esrosedotblog

NO ID

This actually happened to me in the St. Regis hotel in NYC.

Everything now is covered by security cams.

Two differences. One was that I was sort of sleep walking. I awoke pretty fast when the door shut.

Two was that I found an old telephone at a table in the hall and called down.

A house detective came and let me in the room.

He told me that the phone I used was not supposed to work.

He thought it was pretty funny. I did not.

Once I was in the room, he came and knocked to see if everything was OK. A way of checking that there was no one else in there.

Then he/they called me a few minutes later. "Is everything all right?". I think that is when they asked my name. A final check whether it was really me. As if someone would be walking the halls balls naked pretending to be someone who didn't live in the hotel. Well, maybe.

That was the end of it.

Don't finish work, on an empty stomach, and have two or maybe three black russians before you go to bed.

And they wonder why I quit drinking. This was just one of those kind of stories.

I laughed a lot in watching this poor guy. He doesn't look drunk but it is pretty foolhardy to do what he did none-the-less. Or stupid. So maybe he was. Drunk.

I identified almost completely.

Labels: alcohol, embarrassing moments, travel

AND STILL COUNTING

Today is my thirty third anniversary of being clean and sober.

In one way there is not a lot to it. It is 33 years of staying away from a drink or drug a day at a time. That way that we have of breaking the thing down into managable bits.

At first, the idea of going without a drink for the rest of one's life is too daunting for many an alcoholic. Let's just take today. If you want to drink, wait until tomorrow.

I won't bore with the long story, actually mercifully short time, of my wild sled ride down the hill of daily drinking. Suffice to say that I was bad enough to want out of it badly enough and was willing to go to any length to have that happen.

Willingness to go any length is pretty much a requirement of any success in putting it down.

I went to a detox hospital which was medically based. Not all of them are. I mean medical from the tips of its toes to the top of its sober little head.

Nurses took me in, nurses gave me the shots of the cocktails that would put me out for 24 hours. Nurses woke me up and took care of me. A doctor oversaw the processes of early physical recovery.

For the rest, they had Alcoholics Anonymous, the book, to read and Meetings at night brought in by volunteer groups from the outside.

Today, detox and recovery facilities can tend to the psychological or the instrument of some pet theory about addiction. Not so where I went.

I was covered by insurance for 28 days and that is how long I stayed. By the time I got out I was in pretty good physical shape and a terrible mess mentally.

I couldn't read. I was disoriented. I was missing a main ingredient of stability in my life.

I went to an AA Meeting.

There I found out all I have ever needed to know about staying sober. I had faith that the people I met knew how to do it and then so could I.

Simple faith and a willingness to take suggestions.

There is a book, the book. There are various types of Meetings. There are the famous Steps. There are many, many recovering drunks from all sides of life whose own sobriety depends on giving their Program away to new comers.

This is based on the simple story of BIll Wilson, a stockbroker, who found that the only way he could keep sober was to find another drunk to work with. He found Dr. Bob Smith. Together they found a third guy and then the groups began to form. About 75 years ago.

Nothing too mysterious.

There is no organization as such running AA groups. There is an organization necessary to print literature and to help pass the message. That is about it.

Very simple.

I am active "member" still today. You are a member if you say so.

I sponsor people who, like me, want to stay sober. We work the Steps in our daily life.

There is no secret handshake or dues to be paid.

I won't say much more about it.

We are everywhere if someone needs us. In my Valley alone there are 300 groups, more or less, who meet each week.

Look in your phone book.

See? The whole purpose of writing this down is to pass enough on to others that it does me some good on this day.

Labels: alcohol, recovery

THIRTY

I am 30 years clean and sober today.

10,950 days.

One at a time.

I find this more amazing than my age which is amazing enough.

I remember my first sober days very clearly. They were not pretty. But they were spent with people, like me, who had found a way to stay sober and they generously shared it with me.

They gave me a good foundation to stand on. Over the years there have been many others.

I will be spending this morning with a lot of those people.

I am very grateful.

Labels: alcohol

ELEPHANT

I don't really care a rap but not one of the articles and shit I have seen about Kanye West's behavior speculates that he might have an alcohol problem. I did see a photo of his carrying an open Hennessy bottle into the awards show.

I'm just saying.

This is typical in the society. The last thing people talk about. The elephant under the carpet.

I hope that some of the 'personal searching" he is talking about isn't just the usual pr spin but actually includes, perhaps, a family intervention and some serious consideration of his substance behavior.

Labels: alcohol

DRUGS ARE NOT FUNNY

I should know.

But then, without a sense of humor what would we do?

We'd use drugs!

I have some experience to validate the accuracy of at least 6 of these situations.

Labels: alcohol

ANNIVERSARY

I had my last drink thirty years ago today or yesterday depending on how you count your days.

