Recovery 2.0
"...that strange, perpetual weaving and unweaving of ourselves." - Walter Pater
So, of course I meant to write this six weeks ago, but all these things have kept happening, so I have put it off til things settled down a bit.
I might as well get it out of the way right now: I relapsed. I was sober from November 23rd, 2007, when I went into rehab for two months (mostly for Oxycontin and other opiates at the time) to March 6th, 2013. On March 7th, I took pure MDMA with a close and trusted friend, who I'd taken it (or less pure ecstasy, at least) with in years past. While the experience was not altogether bad, it was marred by anxiety and guilt that I couldn't dispell, which then made me feel even more lonely and insecure than the habitual state I'd fallen into, which I suppose led me to believe it'd be a good idea. Also, I lost one of my mp3 players when we were in a park late at night, which was an annoyance and a minor expense to replace, but which at the time (when still on the drug), I took to be a bad omen, that I'd done something very wrong and was being punished. My friend and I had earlier reminisced about MDMA and that's how the notion of doing it again came up.
Many people, when they relapse, it's almost just like a slip or stumble. They're having a rough week or whatever, get a case of the "fuck-its," as the expression goes, and decide a few drinks would be a good idea. Or they're at some party and someone offers them a drink or a hit of a joint, and they just don't say no. Well, not me. I knew that if this ever happened, it'd have to be under extraordinary circumstances, with an unusual substance, and with just the right person. And that's just what happened. Even when I was going to visit her, it was not originally part of the plan, but when the possibility came up, I became very eager to see it come to be. And I thought it'd represent such a break with the past, such an emotional catharsis, that I'd go beyond both the need to stay strictly sober all the time and my former destructive addictiveness. But it seems that deep down, I just wanted to open the door back up to drinking and doing other drugs, albeit in moderation. I felt, since I'd blown up my five-plus years of sobriety in spectacular fashion, with a bazooka, so to speak, the unfortunate, often horrible past along with the moribund, uninspiring present I seemed to be boxed into, would be obliterated. What good was being sober doing me? Hadn't I suffered enough of such privation? And weren't things different now? As I wrote in my new paper journal shortly after, on March 10th:
"After all, it would seem, I've come a long way from those dark days of 2007 and before. I've had a steady job where I command respect and am well-liked, if not well-paid. I have proven responsible enough to take care of two cats on my own for a few years, and charming enough to land my first girlfriend and a few dates with other girls besides. I've steadily, I hope, become a better son and grandson and brother and uncle, and a more honest, caring, and trustworthy friend to those I know. Haven't I earned the right to have a little fun with a close and trusted friend? I did it in part because I was depressed and in a rut. It has probably done little to solve that, but it has shaken things up, and perhaps that is what was needed. What the consequences of this shaking up will be, remains to be seen, but I will do my best to make sure they are positive."
That last line proved especially laughable, because as it turned out, that very week I picked up a six-pack of beer and began drinking at home by myself. At first it was a nice way to wind down the day after dinner. It did not really affect my performance at work, or much else. Then St. Patrick's Day rolled around, and I decided I wanted to get really fucked up, so I called my friend Travis in Ft. Lauderdale and told him I'd like to go out drinking. He was a little surprised at first but he agreed. I came down, drank a bunch downtown with him and some others, smoked a little pot, but in that anonymous and chaotic night I still felt empty. Travis is the kind of guy who knows everybody and talks easily to everybody. But even when pretty drunk, I didn't feel that comfortable with any of these people. The lesson I learned at the time was that it was cheaper and less bothersome to drink at home, so that's what I continued doing. Another unfortunate consequence of that night was that I started smoking cigarettes again, which I'd been free of since the start of the year.
So, a few more weeks went by, and I was starting to take alcohol to be just another thing in my life. Well, mostly. I started to like it, especially beer, in a way I never quite had before. The progression I'd heard about was happening, and I didn't like it. One night I had just bought a bunch of beer and drank a few of them, but the next day I decided I'd end this ill-advised experiment. I threw out over a dozen beers, and half a pack of cigarettes to boot. That was going to be that, but then a couple days later, well, I won't go into it all, but I got pulled into a situation where cocaine showed up, and I didn't say no. Back in the old days I liked cocaine, but then grew to hate it, and vowed never to touch it again. Now I remember why. It really has no appeal for me anymore, though I must say drinking still does. The week following that night, I went back to drinking (the smoking had already resumed). The grip of my newly resurrected problem was beginning to tighten.
