It's been said that I chase my tail in my writings, that I go around in circles. Some say that my writing is inspiring. Yet others say they are predictable or that I share a simple every day occurrence and wrap it up with a warm and fuzzy ending. To all of my readers I want you to know that my chapters come from the bottom of my heart and are done in one sitting. That is why they are occasionally a little rough around the edges. When it comes to chasing my tail, or going around in circles, that may be true but each circuit is a new trip for me.
I have read in some of my addiction literature that active addicts don't have the capacity to form true bonds with other people. I am not stating that as a fact or expert. I do believe it. I would take it a step farther and add that this would go for any kind of "ism" or "ic." From the workaholic to living with an "ic" of any kind, the condition demands 24 hour attention from the sufferer and unfortunately often at the expense of those around us.
I grew up in a family where my dad was a definite workaholic. My mom worked as a single mother and had my step dad's issues to deal with. As a kid that left little time to squeeze me in. I don't say that with self pity. That was just the way it was. I knew they loved me. They were just wrapped up in their own thing and my troubles, worries, triumphs and ramblings were not at the top of the honey do list.
As I got older and formed relationships with friends and women, I had the capacity to engage but was riddled with insecurity and fear. There were jealousy and abandonment issues. Control and anxiety flourished. Ultimately things revolved around ME and my feelings. I could be the greatest guy in the world as long as you were reacting the way I felt you should be to my actions and needs. I always felt I deserved or didn't deserve more love or attention. Often I felt I deserved nothing so chaos or self destruction was a logical response for everyday interaction in any relationship.
I had all the scenes played out in my head for the people in my life. As long as you were in character and on cue I was thrilled. If you had different reactions than those I expected I pouted, got angry, ran away and was generally miserable. I did not have the capability to take others' feelings fully into consideration or to appreciate what they were going through in the moment. The disease of alcoholism and addiction centers in the mind. My mind was working full time trying to force the world to be what I wanted it to be. Since it only worked out like I wanted it to, occasionally I was miserable and looked for escape! I lived in a parallel universe that was not reality but very real to me. The world isn't filled with trained poodles. We are all human and that burned me up.
At family get togethers I couldn't wait to escape and get drunk the way I wanted to drink. At my kid's parties I watched the clock praying for the parents to come get their kids so I could go get high. I did not appreciate their happy faces as they tore open gifts and played pin the tail on the donkey. I rushed through every moment of my life chasing something that I couldn't catch. I was running from me, myself and I so I certainly couldn't fully relate to you or anybody else. I loved and spent time with the kids and loved ones but my fears of them getting hurt, or hurting me or the world not matching my grand plan left me one click away from completely connected.
I was sure I knew how everybody should lead their lives best and doled out advice like Dr. Phil. But I couldn't even balance a check book or separate the whites and the darks. I would half listen to all the people in my life while internally judging, convicting and passing sentence on them for all of their weaknesses. My mind would not shut off so I did what I had to do to slow it down a few notches. In that state I was neither here nor there.
Sobriety is about living life in the now. Right now. I love it. I have only been living in it for a few years now. It is like I have been Rip Van Winkle for the last 28 years and have just been awakened. I try not to take anything for granted because I used to take EVERYTHING for granted. What you may find inane I find fascinating. I was blind but now I see! Imagine not remembering a decade or more of your life. Can you do it?
If you can, imagine how your children have changed. You have gotten older. The world is different but your mind is what it was when you fell asleep. I may be going around in circles but they are new and fascinating trips each time. I am growing. I was stunted in my emotional development for years. I was a middle aged teenager. Drugs and alcohol stop you dead in your tracks upstairs. I am grateful to have a chance to "see" again. There are many who don't get the chance.
Sometimes I feel recovering addicts and alcoholics are the lucky ones and earthlings are the unlucky. In recovery I have learned to treasure life. I have learned that trusting God is way easier than worry. Worry doesn't get me anything but sick. It has also given me the chance to repair some damage I have done along the way to today. Most folks just carry the baggage. My load gets lighter by the day. I have learned to forgive because whoever I hold a grudge towards isn't at home thinking about me so why should I let them have power over me?
Mostly I have learned that every day is a gift. I can't change the past. PERIOD! I can make an honest attempt to make things right. If I want folks to forgive me I certainly have to return the favor. I also know tomorrow will take care of itself. I can make plans but I can't plan outcomes. Worry is not a God given emotion. Today is where it's at. Each day is exciting. Sometimes they're shite! All of them I feel exactly as they are meant to be.
Showing posts with label Disease. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Disease. Show all posts
Friday, August 5, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
Marriage #2.....Robbing the Cradle....Part One.
It's been a few chapters since I travelled back to the days when my addictions were completely out of control and I was on the fast track to eternity. I have said that I don't remember the 90's very well, if at all, and marriage #2 is a fuzzy, vodka soaked blur. I can honestly say that I don't remember what day we got married on. I do recall that it was February and it would have been in 1995 or 1996.
