To Wit, to Woo...

My thanks today to Paul Weinhold; his blog answered me a pressing question and also directed me to the narrow gate through which I must pass, by annotating the immortal words of one of the greatest writers in history, Hesiod.

Encouragement from Hesiod

σοὶ δ᾽ ἐγὼ ἐσθλὰ νοέων ἐρέω, μέγα νήπιε Πέρση.
τὴν μέν τοι κακότητα καὶ ἰλαδὸν ἔστιν ἑλέσθαι
ῥηιδίως: λείη μὲν ὁδός, μάλα δ᾽ ἐγγύθι ναίει:
τῆς δ᾽ ἀρετῆς ἱδρῶτα θεοὶ προπάροιθεν ἔθηκαν
ἀθάνατοι: μακρός δὲ καὶ ὄρθιος οἶμος ἐς αὐτὴν
καὶ τρηχύς τὸ πρῶτον: ἐπὴν δ᾽ εἰς ἄκρον ἵκηται,
ῥηιδίη δὴ ἔπειτα πέλει, χαλεπή περ ἐοῦσα.

For your own good, I tell you, Perses, you silly fool,
Badness by the barrel-full one can lay hold of
Easily; the way is smooth and quite close at hand.
But the immortal gods have put sweat before excellence.
The path to that is long and steep
And rough at first, but when one nears the top,
Then it gets easy, though it is still difficult.

Sheldon, you silly fool.  This is beginning to not hold water anymore.  Less a silly fool than a hurtful ass. 

We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.  But really, is there anything really other than spiritual perfection?  Our spirits are perfect.  Our bodies' abilities to house them perfectly are less than average. 

Selfishness.  This came rising to the fore again.  I had worked it down till it was barely noticeable, but then, like an old unwelcome friend, the dreadful knock on the door, that at once awakens fear and queasy feelings, but at the same time, a little perverse excitement. 

So many exhort me to make recovery a full time job.  I am beginning to think they are right. 

My brain is bruised today and my face is sore from the oral surgery the other day.  I need to heal.  My spirit is also sore from being misused and maltreated.  Today is one day. But it is one day.  The saint with whom I share my life grows weary of my bullshit.  There was supposed to not be anymore bullshit.  I sincerely thought I was through the woods.  There was my biggest failing.  Never through the woods, only one day reprieve from the insanity of active addiction at a time. 

Fuck me. It is from the self hate from "same ol', same ol'" that the desire to dig in and persevere wanes.  The frustration of failure, the immensity of the wreckage that can form in such short fashion.  These things conspire to keep me lost, blind and broken. 

No, I say.  No.  Today is for me.  Today is for my heart and soul and my children.  Today I live.  Today I will give love to those who stand by me, and love to me too. 

I had attached myself so firmly to a program of recovery and a fellowship, so firmly to a feeling of being done, of being committed to a life of sobriety and health.  Then, I stopped moving forward.  I stopped helping others.  I got busy again, jumped back into work, being a multitasking ADHD doughhead, smooth talker and crazy homelife.  Recovery took a back seat and so did my sobriety.  Asshole selfish druggie jumped back into the front seat, and I never even put up a fight.  I just let him slide in.  And once in, he has a hard time relinquishing the wheel. 

I've taken it back.  Today,  with a vengeance, and with some soft love for my hurting soul and my hurting family.

Today, and God willing every day.

The owl's call.  To wit and to woo.  My friend Paul Weinhold describes the possibilities of what Shakespeare may have meant with the owl's call in Love's Labor Lost here.  I think this is the choice I am faced with - to succumb to my wit, to the place of my ego, where my rat-a-tat-tat smarty pants sense of humour and manipulative wordsmithery live, or to woo; to that place of love, which is sincere, real and borne of love and all things of the heart.  The former is a slippery slope for me, where I may be prone to my own bullshit,  The latter is a part of me that I love.  My soft, chewy centre, and one that is safer for everyone.  To wit, to woo:  If that is a question, then certainly I must to woo. 

