Snowflakes Anonymous

November 22, 2013


“Snowflakes Anonymous.” 11/22/13. Acrylic, watercolor, and spray paints, food coloring, markers, pen, resin sand, cardboard and EBT card – on 24×30″ stretched canvas.

This piece took me over a week to finish. That left a lot of time for different issues to pop up, play off each other, and rearrange my ideas. I started it one nigh while I was thinking about missing Tranquil Shores. Then I thought about how I might like to work at a place like that except… For starters, I don’t have enough clean time. I’d have to pretend like I didn’t fuck up at any point. That made me sad. You know what I eventually realized though? Fuck that. Someone recently complimented my honesty / willingness to be vulnerable through my artwork – “especially for someone with so little clean time.” That threw me for a loop! There was nothing mean-spirited about the comment (it came from someone that’s been really positive and supportive) but still – the implication is that I’ve only recently started getting well. In reality, most of the pieces she had seen and read about were created before that – sometime after my previous clean date (the day I got to Tranquil Shores: August 17th, 2012). And I didn’t really start getting better ’til December 12th. The vast majority of honest text in my pieces was always scribbled out up until that point.

So – yeah – I may have fucked up over the summer, but that didn’t hit the reset button on my recovery; I didn’t fall down into a gutter with a needle in my arm, desperate and miserable as ever. I made a mistake, called myself on it, told the people I needed to tell, and carried the fuck on and moved forward with the things I know to be good for me and good for my mental health and emotional well-being. And you know what else? The dangerous position I allowed myself to be in (that led to my relapse): it was worth it. That month I spent working on that project – it had incredible highs, some (very obvious) lows, I learned a lot about myself, a lot about the world around me, and – overall – was a better stronger person when all was said and done.

And it still affects me today (both positively and negatively). I wouldn’t say I regret any of it. Life is for living and anyone that’s really living is gonna fuck up every now and then. That’s not a preemptive copout for future relapse, it’s just reality. You can count on my not repeating that mistake but I’m sure as shit gonna fuck up at one thing or another!

Back on point: on Tuesday, I was reading the NA literature and I realized that so much of it really has nothing to do with me. It’s totally undescriptive of my thinking and my behavior. Not all of it, but enough of it. Does that mean I’m gonna quit going to meetings? No. But it explains why I stopped going more than once a week back in February – and why my
counselors at Tranquil Shores didn’t throw a monumental fit about it the way they’d always done with everyone else. I may not be some beautiful fucking snowflake, thoroughly unlike all to come before me, but – you know what? I am different than a lotta people and meetings, meetings, meetings isn’t the fucking cure-all for everyone.

And if you wanna get technical – it’s got nothing to do with the twelve steps as they were originally written (and are still written in the AA text). Same with sponsorship – there’s nothing in the original text about going to meetings or finding a sponsor. It’s just about working with / helping other alcoholics [or addicts]. And I do that shit constantly. I hate a lot of the attitudes that dominate the rooms of AA and NA: “Do this or die” (especially when “this” isn’t even part of the program). You know why they think that the only people who succeed in recovery are the ones that continue going to meetings for the rest of their lives? Because the people that come back are the one that fucked up and needed to come back; they never hear the stories of the people that leave their group and succeed because they don’t have any reason to come back around and tell their tale. It’s right for some people – not everyone. And fuck the notion that “clean time” is the only measure of success. I do pretty okay. I like myself. I like my life. And it’s been that way for a while now. It didn’t start ’til I got clean (and then some) but it didn’t go away just ’cause I had a lapse in judgment. I still have that time. There are documents of it – all over my walls and all over this website.

SECOND (reason I can’t get a job at a treatment facility), I don’t think I’m cut out to work anywhere. I’m not some wild, outta control basket case but that’s ’cause I know what I need to do to keep my grip. When things get rough, I’ve got tools I can use to get ’em back on the right track. But mental health is a chore and I can’t schedule my emotions. Being on the clock, being on someone else’s time… it doesn’t work for me. I have too much to do – sick or well, fucked or not. So while I might like to do some volunteer kinda stuff now and then, I don’t think that “getting a job” is anything that’s ever gonna work out for me.

