Day 13: Free Solo Means Failure is Not an Option... Oh, and Something About Evil Monkeys...

Let’s not do yesterday ever again…  When people speak about getting sober without meds, doctors, therapy or groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, they call it “White Knuckle Sobriety” and let me tell you right now, aptly named my friends… Because fuck, this is, let’s say, uh, difficult.  After yesterday, I slept through the night except for of course, the “nearing sixty years old, middle of the night bathroom break…” I woke up at 0530 and when I sat up, I just laid back down. My first Challenge failure in a few days but I think I needed the sleep more than I needed to overcome any life challenges this morning. If anything, this experience is humbling me. I don’t have quit in me, but I am learning that I do have my kryptonite issues…  The great thing about the way I am approaching this is that instead of “a drink would stop this” I am looking at it like, “a drink would just restart this fucking nightmare…” and I don’t want a repeat of yesterday ever again. I would rather not, thanks…

I would like to take a minute here to thank Ahmed al-Ghaffar. The inventor of brewed coffee… The earliest credible evidence of coffee-drinking or knowledge of the coffee tree appears in the middle of the 15th century in the accounts of Ahmed al-Ghaffar in Yemen. It was here in Arabia that coffee seeds were first roasted and brewed, in a similar way to how it is prepared now. Mr. al-Ghaffar, you have my eternal gratitude… I probably drink too much but let’s worry about that after I kill this monkey on my back. I fucking hate monkeys right now… Let's confront our monkeys, shall we?

What started out as a 90 Day Life Change Challenge Blog took a wild left turn didn’t it? I never imagined that shutting down the Evil Monkey would have the effect it did…. I’m still on track for becoming the best person I can be, I’m just in the ditch right now… Remember when I spoke about my life as a car driving 100 miles per hour on a winding road? Well, I never thought I would lose control of it, but I did… So, while I will continue my pursuit of the best life possible, I am just gathering my thoughts on how to get out of this ditch I swerved into…  Funny fucking thing about the whole situation is I didn’t lose control until I slowed down… That tells me that maybe vodka was driving and when I tried to take the wheel, vodka screamed at me in Russian and fought back… Oh well… Give a few days and we can get back to the fitness, diet and Life Challenge shit… But think about this, I am writing every day and some of you are reading every day… How about that? When this is over, I’m going to write a book and those of you who have developed daily reading habits can move on with a new habit. Everyone wins! Reading is wonderful… I guess I could turn this into an audible blog for everyone… Hmmm… That sounds like a future possibility because I need something else to do… (I said that really sarcastically if you didn’t catch it…)

So Day 13 will consist of sleeping in for some much needed rest, eating some good, healthy whole foods, drinking lots of water, completing the 90 Day Life Change Challenge and try to get this truck out of the ditch…

Now, the piss and vinegar part of the daily ranting… The component of the blog that many will not agree with… My favorite part because when you say something controversial, you can identify the people that are entrenched in their thinking… So here we go… If your knees are under the table, you may want to scoot back just a tad so when they jerk, it won’t upset your apple cart too… 

I don’t agree with 12 step programs… Be they religious or non-religious... Not my thing… 

Now that I have that out in the open and I’ve got your attention, let me clarify… If you have been reading my blog for the last two weeks, you know that I cherry pick just about everything and I take what works for me and I ignore the rest. I’m not stupid and sometimes when I implement the things that work for me, I realize that some of the elements I initially rejected can be modified or even accepted as part of my personal process. I am not one of those people who follow directives and for the most part it has served me well and even though occasionally I have fired that bullet into my foot before drawing my weapon, I trust that the construct of my thinking will preserve my life because I know me pretty well… Again, not for everyone and some people need definitive directions to operate. Step one through 12 is perfect for some. Fail on step eight? Just go back to step seven and go again… 

Hey Bob, how about one of your spot on analogies?  Well, gee whiz, thanks for asking!

