A..N..XI....E......T..Y....

I've heard it said that in sobriety we have lots of small problems, but when we're drinking we really only have one, major problem- that we can't seem to stop drinking or getting high. I perceived my life to be really quite routine or boring when I was a drunk. I knew that I was a little behind the curve in the career, relationship and social aptitude departments, but I thought my plentiful problems of not paying bills on time, losing jobs, threats of eviction and the occasional arrest or emergency room visit were fairly normal and mundane.

Being addicted to a depressant like alcohol (of which I drank daily and heavily for ten years) did wonders for my fear-riddled life. Like I said, at the time my lifestyle seemed boring, repetitive and not in any way unusual, dangerous or abnormal. I basically went from one mini-crises to the next. There was always a utility about to be shut of- I frequently went weeks without phone service, a boss that was mad at me, a girl that was mad at me, a wound that wouldn't heal, a cold that I couldn't shake, a shake that I couldn't steady, weight that I was losing, money that I owed a bartender or a dealer... Life was never very simple. Booze helped.

For a long time, when I drank, I felt sublime. The problems seemed manageable if I thought about them at all. Drinking calmed my nerves and physically stopped the shaking and quieted my growling stomach. When it stopped working, I drank for a few more years trying to get that fix back. Eventually the whole thing went to shit and something stopped me from drinking any more.

It was then that I realized I was a scared, helpless little motherfucker. In my first 90 days of sobriety I probably had 400 panic attacks. I now understand that I had been experiencing severe anxiety for several years and I was self-medicating with booze and drugs. Depressants like alcohol, benzodiazepines (Xanax, Clonopin, Valium), and opiates treat anxiety very well, but when your body detoxifies, the anxiety returns like a pack of hungry coyotes that chase you around your living room and gnaw out your guts.

To be clear, I had a lot to be fearful of. First of all, I had some fairly serious legal trouble that was threatening to put me in jail for a little while and essentially make me unable to hold a job, pay my rent or bills. There was also the whole "accepting I'm an alcoholic" thing and figuring out what the fuck to do about that. Then I had to face up to the fact that I owed a shitload of money to banks and lenders. I had to acknowledge that things weren't going quite as well as I was leading people to believe. I was an anxious, anxious dude.

Many alcoholics identify "resentment" as the number one engine in their drinking airplane. For me, fear and anxiety were the culprits. I had a wide assortment of fears, but frequently the smallest ones were the most detrimental. For instance, I was afraid of my mailbox. In this day and age, we seldom get good news in the mailbox. For me, it was a box of doom and misery. Because I lived in an apartment building, the tiny mailbox necessitated that I empty it at least bi-monthly. I would pull out a stack of mail that was entirely collection agencies or overdue bills (you really only need to worry when they send the bill in a yellow, pink or blue envelope- then they mean business). I wouldn't even sort through it. I would just take it upstairs with the intention of dealing with it when I got my next tax return- seriously, that was always my plan. I would walk into my studio apartment and plop it down on the previous stack until it was about 8 inches high and it would spill off the shelf onto the floor in the middle of the night, reminding me that I was a delinquent, sad sack of incompetence. In the middle of the night I would hear this "sssshhhhhhh......kerplash!" and I would know the bill pile was all over the floor again. The next morning, I would scoop them up, stuff them into a drawer and wait for the tax return. When I got my refund I would sometimes actually pay off a bill or two, but usually I drank a lot of it away.

Anyways, back to the present. The bills get paid on time these days and I haven't seen a yellow envelope in quite a many months. Once, when I was a few months sober and still pretty broke, I thought that my phone was shut off when I was a few days late on my bill. It turns out that nobody had called or texted me for a few days- which is also pathetic, but less pathetic than getting your phone turned off. But in spite of this renewed responsibility I still suffer from anxiety attacks.

They come from the weirdest things. A couple of months ago I was driving home from a place I'm not familiar with and my GPS failed to give me a direction. The feeling of an anxiety attack crept up quickly. For me, it's a feeling that starts in my heart with a skipped heartbeat. My heart seems to stop for a second, then my stomach tightens and I feel a little nauseous, my heart speeds up and beats irregularly, my shoulders tighten and my mind races. Sometimes these attacks go on for days and days. It's misery.

