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The Rewards and Risk of Service: A Cautionary Tale

Service is a major tool of recovery. But it can also be dangerous.

Mood music for this post: “Serve the Servants” by Nirvana:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtB6gEmr6ZY&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Last night was one of service. I drove down to Salem State College to talk to graduating seniors about their portfolios and resumes. It was the least I could do, after all that college did for my career.

It was energizing to talk to the students, who are full of hope and ambition, not yet jaded by the throat-cutting ways of corporate America. And it was good to see Judi Puritz Cook, Ellen Golub and Robert Brown. Ellen was adviser to the Salem State Log while I was there. We were among her most trouble-making, rebellious charges. I’m proud of this.

After that I dropped by the home of old friends. Their son is going through a lot of the turmoil I went through as a kid, and I’m trying to help him out by teaching him some of the tools I’ve developed for the OCD and addictive behavior.

On the way home I spent some phone time with someone I’m sponsoring in OA.

By 5 a.m. I was back online, following up with students I didn’t get a chance to sit with last night.

I treasure service to others. It’s an important part of my Faith and my recovery. It’s odd that I feel this way, since I used to prefer isolating myself in a dark room, watching TV and shoving pint after pint of ice cream, canned pasta and other junk down my throat and occasionally taking breaks to smoke cigarettes.

Service, in fact, is one of the main tools of recovery in OA. It’s not just about helping other people. It’s about building and improving relationships, putting the stresses of your life in perspective and realizing your troubles are never as bad as you think. You’re not just helping someone who is down on their luck. They are helping you back, though they don’t realize it most of the time.

Sponsorship is a good example.

By sponsoring others, it forces you to work harder at your own recovery. My sponsor helps me every day, but I also take time to hear how she’s doing and offer advice.

It’s all about realizing we’re all in this together.

But there’s some caution to deliver here.

Service is a tricky tool that can explode in your face if not used responsibly.

The risk for me is that I take on too much. I can’t say no when there’s volunteering to do at church or someone in OA needs my time. Being a control freak doesn’t help.

I also have a job that keeps me busy, and doing good work on the job — writing articles that help security professionals do their jobs better and helping out colleagues when they need it — is also essential to my well-being.

The work thing used to be about pleasing the bosses. Then I woke up one day and realized it’s stupid trying to be a people pleaser.

The point, though, is that if I do a great job of volunteering all the time, the work can suffer and then someone who deserves my best gets screwed. Fortunately, I’m a lot better at this balancing act than I used to be.

The danger with sponsorship and helping friends in need is that you as a human being can only do so much. My instinct is to drop in and make their lives better in an instant. But it doesn’t work that way. I have a busy family life with two small boys. They must always come first, which means I have to take care not to get consumed by someone else’s troubles.

I have to remember that I can offer up what I know, but at the end of the day only the folks I’m trying to help can truly pull themselves out of the hole.

With sponsorship and giving students career advice there’s another danger: By trying to help too many people, I end up not helping any of them very much.

All perils aside, it’s great to be in the mental place I’m at right now. You all deserve thanks for that, because your service has helped me. Even though you probably don’t realize you were doing anything.

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This is Your Brain on Restlessness

The author has hit a wall with his recovery. But it’s not what you think.

Mood music for this post: “Don’t Cry” by Guns N Roses:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRIbf6JqkNc&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

I’ve moved past yesterday’s tiredness to a state of restlessness.

By brain is at war with itself. One side wants to buckle down and tackle the editing and administrative tasks on the table. The other side wants to write a few more articles first. I have leftover material from last week.

I’m also thinking a lot about my recovery. I’ve been abstinent from binge eating since October 1, 2008 and sober from alcohol since Christmas 2009. But I still can’t seem to survive without coffee and Red Bull or the occasional cigar.

The natural conclusion is that my recovery has hit a plateau.

I’m doing well for the most part. The eating habits are in check. I can now function at events without a glass of wine in my hand at all times. But I feel restless about something. I think it’s the need to take my recovery to the next level.

That means a couple things. One, I need to start sponsoring other people in the 12-Step program. I’ve been dipping my toe in the water on that one, but I’ve mostly held back, believing that it’s hard enough to take care of my own recovery without worrying about someone else’s. Two: It’s time for me to start doing what’s called a “Big-book Study.” That’s a gathering where people do the really deep study of the 12 Steps. I’ve read the steps over and over again and I try my best to live them every day. But until you’ve done the deeper study, you’re just scraping the surface.

