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How To Talk To A Liar Who’s Been Caught

A reader who recently found the two posts I wrote on addicts as compulsive liars had a sad story to share. Her husband, a compulsive spender, gambler and drinker, lies to her all the time. He apparently sucks at it. She always finds out.

Mood music:

How, she asked me, does she deal with a person like this? She still loves him, and in many respects he’s still the great guy. But lies are a cancer on even the most tried and true relationships.

It’s a hard question for me to answer. For one thing, it’s self-serving of me to tell a person like you how to talk to a person like me. My instinct will naturally be to tell you to go easy on him and calmly talk it through. It is true that yelling at a liar won’t make him stop. In fact, it will probably compel him to lie even more, convinced that any shred of honesty will result in a verbal beating every time.

This part has been especially challenging for me over the years. I grew up in a family where there was constant yelling. Because of that, I react to yelling like one might react to gunshots. I instinctively avoid it at all costs, and that has led to lies.

But if your significant other is stealing money behind your back to buy drugs, a friendly, smiling reminder to him that grownups aren’t supposed to behave this way won’t work either. The liar will simply thank God that he got off the hook that time.

You just can’t win with a liar.

I lied all the time about all the binge eating and the money I spent on it. I’m guilty of the lie of omission when it comes to smoking. And in moments where I felt like I was in trouble, I lied about something without meaning to. The instinct just kicked in and a second later I was smacking myself in the head over it.

Here’s where there’s hope:

Lies tire a soul out. It weighs you down after awhile like big bags of sand on your shoulders. Guilt eats you alive. That’s how it’s been with me in the past.

If you’re like that and there are any shards of good within you, you eventually come clean because you want to. Remember that lying is part of two larger diseases: Addiction and mental illness. Nobody wants to be sick.

But while some who get sick wallow in it and make everyone around them miserable, others are decidedly more stoic about it and try to do the best they can with the odds they’re dealt.

I was a miserable sick man but eventually, through spiritual growth, I tried to become a more bearable sick man. That meant dealing with the roots (addiction and OCD) and the side effects (lying).

I still fall on my face. But I work it hard and seem to have gotten much better than I used to be.

I credit Erin for a lot of this. She could have either thrown me out or thrown up her arms and turned a blind eye to my self destruction. But somehow, she has found a middle ground in dealing with me. It hasn’t always been pretty. But we’ve had our victories along the way.

You want to know how to talk to a liar who’s been caught? You’re better off asking her than me.

pinocchio

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The Way Of The Broken Soul

I went to see “The Way” with Erin and saw a lot of myself in the characters. You’d see a lot of yourself, too.

Mood music:

The summary of the film is this (stolen from IMDb): Tom is an American doctor who goes to France following the death of his adult son, killed in the Pyrenees during a storm while walking The Camino de Santiago, also known as The Way of St. James. Tom’s purpose is initially to retrieve his son’s body. However, in a combination of grief and homage to his son, Tom decides to journey on this path of pilgrims. While walking The Camino, Tom meets others from around the world, all broken and looking for greater meaning in their lives, and discovers the difference between the life we live and the life we choose.

I don’t identify with Tom as much as I do his walking companions, especially a Dutchman named Joost and an Irish writer named Jack.

Joost tells Tom he’s making the journey because he needs to lose some weight to fit into his suit for an upcoming wedding. Jack is on the journey because he thinks there might be a book in the experience, and he’s trying to break his writer’s block.

If you rolled these two guys into one, that would be something close to me.

Despite the official reason Joost is there, he proceeds to eat his way across Spain. For much of the movie, he’s comforting himself with food. Jack is a blowhard who likes to talk about living like a real pilgrim, living off the land for survival and such. But he uses his company-issued credit cards to enjoy all the comforts of the local culture.

At one point, after a lot of wine, Tom interrupts Jack’s latest verbal tirade, calling him a bore who thinks he’s better than everyone else because he’s writing a book. The truth is that for all his talk, Jack’s carrying a lot of spiritual pain. It reminded me of some of my own bluster and hypocrisy. But it also reminded me of the healing power of writing, and how important it is to me. Not that I needed the reminder.

The scene that really hit me hard, though, is one where Joost is in his hotel room, about to tear into the feast he’s ordered from room service.

