my fifth step

[honeydumplin]

In something read recently, I came across a passage that stated the following:
Step four is a spiritual exercise; not an immoral inventory.
This exercise has also reminded me of another interesting process in going through the steps.

That being the fact not expecting a sudden change, and accepting the gradual experience of allowing the steps to work in my life.
Progress, not perfection has been the key to unlocking obvious results, and not waving some sort of magic wand
in order to make it all go away. It is not an overnight matter, etc..., etc.

Another thing that has been pilfered can be recited from a book I’m reading, which essentially says
that a lot of my anger is generated by fear of not getting something that I want, which mostly revolves
around my inability to ultimately control practically everything—another illusion.

Nearly every resentment that is revealed stems from not accepting my powerlessness.

The act of putting in black and white, on paper, and on this screen, demonstrates and removes
a certain amount of control, and power that the resentment has over me. At least experience of
past fourth steps has proven this, and this has been the case with this one, because after about
48 hours there was this feeling of peace and tranquility that began to settle over me.

Serenity, in its form of trudging along the daily path in a tolerant view of society in general seems
to me a more conducive existence, than wasting all of this energy fighting the imagined extremes
occurring only in my own head.

More step 5
_________________________________
A nearby country store sold beer to minors. Usually, out of the house required a
stop there. I had been driving for about a month when I got drunk for the first time.
It was a six pack. My head was light, the music was loud, and I got to see just how
fast my car would go. My driving skills stone sober were less than average, even
for a sixteen year old.

I didn't wreck that night, but before I turned 21, I totalled a pick-up while meeting
another vehicle head on in a blind curve, and later on ran another vehicle into an embankment,
while swatting at a fly. In the summer of '85, I collided into the back of a tractor and trailer
after falling asleep at the wheel on the freeway.

One of my first jobs was a busboy, where I discovered wine, and more liquor. I drank
what people left in their glasses, and made sure all of the wine buckets were stowed
properly. Every now and then, I'd take a full bottle from the walk-in cooler, and hide
it somewhere.

Although not seriously injured, in October of that same year, while trying to impress
one of my friends by showing him how I could climb into my second story apartment,
a steel hand rail broke and I fell about fourteen feet on my right arm, fracturing it in two places.

Writing with the other hand was another excuse used to avoid paying attention in class.
I didn't fail out of college. I gave up. This was a pattern. I was a hard worker, but if things
got the least bit out of sync, or confusing, I'd be off on another adventure.

College allowed the experience of drunken fraternity episodes, and a part-time job as a waiter,
and helping out my father in construction. My drinking increased significantly, and the drug use
began to take off. When I wasn't partying after my night job, I was partying after my day job with my old man.

We both drank rather heavily, and would get into these knock down, drag outs sometimes after working hours.
Of course we didn't need much to drink in order to fight, because we didn't care much about each other's
company anyway.

[honeydumplin]

Although this will be something, it is still uncertain, at least to me, exactly what it might be. I only know that some housecleaning needs to be done on my part, and that if (and we both know what a big word that is) an inventory of some kind isn't made pretty soon, something else will build up that well,
could lead to other things of which I have no idea, but am pretty positive that it would be bad.

To start off, a suggested exercise has impeccable timing. And here it is in all its here, been, there, and now. This is all the different roles we are, and hopefully an honest grade of our inventory in
such aspects. A report card.

The report card for me personally, is what kept me from "beating myself up"
so much during the steps, preventing me from wallowing in this pit of self-pity, remorse, regret, and so on. It keeps my eye on the goal, so to speak,
and allows me to see the good, with the bad, if you will.

What I am Grade
Christian F
Son D
Son-in-law C
Brother-in-law B
Husband C
Employee B-
A.A. Trusted Servant C-
Sponsee C+
Writer C-
Reader D
Movie Critic Novice A+
Artist C
United States Citizen B

Let me begin at the bottom. As the list proceeds back to the beginning, a more honest evaluation will
be revealed.

The love that I have for making art jettisons me in ways that nothing, with the exception of what is located at the top of the list and often plays off of one another, ever has. Creativity evolves, it seems,
when the two (the top and the bottom co-exist) side by side. It is also prevalent in the other extreme,
where when one suffers, the other does as well. But there again, what other category plays well with a daily walk in the spirit? All of the above. With the exclusion of the critic of course. If anything, offering a critique of a movie, especially one made in the last five years, takes away the spirit. Or should I say, it prevents me from the seeking God's will.

