Bruce’s Online Journal

“I write because I don’t know what I think, until I read what I say.” — Flannery O'Connor

Week of December 17, 2001

Skip ahead to Friday

December 18

Remember half-birthdays?

If it’s faded from your memory all you need to do is run into anyone who’s still in their single-digits and ask them their age. They seem to reply with a certain amount pride of on the whole numbers, but if their age includes a half, they puff out their chests and announce with a considerable dose of superiority, “I’m five-and-a-half”.

Tomorrow, (he said, puffing out his chest and assuming a superior demeanor,) I’ll be forty-four-and-a-half. Or one-and-a-half. It depends on how you look at it.

(And for the sake of all, I’ll temporarily ignore the way I tend to look at things: I’m in my 45th year, Scenic Route is in its fourth and I’m in my second year of sobriety.)

Forty-four-and-a-half, or even 44, used to seem ancient. And if you ask a teenager, it still is, I suppose. I don’t feel ancient, however. (At least not on most days. It depends on the morning aches and pains.)

With the exception of the absence of hair on the top of my head and a crease or two around the eyes, I don’t think I look much different than I did in my teens. And I still break out in zits occasionally. (I’m working on one right at the tip of my nose. I’ll look like fucking Rudolph for Christmas.) All in all though, I feel about the same as I did in my teens and twenties.


Tomorrow will also mark 18 months of sobriety. In many ways, this has been a more difficult, and remarkable, achievement than 44½. Apparently in some places, the west coast in particular (imagine that!), I’m told the tradition is to erase your actual physical birthday and replace it with your sobriety date. From then on, your sobriety date is known as your birthday.

That logic makes little sense to me. To my north coast sensibilities, it depreciates the value and significance of each date. Then again, my physical birthday and my sobriety date are on the same calendar date. Talk about depreciation! (Although it makes them both easier to remember.)

It’s terribly convenient though, having your birthday (by either definition) in June and Christmas in December. It’s as if the celebration of half-birthdays never leaves. Gift receiving remains balanced nicely throughout the year. Its 25 weeks from Christmas to my birthday, 27 weeks from my birthday back to Christmas. For something as random as conception and birth (or sobriety), you can’t expect much better than that.


That was one of the several things on my mind this morning as I rolled around in bed trying to put off getting up. The season of eternal gloom is finally upon us here in R-town. And last week’s successes with shopping and social occasions notwithstanding, my overall mood drifted down all week, becoming as dark and somber as the weather.

One of the reasons I’m still not very good with sharing my feelings is that when it’s something like this, people instantly become alarmed. On the one hand I appreciate that those people care enough for me that, on hearing that I’m feeling down, they become concerned for my welfare. On the other hand, I see it as a lack of faith and trust in my recovery.

My psychologist is obligated of course by professional ethic, as well as legal and insurance reasons, to ask the official question, “Are you in danger of hurting yourself or others?” I understand that, and although the question is tiresome, at our session last Friday I obligingly answered no, and with his professional ass covered, we proceeded with the session.

I have a harder time dismissing the question when it comes from friends. I’m comfortably confident in my recovery and it disappoints me when others question it.

Last Friday at my meeting, just to avoid all that unpleasantness, I felt I had to go through this long preamble explaining that I know that feeling down is part of the game, that it passes eventually and in the meantime I’ll make the best of it.

I didn’t dare tell them that even on that same morning, while waiting for a transfer downtown, a drug deal took place not five feet from me, and the first thing that went through my mind was, “Do I have enough on me for a couple of bags?”

I’m not alarmed by that initial reaction. I know it’s going to be my initial reaction for the rest of my life. It’s only a problem if the second thing that goes through my mind is not something to the effect of, “Oh yeah. I forgot. I don’t do that any more.”

I can, and do, deal with the occasional yearnings. There’s a lot to be said for a cocaine high. That memory will probably never leave me. It’s the downsides that get you.