In the recovery part of addiction there are actions that need to be completed to reconcile with people and clean up the damage we have inflicted upon those who were around us in our using days. As I have made reference to before, the three stages of drinking are: "How are you," "I love you," and "F#*K you." Obviously the most damage is done in the third stage of inebriation. There were plenty of good memories associated with partying. It wasn't all homelessness and despair. But I can say that the times I did the most harm to the ones I loved, or cared about, occurred when I was ripped.
My second marriage lasted about 4 or 5 months. We had worked together and she was 11 years younger than me. She was beautiful and bubbly and could be called a "trophy wife." She knew I was an alcoholic. Heck, everyone knew I was. I knew I was but was comfortable with the tag. The word didn't phase me, but if you called me crazy or nuts I would go off. That angered me because it was true. She came from better stock than I did and we had absolutely nothing in common.
The age difference was hard enough to deal with. I like rock and punk. She liked hip-hop and dance. I loved books. She loved magazines. I liked culture and art. She liked watching "Friends." We were "right on" intimately but after 2 hours of work outs there are still 22 hours left in the day. Those times were the only moments we connected. She had a good heart and I think she thought she could "save" me from myself. At that point, Jesus himself couldn't talk me out of drinking and taking pills.
She had some medical issues and had been told she was unable to have children. We took no precautions since they weren't needed. After a few weeks of dating she missed her cycle and we bought a pregnancy test which happened to come up positive. We were both elated. This was our "Immaculate Conception." She had been told it was impossible, and WE defied the odds! She went to the doctor who confirmed she was pregnant. I was thrilled. I was going to be a DADDY! It was the one thing I wanted more than anything in the world.
I pictured us at Sox games and playing catch. We would eat bologna sandwiches at our first Bear game, just like me and my Pops did. It was idyllic and I obsessed about it during all of my waking moments. I was going to do the things my parents didn't have the time, or emotional availability, to do with me. I knew my new baby would give me the motivation to go on the straight and narrow. I would swear off the drink, weed, speed, pills, and all the other stuff I got off on. My little bundle of joy would be my savior from self-destruction.
We flew to Vegas. Yes! Las Vegas, the marriage capitol of the world. She was only 20. I was 31. She demanded that I not drink on the trip and she was too young to gamble. We were in Vegas! It was like going to a girlie bar and making a pact not to look at the girls. I was determined to do the right thing and give the child the Connolly name. My random nobility and twisted morality drove my decisions. This world would not carry the bastard child of Tommy Connolly!
I do not remember any of the wedding ceremony, or that entire day, for that matter. I was in a speed induced blackout. Yes, that is possible. I do remember we ended our wedding night in an argument and slept in separate beds on our honeymoon night. We spent a few days seeing the sights but neither of us were giggly newlyweds. We both sensed disaster in our procreated union. We flew home with plans for me to move into her condo in the western suburbs.
While we cleaned up my apartment in Lockport, Illinois, we found 32 empty vodka and whiskey bottles. I packed a friend's Blazer with what would fit and left the rest behind. My cat "Capone" was all I cared about. To be honest I really don't care much for cats but Capone was my family since the landlord didn't allow dogs. I also packed my album collection. It is a menagerie of classics and iconic albums. The rest was just stuff that cluttered my life. I told my neighbor Frank to take whatever he wanted from my abandoned unit. He too had tried to help me get sober but I was unreachable.
Alcoholics and addicts change boyfriends and girlfriends, we move to new places, and take new jobs thinking that these changes will snap us out of our insanity. We make plans for sobriety but after a few cajoling sips of the sauce, those plans are drank away. Addiction is happy with us no matter where we are at or who we are with as long as we are using. If someone or something tried to get us to change our ways, the disease talks us into ridding ourselves of them instead of it.
We started to play house as boy and wife, and it was rocky all the way. The only bond that kept us connected to our complete disconnection with each other was the pregnancy. 13 days after we were married we went in for her first ultrasound. She was excited and had a gorgeous smile. She beamed as the nurse began moving the x-ray like wand over her stomach. I was directed to the monitor next to her. There was little Tommy Connolly. I could see the finger and toes of my future Hall-o-Famer and his big fat melon. But the picture didn't seem right. The feelings I had turned from light to darkness.
There was only one thing that was missing from that perfect picture. It was movement and a heartbeat. It was the first of two of these scenes that I would endure in my short lived marriages. Being the first miscarriage I had ever experienced, I was crushed. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. My head filled with rage at the doctors and hate for everything crammed itself into every corner of my being. She was inconsolable. The doctors had been right in their prognosis concerning her ability to have children. She didn't see the monitor. That I am thankful for. It is burned into my mind and I can recall the vision as clearly today as that devastating day 15 years ago.
How could God be so cruel? My only wish was to be a drunken, pill popping daddy of the year. Now he did this? My drinking and drug use escalated and the relationship deteriorated by the second. The one thing that held us together had been removed. I had more reasons to fuel my liquid suicide and would soon sink to a level I couldn't conceive of even in my darkest, drunken thinking.