The defined key, or the ideal, or the enchantment of a personal report card to produce a recognizable improvement resides hand-in-hand in the progression of what the big book describes as walking with the spirit of the universe, which introspectively simply means being guided by Christ. And until my will is exercised into that direction, and I'm honest with my self, the report card does not exemplify that.

The inability, or should I say the outright refusal, to be honest with myself is what keeps me drunk.
It is what keeps me in the insanity of step two, and tells me I can still run the show. It follows me like a ball and chain into step three, reminding me ever more that if I can just turn over 99% per cent of my will instead of all of it, that I may somehow be alright. Wrong I have been to assume this. For it is in the friendly confines of my one per cent refusal that I find myself making the decision again, and again, this time with more vigor, more rigorous honesty, which also allows me to see not only how I have failed at whatever it was that I sought to find, but that the power greater than myself, as God I understand, has enough mercy to let me try to do it over.


This dishonesty within my core is the same culprit that rears its ugly head by using my own ego-driven head, to tell me everything is okay after I am in the rooms for awhile. You know after doing four and five, seeing the defects, and doing the amends, that I have got this A.A. Thing all figured out, and that with the help of offering my unique perspective, recovering drunks can more appreciate my expertise and start showing me a little respect. This is poppycock.

The only way I can get a glimpse of what Moses saw from the other side of the Jordan River, is to humble myself honestly, before God and my fellows. Period. Until then, what I have to offer is “as Kevin sees it”; a steady stream of pontification, rambling on into an eventual evaporation into a secluded desert of gradiosity, and hyperbole, surrounded by self-seeking vainglory, pity, and shame. I do not wish to encounter any of those along the road of my happy destiny. Yet I do. And it is only through an inventory, or a housecleaning, that my common romantic idol of complacency can be more clearly, held at bay.

When it comes to taking another person's, I do that instinctively. It has come from the obvious years of thinking of myself as a good judge of character. The problem is, by the time someone's character has been revealed, I've already assassinated it. This too has changed. But not nearly enough. And so more honesty is sought, and more inventory divulged, and so on.

Fearless, and searching moral inventory of myself has a categorical means of displaying before you my utmost vulnerabilities. Thus, the clearing on the happy road of destiny awaits me just ahead, and in my own foolish pride, I try to avoid it. Why? Is it because it makes me look bad? No. That's been done before and I lived through it.

Is it more along the lines of preserving my fine reputation, merely another mirage in the desert? Yes, yes. Oh now we're getting somewhere. Okay then, why don't I just come out and say it. No. Heaven forbid I say anything so preposterous. Well, is this, you know, an inventory. Well alright. I think I know a lot more about it than you do.

Ah, so there it is, you self-sponsoring jerk. You reveal yourself through your story. I can see clearer now. The rain is coming. But this is so weird. So strange opening up. Yeah, but it works every time. And so see, now I've got some faith. And yes some more courage to take that leap.

You see, I'll try to use an “artistic” analogy. Picture the inventory as a blank canvas, representing the world in which I exist. Now I can show up at meetings with my colorful blue big book, and my 12 & 12, and draw lines in there, and can and have, even share from time to time, in a somewhat guarded manner, holding my palette and brush closely to my chest. I can be a blank canvas in Alcoholics Anonymous, and somehow manage to not take a drink.

So what do I do? I read the books, make a black and white trail of activities, which by the way, I reference whenever possible. And when the black and white doesn't work anymore, and I find all too well that it doesn't, I'll simply take a broad brush, and paint the whole thing gray, That's it. That's it. I won't go to either side of any one issue, I'll exist in this misery of never taking a stand on anything and then begin to try and convince you how great it can be. A gray man with a blue big book. Yeah, now I can talk a talk of experience, strength, and hope.

But see, my buddies, they know better. They've seen the unadulterated, real me. And if I'm being honest with myself, I've seen the real me too. I'd rather take a drink than be a phony. Wow, now I'm seeing revelations. Did that for years. Actually saw myself more real, as a drunk, than I ever did sober. But then I despised what I saw, and since I was the drunk, I despised my own self.

What the third step gave to me was that blank canvas. The fourth turns and hands me the brushes. Then I realize God ain't going to do it for me, and neither is my sponsor. But when I leap out in five, both are there. And then I'm broad-sided in six and seven with something that I've yet to see. No longer is it black, or white, or even gray. There's color.

