The World of the Coat and the Clipboard 8/16/2006
I’m always amazed that doctors know how my body works. How, I’ll want to ask, did you know that that nerve or organ or whatever was going to be right there – right where you looked? I mean, the guy’s never met me before in his life.
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Drink Time 8/11/2006
My mother drinks. Not to excess, but as a regular part of her day.
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Going Through the Motions7/25/2006
There was a ghost in the big white house next door to us when I was a kid.
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A Bad Trade-Off7/20/2006
When I was a kid in the 60s, most of the adults in my life smoked. Sometimes, when a pack happened to by lying around, I’d slide a cigarette out and examine it, in the way that kids like to do with items from the adult world.
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The Elixir of Life7/12/2006
“Copper is restless until it becomes gold.” – Meister Eckhart
Alcoholics long for transformation. It’s a fact that’s built into the very word “alcohol” itself, which comes originally from the Arabic word alkoh’l, meaning “fine metallic powder.” The kind of powder that, back in the Middle Ages, alchemists produced in their attempts to transform lead into gold, and the “lead” of the worldly soul into the “gold” of spirit.
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Any Length7/5/2006
It’s funny how many recovery concepts I’ve come
to understand by using analogs from my using days. The Big Book overflows with
phrases and ideas that only came to make sense to me after I plugged them into
experiences from my life as a drinker.
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A Dream Come True 6/22/2006
For most of my using life, alcohol was enough for me. If a couple of Valium or some painkillers came my way I was delighted, but a plentiful supply of booze was really all I needed to render life tolerable.
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Love Digs6/9/2006
What is it about sober people and movies? When I first started going to meetings I was amazed at how much time people spent talking about films they’d seen, films they wanted to see, or films they were planning on seeing. One friend of mine in particular – I’ll call him Jack – impressed me particularly in this department. The first thing he’d do in the diner after the meeting was spread out that day’s copy of the movie section of the Times and outline the films he was thinking about going to that night. As far as I could make out, he’d see anything. Mediocre special-effects spectaculars; romances; sequels… There was apparently nothing he wasn’t willing to sit through. Clearly, Jack wasn’t going to the movies just for entertainment. There was something else he was getting from the experience, and that something-else was connected to sobriety.
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