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Playing Addiction Like a Piano, Part 2

When an obsessive-compulsive guy like me puts down the addiction that’s most self-destructive, a few smaller addictions rise up to fill the void.

It’s a lot like playing a piano: I may stop playing the song about smoking or binge eating or consuming alcohol, only to find my hands playing different keys. There was quitting smoking and vaping instead. There was a massive uptick in caffeine to replace the overeating.

Now, after putting away the vape pipe and feeling edgy about it, I’ve turned to something else to take the edge off — Nicorette gum.

Mood Music:

I know it’s not the healthiest thing to do. After all, there’s nicotine in it. But when I look at all the other things I could be doing to take the edge off, it seems the safest choice right now. Eventually, that habit will have to go too. Then … who knows?

Some of you might want to say, “Bill, just don’t do any of it.” That would be nice, but a brain wired with addictive impulses can’t compute that concept.

If that makes me weak, so be it. The important thing is that I try hard every day to beat back the demon, and I’ve overcome a lot: the binge eating, the smoking, the drinking.

Those demons are always whispering in my ear, but I’ve been fighting them off successfully for some time now. The exception is the vaping, which I had quit and restarted. In April I quit again. So far, so good.

You just do the best you can, one day at a time. And so I will.

Cartoonish Joker with a wall of ha-has behind him
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Through The Storm

Work is crazy busy. I’m visiting my father in hospice a lot. Helping Dad tie up some loose ends on his real-estate interests has become a full-time job in itself.

It would be easy, in this crazy time of life, to skip doctor appointments, binge-eat or climb into a bottle.

Mood music:

Admittedly, my eating has been less than stellar. It’s the opposite of binging at this point; my appetite cuts out a lot and I skip meals. But I haven’t binged and I haven’t had a drink. How I’ve gotten this far without those things happening is anyone’s guess. Call it luck. Call it will. Maybe a little of both.

I have been making an effort to keep it all under control.

For two Thursdays in a row I had two medical appointments on the calendar. This past Thursday, for example, I had a chiropractic appointment and a psychotherapy appointment. Work was busy and I wanted that time to keep working, but I kept my appointments.

That may be why I haven’t crashed and burned, even though my head feels like it’s on fire when I know there’s a lot of work to do.

It’s been said that people like me need to take things a day at a time. When you have OCD, one day at a time is an alien concept. But I’m trying it out.

In the day-at-a-time spirit, I’m doing fine today. Tomorrow? I only know that I’ll do my best when I get there.

"Savage Namaste" by EddieTheYeti
“Savage Namaste” by EddieTheYeti

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Forgiveness: Trash Removal for the Soul

Seeking and giving forgiveness is essential if you want to become a better person. But it’s hard and often seen as a green light for more abuse.

Mood music:

For you to understand what I’m about to get into, let’s review the AA 12 Steps of Recovery, which has been an important guide on my own flight from madness:

1. We admitted we were powerless over [insert addiction] — that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

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.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to [insert type of addict], and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

There’s a recurring theme in almost every step: Forgiveness.

To truly heal and grow, you have to be able to ask others for forgiveness. People like me have to do that, because you hurt a lot of people in a lot of ways when your addictions and mental disorders get the better of you.

The haze of OCD and the related addictions exhausted the mind and body and incapacitated me for days and weeks at a time. I was useless to my wife and children. I let family relationships and friendships suffer because getting the binge and then collapsing under the weight of it was more appealing than being a good friend.

I lied to a lot of people about a lot of things and had the audacity to think I was above others, no matter how screwed up I was.

I’ve asked for and gotten a lot of forgiveness along the way. I’ve done my share of forgiving. I long ago forgave family members I clashed with because of dysfunction. It doesn’t always end estrangements.

But as a priest once told me, forgiving doesn’t mean you permit someone to flog you anew.

It’s hard. Damn hard.

Resentment weighs you down and makes you weaker. It’s like carrying a Dumpster full of trash on your shoulders.

To move on and be better, you have to take out the garbage.