Or so I’ve been told.

So it looks like I have two new goals for the summer.

This self-control thing is a bitch. But it beats the hell out of the alternative.

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Clean Living Things You Can Do: Part 1

Former Guns ‘N Roses guitarist Slash spent much of his early career drunk and stoned. He has since cleaned up, and his stunning new album is proof.

This post is for those who want to hear the new Slash album. If you’re not interested, come back later.

Slash just put out a most brilliant album with such guest vocalists as Ian Astbury, Chris Cornell, Kid Rock, Lemmy from Motorhead and even Fergie.

It’s the most cohesive, focused, soul-shaking album he’s done in years, and I think it reflects what he — what anyone — can do in recovery. Have a listen…

Ghost, with Ian Astbury on vocals

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

Crucify the Dead, with Ozzy

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ps0bQONjys&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

I Hold On, with Kid Rock:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_n3662vgJw&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Beautiful Dangerous with Fergie

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWQQYgacS98&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Promise, with Chris Cornell

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyM0ojzUMH4&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Dr. Alibi, with Lemmy

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFsOwnZkIm8&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Watch This with Dave Grohl and Duff McKagan

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlutFN7AyIQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

By the Sword, with Andrew Stockdale from Wolfmother

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yajU0oeMJo4&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

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Why the Cigars Must Go (and Why it Pisses Me Off)

The author needs many coaches to keep clean and sane. Sometimes it sucks.

Mood music for this post: “Sludge Factory” by Alice in Chains:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej39l_aqkLc&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Like anyone in recovery, I rely on several coaches to keep me from falling back into the sludge pit.

The OA sponsor keeps me on the path of abstinence (OA-speak for not eating compulsively; like an AA sponsor who helps you stay sober). I have to call her every morning at 6:15 a.m. and tell her exactly what I plan to eat that day. Deviating from the food plan I give her is considered breaking abstinence.

The OA meetings are like AA meetings. You discuss the 12 Steps and how they apply to you. You share your story, and so on. These groups stick together. We keep each other on the sane path.

Then there’s the OCD coach: my therapist. At my craziest I had to see him each week. Then I got better and it was every other week. Now it’s once a month.

In one way or another, they are all interventionists. They see me about to slip and they step in and get in my face.

I often want to punch them in the face. Addicts absolutely hate having the truth forced on them. It’s very inconvenient.

I got a taste of that today in the therapist’s office.

One of the first things we do is go through a checklist of my addictive behaviors and how I’m doing at each one.

Abstinent from binge eating. Check.

Sober from alcohol. Check.

OCD under control. Check.

Then I do something I didn’t plan on doing. It just slipped out. I told him that I’ve only recently come to see what a game of whack-a-mole addictive behavior is, how you put one thing down and find yourself turning to something else.

“And what would those other things be,” he asks with that smart-ass twinkle in his eye.

“Caffeine and cigars,” I say, figuring it’s no big deal. My coffee dependency is well known by all at this point, and there are no health or mental reasons to stop. Hell, I even felt comfortable walking into his office with a Red Bull in my hand.

But screw the caffeine. He heard the word cigar and exploded.

“How often do you smoke?” he bellowed the question.

“How many?”

“Does your family know?”

“How much do cigars cost?”

Then he threw the biggest reason for his disdain in my face: His father got cancer and died from that very habit.

I shrugged it off. After all, addicts know that the thing they are doing could eventually kill them. That’s part of the attraction, even, given the depressive streak we tend to have.

But he persisted.

“There are healthy addictions and unhealthy addictions,” he said. Coffee and exercise can be healthy addictions, he noted. Cigars are not healthy.

I tell him that coffee and exercise absolutely will kill you if done to the extreme long enough.

And back and forth we went.

Here’s the thing, though. I know the cigars are bad. I let it slip out because I’m having that mental war in my head over what to do about it.

See, I know I have to put ’em down.

There.

I said it.

I don’t know when I’m putting them down, but I’m going to, because I know cigars could soon become as much of an obsession as the food and wine was.

The coffee I can live with.

But with the cigars, I’m playing chicken with God. And God never loses at that game.

So now that I’ve come out with it, I invite you all to be interventionists and get in my face if you see me with a cigar — lit or unlit.

I only ask that you give me a one-week grace period.

Expecting me to go cold turkey right now is a bit much to ask.

Ha! The words of an addict in denial come out again.

