One of Those Weeks

I obviously can't go into any detail due to the nature of confidentiality etc. but this has been one of those weeks! If I hadn't known better I would have been sure it was a full moon out there. Maybe it's the impending change of seasons or just plain human nature, but it was nothing less than chaos well-hidden in uncertainty and wrapped in insanity.

It began within minutes of arriving at work on Monday. It went around and around for a while. Seemed to settle down a little but I could home Monday night with a fried brain. Thank goodness for Big Band practice on Monday evening. Nothing like music to soothe the soul.

Tuesday was relatively quiet. Nothing out of the ordinary. Got through it fine.

But it went running around again Wednesday morning. No matter what I did or where I went all morning long it just kept rolling around. Like the waves at the shore there was a relentless quality to it. It was a little quieter after lunch but only by degrees compared to the morning.

Around noon I called home and simply asked my wife to have two big chocolate cakes ready when I got home. (Hey, that's what happens when you can't drink or use drugs!) She laughed and gently reminded me that one, let alone two, cakes would certainly ruin my diet. No comfort food tonight.

We went out for supper (but I stayed on my diet. Aren't you proud of me?) I sat at home and just couldn't get anything through my thick skull. So here I am at my favorite coffee shop, Miles Davis and others in my headphones, and writing.

Insanity! There at the end of the very first paragraph came that word. When I wrote that it all came flooding in. I laughed at myself. Writing and music will often work together to come up with an answer? An answer? The answer. It is something I talk about all the time. It is the center of my life, even though it is only Step 2: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

My old sober friend Jim T. used to do Step 2 with a simple prayer- "Lord restore me to sanity." Anytime insanity raised its ugly chaos-producing head and he realized it was working on him, he would stop and do that. But did this insane guy figure that out? Not without the prompting of some writing and music. It was so much more fun to revel in the crap going on in my head. It was so much more likely to continue to make me unhappy and turn things to junk.

That's the way the alcoholic brain works- even 19 years and 51 weeks into recovery. The issue in recovery in the long-term is not, repeat not a matter of cravings or urges. Not at first. Relapse takes time to build up. It takes a lot of insanity to creep in and undermine the hopes and promise of all that recovery has brought. Deep inside the alcoholic's (and addict's) brain the chemical roots of addiction are sitting and waiting.

Cunning.

Baffling.

Powerful. And above all else,

Patient.

When one works constantly with addicts and alcoholics, even as a counselor, one can find that insanity begin to work. That's why Al-Anon is such a good idea. (No, I didn't do that. I guess I'm reminding myself about it as I write.) Or why "working the Steps" is not an elective for anyone in recovery who works in the field.

So, again, as it has in so many times and places for the last 20 years, the program worked. When one is consistent enough to allow it to seep in even more powerfully than the addiction, it will work.

And I am constantly amazed.