Do You Remember When ...

Just a real quickie tonight. I thought I was making my life easy last night by doing the song list, but I forgot about my relationship with the internet, youtube specifically. I spent at least ten minutes searching for every song to make sure I had the best available video clip. Plus I had to make sure I had the ten I wanted so then I had to look for more to see if I missed any. So, tonight something that will get me to bed a decent hour. 


A friend from NYC is out here at a treatment facility and I got to see him tonight at a meeting. It's great to have someone from New York around because that's where I got sober and I feel really grounded in the recovery community there. Plus, I have been lobbying for Laverne & Shirley situation since before I moved. For those of you that don't remember, Laverne  & Shirley and their entire cast of wacky characters lived in Milwaukee for many years. 


Then when the series was nearing the end and the producers wanted to breathe new life into it, they had Laverne & Shirley move to Los Angeles. Only they didn't move alone. I can't remember for certain, but I'm pretty sure every regular cast member up and moved with them – fathers, friends, neighbors. It was quite a believable scenario. 


You won't be surprised to know that none of what I've written so far is the point of this post. I write like the kid from The Family Circus walks to school. 

The other reason it's good (I think it's good) that this particular friend is here is because he was at the outpatient program I went to at the beginning of my sobriety. A lot of my 12-step friends in NYC remember when I went to my first meeting and how crazy I was then. But this guy saw me on my very first day. Like I said, I think it's good he's here. 


When I was chatting with him tonight, he brought up what the few people that were there that day always bring up. We had a writing assignment that I don't completely remember but it was something like: Name something you loved to do before you became an addict; list the steps to get back to that place; and list a goal for the long-term future. It's only the last part that I'm sure because that's the part where things went a bit awry. 


We all had yellow legal pads to write on and when we were done we started going around the room reading what we'd written and getting feedback. I'd like to mention here that the very new-ageish counselor for this group was sitting right next to me. When it was my turn, I read what I'd written for the first two questions. Then, with the voices screaming in my head and all the other group members telepathically hating me, I came slightly unglued. “My FUTURE??! MY FUTURE??! HERE'S WHAT I THINK OF MY FUCKING FUTURE!” And with that the yellow legal pad went flying over my right shoulder, whizzing my the counselor's ear and hitting the white board behind me with what seemed like a disproportionately loud thud. 


As everyone sat staring at me, not knowing if they should laugh or scatter, the counselor hissed at me, “I believe you could have made your point without the violence.” Bitch, you ain't seen violence yet. This is only day one.