From there I was thinking about something that’s occurred to me before: that I could almost certainly qualify to receive disability payments. Up ’til my “recovery” began, I’d have taken those without a second thought; I had (and still have) no moral objections to something like that (even if I were/am fully capable of working). But getting disability doesn’t really seem in line with what I’m about these days. My brain might be a little off but I’ve been creatively building a life out of that, through my artwork. I’m not sure I want a label like “disabled” on me.

But – also on Tuesday – I realized that I use food stamps and… is that really any different? It’s basically partial-disability with no questions asked. “Oh? You don’t make enough money? Okay, here you go. No – we don’t care why, just take it.” Strangely enough, the very next day, I met a girl who does receive disability payments (and for borderline personality disorder!) That had me actually considering it for the first time but it wasn’t ’til later that night I realized that – immediately after meeting her – I volunteered to pick up a shift at Sun-Ray over the weekend if they needed any extra help. AND THEN(!) I had to modify my offer to exclude Saturday because I’m going to some kind of seven hour “personal growth” / mental health thing tomorrow.

Just like that – I went from ruling out work because of my obligations to myself and my mental health but rejecting the prospect of disability payments on principle, meeting a girl on disability with the same issues I have and starting to reconsider,  to unthinkingly offering to work, and then realizing I couldn’t because of a (very concrete, specific) mental health obligation.

For now, I’m gonna keep on as I have been. I already have everything I need. Well, maybe not a sense of security but what fun would that be?

Hey – speaking of “clean time,” “clean dates,” and what a beautiful fucking snowflake I am… When someone completes their treatment plan at Tranquil Shores, they have their coin-out ceremony and they get a little keychain with their clean date on it. Here’s the one they gave me back in February.

Clean date key tag

Yes, that is an “X” in place of a clean date. No, I had no idea that mine was going to be different and – no – of all the people that have been through the program, no one else has ever gotten anything other than their actual clean date.

Something I wrote in this entry reminded me of a lyric from a song I haven’t heard in a few years. “She asked me if I want to die / I said of course I do sometimes / Anyone who never wants to die / must not really be alive.” And now that I’m listening to it, I’m realizing that it’s right for this entry in more ways than one.

I got the Like Bats cassettes in the mail today. They’ll be the first new Traffic Street release in more than two years and will go on sale tomorrow! (This is a one-off sorta thing though; I’m not picking back up with Traffic Street for real – not anytime soon anyway).

I've had that box of inserts and covers for three years now!
I’ve had that box of inserts and covers for three years now!

Fun fact: Did you notice my (expired) EBT/foodstamp card glued to the top-right corner of the canvas? Did you notice that it says “ASK FOR VD” on the signature line? Just below that, it says “ARTS SUBSIDY” which I added after the card was on the canvas). I wrote “ASK FOR VD” on it back when it was still valid though – back when I first got it in March. I am a ridiculous human being.

This piece is available for purchase as a 12×16-inch print. The original sold in December 2013.

Save Yourself

November 20, 2013

"Save Yourself." 11/19/13. Pens and markers. 5x6½".
“Save Yourself.” 11/19/13. Pens and markers. 5×6½”.

After missing five in a row, I’m getting back into the swing of my Tuesday morning NA meeting. Save for an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting that I went to once (somewhat unintentionally), it’s the only one I’ve ever been to in Jacksonville. I go because I figure it’s good for me or – at the very least – it’s not bad for me. When the time rolls around each week, I don’t usually want to go but that’s sort of why I do. It’s so rare these days that I have to do anything that I don’t want to; I feel like an NA meeting each week is a good way to stay in practice for the times when something I’m even more averse to comes up. It’s self-discipline of sorts.