Below: “Prayer” by EddieTheYeti

Prayer by EddieTheYeti

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Tools to Fight Your Demons at #Defcon, #BlackHat and More

This isn’t a post about how I think you should behave at DEF CON. I’ve already said my bit about the drama aspect and shared my experiences being a sober guy at security cons. This isn’t an anti-drinking tirade or a lecture about the treatment of women at these events.

It IS a resource for those who have demons they’d like to control during our so-called Security Summer Camp.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/P2zgjIGaIo4

There’s been some talk about hackers holding Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings during DEF CON. One thing I’ve heard is that some folks have requested that a room be scheduled and set aside twice a day for an hour at a time — once in the morning and once later in the day — for sobriety meetings. I think it’s a great idea. But those looking for a meeting already have plenty of choices. AA meetings are everywhere, every day in just about every city. Check out this list of meeting days, times and locations along the Vegas Strip.

If you’re like me and compulsive binge eating is a problem, there are also plenty of Overeaters Anonymous (OA) meetings not far from where we’ll be. Las Vegas OA has a list.

A long-time conference issue is how women are treated. If you’re new to the event and are concerned about that, my good friend Erin Jacobs (@SecBarbie) has been running a buddy system for at least a couple years.

On her Security Socialility blog she writes:

If you are or you know someone, especially (but not only) female, who is new to the conferences or might need a friendly hand, give them this number:

+1-650-4-BACKUP

I have setup this to contact me via voice and text during the conference so I can help assist people who find themselves uncomfortable, need a friend to talk to about something that happened, are in a situation that is turning bad that need some assistance, or need some first-time attendee guidance. Anyone who reaches out will have their information kept confidential and not shared unless the individual wishes for me to speak on their behalf. If for some reason I can’t get to you personally, I will respond with a trusted helping hand to help you as much as possible.

If you’re new to all this, have no fear. The security community is a family. Drunk or sober, we look out for each other.

I’ve gotten nothing but support from the community as I’ve worked to manage my own addictions. But that’s only one piece of the puzzle. Ultimately, we have a responsibility to take care of ourselves.

Personal demons are not a product of the security community. They’re a product of being human. We all need help. But we have to help ourselves, too.

The weapons to fight your demons are all around you, no matter where you travel. You just have to use them.

DEFCON 22 Logo

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Binge Eating, Heroin Overdoses and Suicide

My first full-time reporting gig was for The Stoneham Sun newspaper, part of what was then Community Newspaper Company. (It’s now Gatehouse Media.) It was a fun job, giving me a priceless education in local politics, public safety and criminal court proceedings. But in some ways, it was the darkest year of my 20s.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/1e3m_T-NMOs

It was a year of vicious binge eating, 80-hour workweeks for little money, depression, anxiety and the suicide of my best friend, who slowly fell into madness while I was too busy working to pay attention.

I remember feeling relieved on Fridays because it was the start of the weekend and depressed as hell on Sunday mornings because it meant I’d soon be diving back into late nights of selectmen meetings, ambulance chasing and writing deadlines. I comforted myself with multiple daily visits to the McDonald’s drive-through and the various gas stations along my driving routes where I could tank up on candy bars and Hostess products.

I wanted to show everyone how badass my work ethic was, and I never seemed to leave the newsroom, except for my forays into Stoneham to collect police and fire logs and find people to interview for stories important and insignificant.

I gained about 40 pounds in that one year alone.

That summer, my friend wound up in the mental hospital. I visited him once or twice, then got wrapped up in my work again. Through much of that year I took Sunday-morning walks with him and another friend. But I was so anxious over the next story that my head wasn’t really there. I usually walked a few steps behind them, lost in thought.

He got out of the hospital but never shook his depression. I knew it was there but figured it would pass. That November, he proved me wrong.

I only took a few days off before returning to work. My first assignment upon returning was to get to the bottom of a heroin death. It took a few years for police to figure out that the overdose was part of a larger plot by some thugs to silence a few kids who knew too much about their gun-running enterprise. They gave one boy a fatal overdose of smack and later murdered a girl whose remains eluded the authorities for years.