What was listed on the report card as a United States Citizen.
Grade: B

I'm proud about the fact that I'm a contributor to a variety of things. I pay my fair share of taxes. I vote. I get up and go to work. But I do complain a lot at the status of things. Off-shoring, out-sourcing, NAFTA, CAFTA, SHMAFTA. Globalism, internationalism, and a foreign policy based primarily on intervention, extortion, bribery, and generous monetary hand-outs from a country that is financially broke is about the worst thing to ever come down the pike. About twenty years ago, so-called economic experts were selling the benefits of the euro, a common currency, and touting the advantages of a European Common Market, and a New World Order. Something about this didn't smell right then, and now it appears even worse. Yet it remains a euphoric triumph, and a mantra often repeated during failure.

I want to protect our borders. When George W. Bush said that the Hispanics were here to do jobs that the American people wouldn't do, I was insulted., and also felt ashamed of the whole mentality that lower-skilled jobs should occur under the table, that everyone should go to college, and that we're all basically a bunch of spoiled rotten brats, too lazy to pick our own vegetables.

I don't hate the immigrants. It's the system that needs to change. The politicians are the ones who are too spineless to change it. They're bought off, and paid for with more money from greedy bastards, whose primary addiction to cheap labor, re-election, and endless profit margins that have resulted in illegals turning into pawns on a chess board, sacrificed, and taken advantage of for political gain, by people in Washington both out of touch, and self-absorbed. Lawmakers need to do something besides sitting on their hands, and passing a lot of bull**** legislation that the majority don't want, and can't afford, while standing idly by, watching our currency and culture become nothing more than a nostalgic remembrance of days gone by.

My civil rights should be protected. So should the articles of the Geneva Convention. The whole idea of conjuring-up a frenzy, just to to bomb whomever we please, is simply more provocation for our adversaries. Holding people regardless of who they are, for the rest of their life, under some sort of suspicion, while running around the world hypocritically spreading a facade of democracy that we ourselves fail to adhere to, is nothing more than provocation for friend and foe.
And exactly who are our adversaries anyway? People who don't agree with our way of life? And what is that? Is government subsidized illegitimacy, publicly sponsored sloth some ideal that we wish the rest of the world to emulate?

Perhaps an argument ought to be made to clean up our own back yard, before we chose to dictate the course of action for other nations. No, non-intervention does not necessarily translate into a pacifistic approach, a bit more than nation-building should be aligned with imperialism, or colonization. If we are under an attack, then we have every right to defend ourselves. But shedding the blood of our own people, and maiming them on the soil of a people with which we disagree via a nuclear stance based on mere hypothesis is just another road that Americans, as a whole, do not wish to go down again. By not interfering in the processes of other countries, we are not detached from the rest of the world, but are much more inclined to take the bull by the horns, and sit the example that we, as a people should represent.


I truly believe that the electoral college is an archaic exercise invented during a time of civil unrest. It needs to have a gigantic knife put through its heart, and abolished forever. I also think that all the primaries need to happen on, or about the same day, or the same week. To heck with a bunch of momentum. This ain't a football game. It's a presidential campaign for crying out loud, and after a few thousand empty promises, and a few thousand trips through Iowa and New Hampshire, one might see enough of all of these turkeys in one place. Wonder if those people up there are sick of looking at them yet? I know I am, and I'm not even there.

I still believe that the way things look now, most of us are in for a raw deal. It will be like watching a train wreck happen in slow motion, especially if neither side of the aisle wishes to pursue a balanced budget. Most people would be excited just to see social security preserved by some means, which is another way the government has run amok against the desires of its own people. We should also take issue with its reference to an entitlement. The only way that the media, or anyone can lay claim to it as an entitlement, is the people who draw off of it, when they haven't put forth a red cent to the fund. Those who work all of their life though, have paid into for a long time. There's literally millions of them who have to depend on that in order to live. It's theirs, not the government's to go through like a sailor on leave in Australia.

But I still believe in things like promise, and potential, free markets, and what the country used to be like. Call me old fashioned. Call me an isolationist, or a xenophobe. But time comes to pass, and I'm like a poor bastard caught behind enemy lines, listening to the birds chirp in my own head, while being bombed by friendly fire, and lead by a bunch of war-mongering Zionists, who've stolen God's will, claimed it as their own, and have done everything within their power to accelerate the apocalypse.

But as usual, I've strayed way from the point of being an American Citizen. The real reason that a grade of B has appeared, is the fact that I am proud of my country, and actually enjoy contributing both my time in helping others and what little money I can afford to worthwhile causes. With that comes a sense of responsibility not only to my fellow man, but to myself, both in a united ownership of
a nation presently, and in its results for future generations to come. It is when I'm able to open my mind up in order to see both sides of an issue, that I feel best about being a citizen.
************************************************** ********************************
Reader and Writer
Grade: D and C-, respectively

In the reading and writing department, the grades are substantially low. This is because I see myself as extremely limited in both categories. The usual reading that I do consists newspapers, quite commonly the local one, and the Washington Post. And even though the Times is great for keeping up with bite size pieces of current events, the Post never ceases to stimulate my mind in a much more objective manner. The Outlook section is first-rate in its political coverage, and the entertainment and arts sections are very interesting. Since I don't get drunk anymore, I have found that my attention span has increased a bit, but my ability to retain information after having read it still needs improvement.

