03 JUN 2024
OK, bear with me - I’ve shared a lot of DIY’s and a whole lot of flute stuff, but I’ve never published something this brutally honest or painfully introspective. I hope this doesn’t lose me any friends, but I guess if my reality chases you off, it was superficial anyway. In any case, I feel like I have to post this to make it real; to hold myself accountable.
Last night (tonight as I’m writing this section), an interaction with a friend, and the questionable (allbeit seemingly benign) reason for the interaction got me thinking. This journal entry is the unfolding result of those thoughts and, as embarrassed as I am to share this with you, my nearly impeccable ability to keep secrets has made it such that the unburdening of my truth is as liberating and self-awakening as it is shameful. I’ll try to make it sort of fun, so please don’t prepare yourself for a depressing read.
DRUNKEN MEMOIRS (THE NIGHT OF)
Ok Hive, I’m just gonna level with you. I’m mildly drunk as I start this draft, entitled “Sobriety.”
Shit happens the way it happens, and it happens for a reason. Tonight I had a wakeup call…I just found out someone I respect and think of as being a legitimately cool dude has been alcohol free for almost as long as I’ve been out of the army…and the shit I was doing back in those days would make most normal/healthy people very uneasy. Shrooms and LSD were a weekly thing. Cocaine off of public toilets? Yeah, check. Casual sex with questionable women? Hahahaha yeah definitely. Main reason they were questionable was their willingness to ply their legs for a jackass like me, so being the central part of what made them questionable, I obviously don’t judge them for their willingness…it just is what it is - or rather, it was what it was. I probably seemed wild and mysterious, or fun and carefree or some shit.
…anyway let’s continue…DMT that I got from a guy in a dingy apartment, delivered in a used baby bottle? Yeah done it. Mescaline from a random dude who says he normally just deals meth? Check. Ecstacy from a weed dealer who’d been cornered into accepting it as payment for a quarter? Yeah I bought it to do him a favor, and took all three at once because…why not? Taking random antidepressants even after being warned that they wouldn’t be fun? Check…and she was right, it wasn’t fun…but I rode it out as I always do. I am the honey badger personified, but at least the honey badger is supposed to be a honey badger…what’s my excuse?
…f*ck…the list is just starting and seeing it in print is making me cringe a bit. … a bit!?!? dammit, it’s worse than I thought.
You know what? F*ck the list, we don’t need to keep going here, I think the point is made. The question is, what am I going to do about it, now that I see it…right?
In my time in the army I was wildly drunk, basically whenever I could get away with it - and some times when I couldn’t. Looking back, I owe my honorable discharge to the silent discretion of a few random sergeants and officers who owed me nothing…I owe my survival to chance and grace. I remember one time, I took a bunch of Zanax and Russian whiskey, in a combat zone. I mean, it was on a secured compound, but I was on the Quick Response Force, which means I could have been called on at any moment - and QRF calls were not exactly infrequent. Anyway, I sat down outside of a bunker to play guitar and woke up when a captain kicked me in the ribs because my carcass was stopping his convoy from leaving camp. I should have been court marshalled then and there - but he took pity because he saw the guitar, and told me to get myself out of sight…so I slumped into a bunker, took a piss, and laid down in the dirt next to my own puddle…thank God we didn’t get a QRF call.
In Iraq, I was one of the fortunate few who were blessed (or cursed) with the opportunity (obligation) to go outside the wire and operate among the locals. Did I help anyone or do any good? I like to think that I did. I’m not a complete piece of shit, I have a heart and care about others, and for the most part the people and communities I met in my two years over there were beautiful, with good hearts. But did I also buy hasheesh, Gogosh whiskey in a can and knock-off pharmaceuticals from ten year old kids outside of Abu Ghraib and resell it to soldiers trapped inside the camps at a MASSIVE markup? F*ck yeah I did. I had sandbags against the berm, LOADED with drugs and alcohol for resale. I made a killing, plus my drinks were free.
Ok we’re there again…no need to continue elaborating. Actually one more - we were pulling security for army dental in a gypsy camp on the north side of Baghdad. The dentists were dishing out toothbrushes/toothpaste and giving lessons on how to use them; me and my crew were forming a perimeter and making sure no one got killed. The road was shiny with crushed pint cans. The gypsy men offered me a drink and at first I declined…too risky. Even then, not scared about what they might do, just concerned about getting caught. Then they formed a circle around me, offering to cover. A good (or sane/responsible) soldier would be concerned. Me? I took a knee and crushed two pint cans while the Iraqi gypsies cheered me on. Then I wiped the spilt brew off my chin and went on to pull security…20 years old, half in the bag, M-4 locked and loaded and 270 rounds on my person…as an older and (arguably) wiser man, I wouldn’t hang out with an asshole like that, not for one red second…but that was me. I could smoke three packs a day, drink a fifth of tequila, and still hit my target and do 30 consecutive pull-ups. I was healthy and strong, and a complete f*cking wreck.
In the absence of women to woo, I became (more) addicted to porn. We didn’t have internet in the early days, but I had brought a distributor catalog I'd gotten from a porn store, so I had the addresses of all the major porn producers in the US - and I wrote them all. Within a few months I had so many hundreds of DVDs I was renting them out for cash and cigarettes - just like that, I had a lock on another vice-based business - no one had the kind of eclectic porn collection I could boast. They’d sent me midgets, grandmas, gangbangs, you name it…I had everything - and I didn't judge people based on their rental choice…this was business. I’ve always had an entrepreneurial flair I guess, and a tendency to wrap it in with my myriad vices. Point is, I had probably been addicted to sex and porn since the advent of the internet (Windows 3.1 time frame y’all, but who are we kidding, I was hooked ever since I found the underwear section in the JC Penney catalog), but it got worse after so many years unmitigated. Basically, when it came to building a “normal” or healthy life, I had spent the first 23 years of my life building up every barrier imaginable.