My first day without any booze in my system would be today. Well, there was some in there. It takes a while to leave. There just wasn't going to be anymore.

I don't need to tell you my story here. There is another place for that. But, as you might imagine, it is a very significant day in my life.

What was to follow was not easy. I had a thirty day detox in a medically oriented hospital. Physical rehab. Ventilation therapy. Heavy vitamins and some other drugs but not drug drugs.

Stuff like that. And medical lectures.

The only other treatment was the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

A miracle to end up in a place like this. Straight talk, tough love, physical recovery.

More places than not, today, would drive a man back to drink with all the frills and psychobabble. The recovery industry.

In this place, there was no way around the facts of the matter. A life or death situation.

I got life.

As it turns out, in my case, a life sentence wasn't too bad. I'm still here and sober a day at a time. And I still place my recovery first and foremost. Another gift.

Labels: alcohol, health, life

WHAT IT'S LIKE

It is very hard to explain alcoholism and what it feels like to be an alcoholic. I mean to people who are not alcoholics. People for whom a drink or two or even more is not a problem in their life.

This article comes pretty close to doing the job.

It's the Holidays. How about just one?

I like the part where he says it gives him an excuse not to go to parties.

What he means, I think, are two things. One is that parties that are mere excuses for drinking, "partying", are pretty boring. And two, if you are not drinking, you get to see what it is like from the outside and, believe me, it is not pretty.

I don't use my alcoholism as an excuse really but, in the case of parties, it is a pretty handy one.

The fact is that I can go just about anywhere there is drinking as long as I have a good social or spiritual reason to do so. After all, I get to talk to people who are drunk and want to be sober quite often.

One other thing. This guy breaks his anonymity in AA. Now I could say that is not a good thing and that it is not done but then I would, by implication, be breaking my anonymity as well. But I think that I have already done that in the blog so what the hell?

I am doing it at the level of blog conversation. He is doing it at the level of international press. A definite no-no by Tradition.

Labels: alcohol, life

HEATH'S CLIFF

I said some time ago that the canonization of Heath Ledger was premature and wrong.

He died of a self inflicted overdose of prescription drugs. That doesn't mean that he should have had them. It means that they are usually prescribed.

It was a soup of tranqs, sleeping pills, and other medications.

This does not make Ledger a bad person. It only makes him an addict. A person with a disease that is treatable.

It was not an accident. It was not homicide. It was self inflicted.

I don't know about his Batman performance. I admire the makeup.

But I think he has a lot of attention because he is dead. How many people went to see a dead man walking?

Now that I have said my piece again, listen to this guy who has the same ideas only better put. I suspect that he, too, is a sober refugee from the drug and alcohol wars.

Sobering Up on Heath Ledger

Also, let's not forget this man left a baby and a family and many friends behind. That doesn't make him a bad person but does show how his personal values had crumbled in the mists of his addictions.

Sad. Sorry. And nothing to elevate or reward here.

Labels: alcohol, cults, culture

ANOTHER THING

When I reviewed There Will Be Blood yesterday, I didn't mention one of the main themes from the picture.

Alcoholism.

It is clear from the beginning that Daniel Plainview is an alkie. Someone knew what they were doing in depicting it.

The boozing is progressive as is the mental and physical disease. We see it happen.

Daniel Day-Lewis also shows us the continuing loss of spirit and spiritual values. The worst of the ravages.

He may be a dishonest reprobate in the beginning but his spirit is vivid. He endures. He thrives.

By the end, he is dead inside. He has lost all his vitality. He has disappeared inside the bottle.

I just mention this while the disease of alcoholism is often portrayed in film, it is seldom that such an accurate portrayal is given throughout over the entire duration of the story.

Slow and insidious.

The last line is apt. "I am finished".

Labels: alcohol, film, films

PARIS IS BURNING

Not to get all caught up in the gossip columns but it is rather hard to avoid coverage of Ms. Hilton.

From what I am reading, I can imagine that she is in real psychological and physical pain.

It is not fake.

She is in withdrawal!

This is a commonplace result of many a drunk/addict's incarceration.

No booze, no drugs. Pain.

The way she acts it out is amusing for the tabloids; another bad little rich girl.

She certainly is not endearing herself to anyone.

On the other hand, it could conceivably be the best thing that could happen to her.

She might 'bottom out'.

This could be the beginning of recovery.

The recovery record for someone so insulated and pampered is not very good. But many make it.

Most who do are supported by others who used to drink and use and live the same kind of high flying life. People that she can identify with.

I personally pray that this happen for her.

Her judge could be one of those 'angels' we hear about. Someone who comes into our lives and changes everything.

He is sure not enabling her.

I just thought I would mention that what we have here is just another garden variety drunk having a normal low bottom experience in the 'the system'.

Labels: alcohol, culture, recovery