Where To?

Quarter after one AM.

I saw an article on Apple News about loneliness and isolation as the Surgeon General reported it. In my sleepiness I thought it was aimed at me, but I caught myself being paranoid and taking offense. I still find that there’s too much emphasis on traditional Jungian psychology and not enough on the realistic approach, namely cognitive therapy. The second is very practical and helpful but the first just isn’t. Maybe folks want to believe that God is in his heaven and all’s right with the world— if they are thinking at all. And maybe today we face the same problem as the Victorians: which way to turn on theology. I see parallels of the present with the end of the nineties decade. Times were more or less godless, so that humans had only each other to depend on, and the nature of the cosmos was a big unknown. Was the universe a friendly place or not? People were like the crew of the Pequod in Moby Dick: the world on a crazy whaling voyage… My personal life was very dependent on my parents before they died. After that, I turned to alcohol to depend on. Life has been a long process of growing towards independence and liberty. It’s a goal I may never wholly achieve. It is perhaps the common goal of all human beings. But what we do when we possess liberty is still another issue.

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Anniversary

Eight o’clock.

To some extent, my mental events are subconscious arithmetic, though very elementary and somewhat like numerology. I’m quite loopy for anniversaries, especially in multiples of ten years. I recall that I was in IOP treatment for alcoholism this month twenty years in the past. The main therapies used were based on intuitive psychology rather than evidence, as with cognitive therapy. It all boils down to the same dichotomy of reason versus romance, and which one would you stake your life on? I’ve seen a lot of bad logic go with the Twelve Steps, and a flawed method means inaccuracy. This in turn means a failure to accord with reality. But there may be something to be said for “the language of the heart.” I only know what works for me, and it’s not the “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” I could never see the relevance of this to recovery. You either care about factual truth or you don’t. Followers of Jamesian pragmatism value results of a belief over what is actually true. People used to talk about the Flying Spaghetti Monster and other ridiculous stuff, but if the belief helped you, it was somehow valid. I don’t hear that kind of talk today. And people still recover from addiction or they don’t, irrespective of their thoughts. Maybe instead of abolishing the DSM, we should do away with the Big Book. Either way, you’re going to upset somebody. So I stay away from the whole field of recovery. Or perhaps they stay away from me?

These Woods

Nine o five.

I think I understand the motive for my Coca-Cola all nighter. If I played the devil’s advocate I’d say I should give myself what I really want: alcohol. But instead, I know I have to do the right things if I want to live much longer. I believe the unconscious probably does exist; sometimes I have an insight to its activity. Alcoholism is a treacherous disease. Addiction in general can shorten your lifespan and make your life miserable… I can see how I substitute compulsions like writing and reading books for the drinking behavior. But if I let myself drink then I’d do nothing else. It’s a mistake to “succumb” to alcoholism. I’m sure that I can’t be a functioning alcoholic. I have no control over it whatsoever. Cold turkey is the only way to go. It’s just me and the booze. There’s nobody else. It feels like fencing with demons, but at least the demons are mine. I will find nothing in these woods stranger than myself, to paraphrase Anne Sexton.

Optimism

Midnight.

I slept three hours. Dreamt about my little edition of Sandburg that’s gone through two or three copies because I give them away. This reminds me to finish reading the Whitman selection and make my comparison study of both poets. The birthday yesterday is finally over and the holidays completed. Each season feels different, perhaps a bit weirder than the last since I quit drinking… In the middle of the night there isn’t much to see, so I must use my imagination if I can. Short of that, I can putz with my journal and hope for a revelation of some kind: be the subject of my experiment like Dr Jekyll.

Two o’clock morning.

I had a little insight regarding my brother and the nature of his alcoholism, but it’s his business so I won’t go into it here. I’ll just say generally that everything people do is motivated by a sense of duty or what we believe is right. This is the meaning of “rationality.” We could never do wrong if we didn’t believe in a warped way that we were doing the right thing. Behind every behavior there’s a process of thought— for even the most self harming patterns. To correct the thinking hopefully fixes the behavior.

Humans are rational beings.

Addictive Puppetry

Quarter after eight.

I’ve had another awful day with my dual diagnosis and I don’t even know why. The way it happened was like being a puppet of fate, a character determined by a script written beforehand; like a scene out of an Iris Murdoch novel. I was a straw man in an allegory. After my meeting today I found myself walking to the market to get a Coke, though I believed I had sworn off sugar. Finally, I felt haunted by my workforce years. It must be a kind of delusion when the past swamps my present and directs my thoughts and deeds. I don’t have much control over this pantomime.

It’s probably more about the alcoholism than the schizophrenia. “The beer jumps in your hand.” Everyone with addictive personality understands this.

A Series of Todays

Noon.

Well I’m just stuck. Church wasn’t much fun; my heart wasn’t in it. It’s hard to be enthusiastic for something you don’t believe. I thought it would be nice to mingle with some real people but it didn’t make that much difference. I don’t know what I want… The mail carrier just put a package in my mailbox: a couple of books that I ordered Friday… I believe I’m cranky because I crave beer or something for a sugar fix, so I might go buy a sweet treat at the store. The sugar is bad for you but it beats doing alcohol. My dad acquired a sweet tooth after he quit smoking; he kept a bowl of lemon drops in the family room and he’d take a handful once in a while in the evening. Who am I to be better than my dad? The truth is that sobriety is very difficult. The first few years were pretty easy but it’s getting worse with time.