Sometime during this period I had expressed a strong interest, to my manager, in taking a vacation. Not just a long weekend, like in March, but a whole week, so I could relax, and take a step back and see what the hell I wanted to do about my situation. It was going to be sometime in mid or late May, or possibly even June. Instead, he unexpectedly called me one day and asked if I wanted to take it the first week of May, since certain others would be going away later in the month. I accepted his offer, and so I ended up with eight days off in a row. As my vacation began, Roberto invited me out to a club where a few bands would be playing. So I went with him, and drank five beers, and smoked lots of cigarettes and stayed out very late and all that, later than I even wanted to. The next day, Sunday, I mostly spent recuperating. I did fairly little the next couple of days as well, though I still had some beer here and there. On Wednesday I met up with my friend Shanti from Deerfield (about half an hour south of me) and we saw Iron Man, and I told her about my situation of the past two months, which I hadn't gotten to before. She was concerned, but also said it was really up to me, rather than, for example, "You've gotta stop this!" Anyway, I had made an appointment for Thursday morning at 8 am with my old therapist from rehab, Craig. I hadn't seen him since summer or fall of 2012. Since I knew I had to be up very early the next day, Wednesday night I just had a single beer. It was my last, to date, on May 8th. I haven't done any other drugs since then either, though I still smoke, sparingly, as I did before the new year.
When I saw him I told him as much as I could, and read him a bit of my journal. He said it wasn't the end of the world that I'd relapsed, but he also said what I expected, that I should start going to AA again. My mom knows I have been seeing Craig and going to meetings again, but so far as I am aware, she doesn't know of my relapse. I may tell her one day, but not anytime soon. Most of my close friends already know. Now, I hadn't been to a meeting since January or February, and even by then I was going to them infrequently and indifferently. I caught the second half of a 9 am meeting nearby, got a smoothie, and went home and napped and mellowed out. Then I went out to an 8 pm one in Juno Beach, one that I first went to in rehab and which I have felt a special, unexplainable connection with, though I hadn't gone since probably 2010. Then I went to yet another one at 10 pm. Since then, I've been going fairly regularly to various meetings, though not every day. At a few of these I have shared what happened, and I've gotten a few phone numbers, though I have yet to use them. I don't have a sponsor yet either, having been without one since sometime in 2010. I'm very apprehensive about going back into the whole recovery thing full-bore as I originally did in 2008 and 2009, when I had a sponsor and went to meetings close to daily. The Twelve Steps actually appear kind of daunting, in a way they never had. Originally, you could say I did go through them, though surely not in the best way. After awhile I thought my work with that was pretty much done, and I could coast. That seems more dubious now, but it seems like this needless indignity to have to go back to what I feel is a bygone era of my life, and repeat what I advanced through and beyond. For now, I'm just going to meetings, sharing at some and talking to people occasionally before or afterward. Yesterday I even read some of my copy of the Big Book, the main text used in the program which I used to be fairly familiar with, and still am in many parts, but there is much I have forgotten. I never highlight or write in books, but I felt compelled to highlight a few passages. On page 24, in "There Is a Solution," I highlighted this: "We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink." On page 32, in "More About Alcoholism," I read, referring to an alcoholic whose story was being told, "Then he fell victim to a belief which practically every alcoholic has - that his long period of sobriety and self-discipline had qualified him to drink as other men." So it was with me. Though in my case I required something drastic to open these floodgates again, and thus the ecstasy.
Sometime in March, after the relapse, I became curious about a certain book that customers had occasionally requested, called Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom, by the late Irish poet, priest, and philosopher John O'Donohue. I bought it and read it slowly and at odd intervals. I only just finished it early this month. It's one of the best spiritual books I've ever read, truly wonderful. I gave a copy as a gift to Shanti and plan to give copies to others too. I won't go into it much now, but it's not just about Celtic stuff, but rather, it's a kind of perennial philosophy text. The author cites a wide variety of authors and traditions, eastern and western, religious and secular, to make his points, and his own writing is quite poetic itself. It has marked the beginning, along with my recent explorations of local parks and nature areas, of a revived interest in spirituality and contemplation for me. For the past two years or so I'd been engrossed in politics and journalism (especially before the 2012 elections), and have long led a very indoorsy, media-saturated existence. As one might expect, it has left me scattered and empty, though with a new sort of knowingness and sophistication, regarding current affairs and recent history. I don't exactly regret this self-initiation into a world I'd long ignored or held at arm's length, but the increased external focus, I suppose, contributed to inner impoverishment. It left me especially vulnerable to being blindsided by more immediate events in my own life, such as my hopeful but ill-fated dalliance with Lindsey in December and January. After that ended, I felt like a ticking time bomb (forgive that cliched expression, but it seems apt here) throughout February. Now that the bomb has gone off, I have been living in a new reality I long considered unthinkable. I have been trying to think of it as part of something larger, which I'll explain presently.
