March 30, 2004

• Comments…
  I got comments.
  [updated, edited for clarity--thanks Ren, for pointing out the ambiguity.]
  
  

  It has never failed yet.  The way to get people to come
  here and leave comments is to bop around Xanga leaving comments on
  their sites.  That must be some of that social-obligation bullshit
  to which my mama failed to indoctrinate me.  Please, everyone, be
  advised that your leaving comments here will not guarantee that I will
  ever comment on your blogs or even read them.  I’m capricious
  and… well, eccentric, to put it politely.  Blogs I read fall
  into two categories:  those I know that interest me, and those I
  don’t know to which I am somehow led.  That “somehow” could serve
  as a topic for a whole blog someday if I run out of ideas.

  These are the comments I wanted to respond to:

  Saw

  Eric Clapton in an interview yesterday… I think he’s been off booze

  for a dozen years or so… Anyway… He said his first addiction was

  sugar…. Used to cram handfuls in his mouth when he was a wee lad…

  Interesting that addiction groups endorse sugar….  (Do they
  really?)

  I know they are coffee hounds… Both have to be better than the

  alternative…

  Keep playing those video
  games…
  benevolentMitch

  Yeah,
  Mitch, they do “endorse sugar”.   Groups are “autonomous” by
  tradition, so I’m sure there are differences.  In the AA groups I
  know, to celebrate sobriety anniversaries, the group supplies the
  birthday cake.  There is a designated member who is responsible
  for baking or acquiring the cakes and those with upcoming birthdays put
  their names and dates on a board along with their preferences in cake
  flavors.  In between birthday celebrations, someone can always be
  counted on to bring enough donuts or cookies to pass around.

  In our NA group, which meets in an AA meeting room, there are often
  sweets waiting on the table, or someone brings some.  Along with
  the coffee the group supplies (and in that NA group, keeping an
  adequate supply of drugs on hand is my
  job, ironically), there are always cream and sugar available, although
  for birthdays if a member wants a cake he or she must bring one.

  I love you, Mitch, but I don’t appreciate anyone advising, encouraging or enabling me to continue in an addiction.   Unlike many people who don’t
  think an addiction is harmful unless it is to a dangerous or illicit
  substance, I understand that any addictive behavior has psychological
  and spiritual costs, along with the wasted time and energy.  I do,
  however, agree that I’m better off playing games than shooting
  meth.  My goal is to transecend all addiction.

  It’s strange that they endorse other
  addictions while trying to cure another one…

  I was told at a young age that I
  had an addictive personality,

  because I’d latch on to one thing and become “addicted” to it…but,

  I’m the only one in my family that isn’t an addict.  Sure,
  once in a

  while I will have a drink, but I don’t HAVE to have it…like my

  brother or my sister.  Ok, I lie…I’m addicted to nicotine,
  but that

  too shall pass.  I sound like I’m making excuses, but I’ve
  quit cold

  turkey before, when I was pregnant.  Why not again? 
  I just have to

  make myself ready, ’tis all. 

  I’ve been to AA meetings with my
  brother (he goes, says he’s not

  drinking, but, well, he’s drinking), and I’ve seen bars that had less

  of a smoke cloud.  Then again, I’ve been to meetings where,
  you could

  tell that the people GENUINELY wanted to work things out and become a

  ‘normal’ person again.  I’m not sure if it depends on the
  place the

  group is held, or if it’s all to do with the people….

  I think, to a degree, people
  actually need isolation.  I mean, if

  you can’t stand hanging out with yourself, what makes you think other

  people will *kiddin*  Seriously, though, to a degree, it’s a
  good

  thing…but there is also an innate need for interaction in which the

  bond between humans grow…and, omg, I’ve just blogged you! 
  I’m sorry,

  lol!!  I just get so caught up in writing!!

  ~shadow
  morriganshadow

  Shadow, that phrase, “addictive personality,” is no longer so
  popular in the psych community as it once was.  It was a catch
  phrase for something that has now been discovered to be not a
  personality disorder or character defect, but an artifact of brain
  chemistry.  Unfortunately many professionals in the field have
  been slow to learn or accept that new knowledge, and cultlike groups
  such as AA and NA are even slower.