The more I read, the more I want to read. When I am able to sit down with a book, fiction, generally short stories, and somewhat twisted tales are appealing. But I've still got a whole bookshelf full of stuff that I do very little but walk by every day. Thus the low grade.

I've also given a low grade to myself as a writer, because most of the time I see it as stale, and boring. My sentences are elementary. I ramble. And there's really no clear cut method to an origin, a course of what I'm saying, or a mission involved. I can spend five hours writing five paragraphs, and another fifteen minutes editing it. I do much better when I don't think about everything that I write, and just do it.

This has already been a terrific exercise. I look forward to getting into the deeper parts of myself, and discussing it openly.

[honeydumplin]

What I'm about to tell you has rattled around in my head for a very long time, going into so many different directions as to how exactly to reference the subject matter, and in what way it can be discussed without portraying myself as something, that in various social circles, I will be considered just
the same.

To say that it hasn't been analyzed inside of my own head would be an understatement. In hopes of some sort of personal transcendence, I've searched for origins, suspicions of childhood abuse or anything that could be used as a determing factor that would have the potential of these results, to no avail.

The bouts in and out with the guilt over the years are something that I do feel has more of the "nurture" aspects than that of my personal "nature". And this is just my opinion, but maybe it is because the majority of our society automatically label something like this as a forbidden taboo, thus multiplying animosity that often accrues through narrow-minded hatred over certain sectors based on indifference.

This is where recovery has played a much more major role than anything I could have possibly imagined to accept. Acceptance of what it may be like to "walk a mile in another man's shoes"--to accept the concept of what some other person may have been born like, or what he or she, through the course of both childhood and adulthood, had to endure by either choice or powerlessness, and to be grateful for the fact that we are not all the same, but that through our differences, we can build unity, adapt and grow.

It is here that I wish to begin yet another journey into the unchartered
waters of the past that has not begun to yield itself to that aforementioned
vacuum. Oh the outside, albeit obscure, has been revealed, which enabled
me to relinquish the guilt and the shame. But the context and the in-depth
analysis, of what terms I have until the present point, deemed unmanageable,
were embedded in my psyche, that through the passage of time, prohibited
the ultimate fruition of one ninth step promise.

In detail, my conscience continues to tell me, that maybe further amends
are needed. And given the circumstances of what demons due haunt me,
perhaps the amends is to not only myself, but a living amends, to members of the human race; those which are cerebrally held in contual contempt for who and what they are, regardless of my own either skewed, or equal, nonjudgemental self-perception.

Subsequently, as long as this prejudicial, discriminatory criteria to broadly brush about which, for the sake of discussion, could only be termed as a sexual continuum, I would have forever been at odds with my own sexuality, and thus unpervasive. Regretting the past; sealing the door shut. That is the thorn that threatened my early recovery, usually in the heat of a restless, irritable, and dicsontented night. It was imperative to shed the light on this, lest I lie, tormented in its wake.

It is when I geniunely see other people as God's creations, and try to sincerely love them the way they are, and live as an example, that I really feel things that up until the point of sobreity, were completely foreign to a drunk like me.

Be assured, I do not wish to use this venue to defend myself, nor do I wish use this revelation as any kind of metamorphosis. It is really just the biggest secret of my past.

At a recovery workshop awhile back, during the first stages of being sober, when I couldn't figure out what was so funny. A guy shared from the podium a story about picking up a woman, and later discovering that she
was really a man.

At that point, I wanted to stand up in the middle of everybody and go, "Oh yeah, buddy? You know what? I was your nightmare. I was the drag queen!"

Ever since I can remember, I've had a fascination of women. The things they wear. Their shoes. Their conversations when they're not around men. The way they lead us on, then back off, again and again. The way that some of them play with their hair in the rearview mirror, when they're waiting on the stoplight to change. I'm taken away by all of it, almost to the point of intoxication.

Of course, like so many other areas of my twisted perceptions, anyone with any grasp of the world in general, knows good and well, that this was not reality at all. Its a magnified imagination, running amok, taking something that is only exposed from the outer edges, and turning it into mere fantasy. I mean, any man that has ever lived with a woman for any period of time is well aware of the fact that it ain't all lingerie, make-up, and high-heeled shoes.

