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When Does It Get Better? (A.K.A. Happiness After Suicide)

I got a note last night that moved me enough that I need to get it out here. It was from a woman who was close to Zane Mead, who I wrote about a few months back.

Mood music:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NlGbLbUl_w&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

I don’t remember Tammy Digan from back in the day, but that doesn’t surprise me. I was mostly a loner back then. Except for a few close friends, I kept to myself. But I remember Zane.

Here’s what she said in the comment section of that post:

Yesterday I woke up as I do any other day, however my mood was different. I found myself missing Zane very deeply. The way I felt, was as if he has just passed within the last few weeks. I cried and cried for him. It was as if he were calling out to me. Finally I decided to pay him a visit.

When I arrived at the cemetary I parked in my usual spot and immediately began speaking to him as I walked to his grave. For whatever reason, I could not find him. Finally, it was starting to get cold as the sun was beginning to set. I was at the very back of the cemetary and had decided to make one last search and I would go in and out of each row this time. I had been here many times before, so I could not understand what the problem was, other than my blured vision from the tears.

As I began my quest, I told Zane that this would be my last pass through because it was getting too cold out and I was beginning to lose hope on finding him and perhaps he did not want to be found and only remembered on this day. As I took the next corner, there was his headstone, just as I remembered it. Zane and I had a relatively lengthy conversation and a lot of tears were shed.

Zane passed on April 8, 1988.

He was one of the most honest and kind people I have ever known. He had an amazing ability to make you smile. You could not help but to love him. Thank you for you post, it has helped me to not have to mourn his loss alone.

Even though it has been so long, I think this is one loss that will bring me to tears until the day I join him.

Tammy Digan

I know where she’s coming from. When another friend, Sean Marley, took his life eight years after Zane’s death, I visited his grave constantly.

I was very angry with him for years after his death. I swore at his gravestone a lot. I spat on the grass in front of it once. Most of the time, I talked to him, though in hindsight I was really just talking to myself, repeating all the worries in my head that really had nothing to do with Sean. My brain would spin on its stem over fears that I’d never measure up and love people the way you’re supposed to. I guess I was just venting to him like I did when he was alive.

I’m often asked how I’ve been able to find happiness after his suicide and my brother’s death. It was a long road, to be sure. But a lot has happened since then.

With Michael and Sean, I’m not sure I ever really recovered. To this day, I’m cleaning up from the long cycles of depression and addiction that followed me through the years.

Along the way, good things happened to fill in the black holes. I married the love of my life. We had two beautiful children. My career hummed along nicely for the most part.

In a strange way, Peter’s death, terrible and depressing as it was, marked the beginning of a long, hard path to recovery. It was my behavior in the months after his death that made me realize something was seriously wrong with me. It’s almost as if Peter’s spirit pushed me into dealing with things.

Peter always was a pushy motherfucker.

I’ve never been able to piece together a general timeline of the grieving process. It turns out we’re not supposed to know about such things. That would be cheating.

I do know that IT GETS BETTER.

Understanding that as I do, I’ve discovered a few things about getting through the grieving process. Here’s what I’d suggest to those going through it now:

–First, go read the past year of entries in “Penny Writes… Penny Remembers.” If you can’t learn how to live in the face of horrible loss from the writings of Penny Morang Richards, I got nothing else for you.

–Take a moment to appreciate what’s STILL around you. Your spouse. Your kids. Your friends. If the death you just suffered should teach you anything, it’s that you never know how long the other loves of your life will be around. Don’t waste the time you have with them, and, for goodness sake: 

–Don’t sit around looking at people you love and worrying yourself into an anxiety attack over the fact that God could take them from you at any moment. God holds all the cards, so it’s pointless to even think about it. Just be there for people, and let them be there for you.

–Take care of yourself. You can comfort yourself with all the drugs, alcohol, sex and food there is to have. But take it from me, giving in to addictions is nothing but slow suicide. You can’t move past grief and see the beauty of what’s left if you’re too busy trying to kill yourself. True, I learned a ton about the beauty of life from having been an addict, but that doesn’t mean I’d ever wish that experience on others. If there’s a better way to cope, do that instead.