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Bad Behavior, Easily Defined

The author turns to his musical hero for some easy-to-remember descriptions of depression and addictive behavior.

Mood music for this post: “Pray for me” by Sixx A.M.:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFjz6O7ewwg&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Many times by now, I’ve mentioned that one of my inspirations for this blog is Nikki Sixx, bassist and lyricist for Motley Crue. That’s because he gave the world a naked view of his madness at the hands of addiction in his book, “The Heroin Diaries.”

I’m itching to share the first couple pages of the book, where he presents his definitions of depression and addictive behavior. In turn, I’ll offer my own version.

Note: Since Sixx’s addictions were different from mine, I’m going to add in some of my own terms to fit the binge eating.

In we go:

 

ADDICTION

Sixx: When you can give up something anytime, as long as it’s next Tuesday.

Me: When you devour $35 worth of drive-thru junk between the office and the house, walk through the door feeling complete exhaustion, shame and self-loathing, and promise God you’ll never do it again. Then you do it all over again the next day, starting with the drive into work, even though you know it’ll kill you someday.

 

ALCOHOLISM

Sixx: A habit that helps you to see the iguanas in your eyeballs.

Me: Not exactly about downing a bottle of alcohol each day. More about REALLY, REALLY needing a couple (or a few) glasses of wine at the end of the day so I DON’T turn to the food.

 

COCAINE

Sixx: Peruvian Marching Powder–a stimulant that has the extraordinary effect that the more you do, the more you laugh out of context.

Me: I never did coke, but mixing the food with alcohol had the same effect.

 

DEPRESSION

Sixx: When everything you laugh at is miserable and you can’t seem to stop.

Me: What he said, with the added symptom where you lock yourself away and sleep for days, verbally assassinate anyone in your path and binge eat until fatty sweat oozes from your pores.

 

HEROIN

Sixx: A drug that helps you to escape reality, while making it much harder to cope when you are recaptured.

Me: Food had the same effect on me, specifically massive quantities of items with flour and sugar in them. Mix together a large enough dose of flour and sugar and the impact is the same as any drug you use to escape.

 

PSYCHOSIS

Sixx: When everybody turns into tiny dolls and they have needles in their mouths and they hate you and you don’t care because you have THE KNIFE! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Me: When the flour and sugar mix with a dose of OCD hyperactivity, leaving you with the feeling that you or someone close to you will die at any moment, be it from an accident or affliction. Then trying to mask those emotions by losing yourself in work, which you don’t do very well because you’re just too fucked up.

I’ll end by telling you a major truth I’ve only recently come to realize:

Without the above in my life, I’m a better husband and dad, which is more important to me than anything else. I’m also much more creative, which turns work from a stress into a joy.

I’ll tell you something else: The day I slip and fall back into my chief addiction is the day all those things fall apart.

Just thinking about what I could lose after gaining so much is enough to keep me from doing that.

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Meet My Demon

Why the author treats his demon like an imaginary friend, and how it helps.

It won’t give up

It wants me dead

God damn that noise inside my head

From today’s mood music, “The Becoming,” by Trent Reznor, Nine Inch Nails:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDfyR22u_gI&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

At last night’s OA meeting, I saw quite a few people with heavy weights pressing on their minds. I won’t share details, because these meetings are all about anonymity. But it got me thinking…

You see, for all our awful behavior, there’s one thing we addicts do exceptionally well: self-criticize. If you want to meet people who are good at focusing on their own vulnerabilities and venting shame, we are the best there is.

It doesn’t really help us, mind you. It just makes us feel worse and, in response, lose ourselves in our chosen addiction. In OA, the addiction is compulsive overeating. But it’s the same with booze and narcotics.

We often describe it as our inner demon. The demon comes to you when you are feeling low and taps on your shoulder. Then he suggests you sooth your anxieties with a pile of junk.

Many of those who suffer from mental illnesses — mine is OCD, which fuels my addictive behavior — tend to give their demon a persona.

Winston Churchill called it his Black Dog.

I call my demon The Asshole. That’s what he is, after all. He’s my dysfunctional imaginary friend.

I got the idea of making my demon an imaginary friend from my kids, both of whom have imaginary friends. I believe Sean used to call his “Rexally.” Rexally was a sperm whale, by the way.

So let me tell you about The Asshole.

He’s like one of those overbearing relatives who will constantly push food on you when you drop by for dinner.

The Asshole: “Try that slice of pizza. It’s wonderful.”

Me: “No thanks. I’m full.”