Which isn’t to say that I don’t draw while I’m sitting there, but I do it pretty discreetly (on the pages of my text) and I don’t draw anything that requires the kind of concentration that’d prevent me from paying attention to everything being said. Yesterday, I drew this on page 390 of my Narcotics Anonymous book and then added the color later on at home. The title/sentiment is part repetition of “Selfish Program” and part preemptive “fuck off”/”take your own inventory” to anyone who might get it in their head that they’re my unsolicited new sponsor.

The meeting was on the eleventh tradition, which “deals with our relationship to those outside the Fellowship [of Narcotics Anonymous].” Specifically, “we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and film” and “advertisements, circulars, and any literature that may reach the public’s hand.” That was written decades ago and some people think it should be updated to explicitly include the internet; I don’t see how anyone could interpret it as not already including the internet but – either way – I don’t maintain personal anonymity. The first sentence of my Bio has my real name because I think the power of a lot of my disclosure / honesty would be lost if I were using a pseudonym as a mask (and not just ’cause I’m a ridiculous human being). In any case, no one’s supposed to present themselves publicly as a member of Narcotics Anonymous and no one should ever purport to represent Narcotics Anonymous. [By the way, these guidelines are virtually identical in every twelve-step program (those I’m familiar with anyway)].

So I was thinking about that: Do I violate the Eleventh Tradition with (just about) every thing I do?

My answer: Nah. If I were to ask anyone at my regular meeting if I’m a member of NA, they’d say,”Of course!,” and pat me on the back to assuage my doubt. But do I consider myself a member of NA? Not really.

Yeah, I’ve worked the steps, I go to meetings (sometimes), and the way I live is pretty thoroughly in line with the principles and recommendations of the program – but that’s not because they’re the principles and recommendations of the program; we just happen to line up more often than not. And I certainly don’t purport to be a representative of any group/program. Shit – I’m not sure I’ve ever brought up AA or NA [in my writing] without making some kind of distinction between their program and mine.

While I’d recommend a twelve-step program to anyone struggling with anything, none of those programs were the magic bullet for me. The words in their books don’t resonate with me the way they do with others “in the rooms.” A lot of people say, “AA/NA saved my life.” I am not one of those people.

My counselor, Tracy, saved my life. Julie and expressive art therapy saved my life. It was everyone at Tranquil Shores (and everyone that supported me from outside) that saved my life.

And punk rock? Well, if I’m being honest, it didn’t really do SHIT in the life saving department but – without it – who would even wanna live?

“Icepick” by Tenement

All Better

November 12, 2013

narcotics anonymous NA blue book text cartoon
“All Better.” 11/12/13. Ink on book cover.

It’s not my favorite thing to acknowledge but I hit the reset button on my clean time over the summer. I was up to eleven months (which shattered the old record of thirty-one days). In any case, I’m back up to 103 days now and, today, I went to my “usual” NA meeting. It’s the only one I’ve ever been to in Jacksonville. As I sat there, I scribbled on the cover of my text.

“This is my first meeting in five weeks. Did I mention yet that I haven’t seen my counselor since September? How strange that I forgot to mention that…”

—–

I was listening to this song on my way home tonight. It’s got a couple lyrics that’ve always stuck out to me. I don’t always relate to them as much as I used to, but I still love it.

I can see the question across your face: “How can you live so trivially?” I’ve got my ways and I’ve got my techniques… Our lives are built on hurt and shame; it doesn’t mean they’re not okay.

– Dead Mechanical, “A Great Lie”

—–

Today’s piece reminds me of one from March, “My Treatment Plan.“

Dry Goods / Old Timers (Singleness of Purpose, Dickweed!)

October 18, 2013

"Dry Goods / Old Timers (Singleness of Purpose, Dickweed)." 12/15/12. Pen. 3x5".
“Dry Goods / Old Timers (Singleness of Purpose, Dickweed!).” 12/15/12. Pen. 3×5″.

Narcotics Anonymous has a statement of clarity, which says that they don’t distinguish between drugs and alcohol. Makes sense, right? After all, heroin (for example) has got way more in common with alcohol than it does most illicit drugs (crack and cocaine, meth, acid, and weed, to name a few). For the purposes of recovery, what’s important isn’t a substance’s legality – it’s the effect that it’s had on your life. NA doesn’t care if your problem’s with heroin, alcohol, or Benadryl; if it’s a chemical, if it’s fucking up your shit, and if you wanna try their way of life – their doors are open to you.

