Reflections on Another Year: Twenty-Thirteen

Named after a song that includes the lines "As the year draws to a close, I think about my living" I guess it was only fitting for me to be pensive and retrospective by nature. And so, with the Holidays drawing near yet again, I find myself in the annual act of flipping through the pages of another year gone by - years which are starting to pile up now.

The first thing that popped into my head in regards to the year Twenty-Thirteen was dull. I didn't move to any big cities or any serene countryside locales, nor did I move at all for that matter. I didn't tie the knot, didn't fall in love, didn't even really get any closer to the altar at all. I didn't finish The Great American Novel, though I did try my hand at that, again. I didn't take any great leaps or bounds in the career sector, though I did graduate and work at a law firm for short while.

But then I think a little more deeply, and realize dull fails to accurately describe the year for me. My suspicion is that my reaction to the year - of it seeming dull - largely comes from the stability in my life right now, which has been lacking in years' past before. Dull is probably exactly what I need right now. If things are dull, that probably means things are on the right track for me at the moment.

In reality, the year wasn't dull per se. Some pretty significant life events occurred. I sought treatment for alcohol abuse. I joined a recovery group. I notched together a couple months of sobriety on separate occasions. I dated seriously for the first time since the one that damn near broke me beyond repair, albeit at a time when I self-admittedly probably wasn't ready to date yet. I graduated law school,(!) a fact sometimes eludes me despite taking place only months ago and one that might be the defining moment in many people's lives yet in mine doesn't even warrant year-defining status. That's quite a bit, on paper. I think in my own mind it doesn't seem like a great deal due to the fact that it comes with the disclaimer in that I am still searching for that elusive state of happiness in my life.

Aside from the life-changing events, there were the little things, too: those little moments that years later you look back upon and realize were the big things after all. I started spending more time with my brother. I got to watch Michigan play for a National Title with him. My partner and I in law school won a disability case for a man who suffered from schizophrenia. I went to the zoo and Cedar Point with my then-girlfriend. I read a couple good books, most memorably a biography of Hemingway, a couple drinking memoirs, a Springsteen biography and Darren McCarty's memoir. I got out into the fresh air and did quite a bit of hiking.

Most importantly, 2013 was a year I could look back on without a great deal of pain or regret, something I was incapable of doing in either 2012 or 2011. I don't remember which year it was, but I remember one of my best friend's, Steve, suggesting to me that I should do one of those 'Year in Review' posts for either 2012 or 2011. I remember thinking there was no way in Hell I wanted to do that because the year had been the worst of my life and I just wanted it to be over with forever. It could have been 2012 or 2011, it didn't really matter which. Because those were probably the two worst years of my life to date, full of depression and loss and accentuated by substance abuse. I can look back upon 2013 with a little bit of peace. And that's something, at least.

The Darkest Hours

Ever the insomniac (they say sleep gets better after a few months of sobriety?), I found myself reading back on some of my entries from early 2013. It struck me as a bit surprising - although of course it shouldn't - that I had started making real attempts at sobriety somewhere around this time last year. The thing about addiction is, the addiction wants you to forget the past. It's a daily battle for me to remember just how bad things were, the dark places I've been. As addicts are, I'm quite good at convincing myself that the problem was never really that bad, that maybe I could manage things differently this time around. I've been sober only sixty days approximately, but the pain of the latest session of withdrawals seems to me ages ago.

A mere fifty some odd days. Yet I've been giving this a real shot for more than a year now. That's a bit demoralizing.

Yet I think back to the Holidays of the past year and see progress. The Holiday season this past year were probably my darkest hours. My addiction had peaked; it was spiraling downwards faster than I knew how to keep up with it. On Thanksgiving I think I drank a couple heavy whiskey drinks in the early morning hours just to rid myself of withdrawal symptoms just so that I could make it out to the family function, where I continued to drink steadily to keep myself in balance. On Christmas Eve I woke up from a multi-day bender realizing I had intended to be sober by Christmas Eve so that I would be functioning in time for family socializing; I had failed and was going through pretty bad withdrawals. It was one of those mornings where I hung my head and cried. It wasn't the first one of those mornings - there had been countless of those mornings where I woke up and realized I was losing control over this thing. You've reached Hell when you need that drink in the morning. And on Christmas Eve of last year, even my standard Hair of the Dog routine was failing to get me out of the mess I had created.

God-willing, I will be sober for the rest of this Holiday season. So even in the face of my repeated failures dating back to the Holiday season of last year, at least there's the fact that the Holidays will be worlds better this time around to hang my hat on.

And there's the fact that I am actively making changes to my life. I spent close to three hours today, my day off, at my sponsor's house - an angel sent into my life it seems at this point - working on some of my step-work. And afterwards I found myself sitting by myself on the wooden pews at my grade school church, doing some reflection at the suggestion of said sponsor. These are all things that abhorred me at this point of my life last year. But it was incumbent upon me to stop telling myself I would change. Telling myself I would change failed me time and again and then a couple more times after that. To change, you must do.

