Good Or Bad, I Was One of The Ones

The strangest part is I am not sure I would recognize him.
That is, if I ever saw him again.

At the same time, we pass each other every day.
We see each other all the time.
All day.

I can’t say that I know what he was thinking, even though I know exactly what he was thinking.
I know exactly who he is because “he” is me and I am “him.”

I was a young man once and playing the dangerous game of cat and mouse and chicken too. My stance was imperfect at best and yet, I tied my best too pull off a look that made me seem bigger than I was.

I was smart and dumb and afraid of everyone and everything. Then again life in young adulthood is new, same as each day is new.
The things I’d sweat and the worries I feared are not the same as the worries I have now. But of curse, life escalates and changes as we go. And, yes, of course, awareness is a gift that comes in time.

I struggled to understand life or what it meant to live. However, I did my best to put on a brave face and show my defiance by sticking out my chest and daring the world to it me in the chin.
I swore that I could take a punch because I trained myself to take and accept pain. I wanted to be able to ignore pain and to cancel the threat of being hurt.

I am of course the older version of that young man.
I have changed and altered and matured, at least, to some degree.
Or so it seems.

I no longer subscribe to the same models of vengeance or contempt, and my levels of both tolerance and patience have improved in some ways.
Or maybe it is safer to say that I am less moved by things that eventually proved to be unimportant.
Maybe time has numbed me to my earlier resentments and perhaps my riots and my fights have all lost their genius.

I am lucky to say the least. And yes, I am one of the lucky ones. I am one of those who somehow walked through dirt and came out clean.
I am not sure how I got away with some of what I did.
I paid for my past and I have addressed my sins and as suggested, I chose to make amends to whomever it is I had harmed, except when to do so would injure them or others.

I am fortunate to say that the technology in my day did not have cameras on every corner. There were no cell phones.
There were pay phones. There were beepers or pagers and there was no such thing as social media.
No, we had to work to stay in touch.
People had home phones, which is another thing of the past.
But again, I show my age too much in this entry.

People used to talk.
Nowadays, most people text or send emails, which is another thing that I struggle with.
There is no connection like this.
There is something lost in translation when reading a text or an email
It is far easier to misread someone’s text than it is to hear the tone in their voice.
I can assure you of this.

I have sat in places to eat dinner or have lunch with someone. And I noticed people sitting across from one another and their face was down on their cell phones.
And I thought to myself, “What the fuck?”

There was a time before this. And even more, there was a time before, and there was a time even before then and next, there were days before now, long ago and somehow, I cannot or do not recognize myself.
I shake my head with regret and yet, I shake my head with gratitude that I am far from who I was and even further from my old resentments.

I am only me and therefore, I have always been me, which is why I look back at the years that have gone by.
How did I let that happen?
How was I so callous?
When did I grow so hateful and so mean?
And why did I allow myself to fall to an evil voice and become worse than the devils themselves?

I shake my head and wonder why I struggled with the simple and complicated easy truths that I only proved to make my life harder.
I could have walked away from so many things.
I could have resisted.
I could have rejected the mottoes that led me to believe that I was destined to be a certain way, and thus, I believed the person I was would be the only person I could ever be.

I suppose this was a symptom of my youth. I suppose this was a symptom of lost control and yes, of course, I was out of control.
I was that one . . .
But more, I was most out of control whenever I tried to control the things that were the least in my control.

People, places, and things. . .

I was told that these things are always out of our control.
Yet “always” seems like a long time to me.
Therefore, I cannot say that people, places, and things are “always” out of our control, —but to be clear, or to sum up the contempt of my youth, I was hellbent and pushing forward while gripping the ropes and with white knuckles as I towed the lines that weighed me down.

Was I one of the crazy ones?
No.
I don’t think so.

I go back to an old suggestion because I am a fan of something a therapist once told me.
“Crazy people don’t think they’re crazy.”
And the second part of this is equally important to me because the second part to this idea is, “stupid people don’t think they’re stupid.”
They think they’re smart.
By the way, that therapist insulted me one day.
So, I ripped him off.

I suppose this suggestion was given to me when I was close to my worst.
I swore that I was crazy. And I promised that I was stupid too.
I had legal problems and love problems and physical dilemmas.
I was struggling with this thing I can “my sobriety,” because I knew what would happen to me if I went back to that life.
Yet, I assumed my falls and my failures were unavoidable.

I knew what would happen if I fell or slid backwards into the dope dens or the crack houses.
I knew all about the loss of grace or the fallen dignity and the shame that would overtake me, —and worse, I knew that if I fell, then I would die.
Dying to me would be easier that standing back up in a room where people like me would gather and say, “Hello. My name is Ben and I’m an addict and an alcoholic and today is my first day back.”

I have had to say this . . .
and this was ard to say

I hated that part of my 12-step journey.
I hated the judgment and the hierarchy of those who had a longer “clean time” or more sobriety.”
I hated how they somehow believed that they were a professional in sobriety or that their advice was stronger than others.

