Sobriety

Someone recently asked me, “How did you gain/obtain your sobriety?”

Before I begin, I want to make it clear your sobriety is something you most certainly gain. It’s not something you obtain. It’s much more of something you would achieve, not receive. It’s hard work, someone doesn’t just give it to you. You don’t just go down to Wally World and buy something that’s going to make you sober. You work at it. You gain it.

Now for the question. The simplest, easiest, most direct way to gain sobriety is to just stop drinking. I know that’s lame, but it’s true. The tricky part is to not ever drink again. That’s why you have to have a really good reason to stop your destructive behavior. And believe me, you probably don’t have to look very hard. In my life, there was my son; he was all the reason I needed. That isn’t to say I didn’t drink for a while when I finally got custody of him, and being the non-custodial parent for those couple of years prior certainly led to my drinking more and more, but he is the main reason why I stopped. I wanted to be the best dad I could and give him the best chances in life.

What kept me sober outside of that was knowledge. The more I found out about the disease and the more I realized how my family and my father affected my drinking, the more I understood it wasn’t something I needed to do. Nor, by that time, wanted to do. I grew up believing that fun and beer went hand in hand. I didn’t do anything enjoyable without having a beer or something else along for the ride. What surprised me the most after I stopped was that I had had so much more fun sober than I’ve ever had drunk and I enjoy the memories so much more because I actually remember them.

People drink for a number of reasons. But, people drink too much for only a few reasons. My father was an alcoholic, so I was raised in an alcoholic family, I didn’t know any different. I drank because my life really sucked, and the more it sucked, the more I drank. I was self-medicating myself because I also discovered I had anxiety and depressive symptoms. People who drink too much either drink to escape or drink to have fun. That is to say, someone may have started drinking while having fun, and for a certain amount of time, years probably, they continued to have fun while doing it. Then they woke up one day and realized drinking to have fun turned out to be not so much fun after all. Not to mention, it sure took a lot of alcohol to even find some semblance of fun. Drinking becomes a burden if you drink in excess every time you’re out having fun.  If you’re in school, your education suffers, if you’re employed, your job suffers, if you’re married or in a relationship, your relationship suffers. People finally realize their life is going to shit when they look around them and see that they’ve destroyed every good thing they’ve ever had. I’m not saying everyone reaches that point. Some people never realize they have a problem. They are called high-functioning alcoholics. But I guarantee you they really aren’t that functional, they really aren’t happy, and the people in their lives really aren’t happy with them.

The other reason is to escape. Same principal, same result. I drink, it feels good, I sober up, it feels bad, I drink more, it feels better, I sober up, and it feels worse. It gets to the point very quickly that I have to drink just to feel okay. That’s another reason why it’s so hard to stop. The day you stop, you start to feel worse, the next day, worse than the day before. I’ve found, by trial and error that if I was able to stop for three days, I would start to notice an improvement in how I felt on day four. I would start feeling better. After that, it was just one day at a time.

I’m actually in the editing process of a self-help book I am publishing entitled, “It’s Never Too Late: Be True to Yourself” that really has a very good explanation of my personal method in it and I really believe it will help those of you who happen to struggle with addiction and even those of you who know someone who does. At the very least, you might discover something you didn’t know and it will lead you to ask more questions and search for more answers.

The same old cliché applies, though. The only person who is going to get you to stop drinking is you, and it’s a very difficult struggle that lasts years. And then, after you start on the road to recovery, you’ll find it’s something that never leaves you, either. But eventually, doing without seems so much more productive than having it in your life. You just have to truly want to stop. Then you’ll see why life is so much better without it. My life completely changed when I stopped. I rediscovered myself and who I truly was. Now I’m doing the things I love to do and I have no reason to ever go back down that road.

There are those people who are luckier than me who can see what a detriment alcohol and drug abuse is without going through their own personal hell. They are called social drinkers. Others were raised in hell and never knew any better, much like me and many of my siblings. The only difference is, they continue to deny their problem because they have refused to accept the fact they are all adult children of an alcoholic. I would venture to bet most people who abuse drugs and alcohol are from families who fall into that category. If your father, mother, grandfather, or grandmother used to drink a lot, you really should take a good hard look at your own consumption and ask yourself if you’d be better off without it. If you already know the answer to that question or you’ve hit bottom for the last time, then it’s time to make that commitment. In my opinion, there was never any need for alcohol in the first place. It’s an evil drug. Everyone is better off without it.

Yes, really, you are.  

Rudeness

When did it become fashionable to be rude? I grew up in a small town in Wyoming and although there were many things not so right with the morals of the people I grew up around, at least they were friendly and didn’t act like they had a huge corncob stuck up their respective asses. When I walked down the street people looked at me and smiled and said hi and acted like they were genuinely concerned about me and glad that they had seen me that day. My father used to tip his hat at every woman he passed, whether he had a hat on or not. I never figured out if that was him just being nice, or his womanizing disability. Nowadays, you’re lucky if you get someone to look up from the screen that they are texting on. Yet, that has only happened recently.