The Asshole: “Come on, try it. It’s really good.”

If I’m not in recovery, I shove the slice of pizza down my throat, followed by another 10 slices. When it comes to binge eating, I can’t have just five of something, whether it’s pizza or potato chips. I have to have them all, and when they’re gone I’ll keep pushing other things in my mouth, no matter how vile and shameful I feel two hours later.

When I am in recovery, which, thank God, I am now, I tell The Asshole: “Piss off. I’m full and got things to do.”

Facing The Asshole used to fill me with fear and anxiety. I was the weakest person in the room when he was around.

But in the years since I entered therapy for the OCD, found my Faith and started taking medication, the relationship has changed.

Now The Asshole is more like an annoying cousin; someone I keep at arm’s length. I don’t shut him out of my life completely — I can’t, really — but one day I stopped fearing him, and that made a world of difference.

He still taps my shoulder just about every day. But with the fear gone, I’m able to go about my business.

Another thing that’s changed: What he has to offer just can’t compare with the other parts of my life: My wife and kids. My writing. A good book.

But I’m not stupid. I know he’s never going to go away. He’ll always be there, lying in wait. He’s like a terrorist, that old Asshole. He may lose most days, but he keeps trying, knowing that one of these days he might just pull off the attack.

And, truth be told, I’m never more than a few minutes away from the relapse. It’s that way with anyone in recovery.

And so I must be careful.

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A Little Bitter

The author on three of the 12 Steps he keeps tripping over.

Mood music for this post: “A Little Bitter” by Alice in Chains:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3qpF9xUTT0&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Of the 12 Steps of Recovery, there are three  I keep tripping over:

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.

To be fair to myself,  Step 10 isn’t a huge problem. No one is better at taking personal inventory and focusing on all my vulnerabilities than me. Promptly admit it? All the time. That’s why I have this blog.

The problem is that I have a tough time taking the other two steps, particularly the part about making amends to those I’ve harmed.

The pastor at my church, Father Nason, once joked that those who have trouble making amends suffer from Irish Alzheimer’s disease: They forget everything but the grudges.

I’d like to think I don’t hold grudges. I know there are people I have forgiven for the past, and I’ve tried to ask for forgiveness when it’s called for.

But I admit to some confusion over just who I’ve harmed and what they need from me. With that confusion comes a little bitterness.

Let me make a list of those I think I’ve harmed and see how I’ve really done at making amends:

The Marley family. As I’ve mentioned, the family of my late friend Sean Marley — the mother and sister, in particular — hate my guts because I revealed too much about his suicide in a column I wrote shortly after it happened. I don’t blame them for being angry. I did a lot of stupid things back then. My intentions weren’t bad, but the results were. I took their raw wounds and ripped them open even wider.

So here I am again, admitting it.

I’ve tried to make amends over the years, but I’ve gotten silence from the Marleys along the way. So there are a few damaged relationships that will stay that way for now.

I guess this is a case where trying to make amends would indeed be harmful to others.

My Mother: This one is so complicated I wouldn’t know where to start untangling the mess. I’ve hurt her big-time, along with a lot of other people from that side of the family.

I won’t get into the tit-for-tat, but the biggest problem is that we both have OCD and hers triggers mine. We just can’t get along these days, though we have made a few attempts to move on,. But the bullshit keeps getting in the way. I’ve long since forgiven her for things that happened in the past. But making amends for the more recent stuff is proving more elusive at this point.

My addictions: In this case, I’m the one I’ve harmed by engaging in slow-motion self-destructiveness. I’ve been forgiven for this a thousand times over by my wife, church and friends.

I need to make amends with myself on this one, which means making peace with the fact I have to permanently abstain from compulsive overeating and alcohol. It’s not easy because having to abstain makes me bitter sometimes. Not so much in terms of the food because I was happy to shake that devil, but the wine is something else. Not being able to have any really sucks sometimes, especially when I’m traveling. But I have no choice.

I know the coffee and Red Bull are replacement addictions and, though they don’t make my life unmanageable like the other stuff did, I know that from a physical health standpoint I’m going to have to dial it way back at some point. This makes me a little bitter, too.

Or you could say playing whack-a-mole with addictive behavior makes me bitter.

The good thing about bitterness is that the taste never lasts. Eventually I’ll find the solution to what keeps me from succeeding with those three steps.

It may take years, but the whole process is for life anyway.


