Monthly Archives: March 2013

Disturbia ~

What’s wrong with me?
Why do I feel like this?
I’m going crazy now.

Out my life, out my head
Don’t wanna think about it
Feels like I’m going insane
Yeah

It’s a thief in the night
To come and grab you
It can creep up inside you
And consume you
A disease of the mind
It can control you
It’s too close for comfort

I have heard “Enjoy the moment you’re in…it will be over shortly”   Um, ya, ok.  Peculiar how joyous moments seem to fade fleetingly while  moments of anguish toil for days (years?)

Some sayings in recovery just piss me off, probably because they ring so true.

Peeling the layers of onion…

My delusional, dsyfucntional thinking. I have always said my drinking and drugging weren’t the issues. They were the by products of my ill thinking resulting in consequences.

Life.

Two days after celebrating my ninth year free of narcotics and my 50th birthday the next day, I  faced  a truth I have known for a while, but have just not been dealing with or admitting too. Such is denial.

It really wasn’t an AHA! moment. It is all wrapped around and rooted in my core issue.

Like those first days of making the decision to stop using drugs, I am uncomfortable, overwhelmed,  feel awkward. I am depressed, sad, angry, humiliated, feel defeated…but then at the same time I am feeling rushes of excitement  as new energy begin to fill the dark recess with a new light and thought process.

I guess in a way this will be easy…HA!  ya, ok. I have been through all of this before, just not dealing with this particular issue. There will be times when I feel like I want to go back and hold on to this old thinking…but I have to keep focused that no matter how difficult the pain of change may seem it’s far better than the pain of staying in this dysfunctional mind set.

Maybe in six months after I get past all this discomfort, I will elaborate more about this particular issue.

Until then I’ll just keep peeling at the layers of this onion.

Yesterday was my 50th Birthday. And it feels GREAT! Still seems kind of freaky in a way…50 years old. I don’t feel it…but what is 50 “supposed to”  feel like. Also odd: I almost extinguished my life in the middle of my 34th year when the whirlwind of my life in active addiction just seemed too much… right before I made the decision to try rehab because nothing else seemed to work and suicide seemed like the best option.

Looking back:

At 20, I was high on weed, hash, hallucinations and Jack Daniels. Uncomfortable with myself and didn’t even know why, let alone who I was. Surrounded only by people who got high and I thought would be my friends for life.

At 30,  just a drunk with a extreme fondness for Manhattans or beer with Jager chasers. Surrounded by friends who were barflies like myself and would have had for life if they had not meet their end.

At 40, strung out on crystal meth, weed and cigarettes; wishing I was the Hindu god Shiv with multiple arms and hands, so I could keep a steady flow of inhalants at my mouth. I was in complete isolation and my only “friend” was the meth purveyor.

Of course the common thread through those decades was my dysfunctional thinking fueled by my fear.

Now at 50, and nine years of clean time under my belt, I have a better insight into self and who I am. I am surrounded by a wide range of friends, from those who are rooted in recovery, to “normies” (people who drink, but aren’t ruled by it) to people still struggling with use. But we share honest friendship. I don’t hold an expectation that any of these people will be in my life for long, but some are showing up in my life with more frequence than anyone has in my past.

Obsessions, ya I still have a few..some I  am working to let go of, others I still let rule, like sushi/sashimi…  I lose myself at a sushi bar.

So maybe it is getting older or maintaining clean time, whatever it is, I am finding my self more at peace, and embrace who I am and where I am at. For all those years of self-induced turmoil, I find myself in a very good spot.

Nine years ago tonight I quit using crystal methamphetamine. Sometimes I feel like I wasted nine good years. HAHA. No, not really

I was at the Rollerdome skating tonight as the clock turned 8:34 pm, the exact minute I put the pipe down nine years ago, and the surge of energy that came over me was intense. Really, thou, all day long I had a sly smirk on me face and was kind of giddy. When I think back to the days of my use and the anxiety, fear, uncertainly, emptiness, loneliness that use to occupy my mind was such utter desperation…the very force that kept me using to try and mask all I felt. Now being clean and sober, none of those destructive thought processes dwell on my mind. Oh, sure they may cross it occasionally. But I am not consumed by them any longer. More importantly, I am able to feel my emotions as they arise, not chemical induced delusions.

The last 12 months have been incredible for me. All areas of my life continue to improve, some areas still need vast improvement..but it’s a forward motion.

For me, the reconnection to and the re-emergance of my art and my talent brings me the greatest joy. I have done more photography in the last 12 months than I have in the last 12 years.

I have reconnected to some old friends, made some new ones and some distance is occurring with others. All I am at peace with.

“More will be revealed…”

This morning, early, I was awoken by the voice of my dead friend, saying very clearly, in his  distinct tone and accent: “JOEY!” It startled me so that I sat right up and said “Freddie?” It wasn’t a dream..I can tell those. It was, without any doubt, his voice.

I can’t say these sort of things happen regularly or even occasionally. But they do happen with frequence.

I just can’t always tell who they are. More than I few times I have been brought firmly out of sleep by someone declaring my name.

And then there is the bed thumper. I get brought out of sleep by something or whatever thumping with a solid JOLT to my bed.  And when I look at the clock it is 3:19 am, everytime. So it’s 3:19…what? I was born on 3/19. whatever.

When I lived in Southern California, I endured three early morning earthquakes in the 7 years there. It was kind like that. I was awoken by what felt like something hitting the bed, I would wake up and then everything would start shaking.

These things don’t really bother me all that much, it would just be nice that after they call me awake, the would say something else.

No, seriously I am still clean and sober and sleeping quite soundly. That is until I hear my name called.

So much occurring, events unfolding, situations revealing.

What to share? How to expound?

I think I’ll  begin with…..