He’s wearing an open bathrobe, staring at himself — and his bloated belly — in the mirror with disgust. He stares at the tray of food and goes to take the first bite, and it’s there that you see the shame and pain in his eyes. The truth eventually comes out that his wife won’t sleep with him anymore because he’s too fat. He wants to please her, but he can’t stop himself from eating and popping pills.

All my past binge eating, wine guzzling and obsessive pain pill popping came back to me, as clear and awful as if I had just done it all the day before. I really felt bad for Joost at that moment.

By film’s end, Jack seems to have had a spiritual re-awakening and Joost seems to accept who he is, saying he’s just going to buy a new suit.

The recovered binge eater in me wasn’t particularly satisfied with that outcome, but it’s clear by film’s end that each of the characters came a long way in mending their broken souls.

For most of my life I’ve been an avid walker. As a kid I walked the full length of Revere Beach every day. In my 20s and 30s, I’d go out almost daily and take long walks. For all my recovery from addiction, the walking is something I haven’t gotten back into as much as I should. This movie has me rethinking that one. It reminded me that I walked for a spiritual lift as much as it was for weight control. In fact, a lot of my walking life was done in the midst of binge eating.

I’ve been able to control my weight in recent years without all the walking. But I think I need to get back to the walking anyway.

A good walk can help me set my mind and soul right. It doesn’t have to be a walk across Spain.

In fact, I’d much rather walk Revere Beach or the hilly terrain where I live now.

The Way Poster
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Axl Rose: Still A Jackass

Guns n Roses singer Axl Rose is still a jackass after all these years. Consider the following:

Mood music:

From the metal news site Blabbermouth.net:

GUNS N’ ROSES‘ continual tardiness is making things rough for concert promoters and fans alike, with long waits for Axl Rose just as much a definite at a the band’s concert as hearing “Paradise City” or “Welcome To The Jungle”. At the Rock In Rio concert on October 2, GUNS N’ ROSES came onstage two hours late despite having reportedly agreed to pay a heavy fine for making the audience wait.

GUNS N’ ROSES‘ defended its actions with a brand new post on its Facebook page, stating, “Love it Hate it Accept it Debate it — You want 8 o’clock shows go find F-R-I-E-N-D-S or hit a cinema somewhere.. or you wanna be informed go catch the 10-o’clock news.. this is Rock N’ Roll! Treat yourself don’t cheat yourself thinking you’re gonna go to school or work or whatever you ‘normally’ do the next day. Oh and remember before you get high and never want to come down. ‘you can have anything you want but you better not take it from me!’ This is GUNS N’ ROSES and when the time is right the stage will ignite. Looking forward to sharing that with rockers soon!”

GUNS N’ ROSES‘ 2001 show at Rock In Rio saw them take to the stage two hours late, and while the crowd waited patiently for them on that occasion, this has not been the case at other shows.

In March 2010, fans of the band rioted in São Paolo, Brazil after a private show was canceled at the last minute, and in 2002 fans in Vancouver, Canada and Philadelphia in the U.S. rioted when shows were canceled on the day.

Also in 2010, organizers of the Reading festival in England pulled the plug on the band’s PA, silencing them after they took to the stage an hour late and tried to overrun the event’s curfew time by over half an hour.

Here’s what Axl doesn’t understand after all these years: When you pay to see him perform, it’s reasonable to expect the band to take the stage close to the time the ticket states. People travel from far and wide to see their favorite bands. Some disrupt their schedules to get to the venue on time. Most have jobs to get to the following morning.

Axl thinks it’s wrong for people to get upset with him for not fulfilling his side of the deal and that they should “treat themselves” and not “cheat themselves.” But it’s not a treat to spend two extra hours in a concert hall waiting for something to happen.

Axl’s mental health issues are the stuff of rock legend. His mood swings have led to riots and a world of hurt for those around him.

After more than 20 years, one would have hoped he grew as a person; that he brought his selfish instincts to heal.

But apparently not.

I feel sorry for him. To go through all these years and not learn from mistakes seems like such a waste.

Perhaps it’s hypocritical of me to say these things. After all, I have plenty of things I still need to work on.

But I can’t help myself.

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Happy Birthday, Old Friend

It just dawned on me that today would have been Sean Marley’s 45th birthday. You’ve seen much here about how his life and death shaped me. But right now I just want to point out all that was cool about him.