BourbonBottleBookends Meets a Legend

Darren McCarty, Hockeytown's # 25

What do you say when you finally meet one of your all-time idols? Darren McCarty caught me by surprise when he walked up to me from behind. I fumbled for words, my eyes wide as saucers, when I turned around to see the Detroit legend in front of me. "Hello, Mr. McCarty," I somehow managed. "Darren, please," he responded as he shook my hand. 

Enforcer. Tough Guy. Goon. Call him what you will; Detroit's fan-favorite fighter and Steve Yzerman's on-ice bodyguard during the pinnacle of the Red Wings dynastic years, Darren McCarty recently released his memoir My Last Fight. The book is written in the same vein as part-hockey, part-coming clean with demons memoir Tough Guy by Bob Probert - the enforcer that preceded McCarty in Hockeytown. McCarty's memoir recounts Number Twenty-Five's highs as a Stanley Cup champion and his lows in the midst of a battle with drugs and alcoholism.

McCarty was supposed to be signing books at my place of employment this week. I was holding out a longshot hope that I might get my copy signed; I certainly did not expect to meet one of my childhood heroes. I was standing in an office performing some unremembered workplace task. I heard the office door creak open and I glanced over my shoulder. And there he was, face and hands worn ragged from years making a living with his fists.

And what can you say to someone you've never met but nonetheless has meant so much more than you could ever express? 

There was no way to convey that March 26th of 1997, the night when McCarty sought vengeance on Colorado's Claude Lemieux and pummeled him into the ice, is one of the few dates I will always remember from my childhood. Or that his breakaway, game-winning, Stanley Cup-clinching goal in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals against Philadelphia in June of that same year is a moment I've sometimes remembered as the defining moment of my childhood. Or that I spent countless college hours rewatching the 1997 Red Wings video in some misguided attempt to recapture that innocence of childhood. Or that his willingness to publicly discuss his substance abuse - My Last Fight is a reference to the biggest fight of his life: the one with his demons - along with several other NHL stars' willingness to do the same (Brian McGrattan - praying for a memoir from him someday, Red Wing Jordin Tootoo, the late and aforementioned Bob Probert, and old-time Bruins bad boy Derek Sanderson, among others) helped me to address my own demons. Or that his candid story provides me a much-needed steady stream of motivation in that ever-trying road of sobriety. 

But realistically, "Hello Mr. McCarty" was all I could say, even if it were premeditated. And it's probably best kept that way. Childhood heroes are best remembered with a hue of mystique. 

Happy Holidays

James Joyce, Araby

I read this short story every holiday season. It's magic is in its simplicity - the youthful vigor for life on those cold and quiet wintry evenings. It takes me back to those days when the Millwood boys would meet in the snow-dusted front yards of the neighborhood and play until our cheeks were rosy and snot dripped from our noses; those wintry evenings when the rest of Millwood hibernated indoors, chimneytops puffed steam into the frozen air, and the cries of the coyotes echoed from the backwoods. 

- 41 days sober

Hockey Night in Canada: a Fateful Night on the Road to Recovery

It was a February Saturday night in the dead of winter of 2012. The weather outside my single apartment - the one my girlfriend and I were supposed to share that year - echoed the current state of my soul: dark, cold, tree branches jagged and frozen. I was doing what I did that whole year, drinking beer in some vain attempt to wash away the past from my brain. Half drunk, I grabbed another beer from the fridge as the Hockey Night in Canada game ended and transitioned into the After Hours segment. That segment would change my life forever.

In that After Hours segment, Hockey Night in Canada streamed an interview with Brian McGrattan and Jordin Tootoo. Both recovering alcoholics, McGrattan and Tootoo candidly discussed their battles with alcoholism. As anyone who has dealt with the disease knows, that's exactly what it is: a battle. McGrattan's story hit me hard. It goes something like this: after yet another long bender, McGrattan woke up from a drunk in that depressed, withdrawal state; he knew, in one of those classic alcoholic moments, that things had gotten far off track somehow, that he needed some help; in tears, he called his mom, and said, once and for all, that he desperately needed some help. On some subconscious level, I knew that I was on that road.

Yet I was still in denial of my addiction at the time. I knew things were getting bad, but just not bad enough for me yet. I was transitioning into the alcoholic phase. In that phase when the fun still outweighs the non-fun. But the fun started to fade pretty quickly. Over the next several months, however, my own alcoholism began to spiral out of control into depths I never even imagined possible, quite rapidly.

