I’m taking a whiz in an inappropriate place again. Apparently five plus years of sobriety have done little to suppress “the world is my toilet” viewpoint that I subscribe to. Tonight it’s the side of a forest-green Waste Management Dumpster behind a Fry’s supermarket. The street sweeping company I drive for has sent me to…
Celia never seemed to put more than a few months together clean. A complete failure at recovery. Not worth the 24-hour, 30-day and occasional 60-day aluminum chips she was picking up with regularity. At least that’s what some thought. The short, short cutoff jeans. The barely-there blouses. For the healthy ones in the rooms, clothes…
My last bipolar manic episode was what my 94-year-old mother would call a “doozey.” (Sure, my Facebook analytics tell me my followers skew Millennial. Perhaps I should express myself in emojis and f-bombs. But I am guessing there isn’t a little icon or string of profanity that could properly describe an episode that still has…
So here is the deal, I have been buried in work. Not surprisingly, when you stay sober for and extended period of time and maintain a modicum of sanity there are those who are will to throw variety of tasks and a paycheck your way. Go figure. Then my wife took ill. We were blessed…
If only shame were fleeting and impermanent. But it’s not. It’s sticky. Hard to remove. Crippling. Unlike justified guilt, which just tells me I did something wrong, shame says I am wrong-–defective to the core. Avoid me. Shun me. Whisk the children away at my coming. Guilt, if heeded, can be productive. I change my…
…I think I am sharing the wealth. Within a two mile radius of my home are a plethora of drugstores, grocery stores, convenience stores and liquor stores that can meet my need for one half-pint of Skyy vodka. Always just one. Each intended to be the last. Over the course of the day I vary…
Before years of alcoholism and insanity there was just an innocent, though prone to frequent urination, baby boy. I was born the summer of 1963 in what was to become the OC. That’s the real OC. The one in California. Not the wannabe OC over in that phallus-shaped state. Shortly after I was born, John…
“Selfishness — self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.” Alcoholics Anonymous (The Big Book) pg. 62 Heavy sigh… So last night I had the thought to write a blog on self-centeredness. Just this past week I had taken a sponsee through the Third Step. All my grand pronouncements and vast wisdom on…
It was a Wednesday morning rush hour commute. I was nearly four months sober. Gone were the days where I had to stop by the liquor store for a little “hair-of-the-dog” before heading into work. I was actually scheduling meetings first thing in the morning as I was no longer trying to hide my eighty-proof…
As with any bipolar worth the salt known as lithium, I am not unfamiliar with that local fine dining establishment known as county jail. Not any jail mind you. My home is just southeast of Phoenix, Arizona, so Maricopa County’s infamous Lower Buckeye Jail (LBJ), erected by that pink-underwear-loving humanitarian Sherriff Joe Arpaio, was my…