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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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Somewhat Damaged

Sometimes the author lives in overdrive. The result is pain.

Mood music for this post: “Somewhat Damaged” by Nine Inch Nails:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY0NEQd3_co&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Some of you might have read my post from yesterday about enjoying life in the parental and professional fast lane. Well, this morning I’m paying for it.

My back aches. My head is numb and coffee isn’t doing much about that. I got a dull knifing sensation in the gut. And I’m ready to fall asleep in my desk chair.

I want a cigar and more coffee. The coffee is fine, but I’m trying to put down the cigars.

Fortunately, I don’t want to binge and I’m not feeling depressed.

This is just physical pain, brought on by several weeks of clean but heavy living.

I have no regrets. I got a lot of work done last week AND got a lot of busy but quality time with the family.

And it used to be that depression made me feel like this. Black moods always seem to come with the back pain, migraines and gut ache.

This was especially true when I was a kid. The hidden mental illness I had at the time, with family strife and physical illness tossed in, made for some incapacitating moments.

I know a kid who’s going through something similar right now. He has some of the same mood troubles I had when I was around 10 and sometimes he goes so far off the handle that he has to be restrained. I identify with the kid.

I think he’s going to go through plenty of physical pain from his condition just like I did. But I know there’s a better, happier way, where a person can get past mental disorder and learn to function in society.

Not just function normally, but function exceptionally well.

And when the aches and pains you get start to come from living well instead of living low, you’ll know you’ve achieved something precious.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I must find some Tylenol and more coffee.

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Newsroom Nightmare: A Sequel

Another Facebook flashback strikes the author on his dirty newsroom side of the brain.

Mood music for this post: “Mean Street” from Van Halen:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2R2KXNQR1M&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

I thought I was done writing about my newsroom experiences with “The Crazy-Ass Guy in the Newsroom.” But Facebook has put me back in touch with another blast from my past, so here I go again.

Meet Steve Lambert, editor of The Eagle-Tribune a decade ago. He hired me as night editor and promoted me to assistant editor for New Hampshire.

When he left for California in 2002, I was put back on the night desk. Good thing, too. I was within inches of smashing my direct supervisor in the side of the head with a bat after his management style drove me within inches of a nervous breakdown. I would have been fired and brought up on charges for doing such a thing, but I would have been a hero among some of my newsroom colleagues.

Still, I’m glad it didn’t come to that because it would have been wrong. And the reality is that my insanity back then made me as evil a newsroom presence as the supervisor was heavy-handed and ruthless.

I always liked Steve, though. We shared a love of The Beatles and I respected his efforts to make the paper more of a voice for New Hampshire and, later, Lawrence Massachusetts’ Latino community. He took a lot of criticism for the latter, which ended in spectacular failure. It really got under the skin of a lot of bitter Hispanic haters, which is why I think I loved it.

He also did a lot to bring more humanity to the newsroom. He gave low-level people like me a shot at bigger things, and always let us put family before work. It’s hard to find that in a newsroom, though The Eagle-Tribune does deserve credit for nurturing a deep family streak. The current managing editor, Gretchen Putnam, balances a demanding job with being one of the best Moms around in a way that would make a lot of journalists envious. It’s very easy for reporters and editors to put every egg of their existence into the career basket, and that never, ever ends well.

Back to Lambert. He may not realize it — or maybe he did — but I was Grade-A nuts during the time I was in his employ.

I was all about pleasing my masters back then, before I realized being a people-pleaser is dumb. When Lambert wasn’t happy about something the NH edition had done, I kept it with me for weeks at a time. I brooded. I gave in to my addictive behavior in the nastiest fashion I could. I felt picked on.

Let me be honest: Most of my troubles back then were nobody’s fault but mine. I had a brain chemistry imbalance and bottled-up traumas that I wouldn’t become fully aware of for another couple years.

I was a major control freak, which is an OCD trademark. I had an ego much bigger than I deserved to have. That combination slammed into the wall at The Eagle-Tribune, because criticism and toughness are trademarks of the culture. That’s not always a bad thing. But in the hands of someone who takes things deeply personal, it becomes toxic.

The stress level was already high when I realized I wasn’t clicking with the New Hampshire editor. It felt like disaster was just around the corner. And it was.

