...he was a loudmouth and a rebel rouser.
Forgive us, had we known he was the Lord we probably wouldn't have killed him.

I have a hard time with emotion. I always have. If you know me, even just a little bit, this shouldn’t be a surprise.

As a child I was told that big boys don’t cry. This was said to me at my sister’s funeral, by my father who did not show any emotion ever, save for anger. He was always angry. Still is. I was seven. He once took me to the batting cages because he had signed me up to play ball that summer. He put me in the cage without a bat; he said to just let the balls hit me so I wouldn’t be scared of them anymore. I am now terrified anytime anybody throws a ball to me. I didn’t cry. Emotion is a sign of weakness he told me. I didn’t want to be weak. I wanted to play ball, but I was so shell shocked I was never very good at it.

As a teenager I learned that alcohol was very good for numbing any feelings, and I got very good at showing no emotion at all, save for anger. I got angry and stayed angry for about twenty-five years. Angry and drunk. Things happen. Things happened to me, and I could fix it all with a little more booze. Angry little man.

I knew when I stopped drinking that my emotions would be a huge issue. What to do? Emotionally I am much like a fifteen year old. Laughing one minute and furious the next. In love with everything today and thinking the whole of the world has conspired to make me and only me miserable tomorrow.

I sat on my hands for months. I tried not to say anything. I made a road map of my feelings, and became a frequent visitor. Tea, a laugh, or a good cry on a Wednesday afternoon, fear and crumpets on Mondays, rage and anger any day of the week in my neighborhood of emotions. I’ve played out big dramas in my mind. I’ve cried until my face hurt and I couldn’t cry anymore. I’ve laughed so much that my ribs ached the next day. I navigated the maps as if I could age all those pent up feelings, mature them to fit in my 40 year old perspective in a year’s time.

I asked my AA sponsor what kind of character I would be with out my character defects. I was assured that I would always be a character, not to worry. I enjoy being a little bit goofy. I worry that I get mad at the stupidest of things. I strive to love and be lovable. I pray to not spend the rest of my life angry. I think a lot people pray for that.

I don’t blame my family for my problems, and if you were to ask my father he would tell you that he was a very loving, supportive father and husband. Just don’t ask him to teach your kids how to play ball.

This story is about youthful indiscretion and contains some elements of sex, drugs and rock & roll (sort of).

When I was 15 I had a fake ID. I was getting in to bars and clubs in West Hollywood. Every now and then, however, a doorman would figure it out, and I'd have to entertain myself outside on the sidewalk...on Santa Monica Boulevard. Yup, that was me out there all young and dumb and full of come. On one such night I got picked up by a British guy. I was inexperienced enough to have thought him to be the most exotic creature I had ever laid eyes on. He was just strolling down the street and I'm sure he commented on my stunning blue eyes (highlighted with just a little eyeliner), and maybe said something casual like "Wanna go do something?" and of course I wanted to go do something. I was 15 for Christ sakes.

Now, back then, in West Hollywood, "go do something" usually meant smoke a joint, do some blow, and get it on...

He was sweet to me. He had a nice Spanish style ranch home with a pool and guest house. I had some good pot a friend had gotten in Hawaii. We drank red wine and the Santa Ana wind blew all night and so did I. I would end up seeing him a number of times over a couple of months...my first serious dates were with a man twice my age. He'd call and say, "wanna go do something?" I was hooked for a while, and I'd like to believe that we both came to our senses at about the same time.

He was a musician and claimed to have been on MTV, but he wasn't anybody I had heard of. He gave me a t-shirt from his tour. He claimed to be doing work with somebody I thought was famous.

I never saw him again.

Now fast forward 26 years. Through the swirling sea and frightening storm of my life. Now, here, I'm almost 41. I rarely think about the person I was at 15.

I'm home with the flu last week and Nyquil isn't an option and it's the only thing in the house. Suffer, and look at the internet while you're doing it. Open www.pandora.com because there should be music with suffering. For some reason it plays "All Right Now" by Free, and the band biography pops up and I notice a name in the line-up... and... Google is right there in the tool bar...

