Another Year Around the Sun--Birthday Today--14 Years of Sobriety in Three Days---"My Misfit Manifesto"

   

My Misfit Manifesto. 14 years on November 6.

Hi! 

I snuck a shot of vanilla extract at the age of five from the pantry at home. Then, later in high school, alcohol helped me to invent myself as something new, because I was an awkward, uncomfortable, unconfident, picked on, felt uncomfortable in my skin and viewed as a somewhat “weird” kid. Now I know much of my undiagnosed ADD, ASD and OCD was a big part of that perception. Children like myself, with the more minor traits of these weren't diagnosed or treated, so I just found I was getting in trouble a lot.

The first chance I could, and with a fake ID, I self-treated with alcohol, partied a lot, standing out as someone that fit in that way. It fucking worked! I still didn’t do things in conventional ways, especially drink and use drugs the way others did. When it became obvious and people started to show concern about my drinking and had the courage to tell me, I was more likely to celebrate that fact than to try to change. I liked that it stood out, and how I felt about alcohol it became what I was made up of. My parents even bought me a copy of A Drinking Life by Pete Hamill, and I was disappointed that it wasn’t an alcohol manifesto. (I mean, cool, a dinking life! I have that too!) I identified alcohol as my solution.

Then things in my life started going worse. "Normal" people were settling down and I was still out there like I was in college. Like that song, the lights go out, the music dies--but I was still dancing without lights, swaying within a dance of more. When you hit early to mid-thirties into your forties you should no longer act and get wasted like you were in your teens and twenties.

I drove drunk often as well, perhaps four times per week on average. Besides that, I put others at risk, others even traveling in the same car as me. I’d drive with beer in a cooler on the passenger seat with my children in the back. I’ve driven blacked out and grayed out. I was eventually going to kill myself doing this, or I'd just kill myself. I certainly wanted to, but I was too chicken. What I really wanted was to live, I just don’t want to be in pain. I wanted to quit drinking, but I still wanted to be able to drink. I was still the same misfit, who didn't fit in, but now I was a seriously beaten one.

Then I stopped. I quit with the help of others, and nearly everything in my life got better. 

   *I learned accept myself.

            *I learned to be kind.

            *I learned I could change.

            *I was no longer selfish in how I wanted things to be.

            *I learned it was ok to be myself. I didn't have to act out or entertain the world to be liked.

            *I do things without the expectation I will get something back in return.

            *I’ve written eleven books since I became sober, four of them novels.

            *My children, friends and family see me differently---they see me as the person I want to be.

            * I am present.

 I still feel out of place in new social situations when I attend by myself. I do well hosting, or reading, or playing music---it's kind of a sweet spot.   

        

           Very important to my recovery is that I still go to meetings that keep this mindset going. I can keep things in my life as simple as possible but simplicity is now the norm--it's not that hard. I have fought and continue to fight my disease. For my other stuff, I take medication responsibly, and a very low dose. People say they are inspired by me if they decide to start their own sobriety journey. I am always willing to help if you message or call me, even if you don't know me. I had my last drink November 6, 2010, and on Wednesday it will be 14 years.

Now, Days are Never Long Enough.

MUSICAL BONUS ROUND

 Beth/Rest this isn't a recovery song, but it's good for my meditation. Music has always played a big part of my life and I am grateful and lucky to have and had a chance to play it. 

Three Days Past My Birthday is 13 years….

    So today, November 3, is my birthday, and as an alcoholic, I’m expecting a parade. Won’t happen, but for the past 10-13 or so years, I’ve found that my sober anniversary is a much bigger, more important and brings me much more joy. It marks the anniversary of a change of the better of me, something I am proud of, and something I feel good about when I help others. In three days, November 6, if I can get to three more midnights, I’ll celebrate 13 years of being sober. There will be others celebrating that with me, those who made the same decision I did, and found that their life really began at that point, rather than ended. Oh, and I will get a present---not the one I get every day by being sober, but the one below. I'm very excited to receive it! (Plus read the features of this thing! High Quality 3D Graphics, for example)

So in three days: November 6.

    If you follow me or read me, November 6 marked a decided milestone in my life. On that day in 2010 I stopped drinking, stopped using, became clean and sober, without ever having the need to go back to it. (Note: Need is different than want, and I may have thought that I wanted to, but when push came to shove I didn’t).

    I’ve thought about this and a lot of other things today, (because I tend to overthink), and concluding that stopping was not because of something associated with that particular birthday. Perhaps I was reflecting upon my life on that day (I tend to do that too) and it had some influence, but mostly, I stopped, was because my life wasn’t what I wanted it to be. I was settling for less, my emotions were all over the road, and my personal relationships were pretty non-existent. I was in rough shape physically and mentally. 

    I’ve written about this subject here in the past nearly every year and if you want more details go to the right side of this news/blog thing and open up entries from early November, 2010 and on. (Let me help you)

    Also, there in the search bar (look hard, it's small) if you plug in words, for example, sober, sobriety, alcohol etc., various entries will also come up. (Go ahead, stick your name in there too, to see if I wrote about you).

 

Mostly, three things stick out about how my life has changed. 

1) I am more even tempered, level-headed, and when there are issues I am able to walk through them. 

2) When my son was married in July, I was asked to speak. This never would have been asked because there was no way anyone could predict what would come out of my mouth. Also, at the wedding my new daughter in law stated, "When it comes to father-in-laws, I hit the jackpot." Yes, again, drunk Tim would have been described by other jackpots. 

3) And most important. Four years ago, almost to the day, my mother would jump straight from a cancer treatment appointment to hospice care. Because of my sobriety I was in a) good standing in my job. b) had enough sick, and vacation days accrued and c) was able to be with her almost every day until she passed. What a gift!

 

 

Seven years at midnight, without a drink. Some poems and a story written during recovery about recovery

 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. 

Fine. You're lazy too, so here is a link to what comes up when you google "timothy gager" "sober" 

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 Christy Marx. 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

 
HEAR IT on Doug Holder's podcast at 25.25

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 bitter, 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 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 it 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 repossessed 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. He 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 cup of brew, 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 to more 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 had 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. Also will appear in the upcoming Every Day There is Something About Elephants, a book of 108 flash fictions. 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.