The Five Step Cure to Addiction -- Essay

Addiction gets stuck in the bargaining; where you want to just find a way to somehow make it good so that you don’t have to walk away, you don’t have to stop. But the definition of insanity is doing something over and over with the same result. And no matter what, the result will always be the same. I’m still not past the magic thinking. Still haven’t absorbed the truth that there’s nothing good to be had from the addiction, no matter how hard I try. You cannot raise the Dead, especially if they are comfortable in their grave.

Most important trick to get you sane: A lapse does not mean you have returned to the addiction, only that you had a lapse. If you don’t interpret it as a failure, then you haven’t failed. You just did what Lot’s wife did and turned around to look, only you haven’t turned to salt, you can still turn away again and move forward. If you keep moving forward, you will soon be far enough away that you could not see it if you turned. 

This is why I am using the 5 steps instead of the 12, which are good, but imperfect. Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. Letting go of the bargaining makes you realize that nothing will work and you are temporarily Depressed. Acceptance is elusive and your mind resists because it is final. I’m getting there. The next step is what I did with cigarettes and alcohol. They do not exist. These things they call “cigarettes” and “alcohol” are not what I used. The ones I abused no longer exist and will never be made again. I have to stop looking for the proofs that my addiction is alive and start to consider it dead and gone. We’re getting there step by step.

Rewritten Sonnet XV...Now Opening Amour Americaine

It’s time to exchange facts with sweet fiction,

Let all the hopeless realities feign die.

Make the heartaches into actors’ diction

And jump into bed with her pretty lie.

Who will, then, live and who faces their demise?

We’ll show it more poetic than it was.

We will attempt to make mere Fools seem wise,

Victims of Fate, not of the mind’s mad buzz.

As for her, the ink stained Lady Playwright,

She vows to show her heart so pathetic,

Her brain blinded over the senses’ light.

And her eyes dazzled by the romantic.

Her one hope is to make some drama free.

And be half as skillful an artist as He.

Sonnet XV – Finishing the Hat

Sonnet XV – Finishing the Hat

It’s time to turn all facts into fiction,

Allow my hopeless realities to die.

Make the heartaches into actors’ diction

And get comfortable with the pretty lie.

Into the grave, Love. Time for your demise.

I’ll show it more poetic than it was.

Attempting to make we Fools seem more wise,

Mere victims of fate, not our mind’s mad buzz.

As for me, the ink stained Lady Playwright,

I’ll have to show that my heart’s pathetic,

And my brain had turned off the senses’ light.

And eyes were blinded by the romantic.

My one hope is to make some drama true

And be half as skillful an artist as you.

Sonnett XIV Being in the Moment (apologies for the last rhyme)

SONNET XIV – Being in the Moment

Six o’clock news and Sunday New York Times.

Make sure dinner is balanced and healthy.

Write one more sonnet and work on the rhymes.

Plan a budget as I am not wealthy.

Old enough now for Death to cross my mind.

Write out the list for a trip to the store.

Make resolution to move your behind.

And clear a path through the mess to the door.

I won’t find a lover, nor be a star.

If I lose weight the breasts surely will fall.

I’m too old and sick to dance on a bar

The Lottery Pick Six ain’t gonna call.

Yet each day is a comfortable gift.

And one more breath is a joy to be whiffed.

Sonnet XIII Roxy in "Amour Americaine."

I am part of all the stars and heavens,

And like the Eagle, I am pure as light.

My sad heart is broken into sevens

One for every Ocean, blue and white.

Amusing now that Death is my dear friend.

Never far…waiting to fulfill his task.

I am joyful to see the journey’s end.

And drop away this sinful being’s mask.

I’ve seen too much of hunger and of want

Folks with no blanket sleeping on the ground

Desperate as animals on the hunt.

Praying that Jesus’s mercy is found.

Yet, I’m happy living among these fools.

Who are, in Heaven’s eyes, the precious jewels.

For the Blog Only, not Shared Anywhere

Writing the new ending to “Amour Americaine.” We will hew closer to reality and preserve the feminist heroine. We will not go the hyper Romantic route. We will not go the operatic route with the man and woman dying together. Now, he will just disappear and leave the heroine to lead her life. It all depends on how much power I can put into that moment, which in many ways, is much sadder.  I am the Queen of Addictive Control Freaks. I want to rescue the unsalvageable. I want to cure the incurable. 