Three or four years ago when everyone wasn’t texting, they might have been talking on their phone, but they were still usually looking down at their feet. And, even before cell phones became so popular, people still looked at their feet. I used to wonder what the fascination was with everyone’s feet. I’ve seen my feet hundreds of times, I can walk on a sidewalk without looking down, why do people stare at their feet when you encounter them? Not to mention that there used to be these booths on corners and in front of stores all over the country that contained phones in them. They were in booths for two reasons, one, for privacy, and two, so I didn’t have to stand there and listen to your conversation because it’s rude. But, I digress.

I went back to college in my late thirties to finish my bachelor’s degree and had firsthand experience with how the younger generations treated each other and the people around them. For the most part, they were still respectful to most authority figures. They would call their professors by their appropriate titles when they addressed them. Not so much when they were talking about them with each other. And, well, they had some manors, but it could have just as well been a big front. I certainly didn’t get deep into the belly of the college beast. I wasn’t allowed because of my age. Most everyone was nice to me and I made quite a few friends. Friends I’m sad to say, lost touch all too quickly after graduation. Which makes me think that they behaved differently around me than they did amongst themselves. But, back to my point. Even though they acted nice for the most part, there wasn’t a day that went by where I wasn’t appalled at what someone did or said. And many times, these were the people that I just referred to as my friends. These were my cohorts, too.

I wonder where manors went? When did they become extinct? Because, really, when I pass you on the street and you completely ignore me as if I’m not even there, I want to tell you to go fuck yourself. I want to ask you, “who made you so special that you think you can just completely ignore another member of the human race?” Of course, I know all about the fundamental attribution error. That person could have any number of things going on with their lives. Perhaps, their mother just died or their spouse just asked them for a divorce. I know that some people have bona fide excuses for being rude, but you can’t tell me that 95% of all people I meet on the street have the same kind of excuse for their sad actions.

I suppose the problem has hundreds of different contributing factors, and I could spend a lifetime trying to research and dissect the problem. I just want people to understand that the planet is getting smaller and smaller every day. As long as the birth rate is higher than the death rate, there is going to be less and less space for all of us to live. We are all going to be forced to see more and more of each other on a daily basis. So, I ask you to please make eye contact with the people you pass on the street and smile at them. Pay it forward. It’s the only way that this planet is going to be a place worth living on. We all simply have to be nice to each other. We all have to take care of each other. We all have to step back and decide which is more important; selfishness, or the environment in which our kids are going to grow up in? Our kids, their kids, their kids’ kids, and so on. No one, not even the people that actually own land, have the right to treat it any which way they want to. It’s the same with public spaces. No one has the right to be an ass when they are present in a public space. I’m trying to raise my kids right. I don’t know about your problems, but I bet they aren’t much different than mine. So, get over yourself.

Maybe it’s just me. I don’t know. To be honest, I don’t like too many people, as you may have guessed, but I do care about other people. I think that everyone has certain inalienable rights and since everyone’s space is starting to overlap everyone else’s, you have to be a bit more careful what you do, because you just might be treading on someone else’s rights. It’s not tolerance we should be striving for, it’s cohesiveness. Humanity must eventually come together and act as one. I believe that we can all have one set of morals. That we can all treat each other as we would like to be treated. With respect, with courtesy, with kindness, with care. I believe that there are certain human attributes ingrained in all of us that would allow this to happen. We all know what to do, we just choose not to because we are all so busy ignoring each other, that we don’t see outside of our living rooms anymore, or in this case, the tops of our shoes. Ignorance is not bliss, it is downright criminal. Be nice, people. I guarantee you’ll feel better because you will be making a difference.

What's up with this?

In 2010, there were 1 million veterans receiving disability pensions. 25% of these were Vietnam veterans with the disability of adult-onset diabetes. More Vietnam veterans are being compensated for diabetes than any other disease. Explain to me how the VHA is not socialized medicine? And please don't start off with some fight for your country bull. What if I'm a healthy young man that wanted to join the armed forces and was disqualified because of my eyesight or some other problem that didn't harm my civilian life enough to be on disability, but wasn't good enough for the armed forces? I'm no less an American than someone in the armed forces, am I? The argument about socialized medicine is ridiculous people. Not to mention that there are so many socialized programs in the United States, it isn't even funny. I'm getting so tired of someone parroting someone else without first checking the facts and looking at all sides of the argument before spouting off. If it wasn't for President Obama, people, this country would be so much worse off today then it would have been with a Republican President. We're still in trouble, but we were headed for a Great Depression worse than the last one and President Obama pulled us out. I saw a cute bumper sticker today. It said, "Voting for President is just like driving a car. If you want to go in reverse, select R. If you want to go forward, select D." That pretty much sums it up.