Much love.
S.

Day Four: Up the Creek without a paddle or "Can someone bring me some toilet paper please!?"

I have found something in my chest that I forgot existed.  A good heart, strong and true, with a love for life and all that it brings.  So funny all the things that are coming forward now; a never ending barrage of memories, fond and painful, trickling over my mind's eye like the headwaters of the Skeena converging in the verdant meadows of northern BC.  Reminders of all that is true - of all that I believe with every fiber of my being.

And the bullshit, slowly floating to the top, easy  to see, easy to smell and able to be caught with a small butterfly net and filtered away.

Yesterday was a new moon.  My mom used to have the odd new moon ceremony.  This is a good time to begin something; to chase away the clutter of the past and commence anew.  I feel it in my bones.

Addiction and all that it brings has been a part of my life for many, many years.  Even before I was a separate breathing entity, I was part of a duality within my mom's womb, where addiction played a role.

Funny. I always knew it.  That our history - her history, helped to forge this alchemical soup that I had become.

My mom used to tell me stories when I was young...   (I LOVED hearing about myself and our little travails and twisted, happy/sad life stories).  But stories that would shock.  Stories about how I was conceived.  About getting punched in the stomach by a drunk when she was pregnant with me.  About crying herself to sleep with me inside of her.  Stories of violence and fear, pain and sadness - but also of hope and beauty and all things that made this life worth living.

I used to think of this poor 16 year old Indian girl.  It's 1970 and she's in a small redneck forestry and mining town.  She is pregnant by the bad boy son of the strict disciplinarian high school principal - an English principal, no less.

Whew...

What pain, what fear, what stigma.

What stress.

What stress...  Stress.  The emotion that wreaks the most havoc on a teenage girl's endocrine system, and most assuredly on her developing child.  I always wondered what it must have felt like in there.  In the dark, warm, comfort of the womb - a place that is generally considered to be safe and sound - a warm wet reprieve from the ills of the world.  In there, among her pain and fear and sadness and other emotions, as she found her way past parental alcoholism and the other goodies of her teenagedom.

I always knew in my gut that I was not "unscathed" from her travails.  That somehow, in some way, they touched me irrevocably.

Dr. Gabor Mate, Canadian physician and author extraordinaire, has written some books which speak to this truth.  In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts is an amazing book (thanks Dad) that speak about some of the most cutting edge brain research that steps out some of these causal factors.

He is the staff physician at the Portland Hotel in Downtown Van.  The only legal injection site in N. America.  He has a few insights to say the least.

It has been through rifling through his work that I have discovered that I am, in fact, ADHD.  Some of you probably figured this out 20 years ago!  ; )  But mostly that I am not alone in my struggles.  At about 5:59 of the video attached above, he touches on some things that make sense right down to my core.

Something interesting that I have finally realized is about the nature of the stimulant addiction I have maintained for nearly 12 years.

See, I used to work with kids in care; I supervised group homes and staff and some of Alberta's most troubled youth.  All came with their own alphabet soup of diagnoses and prescribed medical reprieve.

I had many kids who were ADHD and who seemed to be unwilling passengers on their brain's joyride with their bodies.  We didn't prescribe them "downers"....  They got ritalin - a psychostimulant.  This stimulant flooded the brain's chemoreceptors with dopamine and norepinephrine, effectively allowing them to "slow down" and react in more normal operating levels.

I've known people who are addicted to stimulants and, when they take them, they fly off the handle.  They turn into cleaning machines or sex machines or whatever.  Not me.  I would turn into a zombie.  I would slow down.  Calm down.  I couldn't handle company or other people.  Always alone, always quiet - no music, no sounds.

I understand now.

Self prescribed medical reprieve from ADHD.  Nice try Dr. Hughes.