But I've learned to look for the fear behind the anxiety and find out what it is that's feeding the sense of impending doom. I'm not afraid of mailboxes anymore because I know that I can handle any bills that come my way, and what I can't handle I know my higher power can.

When I sat down to write this, I intended to get into a discussion of the dangers of treating anxiety with prescription medication, but I already wrote that research paper last July. Also, the burger I took out of the freezer has thawed out and I'm hungry. Good night.

THE END

This is a perfect day for listening to melancholy music, drinking coffee and writing bad poetry. I'm no poet so here's a sappy blog post instead.

Unbelievably, it's been a year since I started this thing. It's morphed from a confused, lazy corner of the internet into an unfocused, sometimes-motivated personal diary. Like the rantings of any other crazy man, there seems to be a kernel of truth at the depths of each wandering delusion that I've written about. Some of the posts seem sharp and well-intended while others seem like shots taken from the hip without much thought to aim or accuracy.

The reason that I know it's been a year is because I have reached the one-year anniversary of my good friend Derek passing. I believe I've handled it quite well and I'm not spending a day in mourning, but I awoke with a little sadness in my heart and I'm pleased to have healthy outlets for my emotion.

In the days following Derek's passing I cried. A lot. Like, frequently, and at weird times and moments. I was listening to A Chorus Line while I cleaned the house and cried at a fucking Broadway show tune. Jesus. In hindsight, that was a tough time in my life for a few reasons. I came to realize that I was grieving for Derek and for other people too.

Six months prior to Derek passing, a relationship ended when my girlfriend slipped deep into heroin addiction and all of the awful behavior that comes with it. As a friend put's it, "when you're addicted to heroin, every day is bad. There isn't a lot of 'good news' days." His death was unexpected and startling and it shook loose a lot of emotion that I was gripping tight to my chest like a poker hand I didn't want anyone to see. It was a strong enough experience and a decent enough excuse to relax my strangle hold on my own feelings and just fucking cry forever and ever. But something didn't seem right. I was sad that Derek was gone and I was missing him, but I was crying for lots of reasons and I wasn't sure what they were. Out of the emotion came the understanding that I was truly fucking sad about a lot of stuff. I realized that I was 18 months sober and hadn't yet cried once. I hadn't cried about all of the terrible things I had done when I was drinking. I hadn't cried about the terrible things people had done to me. I hadn't begun to honestly allow myself the dignity of showing the world (the whole world, not just my recovery friends) that I was sad. It all came up and out.

About six weeks later I found myself on a weekend getaway in Portland, Oregon and I had a few days to think things over. The conclusion I came to was that I had a right to be upset and I wasn't going to get over anything until I admitted that I was struggling to accept myself for feeling this way. The healing sincerely began that day.

It's true that my relationship ending the way it did was a big bummer. But today there isn't an ounce of resentment or guilt. I rarely relive those final days and those terminating emotions like hopelessness, anger and frustration and the fears of abandonment and betrayal. I have put a tremendous amount of effort into dealing with that experience and I'm so grateful that I have the people around me that I do. I've learned to let go and I've moved on. It's been wonderful. That is one of Derek's legacies to me. He gave me permission to heal and showed me that I'm human for feeling disappointed, angry or sad. He helped me begin to understand that I'm perfect just the way I am. That I'm valuable and beautiful. That emotional guys are strong guys too. That I don't have to be some caricature of masculinity to be a man. That I can love myself. That's okay.

I really do miss him a lot. But thankfully, I'm allowing him to be gone and I'm living my life the way he would want me to. In the last year I've gone back to school and have the sincere motivation to go to graduate school. I've quit smoking. I've gained weight and lost it. I'm healthier than I've ever been both physically and spiritually. I'm learning to trust God again and love people too. I've learned to appreciate the friends who are still here and I've learned that addiction is a chronic, fatal disease and it's something to take seriously.

I choose to think about the happy parts of Derek's life. I only knew him for 18 months, but he was a friend that had 18 years of influence on me. I thank him for that.

Thanks for reading my blog. I love you.