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The Priest Who Came Clean

I’ve met many priests, some good and some not-so-good. People criticize priests because they’re athiests or they’re angry about the sex abuse scandal. Father Dennis Nason made a believer out of me by coming clean about his own sins.

You would have to be sick in the head NOT to be outraged by the sex abuse, and especially of the cover-up. In the end, though, people forget that priests are human, with all the sin-making embedded into their genetic code just like the rest of us.

When a priest is able to lay his own flaws bare for all to see, I think it takes an extra level of courage, since there has to be a lot of pressure around the lofty standards they are held to.

Father Nason rose to the occasion.

I met Father Nason about 11 years ago. He took over our parish, All Saints, when several other churches were closed down and consolidated into the All Saints Community.

He had a lot of angry people on his hands. One’s church becomes home, and when you close it and force them to go someplace else, trouble is inevitable.

Then the priest sex abuse scandal burst open like an infected sore, shaking the Faith of a lot of people like never before.

I started going to All Saints regularly in 2001, the year my oldest son was born. It would be another five years before I chose to convert, but by then the church had become a source of comfort at a time where my mental health was starting to snap off the rails.

At one point over the summer, Father Nason vanished. Few knew why.

Then at one Mass, the deacon read an open letter from him.

In the letter, Father Nason revealed that he was in rehab for alcoholism. It would be several months before he emerged from rehab, and while he was there the sex abuse scandal really began to explode. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks also happened around that time, and people’s souls were tested like never before.

Once he did emerge from rehab to rejoin his parish, there was a new sparkle in his eyes. It was like a weight had been lifted. Then another weight dropped on him. It turns out one of the priests in our parish was one of those sexual predators we had read about in the papers.

Something like that would test the sobriety of anyone forced to come in and deal with the mess. Father Nason met it head on.

He was angry with his archdiocese over the fact that pedophile priests had been enabled for all those years; cases swept under the rug like dust. You could hear the anger in his voice and see it in his eyes. He would rage about it in more than one Homily.

His reaction is a big reason I stuck with the church instead of bolting.

Around that time we also had trouble hanging onto the other priests. One left after less than two months, apparently freaked out by the amount of work this parish demanded of him.

Through it all, Father Nason kept it together and brought his parish through the storm.

I don’t always see eye to eye with him. Sometimes I think his administration is disorganized and that his Homilies are all over the place; though when he nails it, he really nails it.

But those are trivial things. When he came clean about his addiction, it hit me deep in the core. At the time, my own addictions were bubbling in my skull and preparing to wipe out what was left of my soul. I just didn’t know it at the time.

His honesty kept me going. And now that I’ve spent the last few years getting control of my own addictive behavior, I have a much better appreciation for what he went through.

This post isn’t meant to put him on a pedestal. He is only human, after all, and he sometimes misses the mark like the rest of us.

It IS meant to thank him for the time he came clean, inspiring me to do the same.

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Lessons from ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’

Me and the kids are watching Tim Burton’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” for movie night. I like this version about as equally as the 1971 Gene Wilder classic, which we watched a few weeks ago.

Mood music:
[spotify:track:36znenHji82rUYJTgfkc4Z]

 

That viewing actually inspired me to write down a post. I’m rewriting it here, because I’m having the same reaction to the newer film as I did the old one…

The author watched Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory for the first time since cleaning up from a binge eating disorder. What a trip.

Yesterday the rain was coming down sideways, so the Brenner clan decided to put in a DVD of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. It’s still a great movie, but since my main troubles with addictive behavior stem from flour and sugar, which I gave up on Oct. 1, 2008, watching it this time was kind of weird.

Weird because I didn’t sneak out of the house afterward to buy $20 worth of candy to stuff down my throat on the 3-minute drive from the gas station back to the house. I just went to fill the cars with gas and buy a loaf of bread and some Red Bull.

The scene in the film which best fits a mind unhinged is where they are traveling the chocolate river on a boat.

Looking at the characters in the movie really reminded me of the multiple personalities I can have as an addict. Those kids were punks as individuals and got what they deserved.

Now, for a little fun, let’s squish them all into one, multi-personality monster and see what we get. By the time we finish, you’ll get a pretty good idea of what one person is like when their addictions run wild.

Charlie Bucket: This is the good side of the soul, the part that wants to be honest and do the right thing. For me, this side won out in the end — well, for now, at least — but being the quiet, well-behaved kid, he’s always in danger of being pushed to the back of the line by these wretched children:

Violet Beauregarde: The third kid to find one of Wonka’s elusive Golden Tickets, this little scamp is a compulsive gum chewer. That compulsion gets the better of her and she blows up into a giant blueberry. Been there, done that.