How bout some other ways to manage ADHD... Like diet, exercise, high energy/high adrenaline hobbies, proper sleep and nutrition.  And love.  Lots of love - both self and for others.

You know, my recent discoveries about the nature of my addictive self destructive tendencies do not absolve me from my responsibility of dealing with them; managing them - mitigating them.  They do not pass off the blame to my parents and the circumstances of my life.  They bring light to dark shady places.  They shine a penetrating unwavering spotlight on those narrow twisted curvy places in my psyche that threaten to undermine who I am.  They threaten to take an otherwise beautiful person and separate him from love and light.

It's nice to know where the "Crazy" came from.  But it don't change anything.  I still have to deal with it, walk with it, and learn how to keep 'er saddled and between the lines.

No pun intended.

Much love all.
S.

Day Three...

Funny...  I get a gentle little push today reminding me that I didn't blog yesterday.  See, I even start to waver in my commitments; it only takes a few short hours for the best laid plans to turn into water under the bridge.  Thanks for the reminder.

In fact, yesterday was a very difficult day.  My family travelled to the north pole in order that T. could do some valuable work.  I stayed because I have much work to do here.  So, alone I was.  Sad and alone.  Realizing how much life my children and wife inspire in me.  My energy level just drained. My intentions were good, as they usually are - i.e. I wanted to hit a nice Sunday evening meeting, wanted to blog until the cows came home and enjoy the quiet and the time to myself.  But instead, I sat on the couch, watching movies and eating spicy food, feeling bad for not following through on at least the meeting that I had intended.

 Today I am reminded that addiction is a disease of loneliness.  That it can be fed by loneliness and solitude.   That it tends to be the inability to want to be in one's own skin that can drive the first attempt to "pick up."

Please carry me from this place.

Lots of work to do; cleaning up wreckage, creating new pathways and new opportunities.  Honouring old commitments.  Learning how to love one's self.

Today I would much rather stay in bed all day and hide from the sun, from the shame, from the responsibility and from the fear.  But I can't.  A gentle little push from Thunder Bay is all it takes this morning.

My wife says to me a couple years ago that I will be remembered for the addict behaviour and bullshit, not for anything else.  She means it well, as a means of inspiration...  As in "get off your ass and smarten up, or this will be all anyone sees when they look at you..."  Inside, I thought, "She's crazy.  There is so much I've done.  So many people I've touched.  So many roses among the thorns.

But the ones who really know me, who really see me...  They know.  When I stop calling.  When I don't check in on Facebook.  When my phone goes to answering machine.  <sigh>  Change.  Time to change.

I have lots to do today and I better get to it.  I will blog again this evening to make up for my errant Sunday night.  Apologies to those who require one.  I will leave you with a beautiful song from a beautiful soul.  Poor Shannon...  Bee Girl...  Always felt like he stuck out like a sore thumb.  Like he didn't fit anywhere...  He hoped so deeply that the birth of his child Nico Blue would keep him grounded, keep him sane.  <sigh>  We love you still Shannon Hoon.  God bless you wherever you are.  And God please make life easy for the ones he left behind.

S.

Day Two: Not an easy battle...

Waited until end of day to compose this second installment of this, the blog from hell.  <'nother deep sigh>  Ain't easy being here in this skin today.

This last round, I had amassed nearly 60 days of clean time.  Not clean "recovery" time,  meaning there were no meetings, stepwork, sponsor's discussions, etc.  Nearly 60 days of living life on my terms.  Not life's terms: My terms.  This is not a winning recipe for recovery or sobriety.

Gratitude comes and goes, came and went.  This is the key to staying sober.  Maintaining a sense of gratitude.  As well, my ego is so strong, so powerful, such a long time protector of my soft, chewy centre.  It can't help but come pulsing forth like some twisted, snakeskin wearing Grendel.  Keeping all those who would dare to hurt me at bay, but in its sad, misguided efforts, turns his poisonous strength against me, trying to protect me from the very feelings that would save my life.