At the time, though, all I knew was that a seemingly all-American boy with everything going for him was dead. He wasn’t the type to try heroin. I interviewed his family and, with my friend’s suicide still eating at me, I decided to write about what I was feeling. Specifically, I tried to answer the question: Why do good people step down dark and deadly avenues? An editor wanted to publish it. I said OK. I put things in that column that never should have been revealed. It was deeply personal stuff that wounded a family already mired in grief. They won’t speak to me to this day. I don’t blame them.

By year’s end, I had proposed to Erin and by January 1997, I was on to a new post covering Lynn, Mass. But it would be another couple years before I pulled myself from the mental abyss. By the time that happened, I was 280 pounds.

It took another 15 years to fully make peace with that part of my past.

Lettin___It_Out___Ink_by_EddieTheYeti

“Lettin’ it Out,” by Eddie Mize. Go to his website to see more.

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A Hacker Walks Into a Vape Shop…

A while back, I wrote about my use of electronic cigarettes as a way to avoid tobacco products.

Since then, the phenomenon known as “vaping” has taken off. It’s especially popular in the security industry I work in. There’s some symbolism in that, as I’ll explain shortly. But first, a self-assessment.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/53iekfJg4IY

E-cigs have gotten me over smoking. True, vaping looks like smoking, and even feels like it to an extent. But I’m using nicotine-free water vapor and have absolutely no interest in returning to the old-fashioned cigarettes. I now detest the smell of real cigarette smoke and how it hangs in the air like a bad dream. I don’t miss getting ashes all over my clothes, either.

I like how the vapor vanishes almost immediately after the exhale and how it makes no mess. My breathing is also ten times better since nixing the cigarettes. (OK, that last one isn’t a scientific measure, but you get the idea.)

I admit that I’m also using vapor to satisfy the need to have something in my hand and in my mouth. I’ve done far worse, though. I can live with this.

There is something else I enjoy about vaping: the creativity it brings out in my security peers.

Which brings me to the symbolism I mentioned earlier.

Hackers are thought of as people who break things, and that’s partly true. The good guys break things to uncover weaknesses in technology that can then be fixed. That work is potentially lifesaving, if you look at the late Barnaby Jack’s focus on finding and fixing security holes in medical devices.

But the thing that gets lost is that hackers are also master builders. In the process of breaking things, they help build stronger technology. And, in the case of some friends, they love to build devices that dispense vapor. Hell, there’s even a Facebook group dedicated to the craft.

There, folks show off the different liquid flavors they’re trying the same way foodies take pictures of all their meals. They also show off the myriad vaping devices they’ve concocted, many of which look like lightsabers. The pieces that are assembled into a pipe are like the paints an artist puts on canvas.

Some of us get carried away. Take my friend Boris, who started collecting and concocting devices some time ago and can’t stop. Look at the guy’s bathroom:

Boris's collection of vapor pipes and liquids

While some like to build their own, there are also folks who just like to collect different pipes the way kids collect baseball cards. Martin Bos has an impressive collection:

Martin Bos's vapor pipes

While the creativity that Boris and Martin demonstrate tickles me, I’ve mostly used the e-cigs you can find in most gas stations. I only recently upgraded to an eGo pipe, which so far has great battery life.

I don’t plan to maintain a vaping habit forever. But compared to some of my past habits, which caused plenty of physical and mental destruction, this is good clean fun.

For now.

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The Addict Still Has a Responsibility

Mötley Crüe and Sixx AM bassist Nikki Sixx has always been a hero of mine, largely because of the raw honesty he displays when writing about his addictions. Yesterday on his radio show, he discussed the death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Mood music:

The hardest thing for Sixx to swallow is that Hoffman was clean and sober for more than 20 years before he relapsed. Sixx has been sober since 2001. Before that, he had slipped on drugs several times after having been clean for a few years.