–Embrace things that are bigger than you. Nothing has helped me get past grief more than doing service to others. It sounds like so much bullshit, but it’s not. When I’m helping out in the church food pantry or going to Overeater’s Anonymous meetings and guiding addicts who ask for my help, I’m always reminded that my own life could be much worse. Or, to put it another way, I’m reminded how my own life is so much better than I realize or deserve.

This isn’t a science.

It’s just what I’ve learned from my own walk through the valley of darkness.

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Sometimes, I Take It Too Far

Most of you know by now that when I like a person, I tend to tease them a lot. Most people know it’s in good fun and give it back in spades. But sometimes I worry that I’m taking it too far.

I’ve written about it before in the posts “The Power of Sarcasm” and “Sarcasm or Gallows Humor? For me, sarcasm is a mental release that allows me to see the humor in some of life’s bigger challenges. The danger is that sarcasm can sometimes slide into outright cruelty, and I know I’m guilty of that at times.

Here’s how it works:

If people in the family, office or church community are butting heads, you can easily get caught up in what one person is saying about the other. After awhile, you can grow bitter and that will compromise your ability to do your job or be the family member you should be. That’s the danger with me, anyway. But the sarcastic, gallows humor in me will instead look at those situations and find the lightheartedness of it all.

We’re all dysfunctional to some extent and we all screw up. And let’s face it: Sometimes it’s fun to watch. If you can laugh at someone’s quirks and, more importantly, laugh at your own, it’s easier to move on to other things. Easier for me, anyway.

The alternative would be for me to grow bitter to the point of incapacitation. It’s happened before, especially after I realized managing a daily newsroom at night wasn’t fun anymore. I took every criticism as a knife to the core and my workmanship slid steadily downhill. A healthier sarcastic perspective back then would have helped me through that.

I’m sarcastic toward a lot of my friends and family, especially the in-laws. The truth of the matter is that I’m almost always sarcastic toward the people I like. Most of them get it and give it back in equal measure, including my father-in-law and kid sister-in-law, who probably gets the heaviest, most ferocious dose of my brand of humor. My brother-in-law is a regular target as well.

When I’m not sarcastic, family and friends ask if I’m feeling ok. A lack of sarcasm becomes a warning sign. For normal people, this usually works in the opposite direction.

Of course, sarcasm can sometimes work against you.

If you don’t catch someone on a good day, hitting them with sarcasm does more to hurt than to lighten the mood.

Sarcasm is also a root of dysfunction in other parts of my family. Several of my family members are equally sarcastic, if not more so. But I sometimes get offended by it because I feel like people are laughing AT someone instead of laughing WITH them. This has produced a fair share of strain on that side of the family, and I have to claim fault on my end.

If you can direct sarcasm toward someone but get offended when it’s being sent in your direction, that’s hypocrisy. It’s a hypocrisy I’m sometimes guilty of.

My wife once decided to go digging for the actual definition of sarcasm and here’s what she found:

“Sarcasm” is “a keen or bitter taunt : a cutting gibe or rebuke often delivered in a tone of contempt or disgust” or “the use of caustic or stinging remarks or language often with inverted or ironical statement on occasion of an offense or shortcoming with intent to wound the feelings.”

She pointed out that I’m not really a bitter person, and that my jabs are playful. So why bring myself down in the gutter and suggest I’m a bad person when I’m not?

But yesterday, she also noted the particularly sharp, dark edge to my teasing ways of late.

It’s been a brutal winter for all of us, and in my case too much winter weather depresses the mental faculties. So I tease even more, to the point where it can be hurtful.

That’s especially true when I start teasing the kids.

Sometimes I’ll take a picture of one of the sisters- or brothers-in-law in unflattering situations and shoot them up to Facebook. I did it yesterday to my sister-in-law Sara. We were dropping off Madison, who spent the previous night with us, and Sara had that just-rolled-out-of-bed look. I thought capturing her that way was funny as all hell.

But probably not to her.

I do these things because I love my family so much. But it gets to be too much for them.

It’s pretty whacked of me to translate affection into meanness.

Given my own experiences with that, I should know better.

So there it is: Something else for me to work on.

I don’t say that in self pity. It’s just a simple acknowledgement that I can always do better. We can all do better, can’t we?

I think so. I’m just admitting it.

