Poetry & Blindfolds

I’m an alcoholic.  Many of my friends know this, and those who are mere acquaintences get met with this revelation, usually over a social drink.  Alcoholism was the first, shall we say, quirk that I reversed by putting it under my personal microscope and making it a project instead of a disease.

The disease hit hardest in my mid-20s, when I would routinely pick up a six-pack, and then twelve-pack, of the cheapest, lousiest beer I could get my hands on.  I was not behaving well in life – I had cheated on a girlfriend who could have easily been my wife someday, I was post-college but pre-creative – and was punishing myself for my lack of anything.  The beer, and then later hard liquor, made me feel momentarily artsy and suffering, not to mentional dizzily brilliant, until I woke up just plain dizzy in either the wrong room or a wrong town.

AA was helpful at first, but then grew intensely dull and annoying.  The third step, which I recall as “make a conscious decision to turn my will and life over to God” sat poorly with me.  I was agnostic in those days, but even so, felt tremendously ill-at-ease for drunk dialing my creator and laying my trip on him.  Even at my most religious, I would never have credited the Almighty with my obvious mistakes; I felt less of a reason to do it now.  Surely, if I refrained from knocking at his door, he might have some time to, I don’t know, stop a flood somewhere.

I headed into therapy instead, and it was there I started to analyze, along with my shrink, not only why I was punishing myself but how I came to be such an unlovable putz in the first place.  I became able to disassociate myself from my weirdness and put it in a box to observe from the outside, which immediately changes who owns who.  The analysis helped a great deal in numerous ways, not the least of which is that I still permit myself to drink.  My limit is three. 

Another advantage is when I hear someone talking about drinking for X hours, I can usually tell pretty quickly if they’re full of shit or actually heading down the same road of self-destruction.  If it’s the latter, the details and stories are remarkable; if the latter, the storyteller accompanies his story with a few shakes of the head, as if to say, ‘what happened?’  Also, the details are almost non-existent.  Let’s face it; nobody does any kind of drug to remember with clarity.

Enough analysis has led me nearly to the point that I don’t have that much time for nasty problems anymore.  They are great to have, mind you: several of my personal fears and paranoias will be on public display as soon as “The Tearful Assassin” debuts next Friday (and we’ve got two reviewers coming, so do come out and gasp and discuss the show animatedly immediately after the performance).  But as for living out the nasty ones… I’m too busy.  Plus, throwing up is so 1990s.

I’ve still got my share of stuff wrong with me, but for the most part, I don’t hurt others in the process and I own it all, as opposed to being driven around by a chauffeur of bad cause and worse effect.

I don’t really have a conclusion for this because I don’t have a conclusion.  This is just a Polaroid of a work in progress.