It was always funny to me because there are preambles and readings that take place before the meetings begin.
They talk about practicing principles over personalities.
And I say “they” or “them” when regarding the fellowship and yet, it is said in these preambles and readings that “we are not professionals,”
It is written how this is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience strength and hope with each other. Nothing more. Nothing less.
They talk about the group conscience and how we are not supposed to judge. And by principle, yes, I agree this is a good and simple program.
I also agree that it is a simple program for complicated people.

I agree that human natured is flawed and that yes, our flaws can often spoil or stain the substance of a program that is built and survived by spoiled and stained people.

I met good people in meetings like this. I have met the worst here too.
I met liars and snakes and people who spoke from both sides of their mouth.

I was at another low. I had a car filled with stolen equipment and the rumors about me were leaked to some of the older members of the fellowship.
They pulled me into the kitchen which was in the basement of a nearby hospital.
I used to go to meetings there in that basement three-times, each week.

I was on the fence and worse, I lost myself. I lost my footing and I lost my truth. I no longer had the freedom of ignorance and therefore, it would be unacceptable for me to say, “I didn’t know any better,” because I did know.

I was back to feeling the way I was before the exorcism took place. I was back to feeling how I felt before the first time I walked into a treatment facility.
I was worse than when I was on the move with a substance in my veins that pushed through me and spread the disease like wildfire.

I knew something awful was about to happen.
I just didn’t know what.
I knew that I was often followed by unmarked cars.
I knew that my next arrest was coming soon.
But I didn’t know when.
And it wasn’t far from this time that I found myself back in the lion’s den.
It wasn’t long until I found myself with a pipe in my mouth and nearly dying for another reason.

I agree that drugs or alcohol are a small part of the problem. However, drugs and alcohol are the largest part of our damages.
I see it that way now, of course, because hindsight is perfect.
I see that drug and alcohol were a symptom and not the problem.
But the symptoms are what kills people.

I see it this way because age and time and the revelation of awareness have caused me to achieve better level of consciousness.
I have more of an understanding now, —or maybe I have a better use of the language which makes it easier to express myself.

I remember standing in the kitchen with a group of older men. They were yelling at me. Some were screaming that I was going to go back to drugs and that I was going to die.
I was told that I have to get honest.
I was told that I have to submit and that I have to surrender myself to this program, which was the only way I could stay clean and sober and save my own life.

There was one man above all who yelled most. And he yelled the loudest too.
I remember that.
He preached and he yelled and he swore by the bibles of sober living.
I remember standing with my back at the wall, as if thy were a firing squad, only their bullets were too weak to kill me and only strong enough to cause a sting.
I took every shot though and I held my grip and took the pain.

I walked out of there with more shame than when I walked in.
I remember thinking that I was a waste and that everything about me was awful and purely evil.
I had a car filled with stolen equipment and a conscience that was stained with the toxins of guilt.
Maybe they were right.
Maybe I needed to get honest.
Maybe I should listen to the man who screamed the loudest.

The funny part about this was the man who spoke most and loudest followed me into the parking lot after the meeting.
He asked me for one of the VCR’s that were in my trunk.
And while there he was telling me that I needed to get honest, there he was buying stolen goods from me.
Was that honest?

hypocrite. . .
I sold him the broken VCR
because fuck him.
But again, I show my age too much.

I remember the last time I was in that same 12 step meeting.
I had taken a brief case from a car at a nearby train station.
I took money and the wallet and the cash and the credit cards, which were easier to use back then.
I remember making fun of the owner’s name.
He had an ethnic or middle-eastern name.
I made fun of the name to my partner and to my friends at the store where I ran up a bill on the man’s credit card.

Later that night, I went to that same 12-step meeting.
I came in late, so I had to sit towards the back.
I had a pocket filled with cash because of my earlier “smash and grab” through a car window that led me to the man’s wallet and briefcase.

I listened to the beginning of the meeting, which is when someone from the group qualifies with their story and tells how they earned their seat in sobriety.

I never met a middle eastern man in A.A.
Well, not until that day.
And since then, he is still the only one

I was sitting towards the back.
I heard the words, “Hello, family,” in an accent that was strange to me.
I heard the man account for himself, introducing his name and they following his name with the words “And I am an alcoholic.”

It was him . . .
He talked about how bad his day way.
“But I didn’t drink.”
He told about how rough his job has been and how he was afraid to be fired.
“And to make it all worse,” he said.
“Someone smashed my window and took my wallet and my briefcase.”
Then he said, “But I didn’t drink.”
Then he said something about God and how God had a plan and that all of this must have happened to him for a reason.

I left the meeting shortly thereafter.

I wouldn’t recognize that person if I saw him.
And with regret, I shake my head because the person who did this was me . . .
I would have to agree though.
God did have a purpose for that day.

And yes, I was once that one too.
But like the man said, God must have had a reason –