Still, I’m not about to tempt fate by hanging around people in active use. Yearning coupled with means and proximity is simply too great a risk. Let’s hope that the memory of the downsides also never leaves me.


So how do you make the best of feeling down? Interestingly, in some specific instances, therapists actually induce a moderate depression as part of the therapy. It’s conducive to introspection.

Of course the seemingly endless introspection and analysis that characterizes recovery becomes tiresome after a while. It was a great relief when I became able to put it aside for the most part and begin to live my life rather than dissect it.

I needed that break and it lasted several months. Now, apparently, that break has come to an end and I find myself back in that introspective mode. Thus far I’ve had no profound revelations.

Save for one.


A month or so ago I alluded to a change in my perspective and promised to write about it. It turned into a big, dull treatise so I abandoned it. Let’s see if I can keep it short and to the point.

Without really paying attention to it, I’ve achieved a Zen-like state that now pervades my life. A lot of crap just doesn’t bother me since I’ve found that state. It both amazes and frustrates those around me that I seldom seem to get angry and I just sort of cruise through every situation with remarkable stability.

I attribute this to learning how to drop almost all expectations from my life.

On analysis, I found that every time I experienced a negative emotion, sorrow, guilt, disappointment, anger and frustration to name a few, it’s because of unrealized expectations. People, events or even life itself failed to measure up to what I expected.

Take road rage for instance. When someone does something dumb, inconsiderate, aggressive or just downright dangerous in traffic, the first thing that happens to most people is that we become angry.

Why? The dumb, inconsiderate, dangerous or aggressive thing was not expected. We expect others to drive by the rules of the road and absent that, then at least by the rules of common sense and courtesy. By having that expectation, we set ourselves up for anger, or at the least, disappointment, when the inevitable occurs.

The opposite, expecting bad things to happen, only makes us cynical and mean-spirited.

Not expecting a thing, either good or bad, changes everything completely.

When something “good” happens, it becomes a happy accident. When something “bad” happens, it doesn’t collide with preconceived notions causing a change in our perception of reality. Nothing changes so there’s nothing to drive the sorrow, guilt, disappointment, anger, frustration, etc. reaction. It disappears.

Or at least it has for me.


That’s not to say I’m completely without expectations, although it remains a goal. For example, yesterday I was gathering information for one of the bosses at mandated volunteering. It involved counting things, something that’s very difficult for me. Yes, I know how to count, but I can’t seem to stay focused on the task and when my mind snaps back to it, I’ve lost count.

I either fail to increment, (13, 14, 14, 14) increment incorrectly, (78, 79, 70, 71 or 25, 30, 35, 40, 41, 42) or I can’t remember whether or not I counted something (was that 13 or 14, so is this 14 or 15?) And all bets are off if I’m to count only certain things, (in this pile of Xs, Ys and Zs, count only the Xs). Anyway, it’s right up there with neurosurgery as one of the most difficult tasks for me to accomplish.

In the middle of counting yesterday, someone came up to me to make small talk. I held up my hand to indicate I’d be right with him. He kept right on, and with my attention rapidly shifting from counting to language and back again, I lost count. And I got angry.

The anger came because I had the expectation that holding up my hand would get across the message, “Please wait a minute until I’m done with this.” Reality, that either the message didn’t get across or was ignored by the recipient, differed from my expectation. Anger was the result. It could just as easily been disappointment or frustration, but my head jumps right to anger.

I apologized a few minutes later.

There’s also a second expectation in there too -- the expectation that I could successfully count things despite conclusive evidence to the contrary. Anyway, it’s a small illustration but I hope it gets the concept across.

Circling back, it’s interesting that the sort of Zen-state that’s lead to my feeling good for many months has not left. That feeling persists despite my mood dropping like a stone.

It’s very weird because I expected (there’s that word again) that feeling to be associated only with an overall good mood. That it continues in depression says to me that it’s a very powerful concept and it confirms that there’s nothing wrong with feeling down for a while, as long as I don’t get stuck here.

