Asking for Help

I'm starting over again. I know there are people out there who think I shouldn't be blogging about recovery when I've relapsed so many times, and if you've been following me for a while, you know I don't blow off anybody's advice. So I've taken some time to think about what I'm doing here, and here's what bobs to the surface: I'm healthier when I'm blogging. There's something about putting thoughts “out there”, as opposed to ranting in my password-protected journal, that helps me. So I'm going to keep doing it. I don't think I make any claims that I've got it all figured out.

On the other hand, I'm struggling a little with the conversation-like nature of blogging. What I was actually thinking about when I started this blog, in my typical grandiose manner, was writing a book. Now I know the world doesn't really need another drugalog – I can swap war stories with other addicts after meetings. So when I began posting three years ago, I was mainly looking for a workshop-like setting where I could practice writing. I quickly found out that blogging, at best, is a conversation. At times I considered disabling comments, and approaching the whole thing like a magazine column. (I could be the next Mary Roach and write witty columns for Reader's Digest!) Eventually I figured out what blogging was, and found the comments to be helpful – if not for getting sober, at least for not feeling alone. My struggle is that I often hesitate to post at all when I remember that by saying anything, I'm inviting feedback. But that brings me back to what I said earlier. Something happens when I post here. Something good.

My biggest obstacle to posting is that I don't want to share until I've got a success story. That was part of the allure of the book idea: Struggle, struggle, struggle, then fix it, document it, and share it. But recovery doesn't work that way. It's in the agonizing moment of vulnerability that healing happens. In that place where I've come to the end of myself and have to ask for help. When I don't ask for help because I'm supposed to, but because I must. So I wanted to post today before I do something scary. I need to tell my pastor (and boss) that I was under the influence yesterday while in my office, which I've never done before. I had alcohol hidden in my filing drawer. At worst I'll be out of a job, at best I'll set up a new level of accountability with him, which is something I've needed to do for a long time anyway. Tonight at my meeting I can finally connect my pastor with my sponsor. I'll post later about the outcome. I just know that I can't get better until I ask for, and accept, the help I need.

Stranded

I'm stranded in a parking lot in Anaheim, in front of a Spanish language health care clinic. I can smell Little Ceasars pizza, and there's a woman singing opera in the apartment next to me. She sounds like Snow White when she sings to the birds. I ran out of gas so Linsey's bringing me the gas can. Oops.

I am grateful for:

-My (mostly) sweet pre-teen daughter Ashley, who's braces-filled smile lights up my day. And that she still IM's me “I love u” on Facebook.

-That James still begs me to play light-saber fights with him.

-That Linsey and I filled Valentine's Day with love and patience, not hurt and alcohol.

-That every night I have chihuahuas nestled up against my head and my ankles.

-That I got to sing and play the piano for a living this morning. And I'm thankful for the song “Our God.”

-I have pink eye. I'm not grateful for that(!), but I'm thankful it's getting better. Man, it itches.

-For thirty days of sanity.

-That people I've never met bother to read my site and leave comments that have helped me through some awful times.

-For my rabbit Max, who's dug a cave system under my patio. Now that the rain has stopped, he's sunning himself outside my window.

-That I have bro's I can call – like my cousin who came and helped me patch my tire this week. For some reason that flat tire had me feeling helpless and depressed, but I didn't have to deal with it alone.

-For parents who live down the street and will loan me $ to buy antibiotic eye-drops when my bank account's totally empty.

-I'm grateful for Entenmann's donuts. I just am.

Five Finger Discount

I had to ask the Starbucks girl for chocolate-covered graham crackers – they were behind the counter. She said an “old lady” steals them so the staff hide them. Ooh, that hurts. Did they talk about me that way? Back when I stole their CDs?

Starbucks was one of the main stops in Eli's little theft ring back in my kleptomaniac days. What do they expect? They display all their merchandise out in the open and the employees are frantically distracted making drinks. If you don't frequent Starbucks (first of all, why?) they feature about four CDs at a time in a little display in front of the register. These change throughout the year. I think there's a section of my massive CD collection that's almost exclusively Starbucks CDs, and not one of them was paid for. Probably a couple of year's worth.

I didn't steal like a drug-addict, to fund my habit. I stole for the thrill of it. CDs and DVDs, electronics, office supplies, jewelry, music equipment, sex toys, and of course, that cornerstone of my addictive behaviors, over-the-counter cough syrup. I guess in a sense, I did steal to fund my drug habit. I was just lucky enough (?) to be able to steal my actual drug. None of this stealing-and-hawking that Linsey's older brother had to do. (When she was a teenager, nothing my wife hid was safe. Her brother hawked all of her jewelry for PCP.)

A guy in my SAA group told me he had been a shoplifter as well, and he understood. He understood what happens in my brain when I steal. He said that studies had shown it was similar to a heroin rush, on a smaller scale. I don't know what “studies” he was referring to, I just know that I kept going back for more.

I kept track. I had a spreadsheet that summed the total estimated value of what I had stolen. When it reached $5,000 I stopped recording it. I stole from family and friends, schools, libraries, mom-and-pop joints, corporate giants, and every drug-store I could find. I delighted in getting around preventative measures. Cameras and alarm systems were just a challenge.

I don't know how I will make amends for all of this. I'm not trying to figure that out just yet. I'm just trying to root out the buried memories of all those offenses and make my fourth step as accurate as possible. I'm guessing I'll have to wade through some combination of written apologies and financial retributions. I don't know how I'll pay for these - it gives me a stomach ache.

A counselor once told me that stealing-as-an-addiction betrays buried anger. It does. I felt the world owed me. Cleptomaniacs and Shoplifters Anonymous asks “How much would you have to steal to finally feel satisfied or to make life fair?” Like any other addiction, there's never enough. Never.

So if you work in a Southern California drug store, and you've ever found three empty cough syrup boxes and the empty packaging for a Durex vibrating cock ring stashed behind the dog food, I'm sorry. Shame isn't a strong enough word. I was trying to get away from real life, to my “bubble”, pleasantly high and having sex with a computer. And I didn't want to leave a purchase trail that my wife could find.

I just need to make sure this habit stays in the past.