CHAPTER 1

12 Step for the Rest of Us

I'm not sure why you're reading this book right now. Maybe someone who loves youand is concerned for you gave you this book. Maybe you picked it up becauseyou're worried about yourself. Maybe you're already searching through 12-Stepcommunities but feel like your needs aren't being addressed. Maybe you've beenin a 12-Step program but don't like any of the literature. Whatever it may be,my goal is to help you move past your problems into the next phase of your life.

What I'm going to assume is that you don't fit in well with others. Maybe thisis true; maybe it's how you feel about yourself. Regardless of the truth of thematter, you're not comfortable with the status quo. You're wary of being one ofthe herd. If everyone goes in one door, you want to go out the window. Ifeveryone jumps off a cliff, you jump off a bridge. What I'm saying is, you maynot be making the right decisions, but at least you're not making the same wrongdecisions that everyone else is making. From this perspective, 12-Step programsare a scary place.

What I'm going to assume is that you don't fit in well with others.

At the beginning, everyone mumbles out the same prayer from memory. That's anauspicious start to any group meeting. You don't like prayers, you don't likegroup chantings. Everyone's sharing a brain, you think. This is the Borg. Is itsome kind of weird cult? Then it gets worse.

Somebody says a name. Everyone, in unison, greets that person with the samegreeting. That person talks, and tells some horrible story, during which therest of the group laughs. What the fuck? What is so fucking funny? Then it getsworse.

How much coffee can these people drink? Halfway through this meeting, a goodportion of the room got up to go outside and smoke, and they were smoking rightbefore it started; isn't that an addiction too? Then it gets worse.

The guy who drives my shuttle bus every day just told the room that he's ahorrible crack addict. He has six months clean ... that means he was allcracked out driving me to work every day for years. Over there is the cranky guyfrom the corner deli. Is that my ex sitting in the front row? Dude, there are atleast three bartenders in here right now.

All of this inner dialogue is normal. 12 Step is a little freaky at first.You'll see all kinds of people from your life, both dear friends and people yourecognize from the neighborhood but don't really know. What you're going to haveto get over is your preconception that these people have nothing to offer you,that they have nothing in common with you.

I've been around many different subcultures since the '80s. Punks, skinheads,Goths, skaters, rockabillies, Wiccans, vegans, slam poets, comedians, break-dancers,bikers, hip-hop thugs, gangstas both real and self-imagined. Insideeach of these subcultures are even smaller subcultures: anarchists, animalrights activists, tech geeks, graffiti artists. I've been close by many of thesegroups but never felt like I was fully a part of any of them.

I've been around many different subcultures since the '80s ... but never feltlike I was fully a part of any of them.

When it comes down to it, I'm a loner. Lonerism is a self-inflicted lifestyle. Iisolate from others. If I find out that I'm fitting into a group, I find reasonsthat I don't fit so I can feel left out. I use my skepticism and cynicism todistance myself from the group mentality. It's saved me from joining gangs,mobs, and groups that would not be good for me; it has also kept me fromdeveloping the close relationships that I needed to grow as a person. No matterwhether the group accepts me or not, I don't accept that I'm a part of it.

People who can readily accept being part of a group will take to 12-Steprecovery much faster. Those who don't question the immediate help and friendshipoffered by the group will embrace the overwhelmingly positive parts of theprogram. It's a secure feeling to them that there are rooms full of peoplewilling to help in nearly every capacity. But for you, You-Who-Do-Not-Fit-In,it's going to take some work. This book is for you.

Three Types of People

For our purposes, there are three types of people out there: Normies, Addicts,and Recovering Addicts. Normies are the normal people, who drink now and thenand maybe tried drugs, but for some reason, they don't get addicted oroverindulge. Addicts are people for whom drug and alcohol use supersede personalwill. Recovering Addicts are addicts who no longer use and work to remove theobsession to use. This book is written for all three types, but mainly forsomeone who wants to move from the second group into the third.

Nature Versus Nurture

Why do some people get addicted and others don't? Is it genetic? Or is it aproduct of one's immediate culture? Are you born an addict or made into one?From a purely observational point of view, I think it's a combination of both.The only reason it matters is so that you see you shouldn't take an extendedbreak from using or try to cut back. You have a lifetime of stimuli and aphysiology that makes drinking and drug use entirely dangerous.

My point of view is this: You may start a Normie, but once you become an Addict,you can't go back to being a Normie, and once you become a Recovering Addict,you can't go back to being an Addict. People will fight me on the last part ofthis when they read it, but stay with me, I'll explain. This movement acrossdefinitions is an evolution of character. Once you make the successfultransformation, you don't go back.