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Facebook Depression: It Happens

A post from one of my Facebook friends got my attention the other day. He was sharing a new item about something called “Facebook depression” and if his comment is any indication, I don’t think he was buying it:

“Really? Facebook depression? Pardon me but ‘Assholes!'”

Mood music:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b93qfTYbROg&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

Here’s a snippet from the article, which appeared on WCVB Channel 5’s news site:

According to a recent poll, more than 20 percent of teens log on to their favorite social media site more than 10 times a day. Now a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics warns social media can lead teens to sleeplessness and depression. The report urges pediatricians to plug in to potential problems.

The suicides of 17-year-old Phoebe Prince and 11-year-old Carl Walker put a new spotlight on bullying and uncovered a dark side of social media, where insults and taunting are inescapable. While those cases may be extreme, a new report warns parents and doctors that sites like Facebook can lead to depression in teens.

“Facebook seems to be an amplifier for those feelings,” said Dr. Gwenn O’Keefe, the report’s author. “They’ll think ‘People don’t like me, I’m not pretty or studly. How come I only have 100 friends and she has 300?’ Those thoughts are going to amplify that sense of social isolation and make it get worse,” said O’Keefe.

Take it from someone who’s been through his share of depression: There’s something to this notion of Facebook depression.

My biggest bouts of depression — back when I was really out of control — came well before Facebook and Twitter came along. But today, when I have the more minor episodes of depression (for me, it’s a chronic side-effect of OCD), I totally feel the power something like Facebook has over my mood.

I touched on it in an earlier post called “Facebook Un-friend Syndrome” but the focus there was largely on how the friend count can become an OCD trigger.

Since I write about technology for a living, I’ve learned a lot about the psychological side of social media. The bad guys of cyberspace didn’t need a college degree to know that with the right headline, you can easily dupe a person into clicking on a malicious link that’ll leave your computer infected.

People are duped with fake news headlines, especially the gossipy kind. But they’re also duped — all the time on Facebook — by messages and links that promise to show you who exactly has un-friended you or who said what about your sexual prowess (or lack of it).

Meanwhile, a lot of people have gotten so hooked on things like Facebook and Twitter that these places have become more than just a computer activity — they have become part of the real world.

That’s especially the case for younger people who don’t recall a time before social networks existed.

The notion that things that go down on Facebook can leave a kid depressed — even suicidal — is very plausible against this backdrop.

If there were no Facebook, many of these people would probably go into depressions about other things. But I think this is a legitimate issue for the medical community to chew on — for adults as well as kids.

I have found — for me personally — that it’s good to have a code of conduct for what I can and can’t do on social networks. It’s not a silver bullet by any stretch. But it helps me:

–Don’t bitch about the little things. There’s a ton of drama on Facebook already, and there’s a lot of drama in this blog. I’m not going to complain about the little things on top of that.

–Never complain about work. I wouldn’t anyway because I love my job, but I see work grievances on Facebook all the time, and it’s just not smart when you consider that the boss is probably watching.

–Keep the sex life to yourself. The reasons for this are simple. I’m an ugly guy with a hairy back and a bald head. I’m not about to gross people out or scare them. Hell, I get scared and grossed out when thinking of myself in a romantic context. Yet there are folks out there who think people really want to know about their sex lives. I’m not talking about someone who shares their joy over a new romantic relationship or the sadness of a romance that dies. I’m talking about those who give the several-times-a-day, blow-by-blow account of the ups and downs. I’m happily married and my wife loves me despite the fact that I’m funny looking. That’s all anyone needs to know — or would ever want to know.

–Do you really care about what I ate for dinner? Well, given the nature of this blog and the fact that I focus a lot on my binge-eating addiction and the food plan I live by today, I guess you would care. But I’m also sure I’d piss you off if I mentioned what I was about to eat before each meal. I get annoyed when other people do it. My younger brother is a chef and he talks about it a lot. But that’s different, because cooking is his craft.

–Politics. I love to talk politics with people, especially those who really know what they’re talking about. But some folks will take their disdain for Democrats or Republicans too far. Being a moderate myself, I think both political parties are damaged beyond repair. But I try not to get mean, arrogant or hateful about my positions. I’ve un-friended people for being that way.