In Alcoholics Anonymous, on the other hand, there’s a principle oft cited (in some groups) known as the singleness of purpose: “Each [AA] group has but one primary purpose – to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.”

No one forced me into recovery. Anytime I showed up to any kind of twelve-step meeting, it’s ’cause I was ten kinds of fucked up, miserable, and desperate. And I didn’t need someone to give me shit about “not belonging” for me to feel that way – I already did.

I’m not gonna use this as an opportunity to tear into the Fifth Tradition (from which singleness of purpose is derived) and the subsequent literature like I’m interpreting constitutional law for the Supreme Court. One thing I’m fucking certain of though is that it was never meant as an excuse for people to be assholes. I’ve seen kids come into meetings, fresh off the streets, grasping at straws, just desperate for anything to help save their lives. And I’ve seen shitbag AA “old timers” start coughing and muttering “singleness of purpose” under their breath when some poor kid that isn’t fully acquainted with the rules of AA mentions a drug other than alcohol. I’ve even seen a kid interrupted and told that he needs to go to an NA meeting (and not in a well-meaning, helpful kind of way).

There’s a reason that the twelve steps are identical in AA, NA, CA, OA, CodA, SLA, EA, and all the others. Compulsive behavior is compulsive behavior. The (specific) problems may vary (a little) but the fix is always the same.

In an effort to placate singleness hardliners, some alcoholic-addicts use codewords like “dry goods” and “other forms of alcohol.” Personally, I don’t bother with that. I know “the rules” so, if I’m at an AA meeting, I’m perfectly okay with total substitution. I say “alcohol” instead of “heroin,” “bottle” instead of “needle,” and “drink” instead of “shoot up.” While I might think that all of that’s kind of dumb, I do respect that the purpose of a meeting is to carry the message to those that still suffer –  not to offer me a soapbox from which I can share my brilliant opinions (that’s what this website’s for!) So here we go…

So-called “old timers” that take a hardline stance on this shit are dinosaurs, and they’re on their way out. The time when alcoholics outnumbered drug addicts is history. For every kid that realizes he has an alcohol (and only an alcohol) problem,  there’s gotta be a dozen more that are fucked up on alcohol and/or some other drug (or combination of other  drugs). And I use the word “other” in that last sentence very purposefully: because alcohol is a drug. You’re not better than or different from some junkie just ’cause your chemical is legal. Get the fuck over it, get better, and help somebody else do the same.

—–

singleness-of-purpose_original

  • Signed 4×6″ prints of this cartoon are available in my webstore.
  • The framed original cartoon is now for sale as well. (As you can see, like many of my pencil/pen cartoons, it differs from the version sold as a print).

—–

Though I shared “witness accounts” in this entry, I do have my own story about being turned away by singleness of purpose hardliners. (It’s pretty fucked up). I’m going to leave it for some other time though.

 

Blueprint For a Successful Evening

September 9, 2013

"Blueprint For a Successful Evening." 6/17/13 and 5/12/14. Acrylic paint, spray paint, and ink. 24x18".
“Blueprint For a Successful Evening.” 6/17/13 and 5/12/14. Acrylic paint, spray paint, and ink. 24×18″.

I’m always busy. I always have “really important” stuff that I “have” to do. When I was living in DC, it was Traffic Street Records year-round and law school around final exam time. Back then (before heroin became the main problem), I feel like the biggest point of tension in my relationship was my emotional unavailability. Every night, Taylor would ask me to come to bed, I’d tell her I was almost done, and then six hours would pass before I actually made it to the bedroom. So every night she went to sleep alone, woke up while I was still asleep, and then came home from work to find me busy packing up records or laying out a record insert or [whatever]. Eventually, I started doing whatever Traffic Street stuff that I could at school instead of the apartment, so that she’d already be asleep when I got home and I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about not coming to bed and not paying attention to her.