Mood music:

–He was a gifted guitarist. He could learn to play just about anything, and could write great musical bits when he wanted to. He gave me my first guitar for Christmas in 1986. It was an Ibanez strat model. He had what I think was a Guild electric guitar with a dark blue or black body. I sold the Ibanez several years later and it’s one of my biggest regrets. Sean was pissed but forgave me. I sometimes wonder whatever happened to his guitar. I hope someone’s putting it to good use.

–He was a great writer, and was a very disciplined diary keeper. He showed me several posts over the years, but I haven’t read them since his death. I know they are in safe hands, though.

–His hair went through more changes than Hillary Clinton’s, in both style and color.

–He reveled in listening to bands that weren’t as well known. He was listening to Kix several years before they achieved moderate success. He turned me on to T-Rex, Thin Lizzy and Riot (not Quiet Riot. This band was just called Riot).

–He loved the sea as much as I did, which makes sense, since his father Al was the one who really taught me to appreciate the ocean.

–He was a vegetarian who could not understand why people had to kill animals for food or any other reason. I never caught on, but I respected him for it.

–He was a very spiritual man who was always seeking. He eventually rebelled against the Catholic faith he was brought up on, but he was always reading, writing and exploring who exactly his higher power was.

–He used to find a lot of bizarre z-grade horror movies for us to watch. I can’t remember half the titles, though the Toxic Avenger was in there somewhere. One movie involved aliens who drank their own vomit. He thought that was especially funny.

–He was a Libertarian way before it was the popular thing to be. In fact, in the 1988 presidential election we both voted for a practically unknown politician named Ron Paul. He was the libertarian candidate. Sean voted for him because he was a true believer. I just didn’t want to vote for Bush or Dukakis.

–He was always taking classes, studying and studying some more. He had a serious, deep academic mind. He never stopped learning.

–He was my brother. Not by birth, but our souls were interconnected.

Happy Birthday, old friend.

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A Facebook Fad I Can Embrace

There have been a lot of groan-inducing Facebook fads along the way. The “25 Things About Me” is one example. The “only some of you will have the guts to repost this” is another. But the latest fad is one I can actually embrace.

Ever since the redesign everyone complained about, amusing posters have popped up everywhere. I suspect the ability to play images bigger was the prime motivator.

A lot of them are pretty good. Allow me to share some of my favorites. Some are clever and humorous. Others simply speak the truth.

demotivational posters - TORTURING YOUR DAUGHTERS BOYFRIEND

demotivational posters - THIS

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Lessons Steve Jobs Taught Us About Life

The news is full of analysis this morning about all the ways Apple’s Steve Jobs changed the world. Rightfully so. But he was also an interesting case study in human nature, and we can learn from what was good and maybe not so good.

Mood music:

Let’s put aside talk of the iPhone, iPad etc., and talk about the man. I’ll admit that I’ve always been hard in my judgement of Jobs. Sure I have no right to judge, but while none of us do, all of us do.

My view of Jobs has always been colored by the TV movie about him and Bill Gates called “The Pirates of Silicon Valley.” The film focuses intently on Jobs as a crazy, overbearing and even cruel executive. Apple employees wear shirts that say “90 hours a week and loving it!” He torments employees constantly in the film, and you find yourself thinking that it would be good if he got run over by a truck at the end of the movie.

But Jobs was a brilliant visionary, and brilliant visionaries always seem to fight harder against their demons than most people. Or maybe it just seems that way because they’re on the public stage.

Considering my own battles with personal demons, I’m actually awed by what it must have been like for him. I’m just a regular Joe. I’ve never invented things that will change how we live and I never will. But I’ve had to struggle plenty to be a better man. I’ve been cruel to people in my past. I’ve let obsessive-compulsive thinking drag me to the depths. Clawing back has been beyond hard.

It must have been a million times harder for a guy like Jobs, who possessed a talent and drive few on this Earth will ever know. When you’re so damn good at changing the world with technology, how can you not carry on like a deranged narcissist when you’re still young? Some manage to avoid that, but they are freakishly exceptional people.

While there are plenty of indications that Jobs remained a difficult boss to work for in his later years, there’s also a lot of evidence that he grew as a human being. Mark Milian at CNN wrote a good piece about Jobs’ spiritual growth. In it, he says:

“As with anyone, Jobs’ values were shaped by his upbringing and life experiences. He was born in 1955 in San Francisco and grew up amid the rise of hippie counterculture. Bob Dylan and the Beatles were his two favorite musical acts, and he shared their political leanings, antiestablishment views and, reportedly, youthful experimentation with psychedelic drug usage.