– Religion: I’m pretty sure people have un-friended me for sharingmy Faith. I can’t get around it because my Faith is at the core of everything I do, especially when it comes to marriage, parenthood and my program of recovery. If someone has dropped me because they don’t believe in God and they think I’m an idiot, I don’t care. I’m not about to change on this one. 

Here’s what I will continue to do on Facebook and Twitter:

–Share some of the things my kids say. Because my kids are pretty damn witty.

– Post my blog entries, three times a day. The blog is one of the things I have to offer people. It’s one of the things I’m on here to promote. I push out each entry three times a day, to ensure it’s seen by those who do most of their social networking in the morning, at lunchtime or in the evening.

–Post my security articles. This is my livelihood. Many of my connections are security people, so there’s no getting around this one. If someone un-friends me because they don’t want so much information about information security, I’m cool with that.

–Share family and travel pictures. Who doesn’t do this?

Of course, expecting teenagers to live by what I just mapped out is unrealistic.

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Snowblind

There are some cranky people in New England today. A snowstorm on April 1 will do it every time. If you suffer from seasonal depression — the kind that strikes in the dead of winter — this kind of weather in spring can throw a person over the edge.

Mood music:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkbMd3Bygzs&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

I remember April 1, 1997 when we had a blizzard that dumped at least a foot of snow. I was holed up in my mother’s house in Revere, already going though a depression and binge eating myself into a stupor. The storm took me to a dark place I didn’t think could even exist. That first year following the death of a best friend was already turning out to be shitty on multiple levels, and the blizzard was the icing on a rotten cake.

Fast-forward to April 1, 2011.

I’m not liking the snow all that much, either. But I’m OK with it. It’s not bringing me down this time.

The medication is doing its job.

I’m working from home with a beautiful redhead and an adorable little niece.

I’m editing and writing, and the content is looking good.

The coffee is strong.

The kids are in school.

All is well.

Sometimes the seasons don’t flow together the way they’re supposed to. But it doesn’t have to crush a person’s spirit.

So if you live in my neck of the woods and feel despair, remember this:

–The days are getting longer and the sun stronger, so any snow that falls will be gone in a matter of days.

–The further into April we go, the less likely it is we’ll see more snow. If we do, it’ll melt fast.

All storms pass.

The air will get a lot warmer. Some people will then complain that it’s too hot.

Not me, though.

I love a good summer drought.

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Lies Of The Not-So-Beautiful People

I’ve been hooked this week on the new Sixx A.M. song “Lies of the Beautiful People.” The video includes a lot of the photography that inspired the upcoming album and book, “This is Gonna Hurt.”

Note: The videos below, when you click on them, will direct you to watch on YouTube. Please do, since you have to see it to get the point of this post.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxMHtjQW6ZQ&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

In interviews, Nikki Sixx describes his passion for photography and how he was drawn to subjects that most “normal” people would find freakish. He photographed people with a variety of deformities and other features most people would find grotesque or even humorous.

This week he released the first two parts of a documentary on the project. In part one, he describes how the projects he embarked on brought him back to things in his childhood that affect him to this day:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJsJhTTczNk&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

Part 2 focuses on a person named St. Goddess Bunny, who describes the rough life he has lived, including a lot of physical abuse.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLNyvPqKHOo&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

Reviewing this material takes me back to my own past. I was never one of the beautiful people the new song describes. But my perceptions and reactions to people who were different could be just as grotesque as the song describes.

The “Lies of the Beautiful People” are also the lies of the plain, average, ugly, fat and poor people. In my case, and that of others I’ve known, it becomes about knowing you’re ugly and mis-shaped and tormenting other, similar people just so you can feel better about yourself.

It’s a subject I’ve covered before, particularly in the posts “The Bridge Rats,” “Stiffy” and “Welcome to the Outcast Club.”

I was quite a prick to a kid named Stevie Hemeon. I used to punch him in the Theodore Roosevelt School yard because he was one of the few kids I was strong enough to hit. He never deserved it. Yet he still hung with me, kind of how high school chum Aaron Lewis did later on. I did it because he seemed weaker and weirder than me.

Stiffy had a monotone voice and was freakishly thin. People were terrible to him. Including me. The name allegedly comes from him getting an erection in the shower of the boy’s locker room, but I wasn’t there and tend to doubt it.

