You Know Nothing, Jon Snow

Almost a pillar of salt

                So I went to the doctor again today. She cut a mole off my back and cored a piece of my foot to biopsy. I've had a few things biopsied, and I just don't think about what that could potentially mean. She also adjusted my adderall and xanax, which I get to go pick up on monday before class. It's become apparent to me that i'm really going to have to start taking this stuff as it's prescribed, or come a week before refill time I'm going to be a cranky, cranky boy. I can't say that I particularly enjoy the feeling that either drug gives me; I don't feel drunk or woozy when I take the xanax and I certainly don't feel like superman (or even euphoric) when I take the adderall, but they do help me function the way I need to in order to do what I want to do.

              When I went out to New York the last time, I remember the feeling I got flying over the city; seeing all the lights on the ground and the bridges and buildings. It was like I was a tropical fish that had been caught in the ocean, (a la Finding Nemo) put in a tank for years, and through providence or whatever found itself back in the ocean after so much time spent in a ten gallon tank. I had so many feelings and emotions and thoughts, all mixed around in my brain like a freedom smoothie.

Go <3 your own city.

Despite how I handled it when I got stuck in Nashville, (drinking and feeling sorry for myself) that trip was absolutely necessary for me. I had been stuck in Fort Collins for three whole years. Not the whole state of Colorado, just Larimer County. For me, being stationary for that long is practically torture. I actually began referring to Fort Collins as Fort Coffin, and every week spent there was another nail.

               Whenever I get too excited I make mistakes. I love being caught up in the moment so much that I'll start drinking again and make an ass of myself, or forget obligations. When I was younger, that was basically how I lived my life: Fucking go!

               The past eight or nine years I've been stuffing the ghost of Neal Cassady in the metaphorical root cellar. I discovered that I like having some stability in my life, but I only figured that out when all the stability was gone. I'm not sure that anybody likes being tied down, with no wildness or adventure left in their hearts. I know that when my time as a “free spirit” ended I lamented the loss for years. The nostalgia and memories... Driving around in the black Pontiac Arwain brought back from Utah and the biker gang he hung out with there, listening to George Thorogood and drinking Carling Black Label outside some punk club in Seattle. The nights spent at Golden Gardens, drinking Sparks around a burning stack of pallets and wondering where Dan was walking off to, drunk off the alcohol and high off the caffeine and taurine. The anticipation of arriving at a show early to set up and seeing all the kids who were there to see you play. Going to parties and being ready for anything; a fight, a girl, the cops.        

                 Whatever.

                 When that chapter in my life ended, I mourned its passing for a long time. I wanted to feel like I used to, like there was still some wonder left in the world. I quit expressing myself; I let people treat me like shit and didn't stand up for myself under the pretense of “maturity.” The truth was I was still so heartbroken from losing everything I cared about I lost all my self-respect and confidence. I tried to play the part of the adult. I'd go to interviews, tell the people what they wanted to hear, get the job, and decide after a week or two that I hated it and quit. Basically I went through the motions and failed constantly. 

I'll probably have better luck doing it this way.

                When I was drinking, initially I could fool myself into thinking I was still the guy I was before life drop-kicked me into the shitter. As time went on, I was less able to fool myself and more prone to impotent raging at imagined and remembered slights. I pushed all the anger and reaction and humiliation I experienced every day into a little box. I tried to be the little zen center of my crazy-ass universe, but I was really walking around with an unstable vial of nitroglycerine in my shaky hand. 

                 When I drank, all the horrible shit I had done and the abuse I took from other people came out and where I used to explode, I would implode and ruin whatever I felt was actually good in my life.

It's gotten better over the past two years, ever since I got my first DUI and got thrown in jail. It's awful and I feel so stupid that after every other part of my life was taken away, jail was what inspired me to really take getting sober seriously. That probation and the loss of my license were more effective in convincing me to get my shit together than my girlfriend ditching me in Colorado, having to live on the streets of Portland, or the countless times I'd been to detox. 

              

"Where are my goddamned House DVDs?"

                Since then, I have had four relapses. Four relapses in two years seems like a pretty big improvement on six years of drinking every day, but the goal is zero. I'm actually afraid of relapsing again, and heres why:

                Waiting to get into treatment in detox, this 56 year old homeless man I was sharing a room with had two seizures and died while I was taking his pulse. His last words on the face of this planet were spoken after his first seizure when I asked him if he was okay. He said, “I brought this on myself.”

              The impact this had on me wasn't readily apparent; after the paramedics called it, I handled it pretty passively. I didn't want to talk about it and it didn't strike me as anything out of the ordinary, but it made me think that if something didn't seriously change in my life, I was going to be that guy. I was going to die in a crummy detox unit in a place like Greeley, and nobody was going to give a shit.

That night's wedged in my mind pretty tightly. During treatment there wasn't a single desire to drink. Since treatment I haven't had one either, even when I was hanging out with someone who was drinking. I still don't want alcohol around me. Nothing good can come of me going to bars or living with people who drink: It's actually pretty simple when I break it down into those terms.

I could see this working.

           I can express myself again. I don't feel the need to placate anybody anymore, and I'm not going to. As for how I'm going to conduct myself when I get “too excited,” I guess I'll have to wait and see.