chase of the dragon

[honeydumplin]

What a trip this journey continues to be. From the old way, from endless days, to a well-worn path, what was the abyss has gradually changed into something for me to tell you. The last few years taken piece meal and the steps, have proven to me personally that recovery is not a sprint, where I cross the finish line, suddenly vaulted in the air, as a celebration ensues. Even though my ego-driven spirit often entertains such a fantasy.

My preoccupied fascination, running a storied past of ill-conceived jokes, told in a room filled with silent echoes from a hysterical laugh heard only in my own head, is merely an illusional legend filled with grandiose adventures both before and after the drinking stopped.

But a more somber and less overreach of behavior resembling recovery, requires an frequently indisposed inventory, mandated by a thirst for serenity. My proverbial search can be more clearly observed, when through mere ritual and habit, meetings and Big Book regurgitation, I buy into the nuance that I’m somewhat cured, and recovery becomes past tense. If so, alcoholic superiority of what I once was, is fortified with all the selfishness, and self-righteousness I've so desperately tried to escape.

Recovery never ends, nor is it my desire for it do so. In fact, I believe that its rebirth at dawn each day, is internally judged, analyzed, and in a cathartic process, cultivates and nurtures. To survive, it has to do so. One thing's for certain, it doesn't stay still. Complacency is my nemesis.

Let me preface what is about to be said by stating that whatever I post is in no way intended to be any more or any less than the recollection of certain events to the best of my ability. It is my hope that the common courtesy by which it has been extended to the each available recipient, is presented in such a way, as to navigate the details, without sugar-coating them, or watering them down.

The introduction I had to A.A. occurred when I was a kid. My grandparents went to meetings at a church, and would ocasionally keep me on the weekends. So I would end up going to the meetings. Al-anon met upstairs, while the recovering drunks met in the basement. And though I had somewhat of a concept of why they were both attending, a personal level for me, was as distant as any other kind of recovery.

Even years down the road, when I first showed up at the doors of A.A., the reason why I should go, was also foreign to me. I didn't feel there was a problem with alcohol yet. People went to A.A., I thought, so they could learn how to not drink anymore. There was no concept of “living sober”, especially since there was no apparent problem. A sober life, along with everything else that accompanies such a choice were as indifferent to me as they were when I was that little kid in the basement.

So when a member asked why I was there, I gave them some baloney about how my drinking had adversely affected the family. The steps and traditions that were displayed in my view, were merely there for people to observe. They might as well have been wallpaper for all I knew. My contention was that they were some protocol for people who still in fact had an alcohol problem. In my opinion, the problems didn't exist if I wasn't drinking. That stuff was over. I didn't have a problem. Or at least at the time, I didn't think so. What I really needed was another attempt to try what the Big Book refers to as “controlled drinking.” And after another ten years, I got a front row seat to see that with me, there was no such thing drinking controllably.

"If we are planning to stop drinking, there must be no reservation of any kind, nor any lurking notion that someday we will be immune to alcohol."
Big Book p.33

There were probably a bunch of different reasons why I didn't hang around very long the first time. No readiness to stop. No spiritual tools. No sponsor. No problem. I was stopping for other people. I stopped for my parents and my grandparents. I stopped so that I could go to my one meeting a week, and sorta try. Try to put on this act of going to A.A.

Looking back, the only person I was really fooling was myself. Another reason was thinking, that after a short while, I'd be alright, and could drink again later. Perhaps, this time more successfully. I was even throwing in a meeting or two every now and then for the other addiction I had with narcotics, but I never stopped smoking pot either. I had a guy laugh at me to my face one night after a meeting. Probably because I had zoned-out in
la-la land during his one-way conversation.

In the meantime, I had also thought it might be a good idea to indulge myself with some non-alcoholic beer. So it should come as no surprise that after a hectic day at work, armed with about a month and half of being a garden variety dry drunk, I needed something a bit stronger. I was so ignorant about non-alcoholic beer. I didn't bother to read the label and discover, that in fact, there was some alcohol in it.

Little did I know, that there was a lot more boozing and drugging ahead before I could even vaguely grasp, that little boy yet again, still whistling in the dark, much less wanting what somebody had, and willing to go to any length to get it.