Dr Pepper sounds good right now. Fully leaded, with all the sugar, caffeine, and fizz. I won’t be happy until I get one.

Or if it’s a test, maybe can stick it out for today… and do the same thing tomorrow… 

Only You

Quarter after one.

When I was a poor drunkard in 2009, there was a clerk at the store who told me he chose not to drink, and the matter was as simple as choosing to drink or not drink. At the time, I think I disagreed with him, saying that alcoholism is a genetic disease and not a matter of choice at all. Now I don’t know. Opinions on it vary. There was a huge controversy over alcoholism when I had my problems. A few quacks wrote books on the subject just for the money. A counselor told me that if I could solve the riddle of why some people recover and others don’t, I’d be a rich man, but I’m skeptical of that today. There will always be quacks to ride the gravy train, cash in on something big, but I’m not one of them. If there’s a secret to staying sober, then it is obscure even to me: even I don’t know how I’m doing it. I am definitely cynical of treatment facilities and other things where the research is phony and they only want to make a lot of money, and control patients into the bargain. If you are an intelligent person, I expect that you’ll discover a way to stop drinking without the gimmicks and false information that you see everywhere. Looking back, I see nothing but a huge racket made of addiction and recovery. If you’re smart, you will care enough for yourself to make the best decisions, not for anyone else, but for you alone. 

Doorways

Quarter after eleven.

I just took my medication after a missed dose last night. This should make a difference in my thinking and judgment. I played my G&L bass this afternoon and it sounded pretty good, though I had doubts in my mind about ever using it with other musicians. I put my foot in my mouth with Mark in my last email to him, so now it’s dangling until after the holidays. There’s another musician I’d like to touch base with, though it’s been three years since I spoke with him. There’s such a diversity of people in the business, and I wish we could all be perfectly harmonious together. Or maybe I’m more discriminating than I’d like to admit. The last real public gig I played was with Doug and Marc at the Volcan in May 2003. This was just after I started treatment for addiction and before I got a job with the agency. I didn’t realize at the time how free I was to decide my own fate, and perhaps I made the wrong choice. In either case I would have battled with addiction until I hit my rock bottom. It’s always so hard to know what is the right thing to do. “Do you get what you’re hoping for / When you look behind you there’s no open doors / What are you hoping for / Do you know?” It’s really crucial to keep in mind that we are absolutely free to make our own choices. It is determinism that is the illusion. 

The Gollum Effect

Quarter of two.

It is significantly cooler today than yesterday, the sky a lot bluer and the sun yellower. I can hear kids playing in the street. I feel the temptation to walk back to the store for something sweet to eat or drink, and a treat for Aesop. I had a long phone conversation with my sister a little while ago. All good. During the heatwave I might’ve done some things I’ll regret later. It’s hard to make decisions when your brain is baking in the sun. It’ll be even more plain to me when the summer is over with: roughly one more month!

Three o’clock. I went back to the market and saw Deb, Brandi, and Cathy, and got a tub of ice cream and two dog snacks. Deb had a deep dark suntan and wore an orange scarf on her face. Sometimes going there in the afternoon gives me flashbacks to my drinking days many years ago. Things haven’t changed much since then: the same bunch of addicts come in all afternoon long and into the night. The scene isn’t very pretty when morning changes to noon. And now I think of my brother. He’s not the same person he was when he had a career as a college professor. I keep thinking of how Gollum was deformed by the power of the Ring. Alcohol and drugs are the same sort of thing, seductive and destructive… Four children were playing baseball in their front yard when I walked by on my street. The other morning, Kat waved hello from her living room couch next to the window. But through it all I get the feeling of something missing from my life. Today is not like the 1990’s with my parents and all my friends in the music trade. Being sober is to be stranded on a solitary island. It takes a long time to build new connections with other people— and with yourself. 

Morning Soliloquy

Eight o’clock.

It’ll be another 90 degree day today, so I plan on staying inside the house where there’s air conditioning. Yesterday I noticed how bad my voices are when I hear white noise from a source like a fan or an ac unit. Remove the noise and the voices stop immediately. While they are speaking, fortunately I can’t make out what they say. Even if I could, I would know they were unreal, just a byproduct of my brain function. The scariest experience is to have visual hallucinations, stuff made out of thin air. And of course paranoid delusions are no fun at all. Often I stop and ask myself what causes the symptoms, but the simplest explanation is genetic heredity. I disagree with the spiritual account, ie that of demonic possession of the sufferer. I think that would be awfully bizarre if it were true, although a common thread of darkness seems to run through many people with addiction and mental health issues. Perhaps in a parallel way of metaphysics, both perspectives hold true at once… I’m not going to church this morning; trying to stay away from Christianity for a while. Occasionally the thought of oblivion appeals to me; to just forget everything sounds really good. My poor mind tends to be too much of a radio for sociopolitical signals. The month of June I thought was particularly brutal, a severe trial and test of strength. But in two months I’ll have four years free of alcohol, which should make a good milestone. Right now it’s time to feed my dog. I hope the can opener doesn’t break, or something stupid like that.