Today was painful... physically, emotionally, intellectually.  My heart hurt today.  From the pain I've inflicted on myself.  Today, my family was wrapped around me so beautifully.  I couldn't help but feel so much shame at what I've put them through, and how they don't deserve any of my bullshit at all.  At all.

Today my body ached; my stomach ached.  My heart thrums like a gyroscope, slightly offcentre, yearning for a true centre.  A centre revealed only by months of sobriety.  Not two days.

My wife is under a lot of pressure.  Financial from my own errant ways, and every other kind of pressure you could imagine.  She is under a lot of pressure to abandon all hope - hope that wears thin after four years of same ol' same ol'...   Pressure from even her own self.

It is hard.  I put her in this position.  I have to sit here and let the clock tick, praying for the ability to make the right choices at this moment in time.  I can't fast forward this clock.  Tick tock, tick tock.  Day two.

Like I said, nearly 60 days thrown away.  I took my will back, as they say, with a vengeance.  Not "Thy will be done," as it should have been, but "My will be done."  My will threatens to kill me.

It is so hard.  Her whole family wants her to leave me.  I don't blame them.  You can't blame them. They love her and try to show it in their own way.  I love her and show her by leaving every couple months.  I can't leave anymore.  This is it.  I have begun to abandon any hope at becoming the man that I know I can become.

I remember when I told my boss back in the day that I was chasing the dragon and working at Canada Place while I was doing it.

"What!?" he said.  "But you do such good work...  You can't be doing that shit!"

"But I'm coasting by on about 20% of my capacity boss," said I.

"Yeah, but your 20% is better than most peoples' 100!" said he, and I believe I have carried that little rationalization close to my heart all this time.  Full of shit.  Full of shit.

My mom...  God bless her heart and soul and fire and fear and love and hate and shame and shine.... God bless her for all that she was and continues to be.

"Your word is no good," she said.  "That is all that you are Shell, that's all that you have" she said.  "You are your word."

<sigh> My word.  So many words.  So much bluster and bluff...  So much protestation, exhortation, rationalization.

Only way to change it, is to change it.

So today I'm reminded about what unconditional love looks like.  And what conditional love looks like.  I am grateful for unconditional love.  So grateful that I will commit to memory just how painful it is to look in the mirror at what I saw the other night, how painful it is to be there, out in the bush, cramped in the back of a truck, alone, in the rain, knowing my children, wife and family are all home, doing their level best to live life while I am doing my level best to subvert it... turn it on its ear and hide from all that is good.

I heard tonight that I wrote somewhere that I nearly raped someone.  Funny.  How even though reality is bad enough, people still have to conjure up ghosts and shadows and bullshit and hate and venom to make it just a little bit worse.

The only thing I'm guilty of raping is this poor person inside of me, the one who quietly suffers the pain of 30 years of addictive behaviour.  This little kid in me who cried long into the night, missing his dad, wanting his mom to be Sandy Duncan... wishing that war and hate would just go away.  Wishing that booze and drugs weren't part of his idealistic little life.

Oh well.  They were.  Can't change the past.  But for the love of all that is holy and good and true and real:  I CAN change it now.  I CAN change it today.  I buried my face in the pillow and sobbed for many years.  Crying for my daddy to come save me from our little poor life.  Crying for God or Jesus to show some pity on our little poor life or little poor me... Chimakinapeesis.  Poor little boy.

Time to let that little helpless boy relax and grow up.  Time to take the helm with meaning, with heart and for all the right reasons.  

I was forced to be a grownup so young, so young.  I think I must have this big fucking chip on my shoulder that says "fuck being a grownup."...  Well fuck being a using addict.  Fuck being an untrustworthy asshole.  Fuck being a victim of my circumstances.  