I'm not a transsexual, and have no desire to be a woman. The whole scope of sexual identity has been compartmentalized into practically every possible combination imaginable. You're either a man or a woman. There's transsexual men, who've become and lived as men, and transsexual women, who've lived as women. But as far as someone all of a sudden discovering that they want to become a member of the opposite sex, it's just another psychological disorder. This is just my opinion, based on experience.

I knew something was wierd with me when I excited myself as a kid. And I won't bore you with the details. Suffice to say, it wasn't what I would call "normal". That remained the only tangible key I had in this feeble attempt to understand why I am the way I am.

Sure, the cosmetic transformation, the euphoric rush of nylon, and other superficial qualities about this and that can point recognize for thousands of stereotypes to throw stones at the whole thing. But somewhere therein, grew the sole unlocking mechanism.

I was intrigued with so much stuff that didn't add up. I'm more of a butch,
than a sissy. I don't have a dislike for gays, but I've always had this sorta built-in empathy for them. I've worked with them, lived with them, had drunken encounters with them both sexually, and platonic, and have been basically be whatever I wanted to around them, which made me comfortable. But as far as having a relationship with a man, I can't say that I've ever had the desire to.

Also, I can't tell you a specific point in time when my secret began taking on a much greater part of everything bad in my first marriage years ago. I knew that alongside various other problems we were experiencing, it was the straw that broke the camel's back in that marriage. And when my divorce was over, the drinking, drugs, and chasing any kind of prositute took over.

I've took me a very long time to realize that there's so much more to a relationship than any kind of sexual adventure I could have ever conceive.

Given the fact that I was a crossdresser weighed heavily indeed in an overall
context of my fifth step, debated and dissected similarly to the declarative that I drank a lot of scotch. But the statement comes up short and fails to solidify, the addictive behavior turned into an obssession, and like gangbusters, and destroying people, places, and things in its path, including the addict himself.

All from a man, that upon limited observation, basically took a drink of scotch. Far from a judgment call, it is more cause and effect,
and wrongs done to others.

Beside my own devices, an appetite for abnormality, grazing on
the edge of extremes is not atypical. A specific acquaintance, a frolic
on the beach, the one night stand, or a random fantasy may describe
in a general way what I used to be like. I can even implore you with
reproductions of historical soliloquy, poviding the progressive stages,
and further establish the needed objectives of what actually happened.
It is on the cusp of coming to terms with what I am like now, that
I am suddenly stopped in reality, and it is only through the threshold
of my sociopathic admission, that I am truly allowed to be set free.

Things that read more like a laundry list on the road to debauchery,
than an unadorned guy in drag with his fiance on Halloween. Not the
mere prevailing absence of a father figure, or a family that triangulated
itself during crisis, or the adolescent shower of motherly affection,
but more the man who shaved his legs the night before his first wedding,
got drunk, then jumped into bed with his future wife and her maid of
honor, then trying to have an affair on her with a high school girlfriend
shortly thereafter, and hiding notes underneath the mattress, then getting caught doing both was not enough. I had to raid her lingerie drawer
and try on all of the bikinis.

Every indication that I was somehow a pervert couldn't be
sugar-coated anymore with sweet stories about a shy and lonely,
thin-skinned child, who melted like putty at the very thought of criticism,
and constantly sought approval from his male peers. My pursuit of
infedelity, and blatant disrespect for her personal belongings had nothing
to do with my poor body image, or my gregarious erogenous zones.
Far removed from the quintessential storyline rapturing visions of genetic
girls, discovering that their husbands were transvestites, this woman
had essentially married a morally challenged man, and an inebriated
cactus attached. As far as she was concerned, the party was
over. For me, downward spiral had only just begun.

The bed on the other side hadn't even got cold, when cruising
the streets started the hunt for my next victim. It didn't matter if they
were gay or straight, as long as they somewhat resembled
the pages of my juvenile mind. The looks were deceiving, and so
was I. Finding what I wanted was inevetible, and finding what I
had to have was another illusion, always seemingly, just out of
reach.

And although the scenery changed, the episodes grew worse.
I furnished her with booze and pot, then proceeded to pursue
even more of what she didn't have. Her girlfriends didn't have it
either, but that didn't stop me from chasing them too, along with
any hooker with a pipe and habit. The one-night stands, and
twenty dollar tours only teased the insatiable, leading to more
and more. And so I ran away from everything that lasted longer than
a date on a milk carton, and toward anything newer than a loaf
of bread.


