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



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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

--
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 Work.....

LOVER----For me, it is easy to love you. To love me, the man in the mirror, is not an easy battle to ride into alone. The woods are dark and filled with assassins, demons, and monsters of dimensions known and unknown. Hacking through the undergrowth, snagging skin on thorns, leaping chasms with eye on the prize of reflective glass. Once there, sweating and exhausted, I see familiarity in the recent stranger. I hold his gaze and welcome him, telling how much he has been missed. We agree to get to know each other, smiling a solemn, sad exhausted smile.

WARRIOR----For me, it is easy to anger you as easily as you anger me. I will curse, threaten, and piss you and me off in ways that appear out of control with confusion and misunderstance. Hacking through once more the clutter of flying bullets, knives, and fire that blast in my direction. Nicks, cuts, and burns ignored until I arrive on the battlefield of survival. Through the gauntlet into the arena of steroidal rage. Kicking the ass of the gnarly son of a bitch that blocks me from my growth, my power, and my peace of mind. The reflective glass behind it all reveals the killer with hostage. Cutting through the chain that binds them and discovering they are one and the same. Hideous laughter from the raging one in the glass.

MAGICIAN----Fearful now, the darkness. Relying on sound, smell, and tactile touch to find my soul. Spirit is in this house of black as my stomach falls repeatedly. The snoring bear stinks of carrion. Crawling sounds above and all around as I stub toes on sharp and dull hardness. Speaking out for support and guidance as I am the blind seeker. Show me the way, for in my fear a am frozen and ask for a hand to lead me into the light. That when I exit this darkness, a breath of calm will escape my being. That I may be rejuvenated in ways never imagined. Embraced by Spirit as I coast into the last of my life. Leaving the glass behind that

KING----Joy with a heavy and smiling sigh. The bliss of arriving intact, sitting in the easy chair of comfort and blessing. Shoulders sag relaxed, pondering my life path to the serenity I bask in. Children and their children's children pawing me with love and glee, as I paw back. My kingdom comes to me now. They ask of my wisdom, experience, and blessing. My laughter a contagion, spreading through the room like the smell of baking bread. Home on the throne of joyful bliss, sharing the gold of my life. The glass reflecting sparkling brilliance.


StevenLoon

Tombstones

So.....the man has chosen death by alcohol. I told him to write his epitaph and to know I am here if he chooses to live. So hard to let go, yet I must. Another man I know called me yesterday, wanting detox from his pain pill addiction. I gave him the numbers to call and will get him there if he chooses....if he chooses. I left him to ponder and write his own epitaph. Serious homework for a man who writhes to ask for help.

Dennis was a bright light. He came to my home in the late 70's. Southern boy with charm and charisma. Good looking lad who attracted women with ease. Dennis had a blackbelt in blackout drinking. One Halloween, he came home wounded and in serious pain. His drinking buddy drove the car in a ditch and Dennis tried to flag down a car on a blind curve while standing in the middle of the road. "Whump Whump" as the car ran over his legs. His buddy dragged the driver out of the car and beat the man. One of many head shaking memories of Dennis.

I watched him progress and digress over the years. A life fueled by alcohol. He came to see me at work one day knowing I had a couple of years clean and sober. He was sitting with his sixth and most recent drunk driving citation and wanted me to help him get into a treatment center. He came out a month later on fluffy pink cloud and flourished. I was proud of him. We talked a lot and went to meetings together, giving him a one year coin as time passed. He remarried and had a beautiful pregnant wife. Good job. A good friend with good friends. Life was good.

A bottle of whiskey and an old friend changed it all. A blackout event that cost him more drama than he could take, so he took his own life. I was there to clean up the messes he left. The service was small as he lay in a simple wood box that would fly in a cargo hold to Alabama, where is twin sister grieved the arrival. So many hostages......

There have been so many men die in my sobriety. The 12 Step axiom, "Some of us have to die, so the rest of us can live", is so simple yet complex. "I was just getting to know you.....getting to know all about you".

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

Sweet Potatoes

So.....the phone rang at 4:18. Fumbling in the darkness for my glasses as to see who it was, hoping not a family emergency. Spud says,
"Steven, I don't know what to do". I responded, "Stop drinking. Consider inpatient." A short pause with the response, "I ain't going there, Fuck You!" Click. I will visit him this morning after church. He has not returned my calls in a few days, so he can wait. He hopes I will come, and I will as I will not abandon a dying man. My science project is fermenting. I pray that rotten potatoes is not the final result.

Hideous thing Alcoholism. Alcohol being a solvent which dissolves life. Houses, cars, marriages, families, health. All eaten away until the last breath is gasped in chronic fear and loathing. Spud very well may die soon, as some of us must die so the rest of us can live."I really don't have time for this shit", I often say, yet it is just the words I think out loud. I care too much to not be the life ring. I remember the word HELP. Oh how I remember.

Years ago, in my first marriage, I worked for an electrical contractor. We were upgrading an apartment complex downtown Seattle. The St. John on Capitol Hill. An old complex that took our four man crew two months to rewire. One resident was an alcoholic and we worked around him. Carpeted with beer cans, wine bottles, and liquor bottles, plates of moldy food filled the sink and counters. The place smelled septic and dying. We called the unit Stench and wired it up in record time. As we pulled out the stove to get to the wires, it was like discovering a new species in the Amazon. The man was never conscious as we worked around him. Sad thing.....