“The name of Jobs’ company is said to be inspired by the Beatles’ Apple Corps, which repeatedly sued the electronics maker for trademark infringement until signing an exclusive digital distribution deal with iTunes. Like the Beatles, Jobs took a spiritual retreat to India and regularly walked around his neighborhood and the office barefoot.

“Traversing India sparked Jobs’ conversion to Buddhism. Kobun Chino, a monk, presided over his wedding to Laurene Powell, a Stanford University MBA.

“Rebirth is a precept of Buddhism, and Apple experienced rebirth of sorts when Jobs returned, after he was fired, to remake a company that had fallen the verge of bankruptcy.”

He still fought personal demons, to be sure. But you could say he died a better man than he once was.

It doesn’t matter who you are and how big you become. It doesn’t matter how much talent you have or if you create things that change how everyone else lives.

If your soul doesn’t evolve and you fail to be good to the people in your life, the rest doesn’t matter much, does it? That’s my belief, anyway. Feel free to disagree.

I think Jobs did grow inside, and good for him.

This awesome image by Charis Tsevis
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Faith: An Excuse To Duck Personal Responsibility?

A friend and reader is unconvinced when it comes to my posts about surrendering to a higher power as part of recovery from addiction. Here’s what she said:

“Bill while I agree with a lot of what you say in this article. I fail to see the “surrender to a higher power model.” In fact, that is one of the many flaws I find in AA styled groups. I have no addictions (well maybe caffeine), but have read a modicum of information about them. My perception is that yielding resolve to a “higher power” seems to be an excuse for not taking responsibility. I say this after spending a good deal of my early 20s looking for some spiritual certainty. At various points I think I’ve found it, but then I realize it was just my own inner-needs presenting a false image.”

She makes a fair observation. On the surface, it’s easy to see addicts turning to Faith as just another crutch. And I’ve known people who use it to justify bad, selfish decisions. One guy would prattle on about the Lord providing whenever he borrowed money he never repaid. Others seem to have a level of Faith that grows when things are good and dwindles when things don’t go well.

So let me try to answer the question. First, I’ll point out that this is how I see it. Any number of religious people might explain things differently.

For me, when I try to control everything and handle everything by myself, I overwhelm myself and everyone around me. Part of my problem is that I can’t control a lot of things. If I crash and burn, I blame it on how hard life is and how I’m working so hard to handle all the challenges. When I do that, I’m avoiding personal responsibility.

It’s a common problem with addicts. We need help because we are too mentally damaged to make good decisions when we’re under the spell of our substances. We see things as us against the world. There’s nobody to help us. We’re on our own. And it’s hard to face your fears when you’re alone.

You can lean hard on other people, but when you do that you eventually burn them out. When someone is constantly calling you or showing up at the front door because they can’t handle life, it becomes disruptive to everyone in the immediate vicinity.

Enter the Higher Power.

A person’s higher power isn’t necessarily the conventional concept of God. It’s simply the realization that something bigger than yourself is at play and ready to help if you simply accept it. Your Faith can be rooted in Buddhism. You could be a Wiccan or Jewish. Or, like me, Catholic. You don’t necessarily have to be a regular church or temple goer, though I choose to go to church at least once a week.

It’s about the higher power of YOUR understanding.

While this is a central part of the 12 Steps and AA, I don’t believe that this is the only way to kick an addiction. Some people just decide to stop drinking, eating or drugging and manage to quit cold turkey. I envy them. Others do it with a strong support system of family and friends. Others, like me, need more.

Personally, I think surrendering the idea that I could control my demons alone was the first step in taking responsibility for my actions. The surrendering isn’t an act of giving up and becoming dependent on Faith like a cultist robot. Specifically, I surrendered an idea and a behavior that wasn’t working. I surrendered the image I had of myself. That’s when I was able to move forward.

It doesn’t mean I’m cured. I still struggle. But if I fall on my face, the responsibility is all mine. I think people who expect God to keep them from failure and bad fortune are delusional. Our mission is to learn to stay upright when things aren’t going so well, so we can come out of it better than before.

I hope that helps.

Art by Bill Fennell
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Mentally Ill Behind Bars

Came across a disturbing report by Steve Visser in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that clearly illustrates how far we have to go in getting the mentally ill the help they need.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/yndfqN1VKhY

The headline: Mentally ill inmates languish in local jails

From the article:

Detention Officer Terroyanne Harris considers the inmates she oversees on 3 North as much patient as prisoner. They suffer from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress and other mental illnesses. Some walk aimlessly around their cell block. Some are lost in hallucinations.