Rose had to let go of Jack’s hand and let him drown and live her life.

I will never reveal the deepest secrets he told me (even if it hurts the play) or accuse him of confusing me by calling me every day for two months. I want to say, though, I did realize something about the real life inspiration and that was he was the first true man I had ever experienced, (and no, there was no physical consummation), but it was the first time that I felt cared for and protected. Holding my arm or opening my door, making a fire for me, or cooking a meal. He gave me the simple things I had never experienced before. 

Here comes the waterworks. 

My life is good and solid now, but there’s only room for one in it and just enough money and energy for me. I’m on Medicare, which is insurance with no family plan. I cannot help him. So, I never for one second had any romantic fantasies, but I worried far too much. I was too reassuring and comforting, even to the point of lying about my reactions to some of his postings and videos, but then, who else makes such postings and videos? The books and cartoons may not have been as good as I said, but who else does such things? This is a man of courage and conviction and even if I never see him again, as I say in the play, “God, watch over him and protect him. Make him happy. In the name of Erato and Terpsichore and all of the Muses of all the Arts. Amen.” Lights down. End of play.  

Definitely Undecided

I have wasted my life on this crap.                  And I’m tired of it. 

Wouldn’t it be great if we had a map               Of everything to come? 

Hardest thing I’ve ever done, growing old.      Being comes at a price.

I find the World is growing extra cold,             And I don’t have the time.

Five hundred loving me is not enough            To make me feel beloved.

Not when my childhood was so very rough     And cannot be relived. 

Can I handle the year of twenty-twelve?         And the election messes?

And the human madnesses we must delve,   To fix this rotten Earth.

Womanhood has ended for this old girl,     I must be a human

And try to find the deeply hidden pearl,          That gives life a purpose. 

I have to find the path to inner peace             To reach to help others.

My fantasies and daydreams have to cease.  I must accept my path.

Senora Neruda of Montclair

Senora Neruda of Montclair

Shouting into a bottomless valley,

The answer is the echo of my voice.

They will arrest me if I continue.

Let it go.

If I try to justify my actions

Or demand a clarifying remark

I’m up to my armpits in shit again.

Let it go.

You wanted to help the already dead

Who drowned in their daydreams years ago.

Nothing in reality revives them.

Let it go.

Despite the fact I can write as I please

Without the censorship or dramatics

Beloved of this overblown ego.

Let it go.

Write everything as a fiction now

For no one’s eyes but my own baby blues

And for the people who give a God damn.

Let it go.

Poem, 2 Haiku, Poem

I.

A human being was lost and drifted off,

The artificial anchor fell away.

A woman has a husband and children

This creature has neither, by the way.

How many times can we start over fresh

When we’re limping, gray and plain out of breath?

Volunteer, join a gym and take a class.

Pretend that you don’t see the face of Death.

II – 2 Haiku

Nothing is sweeter
Than falling in love
In New York City
New York

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“Transvaginal mesh” lawsuits

Stops me in my tracks

III

How do I give up the concept of self,

After decades of fighting for notice?

Turn off the lights. Sit alone in the dark

And try to breathe yourself into the air.

No demands or expectations is so

Much easier when nothing is offered.

Sonnet XII -- Three Days Before Thanksgiving

Sonnet XII – Three Days Before Thanksgiving

Amidst my friends, yet alone on Thursday,

I give thanks for surviving one more year.

The Republicans haven’t had their way,

Although I maintain the required fear.

I attempt the vegetarian fare,

To clean up my poor fatted digestion.

Television will have a zero share,

As I write a new dramatic question.

I bow to the Native American,

And admit that this is a day to mourn.

When they invited the hungry white man

To share their harvest of lobster and corn.

We forgot the truth the natives did find.

That Pilgrims and Bankers will rob you blind.

Only I Would Try a 40 Beat Line

Nothing makes the past more unimportant than knowing your future is almost done. Should a mind keep pursuing tomorrow, instead of concentrating on today?

Sixty-two years I chased love and riches and like all of America, woke up to find Democracy wounded and sold while we slept and daydreamed of making hay.

There will be no Broadway production, Girl, or true Knight in polyester armor.

