Twelve Step Sports Addict

After a absolutely terrible day at work today, I was happy to see that the White Sox got a win against Boston. About friggin time!! Also very glad to see that Jim Thome tied Mickey Mantle on the all-time home run list. Good for him. Jim Thome seems like the nicest and most respected guy in all of baseball. It’s nice to see an athlete hit a major milestone without the suspicion of steroids or HGH or whatever else these knuckleheads are injecting into their bodies. Also, I heard today that Peyton Manning will play on Sunday against the Bears. Damn. I really hope Lovie was holding back this preseason and he is going to pull some David Blaine like trick and the real Bears team arrives in Indy and Lovie can say that, they just sucked to fool everyone. But I doubt it.

 With this being Labor Day weekend, I have been doing a lot of thinking about alcoholism. It’s kind of hard not to, seeing every cop and their mother out on patrol looking for DUIs, and the horrible flashback of myself being in the back of a patrol car. That aside, I started to really think why. Why did I drink, why do addicts use?? I am sure there are lots of reasons and let’s for a minute forget about the chemical dependency part. Yes, nicotine, alcohol, heroin, all that stuff gets in your blood and you crave it and then you detox. But that is far from it. If that was the case, people wouldn’t relapse. I thought about it hard and long, and I really do think that I drank just to be happy. I am happy when I drink. At least during the act. The next day is full of regrets, headaches, regrettable phone calls, and that feeling of worthlessness. But when I drink, that period between starting and when I passed out, I was everything I am not in real life. I am confident, funny, calm, stress free, talkative, and reflective.

I am naturally pretty anti-social. I don’t even like ordering pizza over the phone, but when I was buzzed, I would talk someone’s ear off. I think it is that way for lots of addicts. Most of us, spend a majority of our time miserable for one reason or another. I personally am filled with regret. What could have been…. even as friends read my blog”you should have been a writer”; Yeah, I know. When I drink, I forget the heartache of losing a fiancee, my puppy, I forget the stress of work….I am truly, for that little bit of time, feel happy. Ever sit in an rehab meeting with recovering addicts?? They are not a happy bunch. EVERY ONE of them have some deep seeded emotional problem. I drank sometimes just to fall asleep without having to remember my dreams. I have nightmares almost every night. Some are too violent to repeat. I would love to bring Sigmund Freud back to life and talk to him about that for hours, but my Freud was a bottle.

For an addict, the drug made us feel normal. It sure made me feel normal. I don’t have many friends (stemming from my not being very social), but if you think of it, at the time, booze was the perfect friend. It was cheap, always around, never judged me, never nagged me, never lied, never left, never fought, in a way, it always said the right things, because I always felt great, and figuratively speaking, it always came back. Unfortunately, while that friend was doing that, it was kicking the living snot out of me as well. Killed my liver, heart, made me gain weight, and I am sure killed a few billion brain cells. Now that I am sober, I am finding other small ways to be happy. I get so jealous of people that are happy. They walk around with a smile all day, I want to kick them in the teeth. That’s a trigger for me.  I see it all the time with people in the mall, they don’t have a pot to piss in, but they are smiling.

Every person deals with things that make them depressed, unfortunately, us addicts found our drugs before we did other things and then the vicious cycle started. We know what we did was wrong, and we hate ourselves for it. How do we stop hating ourselves, take a drink, or a hit. The worse I feel, the more I want to drink. This war is not just against alcohol. In fact, it really isn’t against a drug at all. The doctors cured me of that when I detoxed, this war is against myself.  People look down on addicts like we used because we were selfish, or were trying just to have fun. In many cases that is true. Some addicts just used to feel normal again, and for that little time, feel at peace. I didn’t have fun drinking. It just made me feel like I was what I wanted to be. The only problem is, IT wanted me dead. I’m trying to find happiness every day, and I hope it’s out there somewhere.  People think addicts are selfish, no, the recovering addict has to be selfish, they need to find their own happiness, without that “perfect friend” whispering failed promises in their ears. It’s a hard journey, but one we all must walk, and there is a treasure, it might just take some time to find. ML