I love to climb… This pandemic has put the kibosh on climbing… There aren’t many things out there that catch my full interest but rock climbing really does it for me. There are many types of climbing, top roped, Trad, Sport, bouldering…  I love them all but the one that does it for me, the one that makes my heart pound and the Viagra kick in, is Free Solo. No rope, no gear, just me and the rock…  Fuck up and it’s pretty much over depending on high up you are when you fail… Now obviously, I haven’t failed yet because my ashes aren’t on the mantle and I am typing with my hands and not dictating this… I have fallen a couple of times but all I lost was some skin and the ability to bend over for a few days. 

When I climbed with my group, we relied on one another. The climber has the rope attached to a belt which went up to the pulley and then down to a belay that would “catch” you if you fell… You fall about 5-10 feet and then you stop because the rope tightens up and you hang there for a second, find your holds and go on up the rock…Kind of like a group meeting for substance abuse... The group is an entity that protects the members of the group. Pretty genius actually, until Lone Wolf McQuade enters the room... You never would think of Chuck Norris in a circle talking about how many days he has been sober and how his mom was an alcoholic... Norris would glare at substance abuse, and kick alcoholism until they scurried away...

The roped rock climbing is like a 12 Step Program. You get up twenty five or thirty feet, fall, the belay catches you and you start back at twenty feet again, no harm no foul. Still a great rush of adrenaline but in the back of your thoughts is that safety net telling you that it’s okay to fail here, someone will catch you… Failure is an option and in most cases, you have to tell people that THEY WILL fail... 

Now look, I’m no Alex Honnold and I can’t imagine climbing up the face of El Cap and hanging off a piece of granite the width of a doorway frame 3,000 feet in the air. Not me, not ever…  Personally, I would like to try to ascend that rock but I want experienced climbers and ropes. There is still a chance, the oldest climber to ascend El Cap was 81 year old Gary Bloch who did it with safety climbing gear called “jumars” and you’re not really interested are you… Sorry, I start talking about climbing and sometimes I watch people’s eyes glaze over… 

Anyway…

I don’t need a 12 step program to catch me… I don’t want the doctor to give me a pill to get through it. Although for safety, I have been watching myself carefully to see if I need medical attention because detox from alcohol is fucking dangerous, you can get really sick from it and truthfully, last night I considered it for a few minutes when the world was swimming in front of me… 

Listen, I’m not being an asshole here, I will take a person to an AA meeting, listen to them, help them and coach them, I just prefer to walk this path alone. I prefer to climb alone and I prefer to rely on myself to get through this utter hell that people call recovery. 

I certainly now understand what people are going through and certainly have empathy for people who fail. I have been through quite a bit in my half century but this experience ranks in the top ten of my list called “That Was Hard”… Fail and I have to do it again and why would I do that? It’s like that climb without ropes… Fail and the result is devastation. My life isn’t about the ten steps to this or the five stages of that, it’s much more complicated and personal than someone else’s manufactured list.  

There ya go, that’s why I am not a fan of 12 Step Programs for personal use but will be the first person to suggest it for anyone having substance abuse issues. I have said it many times here in the posts on this blog, you have to figure out this shit for yourself but please come to the realization that you are so much stronger than you give yourself credit for. You are as strong and as wise as your personal journey has been difficult. Because of this, I understand things that only a handful of people can comprehend. I know what the loss of a young child feels like and the long and winding road back from being maimed in a car accident. I understand what a dozen surgeries to repair a person feels like. I cringe when I hear that these things have happened to others but I am also aware that recovery from them is not only possible, it's probable. I have heard many times that "If I ever lost a child, I wouldn't make it." In some ways you are quite correct, you're not coming back from that the same, but more times than not you will come back to health and productivity.  I will emerge from this current nightmare highly aware of the difficulties that alcohol and drugs cause. I am conscious of the reality of detoxification and recovery. I am learning great lessons inside this storm. Because I don’t require help doesn’t mean I am not empathetic to others as they ride the emotional roller coaster to get healthy…

Last thought for the day… 

When you feel like you’re motivated, that is the exact time to act on it. Motivated to start on Monday more than likely will fail. Really jazzed for the first? No… You’re really jazzed to not be doing it now… Get your ass up, TIVO the show you're watching and do something…

Ah… Much better, I didn’t think I was going to say something offensive there for a second…

Off to exercise and wipe out my daily challenges… What is your excuse again?

Have a day…

Love ya, mean it…