In some traditions of astrology there is a phenomenon known as the Saturn return. It's first supposed to take place between ages 27 and 30, and occurs at the same intervals for the rest of one's life. It refers to the amount of time Saturn takes to orbit the sun, about 29.4 years. (I turned 29 on January 12th, so I'm almost exactly there right now.) The first Saturn return is about crossing the threshold from youth to maturity. Some connect it with the infamous "27 club" in the musical world, that is, that company of musicians who died at or around age 27, like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Brian Jones, and dozens of others. It is typically a period of confusion, uncertainty, turmoil, and darkness, and, I've read, can often involve some great loss. In my case, that loss was my long-term sobriety. There was another loss recently too, that of my grandmother, who passed away May 20th at the age of 85. I don't feel like going into all the details of that, but I'm glad I was sober again by the time she entered the hospital. I was able to visit her twice along with my other family. Due to a stroke in 2002, she could no longer speak as of a few years ago, but she could still see and hear us. I went to the funeral on Wednesday, and afterward we had a gathering at my grandpa's house. He is 86, to be 87 in November, so if the foregoing holds, he is going through his own Saturn return, for most people the final one.
Whether any of this stuff is true or not, the fact remains that I am in a period of crisis and transition. I am afraid, but not entirely hopeless. I have made a few small moves toward looking for a new job, but for now my focus has been on screwing my head back on straight, not going more than a day or two without an AA meeting, maintaining clean and orderly surroundings (I've done a lot of house and car cleaning, but much remains to be done), not getting too isolated, not getting too worked up about anything, and not drinking or using. And of course, my awesome cats.
So, of course I meant to write this six weeks ago, but all these things have kept happening, so I have put it off til things settled down a bit.
I might as well get it out of the way right now: I relapsed. I was sober from November 23rd, 2007, when I went into rehab for two months (mostly for Oxycontin and other opiates at the time) to March 6th, 2013. On March 7th, I took pure MDMA with a close and trusted friend, who I'd taken it (or less pure ecstasy, at least) with in years past. While the experience was not altogether bad, it was marred by anxiety and guilt that I couldn't dispell, which then made me feel even more lonely and insecure than the habitual state I'd fallen into, which I suppose led me to believe it'd be a good idea. Also, I lost one of my mp3 players when we were in a park late at night, which was an annoyance and a minor expense to replace, but which at the time (when still on the drug), I took to be a bad omen, that I'd done something very wrong and was being punished. My friend and I had earlier reminisced about MDMA and that's how the notion of doing it again came up.
Many people, when they relapse, it's almost just like a slip or stumble. They're having a rough week or whatever, get a case of the "fuck-its," as the expression goes, and decide a few drinks would be a good idea. Or they're at some party and someone offers them a drink or a hit of a joint, and they just don't say no. Well, not me. I knew that if this ever happened, it'd have to be under extraordinary circumstances, with an unusual substance, and with just the right person. And that's just what happened. Even when I was going to visit her, it was not originally part of the plan, but when the possibility came up, I became very eager to see it come to be. And I thought it'd represent such a break with the past, such an emotional catharsis, that I'd go beyond both the need to stay strictly sober all the time and my former destructive addictiveness. But it seems that deep down, I just wanted to open the door back up to drinking and doing other drugs, albeit in moderation. I felt, since I'd blown up my five-plus years of sobriety in spectacular fashion, with a bazooka, so to speak, the unfortunate, often horrible past along with the moribund, uninspiring present I seemed to be boxed into, would be obliterated. What good was being sober doing me? Hadn't I suffered enough of such privation? And weren't things different now? As I wrote in my new paper journal shortly after, on March 10th:
"After all, it would seem, I've come a long way from those dark days of 2007 and before. I've had a steady job where I command respect and am well-liked, if not well-paid. I have proven responsible enough to take care of two cats on my own for a few years, and charming enough to land my first girlfriend and a few dates with other girls besides. I've steadily, I hope, become a better son and grandson and brother and uncle, and a more honest, caring, and trustworthy friend to those I know. Haven't I earned the right to have a little fun with a close and trusted friend? I did it in part because I was depressed and in a rut. It has probably done little to solve that, but it has shaken things up, and perhaps that is what was needed. What the consequences of this shaking up will be, remains to be seen, but I will do my best to make sure they are positive."