I haven’t seen or heard from him since the day we graduated nearly 22 years ago. I often wonder where he is, what he’s doing and if he’s ok.

He was the kid everyone made fun of — brutally. And I was probably one of the biggest offenders for the first two and a half years of high school.

On the surface he took our taunts with an expressionless face. How he reacted out of view I can only imagine.

There were a lot of bullies at Northeast Regional Metro Tech (it used to be “Vocational School” and we all called it the Voke) and I was made fun of a lot. I was picked on for being fat, for my lack of skill in sports and other things real or imagined.

So what did I do after being picked on? I turned around, found the kids who were more “pathetic” than me and attacked them verbally and physically. Mostly verbal, but I remember throwing punches at some point. Some of it was the reaction to getting picked on. Most of it was from the growing chip on my shoulder over my brother’s death and other unpleasantness at 22 Lynnway in Revere.

By junior year, I had lost a lot of weight and grown my hair long. I was deeply into metal music by then and I started to make friends among some of the so-called metalheads. He had also latched onto metal as a refuge from his pain (he was also pretty religious), and we started to relate over music.

Junior and senior year I made a big effort to be nicer to him, and in the mornings before classes began I would hang out with him. Or, I should say, I let him follow me around. I was still a jerk but was trying to be nice because I was under the influence of another brother, Sean Marley.

These and other memories remind me that we have to be better — much better — to the people around us. It’s what’s inside that counts.

I’m glad Sixx is tackling this issue. He’s inspiring me yet again.

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Good Anonymity Vs. Bad Anonymity

In the halls of recovery and in my daily work I deal a lot with anonymity. People hide behind it for good and bad reasons. This is where I separate the honorable folks from the cowards.

Mood music (Click the “Watch it on Youtube” link. It’s worth it):

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxMHtjQW6ZQ&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

I’ve met a lot of inspirational people who prefer to keep their identities hidden with good reason.

In the 12-Step program I embraced to overcome a blistering binge-eating addiction, anonymity is considered a vital tool of recovery. We know each other by first names and home towns, mostly. That’s so people in these meetings can share openly and let out all the pain and confusion they feel, which is an important step toward setting things right. They can do so without fear of being outed in their circle of friends and relatives and in their work places.

To blow someone’s anonymity under those circumstances is a terrible thing to do. I regularly share my 12-Step experiences here, but I made a choice to take a chance and out myself. Nobody gets put at risk except for me. Thankfully, everything turned out fine and I get a ton of support from the people in my personal and professional lives.

I often write about my 12-Step experiences here, but I never name names unless I’ve gotten someone’s permission. Even with permission, I usually leave names out.

In my professional life I deal with a slightly different kind of anonymity. I often get important information from people who would get fired or jailed for talking to me, so their identities are hidden for their own safety. I allow a source their anonymity when they give a valid reason for requesting it. I recently interviewed an Iranian computer programmer who fled to Europe after the government pressured him to use his talents as part of their quest to build a cyber army. To name him would put him in real danger. Usually, though, the anonymity is usually honored because someone with valuable information would be blackballed in the industry for sharing it.

Then there’s the bad anonymity, the kind that applies to the verbal bomb throwers.

Some people like to hurl insults and question someone’s character without being called on the carpet in return. So they leave an anonymous comment on one of my sites and resort to name-calling and whining.

I’ve dealt with this sort plenty in my 17 years as a writer and editor. They usually don’t bother me. They come with the territory, and I have a pretty thick skin at this point. And more often than not, the insults are wrapped around constructive criticism I fine useful.

But I’ll admit it: My tolerance goes through the floor when someone decides to be an outright asshole.

Yesterday was one of those times. I was checking my Twitter stream and found the following tweet by someone hiding behind an anonymous profile called the InfoSecDropBox:

“OMG, I’m @BillBrenner70, I’m fucked up and have to keep telling you how fucked up I am. LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! I’M A BLOGGER!”

The profile looked like it had just been set up yesterday and, when I checked it this morning, the last tweet said “Alright, alright. Enough.”

