My Crazy

One of the reasons I started drinking, which later led to a ton of other types of self-medication, was to lower my anxiety. I’ve always had anxiety issues, even before I knew what anxiety was. One of the things that used to cause me great anxiety was whenever I heard people walking on the floor above me I would get fearful that the floor would collapse and crush me. When I was around 16 I noticed that if I had a few beers this fear would go away. Thus alcohol (AKA: self-medication) became the solution to lowering my anxiety. As years went by my anxiety over certain things would only increase. Here are a few examples of what I like to term “my crazy” (yes, I know that’s not politically correct but I’m talking about myself).

I had to stop chewing gum in my early 20s. For some reason I got it into my head that the repetitive chewing would set something off in my brain that would make it so that I couldn’t stop chewing ever. This would cause my anxiety levels to hit the roof.

When mowing my lawn I would go as quick as possible around large trees as I would begin to fear that a limb would fall off the tree, hit me and either crush or maim me. Hey, it actually happens several times a year. I would also go into a panic if a plane flew over me while I was outside because I thought that it might accidentally drop the blue stuff in the plane’s toilet – which would, of course, fall down and crush me.

When I got into my mid-20s I started having huge panic attacks whenever I sat in the barber chair and he began to cut my hair. I’m still not sure what caused this but I would sit there and tense every muscle in my body until the haircut was done. Who knows what was going through the barber’s head during this time. Flickering fluorescent lights could also cause an attack to come on. One time I was in a store waiting in line for the cash. The flickering light triggered an attack , I dropped the stuff I wanted to purchase and fled the store.

When I was around 25 I was walking home from my favourite hometown pub. I had been a regular there since I was of legal drinking age. There was a shortcut through the woods, across a wooden bridge, that I would always take. As I was crossing the bridge these two guys emerged from the woods and the bigger of the two ran up to me. I asked him how it was going and he rose up his arm saying, “this is how it’s going”, and punched me in the head. I fell down and he proceeded to lay the boots to me. I possummed up until he was done. Afterwards I was in a daze and ended up running in the wrong direction (opposite to where I lived). Following that shit-kicking my anxiety rose extremely high.

I continued to deal with my anxiety, from all the things I have mentioned, by drinking and using other substances. Day by day the anxiety worsened until I was in constant state of panic and my hands would continuously shake. I eventually went to doctor who put me on an antidepressant which I’m still on.

The medication helped but I would still have panic attacks on a regular basis. The daily drinking and constant stimulant use didn’t help matters. I would eventually sober up, and even quit smoking, which greatly lessoned the amount of anxiety in my life. One of the biggest encounters that helped me deal with my anxiety was a conversation I had with a doctor. The company I worked for was offering to pay for smoking cessation products but I had to get approved by the doctor. We started talking about my anxiety and he asked me how I dealt with it. I explained that when I started having a panic attack I would say to myself, over and over, that the anxiety was I feeling was based on irrational fears and nothing was going to happen. The doctor told me that was the worst thing I could do. What I was inadvertently doing was focusing more and more on my irrational fears causing the anxiety to become worse. What I should be doing, he explained, was taking my mind off the thought causing the panic and proceed to doing deep breathing exercises. This helped immensely. Since then I’ve picked up other tips to help me through these trying periods. I learned to pay attention to my body and what it felt like leading up to a panic attack. I can now detect when the beginnings of anxiety occur and start to get rid of it before it turns into a full-blown panic attack. My life has improved greatly by this growth. I still have my challenges. Recently I was involved in a bad car crash where I was rear-ended by a vehicle as I was at a complete stop. I saw the car coming at me seconds before impact. This has caused some new challenges in my battle with anxiety as I commute to work every day. If I didn’t have to look in my rearview mirror it wouldn’t be so bad but that’s not going to happen.

As a result of my experience with anxiety, depression and addiction I have the unique opportunity to help others in similar positions. For that I am grateful.

Dave the Dude 

Happiness doesn't sell

I watch a lot of TV and films and there seem to be a lot more that have at least one character who is battling an addiction and/or in recovery. I often find myself cringing at the depiction of 12 Step meetings in the entertainment I watch.

Most recently I’ve been watching a TV show, from a few years ago, called The Killing. One of the main characters is in recovery and attends 12 Step meetings. When the show has a scene in a meeting it depicts everyone there as being miserable. The show Flaked is similar too. It has many of the people at the meeting looking sick, sad and sorry and when someone is sharing it’s always a recounting of the misery they caused and how sorry they are. Don’t get me wrong we have to make accept and make amends for our past but there’s so much more to recovery than that.

What attracted me at the very first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting I attended was that the majority of people of at that meeting were laughing, smiling and sharing positive things as we went around the table. If everyone there had been miserable I’m pretty sure I would not have stuck around. The members at that meeting, and the thousands of meetings I’ve attended since, had something that I wanted – happiness, joyfulness and freedom. That’s what actually happens at 12 Step meetings.

Sure when a newcomer arrives they are in a sick, sad and sorry state – just as I was. That’s how we know that person is new and once we become aware of this that person becomes the most important person in that room. When I left my first meeting all the people who shared surrounded me in the parking lot, welcomed me and told me about other meetings to attend. One of the traditions of 12 Steps is attraction rather than promotion. We don’t go out and proselytize but rather act as examples of what the 12 Step program can do so that when someone is ready to give up the high cost of low living they know where to go.

In past blogs I’ve stated how much I like the television show Mom. It’s about a group of women in Alcoholics Anonymous. I’ve been criticized by people in the program who point out the show is not a good depiction of the program. I beg to differ. Even though they are not openly talking about the Steps they are, at least, depicting the people in the program as changing in a positive way. The meetings don’t portray a group of miserable people but, rather, happy people dealing with life on life’s terms. It doesn’t shy away from characters having bad moments but neither does it have those bad moments the main theme of the show. It even showed the life and death danger of addiction when one storyline had a character die of an overdose.

I’d rather see a watered down version with people being happy in their recovery than one with all members being miserable. Maybe someone struggling will see a show depicting alcoholics/addicts struggling, but happy, in their recovery and that person will decide to come to a meeting. As I’ve heard over and over – it doesn’t matter how you came to the program it just matters what you do once you arrive. But alas, I guess happiness isn’t good entertainment.

Dave the Dude