Make mine a DOUBLE...
Sent in by Billybee
I was born (I'm 54) into a family where both my mom and dad were alcoholics. My parents' generation was highly tolerant of heavy drinking and dysfunction. Because they were so poorly equipped to raise well adjusted children, they sent their kids to parochial school in the hope that the fear tactics of Catholic nuns would offset their lack of control over our behavior. The result was the same as throwing a wool blanket over a burning tire. The flames of my bad behavior appeared to be in check, but in reality, something dark and stinky was smoldering under the cover.
I followed my folks' footsteps into a lifestyle of hard drinking and yet maintaining a reasonably respectable social facade'. The religion was never pressed past the point of it's practical usefulness, but the seed of its terror was fermenting just below my boozed out consciousness.
Two identities; NO WAITING!
Beer chuggin' , coke snortin', acid droppin', pot smokin', screwing machine by night. Miserable, confused, truth seeking machine by day. Balancing my dual lifestyle lasted into my twenties. I was at the first of a series of 'rock-bottoms' ,when I caught a T.V. commercial for Hal Lindsey's' book: Countdown to Armageddon! It hit me like blue-lightening; THIS WAS THE ANSWER TO MY UNHAPPINESS! I bought the book and the hook, line and sinker.
Ka-WOOSH!!!
Remember that smoldering bomb of toxic poison that I mentioned earlier? Well... she blew. Overnight I went from being the gold-medalist of the Lampshade Olympics into my new identity as Mr. Turnerburn!!!
I won't regurgitate the story that many of the regulars to this site have already told. Suffice it to say that my Jesus fit lasted for about eight years. I didn't back-slide, I went straight into free fall. It took about three years for me to hit bottom again.
Up to this point I had tried every thing from Transcendental Meditation to Alcoholics Anonymous and last, but not least, hard core faith. Nothing had been very beneficial to my hope for personal sanity. But thing were about to radically change.
I got popped for D.U.I. (my second in nine months). Part of my sentence was that I would have to submit to an evaluation of my substance abuse issues. This meant that I would be talking to an actual professional councilor. My system of fixing myself via white-knuckle sobriety with Jesus as my co-pilot had run out of gas. True, it had transported me as best as it could to that point, but the wheels had come off and my old buddy Jehovah didn't know the first thing about fixing flats.
I'm finally on my feet and walking this strange and wonderful road. I expect that there will be bumps, detours, ruts, and the occasional downhill coast. Traveling by reason... it's the only way to fly!
I was born (I'm 54) into a family where both my mom and dad were alcoholics. My parents' generation was highly tolerant of heavy drinking and dysfunction. Because they were so poorly equipped to raise well adjusted children, they sent their kids to parochial school in the hope that the fear tactics of Catholic nuns would offset their lack of control over our behavior. The result was the same as throwing a wool blanket over a burning tire. The flames of my bad behavior appeared to be in check, but in reality, something dark and stinky was smoldering under the cover.
I followed my folks' footsteps into a lifestyle of hard drinking and yet maintaining a reasonably respectable social facade'. The religion was never pressed past the point of it's practical usefulness, but the seed of its terror was fermenting just below my boozed out consciousness.
Two identities; NO WAITING!
Beer chuggin' , coke snortin', acid droppin', pot smokin', screwing machine by night. Miserable, confused, truth seeking machine by day. Balancing my dual lifestyle lasted into my twenties. I was at the first of a series of 'rock-bottoms' ,when I caught a T.V. commercial for Hal Lindsey's' book: Countdown to Armageddon! It hit me like blue-lightening; THIS WAS THE ANSWER TO MY UNHAPPINESS! I bought the book and the hook, line and sinker.
Ka-WOOSH!!!
Remember that smoldering bomb of toxic poison that I mentioned earlier? Well... she blew. Overnight I went from being the gold-medalist of the Lampshade Olympics into my new identity as Mr. Turnerburn!!!
I won't regurgitate the story that many of the regulars to this site have already told. Suffice it to say that my Jesus fit lasted for about eight years. I didn't back-slide, I went straight into free fall. It took about three years for me to hit bottom again.
Up to this point I had tried every thing from Transcendental Meditation to Alcoholics Anonymous and last, but not least, hard core faith. Nothing had been very beneficial to my hope for personal sanity. But thing were about to radically change.
I got popped for D.U.I. (my second in nine months). Part of my sentence was that I would have to submit to an evaluation of my substance abuse issues. This meant that I would be talking to an actual professional councilor. My system of fixing myself via white-knuckle sobriety with Jesus as my co-pilot had run out of gas. True, it had transported me as best as it could to that point, but the wheels had come off and my old buddy Jehovah didn't know the first thing about fixing flats.
I'm finally on my feet and walking this strange and wonderful road. I expect that there will be bumps, detours, ruts, and the occasional downhill coast. Traveling by reason... it's the only way to fly!