I’m sure it also wasn’t easy to hear that Hoffman died with a needle still in his arm. Sixx was fortunate enough to wake up with the needle in his arm in 1987, when he finally decided he couldn’t take it anymore.

Indeed, Hoffman’s death has generated a lot of discussion. Yesterday I wrote about how addiction was a disease that many people don’t understand.

Yet I don’t believe addicts should be blithely excused for every failure because they have this monkey on their back.

Actions have consequences. Hoffman leaves behind three kids who needed him and an army of people who were heavily invested in him. People have a right to be angry about that.

Sometimes we’re so beaten down that we’re no longer in our right mind. That’s when we make sorry, costly choices. And as anyone who has cleaned up after addiction knows, the only right path is the one where personal responsibility is everything.

Addicts shouldn’t get a free pass. It’s quite the opposite, really. If you can’t be real with yourself about your demons, you’re doomed to make bad choices, including the deadly ones. 

But as I said yesterday, we also need to understand that this is a battle. No matter how strong you are, it only takes a second to let your guard down. That’s when the fatal bullet hits you between the eyes.

3994769_86

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Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Disease of Choice

Some say actor-director Philip Seymour Hoffman doesn’t deserve sympathy. He didn’t have cancer or other diseases people get without choice. He died because he chose to shoot up.

It’s the kind of statement you get from folks who have been fortunate not to have suffered from addiction. They may know people who are afflicted, but because they can’t identify with the sufferer, they delve into misconceptions.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/fi2XCsPKlY8

Hoffman was found dead over the weekend from an apparent overdose. News reports say the heroin needle was still in his arm. One friend on Facebook reacted with this comment:

I’m a little torn between saying Philip Seymour Hoffman was a really great actor and that I have zero sympathy for someone who overdoses.

I added my two cents, saying he had a disease and lost the fight. (He had sought help in the past, including rehab, to no avail.) To that, someone else responded:

Sorry, but while addiction may be euphemistically framed as a “disease” it starts with a choice and ultimately ends with one. If only every other disease were so convenient. I’m guessing we’d see a lot less childhood leukemia, multiple sclerosis, diabetes… etc.

It’s true: Addiction is not a disease the way those other maladies are. Childhood cancers and MS are certainly not things you can blame the patient for getting. At the other end of the spectrum are true diseases that are indeed the result of bad choices. Eat too much, exercise too little and smoke, and you risk getting any number of diseases.

Then there’s addiction.

Having suffered from it over the years, I see it the way I see depression and anxiety: mental illnesses that are affected by good and bad choices but not the direct result of carelessness. It often starts with a bad choice: The choice to try a line of coke or an injection of heroin. Sometimes the circumstances are more muddled. My binge eating addiction  is complicated by the fact that we need food to survive. The interplay between food, Crohn’s Disease and a prescription drug called Prednisone slowly corrupted my approach to food to the point where having it become an obsession. Obsession is often the path to addiction.

Once you become addicted to something, the urge to get a fix stops feeling like a choice. It becomes a matter of life and death — real or imagined. It controls you and laughs at your feeble attempts to resist. That’s the nature of the demon that killed Hoffman. It wasn’t about being smart or stupid.

I liken the reaction people have to his death to that of a suicide victim. When news of a suicide spreads, the reaction usually goes something like this: “How could he be so stupid? He had everything to live for.”

Statements like that come from people who have no idea how depression works. Statements that Hoffman was an idiot for sticking a needle in his arm come from people who have no clue about how addiction takes over a person and controls their every move.

To those who can make the right choices and escape addiction: Good for you. I wouldn’t wish addiction on my worst enemy. It hurts. It’s demeaning. It’s a thief.

I’m not going to tell you not to judge. Who am I to tell you what to do?

I will suggest that on the subject of this latest tragedy, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Sometimes, ignorance is a choice, too.