That last line proved especially laughable, because as it turned out, that very week I picked up a six-pack of beer and began drinking at home by myself. At first it was a nice way to wind down the day after dinner. It did not really affect my performance at work, or much else. Then St. Patrick's Day rolled around, and I decided I wanted to get really fucked up, so I called my friend Travis in Ft. Lauderdale and told him I'd like to go out drinking. He was a little surprised at first but he agreed. I came down, drank a bunch downtown with him and some others, smoked a little pot, but in that anonymous and chaotic night I still felt empty. Travis is the kind of guy who knows everybody and talks easily to everybody. But even when pretty drunk, I didn't feel that comfortable with any of these people. The lesson I learned at the time was that it was cheaper and less bothersome to drink at home, so that's what I continued doing. Another unfortunate consequence of that night was that I started smoking cigarettes again, which I'd been free of since the start of the year.
So, a few more weeks went by, and I was starting to take alcohol to be just another thing in my life. Well, mostly. I started to like it, especially beer, in a way I never quite had before. The progression I'd heard about was happening, and I didn't like it. One night I had just bought a bunch of beer and drank a few of them, but the next day I decided I'd end this ill-advised experiment. I threw out over a dozen beers, and half a pack of cigarettes to boot. That was going to be that, but then a couple days later, well, I won't go into it all, but I got pulled into a situation where cocaine showed up, and I didn't say no. Back in the old days I liked cocaine, but then grew to hate it, and vowed never to touch it again. Now I remember why. It really has no appeal for me anymore, though I must say drinking still does. The week following that night, I went back to drinking (the smoking had already resumed). The grip of my newly resurrected problem was beginning to tighten.
Sometime during this period I had expressed a strong interest, to my manager, in taking a vacation. Not just a long weekend, like in March, but a whole week, so I could relax, and take a step back and see what the hell I wanted to do about my situation. It was going to be sometime in mid or late May, or possibly even June. Instead, he unexpectedly called me one day and asked if I wanted to take it the first week of May, since certain others would be going away later in the month. I accepted his offer, and so I ended up with eight days off in a row. As my vacation began, Roberto invited me out to a club where a few bands would be playing. So I went with him, and drank five beers, and smoked lots of cigarettes and stayed out very late and all that, later than I even wanted to. The next day, Sunday, I mostly spent recuperating. I did fairly little the next couple of days as well, though I still had some beer here and there. On Wednesday I met up with my friend Shanti from Deerfield (about half an hour south of me) and we saw Iron Man, and I told her about my situation of the past two months, which I hadn't gotten to before. She was concerned, but also said it was really up to me, rather than, for example, "You've gotta stop this!" Anyway, I had made an appointment for Thursday morning at 8 am with my old therapist from rehab, Craig. I hadn't seen him since summer or fall of 2012. Since I knew I had to be up very early the next day, Wednesday night I just had a single beer. It was my last, to date, on May 8th. I haven't done any other drugs since then either, though I still smoke, sparingly, as I did before the new year.