Augustus Gloop: The Deadly Sin of Gluttony personified, this poor kid is encouraged to eat like a slob by his parents, who are just as devoted to their own binging habits. Hell, his old man eats the top of a microphone and doesn’t seem to notice. The kid takes it too far by shoving his bloated face in Wonka’s chocolate river.

Mike Teavee: I know this kid. He lives for TV, especially the violent programs where a lot of bullets are flying. His parents sit there and let him indulge. Now blend him with Augustus and Violet and you get a kid who sits in front of the tube shoving all kinds of junk down his throat.

Veruca Salt: This kid is so selfish and mean that you want to spill tears of joy when she goes down the garbage chute with the rest of the rotten eggs. I like to think of her as the glue that holds the rest of the beast together. The other kids make up the guts of the poor soul who is owned by his or her addictions. Veruca is the skin.

What makes the movie so great is that Charlie comes out on top. It’s a dream of most people to have the good triumph over evil.

In this movie it does.

In my own life, it has.

But I have to be on guard at all times because, contrary to what Wonka says at the end of the movie, the guy who gets everything he wants DOES NOT live happily ever after.

You’re always seconds away from letting Veruca or Violet back out.

The good news is that if you are truly serious about being well, there’s no shortage of loving souls who will stick with you and keep you on the path to Heaven.

You might loop back through Hell a few times along the way, but you’ll end up in the better place if you keep working at it.

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Like Father, Like Son

The author finds that OCD behavior runs strong among the men in his family.

It’s been said that certain crosses run in the family. Addictive behavior. Depression.

Yesterday my father had three long stents inserted into his leg. Apparently the entire leg was full of blockages. He eats compulsively, and this contributes to the problem. In 1998 he had quadruple bypass surgery, but the bad eating continued.

He’s always been able to bolt down the food. That trait was passed down to my brain, where it mixed with OCD, depression and other nasty byproducts.

I put my binge-eating addiction down well over a year ago and embraced a 12-Step program through OA, just like you do if you’re kicking alcohol or narcotics.

But OA isn’t my father’s style. Never has been. Never will be.

I’d like to think I’m doing better than my father when it comes to taking care of myself. I kicked binge eating and alcohol, am maintaining a 65-pound weight loss without doing all the stupid things I used to do to stay thin.

But I’m no dummy. I know this family inheritance is still with me.

With addictive personalities, it’s always something. I’m completely addicted to caffeine, including Red Bull. Yesterday I drank two of them in the afternoon, after a morning of swilling the coffee. Then there’s the fact that I like cigars.

I don’t fret about it much because it beats the hell out of the addictions I put down; the ones that had made my life completely unmanageable and hurt the people around me in a variety of ways. And any addict will tell you it’s always going to be a struggle where you put down one thing and pick up another so you don’t go back to that first item. That’s a cross we bear for life, and the goal is to keep working to be better than the demons.

I also know there will come a time where I have to put away the cigars and cut back on the caffeine.

My life is Blessed beyond belief. It took many years to beat down the compulsive eating addiction. Longer still because it’s harder to acknowledge a food addiction than it is to come clean about something like alcoholism. No disrespect toward my friends who are recovering from alcoholism. I love them and am proud of what they’ve accomplished. I’m just saying that in our culture, some addictions are more glamorous than others. Binge eating is anything but glamorous.

Of course, any addict knows that their behavior is never glamorous behind closed doors, whatever the poison. Locked up alone with the demon, it’s a world of filth, shame and sickness.

I can’t say that my father has an addictive personality. I’m not in a position to judge him. I only know that he can put away the food, and the results have been bad.

He’s been through a lot in his life and still managed to be a kind, generous soul. I hope he sticks around for many years to come. But it’s not up to me.

I’ve noticed something else recently: Sean, my oldest child, is displaying OCD characteristics. When the boy gets into something, be it a computer game or Legos — especially Legos — he goes in deep and lets the activity consume him. In other words, he approaches these things compulsively.

The good news is that he’s otherwise much healthier than I was at his age. And he’s smarter than I ever was.

He also has another powerful advantage I didn’t have.

I’ve been far down the road he’s traveling and picked up a lot of coping skills along the way. Those skills have made all the difference.

And I can pass them on to him.

This makes me happier than you could possibly imagine.