Heather and I moved to Jacksonville this June. She didn’t have a job lined up before we got here so, for the first two weeks, we were both home all the time. Since I’m always busy, I’m never bored and I’m always content in that regard. But Heather has been working [forever] and likes having a job to go to every day. Consequently, she was bored out of her mind. And – maybe because of my own insecurities and my experiences with Taylor – I felt guilty anytime I was working instead of paying attention to her. It was stressing me out. And the fact that she was visibly bored and unhappy made even harder. Especially when I tried to talk to her about it and she just tuned out. Eventually, I decided that there was nothing I could do and just went about doing my own thing. But when it got to the point where we were barely talking at all, it was too much.

I’m feeling disconnected. I’m trying to push through it, assume the best, not stress out. If someone’s not talking to me, it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with me. They could just not feel like talking. Or it could have everything to do with me. But if every attempt at conversation – every question asked – is met with a one-word response, what am I supposed to do? [Moving to a new city together] is supposed to be exciting. And it is for me. But I feel like only for me. And that tempers the excitement a bit. I opened up, put everything out there. Explained with sincerity how I’m feeling. And I got nothing back. Literally, no response.
[ -written June 17th]

I was at a loss. Now I couldn’t work. I sat alone in the living room dumbfounded. And scatterbrained; I had my probation deadline hanging over my head and hadn’t finished my community service hours yet. That was also weighing on me and fucking me up. Especially since I was getting my hours from home; that meant that I could have been doing it in that moment, but wasn’t. Instead, I decided that I needed to paint. It had been too long.

There’s a small block of text in the center of the canvas:

My first impulse is to lie in bed, face down, and cry forever. My second is to beat off. I need to write and paint. I spill my guts and… I’m struggling. Sharing life isn’t easy. I might not be built for it. It’s tough to know what’s right for me. I like being me but it isn’t easy. I guess nothing is. That doesn’t feel true.

The next day – as has so often been the case this summer – I did a total one-eighty. Within twenty-four hours of painting “Blueprint,” I was working on a drawing that says: “I couldn’t be happier” – something I genuinely felt.

REVISION (5/31/14):

Nearly a year had passed since I painted this piece and it remained unsold. That’s mostly due to the fact that I hadn’t been displaying it because I didn’t really like it anymore. I don’t usually go back and work on old pieces because I tend to think of them as “artifacts” from another time in my career. But if I was keeping it locked up in a trunk, in a garage somewhere, it wasn’t really doing much good as an artifact or anything else for that matter. Better to go back, work on it some more – until it was something that I could be proud of and sell with confidence. It took another ten hours or so and I finished it on May 12, 2014. Sixteen days later, it was sold. Here’s what it used to look like…

"Blueprint For a Successful Evening." 6/17/13. Acrylic and pen. 18x24".
“Blueprint For a Successful Evening,” as it was upon its initial completion on 6/17/13..

 

Girls Are Not Pokemon

September 1, 2013

"Girls Are Not Pokemon." 3/26/13. Colored pencil and pen. 8x10".
“Girls Are Not Pokemon.” 3/26/13. Colored pencil and pen. 6×8″.

I’ve been to three different rehabs and – at each – I got involved with a girl. Though it only (directly) got me kicked out of treatment once, it was never not a serious problem. If I include life outside of rehab, in times when I was trying to stay clean, I’ve relapsed with six different girls (and, each time, while upset about something that happened with me and the girl). That number doesn’t include times I’ve relapsed without [the] girl but while upset about something with her. Heroin is dangerous for me, but girls are probably more dangerous. I first started trying to get clean in November 2010 and – in all the time since – there have been plenty of occasions when I’ve been in dangerous situations where drugs were available through someone I was with (and/or someone was actually using around me). When that person’s been male, I’ve never once caved and gotten high, but when it’s been a girl that I’m even slightly interested in (i.e. most girls), I’ve found myself with a needle in my arm just about every time.

