Taking ownership

I finished Scar Tissue. It led me to some realizations.

1. Anthony Kiedis is fucked up.
2. I have many things in common with Anthony Kiedis, but I am also nothing like him.
3. No matter what level you claim you will never stoop to, with the right set of triggers, you will.
4. I use circular logic to justify my life choices.
5. I blame my bad choices on others.

In reading Scar Tissue and a couple of other blogs, I have reached some conclusions.

My son’s adoption was necessary. Not totally sober is not good enough when there are kids around. But right there is where I used circular logic… because I was getting high to justify placing him for adoption. If I had just gotten clean, and stayed clean, he would have had a good life here. No need for that “better” life elsewhere.

So why didn’t I just get clean and stay clean? Ah, that was the fault of the program. I could never get my head around the 12 steps, because I never found any version of God as I knew him. Obviously the 12 step type of program is not for me. So I moved on to SMART, and that had too many acronyms and buzz words, really not my thing at all. So the programs failed me, you see.

So here is where I take ownership. I failed. If you do not throw yourself into the program 100%, you get nothing back out. As Anthony Kiedis said, you cannot put 70% in and expect to get 70% out. You put 70% in, you get nothing. And when you have relapsed so many times, you just start to think “Screw it. I know I won’t stay clean, so why go through the withdrawals.” Failure breeds failure. Being half-assed causes failure.

And so I wallow.

On the road again

I saw the best bumper sticker today.

Beer!
Makes you see double
Makes you feel single

Those little nodding dogs that people put on the rear window shelf are freaky. I thought I was hallucinating and almost rear-ended someone. If you have those, pray the person driving behind you is not high.

Perfect is a skinned knee

I can usually spin a pretty good story. My brother’s kids loved it when I used to tell them stories featuring themselves and things they had done lately, somewhat embellished.

So, several months ago, I started writing a story for my son. I am still working on the second page.

I don’t know if I am just losing my creativity… I don’t think so (although my vocabulary is shot lately). I think it is because I am writing for him. I am afraid of it not being good enough. Because it needs to be perfect. But I don’t know how to make it perfect, not sure it can ever be perfect. Even Tolkien irritated me at times, and he is one of my all-time favorite writers. He was writing for his kids too. Difference is, he knew his kids. So I am trying to write a story about a kid I don’t know, for a kid I don’t know.

And he would probably rather just play Nintendo anyways. Maybe I should write him a computer game.