I should correct this person on one point: I don’t consider myself a fuck-up. I used to be one, but not anymore. Oh, I still screw up in spectacular fashion on a regular basis, but that doesn’t make me a fuck-up. It makes me human. Every one of us has struggles to contend with.

I reached a point where I found my equilibrium and chose to write about how I used to be, why I’m the way I am today and where the ongoing struggles are. I do it because there’s a stigma around the kind of struggles I’ve had and I decided to take a crack at breaking them down so people who are now dealing with what I once dealt with will know it’s OK and that they can turn it around.

I knew I’d face some criticism. I knew some people would misunderstand what the blog is about. But I felt it was worth it, and it has been.

I don’t mind the bomb throwers. But when they’re too scared to show themselves, they are cowards and I can’t take them seriously.

My name is out there for people to rip away at if they choose, and that’s fine.

But if you need to be anonymous, I have to wonder:

Are you so insecure about your own character that you’re too terrified to face the people you don’t understand and ask the hard questions out in the open like a grown-up? 

Since I don’t know who you are, I have to assume so.

By the way: If you see the posts that annoy you, that can only mean you’re following me on Twitter or we’re connected on Facebook or LinkedIn.

I suggest you un-follow or un-friend me.

The solution is as simple as that.

If you insist on maintaining the connection with me anyway, despite you’re distaste for what I do, that just makes you an idiot.

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How I Can Be Happy Despite Myself

I see a lot of moody people out there on Facebook and Twitter these days. Though I try not to put random complaints on my wall, my darker moods often come across in this blog. But in the big picture, I’ve found ways to be generally happy despite myself.

Mood music:

Allow me to share. But first, a couple acknowledgements:

1.) I stole this post’s title from somewhere.

2.) I readily admit that despite what I’m about to share, my reality doesn’t always match up with my words.

That said, no one who knows me can deny that I’m in a much happier place today than I was several years ago. I screw up plenty today, but I used to hate myself for screwing up. Today I may feel stupid when I fail, but I don’t hate myself. I’ve also learned that there are plenty of reasons to appreciate life even when things don’t seen to be going well in the moment.

–If I’m having a bad day at work, I remember that I’ve been in jobs I hated and that while the day may go south, I’m still lucky to have a job today that gives me the freedom to do work that makes me happy. I also know that I have a wife and children that I love coming home to.

–If I’m stuck in bed with a migraine or the flu, I can take comfort in knowing it could be — and has been — so much worse.

–If I’m feeling depressed — and my OCD ensures that I will from time to time — I can take comfort in knowing it doesn’t cripple me like it used to and I can still get through the day, live my life and see the mood for what it is — part of a chronic condition.

–If I’m feeling down about relationships that are on ice, I can take joy in knowing that there’s never a point of no return, especially when you’re willing to make amends and accept forgiveness.

–When I think I’m having the shittiest year ever, I stop and remember that most years are a mix of good and bad and that gives me the perspective to cool off my emotions.

–When something really bad happens, I know that people are always going to show up to help, and that it’s an extension of God’s Grace in my life.

–When I’m angry about something, I can always put on headphones and let some ferocious metal music squeeze the aggression out of me.

–If I’m frustrated with my program of recovery from addiction, I just remember how I felt when I was in the grip of the disease and the frustration becomes a lot smaller.

–If I feel like people around me are acting like idiots, I can recognize that they may just be having a bad day themselves and that it’s always better to watch an idiot than be one.

I could go on, but I think you get the point.

shine on

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Change Is Pain, But Not Impossible

Last night’s 12-Step meeting reminded me of just how hard real change is. I used to measure change by who won the next election. I’ve realized that the only real change that matters is within myself. Naturally, it’s the hardest, most brutal kind of change to achieve.

Mood music:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqkxDgCIsOw&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

Last night’s AA Big Book reading focused on steps 8, 9 and 10:

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

The first few steps were much easier for me. Admitting I was powerless over my addiction was a piece of cake. I was so desperate by then that the admission was the reason I walked into an OA meeting. It takes desperation to walk into a room full of people you’re certain are crazy fanatical freaks. That’s exactly how they came across. Then I realized I was just like them and was in just the right place. Nearly three years in, I’ve determined that we’re not crazy and we’re not freaks. We’re just TRYING to be honest with ourselves and those around us. It makes us uncomfortable and edgy because it’s much more natural for an addict to lie. People like us are weird and often intolerable.

