Ice Capades

So.....in getting up early to make a drive for a much needed 12 Step meeting today, I drove a mile and an inner voice of reason and common sense brought me back home. Frozen rain turned the roads around here into Skateland. Sure of my ability to navigate on half and inch of ice, the "other" cars on the pond were sliding aimlessly, white knuckles apparent, into ditches and snow berms in unison. Lot's of silent screaming visible through oncoming windshields. I now sit safe, having had an hour of dialog with my housemate, the topics of survival from relationships gone awry, sex, and his current insights from the readings of Don Miguel Ruiz's Four Agreements and The Mastery Of Love. The next best thing to a meeting for me.

Spud called at 1AM to let me know he was still drinking himself to death. I listened to his slurs of altered wisdom as he was in need of being heard. I blessed him, told him I loved him and pondered his fate as I drifted back to sleep. Dreams of walking on ice with tread less shoes prevailed as I interpret sure footedness is required. It seems I have been walking on ice most of this year, yet the ice has been thicker than expected.

Standing outside a while ago with a cup of coffee, the Crows and Steller's Jays aware of my new back of peanuts. The Towhees saying hello from the safety of their leafless brier. Tossing the peanuts like a princess in a parade to the hungry children as they say thank you, scrambling to get their fair shares. One of the Jays, a constant who awakens me every morning from a tree next to my window, singing a song in mock of another species. Not the sound of a jay but a Robin on high volume. As I step out the door, he is right there greeting me as a good friend indeed.

As my body acclimates to graveyard shifts, exhaustion takes hold. The human condition of wintertime hibernation taps me and beckons me to recline with a good book and a nap. I will do that soon as the rest of the world will patiently wait for me to do my dance. A dance of social healing based on the theme of recovery. As my reality is shifting, it is as if the melting ice and snow is revealing something of newness, of mystery. For the moment I must wait and allow the melt to occur around me, as me and all my perceived power will only melt what is beneath my warm feet.

StevenLoon

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If I can get through the day without condemning, criticizing or complaining, it's been a good day. If I don't give advice, it's been perfect. - Flloyd Ashcraft

Holidaze

So.....HELLO......There's an article in the December Reader's Digest called Hello Everybody. It is about a man who greeted everybody in his path for a month with a hello or by waving and smiling. He cites 11 things you can learn from one small change.Good article and I won't drone on with the details, yet I ask you to read it and perhaps practice it. I have been practicing it all my life as I am a friendly kind of guy, regardless of the fronts I build and masks I wear. Those of you who know me intimately, know that I am a kind man. Those who don't are terrified of me and think I'm a prick. I am both.

Yesterday I waved at a driver. She was in the turn lane banging her hands on the steering wheel and yelling through the windshield what appeared to be bad words. I stopped and waved and let her turn into her asphalt ramp into shopper's blissland. She looked at me sideways like I was up to something as the driver in the car behind me started banging her hands on the steering wheel. It was like I transferred the first woman's load into the woman behind me. I waved at the woman behind me and she flipped me off. I started laughing and shaking my head as it was so ridiculous, which made her flip harder for emphasis. I laughed harder and waved as she went by in the other lane spewing what I'm sure were bad words. I don't think she could have been sitting any farther forward on the seat of her SUV as she was screaming SOB. Better her than me.

I pulled into a video store to rent Dark Knight, which saw in the theater a few months ago. I walked in saying hello to the clerks, who in turn said hello. I said hello to a customer who was scanning the shelves nearby, and she mumbled hello without a glance in my direction, an automatic response. As I could sit and watch people all day for entertainment, and I sometimes do, I am having fun with this. Especially that most people act like they have never heard the word hello before. I judge that they are waiting for a sales pitch or a spare change comment. Granted I have long hair, but I dress well and look halfway successful. Perhaps I might ask for change for a nickel.