Look, a lot of what I did was just plain wrong. But there's also
the other side of my past that had to be opened. If no honest revelation
about my past had been told, I was to never completely get my head around
all that happened, while I participated in this. That will not only keep me sick in the sense of secrecy and fear. It will get me drunk.


Putting it all into some gigantic box with a ribbon on top and labeling
it does the exact same thing, as another person trying to do it for me; its uncalled for. An unsolicited evaluation, based on nothing more than opinion, which usually borderlines bias misconceptions, often accompanied by a narrow-minded view of society in general: another thing from which, I wish to distance myself. To surround the intricate motives, innate desires, genes, physical make-up, and mental states of those involved, is to navigate a minefield of bigotry designed primarily to distinguish certain sectors in an inferior, and/or superior suspension of equality, and to further sustain the judgement that I had for other people, which was way off base.

Personal adventures have also proven that this demagoguery isn't
limited to outside observers, and onlookers exclusively. Condescension and
prejudice along the different plateaus of this mosaic are frequently regarded
with the same fervor as the ones who originated them. The allied aversion created by a select few militants broadcasting their slights and slangs often runs rampant, identifying people with labels, until they're final label lands them, appropriated into the subculture's lexicon. Nevertheless, throughout the midnight raves, the dyke bars, dance floors, and pride parades, one practicality strikes a chord inside the beaten path. Sometimes a duck is just a duck.

Whether I accompanied a stormy cast of voyeurs walking a provacative plank of prostitution, lip syncing a Donna Summers tune in private, or lying dormant on a couch in front of a psychiatrist confronting the confusion of it all, a common theme will forever carve its niche among the deviant, destitute, and the dominant, and that is to wallow in guilt, shame, and self-pity of it all, or to somehow change the opression and adversity quite common with the entire lot.

Vaguely, I do recall both of these choices hammering their way into the
recovery process. Not unlike the symbolic angel, and devil, that on my shoulders stayed, the compromise and sacrifice, began to temper my unjust nature, into the scarcely scatched surface of a guided obedience, I so desperately craved.

[honeydumplin]

Man, I'm really glad that post is over.

Its important for me to realize prior to a fifth step, that I may
not cover everything at one time, and that I may not do it
exactly right. I'm not reinventing the wheel, but taking what
I have hopefully learned in step four, and using it to shine the
light on five, in looking at it the way that it really happened,
as opposed to how my early sobriety wants to see it.

There is step ten for daily inventories, and if one desires,
another step five. The most important thing for me was
to start foremost with what was eating at me continually,
which were sex, self righteous anger, politics, and a serious
case of being anti-social, almost to the point of not wanting
to be around anybody.

Problems were something that I ran away from. Wrongs were
swept under the rug. Whatever damage may have been done
to anyone was soon forgotten. As my wife left one afternoon,
as the house sold divided, as the bankruptcy happened, and as
cars were repossessed, all I wanted to do was escape from it all;
wanting to drink, get high, and get the heck out of this place.

So at 27, I enlisted in the navy, not because of patriotism, but for
those neat looking cracker jack blue uniforms, and for thirty days
worth of vacation. What I needed, instead of crawling around in a ditch,
was an easy desk job, somewhere far, far away.

While waiting for boot camp, I moved into the deep southern Alabama
of my early upbringing. During those few months waiting to enlist,
I worked graveyard shift. An afternoon cocktail and a joint before work
were not unusual. I practically stayed high. I went to work stoned,
and usually had one rolled for later. It was the way of coping and
just getting through the day.

The night before I was sworn in, I paced back and forth
in front of a motel in Beckley, WV. I had cold feet, sorta like
the day I got married. But I decided to try. To make the best of
whatever was ahead.

I had been off the dope for 30 days, and had no idea that I would be
tested for anything else. After taking the oath and getting a plane,
I got settled in for the last few hours of freedom for the next eight
weeks. They were used to numb myself up as much as possible.

First there were the two beers on route to Charlotte, and a three hour
layover in the lounge. The flight to O'hare was another hour. After
landing there, and having some dinner there was more time for a few
more. So there were several hours of non-stop drinking.

Then I was informed that a breath test was something in my immediate
future. I waited as long as possible, which did nothing but increase
the anxiety, because sobering up at the point was basically out of the
question. I got on a late leaving van and proceeded to pop a whole
roll of certs during the ride in hopes of somehow hiding the smell, like
that might help. Yeah right. I reeked of alcohol. That unmistakable
smell of booze disguised vaguely with breath mints.
Not to mention that I was simply drunk, and had slight problems
every now and then with something called composure.