God has never abandoned me.  I know this with every fibre of my being.  I have felt his touch even after days of numbing inhalation and being hidden behind curtains, dank and dark with must and spooge of all kinds.  Those times, it as though I open my eyes at the end of a long, eyes closed tantrum, kicking and screaming, running and running and hiding and hiding... Open my eyes, blink once or twice, and realize the sun shines still, that my heart beats still.  That those deep feelings of love and compassion and empathy and kindness cannot be snuffed out.  That there they live, in my veins, with their captain, my heart.

Love to all tonight.  Especially to you T. and S. and J. and M. and N. and D. and L. and S.L... 

oh and you too Safflick!

S.

Day One, or "Scraped off the bottom of a shoe."

<long deep sigh>  Well, this is it.   This is the end of the road of ruination and selfish ways, God willing.  The end of a longstanding and habitual dependence on illicit substance to "soothe" my ills, hide my booboos and run headlong into oblivion.

I will not make a promise of "never again" or "I'm done" anymore; how many times, how many people, how many broken bonds and friends' and family's trust laying a shambled heap?  My words have rung emptier with each passing lie.

This is a hard thing to do.

Today I have returned home from nearly seven days "aflight"...  Truth.

Today I have heard truths from my beautiful family that have shaken me to the core.  I have been protected from hearing and seeing how my selfishness affects the others around me.  Today I was shown point blank.

Others can attest that I do not know much about recovery.  About "recommended" or "suggested" methods to recover.  I will be reaching out in the hopes of becoming expert.

I need to bare my soul to do this.  To do this right out in the open.  Nearly 600 Facebook friends, and only a few know the sordid truth.  The ones closest to me know the truth.  Know how my decisions have affected my family, my kids, my life and their lives.

All my life I have been a performer.  Singing for quarters at 3 years old:  "The liquor was spilt on the barroom floor, the bar was closed for the night,  Out of the darkness came a little white mouse, and he gazed and he gazed at the sight,  He licked up the liquor on the barroom floor, and back on his haunches he sat,  All night long you could hear him roar:  "Bring on the Goddamn cat!"  (God bless you Ralph Debock, whereever you are!)

So much of what I've done, about what motivates me, comes from the unwavering eye of the audience.  Ever the performer, ever the "people pleaser", "approval seeker":  Get a few pats on the head, and I start thinking I'm loved.

Little knowing all my life, that love emanates from within, not from without.  I look in the mirror and do not love what I see.  And then I perpetuate that self loathing by continuing to use, continuing to disappear down the darkened alley, wondering why I do not grow in love, do not grow in spiritual connection or fulfillment.

The world/God/Universe steers me to the right path;  God does smile down on drunks and fools and has kept my alive thus far, despite my best attempts to undermine Him.  In fact, he guided me to two different ceremonies this past week, and got me stuck in both places - mired my truck in the mud to keep me there.  Maybe hoping I would smarten up, get out of the truck and go pick up a drum and sing to Him.  I fought tooth and nail.  And whether it was a tractor or four drunk Hutterite boys in a big diesel and vehicle trailer pulling me out, away I went, carrying on as though I knew what I was doing.

I was led to the truth of my actions today.  With work, my home, and with the children who depend on my for love, guidance and the odd greenback.  This is not a pretty thing.  No amount of charming smile or smooth and witty wisecrack will heal the pain I've caused.  No amount of guitar picking songster or deft kitchen touch studmuffin can bring back those nights, those special days that I missed;  that I made about me instead of the people who deserved them.

There is only one way to get through this: One day at a time, sometimes one minute at a time.  Maybe even seconds.  The difference between a thought and an action is measured in nanoseconds.  Sometimes it can feel like a lifetime there in that gap.  My actions have become habitual, decisions shaped by years of use and abuse - be it food, sex, drugs, booze, gambling...  You name it.

I joked the first time I went to treatment in 2001, the first time I had to introduce myself in a fellowship meeting, "my name is Sheldon and I'm an alcho-crack-o-sex-o-pot-aholic gambler."  Add food to that mix too.