Loon

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If I can get through the day without condemning, criticizing or complaining, it's been a good day. If I don't give advice, it's been perfect. - Flloyd Ashcraft

Father Spud

So......Spud's Father, Curly is 83 with close to 20 years sobriety and just as stubborn as his spawn. Curly had back surgery on November 13th, put off from weeks early due to heart concerns and subsequent testing. Initially when Spud called me back in early October, his words were, "Steven, I need to sober up so I can be there for Dad." Knowing good and well that a man's motivation to sobriety in most cases must be for self, as I reflect on the many times I tried to get clean and sober for my woman or my family. It did not gel until I did it for me me me.....

I arrive yesterday to take a sober man to see his Father. To dance with the facility who was nurturing him post-op. A meeting with a team of four who were processing Curly back to his world of living in an upscale "crusty old fuck" apartment complex surrounded by medical services, including a major Catholic hospital across the street. Spud was shaking horribly and a total embarrassment to himself, asking me to stop at a bar on the way to the meeting. The meeting being that he, Spud, held power of attorney over Curly's affairs. His mind was sharp as a tack, yet his body betrayed that intelligence by the visible shaking, so he sat on his hands as the one hour meeting kicked off.

Two of Curly's sponsee's were in attendance as they had been picking up the slack from Spud's inability to be there for Dad. As we left, a few documents were handed to Spud, which I took and filled out when we got back to his house. His plea for a drink were akin to a child at the candy store window as I pulled into the liquor store to buy him a pint of vodka and a Starbucks Capacino for the mixer. Now, keep in mind that I have not bought a bottle in a liquor store in over 22 years. In fact the only times I have been in said stores was for moving boxes. As a look at the many flavors of Absolute Vodka, I felt I was looking for the right size of pants for my arduous frame. Ah.....there it is, 14 buck a pint? Monarch is five bucks, yet he may as well have his brand as it is the best and he may as well go down in flames as he is sitting outside in the car a total fucking pathetic mess, rocking back and forth like a junkie waiting for his fix. I take my time, not to be cruel but social with the dolt behind the counter who works for the state. No sense of humor as I try to engage her in smalltalk.

Spud is shaking so bad that he cannot open the Starbuck's as he screams, "fucking packaging. Steven, will you open this please?"
I look over my glasses at him and say "you want me to just put a nipple on the bottle", to which he replies "fuck you." I open the Starbuck's with a knife as it was childproof, not to be cruel..... 10 minutes later he is normal and not shaking. Keep in mind here that no one has ever died of Heroin withdrawal, yet many have keeled over in their vomit from sudden alcohol withdrawal. Spud now wants to live, for his Father. Funny how the ultra intelligent, pickled in their addictions, process denial.

After he is back in the groove, we talk about which inpatient he will attend soon. He already contacted Hazelden in Michigan, his alma mater, having been there twice already, yet he won't answer the phone when they call back. I tell him that I will get him to the airport and feed his cat, clean his house up, and do the next indicated thing around Curly. He balks. I then ask him if he wants cremation or burial, Stubborn Nordic Asshole on his tombstone. I offer to call a hooker as I plug in Ken Burn's The War Part 2 as I fill out the paperwork he was handed at the meeting earlier.

Four hours now and it is time for me to leave. He asks me to take the rest of his vodka to which I respond to keep it. I tell him I am not going to babysit him and once again get hooked into his drama. That he has an appointment in the morning with Curly and company to transition him into his home. I tell him that when he is ready for a ride to the airport that I will be there. I will call him at 8AM every morning for a while to remind him that he is loved and cared about. That I will love him until he can learn to love himself. He is grateful and respectful that I sobered him up long enough to take care of business. Until the next time.....

Today I go north to hook up with a man I will ask to be my sponsor. He is 20 plus years clean and sober. A Sundancer I have been in the Lodge with a few times. He will introduce me to some 12 step meetings I have not been to in my new geographic. I was talking to him on the phone when I was on my way to Spud's on Sunday. He told me to "walk tall" as we ended our conversation. I have a warm feeling in my heart in anticipation. It is my turn now to get some healing as I am so fucking cut up. My turn.....

StevenLoon

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If I can get through the day without condemning, criticizing or complaining, it's been a good day. If I don't give advice, it's been perfect. - Flloyd Ashcraft

Testimony...