It's a dark place, alcoholism. In one of his candid interviews, McGrattan states, "staying drunk for four or five days is not fun". By the Fall of 2012, that's where my alcoholism had taken me. Hiding bottles of vodka in my bedroom dresser, taking shots of liquor at 7 a.m. in the dark, skipping work and drinking out of a soda bottle at the park, going through withdrawals, ten-mile long walks in a withdrawal-induced haze, staying drunk for four days at a time: these were all places I encountered. They are dark places indeed. Alcoholics often get glimpses of the spiritual world that a non-addict would never have access to - they catch glimpses of hell itself. If that sounds bad, there are still things I am unable to admit, at least on a blog.

I went through a pretty vicious cycle. Sober for 3-4 weeks, feel better, forget the addiction, drink again, 3-4 day bender, withdrawal. This, I know now, is classic alcoholic behavior. But I was still in denial. Until the biggest bender of my life brought me to my knees. I remember quite distinctly during that bender that I watched the McGrattan-Tootoo Hockey Night in Canada video on repeat. I listened again and again to Brian McGrattan say "I needed to ask for help". I often woke up with earnest intentions of putting down the bottle during those seven days, only to find myself pouring more liquor hours later in an attempt to stave off withdrawal symptoms. I looked to that video for strength to ask for help, which it finally gave me. There was no denying it anymore.

Honesty is critical in recovery. As is evident from the last couple posts from this blog, I don't really care to deny what I've been battling, to anyone, anymore. And to be honest, I haven't been continuously sober since that day I finally asked for help. I went back out into the deep end, a couple times or so, and I learned what is common knowledge for alcoholics - that each relapse gets worse and worse. I had 3 and a half months of sobriety at one point before I threw that away. It brought me straight back to that glimpse of hell that I had witnessed before. I woke up one day and I had been drunk for 3 days: and it's moments like that when you really have no idea how you even got to that point.

 But today I have 30 days of sobriety, again, and I'm doing everything in my power to ensure that I never have to get that brief glimpse of hell ever again.

And I have Brian McGrattan and Hockey Night in Canada to thank for that, in a big way.

Groundhog Day

While watching the Michigan-Michigan State game at my brother's house today, I commented, after yet another pitiful three and out and another poor punt to midfield, "this is like groundhog day". Michigan was outplayed and outcoached by a superior Michigan State team today. I went home and felt the oncoming of the usual depression that is spurred by such a loss, an all too familiar feeling these days. I was OK during the game, I really was. I expected the loss. But afterwards, it felt like a new low in a relationship already studded with lows. Groundhog day indeed.

As always, of course, Michigan football seemed to symbolize my personal life. I'm on day 15 of sobriety, which, like Michigan football, feels like for the hundredth time. At this point I'm damn tired of talking about changing or saying I'm gonna change, it's time for me to do it. I've been to 15 AA meetings in those 15 days, and I'm determined to put this groundhog day to an end once and for all.

Maybe it's time to put the Michigan Football groundhog day to bed, too. For the first time, I really felt that maybe I have too much invested in a game that I cannot control. I'm not that young anymore, and depression induced by a game played by a bunch of college kids is starting to feel really immature. And the funny thing is, maybe sobriety and a more rational relationship with Michigan Football go hand in hand. In sobriety, you learn a lot about serenity - accepting the things you cannot change.

Enough saying things are going to change, though. It's just damn time to do. If nothing changes, nothing changes.

My Battle

Everywhere I look, it seems, people are doing what 25 year olds should be doing. Getting engaged. Buying houses. Graduating grad school. Maybe having kids. My ex girlfriend owns a house.

I can't help but feel left out. I am 25 years old, and the vision my 10 year old self had of me at this age is nowhere to be found.

I don't think anyone expects to be an alcoholic when they're 25. It's not fun. I don't know how I got here. I guess the warning signs had been there all along. I've spent the better part of the past year trying to stop drinking, or control my drinking, or whatever, and it hasn't worked. Because I'm an alcoholic.

It really doesn't seem fair. That my ex girlfriends are getting engaged. That my college roommates are getting promoted and moving into better apartments in Chicago and NYC. That my brother and his girlfriend are thinking about taking out a mortgage to buy a house. And I have to sit in a church basement at an AA meeting. It's not fair, at all. But it's my path in life.

Against everything my head told me to do, I looked at some of my ex girlfriends pictures today. I thought about where I was then. I thought about where she was then. I thought about where we were then. I thought, this must be the lowest point of my life. Then I drank. Again.

Most of my friends would have no idea how bad it's gotten. Alcohol has a grip on me, and it's disgusting how bad it is. I've had many Sundays when I've needed a beer or two just to get moving. I've had a few Mondays where I needed a drink or two before class. It comes with a depression that I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy. I'm not proud of any of it. I'm an alcoholic. It's not the life I wanted, but it's what I've been dealt.

I'm one relapse away from packing a suitcase and taking a flight to a rehab center. I don't plan on letting that happen. It's time to change my life.

It is a battle with a dark place in hell in front of me. But I plan on winning this battle.