Most are in the Fulton County jail because they are more of a nuisance than a danger in the free world.

Taken into custody for petty crimes such as trespassing, damaging property or resisting an officer, some end up trapped in a revolving door of arrest and release. Others languish behind bars for years as they wait to be declared competent enough to stand trial.

Fulton County is not an aberration. The same is true in DeKalb, Cobb and Gwinnett counties, as well as some rural counties in the state.

Jails have become the new asylums. In Georgia, more mentally ill people are locked away than are treated in all the state psychiatric hospitals combined.

This is bad for a variety of reasons, the first being that a mental illness sufferer’s chance of recovery is seriously diminished in a bleak environment like that. Environment can make all the difference. I know from experience.

My OCD and depression run hot whenever I spend too much time indoors, hidden from the daylight. Even walking into a hospital to visit someone for an hour has a depressing impact on me. It’s a bleak environment, where people are essentially imprisoned by their illnesses. But it’s still better than the inside of a jail cell.

The article captures one aspect of this tragedy quite well:

With more mentally ill people on the streets, more have run-ins with the law. A Supreme Court decision in the mid-70s made it harder to involuntarily commit those with mental illnesses. Jail is where many land.

I can’t help but think of the fellow in my hometown people call Crazy Mike.

In any city there’s a guy like him.

The stereotype is usually a long beard, ratty clothes and the fellow is usually living on the street. He talks aloud to no one in particular and falls asleep on playground equipment.

People like to laugh at him.

I’m no saint. I’ve made my share of fun of people like this, and in the rear-view mirror, looking back at my own struggle with mental illness, it makes me feel ashamed. It makes me the last guy on Earth who would be fit to judge others for poking fun at someone less fortunate.

Is Mike better off in a jail cell? I can picture him easily getting detained for disturbing the peace and ending up in the slammer. But I can’t picture him being better off.

I think of all the war veterans who are on the street or in jail because their experiences in combat left them traumatized for life. They fought for their country and deserve better.

The state of Georgia needs to reform its system now. Locking the mentally ill away in jail isn’t just tragic. It’s outrageous. I don’t fault officers in the correctional facilities. They seem to be doing the best they can with the tools they have. The problem is that these inmates shouldn’t have landed there in the first place.

Here’s hoping Georgia and other states find a way to solve this problem.

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People Who Die And The Mid-Lifers They Leave Behind

As we walked into the funeral home for the wake of our old friend Al Marley, Mary Anastasio stopped, looked at me and said, “We’re adults now.”

That’s how it is when you hit middle age. Your parents’ generation starts dying at an accelerated pace. Then comes the crisis that isn’t really a crisis if you stop and think about it.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/9mcloY9BlOU

A lot of my contemporaries are starting to go through the mid-life crisis as a result. Several friends are suddenly getting tattoos and body piercings. Their Facebook pages are full of Youtube links to all the videos the MTV generation grew up on.

I also see friends getting their old bands back together and going in the studio to record new music. One friend just started learning to play the banjo, and he says it’s a difficult instrument to play. I told him to watch the movie “Deliverance” and he’d be an expert player by film’s end.

I’ve been getting in on the act, too. At the start of the year I bought a pair of black leather boots with studs. When Erin took her first look at them, she noted that they were “very heavy metal.”

I haven’t gotten any tattoos, though. I can’t afford them, and with all the hair on my arms you wouldn’t be able to see them anyway. Besides, tattooing has become a fad again, and I never do things while it’s popular. Maybe in five years I’ll shave my arms and tattoo them.

You could say I’m living out my mid-life crisis by listening to a lot of heavy metal from the 1980s, but that probably wouldn’t be accurate. I never stopped listening to that music.

I actually think a mid-life crisis can be a good thing.

As we get older and life gets tougher, with parents getting sick and dying and the challenges of parenthood growing more complex and exasperating as our children hit their tween and teen years, it’s easy to forget how much we need our inner child. When we forget to act young, the usual trials eat us alive.

So if you want a tattoo, get one. If you want to start playing the guitar you put away 15 years ago, do it.

Some will make fun of you for having a mid-life crisis. But you’re really just rediscovering how to have a little fun.