When I got out, I only got worse…no drug tests for college students, regular internet, young girls looking for a wild experience - and as a veteran back then I had near impunity. Once I got pulled over driving drunk as f*ck on a 50CC moped witha 30 pack of beer beteeen my legs, and the officer just told me to get off the main roads. …Now I could play with all the substances…and I did. Looking back, the army was a lot like how prison makes a criminal. I was just a horny kid when I joined, but I became a peddler of all things illicit (no child shit though, I’ll be damned.) At the University of Kansas, I studied art (until I dropped out), and gave up my entrepreneurial ways. I imagine it was similar when Red got out of Shaw Shank.
At this point I was just left with a bankroll of cash and an addictive personality. The addictive personality stuck around…the bankroll…didn’t.
Since then I’ve blown through every dime I saved. I’ve licked the ugly bottom and been caressed by the sweet, sensuous top. Call it God if you're religious, call it the universe if you’re spiritual, call it dumb luck I guess if you’re not into all that shit - but something kept me tethered to that beautiful thing called life. Whatever that something is, even the jerkoff I am today knows well enough to be grateful.
…Speaking of which, my wife is calling me so I guess it’s bed time. Reminiscing time is done for now. Tomorrow I’d like to examine this from a place of presence, from a state of sobriety…but there’s a big fat joint in the fuse box under the hood of my car just waiting for my next opportunity to blaze. There’re still two gallons of Everclear tucked away in the attic in case I “need” a nip. There’s still a hidden avalanche of porn in case I decide I “need” to relapse. There’s still a few grams of golden teachers in case a window ever opens, and there's still a pack of cigarettes in my toolbox and a nicotine vape in my backpack…if there’s anything I can learn about me as I write this openly and honestly, it’s that I haven’t changed at all. I’ve just gotten more disciplined; more talented at keeping…me…under wraps. I am not a better person than I was, I’m just a better liar than I want to be. It’s scary cuz I have no idea how to do it, but I want to do better; I want to be better. Now let’s just hope I still feel this way tomorrow.
SOBER REFLECTIONS (THE NEXT DAY)
...man...I was all gristle and balls when I wrote that last night...now I really don't want to post it. Judging by the last line I wrote at the time, it seems like I recognized that possibility all along.
I was up writing the first section until just after midnight. I got up at 0500 today to make my kids' lunches and prep their bookbags for school...I do this everyday. I hate leaving for work feeling like I didn't do everything I could to help my wife get them ready.
Anyway, I'm not saying I don't need to make some very real changes - because I definitely do - but I also don't think I'm quite as bad as I let on last night. Get me on a roll with self-deprecating talk after a few drinks and I guess I'm an endless fountain. But the truth is, it's not like I wrote that in a blackout drunken state or anything. I had three vodka drinks last night, nothing less and nothing more; I count to eleven when I pour vodka. But I was still up writing two hours after the third drink was gone, and from that point I drank water...that kind of discipline is something I neither shake a stick at, nor take for granted. Full disclosure, writing about that joint in my fuse box reminded me about it, so I did slip out and smoke half of it in the backyard as my final coup de grâce.
I could really go for a doughnut today. I mean, not enough to go out and buy one, but just enough to hope that someone randomly brings in a dozen to share. Won't happen, I know, but a guy can dream, right?
I'm avoiding this.
Looking back at how I portrayed myself last night, I'm not too happy with it. It's not the full picture, and some of it is a little misleading. I guess let me start this section by clarifying some stuff. The pack of cigarettes in my toolbox, I found while we were on a date night. I saw them on the dock, slipped them in my pocket and kept them at the time (two years ago) in case I ever wanted to smoke again, but I actually threw them out when we cleaned the garage just last weekend. The Everclear in the attic? I've had that since I lived in Maryland, the two bottles haven't been opened in the 4 years I've had them, and the third one (which is downstairs and not secret) was used for making various tinctures - from mazapatecs and golden teachers to wormwood and st john's wort. I have made myself a few drinks out of that bottle, but it is exceedingly rare as I've had that third bottle since the same day as the other two. The nicotine vape is an ongoing challenge, but today I woke up motivated to leave it alone...we'll see how long that lasts but for now I'm giving myself the benefit of a doubt...I can do this. The hidden mountain of porn? All I have to do is "CTRL+A -> DEL"...maybe it's time I do. I have no desire to go back to that, so why can't I seem to cut it loose? I hate how Instagram is loaded with so much attention seeking self-defacement, it can be pretty triggering (forgive me, I hate that word too). But social media and the people on it cannot be blamed for my tendencies and problems...those are mine. I deleted IG and Reddit this morning. I don't value the crap that's on there, and honestly only scroll those places when I low-key want to be triggered (there it is again), so yeah, time to take out the trash.
So now it's just me, a PC and my thoughts, alone in an empty lab. Why did I dig all that stuff up? As much as that first section reads like an exercise in self-loathing, I think seeing my friend's success inspired me to really make an effort towards building my own success story - but you can't clean your laundry if you don't take it out of the closet. As much as I painted myself in the light of a full-on loser last night, the truth is I have come a long way. I'm not a big fat liar-pants, but I have been holding onto some old habits that aren't serving me or my value-based goals in life, and I guess that makes me feel like a big fat liar-pants. I don't regret my mistakes because they brought me here, and I recognize the progress I've made to be where I am now. I love myself. God that sounds stupid, or vain, or just hard to believe...but I'm sticking with it. I love myself.
Now I just need to prove it.
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