I started a Normie. I didn't touch a thing until I was seventeen. I didn'tdrink, smoke pot, or even smoke cigarettes until then. I drank when I had easyaccess to it and when it would not jeopardize my situation. I didn't go out ofmy way to find it, nor did I use it if I thought it wasn't prudent at the time.But when I did drink, I drank to get as fucked up as possible. That was a badhabit that led me to being an addict.

I come from a line of alcoholics, like many alcoholics do. On the nature side ofthings, I know that there was a history in my family. On the nurture side ofthings, while my father never drank, he was raised by a drunk, and thereforeacted like one all the time, what we call a "dry drunk." It's the way he learnedhow to deal with other people.

There were always a lot of people in my house. I have two sisters. There wereusually cousins or a student of my father's living with us. During the summers,my mother's sister would come with her kids and stay with us. There were variousmembers of my dad's church who came for indeterminate amounts of time. I bringthis up because of our food situation and my lack of control around consumption.

There was always enough food for us, but never too much. If we had a box ofcereal, the most I could get at was a bowl and a half. At dinner, there might beseconds of one dish or another, but not much more than that. If there was pie atdessert, we each got a tiny piece and then it was gone. I never went hungry as achild, but I never had to learn when to say no to food either. There were acouple of instances when this didn't happen, and they stick out in my mind.

Occasionally, my sisters would go off to church camp, and I'd be left alone likean only child, which seemed the grandest luxury in the world. Not only did Ihave my choice of television shows, but my choice of seat while watching theshow. I could have friends over without us being terrorized by my older sistersand their friends. Best of all, I got to choose the restaurant we went to forlunch after church.

One such weekend, my sisters were gone, my dad was out of town, and there wereno other people in tow. It was just my mother and I. She told me we could gowherever we wanted to go. It was either Bonanza or Sizzler, I don't rememberwhich, but I remember the meal well. I got the steak with the all-you-can-eatshrimp. I ate the steak, and started in on the shrimp. I finished the shrimp andasked for more. The waitress brought me more and made some remark about thatshould do me. I was going to show her. I finished that plate and asked her forthirds. She made a big deal about me being able to eat a lot, which was probablyan insult in her mind, but I thought it was great.

My mom was of the generation where a kid who eats a lot is healthy and growing.Besides that, anything that wasn't expressly candy or dessert was good for you,whether it was battered, fried, or whatever cut of meat—it didn't matter.Whatever Bisquick casserole she made I ate with reckless abandon. I routinelyhad eggs, bacon (what we called "fatback"), and pancakes for breakfast. Lunchwas sandwiches grilled in butter, or hot dogs. Dinner was more ordinary GoodHousekeeping kind of fare, but the side dishes were carb heavy and often acolored gooey Cool Whip mess she called Ambrosia. I think the only thing thatsaved me from a junior high heart attack was that a lot of the meat I ate atdinner was very lean wild game that my father killed in the fall and that we atefrom the deep freeze all year-round. My point is that my mom was the last ladyin the town who was going to tell me not to have thirds, or fourths, even,although she'd be strict with dessert.

I'm not sure how much I had, but finally I was coaxed into leaving. I rememberthe heat coming through the window of the station wagon warming my neck. Itreminded me of the time at the county fair when I was convinced to get on theTilt-A-Whirl. Oh no, I thought, I'm going to barf.

Barf I did. All that batter-fried shrimp was returned to the sea from which itcame. I had never been sick from eating before. The good news is I got to stayhome from school on Monday.

This was the only time I didn't go back to what made me ill, but there were manyother instances of excess. As I got older and the house emptied out of people,I'd eat a box of cereal after school, from ripping open the lining to the goldenpowder pouring in the bowl. After two bowls, my gums were torn up and hurting,but I wouldn't stop until the bowl was empty. After it was gone, I'd try to eatdinner a few hours later with my gums cut and my tongue rubbed raw. The nextweek the same brand of cereal would be there, and I'd do it again. The onlything that stopped me when I started eating was running out.

There were nights when I couldn't stand up, but as I la yon the floor looking atthe empty whiskey bottle on the coffee table, I'd think about how I wished I hadanother bottle.

I drank exactly the same way from the time I started. I never left a beer or acocktail unfinished. I'd buy half-pints of vodka or whiskey in my younger daysand drink the whole thing. That seemed to be enough for me until I startedbuying pints; then a pint of whiskey was what I had to drink before I passedout. The fifth bottle proved my nemesis for many years, as I would drink most ofit before passing out. But soon enough, I found myself finishing those overthree or four hours while watching TV. Somewhere around that time I'd find myway back to the liquor store completely wasted, but still wanting more. Therewere nights when I couldn't stand up, but as I lay on the floor looking at theempty whiskey bottle on the coffee table, I'd think about how I wished I hadanother bottle.