  I wish you success at quitting the killer weed.  Nicotine is
  one of the most toxic substances known to man.  Have you ever read
  the cautions on a bottle of nicotine sulphate insecticide?  In
  that form, there are all sorts of federal restrictions on its use, and
  legal penalites for misuses.  It is also the most addictive
  substance known to the drug abuse and recovery profession.  What
  that means is that it affects more different neurotransmitters than
  other common drugs.  It disrupts acetylcholine, serotonin,
  endorphin, enkephalin, dopamine and GABA balances.  The longer you
  are addicted, the harder it is to quit and the easier to relapse.

  As for recovery groups endorsing other addictions, sometimes that is
  conscious and sometimes innocent, and often it is tacitly done and
  overtly denied.  The abstaining junkies of Anchorage’s Family
  House program taught us to carry around candy bars to handle our drug
  cravings.  They said flat out it was better to be addicted to
  chocolate candy than to heroin or meth.  There was even, for a
  while, a phrase current in the psych community:  “positive
  addiction”, meaning some harmless activity that might substitute for
  substance abuse, gambling, etc.

  In AA, the prevailing attitude is that anything is okay if it keeps
  an alcoholic from drinking.  That was not what the founders
  believed, but the idea has achieved popularity with a bunch of As who
  are only too willing to accept any excuse to use drugs.  Sometimes
  in summer, the scent of marijuana smoke drifts in from the open back
  door of our AA meeting room.  The telltale behaviors of Prozac and
  the dopey demeanor induced by various prescribed psychotropics can be
  seen at every meeting.

  NA’s literature says that it is a “program of complete abstinence
  from all drugs,” and that “substituting one drug for another releases
  our addiction all over again.”  In practice, what is considered a
  drug is a subject open to interpretation.  Nobody denies that
  caffeine is a “mood affecting, mind-altering substance” (the official
  NA definition of “drug”) and when Greyfox reads that “complete
  abstinence” line during the opening of a meeting, he often takes a sip
  of coffee and winks or says softly, “gotta have that caffeine.” 
  Pointing out the hypocrisy in the program does not go over well with
  some members, but it usually gets a laugh.

  The rehab center where I do volunteer work has no official
  connection with AA.  Such connections with “outside enterprises”
  are forbidden by AA tradition.  In practice, however,  this
  rehab ranch gets clients by referral from AA groups all over the
  country and its program depends on 12-step formats and AA/NA volunteers
  like myself.  Also, they get “food” by donation from commercial
  bakeries, dairies, etc.:  twinkies, pies, cakes, chocolate milk,
  sugared juice drinks and such, which is available for the residents at all times.  This has led to an interesting
  situation we’ve observed.

  I blogged previously about a rehab resident who went ballistic when
  I shared at a  meeting about my struggle to kick the sugar
  addiction.  He pounded the table and roared that sugar was not
  what the founders of Narcotics Anonymous had in mind when they formed
  the association.  Those meetings are monitored by staff members
  and this man was confronted later by his counselor about his
  outburst.  She read him the NA definition of “drug” from the Basic Text and told him that sugar fits the definition.

  He did not believe her.  He had to try it for himself.  He
  went to the kitchen and ate an entire banana cream pie (appropriate
  choice IMFFHO).  Later he “made amends” to  me with an
  apology and said he’d been staggering, slurring his speech, head
  spinning and ears ringing from the pie.    To me, that
  sounded a bit extreme for just a sugar buzz, but I know of another
  condition that could account for it:  candidaiasis.  Yeast in
  the intestines can convert sugar into acetaldehyde, a metabolite of
  alcohol.  People with this “auto-brewery syndrome” get drunk on
  sugar and even have alcohol-scented breath.  It is an occasional
  result of the use of antibiotics, which kill of the healthful
  intestinal flora and allow the yeast to overgrow.