Acknowledging a higher power was easy enough, because I’ve always believed in God. But this step brought me closer to realizing my relationship with God was all wrong. It was transactional in nature: “Please God, give me this or help me avoid that and I’ll be good…” Because of OCD that was raging out of control, I tried to control everything. I couldn’t comprehend what it meant to “Let go and let God.” Once I got to that point it got easier, though I still struggle with a bloated ego and smoldering will.

Still, that stuff is easy compared to steps 8-10. To go to people you’ve wronged is as hard as it gets. You come face to face with your shame and it’s like you’re standing naked in front of people who have every reason to throw eggs and nails at you. At least that’s how it feels in the beginning.

Step 9 has been especially vexing. There are some folks I can’t make amends with yet, though Lord knows I’ve tried.

I feel especially pained about my inability to heal the rift with my mother and various people on that side of the family. But it’s complicated. Very complicated. I’ve forgiven her for many things, but our relationship is like a jigsaw puzzle with a lot of missing pieces. Those pieces have a lot to do with boundaries and OCD triggers. It’s as much my fault as it is hers. But right now this is how it must be.

I wish I could make amends with the Marley family, but I can’t until they’re willing to accept that from me. I stabbed them in the gut pretty hard, so I’m not sure of what will happen there.

But there have been some unexpected gifts along the way.

Thanks to Facebook, I’ve been able to reconnect with people deep in my past and, while the need to make amends doesn’t always apply and the relationships can never be what they were, all have helped me heal. There’s Joy, Sean’s widow. She’s remarried with kids and has done a remarkable job of pushing on with her life. She dropped out of my world for nearly 14 years — right after Sean’s death — until recently. The contents of our exchange are private, but this much I can tell you: I was wrong all these years when I assumed  she hated my guts and wanted nothing more to do with me. I thought my old friend Dan Waters hated my guts too. But here we are, back in touch.

Miracles happen when you get out of your own way. But it sure can hurt like a bitch.

I’ve also half-assed these steps up to this point. There’s a much more rigorous process involved. You’re supposed to make a list and only approach certain people you’ve wronged after talking to your step-study sponsor. It hasn’t exactly worked out that way. I just started the Big Book study in January, so I have a long way to go.

It’s funny how, when we’re still in the grip of our addictions, we dream of the day when we’ll be clean. There’s a false expectation that all will be right with the world. But that’s never the case.

I’ve heard from a lot of addicts in recovery who say some of their worst moments as a human being came AFTER they got sober. 

That has definitely been the case for me. I’d like to think I’m a better man than I used to be, but I still screw up today. And when I do, the results are a spectacular mess.

But while I’m far from done with this stuff, I can already say I’m happier than I used to be.

Change is hard and painful, but when you can move closer to it despite that, the results are beyond comprehension.

I guess the old cliche — no pain, no gain — is true.

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Sean and Duncan Discover The Pixies — And More

I’m in the long car line in front of the kids’ school this morning. Stuck in park, I put in The Pixies Greatest Hits. The intro to “The Bone Machine” fills the car and I start drumming on the steering wheel.

Mood music:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJfCIQHwQT8&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

“Dad, how did you get so good?” Sean asks. I’m not very good, but to an almost 10-year-old it doesn’t take much to impress.

“I dunno. I guess it comes with listening to so much music all the time,” I tell him.

“Were you ever in a band?” Duncan asks. Yes I was, I tell him.

Both want to know what I did in said band. “I was the singer,” I tell them.

“Wooooow,” they say in unison.

“Can I tell my friends you were in a band?” Duncan asks. I tell him to knock himself out.

Sean notes that The Pixies’ Black Francis (or Frank Black, depending on what year it is) sounds “Mad.” Black Francis’s vocal style involves mainly screaming, which I personally find soothing.

“Were you mad when you were a singer?” Duncan asks.

“A little,” I tell him.

If they only knew how angry I was.

But the music that came out of that period served a purpose. I opted against the musician’s lifestyle. But it took my writing to the next level.

I enjoy it more now, because I’m not “mad” anymore.

But like Black Frances, I still enjoy a good scream once in awhile.