I couldn’t even conjure a daydream of that last poor, deluded, old, failed perv.

I want to rest and find understanding. I want to clean my apartment and laugh.

I am retired and disabled, Man. Surviving in this world takes sheer raw nerve.

Ohio Finale, in One Act . Started on 11/17/11

SETTING

The living room of an off-campus apartment at Ohio University, Athens, Ohio. May 6, 1970. The kitchen entry is upstage left showing a bit of the appliances. Upstage right is the hallway leading to bathrooms and bedrooms. There are large windows stage right and stage left with the blinds down and bedsheet curtains. The furnishings of the living room are roadside rescues. The “coffee table” is the classic wooden wire holder from the telephone or electric company, round with solid sides that is laid down to make a table. The bookshelves are made from plastic milk cartons. (You might have trouble finding this in the 21^st Century. Ask your parents or grandparents.) The sofa is stained, broken and bowed. There are a few black light posters of Jim Morrison and The Grateful Dead and political posters with Che Guevera and Huey Newton; but the most prominent posters are theatrical, for “Hair” and “Godspell” and “Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are Dead”. There should be a dance bag on the floor and Shakespearean swords leaning against the wall and the books should be all theatrical: Chekov and Uta Hagen.

(The play begins with The Doors’ “When the Music’s Over.” But the lights only come up enough to see four people laying on the floor of the darkened apartment. Outside, there are flashlights waving by the windows and you hear men laughing , walking through the leaves and tapping on the windows.)

MALE VOICE, OFFSTAGE

Don’t tell me what to think, Samuel, I know they’s hiding a bunch a Hippies in there. Boy! Boy! You all hear me in there? Hippie boy! I know you’re in there, you Commie son of a bitch!

BENJI

Oh, save me Erato…this is not the way I’m supposed to die!

THE OTHER THREE ON THE FLOOR

SHHHHHHH!!!!!

Sonnet XI

Sonnet XI

Sometimes you have to fucking quiet down,

And stop thinking and talking and just sit,

And breathe the air of your small Jersey town,

And wash off the accumulated shit.

Postpone the reading of my stupid play,

And cook up a few dozen recipes,

Pay heed to the wise friends who chose to stay,

And ignore the ones who jumped like fleas.

What I’ve done right is what I need to thrive.

The wrong part was mere femininity,

Thinking I could keep the dead ones alive,

While they reveled in their morbidity.

Now, excuse me while I change the laundry

I pray that I’ve answered any quandary.

November 15 Over and Out

On the fringe of memory,

I no longer care if you

Are alive or dead.

The snows have already left

Their mark on our mountains

All the leaves are red.

Would my eyes had never seen

Love chained by pain and lust

Dressed in leather black.

I live in a simpler world

Among the striving souls

Trying not to crack.

My life is so organized

No problems in the mix

So much less intense.

You life is like the March Hare’s

Up is down, black is white

Nor a sense of sense.

Sun rises in the East and it

Sets in the Golden West

I don’t understand.

How the world can be so twisted

Through internet wires

In one single land.

We can’t be friends without the

Pain you seem to desire

Maybe that’s the clue.

Clean yourself in Heaven’s stream

Pray that your God forgives

I must forget you.

Back in “Blech!” -- Ready to Bother You All Again

Back in “Blech!”

I believe it was that respected literary publication, Mad Magazine, that first parsed the highly descriptive term: “Blech.” It sums up many of the tasks we take on every day or the things we see rotting upon the pavement.  It can be used in describing Coach Sandusky. I might have not spelled it precisely, as Professor Alfred E. Newman does, but it’s the thought that counts. I have once more stupidly allowed myself to get dragged into another person’s Blech and I have, after a year, crawled out of the ooze pit, alive, but humbled and shaken. I dove in thinking I could help, and once more discovered that they are very happy living in the smegma and was once again reminded that some of them eventually despise the person trying to help. To say more would indicate that I still had hope and I do not. Bye, Bye, Black Bird. So, now, I must start paying attention to the World. My life, believe it or not, actually is pretty good. I was laid off three years ago but got right on Disability and Pension and am now on Medicare. I have no debts and some savings. The MS is slowed down by the medicine and I am surrounded by friends and still writing. I’ve started to attend meetings and marches and while I think the Right Wing will never stop trying to destroy the world, I am fighting to try to at least slow it down. I must read more and I must learn. The only way to help one person is to try to help the entire world and to make the Earth a better place to live. You have to be outside the “Blech” pool to help anyone because you can and should grab any hand that is reaching out of it, looking for assistance. The ones who don’t want to leave should be left there to rot as they can only drag you down.

