I normally cover topics relating to the horror of having someone else bring darkness into the home. Mike covers the same topics, but from a completely different angle. He was the one who brought darkness to his family. Mike is an alcoholic.
It is my hope that the perception of what we think we know about Family Crisis is shaken up a bit. Because there is far more involved than we think. Much can be understood by examining the other side, and I deeply appreciate Mike's willingness to help us gain understanding as he shares with us the mind as it is affected by alcoholism.
He isn't just an alcoholic. He is an intelligent mind, has a bright, hopeful future, and he is my friend. And this is his story.
Reflexions and the Confession of an Alcoholic Corpse
I should not be a
recovering alcoholic. It doesn’t make
any sense. Alcoholics are people who are
unshaven, disheveled, have had terrible childhoods and drink out of brown paper
bags.
One of my main goals in writing
this column is to destroy the stereotype of what an alcoholic is so that normal people who are alcoholics or have
a loved one is an alcoholic, can come out in the open and let go of the
stigma and the shame. Alcoholism doesn’t
care who you are. It doesn’t care if you
are black or white, if you are a Christian or an atheist, whether you are male
or female, if you are rich or poor, whether you are 17 or 87. It is an equal opportunity destroyer.
When I was 8 years old I wanted to be a paleontologist. I liked dinosaurs. When I was 16, I wanted to be a youth
pastor. At no time in my childhood or
teen years do I ever remember telling myself that it would be fun to grow up
and be an alcoholic. Nor do I remember
thinking how fulfilling it would be to become the proverbial tornado in a
trailer park, both destroying myself and damaging the lives of those I loved.
I have a great deal of empathy for the
homeless. They were all at one time
children with hopes and dreams and something went horribly wrong. It may have been alcoholism, drug addiction,
mental illness or a combination that put them on the streets but getting there
was never in their plans when they were children. When I pass or talk to a homeless person I
always tell myself, there but for the
grace of God go I. It could easily
have been me standing there by the freeway off ramp. It is a sobering thought that in the future it
could be me who is holding the Hungry and homeless please help and God bless sign.
At this point, my thoughts are going to jump around a bit. The first reason for that is, well, my
thoughts jump around a bit. The second
reason is that this is how my life was. There
was a roller coaster at Six Flags in California called Déjà vu. You went on this crazy roller coaster,
sometimes upside down, through a loop, then up to the top of a steep hill and
then you went back through the ride backwards but things were in a different
order. There was no place to put your
feet. They just dangled out there in the
air. It’s the best analogy I can think
of as to how my life went for many years.
Up, down, through loops, backward through the same loops, nothing
grounded, fear, mind racing, anxiety, etc.
As we work through my story, some questions will arise. What exactly does the ism mean in alcoholism? How
do I know if I or someone close to me is an alcoholic? What should family members or friends do, or
not do? Is alcoholism really a
disease? What is Alcoholics
Anonymous? What are the mysterious 12
steps? Can an alcoholic ever be
cured? With everything that has happened
in the past, why would a person not stop when they know more bad things will
happen? The biggest question of all is
simply, why? We will work through the questions based on
my experience and through the shared and written experiences of others. There are and have been millions like me.
Next week I will begin my story in linear order. From how I got started, to where I am today.
Humor is important in recovery so I will
share some specific stories as I go along.
This is one for today. A sober friend of mine says that he knows he is allergic to
alcohol because every time he drinks he would break out in handcuffs. Though I have law enforcement stories of my own (within
10 years I had 3 DUIs, and 2 drunk in publics), I would more often end
up in an emergency room.
About 7 years
ago I ended up in an emergency room after drinking heavily. Drunk people annoy emergency room employees
because they have better things to deal with than someone’s self inflicted
drunkenness. After they were done with
me, they moved me out of my specific space and into the main emergency room so
they could treat others while I awaited a ride home. I was on a gurney, still drunk, and rather
bored. I discovered a fun game that
emergency people don’t much care for. I decided
to pull the sheet up over my head and be very still, so people would think I was
a corpse. I suppose it is rather disconcerting for people coming into the emergency room and seeing a dead person
on a gurney in the middle of the ER. For
an hour or so the nurses and I played this game. I would pull the sheet over my head and the
nurse would come take it off.
Eventually, my wife came and picked me up and failed to see the humor in
my game. When I pulled my shaky, sweaty
and detoxing body out of bed the next morning, the situation no longer seemed
particularly funny to me either.
When I write next week I will be 26 years old again. That’s when things began to get
interesting.
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