I remember the newsroom on 9-11-01 like it were yesterday. The first World Trade Center tower had just collapsed on the TV screen mounted above Lambert’s office. He came out, stood on a desk and told everyone to collect themselves a minute, because this would be the most important story we ever covered.

Up to that point, it was. But I was so full of fear and anxiety that my ability to function was gone. I spent most of the next few days in the newsroom, but did nothing of importance. I was a shell. And I stayed that way until I finally left the paper in early 2004.

I thought all my emotional trouble was solved when I left that place. I so badly wanted the job to be that one thing I could point to as the root cause of my pain; the thing I could hate for life.

But my mental nightmare was only beginning.

Looking back, that period was probably the beginning of the end, a time of madness where I was close to rock-bottom and had to change, but wasn’t yet in tune to reality.

It was not a happy time. But I’m glad I worked with Lambert. He’s a good man.

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MomDay Monday – School Daze

Every school has its issues.

Issues with teachers. Issues with other parents. Miscommunication. Problems with other students.

Every school.

There’s no getting around it. We’re all human. We all have failings. And a school is, after all, made up of us imperfect humans.

But at what point does a school have so many issues it becomes dysfunctional?

Is it when the faculty talks out of turn to your child about their parents’ divorce?

Or perhaps it’s when other parents refuse to accept that their child is the school bully & consistently puts the blame for their child’s behavior on the very kids he’s bullying.

Is it when there are arbitrary punishments meted out at whim? One day a behavior is punishable by making the child sit out of recess. The next day, the same behavior is overlooked. One day, uniform infractions are barely mentioned. The next day, a student loses privileges for wearing the wrong uniform piece.

Perhaps….

But I believe it’s when a school & its principal are so afraid of criticism that they close off lines of communication to keep others from hearing it.

I believe it’s when a principal is more concerned with who saw a comment on the school Facebook page than she is with addressing the issues brought to her attention.

I believe it is when a student receives retaliation for the actions of their parent.

And I believe it is when anti-bullying rallies are held for the students but parents & staff are seemingly the biggest offenders.

The Kids attend a private, Catholic school. They have been there since they were each 3 years old, starting in the youngest Pre-K group. They have known their classmates for most of their lives & we have made good friends with some of the families of these kids. When The Ex & I decided to divorce, we quietly told The Kids’ teachers so they were aware of the situation at home & on the lookout for any kind of behavioral issues that might occur because of it. This school had an opportunity to show The Kids an example of what it means to be a Christian & support my children during a particularly tough time.

They failed.

Within weeks, it seemed as if everyone knew what was happening in our family. The rumor mill was in full force until people I hardly knew & rarely spoke to had an opinion on my divorce & The Kids’ reaction to it. I had been blind to the dysfunction in the past, believing my kids were in the best possible place for the best possible education. There were two things I hoped to keep consistent throughout the divorce as the kids lives were being uprooted. Their school & their house. I was determined to keep them in that school & in the house they had been in for the past 4 years even if it meant having to ask my dad for money. But little by little, my eyes were opened & I saw that there were issues with this school far beyond anything I ever realized. There certainly have been people on the faculty as well as other parents who have been more than supportive & I can’t thank those people enough for the kindness & support they’ve shown, especially to The Kids. But they have unfortunately been too few & too far between. It is school dysfunction at its best. Or worst.

I’ve stopped my insistence that The Kids stay in that school. It’s part of my letting go. And it’s okay. I am aware that any school will have issues, dysfunction, intolerant people & parents who violate the school drop off & pick up rules. At this point, I’m willing to take my chances.

But I’m keeping the house.

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Windmill Hands

Ever wondered what that weird thing is the author does with his hands? Wonder no more.

Those who know me well have seen it at one time or another, usually when I’m sitting at a desk engaged in a project. My face gets slightly contorted and I start shaking my hands around like they’re on fire.

I call it my Windmill Hand Syndrome.

When I’m doing it, I don’t realize it, though I just noticed myself doing it just now.

It tends to happen when I’m sketching or writing. Sometimes it happens when I’m editing.

Is it a byproduct of OCD? Don’t know.

I’ve been doing it for most of my life, though, so probably not.

It’s a mystery. But no one ever gets hurt, so I’m not fretting over it.

Sure I look like a jack-ass when I do it. But it can’t be any worse than what I already looked like. Hehheh.