So....last night at my workplace, I circled up 18 men and women to hear the testimony of one woman. Her story was 20 minutes long. She spoke of her addiction to crystal meth and the holes it had put in her brain, thus the reasons for the voices in her head. Voices she claimed were not hers. When her story was finished she was wanting to go. To be done and run away from the "hot seat" she was anticipating. I smiled at her reassuring, and opened it up for questions. As I could not participate, I encouraged the others to ask her anything that they may be pondering. The questions were few, yet the one that hit home was, "will you use meth again?" Her answer was,"If I do, I will be taken to a mental institution for the rest of my life." She was very clear about that.

I left feeling hopeless and helpless for this woman. Her story described her three children, their two fathers, and her betrayal of her current husband, who is fighting in Iraq. Of her rape and escape from being murdered years ago. Of the voices, telling her to use meth. The woman is young in her early thirties and very beautiful in appearance, yet her inner world is not so beautiful. There is potential for some major healing for this woman, yet the odds of her recovery are nauseatingly slim. The demons speaking to her have her outnumbered. This is her second 45 day visit in six months and she will most likely become a dire statistic.

Last year I bought a t-shirt that reads across the front, "Don't Piss Off The Voices." A shirt that I choose not to wear to work. Yet it is my work to rile up the voices, give them what they want in most cases to quiet them, and shut them up when they are saboteurs and demons. I am really fucking good at this as it is not only my training, but what I believe to be a Spirit given gift. Yet the gift has a couple of hooks in the aspect that my own voices are a virtual symphony of chaos and rebellion. My own voices some would call "the committee", which I am the chairman. The visual for me is best described in today's reality of Obama circled up with a bunch of Grand Dragons of the KKK. In other words, hard work akin to pissing in the wind at times.

On my drive home from work last night, 25 miles on relatively quiet back roads, music off and eyes peeled for ever present deer, a hawk snatched a rodent illuminated by my headlights. Had I not slowed down, the hawk would have been a grill ornament and a five minute stop in the middle of my adventure homeward. As I know that when a hawk passes in front of me, the message is to look closely ahead. As I proceeded somewhat slower than the 60 mph I was driving, around the next bend were two deer in the road dong the mosey. I honked, they bounded, and back to 60. I was grateful for the 45 second interlude that I was witness to. My mind recalling an event a couple of decades ago when I missed a deer by mere inches going 70 plus on my motorcycle, causing a sudden release of intestinal gas as I ramped down the shoulder into the roadside brush.

The woman with holes in her brain is in my heart today. I will put her name on a prayer request when I go to church. She will be held in the hearts of a few people who will hold loving intention for her. I will continue to hold the same as I detach from her emotionally as much as I possibly can. Detachment from those that I could assist in their healing is hard, yet I am harnessed in the aspect that I cannot counsel patients in my "bottom of the ladder" position where I work. As I work in the 3rd rated Native American treatment center in the country, whatever they are doing is working. I must be careful not to break what is not broken. Yet my voices tell me otherwise. They tell me to "break what is not broken."

Eyes open, watching for hawks........

Loon

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If I can get through the day without condemning, criticizing or complaining, it's been a good day. If I don't give advice, it's been perfect. - Flloyd Ashcraft

Murphy One

So....Murphy was my first real sponsor in 12 Step Recovery. My previous two sponsors were really ineffective in my sobriety path. The first man bombarded me with his religious beliefs. The second man was intimidated by my drug use history and did not understand my needs around talking about it. Murphy was a fearless total asshole and embraced me without judgment. He died of brain cancer 17 years ago. I still work with him in Spirit. I will now begin to tell you about him......

In June of 1986 I walked into an AA meeting, walking distance from my house. It was in a city council chambers and there were two meetings a week held there. A year earlier, I was asked to leave that meeting and go to Narcotics Anonymous as I was a "drugger". The "old timers" in that meeting did not want to hear about intravenous drug use and all the bells and whistles that accompanied such atrocious behavior. Yet I got more out of AA so I went back with a few months clean and sober....

There was a man in the meeting who was disruptive, profane, and made me laugh. They called him Murphy. I continued to go to that meeting just to hear him speak, as he spoke what he felt. I pretty much kept my mouth shut as I knew not to talk about drugs as per my previous experience. Murphy and I had not talked, yet we sized each other up and smiled a smile at one another. Two troublemakers in a room of 50 or so people, and I had yet to cause any trouble.