In other words, life on life’s terms.

December 21

Several events of the week have given me pause to reflect.

When I create a new week’s page, as I did on Tuesday, one of the minor details is linking to the same week in the preceding three years. Sometimes I read the entries, sometimes I don’t and sometimes I start reading, then, with a shudder come the memories and I can’t seem to click “Back” fast enough.

This week both the 1998 and 1999 entries made me do just that. I shuddered reading what I wrote, and went into a tizzy thinking of the things that I kept to myself. Last year’s page didn’t cause that reaction, but if it weren’t for last year's entries, I wouldn’t have remembered a thing. I still can’t fill in the gaps around those entries. It’s just as well because the gaps between the entries in 98 and 99 are more than enough for me to deal with.

There is one interesting parallel to last year. I fought with a cold which eventually won on Christmas Eve. I’ve been fighting one all week this week too and I’m getting the distinct feeling that it’s slowly winning. I still hope that making a conscious effort at remembering to eat (and to eat properly when I do), getting enough rest, rather than burning the candle at both ends as I have recently, and doubling my daily OJ ration to two liters with at least keep it confined to minor skirmishes.


On Tuesday, just after I posted the entry, I got a call from WorkGuide. They have a placement for me. I’m to interview sometime in the second week of January. If all goes well, and I don’t see why it shouldn’t, (but that’s an expectation I guess), I’ll be working in some capacity on a local hospital’s web site. I don’t know whether it’s their public site or their intranet or both. Either way, I’m happy for the opportunity and the challenge.

Not that it did much to change my overall mood, which remained somewhere around -3 or -4.


Since payroll had to be done early this week, I did my usual Monday mandated volunteering gig today. They shut down the production line at lunchtime and had their Christmas party. There were the requisite pizzas, wings and Pepsi, of course. But also, each one of the employees got a for real gift from the company. Unlike most firms I’ve seen that do this, everyone got something different and hand selected especially for them by their supervisor.

And the HR manager didn’t leave us out either, (I’m not the only mandated volunteer.) I got a nice card and some chocolates. It’s not nearly as lavish as what they gave to the staff, but it’s far more than I expected. And she told us to leave early but log the full day’s time, explaining, “If my people can leave early and get paid for the whole day, your can leave early and get credit for the whole day.”


Getting back on track, just before lunch, a girl wandered in from outside. She did not look well. I know that look and I’ve looked that way before too. She was clearly an addict and clearly in need of her drug of choice (which I found out later is heroin.) Apparently her ex-boyfriend works on the production line and she’d come there before at noon on payday looking for a few bucks.

The bosses ran her out of the place (with the thanks of the ex-boyfriend) but she stood vigil just off the property. For two hours. One of them asked, “Can you imagine being that desperate that you’d hang out for hours hoping to scam some money off someone?”

“Been there,” I answered. “And I don’t think it was any prettier than her.”

One of the places I waited like that, more than once, was right here on Mark’s porch.

Then at home this afternoon, a couple of phone calls came in related to one of the former roommates here, a recovering crackhead who went back out after five years. Turns out he’s in jail right now.

Meanwhile I’m celebrating 18 months.


The whole thing’s given me some perspective. Reading those old journal entries I remembered where I’ve been. Seeing that girl today, I know how I must have looked at the time. And phone calls for someone who, almost two years ago, went back out after five years of sobriety shows me a future where my addiction is perfectly willing to wait, for years if needed, to retake the stage.

I’m reminded that I’m never more than a drink away from seeking out a crackhouse. And while I’m proud of having earned that new 18 month coin in my pocket, I’m reminded that there are at least a half a dozen bars in this town where turning in an AA coin will get you drink on the house – and probably a few rounds from the patrons.

I can never let feeling “comfortably confident in my recovery” become a substitute for vigilance.

Up to Tuesday

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