Burying My Core Under a Costume Called Mike

Mike Runner is our Sunday Guest Contributor, and he brings a perspective to Wings Like Eagles that is unique and challenging. 

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.

I was talking to Joelle Deyo, my fellow contributor for Wings Like Eagles the other day.  We were being silly and among other things, discussing blog ideas.  Something wonderful suddenly came to my mind.  It was simply, “I’m Mike.”  At first glance, that doesn’t sound like much of a revelation.  Of course I am Mike, who else would I be? 

As I write this a day after Halloween, I realize that for many years I just put on a Mike costume.  That’s really what it was, a costume and some customary Mike phrases and motions that came along with it.  Inside of the costume I may have been Joe or Bob or just about anyone else, but I wasn’t Mike.  

Alcoholism and addiction have that effect over time.  It is a deceivingly slow change.  It is a change where you wake up one day, look back at a year ago when you were doing well, and ask yourself 

“How did I get here?” 

That actually happened to me once in slightly more dramatic fashion.  My wife and I had not had a good night so I left the house on foot as I often did.  It took me about 7 minutes to walk to the liquor store.  She kept calling me and finally I picked up the phone and she said that she was coming to look for me which was the last thing I wanted.  So, I ended up sitting in a small spot in a parking lot where I was surrounded by bushes and pretty much out of sight.  The phone kept ringing as I sat there and drank vodka.  

For whatever reason, I suddenly and vividly remembered a year in the past when I had been sober for a number of months and everything had been going well.  Then I became acutely aware that I was sitting in the bushes, drinking vodka and hiding from my wife and the rest of the world.  I looked back in time and couldn’t see an event that had led me to my shrubbery predicament…just a slow decline that I had not even noticed.  I definitely had not said to myself the year prior “In a year’s time I want to be sitting in dirt and hiding in the foliage of an AM PM / KFC parking lot drinking vodka.”  I suppose that I had simply bought a beer or something a year prior and told myself how well I had been doing so it was OK now. That single beer led to a slow decline that eventually had me peeping through ferns, watching intently for my wife’s white Suburban.  She did pass through the parking lot twice but I was well hidden.

Over the years, even the Mike costume began to wear out.  The color faded, the edges became frayed and it didn’t seem to quite fit right anymore but I still put it on every day. 

I want to be clear on something in case someone is thinking, I’m not an alcoholic because I don’t have the stories that Mike does.  For the most part, my stories didn’t get consistent until I was in my mid 30s.  I also want to make sure that people know very clearly that I was not consistently drunk over a 10 year span.  I may have been 1/3 of the time at night, on weekends, and on days I took off, but I had many periods of not drinking.  However, I was only not drinking during those times…I had not yet made any major life changes.  Even when I was not drinking during those times, I still wore the costume. 

Mike was just not in there, even when sober.  The real Mike had energy, had a very quirky sense of humor that caused many just to look at him strangely.  He looked at life in a slanted and not always serious way.  He tried to help people by making them laugh and feel better.  Over long periods of time, an alcoholic slowly loses their soul for lack of a better term.  It destroyed the very things that made me unique.  Life became very tedious and I became very serious.   

I am a Christian and I very slowly lost my spirituality.  In my case, I never stopped believing in God, but thought that He stopped believing in me.  Why wouldn’t He?  Broken promise after broken promise.  My spirituality left me along with my humor, my self esteem, all self worth, my hope and joy, and everything else that made me Mike.  I remembered the person and sometimes would try to act like I remembered Mike being but it never felt right.  I just came to accept that the person who had once been Mike was no longer there.  He was just gone and I assumed gone forever.

After over a year and a half on the other side and after doing some huge life changes other than simply not drinking (a miracle in and of itself) , I am Mike again.  I poke fun at myself on purpose to remind myself to not take myself so seriously, I am naturally quirky and weird again, which I like about Mike, and I have a bounce in my step.  The old moth-eaten Mike costume has been thrown away.  I took a look at it before it went in the rubbish pile and it turns out it didn’t really look much like me.  Go figure.

Many of you who suffer from alcoholism, addiction, depression, or a host of other issues feel the same way I did.  That the person at the very core of your being is gone.  I honestly believed that...that the old Mike was no longer there and couldn’t ever come back.  Thankfully, I was wrong.  The truth is, that core… the soul that God gave you… is still there.  It is just buried very deeply.  

If you decide it is finally time to throw away the costume and are willing to admit to yourself that some major changes in your life need to be made, not only will the parts you liked about yourself start to come back but a new you will be born from the ashes as well.  I had given up on myself but God and certain people in my life never did.  I was at the bottom of a dark hole and completely hopeless.  Thank God that I didn’t give up before the miracle happened.  

I always wanted a quick miracle that never happened.  Instead, my miracle took many years.  Yours may happen quickly or slowly.   It will happen but only if you are willing to change everything if needed and to fully admit what you are doing simply is not working.  I have seen many people become themselves again who went through far more than I did and there is no person reading this that cannot come back with a spark in their eye and a spring in their step if they are willing to get the help they need.  For some unknown reason, I held on very tightly to the very things that I needed to let go of to be whole again.  I wonder if anyone can relate?     

Next week:  People in Wal-Mart get concerned when you are pushing around a baby stroller with no baby in it.