We were greeted on base by a group of navy guys screaming at
us, and demanding we stand at attention. I kept as best I could
a low profile, but knew that the inevitable would occur. It did.

After being taken into a classroom with these other recruits,
I saw several of the machines located in the back. Eventually
my name was called. I exhaled a small amount, hoping that
I could somehow cheat the results. Not long after the reading
came through, more of these white-clad men began to
appear out of the woodwork, or in this case, the bulkheads.

Then I started hearing words like, "Wow", and, "You gotta
be kiddin'".

No one ever mentioned a word to me directly. They kept us
up all night, yelling at us, and later running us through these
cold showers. As dawn started to eventually come into
focus, we were processed and given the standard sweats,
some flip flops, and the head shave.

There seemed like so many of us. And yet everyone was
given an adequate opportunity to prove ourselves to be
fit for special companies. If we could march, or sing well,
we could qualify to be a part of the more elite units, that
would travel around, and do different things.

That morning a company commander came up and stood eye
to eye with me, and after giving me the once over, asked
me how tall I was. I was so caught off guard, nothing
at all would come to mind.

"Man you don't even know how tall you are?" he asked again.

The try-out for the glee company was even worse, when
I made a feeble attempt to match a simple note struck
on the keyboard of a piano. The sound was so hideous.
I tried to talk them into a do-over.

"No, we're NOT doing it again!" was the reply.

Later on that same week, I was summoned to the office
of psychologist where an interview took place. I was
given a chance to opt out altogether,
or stay and stick it out. Since I had done such a terrible
job of finishing what I started in the past, I chose to
endure, and after some extra duty, and some more
yelling, I was in. For what, I was still unsure.

[honeydumplin]

A common theme without a doubt, was this feeling that somewhere
over the horizon, happiness awaited, chasing the very thing that
I never wanted to catch. The concept of success was an illusion lacking
the desire to be achieved. Failure became a comfortable venue for
playing the role of the victim, even though the search for pity
was as vacant as my commitment to finding a state of genuine
contentment.

Moments of contentment were reserved for some cynically regarded,
high-class rich dude, pondering a sunset aboard his yacht, or for
people who were frozen in time, on a movie screen or in a book,
never prepared for tomorrow. This twisted, limited attitude was that
I didn't make enough money to enjoy the day as much as the next guy.

I did little to prepare for anything. A whole approach oblivious
to the moment, oriented around the appearance of actually enjoying it.
It didn't matter what kind of torment I carried around inside, as
long as I came across as being capable of having a good time. And
as it turned out, I didn't want that responsibility that came with having
much money. All I wanted was to look like I might be that guy
standing on the yacht, looking at the sunset, with a drink in his hand.

I have had, what my dear mother called golden opportunities, pass
right in front of me, and would be too afraid, and/or too blind to see them.
Even when things took a turn for the better during the darker times,
I had become so accustomed to self-sabotage that I was
fully convinced that something would happened to mess it up,
pushing the the envelope further to see if I could get by with
a more and more of the antics, that I'd gotten by with before.

When I left A-school, my test scores allowed the benefit
of choosing one of the top five billets. I chose VF-45 in Key West,
and arrived there in October of '93. It was common knowledge
that the squadron was in the process of decommissioning, but
that did nothing to stop most from wanting to go there.

Beautiful girls. Tropical breezes. Paradise. It sounded like
a happening place. Besides, it might just be what would
allow me to get back on track once and for all, and prove to
all those people how wrong they were about my never
amounting to anything.

Well I got down there, and after a few trips up and down
Duval, and few more drinks, I went back to the motel
for a decent night's rest. My hopes of starting a new
chapter were just around the corner.

The next morning, a young sailor girl driving a
duty van came to pick me up, but if no one knew any
better, they would have thought that I was headed
to Guantanamo. My happy and joyful spirits from
the previous night had begun to fade away. It was as if
someone had given me their ice cream cone to hold,
while it melted.

Here I was, in my late twenties with this whole beautiful world
at my fingertips, and no capability at all to enjoy it.
No way to cope. No where left to run. No joy at all.
Just sadness, and melancholy.

This song by REM came on the radio called, "Everybody Hurts",
and boy did I get caught in the those lyrics. I got homesick,
depressed, and big old tears started creeping out of the
corners of my eyes.

The girl driving picking up on this, asked if I was okay. I said
I was fine—the line that I so often used to avoid
anything beneath the surface.