In the recovery part of addiction there are actions that need to be completed to reconcile with people and clean up the damage we have inflicted upon those who were around us in our using days. As I have made reference to before, the three stages of drinking are: "How are you," "I love you," and "F#*K you." Obviously the most damage is done in the third stage of inebriation. There were plenty of good memories associated with partying. It wasn't all homelessness and despair. But I can say that the times I did the most harm to the ones I loved, or cared about, occurred when I was ripped.
My second marriage lasted about 4 or 5 months. We had worked together and she was 11 years younger than me. She was beautiful and bubbly and could be called a "trophy wife." She knew I was an alcoholic. Heck, everyone knew I was. I knew I was but was comfortable with the tag. The word didn't phase me, but if you called me crazy or nuts I would go off. That angered me because it was true. She came from better stock than I did and we had absolutely nothing in common.
The age difference was hard enough to deal with. I like rock and punk. She liked hip-hop and dance. I loved books. She loved magazines. I liked culture and art. She liked watching "Friends." We were "right on" intimately but after 2 hours of work outs there are still 22 hours left in the day. Those times were the only moments we connected. She had a good heart and I think she thought she could "save" me from myself. At that point, Jesus himself couldn't talk me out of drinking and taking pills.
She had some medical issues and had been told she was unable to have children. We took no precautions since they weren't needed. After a few weeks of dating she missed her cycle and we bought a pregnancy test which happened to come up positive. We were both elated. This was our "Immaculate Conception." She had been told it was impossible, and WE defied the odds! She went to the doctor who confirmed she was pregnant. I was thrilled. I was going to be a DADDY! It was the one thing I wanted more than anything in the world.
I pictured us at Sox games and playing catch. We would eat bologna sandwiches at our first Bear game, just like me and my Pops did. It was idyllic and I obsessed about it during all of my waking moments. I was going to do the things my parents didn't have the time, or emotional availability, to do with me. I knew my new baby would give me the motivation to go on the straight and narrow. I would swear off the drink, weed, speed, pills, and all the other stuff I got off on. My little bundle of joy would be my savior from self-destruction.
We flew to Vegas. Yes! Las Vegas, the marriage capitol of the world. She was only 20. I was 31. She demanded that I not drink on the trip and she was too young to gamble. We were in Vegas! It was like going to a girlie bar and making a pact not to look at the girls. I was determined to do the right thing and give the child the Connolly name. My random nobility and twisted morality drove my decisions. This world would not carry the bastard child of Tommy Connolly!
I do not remember any of the wedding ceremony, or that entire day, for that matter. I was in a speed induced blackout. Yes, that is possible. I do remember we ended our wedding night in an argument and slept in separate beds on our honeymoon night. We spent a few days seeing the sights but neither of us were giggly newlyweds. We both sensed disaster in our procreated union. We flew home with plans for me to move into her condo in the western suburbs.
While we cleaned up my apartment in Lockport, Illinois, we found 32 empty vodka and whiskey bottles. I packed a friend's Blazer with what would fit and left the rest behind. My cat "Capone" was all I cared about. To be honest I really don't care much for cats but Capone was my family since the landlord didn't allow dogs. I also packed my album collection. It is a menagerie of classics and iconic albums. The rest was just stuff that cluttered my life. I told my neighbor Frank to take whatever he wanted from my abandoned unit. He too had tried to help me get sober but I was unreachable.
Alcoholics and addicts change boyfriends and girlfriends, we move to new places, and take new jobs thinking that these changes will snap us out of our insanity. We make plans for sobriety but after a few cajoling sips of the sauce, those plans are drank away. Addiction is happy with us no matter where we are at or who we are with as long as we are using. If someone or something tried to get us to change our ways, the disease talks us into ridding ourselves of them instead of it.
We started to play house as boy and wife, and it was rocky all the way. The only bond that kept us connected to our complete disconnection with each other was the pregnancy. 13 days after we were married we went in for her first ultrasound. She was excited and had a gorgeous smile. She beamed as the nurse began moving the x-ray like wand over her stomach. I was directed to the monitor next to her. There was little Tommy Connolly. I could see the finger and toes of my future Hall-o-Famer and his big fat melon. But the picture didn't seem right. The feelings I had turned from light to darkness.
There was only one thing that was missing from that perfect picture. It was movement and a heartbeat. It was the first of two of these scenes that I would endure in my short lived marriages. Being the first miscarriage I had ever experienced, I was crushed. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. My head filled with rage at the doctors and hate for everything crammed itself into every corner of my being. She was inconsolable. The doctors had been right in their prognosis concerning her ability to have children. She didn't see the monitor. That I am thankful for. It is burned into my mind and I can recall the vision as clearly today as that devastating day 15 years ago.
How could God be so cruel? My only wish was to be a drunken, pill popping daddy of the year. Now he did this? My drinking and drug use escalated and the relationship deteriorated by the second. The one thing that held us together had been removed. I had more reasons to fuel my liquid suicide and would soon sink to a level I couldn't conceive of even in my darkest, drunken thinking.
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