At Tranquil Shores, this was one of the issues that we spent the most time on. In my fifth month as an inpatient, Alexis, the girl with whom I was the most mixed up, moved out. She was signed up to come in three times a week for outpatient treatment but, two weeks later, stopped showing up. We were talking regularly by phone even after she left, but it wasn’t long before I lost touch with her too. She fell off – back into drugs – and lives behind bars now. I could have easily been right there with her when it all went down.

So now there were exactly zero girls in my age range at Tranquil Shores but I had others in the area that I had met at AA or NA meetings that I was constantly texting and meeting up with. (And I was doing that long before I lost touch with Alexis). Nothing serious happened between (any of) us, but I came pretty close to making some bad decisions on more than a few occasions. And that I even came close is insane. How many times did I need to put my life at risk just ‘cause I liked the way some girl smiled at me? But I couldn’t help it. It was the definition of compulsive behavior. I felt like I needed it.

A year prior, at the Wellness Resource Center, after getting caught with a girl (somewhere that we shouldn’t have been, doing something we shouldn’t have been doing), I was sitting in my room, contemplating the trouble I was about to be in. I didn’t want to get kicked out because I knew that I wasn’t “better” yet. I knew I’d get fucked up again and fuck everything up. I remember sitting there and thinking, “I don’t care if they never let me anywhere near her again. I don’t care if they basically lock me in my room. So long as I know that she’s also locked up in her room, sitting there pining for me, still in love with me, that’s all I need. I don’t ever need to see her again.”

I think that’s all it’s really about for me. I just want someone to love me or – more specifically – to be in love with me. I needed for someone to think that I was the most important person in their world. The best person. Their favorite. Once I’d get that, it never really changed anything. I never actually felt any better or less insecure. It seemed so at times, in short little moments, but if that had really been the case, then I wouldn’t have been constantly pursuing multiple girls, even when I already had one “on the hook.” [That term sounds shitty but it conveys the idea I’m trying to get across. Also, it is shitty].

Sitting in group in December 2012, I did some math. I had six girls that I was trying to juggle to varying degrees. While I’d like to write it all of as inauthentic codependent bullshit – to be honest – with half of them I wasn’t even sure [and I’m still not]. I thought there might be (at least some spark of) authentic love. Yet I was still leading on the three girls with whom I knew it was just bullshit.

What was I really after? What was the point? A thought occurred to me; it was really silly but it was also totally dead on, which just made it that much funnier…

Girls are not pokemon – I do not “gotta catch ’em all…”

—–

If you know me personally you might be looking at the date on this cartoon and thinking, “What the fuck? You were already dating Heather by then – that’s fucked up.” [I decided to turn the idea into a cartoon back when I thought of it, but it wasn’t ’til two or three months later that I actually drew it].

Originally, I set out to write this entry about a different piece but I kind of had to throw all of this stuff about my codependent traits and behaviors out there as background info first. I’ll get to the other one tomorrow. [Update: That one’s online now too].

Anyway, I really love this cartoon. I love how superficially cute / innocuous it is but how the truth to it is kind of dark, sad, and pathetic. So often, I’ve let myself to sink to the greatest depths of hell because of something a girl said (or didn’t say) to me. I’ve dwelled in shit and misery for days, on account of facial expressions that I’d later discover I had completely misread. I’ve let my emotions, as triggered by girls, run and ruin my life.

But I’m getting better, you guys! For serious this time!

—–

  • The original drawing already sold but hit me up to buy a 6×8″ print.
  • For more on my relationships at this point in my life, check out “Autobiography.”

Chrissy Fit

August 30, 2013

"Chrissy Fit." 12/11/12. Pen on scrap. 8½x4”.
“Chrissy Fit.” 12/11/12. Pen on scrap. 8½x4”.

I’ve struggled with whether or not I should post this image. I drew this the day after “Clarity” and the day before “No Accident.” If you haven’t read the entries that I wrote to go along with those pieces, you should. This week in December may have been the most significant of my life. I’m very glad that it played out as it did.

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