My Life Before AA

They say that some are born with an “alcoholic gene” and I suppose I must be one. My own experience with alcohol started at 17 when I shared a quart of vodka with my best friend. We consumed it in less than a half hour and what ensued was comical from a distance but in the episode the seeds of alcoholic drinking perhaps were sown.  

That one foray into a drunken stupor kept me from indulging for a brief span until I finished High School. When I entered military college I quickly fell in with an experimental group of cadets. It was in this association that I drank and drugged sporadically without incident. Although there were a few tales that could have given me the warning signs that there was danger ahead but my blinders were still on.  When I got married drinking was for the most part social and it was not until I hit a single life again did my drinking and drugging get into high gear. 

For about 5 years I became a running fanatic completing 17 marathons and 3 ultra marathons (distances beyond 26.2 miles) and I can recall some friends asking me what I was running away from. I often scoffed at them telling myself they just had no clue. However it was me who had no clue.   At the bottom of that cycle I went from a chubby 214 to a borderline anorexic at 138 pounds. At age 30 a new group of friends introduced me to cocaine and the downward spiral was in full speed.  

Drugs and alcohol ruined me financially, physically and left me spiritually bankrupt. My reputation went from a man admired for his brain and running prowess to someone that people joked about behind my back. My success at work suffered in the sense that I never gave my employers my level best even though I did not get fired in any of the many positions I held. My alcoholism never brought me to a rehab or a DWI although if I had continued on the course I was on those “yets” would have come home to roost.  

What led me to the rooms of AA came from the addiction I had to cocaine. Let me explain.  After I had stopped using the white powder mostly for economic reasons my drinking began to escalate and I essentially replaced one drug for another. When I came to my senses that a drug is a drug my tenure in AA began August 28, 1989 a date that will live in my own infamy.  Fortunately for me I have not had a relapse and I know that I have been blessed to remain sober to this day some 23+ years later. 

My life has changed in oh so many ways to coin an old phrase. I never have wake up with a hangover or remember what I might have said the night before that might have been untowardly. My business has had its share of ups and downs but at the end of the day I can lay my head down and fall asleep knowing that most days I have given the world my level best. In sobriety I was able to earn a second college degree in psychology and I am currently enrolled as a CASAC in training and hope to finish that certificate by the middle of 2013.  My intention is to become an alcohol and substance abuse counselor because I know that my experience can be a wonderful way for me to give back to the sober life I now live. 

A Cat's Tale

A dream as vivid as they come this morning had my adopted out cat Audra reappear through an open door trailing a leash and in an instant she hopped into my lap.  It didn’t take long for me to figure out that my cat was me and the trailing leash of restraint would only work for a short time. Throughout my life I would usually break free even when it was  happiness I was enjoying.  I am almost 62 and the time for running away is drawing to a close. 

The Tactile Sense

Above the soft undulating clouds the fringe of sunlight headed west in the late autumn sky lengthens my breath. At nearly 600 mph the movement feels almost imperceptible beneath the wing. 

 It refreshes me knowing that as I tap the keys and enjoy the sense of tactile versus the glass screens that are ubiquitous in our lives today the sensation of touch will never go out of style at least not with this homo sapien. Somehow our touch is felt on our Droids and iPhones often with instructions never intended as we have no doubt pocket dialed one of our contacts at ungodly hours sometimes making for embarrassing situations that make our pulse quicken or worse yet our disembodied voice hears things they ought not to have.  Science in too much of a hurry has taken choice away from us and made decisions as if our electronic devices had an artificial intelligence of their own.  

From a movie in 1984 called Starman one of the characters verbalized about sending an anodized disc (a record) into outer space in the hopes of alien life forms picking up our signal to let them know they were not alone. The scientist in this offering verbalized that we humans were the ancients to the incredulity of one of the antagonists. He was taken aback as if knowledge had pretty much gone as far as it was going to go. That brings back the thought that pervaded the late 19th century when the powers that be felt they should close down the patent office as all the inventions had been accounted for. 

That fringe of sunlight as I started this piece is fire orange now and the clouds below look like matte photography. 

ADHD-FRAUD

No I think that acronym should be changed to LOAD. Lack of administered discipline. The ADHD fraud is how psychiatry makes “patients” out of normal children. It’s what Drs. Baughman and Hovey think anyway.    It’s intellectual dishonesty assisted by drug companies to manipulate using defective science. 

Truth is that there is NO available test to determine if a child has ADHD. None. 

Adults are probably relieved to hear that their child has ADHD so they can raise their arms up in futility and say, “I knew something was wrong”.  The majority of children that are diagnosed with ADHD have other disorders.  

Death

Death lingers longer for the living. The dead somehow get through it faster.  When you know you’re going if you have that much time to think about it what do you think about?  Does your life flash before you like a drowning man?  Or do you panic? Do you after suffering a long time welcome death with open arms?  

What would I feel if my life ended now?  

My Sister Carol McQueen

My sister Carol McQueen was my closest friend growing up as a teenager. Her boyfriends would befriend me and my girlfriends would befriend her. They knew we were as close as siblings could be. They knew it because of the way we talked about each other and how we behaved when we were in each other’s presence. 

 I am not overstating the fact that we both had the utmost personal regard for each other. When she did well I was as proud as can be and likewise when my star shined she put a magnifying glass on it.  She knew me better than anyone including my parents and my closest friends. I knew that her counsel came in the form that she was a great listener and never judged me no matter how I may have bungled a personal situation.  

I wanted her to like my friends especially the women that I picked as a romantic interest. Her innate talent of being able to know peoples insides despite what they were exhibiting on the outside was uncanny. Carol had a sensory acuity that could sense things before they transpired. Like when she told my parents two weeks before her death that she wanted to donate all her vital organs to those that might need them.  Which in retrospect was so extraordinary because after all it was 1969 even though this is a common practice now it was not then.  No one could fool Carol and for me it was like having my own soothsayer all I had to do was run upstairs and knock on her door. When I left her to resume the somnolent state I could always retire in peace.  

Oh and she loved Steve McQueen she liked him not because of what he said but what he didn’t. Most of you know that Jack Briant is my pen name my real name is John (Jack) McQueen just to keep the record straight. More about her life in the next installment.  

It's Not What I Think

How often I formulate what something might be even before I experience it. How can I with little or no sample size determine that I don’t want to go somewhere when I haven’t been there before?  I take evidence that has little or no bearing and construct in my head how the time might go. 

When I am lucky enough to move past the resistance to isolate and put one foot in front of the other I am always glad that I did. The trouble is that I have a short memory the next time a new opportunity presents itself.  

It’s not what I think and that’s the rub as conscious thinking is just a quagmire like the sticky floor in an old movie theater I hear the sound of my soles pulling off the tiles and I forget where I’m going. It’s not what I think because thought is faulty and intuition is the only guide that is unstained and pure.