When I saw him I told him as much as I could, and read him a bit of my journal. He said it wasn't the end of the world that I'd relapsed, but he also said what I expected, that I should start going to AA again. My mom knows I have been seeing Craig and going to meetings again, but so far as I am aware, she doesn't know of my relapse. I may tell her one day, but not anytime soon. Most of my close friends already know. Now, I hadn't been to a meeting since January or February, and even by then I was going to them infrequently and indifferently. I caught the second half of a 9 am meeting nearby, got a smoothie, and went home and napped and mellowed out. Then I went out to an 8 pm one in Juno Beach, one that I first went to in rehab and which I have felt a special, unexplainable connection with, though I hadn't gone since probably 2010. Then I went to yet another one at 10 pm. Since then, I've been going fairly regularly to various meetings, though not every day. At a few of these I have shared what happened, and I've gotten a few phone numbers, though I have yet to use them. I don't have a sponsor yet either, having been without one since sometime in 2010. I'm very apprehensive about going back into the whole recovery thing full-bore as I originally did in 2008 and 2009, when I had a sponsor and went to meetings close to daily. The Twelve Steps actually appear kind of daunting, in a way they never had. Originally, you could say I did go through them, though surely not in the best way. After awhile I thought my work with that was pretty much done, and I could coast. That seems more dubious now, but it seems like this needless indignity to have to go back to what I feel is a bygone era of my life, and repeat what I advanced through and beyond. For now, I'm just going to meetings, sharing at some and talking to people occasionally before or afterward. Yesterday I even read some of my copy of the Big Book, the main text used in the program which I used to be fairly familiar with, and still am in many parts, but there is much I have forgotten. I never highlight or write in books, but I felt compelled to highlight a few passages. On page 24, in "There Is a Solution," I highlighted this: "We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink." On page 32, in "More About Alcoholism," I read, referring to an alcoholic whose story was being told, "Then he fell victim to a belief which practically every alcoholic has - that his long period of sobriety and self-discipline had qualified him to drink as other men." So it was with me. Though in my case I required something drastic to open these floodgates again, and thus the ecstasy.
Sometime in March, after the relapse, I became curious about a certain book that customers had occasionally requested, called Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom, by the late Irish poet, priest, and philosopher John O'Donohue. I bought it and read it slowly and at odd intervals. I only just finished it early this month. It's one of the best spiritual books I've ever read, truly wonderful. I gave a copy as a gift to Shanti and plan to give copies to others too. I won't go into it much now, but it's not just about Celtic stuff, but rather, it's a kind of perennial philosophy text. The author cites a wide variety of authors and traditions, eastern and western, religious and secular, to make his points, and his own writing is quite poetic itself. It has marked the beginning, along with my recent explorations of local parks and nature areas, of a revived interest in spirituality and contemplation for me. For the past two years or so I'd been engrossed in politics and journalism (especially before the 2012 elections), and have long led a very indoorsy, media-saturated existence. As one might expect, it has left me scattered and empty, though with a new sort of knowingness and sophistication, regarding current affairs and recent history. I don't exactly regret this self-initiation into a world I'd long ignored or held at arm's length, but the increased external focus, I suppose, contributed to inner impoverishment. It left me especially vulnerable to being blindsided by more immediate events in my own life, such as my hopeful but ill-fated dalliance with Lindsey in December and January. After that ended, I felt like a ticking time bomb (forgive that cliched expression, but it seems apt here) throughout February. Now that the bomb has gone off, I have been living in a new reality I long considered unthinkable. I have been trying to think of it as part of something larger, which I'll explain presently.
In some traditions of astrology there is a phenomenon known as the Saturn return. It's first supposed to take place between ages 27 and 30, and occurs at the same intervals for the rest of one's life. It refers to the amount of time Saturn takes to orbit the sun, about 29.4 years. (I turned 29 on January 12th, so I'm almost exactly there right now.) The first Saturn return is about crossing the threshold from youth to maturity. Some connect it with the infamous "27 club" in the musical world, that is, that company of musicians who died at or around age 27, like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Brian Jones, and dozens of others. It is typically a period of confusion, uncertainty, turmoil, and darkness, and, I've read, can often involve some great loss. In my case, that loss was my long-term sobriety. There was another loss recently too, that of my grandmother, who passed away May 20th at the age of 85. I don't feel like going into all the details of that, but I'm glad I was sober again by the time she entered the hospital. I was able to visit her twice along with my other family. Due to a stroke in 2002, she could no longer speak as of a few years ago, but she could still see and hear us. I went to the funeral on Wednesday, and afterward we had a gathering at my grandpa's house. He is 86, to be 87 in November, so if the foregoing holds, he is going through his own Saturn return, for most people the final one.
Whether any of this stuff is true or not, the fact remains that I am in a period of crisis and transition. I am afraid, but not entirely hopeless. I have made a few small moves toward looking for a new job, but for now my focus has been on screwing my head back on straight, not going more than a day or two without an AA meeting, maintaining clean and orderly surroundings (I've done a lot of house and car cleaning, but much remains to be done), not getting too isolated, not getting too worked up about anything, and not drinking or using. And of course, my awesome cats.