[honeydumplin]

My idea of a geographical cure for my ills merely
accelerated my drinking. An anonymous feeling
of no one recognizing me, was intoxicating. I felt
I could do anything I could get by with, and no one
would be the wiser. Manipulation of this was something
used for more than the next two decades. My actions were
based on who I was around and what I could get, whether
it be drugs, booze, sex, a promotion, or an escape to another
place again.

I used a girl from back home. We got married, and I finally
got out of the barracks. We drank a lot, fought a lot, and tolerated
the very worst of one another.

I got beat up in a drug deal one night and begged the guy
that beat me up for one hit of the crack he'd just stolen.
I lied to everyone, telling them that I'd been robbed
so they'd feel sorry for my measly thirteen stitches.

There was one fight that my wife and I had in which
the MP's was called. They showed up at my door
with a German shepherd. A glass astray had been
shattered. I was taken away in cuffs, but my wife
came and got me. Oh the joys of drunken marital bliss.

It was insisted that I attend an alcoholic evaluation.
I had to lie as best I could on some questions.
A guy concluded that I may not be an alcoholic,
but there was definitely a propensity to abuse it.
In my nutty way, I left that man's office an illusion
of a free man.

Now I could tell others, including myself, that since petty
officer so-and-so told me that I wasn't an alcoholic, I must
not be one. What a startling revelation for an alcoholic
to be told that he isn't an alcoholic. It granted the permission
I so desperately craved to drink as much as I could.
And that I did.

It also seemed to provide me with this sense of self-
entitlement to do what I felt was the right thing to do,
for the wrong reason, no matter who happened to be
hurt along the way. I can remember refusing to accept
simple gestures of kindness because not only would that
have been an admission that I needed help in any way,
but it would also mean that somehow I would owe the
charitable person a returned favor later on down the road.
Keeping an invisible, running scorecard in my head, I
wanted to owe nothing to others, and in turn didn't want
them to feel like they owed me anything either.

If people were too nice, I was skeptical of their motives,
and if they weren't, I despised them. This kept personal
interaction with other human beings at a bare minimum.
The first Thanksgiving in Florida was no more than a bunch
of regret, and resentment against society.

There was no relationship with God. No reason to be thankful
for the very things that were right in front of me. Two jobs,
excellent benefits, and a nice place to live right on the water,
and I was miserable. Nothing was ever enough.

That Thanksgiving, I went out for lunch and out of cash
asked the manager of the restaurant if they took checks. He declined
but if told me if we'd like, he'd serve us for free. I don't remember what
I said, but it was probably not very nice. I stormed out in a huff,
not wanting to accept anyone's "hand-out".

I went down the street and ate a bowl of soup. So much
contempt and hatred in my heart toward this guy, who
was simply trying as best he could to extend a hand of good-
will to someone he did not even have sense enough to recognize it.
There I was, stewing over it, and wasn't even thankful for the food.
What an awful way to spend Thanksgiving.

In the spring of the following year I sent a letter up through the
chain of command, requesting what was referred to as an
"early-out". The navy did not see it the same way. I had
signed on for four years, and fulfilled only about a quarter
of that obligation.


I was still trying to escape the various choices that were made.
Not even in midstream yet. I was so full of rebellion. Deep
down was this feeling of being caught by a random urinalysis,
which occurred often enough. I knew that if I got nailed on
one, it would be the end, and I really did not care if that
happened. So I drank, smoked pot, and did crack, and
continued to go from day to day on borrowed time.

The next billet came through. Brunswick, Maine was
the destination. My wife moved up there a month ahead
of the transfer, during which I cheated on her with several
so called friends that I had met in bars. I relieved
what little guilt that I felt about it all, by mailing her
quarter bags of pot that were wrapped up in plastic
bags, and concealed in souvenir styled t-shirts with
no return address.

I had nothing but utter contempt for most all of my
superiors. I'd go out of my way to avoid the protocol
of salute toward an officer because of my lack of respect
for them, which had no substantial justification whatever.
I judged my wife as a free loader, my boss as a drunk,
and my family as not giving a **** what happened.
What I hadn't noticed, is that I had become all three.

So it should have come as no surprise that on the night
prior to my transfer, when I decided to take the duty
van out for one last night drinking and getting high
out on the town, I got exactly what was coming to me.

I parked the van in the usual inconspicuous location,
and sometime during the course of the evening, the van
became inoperable. The engine wouldn't even turn over.
And what's really revealing is that somehow in my stupor,
I thought that if I could just get a taxi back to the base
and pick up my orders, I could possibly scoot out of there
unscathed.

Those plans were quickly changed upon my arrival to the base.

An officer on duty told me that I wouldn't be going anywhere,
and that I was to attend an XO mass at 0900 the following morning.