Philip Seymour Hoffman

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The OCD Diaries, Four Years Later

This weekend marks four years since I woke up in a funk and started this blog on a whim, figuring I’d at least feel better if I spilled my guts. It did the trick. But in the years since that day, it has become something far bigger than I could have imagined at the time.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/zQzNBTukO0w

I didn’t expect so many people to connect with the writing. I figured it would be no big deal to people, because we all have our stories — filled with happiness, sadness, love, heartbreak and other forms of adversity. I would just be one in a chorus of online voices sharing my emotions and experiences.

But people did connect, especially work colleagues and others in my profession. I thought my soul venting might raise eyebrows at work, but I got nothing but support. The reaction from the information security crowd was particularly stunning to me. People who intimidated me with their outward toughness started sharing back. They became more than just people I did business with. The friendships I’ve gained through the sharing is a huge gift this blog has given me.

The reaction from family and friends was shock, because I had succeeded in carrying on with a stoic, easy-going exterior. I couldn’t believe people saw me as easygoing. Apparently I could have found success as an actor.

The sharing has allowed me to repair some relationships that were broken. In other cases, it made matters worse. But there was no turning back.

My wife was often bewildered by what I wrote, because I was sharing past experiences I hadn’t shared with her up to that point. That led to us doing a lot of work on our relationship, and that’s the absolute greatest gift this blog has given me. As part of that, the blog has become one of the things we do together as a couple: I do the writing, Erin does the editing and bullshit detecting. When something I write doesn’t ring true, she pushes me in the proper direction.

Admittedly, I’ve expanded the subject matter a lot in the last year and a half. I didn’t originally plan to opine about current events here, but I realized a couple things after a while:

  • If I were to write about nothing but my own flaws, I’d risk being defined by them and nothing else.
  • This blog should be about more than just my own personal growth. Part of one’s growth comes from their dealings with the people and events taking place around them. By that measurement, current events became fair game.

In finding the path through adversity, there are many lessons to be had by exploring how we all talk to each other.

I’ve also focused more on the lighter side of life, because few things get us through the fog like humor. That has made this experiment a lot more fun for me. I hope it has worked for all of you, too.

Here’s to many more years of staring adversity in the face and making it blink — becoming better on our own and together.

538766_10201059541957148_28365244_n

 

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Never Too Late to Renegotiate Your Life

When you have legal problems, mountains of debt, bad relationships and a job that makes you unhappy, it’s easy to feel like there’s a point of no return, that this is how your life turned out and that’s that. It’s not true.

Mood music:

I can say that, because I’ve lived it.

I’m thinking about this after talking to a friend who allowed an addiction to get out of hand to the point where he’s now facing jail time. One of the points he keeps making is that if he goes to jail, his career is over. He won’t be able to provide for his family, and all will be lost.

I’ve felt like all was lost many times. I felt that way as a kid as the Crohn’s Disease shredded my insides and I simply assumed I wouldn’t live to see 30. I felt that way when my weight shot to 280 and I failed at one attempt after another to turn it around. I felt that way when relationships with friends and relatives snapped over the years. And I sure as hell felt that way when I was in a job I absolutely hated.

Yet here I am, with a job I love even after coming clean about old and frequently reappearing demons. I’m married with two kids and pushing 42 even though age 30 seemed unlikely in my teenage mind. My addictions can still be a knife in my side, but I’m having more success in controlling them than I ever have before.

That kind of blows the notion that there’s a point of no return to smithereens, in my humble opinion.

I’m betting my sister felt that point-of-no-return feeling back when she suffered from crushing depression. Yet this weekend I watched her getting married, looking happier than she’s looked in years, and thriving months into a new job.

I’m betting my father felt that point-of-no-return feeling in the months following his stroke last year. Yet there he was the other night, walking with the assistance of a simple cane — walker pushed to the corner — walking his daughter down the aisle and later dancing with her.

Yeah, life can seem brutally overwhelming sometimes. When you’re knee-deep in legal, financial or relationship problems, it can be hard to see coming out the other side with a better life.

But it happens. All the time. All it takes is the will to survive.

If you have that, then it’s never too late to renegotiate your life.

Phoenix Rising