouth and out into the real world.   Results vary but mostly on the poor scale.   The melancholy child sets off an entirely different rumbling throughout the bus.   He broods and the whole gang starts dragging.   The chain reaction activates the depression child and then the droopy voice starts whining and you get the picture. This is how

Monday ugh, could not get out of bed today.  I literally spent all day yesterday sleeping in bed or on the couch.  Woke up officially at 1PM and had a small breakfast then straight to the couch.  Turned on the TV to watch soulless football.  Every time I would look up to see a play it was a different quarter.  I figured out that this was just not going to be one of those awake days. I had the Kill Headache all day Saturday.  Once those are on board there is nothing to do but suffer silently.  I've basically had them since childhood but this one has been a doozy.  It started in June and I had a few bad weeks of level 6 or higher every day.  The past month, 2 months it has been slowly stirring the pot at level 1 or 2.  Those I can deal with.  Saturday was an 8/9 and I felt desperate to abate the pain.  I've been to the dr's, been to the ER, seen a neurologist and nothing has changed.  They're not migraines, not cluster headaches or even sinus headaches.