  At recent meetings, this man always has a pile of snack cakes he
  goes through during the meeting, and he has become very adept at
  parroting all the AA slogans.  He really talks the talk. 
  This is a complete departure from his attitude when he first entered
  the program.  He even said openly at first that he wanted to
  complete the program and get out, but would have a hard time “spouting
  that bullshit.”  Because he has hated being in the rehab from the
  start and likens it to jail (where he would have stayed if he had not
  accepted rehab), my perception is that he has found a way to indulge
  his addiction and say “up yours” behind the backs of his counselors and
  the court system.

  I don’t get addicted to
  much…I guess I’m lucky that I can walk away from
  stuff.
  RiottGyrrrl

  That is indeed “lucky.”  I hope for your sake that it is not
  temporary.  The biomechanism of addiction is such that healthy
  people can go along for considerable periods without having a drug
  trigger the neurochemical cascades that constitute addiction. 
  Then, as some toxic limit is reached or the body’s recovery mechanisms
  wear out, there will be that “one too many” and one finds oneself
  hooked.  I hear such stories, of years of use preceding a sudden
  realization that one is then addicted, frequently in meetings, so
  please, Riott, beware.  Addictive substances are dangerous.

  You

  have a lot of interesting things to read about and as much as

  “interesting” isn’t so much of a descriptive word for so much tragedy

  that I have read about I find it intriguing and
  insightful…

  The comment you left on my site
  about what I wrote being a

  dangerous, hazardous risky invitation I wasn’t quite sure what a

  comment like that would mean in relation to my post…

  When I first read your site and I
  read the whole thing on psychic

  readings I was a bit skeptical of what that meant and if I should even

  be concerned about what you were writing about or if in reading it, it

  would all just be vibes and what not.  Mebbie your other site
  is… I

  haven’t seen it, and although I find “psychic” readings and what not

  interesting to learn or read about I can’t say that I truly believe in

  them because there can be interpretations of someone’s personality or

  life that is so vague that someone who desires to believe could create

  what someone was speaking of… but I try to appreciate every person’s

  unique interests and beliefs even if they aren’t my own… but that

  isn’t really what I wanted to speak about…

  I have read some of your various
  articles mostly about jail sex and

  drugs because those were the topics that seemed to interest
  me…

  There is a guy that I like right
  now who is in jail and unconvicted

  but has a hearing and I don’t know how things will go… I
  am scared

  frankly and saddened although he seems to be affectionate towards
  me. 

  His mother loves me and she calls me religiously after speaking with

  him when he calls her.  It is rather sweet.  I just
  wish that things

  didn’t have to be that way and although I can visit him I didn’t want

  to visit him behind a bulletproof glass wall and through a
  telephone. 

  It is surreal and depressing although I look forward to the
  visits.  He

  is charged with six fellonies and I don’t really know what to
  expect. 

  I was hoping to mebbie learn something from reading your site about

  your experience in jail, but I am sure everyone experiences things a

  little differently.  I just hope that this is over
  soon.

  You seem to write from your heart
  and I think that is wonderful.  A

  lot of the things that I write about are from my heart as well, just

  vague interpretations of my thoughts as opposed to my thoughts
  straight

  out.  I can not be that way anymore.  I wish I could
  but I do not have

  the mental strength to do so.  There could be too much pain
  associated

  with being overly honest where it isn’t welcomed.  As a matter
  a fact I

  am hesistant in being so honest here.

  Either way… please take care of
  yourself and I am sure I will

  check back to read more about you later.  Thanks for visiting
  my site

  and leaving me a sweet nothing even though I didn’t really understand

  why you would write what you did in regards to that post.

  MeepishKittie

  Meep, your blog read to me like an invitation to a fairy-tale
  romance.  I’ve been there, got disillusioned, had a broken heart
  until I learned that broken hearts are simply more fairy-tale
  bullshit.  In my reality, affection and passion are not
  love.  Love is not something one finds or falls into.  It is
  something one does, consciously by choice.   It’s a big subject
  and I thank you for responding to what I wrote.  I will think
  about it some more and maybe come up with a blog.  You are not the
  only fairy tale addict I know, so maybe someone else will find such a
  blog interesting, too.