The highlight of that job was when a movie was filmed across the street at an old Gothic church. Vincent Price and Richard Pryor were in it. We watched the production crew dump a case of MD 2020 wine in the gutter near a drain as they used the bottles for props as Pryor played a wino. A few drunks walking by went ballistic at the sight they were beholding. We were watching out a window from the St. John, laughing in the sadness of it all. The late 70's was still a toxic time for me. My wine of choice then was a little more top drawer.

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

Fwd: In The Present.....

So.....12 Step wisdom states,"If I live my life with one foot in yesterday, the other foot in tomorrow, then I'm pissing all over today". My spiritual community is a little more new thought, "Stay in the now". MKP says to "stay present". A Native Elder simply says to me, "Be grateful for what you have right here, right now". It is often difficult to not regret the past and worry about the future. This appears to be the work now. For me, the planet.

As I woke up in fear this morning heart beating fast, scrunched up face, breathing erratic, I realize it is all about what will happen next. Expecting the next nail in my foot, as opposed to the next miracle. I am so very used to failings and wailings that I am expecting more of the same. Yet miracles are happening all around me as they always have, and I suspect will continue to happen.

I was in a 12 Step meeting last night sharing my highs and lows, listening to others sharing the same. A young man across from me who walks the sea floor harvesting Goeduck, said he reached out last Sunday for help. He wanted to drink and drug on Halloween, and instead called for help. I teared up as I looked at him and he did the same. Then the others began to feel the sadness and joy of the present, the now.
He then said he struggled with being proud of himself, instead saying he felt good about what he had done. I was reflecting on the words "Native Pride" embroidered on the sweatshirt of the woman sitting next to me.

After he was finished speaking, the Elder next to him spoke his turn. He put his arm around him and told him, "I am so proud of you". He then spoke of all his relapses and not reaching out to his sponsor, or others for help in those times. A very nice way to end the day for me. Then driving home in the rain, as the rains have come. Full speed on the wipers, slow on the driving. Must be careful now as my little car hydroplanes a wee bit, as I sit a couple of feet lower to the ground now. I miss my truck yet I am so very grateful that I have a new car. So very grateful, right here right now.

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

Pay it forward........

So....the trick is to bring all the positive from yesterday into today, leaving the negative there. However the negatives are laden with blessings and lessons that must be squeezed out, akin to a sticky sponge. I am getting better at this, yet something always sticks. The sticky woman I love is the big one.

As I sat in the rainy darkness a while ago squeezing sponges, the flow of positives began. Like priming a pump with a cupful of water, the thirsty can drink now. The blessings of yesterday are several. I was hotseated by loving women at the Northwest Indian Treatment Center and hired on the spot. TB test and off to the clinic to piss in a cup. Last night, I circled up with 13 loving women and meditated for an hour. So many women yesterday, something is going on.

A man called me yesterday in the midst of it all. I was at Raven's Brew Coffee and Books in Shelton, looking for a Raven cap looking at cards. I stepped outside, sat on a bench and listened. He said he shared a story I wrote about my father, The Blacksmith, with his men's group last night. They all cried. He said that each man will share a story of their his father in future meetings. He honored me for what my story brought up for him and the other men. I began to cry as a woman pulled up in a car and looked at me through her windshield. As my tears were joyful, the woman smiled at me knowingly. A loving woman.

Yesterday was a very good day for me. Soon I will begin working graveyard in a place I believe I am supposed to be. The money sucks and no benefits, yet it matters not as my foot is in a new doorway. A doorway that offers benefits of the soul. As I look at the fortune from a cookie I ate last week, it says, "You will soon be asked to join a team. Work cooperatively".

Loon

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

Sleepy Voices

So........as I awaken, red blurry numbers coming into focus, it is way to early. All my mind needed to sputter to life. Yet recently, the mind snaps to in a heartbeat or two. Useless to close them and grab a couple of more hours of peaceful sleep as I already had a few. Plus the two hours of much needed nap, yesterday afternoon on the couch, missing most of Brother, Where Art Though.....Narcolepsy, thanks to the worlds greatest hypnotist, television. Have not napped for weeks. Not a bad concept as my optimum creative time is before sunrise. Before the drama of humans begin.

Recognizing I sleep only four to five hours, believing as I age I require less slumber. When I try for more, the sleepy voices say, "ass up, the world needs you." Then the rest of the committee chimes in unison, "Early bird, go get worm." Dad say, "up and at em' Knothead." The angelic choir, turning up the volume in the background, singing "Oh What A Beautiful Morning." Then I see Elmer and his shotgun, rolling out of the sack to that classical spring morning song orchestral, to get the cwazy wabbit. "All right, I'm up!!"

Once I am up, then choices have to be made. Toilet, coffee, tobacco ceremony, write, shave, shower, shampoo, clothes, phone, drive.....not necessarily in that order, and often two or three of those at a time, such as toilet, coffee, and phone. I am amazed at how much personal tasking goes on for a human prior to leaving the abode. Supposing the house breathes a sigh of relief to see them leave. The house is silent and resting now.

Today is Wednesday. A new POTUS is on deck.(acronym for our new President) I am not military or a vet, yet I am up on terminology. I do not watch TV or read the paper but once a week, and sometimes I miss a week. My choice as I can get sucked into the negatives so very easy. I will go out the door in a couple of hours to a Native American treatment center and show myself to them. I will be going to work there soon, doing what I do. I will ponder my own acronym. "Go get worm."

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