So is it a matter of my nature that I couldn't control my eating as a child, andtherefore couldn't control my drinking as an adult? Or is it a matter of nurturethat I was allowed to eat as much as I did, and was never taught self-control?Is self-control something that can be taught to another individual, or is itsomething we learn through trial and error? If we learn it ourselves, are therethose of us who are incapable of learning it? I don't know the answers to thesequestions. But what I do know is clear: I have self-control issues when it comesto physical things that give me pleasure.

Often people will offer me a bite of ice cream or a bit of their chocolatewhatever. I usually decline. They usually force it on me. If I have one bite,when we part ways, I'm at the corner store buying a pint of Ben & Jerry's andthinking about what pint I will buy the next day. I'm obsessive about ingestingfood. The bad side is, this food is bad for my health. The good side is, if Ieat a pint of ice cream, I don't call my ex-girlfriends at 2 a.m.

When I drank whiskey this way, I combined a self-control problem with asubstance that is physically addictive and lowers inhibition. There is no set ofcircumstances in which this turns out well. There are no tools left to fight thecompulsion to drink more. The only things that would stop me at this point arethe liquor store closing, running out of money, or getting thrown out of the barafter last call.

Where Everybody Doesn't Know Your Name

On 16th Street in San Francisco there's a bar called The Kilowatt. This is whereI drank on Sunday mornings with The Boys. We watched football and drank likemen. Andy, the bartender, made me bourbon and Cokes in pint glasses. From 10a.m. to 4 p.m. we watched the brutal ballet that is the National FootballLeague. Outside, Rob grilled the meat, and we were all bonding.

Many were the Sunday afternoons when I'd bid farewell to The Boys and staggeroff to the BART station to make my way home, to catch HBO's Sunday night lineupwith a nightcap of bourbon. All in all, a good day indeed, spent drinking wellover a quart of whiskey.

I thought that if I quit drinking I'd let everyone down. They'd miss me. The barwouldn't be the same without One of the Boys, would it? I was the literary oneof the bar. I imagined myself to be the Frasier of the 16th Street Cheers. I wasthe hard-drinking, underappreciated-in-his-own-time writer, whose published bookhad unfortunately been ahead of its time.

There was no way I could let them see me in the bar during football without adrink. It would be much like seeing Barry Bonds limp after a pop fly in hislater years, or watching a boxer past his prime step into the ring, or listeningto the Aerosmith album they did right after they quit doing cocaine. It wouldn'tbe right. Luckily for me, I got sober in February, as the Super Bowl waswrapping up the NFL postseason.

I approached the bartender, Andy.

"I'm thinking about getting sober," I admitted.

"That's a great idea," he said without hesitation. When your bartender reallywants you to quit, it's time.

Further than that, if you don't know who the worst drunk is in your favoritebar, it's you. When you quit, someone else becomes the worst drunk in the bar.They've all been comparing themselves to you, saying, "At least I'm not thatguy." Quitting is threatening to them. Your drinking validates their drinking.You may know a lot of people who drink as much as you do; you also know a lot ofother alcoholics.

For you drug types out there, if you don't know someone who hasn't triedcocaine, you're an addict. You've surrounded yourself with a social circle thatthinks it's normal to do cocaine, even if it's a now-and-then situation. Mostpeople in this country will never try cocaine or heroin. Most of them will nevereven have the opportunity. You've created this world for yourself with a realityto which you shouldn't compare yourself.

Drinking during the day, drinking whiskey in the morning didn't seem odd to me,since I knew plenty of other people who did it. Most people I knew did it,because I had created a world of problem drinkers around me. The people I knewdrank every single day after work in the same bars.

That fall, I returned to The Kilowatt with about half a year sober. Andy pouredme a root beer, and I handed him some poems I'd written since he'd seen me last.

"What are you reading," one of The Boys asked.

"Some of Bucky's new shit," Andy told him.

"Who's Bucky?"

"This guy," Andy said.

He looked right at me. No recognition whatsoever.

"Nice to meet you," he said.

It hit me. He didn't know me. I looked around the bar at the rest of The Boys.There was Panama Hat, Guy Who Drinks Corona With Lime, Redskins Fan WithPonytail ... I didn't know these guys. They didn't know me. They weren't myfriends at all. They were random jerks at the bar. And I was a more random jerkfrom off the street.

So Life You in the Nads

First off, apologies for the decidedly male metaphor here. Gut Punch would workas well, but it doesn't quite have the same ring to it. The days of the GutPunch are long over, any way; few people have been randomly socked in themidsection, but guys all around the world still know what a good racking willdo.

Anyone who has partaken in playground violence understands the equalizer that isthe Kick in the Nads. No matter how tough that bully is, anyone else can takehim down with one well-placed Buster Brown.