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The Saugus, Mass. Crowd

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the circle of friends I used to hang out with in Saugus, Mass., the town next to my home turf of Revere.

Mood music:

I’ve recently been back in touch with some of the friends from those days, and it reminds me of a few regrets I’ve carried over the years.

Saugus was as much a home to me as Revere for the simple reason that my father’s business was there and I spent as much time there as I did at home. Even today, when I take Sean and Duncan to visit their grandparents, it’s usually at the Saugus building.

I also had a lot of friends there because I went to a regional vocational high school and Revere and Saugus were two of the places that made up its student body. One of my best friends at the time was Aaron Lewis. There’s my first regret. Not that we were practically inseparable, but that I treated him like shit much of the time.

I met Aaron in 1985, my freshman year of high school. He was the kid with really bad acne. But nothing ever seemed to bother him. I’m sure a lot of things bothered him, but he was very good at hiding his feelings.

That made him the perfect target for a creep like me.

Don’t get me wrong. He was a true friend. One of my best friends. We shared a love of heavy metal. We both got picked on, though unlike me, he didn’t take it out on other, weaker classmates.

We hung out constantly. He practically lived in my Revere basement at times. I let him borrow my car regularly. And if I drank, that was OK, because he almost never drank. He could be the driver. Except for the time I encouraged him to drink a bottle of vodka. He had just eaten a bag of McDonald’s and I told him I was sick of him trying to get buzzed off of wine coolers. This night, I told him, he was going to do it right. He got smashed, and proceeded to puke all over my basement — on the bed, the carpets, the couch, the dresser. That was some strange vomit. It looked like brown confetti.

I sat on the floor, drunk myself, writing in my journal. I wrote about how drunk Aaron was and prayed to God that he wouldn’t die.

He was the perfect counterweight to Sean Marley. Marley was essentially my older brother and I spent a lot of time trying to earn his approval. I didn’t have to do that with Aaron. He didn’t criticize. He didn’t judge. He just took all my mood swings on the chin.

I would sling verbal bombs at him and he’d take it. I would slap him on the back of the neck and he’d take it. I was such a jerk. And he took it. That’s a true friend. Times have changed.

Aaron got married, moved to California and has a growing family. He’s doing some wonderful things with his life, as is his former girlfriend, Sharon. Those two were always together. The night before Sharon’s high school graduation I let them borrow my car. The next morning Sharon’s father called looking for her. “She’s not here,” I said. Silence, then his response: “They said they were staying with you for the night.” Busted. I don’t think he stayed angry for long, though. I remember her dad being a big guy with a big heart.

There was the Jones family, with whom we’d hang out for days on end. Jeff Jones (he goes by Geoff Wolfe today) was my fellow Doors freak, and I remember many pleasant afternoon’s and evenings in their back yard. I was there for July 4 1991, which I remember because someone slammed into my car and took off that night. The car, a 1981 Mercury Marquis, never ran right again. I got pretty smashed that night.

There was Bob Biondo, a kid who must have weighed in excess of 400 pounds. He had long, curly hair and always wore a cap and trench coat to hide his girth. He supplied me with a lot of weed and cigarettes and he was another mainstay in the Revere basement.

At some point in the early 90s I decided I was getting too grown up to hang around with these people. So I stopped coming around.

I moved to Lynnfield and made sure Biondo didn’t know where I lived. I simply stopped calling the Jones house.

What I didn’t know at the time was that I was beginning a deep slide into depression and addiction. I cut myself off from a lot of people and started to isolate myself.

My weight swelled to 280 and I didn’t want to be seen by old friends. I was too ashamed. So I binged some more to numb my feelings.

I’ve recently been back in touch with the Jones family, thanks to Facebook. I plan to keep the line of communication going. 

Biondo died of a heart attack on Valentine’s Day 2009. I had just gotten married and was working with special-needs people. I always assumed he drifted into an adulthood of waste. I always figured he’d die young because of the weight, and I was right. But I was wrong about the man he had become.

Part of me wishes I’d kept in touch with him over the years. It wouldn’t have changed the course of his life, but as it turns out he didn’t need my help.

You can’t change the things you’ve done in the past. But you can make amends.

I’m glad there are enough people left in Saugus for me to make amends to.