  It’s okay with me that you don’t “believe in” psychic
  readings.  I don’t believe in them either.  We believe in
  things by choice when we don’t know what is true.   I know that
  what I do is real, true, ethical, moral, helpful… and I can provide
  references, hundreds of them from all over the planet, after
  thirty-some years of doing this work.  I do not take offense at
  your skepticism.  In my reality it is equally unevolved to take
  offense as to give it.  I also know that my profession is rife
  with frauds, just as in medicine there are the good doctors, the Patch Adamses and
  Charles Gants, and the bad ones, the doctor-feelgoods creating addicts and the cosmetic
  surgeons creating freaks.

  Your boyfriend in jail is probably very appreciative of your
  visits even though the setting is frustrating and depressing. 
  Visits and letters are important when we are locked up.  My
  experiences in prison probably have little in common with what he may
  experience if he is convicted of some or all of those six
  felonies.  For one thing, anal rape is unknown in women’s
  prisons.  It happens every day in men’s prisons, all day every
  day.  With little else to occupy their time, and the behavioral
  sink (Google that if it doesn’t mean anything to you) bringing them
  down to their basest instincts, imprisoned men tend to obsessively indulge their appetites for sex and violence.

  I hope you eventually gain the strength to write with complete
  frankness and honesty.  In my far from humble opinion, nothing
  else is worth writing (or reading).

  It’s

  funny that in therapy groups all these ‘catch phrases’ seem to come

  into play. I’ve been to a couple and yet I’ve never heard ‘isolating’

  as one of them
  pipsqueak

  Squeak, there are so many buzzwords and catchphrases in use in
  12-step programs, it might be interesting if someone (don’t look at me)
  compiled a dictionary.  We’ve discovered that there are
  geographical variations.  Things current in Pennsylvania, where
  Greyfox was first in the programs, and other parts of the country where
  various other members come from, differ from what is in the lexicon
  here.

  I have heard it said that we all need “solitude” for our
  communion with Spirit, but that to “isolate” oneself is pathological
  and dangerous.  Semantics… doublespeak… bullshit.

  I

  understand what you’re saying about the program.  I was in
  those rooms

  for a bit, but not for long.  I felt like many of the members
  presumed

  to know my truth instead of encouraging me to look
  for it myself.

  Of course, any time my truth did
  not ring in tune with theirs, I was “in denial”. 
  emerging

  One of my favorite anonymous people, who attends both AA and NA as I
  do, is a young woman who was born into an alcoholic family.  In
  her oft-stated opinion, “If you use, you’re either an addict, or you’re
  in denial.”  That’s her truth, from her experience, and for many
  people it probably is true.  One of the blatant hypocrisies I see
  at every meeting is the talk about not taking other people’s
  “inventory”, not judging others but looking at one’s own faults and
  failings.  In practice, most anons are in denial about their own
  problems, wearing blinders, experiencing tunnel-vision, unable to see
  past the self-imposed limits of their chosen beliefs. 
  Introspection, which comes so easily and joyfully to some of us, is
  hard for many people.  I recently learned this when I entered the
  debate over mooncry‘s “clearing” technique.

  If

  I had enough time I could get addicited to Xanga, all these wonderful

  blogs I have not enough time to read all of the way through. Some

  people ask me why I (a most unlikely person) am a poet. It is because

  life and death and all in between compell me to live everyday in the

  question, why must it all end?

  I could read blogs like yours
  forever and shut away the other world,

  but don’t let anyone tell me that this world is unreal, because I
  learn

  more from humans on blogs than I ever have by hearing them
  talk.

  LordPineapple

  Lucky you, Lord P.  I have precious little time, but almost as soon as Sarah
  lured me to Xanga, I was hooked.  There went a big chunk of the
  time that I have!  This cyber-world is real, as you say.  The
  friends I have here are just as real as those in my neighborhood.

  I’m curious about what could make anyone “unlikely” to be a poet. 
  I wish I had the gift of brevity it takes for poetic expression. 
  I’m apparently doomed forever to verbose prose.

  

  • 4:23 pm
  • 11 Comments