Scenic Route

“Hi, my name is Bruce and I’m an alcoholic and an addict.”

That’s the way one introduces oneself at a meeting. Occasionally, I find it necessary (and entertaining) to add, “and I’m a recovering drama queen.”

We say these things at meetings to remind ourselves of who and what we are, and what will become of us should we falter and fail in our recovery. Sort of, “Oh yeah. That’s why I do this.”

After sitting in many rooms over the course of many one-days-at-a-time, it also helps to remove us from the moralizing that’s associated with the words in “civilian” life. This is an important part of recovery because time and energy spent on moralizing against oneself is time and energy not spent on recovery and healing.

I could just as easily say, “Hi, my name is Bruce and I’m a liar, a cheat and a thief.” This is true. And it’s accepted by my peers in the rooms as just another aspect of my disease and it has no impact on their opinion of me—largely because they could all say the same thing. And many have.

A large part of the disease is about self-deception. Drinking and drugging was a vain effort to deceive ourselves into thinking everything was just fine. That aspect of the disease continues into sobriety. “Oh, it really wasn’t that bad.” (No, it was worse.) So stating these things out loud, and in a room full of people, helps keep us from self-deception over our character defects.

Good recovery is a program of rigorous honesty. It means coming to terms with and accepting our character defects so that we can learn to live with them—then learn how to live without them. You can’t shed a character defect until you know you have it.

We learn that rigorous honesty in ourselves is not about self-flaggelation (or braggadocio). We learn that rigorous honesty in others is not about ammunition for the next bout of drama. We learn that rigorous honesty is not about value judgments.

One of my issues—a character defect—is that I have difficulty remembering that the rest of the world is not like recovery. Particularly here. Of course, that’s always been a problem.

Once upon a time, I would write things here purely for the shock value. This built drama which built readership back in the days before 10,000 new blogs appeared daily. I lived for hit count and being less than honest boosted the numbers.

Most often, I was less than honest about my role in the escapades I wrote about with Jeffrey. I skewed the reports in a way to make myself look like an innocent bystander, or worse, the victim. This was not the case. I was an equal and active participant in all those things.

Jeffrey went to jail for a crime I committed. His reasons for doing so are his to tell. The point is that he spared me a criminal record.

I also sent Jeffrey to jail for a crime I committed. That was on my birthday in 2000 when I picked a fight, egged him on and actively encouraged him to assault me. After I pushed him over the edge, I enjoyed it. I will never forget the pleasure of feeling my ribs flex under his blows, egging him on for more, until finally three of them broke.

Then I called 911 and had him arrested for it, lying to the police, the court and in the journal about it.

He did six months for that and deserved not a second of it. It landed me in recovery to reap the benefits.

The weather is unstable enough around here that hardly a day goes by when I don’t feel a deep throb—or occasional sharp twang—of pain over my right kidney to remind me of that day, where I’ve been and how far I’ve come.

It is an internal, physical reminder of the need for rigorous honesty, just like those spoken reminders at meetings. When I most need to be reminded of the importance of my recovery, my ribs are there to do it.

My only regret is that I abused my best friend, Jeffrey, in order to have that consistent, constant reminder.

Over the past few years I’ve worked my program with him, made my amends, personally and privately. That’s only a very small part of the reason I continue to see him. He remains my best friend and, in my family of choice, my brother. I am immensely grateful that in his family of choice, I too am his brother.

This is why once a week I write, why I send him small gifts when I can, and why once a month I take a day off to go to prison for a visit. (And why I do his web site for him.)

Where I haven’t made amends is in the same public arena where I vilified him for over two years running. My Webster’s Unabridged defines vilify as “to speak ill of; defame; slander.” This is an accurate description of what I did.

I said it at the top of this entry, “I’m a liar, a cheat and thief.” I lied by way of careful manipulation of the truth. I cheated readers out of learning why I choose Jeffrey as my best friend and brother in my family of choice. I stole from Jeffrey his trust in me in addition to months and months of his life.

These are some of my character defects and the pain they (I) have caused others. This is rigorous honesty, not self-flaggelation (or braggadocio). Just the facts, ma’am.

So why bring all this up today? Jeffrey’s journal entry on this very topic. I want to be sure that his entry is read in context. And I want to make the public amends he asks for in it.

He deserves that. And frankly, my own pride, shame and embarassment (more character defects) have prevented me from doing so.

How this came about relates back to the language of recovery. I wrote about him on June 27. Some of what I wrote was taken out of context—out of the language of recovery—and misunderstood. That misunderstanding was passed to him and it reopened these old wounds between us.

Despite the anger he expresses in his entry, and the frustration he expressed in letters, he has handled this really, really well. He doesn’t think so and apologized today at our visit, saying he could have handled it better.

Respectfully, I disagree. Honest anger, like any other rigorous honesty, requires no apology—even when it’s based on misunderstanding. And did I mention I thought he handled it really, really well?

In recovery, we refer to it as a miracle when it actually sinks in and starts to make sense. There are slogans to that effect, “Fake it ‘til you make it” and “Don’t quit the day before your miracle.”

This whole thing serves only to underscore that I think Jeffrey has experienced his miracle. Absolutely, he faked it ‘til he made it, but thank heavens he didn’t quit the day before his miracle.

The changes I’ve seen in him over the past several months are astonishing. I’m completely blown away. Most unusual for me, I’m at a loss for words to describe. They’ll come some day, I’m sure.

He is the Phoenix rising from the ashes—ashes of his own making, ashes for which he isn’t responsible and ashes for which I am responsible.

I just wanted to say that.

Thanks for letting me share.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 6th, 2004 at 10:38 pm EDT and is filed under Generic, Program. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.