Tough Love for Rod

Well, I'm closing in on my 90 days of sobriety. It'll be on the 4th of April. Right now, time seems almost frozen for me. Earlier, it seemed like I couldn't wait to get out of here and get on with my life, but now I'm marking anniversary dates of sobriety -- which is something I never would have ever thought of before. That it was even possible!

The GAYVNs are coming up this weekend. I don't even know who's nominated, what for or where. Any other time I'd be right on top of that. But now, I'm focusing on myself. I wish all the poeple nominated my whole-hearted congratulations -- for getting nominated. I know how many movies are made each year and how many porn actors there are ... and how hard it is to get recognized. So congrats again.

A lot of my classes are really beginning to kick-in -- one class in particular, the self-esteem class. Now I know that sounds kind of weird. A self-esteem class!? We recently did an exercise in that class, where your teammates rate you on different characteristics of esteem, things like 'confidence.' Listing the characteristics of good self-esteem on one side, and the traits of low self-esteem on the other. I suggested that we just put the same list on both sides and rate each characteristic 'yes' or 'no.' "No confidence" is bad self-esteem.

I was suprised by how my peers viewed me. They all rated me as being 'confident, and 'assured' -- all really, really good things. That was how they judged me. Like I had the best self-esteem in the history of the world. They don't really know me well enough to do that. That's just what's on the outside, that's the signal I give off. Like I'm the Man or something like that, just because I walk with confidence. If that were the case, I wouldn't taking the fucking class!

For years, I've had low self-esteem. It didn't matter how good or great or awesome anyone told me I was. I still needed to be TOLD -- because I had low self-esteem. I needed people to tell me good things about me because I felt that way.

I went to an A.A. meeting in town the other night and there was this guy there. His name is G__. He's had 45 years of sobriety. He quit drinking in 1963! That's fucking amazing. I've seen at meetings for a couple of weeks now. I always thought he was a prick, a real conceited guy, a lonely angry person. So at the meeting the other night I spilled my coffee all over the table. I wiped up what was on the table and went to clean up underneath the table. The guy sitting next to me said, "Don't worry about it, wait until after the meeting." So I'm fine, "Okay." But this dipshit motherfucker -- he's a regular at that meeting -- he gets up, grabs the paper towels, jumps over the table, right in front of everybody and throws the paper towels on the puddle of coffee and tries to mop it up. Was he fucking kidding me? I got up real quick and I just wiped it up real, real quick. I'm thinking, "This guy's a fool." Everyone could tell it really angered me -- because it was so ridiculous. That's part of my PTSD, it just makes me snap when somebody tries to make me look foolish or tells me what to do. After the meeting everyone is telling me, "It's no big deal." I know's it no big deal, but that's not the point.

But in the meeting, G___ had made a very good point. He talked about the 'wants' and 'needs' of sobriety. "I want to be sober." or "I want to get a life." "I want to be healthy." "I want people to look at me in different way." The simple is that people have been telling what I 'want' to hear for the last 15 years of my life. "Oh you're so great" -- because I had low self-esteem. G___ said, "This is not a want program. I don't care if you want sobriety. The point is that you need it."

For the last 15 years, many people have been telling me what I want to hear, not what I needed to hear. I almost never had anyone be brutally honest with me. People told me that I did this or that when I'm drinking. But that wasn't what I needed to hear. I needed tough love and no one gave me tough love. I will remember G___'s point for the rest of my life. I can't just be the person who 'wants,' 'wants, wants,' and 'wants.' I need it all, but I am going to have to work for it. It's not going to be handed to me.