One Friday night, I found a meeting in the University District of Seattle. A Men's Stag meeting which was in the basement of a Church. I walked in and lo and behold, there's Murphy. He smiled an impish smile at me and nodded his head. There were about 20 men there and I was in an angry mood. Every man talked in this meeting and it was over when it was over, sometimes running a couple of hours. Turned out to be the oldest meeting in Puget Sound at the time, something like 46 years old.

As I sat and listened to six or eight men, my turn came around. I started talking about my drug use and one man interrupted me and told me to go to NA. I threw a fit and wiped a few ashtrays off the table and flipped the table upside down, sending a couple of cups of coffee spinning on the floor. I ranted for a few minutes about all the old assholes in AA that don't welcome a man like me, even though in my alcohol use I drank a fifth a day plus a six pack or more of beer. When I drank wine, I would drink the whole half gallon. Yes, I was also an alcoholic, and I just happened to do drugs as well.

I stood there with my fists balled up and vibrating like a jackhammer when I finished my oratory. Murphy spoke first by saying, "are you done?", to which I replied that I was. He then said, "keep coming back so we can needle you a little bit", and they all laughed their asses off. I then walked out slamming the door as hard as I possibly could, then went home feeling better after speaking my voice about not feeling accepted in AA.

At the Sunday city hall meeting close to home, Murphy sat next to me and wanted to know if I drank or used after the Friday meeting. I told him no and he invited me for coffee after the meeting. He thanked me for waking up the Friday Men's Meeting. He said that after I left, the men felt like shit for laughing at me. He asked me to come back and tear into them again. The following Friday, I returned to open arms and more laughter than I could have expected. On crusty old curmudgeon handed me a box that contained a foot long Veterinary syringe. I sucked up his coffee with it and threatened to put it in appropriated orifice. This was the first time I felt totally accepted in AA.

I walked up to Murphy after that meeting, pigeon toed and hesitant. He saw me coming and braced himself as he intuitively knew my intention. I asked him if he would sponsor me. He said, "fuck no, go get a sponsor in NA." Then he started laughing and said yes, that he would sponsor me. He told me sobriety was easy. "Just inhale and exhale, and don't drink or use between breaths". He told me to go to the meetings he attended, (which I already was) read the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and work the steps with him. I now had a sponsor who, as it turned out, sponsored a couple of dozen men. I was so very grateful to have this caustic, profane, prick of a man to look up to.

StevenLoon

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If I can get through the day without condemning, criticizing or complaining, it's been a good day. If I don't give advice, it's been perfect. - Flloyd Ashcraft

The Fuckit

So......ever wake up funky? Commonly called "the wrong side of the bed" with an attitude of "fuckit". That was me this morning after a ten hour shift, getting to bed at 2AM and up at nine. As I lay there not wanting to be conscious and deal with the day, I recognized that much of my squeaking squirrel cage was someone else's rat and not the cute fluffy squirrel with the velvet painting eyes that I know and love.

After laying there for an hour, tossing, turning, and churning in chronic negativity, I got up and smudged, prayed, picked up the phone and called someone I love and talked about it and cried for half and hour. It took me some time to recognize that in what I call my "empath glitch", often feeling so much for others and ignoring or denying any empathy for myself. Seeing myself as running on empty so to speak. Fucked up thinking perhaps, yet that's how I awakened today.

I got a call last night from a man in Massachusetts. He spun out his car in a snowstorm coming home from Vermont and was out in the middle of nowhere at midnight, his car totaled, asking me to call any MKP Brothers I know to help him. I immediately felt his panic, fear, and hopelessness and had to tell him I was working and could not talk. I wished him luck and had to hang up, yet I was hooked into his drama and worried about him. On of the rats on my wheel this morning.

Now this man I have an attachment to. A former client who almost made it to the weekend a few years ago but turned around half way there because he was afraid his woman would leave him, which she eventually did. He carries twice the drama that I drag around in my life, yet I feel for him. I have watched him grow leaps and bounds by simply following my suggestions around books to read and a couple of hours a month of my "giveaway therapy" over the phone. He is actually doing his work in some manner other than MKP. He also has double digit sobriety and continues to devote himself to 12 Step work.

