Usually when I hit a milestone, I have something to say, something to blog about. Each day is the miracle, waking to midnight. Hell, usually I'm in bed by ten, so it's less than one day at a time. So tonight at midnight, on a lazy Sunday it'll be seven years sober. It's such a lazy Sunday I don't want to find the links related to my story but you can either go to the search box on the top right and type in "sober" "alcoholic" "recovery" etc. and get the results.
To celebrate...here are some previously published work, written during recovery about recovery. I always worried that I couldn't write anything of any worth sober. There is a solution and I'm always willing to help.
The
Shutting Door
We are
solid oak doors that shut
on our
past, close on dead mothers,
sons,
daughters. These doors swell
often,
won’t open. One midnight
we walked
towards woods, the moss
cold
under our toes, as we were,
caught
in the light for a moment;
a
glimpse of half full. We are dim
lights
on dark nights, sending out calls
to the
wolves howling at the sun
because
the moon hanging there,
yet
never seems to hear them.
If I
should need to step back to see
how
you glow in this light,
illumination,
I can be at one with that,
us,
growing like violets in the dark
1. The Shutting Door-Written in 2011 during year one. Originally published in Red Fez Issue 43 as "All the Days And Nights". Also the titicular poem in my book of recovery poems (mostly) published by Ibbetson St. Press 2013.
HEAR IT/SEE IT READ
Missteps
When I
raised my hand
told a
gray room the reasons
I
started drinking, I wanted
to start again immediately.
Told
people, whose faces looked like
The
End of the World, the truth.
Then I
told them I would pour a girl
I’d
lusted after, down like whiskey,
her
lovely legs spread
until
they snapped,
so I
could feel like I used
her,
an orgasm, I gulped,
running
down my neck
like
streams of veins.
Oh, I
said I never used dope,
when I
asked her for it, nicely,
she
said, No, she would never
give
it up, just got up, waltzed
out of
my life. So I begged:
Please,
God, stay with me tonight,
here
in this church basement.
Please,
I can't picture heaven.
2. Missteps, written very early in sobriety, published March 2012 in Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. Also appears in The Shutting Door. A favorite of my friend Kristie. RIP .
Sobriety
It can
exist
drink
coffee
milk,
three sugars,
stirred
with a straw.
Sit on
the sofa,
legs
curled under
view
the oil paintings
hung
boats and fields
thousands
of brush strokes
thousands
3. Sobriety. Written in 2017-published in Chief Jay Strongbow is Real, 2017, Big Table Publishing
But you forgot, To remember
It
rains cats and dogs
and
images of baby animals
made
the blues go away
Billie
Holiday scratched
to the
end, the needle dragged
never
piercing her center, which
was
glued on, nevertheless,
I
related. Her story intrigued,
I
never understood the song’s
connotation,
why the singer’s depths
of
despair, strung me along with
desperate
notes, desperate measures.
Lady-you
once spoke to me,
but
never knew me, all the times
I
slipped this record into the sleeve
Keep
sending me stars and the sea
distant
is not an obstacle,
for
what I believe.
4. But you Forgot to Remember-written in 2013. Published on the Mass Poetry webpage in 2015. Also published in Chief Jay Strongbow is Real, 2017, Big Table Publishing. Metaphors are badass.
Coffee Maker
Al
took the job as the coffee maker as the last one person holding that job died.
It helped to bolster Al’s sobriety by giving him responsibility. He’d lost more
important jobs in his life but he wasn’t about to lose this one. It was a very
important job.
Al
would show up at 6:30 in the morning and reconstruct the percolator. Fill the
pot up three-quarters of the way with water, then place the stem, basket,
canned coffee in, then cover and plug the cord into the socket. The outcome was
that the brew was watery and biter so most people brought their own to the
meeting anyway.
“Hey,
old-timer,” Al said to one with a Dunkin’ Donuts cup. “Why not try some of
mine. I take this job very seriously.”
“The
coffee is terrible here,” he said. “It’s been terrible for years.”
The
old-timer was a one of the nicer ones. Many of the others that came in drooping
would just swear at him or his coffee and Al would internalize it. It made him
want to drink vodka instead of coffee and Al realized how bad that would be if
he let that happen.
Al
used to own his own business in the real world. It was a moving company where
he would supply the truck and help the client out with half the labor. He
called his business “Al Co-Haul: Rate Negotiable” and he never realized how his
love of booze ended up ruining his business. He found he was drinking more than
he was working, which led to his truck being reposed and him having no income.
It was time to turn his life around but failing at his new job of coffee maker
wasn’t helping.
So, as
his head cleared up, he thought about replacing the crappy brand of coffee. The
group’s kitty did not have enough money to pay for the pounds of ground Dunkin’
Donuts or Starbucks so he looked into ways to roast his own beans. He chose a
three step method.
Step
1: Choose a roasting method
Al
picked a radiant drum roaster for large amounts of beans. It was symbolic. His
life used to simmer and slowly everything would turn and the voices he heard in
his head were echoing like sounds in a drum—telling him to drink…drink. The
company that made the roaster offered to sponsor Al, as long as he mentioned
their name once a day during the meeting. He accepted them as a sponsor.
Step
2: Choose green coffee
Al
used to wake up green in color. I loved that the beans to roast were the exact
same color. He asked the company for help in selecting the type of bean and
that was a good step for him to take as well—asking for help.
Step
3: The Roasting Process
He
wanted a dark rich finished product, something that went from nothing to a
wonderful finished product. He called an expert to help him perfect his beans
and he was open to suggestions.
* * *
Al’s
addiction ruined his family life. He thought that recovery would fix
everything, but instead his wife now resented the fact that all his time was
being taken up in his bean roasting job. They would fight about it. “You don’t
understand,” he said. “My recovery has to be the most important thing in my
life and without that, I can’t be any good at anything else.” His wife was able
to let go and walk to another room. She’d been through worse with Al.
Instantly
Al’s coffee became a big hit. The early morning meeting was running out of
chairs and no one brought in any outside cups anymore. The word was spreading
as more and more people were coming in to get help. Some only needed a small
amount of help, such as fixing their inferior types of coffee by drinking Al’s.
Many of the folks that came weren’t even alcoholics either. They were there for the best coffee in town.
The
old-timers from the group started to get angry. When the coffee people raised
their hands to share their story there was never anything about drinking
alcohol, it was more about coffee drinking The former beer and whiskey drinkers
were getting out numbered. When they voiced their objections they were told
that the fellowship was not there to judge and categorize others. The
old-timers began to attend different meetings that they could relate more to
and Al began to modestly charge for his drinks and found someone to print fancy
designs on the cups. It was remarkable that everyone said he was a changed man.
At
Al’s one year celebration, he stood up in front of a packed house. He told them
how he succeeded in the coffee business by attending meetings, asking for help,
and getting sponsors. Al’s wife presented him with a silver bean, mounted on a
chain for him to wear around his neck. He accepted with gratitude and closed by
suggesting, that every morning begins another day and if ever the job of coffee
maker opened up, it would improve someone’s life the same way it improved his.
5. Coffee Maker. Written on my one year anniversary and published in trnsfer magazine Issue 5-on the 500th day of being sober. In sobriety it's ok to poke fun at things, as long as you're not taking your recovery for granted. Here I satirized the job of coffee maker in AA and what if the coffee was so damn good, people came to the meetings just for that.
Tell us a little bit about your new collection: what's the significance of the title? are there over-arching themes? what was the process of assembling it? was it a project book? etc.