My last sober year was about 1981.  I was ten.  I haven't had a sober year since.  I believe in my heart that I need you, the reader (or even an imaginary one!) in order to keep on keepin' on.  I believe I'm fucked up just enough to need an audience for even the most sacred of tasks.  Rather than risk another meltdown and losing the family that needs me, or the job that feeds us, I will go this route:  1) Appeal to God, 2) Seek out some help and guidance from other recovering folk, and 3) Bare my soul and brandish my moldy old shame and self-loathing like some secret talisman, airing it here in the light of your eyes.  I do this because I can't follow the directions that are simply laid out before me by my helpful fellowship guides.

And, as some kind of celestial pat on the shoulder to guide me in this direction, is the reinforcement from Shaw video on demand...

I was thinking this during the week:  Thinking about what it would take to keep me accountable, to keep me honest and walking the path during those times when it was toughest.  How even my beautiful twins, or sons or daughters can not "keep me clean"... How even my most amazing wife Theresa, Saint and stalwart guardian, holder of hands, driver of dancers, band-aider of even the most painful scrape, can not keep me here when the urge beats at my temple like some prehistoric drum, telling me I need street dope like I need lunch or a drink of water.

I need it like I need a hole in my head.

So many tears.  So many long, endless roads... alone.  Drug addled.  Paranoid, delusional.  So far away from all that is real and true.

I was thinking that a daily journal, here with you.  Perhaps that would work.  Fearing another commitment that I will break.  But secretly wanting to heal here in the open.  Needing my time to pontificate and ramble.  Maybe thinking that I can't hold it to 5 minutes.  I thought today that I would start it tonight, but still wondering if it might not be a tad Narcissistic.  Then I sat with my honey and picked "Julie and Julia" while we ate a late lunch/early supper.  Did I mention I love food?

My late grandmother always reminded me of Julia Child... She was and remains a vision of home and hearth; of uncompromising and unwavering and unconditional love.  Oh I miss her so.  How she would feel about her sweet Sheldon acting in this manner, I don't know.

I don't know if the movie is a testament to blogging or speaks against it, it's too early and we had to stop it. (I don't know how it ends yet, as T. had to ditch to go do some preparatory shopping for Our Little Beauty Queen but it matters not:  The concept of working through some of my personal development and finding innovative ways to cope with my affliction with inability-to-complete-anything-itis, (brought to me courtesy of ADD) was too much for me to handle.

What is also funny is that I gained a whole bevy of fans/friends/contacts during my early PF* days, when I used to write the odd self revealing tome on Hi-5.  Some of them are still my friends. I used to write when I was "coming back"  from a few days on the run...

I will work to write daily.  To "check in" with my own self, let fly with the ol' "where I'm at" today biznatch.  I will find some way, to carve up some time and to blog.  Perhaps I will not have internet access wherever I may be.  In that case, I will write a series of days and upload them at some point.

It is my sincere hope that my June 24, 2012, providing we are all still here, I will have amassed my first full 365-day collection of sober days since I rode a BMX and wanted to kiss Maureen Wasson under the spruce trees.

Maybe nobody reads it.  That's ok.  Although all these helpful links and cool videos and shtuff will go to waste.  I will write to share my burdens and write to bear witness to the growth of myself personally; to see what happens when the shift from selfishness to selflessness commences....

"Selfishness.  Self centredness.  That, we think, is the root of our troubles..."

I love my family.  Although there are those who would contest this.  I have missed more holidays and special occasions in the last four years (and longer) than I care to admit.  But I love them deeply and without judgement.

It is myself, perhaps, that I don't love.  That I don't believe deserves happiness and fulfillment.

If you can relate, or if you can't;  If you are an addict, or if you're not;  If you love or if you hate - stay with me a while.

Walk with me towards the light.

Enough for now.

S.

*PF refers to "pre-Facebook"...  ; )