Liberal Arts not Conservative Design

I was talking to my wife last night and the subject came up as to what a liberal arts education can do for a person. Specifically, how a LAE develops a person's capacity to reason, think analytically, show compassion and stewardship, and, well, just be an all around better person. And then it occurred to me that when I was in the College of Business at the University of Wyoming a few years ago, that the business majors - BS majors - many of them didn't have to take as many Arts and Sciences classes that a BA major would have. Which is why I believe that many of the students in the COB were Republican. They didn't know better. Take our outstanding president Barack Obama. He's most definitely had a LAE. He's pretty damn smart. He's very analytical when it comes to the various problems of this country. He's also very humble. He knows his limitations. My point being, he has had more great ideas in his first two years in office than the past three presidents combined. Which goes back to the LAE, and the JD, for that matter.
Then, I was reading the book "Dude, Where's my Country" this morning, and looking at the publication date, I wondered why, if this information was out to the public in 2003, how in the hell did George W. Bin Laden get re-elected. You know, that former president, that wasn't really elected the first time around. That former president that spent his eight years in office totally destroying the economy and the world view of this country. Yes, and now that we have a president that actually gives a crap about the middle class, not just the billionaires, the GOP want's to undo all of the good change that he's accomplished in his first two years in office. Wake up, people! This country needs change, and the GOP is not going to give it the change it needs. They just want to make sure that no billionaire is left behind. Thanks, Michael Moore. Keep doing what you're doing, dude!

WTF?

What a sad day for this county. The Republican party succeeded in convincing the majority of the country that all of the economic gains that we have made in the last 2 years weren’t gains at all. They misunderstand what would have happened if President Obama and Congress didn’t do what they have done during that time. They plugged the hole that was bleeding the country of jobs and making the poor poorer and the rich richer. What a sad state of affairs when some of the most wealthy businesses are allowed to dump money into campaigns that are run on a bunch of lies. We are much better off than we were two years ago. We are much better off than we were when the ignorant Bush was in office. Looking at some of the exit polls it seems that the only people that don’t believe that is the rich white male population (RWMP). Has this county actually made any progress in the last 200 years in the matter of human rights? It sure doesn’t look like it. Most of the women in this country are smarter than the RWMP and know that the country is making great progress. The minorities are still standing behind our current administration. People who make less than 50,000 per year. People with a post graduate degree. Young people. All are behind the current administration. Pretty much all of the intelligent people in this country who aren’t greedy and believe that this country has the means and the ability to give everyone the American dream. There shouldn’t be poor homeless hungry sick people in one of the richest countries in the world. That’s not a democracy. We all want the American dream, how come only some of us actually get to live it? I’ll tell you why. Ignorant greedy self-centered immoral unethical Republicans. You’d think their party is run by white supremacists. WTF?

Volunteer!!!

I was reading about the crisis in Haiti this morning and looking at some of the comments from the people who are stupid enough to write them so that the whole world can see. Oops, I guess that includes me. But I'm not stupid, that's the difference. If we all took an hour or two out of our week and volunteered instead of playing golf or riding those awful four wheelers all over God's country, Haiti, this country, and the rest of the world would be in much better shape than it is now. This country has been taken over by greed, lust, and gluttony. We really, for the majority of the population have no idea what it's like to live in an underdeveloped country. For the resources that the United States has, we should be in a place like Haiti that needs our help instead of places like Iraq. Don't get me started on that. I'm glad we're in Afghanistan, but we never ever needed to be in Iraq. Thousands of our sons and daughters died in Iraq for nothing. If we wanted to save the world from terrorism, which is what we are now doing, we could have saved many of those lives by doing what we are doing now. See, tangential. You made me do it. My point was, that for the resources, the manpower, and the determination, the people of the US could easily fix most of the world’s problems, with one exception. The people in charge are greedy, lustful, gluttonous people that want everything for themselves.

Ignorance

Mr. President Obama has done more good for this country in his first year than the ignorant right administration has done in the past 8 prior years. Anyone who thinks Palin or McCain or either of the Bush's were anywhere near qualified for the job is just plain ignorant. And, anyone who thinks Al Gore is spreading lies, is again, just plain ignorant. We, on the left, are not the enemy. We are bailing your right wing greedy selfish asses out of the near total destruction of America by the Bush administration. Mr. President Obama may not be perfect, but he is an exceptional individual, and only an exceptional individual should be leading our country. Left is the majority! Live with it, or live somewhere else. Unbelievable stupidity running around this county. I am amazed every day at the ignorance of some people. Global warming is real, people. Have you been to the mountains in Colorado or Wyoming lately? The pine beetles don’t survive when it’s too cold. They survive because it hasn’t been cold enough for long enough in the winters. And, where do you think all of this extra moisture is coming from? All of these massive hurricanes? All of this flooding? Do you not understand the simple process of rain? Water evaporates, forms clouds, dumps rain. Simple. Also as simple, there is more water on the planet because there are less and less glaciers every minute, why, because of global warming you ignorant right wing idiots. More water, more rain. The only people you are fooling by saying that Al Gore is spreading lies are the ignorant people who just can’t accept anyone else in the white house beside a high-brow white man. Wow, don’t get me started on that. Perhaps tomorrow.