Can't Seem to Find the Inspiration These Days

OK, I should put my mind firmly onto the play that we're supposed to be reading for the public soon. And I do want to go to Lulu and put together the small poetry book of the ten sonnets with a matching haiku, but I have lost the crazy. My inspiration for the last year has been stupid, crazy and self-destructive. Not the slightest bit based in reality, but it got me out of my slump and made me write plays again, and poetry for the first time.  However, my inspiration was overwhelming me and sucking the air out of my lungs and my words and I had to kill it dead with one blow. Except to correct and rewrite, I will never write one more word about it. I will only write about reality but I don't know what it is I want to say. Fantasy nearly destroyed me and I have seen it destroy a dear one and it has to stop, at least, in this apartment in Montclair. So, I may be absent for a few days while I put the pieces together, but look for me before Thanksgiving. Love to you all, my 24 loyal followers.

Sonnet X

Sonnet X

Words fail me. Thoughts fail me. Art is useless.

And yet we find ourselves subscribed to Fate.

But maybe all we have is neediness.

Which makes the sweetest caring turn to hate.

The gentlest touch will cause a snarling snap

And bring the harpies flying for my face.

What could have been a comfort turns to crap

And makes the worldwide web a crowded place.

Time has come to disappear in silence.

And see what months apart can mitigate.

I can't take another crash of violence.

Or wrestling others’ urge to dominate.

Your demons locked in blackest memory

Will never understand that I am me.

Sonnet iX

Sonnet IX

Just one time I wrote a happy ending.

And felt that I was soaring through the sky.

I must try to not be so unbending.

A woman alone can still find a high.

The men-children in my past were helpless.

And the best one felt little love for me.

My parents jinxed me from day one, I guess.

I was probably lucky to be free.

I have managed to manage all my needs.

Even when challenged by a mild disease.

And should give to the world my nobler deeds.

And should vow to take what joy I can seize.

On paper my happiest ending is death.

But from now on let’s enjoy every breath.

I SCREWED UP THE SONNET. Didn't have a rhyme

Sonnet VIII

I am found distant from humanity

Perhaps it is too late to find the clue.

Are artists meant to be in reality

Or do we prosper furthest from the zoo?

I don’t want pity, though I use a cane.

But I’d deal with Satan to have a break

From weakness that is making me insane.

And keeping me from being full awake.

I’m wise enough to know we have no choice,

And the alternative is black nothing.

And so, I try to find my rhyming voice.

The woman in me will not find a king

My heart and mind still seem to be intact

I just won’t lay in bed to seek my fun.

It’s time to find the music my life lacked.

And even if I’m trapped inside this chair

I’ll use my words to draw you to my lair.

Poem, Haiku, Sonnet...the whole shebang...shebang!

I

There’s Just Room For One in This Bumper Car

Bleeding bandages speak of open wounds

How can you be the answer when I

Have no clue of what the question is?

I taste the victory of survival…

Which is bittersweet since I’m alone, but

There’s just room for one in this bumper car.

Too wildly dodging the rubber bumpers

To know why we work so hard at this life

Even when there’s no real reward for it.

II

Haiku After Debate between “Then” and “So” Resolved

I am sunshine
You are darkness
We touch and
So destroy each other

III

Sonnet VIII

I am found distant from humanity

Perhaps it is too late to find the clue.

Are artists meant to be in reality

Or do we prosper furthest from the zoo?

I don’t want pity, though I use a cane.

But I’d deal with Satan to have a break

From weakness that is making me insane.

And keeping me from being full awake.

I’m wise enough to know we have no choice,

And the alternative is black nothing.

And so, I try to find my rhyming voice.

My days of sexuality are done

My heart and mind still seem to be intact

I just won’t lay in bed to seek my fun.

It’s time to find the music my life lacked.

And even if I’m trapped inside this chair

I’ll use my words to draw you to my lair.