Additionally, Spud called me yesterday and verbally abused me for not keeping him sober. I listened to his drunken rants on what an asshole I was as I could not come over and "fluff his pillow". When I told him to stop drinking and consider yet another journey to inpatient, he once again said, "fuck you Steven", and hung up. Another rat on the wheel.

So, as I feel so much for these men in chaos. I must, absolutely must, stay present with gratitude for the here and now. I have noticed as I get hooked into the drama of the chaotic events that show up in my life, that I suffer hugely. Perhaps I simply can choose to not answer the phone as I know who is calling? Can I be so cold and callous as that? No, I will pick up the phone. I will always treat others the way I wish to be treated. After all, someone picked up my phone call this morning and listened to my pain. For that I am grateful.

StevenLoon

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If I can get through the day without condemning, criticizing or complaining, it's been a good day. If I don't give advice, it's been perfect. - Flloyd Ashcraft

Catharsis Homophobix

So.........I talked to a man today who attended a men's weekend in another part of the country recently. I was part of a similar weekend in my neighborhood at the same time. He told me of the many Gay men on staff with him, being "cruised" and not wanting to be "eye candy", and to not be perceived as homophobic. My own journey into that neighborhood of pain surfaced as I heard and consoled his fears. I told him I would write a story.........some of you know parts of this story. Perhaps I will go deeper........

My sexual wounding began very early. Raped at four, molested at eight, molested again at ten and eleven. I was sexually attacked by a man on a train from Pocatello to Seattle when I was 15, the conductor threw him off at the next stop and kept a close eye on me the rest of the trip as he was a caring man. It seemed as if I were a magnet for men who liked boys. As the years progressed there were dozens of similar episodes. As I began to mature into a man, the only boundaries I knew were to run, say "leave me alone", or close my fist and start hitting. I broke a nose or two along the way, breaking my hand once on a man who tried pulling me into his car when I was in a blackout.

My first sex with a female was also at four, again at seven, and seduced into a house by a naked older woman when I was eight. Again, a magnet. So much sex education for a youngster in the late 1950's. Considering myself heterosexual, the thought of having sex with men was there at times, yet the violent nature of the beast I experienced blocked my venture down that path. A path of pain and fear for me. I love women and having sex with women. The thought of having sex with a man does not excite me, although today I accept sexual preferences as I understand them.

In my first I-Group, 11 years ago, there were three Gay men in our circle. . I was very homophobic and judgmental and acted like all was well, yet I would drive home in tears of fear after group. Eventually I faced my dragon by taking action and finding the man who molested me when I was 10 and 11. I sent him a letter asking him why. He answered within a few days and I forgave him as a result. I read the letters to my I-Group and the process work began.

I did not know that Gay men were heterophobic. I was picked to play the Gaybasher and got all my judgmental voices heard as the Gay men played my perpetrator. Anger was released along with fear and sadness. After a few weeks, I relaxed into the joy of no longer being triggered by the sexual advances of men. That I was able to voice and hold my boundaries without verbal or physical threats. Catharsis Homophobix I call my work in this. A new found freedom as I took the shards that surfaced a little later on to a Gay man I trust.

Last year, I staffed the Gateway Weekend here in the Northwest, enrolling an 18 year old Gay man from a place I once worked. Being one of eight straight men on staff, I was totally at ease with the flow of the weekend. Of all my staffings to that point, that weekend was the most emotionally healing for me. Shortly thereafter, I began to reach out to Gay men in my community and show them the way to the weekend.

I still get cruised and approached by men I do not know. They ask me if I am interested and I say no. I take some time to talk and if it fits, I pass on a brochure. One man at a time......

StevenLoon



--
If I can get through the day without condemning, criticizing or complaining, it's been a good day. If I don't give advice, it's been perfect. - Flloyd Ashcraft

--
If I can get through the day without condemning, criticizing or complaining, it's been a good day. If I don't give advice, it's been perfect. - Flloyd Ashcraft