Comments
I guess yourself alone can manage out your personal sanity. you seem quite a strong person. Do not put yourself into despair too deeply.
I hope you remember that the darker the night is the closer the bright sun is.
By the way, I guess you already have, many times, tried to travel by reason. Was it successful?
So, if possible, do not expel your old friend too far away. Who knows you may desperately need him again?
Although it's another frustrating tale, as most here are, I enjoyed your humorous take. :)
Trumpeter, you're not welcome, you insidious creep.
Billybee
Billybee, thanks for sharing your story. It sounds like you are on a better path already!
Reason has set you free and reason will keep you on the right path.
All the best.
Trumpeter: I perceive an incredible lack of empathy, in addition to a high level of immaturity. Are you out of high school yet?
Are you a musician, trumpeter? I am a Glenn Miller fan myself.
Your attempts at eloquence are amusing. The night is not a fit analogy of despair. The night is beautiful; the insect chorus; the hard light of the moon and stars; a pitch-black room in a faraway hotel; your beloved's touch.
And perhaps on to more serious things........about reason........trumpeter, reason is something that we have to learn. We have to learn to think, just as we had to learn to talk. Thinking comes later in life, much later, and sometimes not at all. But at some point in our lives, we may begin to experiment with our brains; we can think; we can doubt; we can steer our own course; we can drop out of the crowd.
And for "crowd", read "church"; "family"; "school"; "country". Whatever it is that has been jerking your strings. Reason is real. And to answer your question, it sure as the fucking hell is successful. It beats the damned fucking hell out of faith.
If by "old friend" you might mean god or jesus, neither was my friend. I was the victim of a pack of ignorant shitkickers who filled my head with a lot of shit that should have rotted away with the fucking dark ages. I drifted from church to church, for years, until I finally caught on: this is fucking hoax; get off your knees, idiot.
Desperately need him? He can kiss my ass. I desperately need to be my own man and to conduct my own affairs.
I call myself an atheist as a purely social convenience. It starts conversations. But it means nothing to me if gods exist or not. Nothing. Fairies might exist. Bigfoot might exist. I might be the bastard king of France. But who the fuck cares?
I have also noticed that you have made a few enemies. Are you a xian? You talk like a xian. I might advise you that when you ditch the jewzoo, you acquire social skills.
A moving account. My family is full of alcoholics, so I understand the destructiveness it can wage on people.
Best wishes to you for your future.
I am not a musician. I don't play trumpet. It just poped up in my mind when i looked for a nickname.
thanks
I too have been clean of my favorite white powder now for 18 years (09/18/89 to be exact).
How did I do it? I trusted the highest power in my life, ME! I started going to Narcotics Anonymous when I wanted to clean up my act, but I soon realized that handing over my problem to a power ‘greater than myself’ would be a huge mistake. This was the biggest pickle I ever found myself in; I sure wasn’t going to hand it over to something that never even bothered to introduce itself to me. Everyone I met at NA that had over five years clean had a life that was not much better than a drug addict in my opinion. They no longer used drugs, but their whole lives had become centered on NOT-using. “I am powerless over my addiction. I can’t do this on my own. “It all sounds too close to “I am a worthless sinner, I am nothing without god, I am incapable. “ It was a recipe for another dependency. I don’t use drugs today because I have a life, a life centered on my partner, my job, my friends and way too much television, not on not using drugs. I Broke Free
I too have been clean of my favorite white powder now for 18 years (09/18/89 to be exact).
How did I do it? I trusted the highest power in my life, ME! I started going to Narcotics Anonymous when I wanted to clean up my act, but I soon realized that handing over my problem to a power ‘greater than myself’ would be a huge mistake. This was the biggest pickle I ever found myself in; I sure wasn’t going to hand it over to something that never even bothered to introduce itself to me. Everyone I met at NA that had over five years clean had a life that was not much better than a drug addict in my opinion. They no longer used drugs, but their whole lives had become centered on NOT-using. “I am powerless over my addiction. I can’t do this on my own. “It all sounds too close to “I am a worthless sinner, I am nothing without god, I am incapable. “ It was a recipe for another dependency. I don’t use drugs today because I have a life, a life centered on my partner, my job, my friends and way too much television, not on not using drugs.
I Broke Free
xrayman
Thanks for the welcome. I love your testimony. I found AA to be a case of the inmates running the asylum. My wife/drinking partner and I quit drinking and moved to a new town close enough to my work, but far enough away from the social setting that was perpetuating our destructive lifestyle. I also decided that I wasn't going to take any more advise from christians. I began studying on my own about the origins of christianity and slowly the fog lifted. We were lucky. Most people that have the double vise of drug and religion will never find the freedom that we've achieved. Pretty awesome....eh?
Billybee
P.S. What would you bet that Trumpeter lives in his moms basement?
Wrong.
But good try, keep trying, B.B.