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Skeptic Slang and Charles Manson: Six Degrees of Separation

Skeptic Slang and a glimpse at mental illness in the making.

Mood music for this post: “My Monkey” by Marylin Manson:

A note about the music: Marilyn Manson put this on his “Portrait of an American Family” album, which was recorded in the Sharon Tate murder house. The title and chorus were taken from a Charles Manson song called “Mechanical Man.” Bits of Manson interviews are sprinkled throughout.

It just seemed appropriate for some reason…

Today was a good day with some strange memories thrown into the mix. Call it Skeptic Slang day.

I put the kids in the car (Erin was at a writing and editing conference) and drove to the Salem, Mass. home of my former Skeptic Slang guitarist, Chris Casey, his wife Nancy and their two sweet kids, Melissa and Mark.

I was there for a few reasons: to help Nancy set up a blog for her own writings, which I suggest you follow, and to look at photos she had of our old band. Most of all, I just wanted to see a couple old friends. I’ve known Nancy for 20 years and their marriage is a point of pride for me because I introduced them way back in the day.

So I looked at the Skeptic Slang pictures and noticed something I initially found funny. But later, back in the car, it occurred to me that the images were a bit jarring. They reminded me of something I had forgotten about myself back then.

I’m wearing a Charles Manson shirt. And with the long hair and beard, I sort of resemble the creep:

But looking back, it was an awful shirt to be wearing.
The other thing I noticed in the pictures was that I had angry eyes.
In another picture I have my hand over my face. I remember now that I was agitated as hell during that photo shoot because it was taking a long time and the thought of me being photographed made me sick.
Indeed, that was a very angry time for me. A family member was suffering from severe depression and suicidal thoughts. I was in full rage against my mother and step-mother. More than one Skeptic Slang song was about wishing my mother dead. In fact, one song was called “You’re Dead,” as in dead in my mind.
I was still pissed as all hell about my brother’s death eight years before.
The mess in my skull that would ultimately blossom into full-blown mental disorder was starting to swirl. The bitter roots had taken hold.
Fortunately, the band itself was an excellent release valve at the time. I couldn’t really sing, but it didn’t matter. We played aggressively, and that allowed the rage in me to pour out like sweat that I could then wash off.
God has always had a funny way of giving me the things I needed to lurch forward.
And while the band is long gone, I got some lifelong friends out of it.
The fact that we can now hang out and watch our kids hang out with each other is just freakin’ awesome.
http://youtu.be/pA2ktUcWX7Q
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Random Madness

It’s Saturday morning, and me and the kids are engaging in our weekly ritual.

In a few hours, we go to Salem, Mass., home of former Skeptic Slang guitarist Chris Casey, his wife, Nancy and their kids, Mark and Melissa. I’m going to help them get some old photos online and start a blog for Nancy’s writing.

I’m going to look his kids in the eye and tell them that I’m a little bit responsible for their existence. I did introduce their parents to each other, after all. 😉

I’ll make them listen to the new Slash album, which is quickly becoming my favorite album of the year so far.

Then I’ll put the boys in the car and we’ll head to Saugus so we can make their grandpa buy some school raffles.

All in all, a good day in the making.

The only bummer is that Erin has a work conference to go to. Saturday morning business events. Ah, the life of a freelancer.

Nancy has a stack of old Skeptic Slang photos, which should be hilarious. Expect to see those images in this space soon.

Have a great day.

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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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SLOB

Erin pointed something out to me earlier: Ever since I got a handle on my OCD, I’ve been a slob.

Sure, I shower daily and clean my clothes, but when my mind was off the rails, I was a cleanliness freak. Everything had to be put away just so. Coming home to find a couch pillow on the floor would send me into a tizzy.

Now I’m apparently leaving a lot of things lying around: Books, kids’ backpacks, my shoes and laptop bag, and so on.

http://www.perfectescapes.com/TheSuiteLife/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/destroyed-room.jpg

On the one hand, I feel much better not getting so wound up about these things. On the other hand, it makes for a messy house. Call it the other side of the extreme.

I guess I should get to work on that one.

Funny thing, though. Back in Revere I was usually a slob, letting that basement bedroom fill up with dirty clothes and used towels. It wasn’t until Erin and I married and got our own place that I started becoming a neat freak.

Feast or famine.