The Matrix is real.

There are all kinds of pages with his name on, but most of it is old, and it takes a couple of tries, but I find the official website.I haven't thought about this guy in forever until I poke my finger in to this silly pie, but, there he is. Cheesy video. Check. Photo gallery. Check. MP3's for sale. Check. (Not my kind of music, but he does do a couple of cool quirky things with percussion) Contact link. I paused here. Pandora started it, and of course I'm gonna open the box, but what do I say? Hi, I'm some some kid you bonk'd about 25 years ago, and how you doing there bub, and whatcha up to dude?

I sent a very discreet message just in case he has a publicist (he does).
It appears that he has no memory of events, but he's being a good sport about it. I'm not surprised. His biography indicates a lot of adversity. Evidently he IS a little bit famous, and I hope he doesn't think I'm seeking some sort of retribution.

Funny, huh? I could have been the child bride of a bona fide rock star if I'd just payed a little better attention to the details.

Don't leave me stranded here I can't get used to this lifestyle.

I used to count the days. One day without a drink. Two. A week. A couple of months. A year passed. A year and some months now.

I told a friend that I had replaced drunk with busy. Busy, one day at a fucking time. God grant me the serenity not to choke the shit out of anyone that gets in my way. Let go of my ears, I know what I'm doing (except that actually I have no idea what I’m doing here).

I have no idea how I kept my shit together while I was drunk. Best I can tell is, I must have been kidding myself. Life is this full-time job… and my resume said “vodka”. So what was I doing and how?

My brain races with ideas…all fluid, some make connections and some don’t. I have to edit for reality, because some of the connections are too lose and too far fetched for execution, without an army of me. And if Oprah wants, I bet I could come up with a few creative ways to spend a million. Easy.

I’m supposed to be praying for “God’s will for me, and the power to carry it out”. Um, so how am I supposed to know what God wants from me? Checked my email, no clue and, I haven’t seen any burning bushes. Lacking the stone tablets etched with commands. The tea leaves look like tea leaves.

I get the basics. Do my laundry. Keep the house tidy. Pay my bills and make restitution. Communicate honestly. Take care of myself. Do no harm. Be a worker among workers. I understand that part of God’s will, but everything else is a mystery.

The tornado that had been my life has more or less stopped and the crew is out cleaning up the wreckage, but somehow I am still adrift. It feels like floating. It feels like a very fast train. There is no conductor and I have no idea what stop I’m supposed to get off at. Right now, just for today, I pray I packed enough clean underwear.

When I got in to AA I expected to find a lot of old people huddled in a church basement. Everyone would be drinking coffee and looking miserable. Shaking. "My name is Gregg, and I'm an alcoholic. I want a double vodka and cran." And someone else would say, "Ya me too, on the rocks..." And someone else would say, "Fuck that, just bring me the bottle and a straw." There would be a pause then everyone would sip their coffee at once....Slurrrrrrrp.

Insted I'm finding that evryone is real friendly. They laugh a lot (I have to admit, I don't get all the jokes, but I'm sure it's funny), and only the new people shake. You would too if you used to drink like most of us did, and then stopped. Holy shit. I thought the big earthquake had hit, I shook so damn much.

Different people have different stories, but we all have this disease in common. It made all of us do the most horrifying things you can imagine. I'm no exception. As my head clears I am beginng to remember how I did just exactly the wrong thing when the right thing would have been so much easier. Duh! And the more I drank the more I could justify doing exactly the wrong thing. I might as well have been switching chairs on the Titanic.

So I go to these meetings. Sometimes I tell a little bit of my story. Sometimes I just listen. I've made a few friends, but am fearful of getting to close to anyone. It's interesting to me that people with multiple decades of sobrity talk about practicing the 12 steps "...in all of our affairs", while new people talk about being stuck on this step or that step. Rarely does anyone ever talk about wanting a drink. They talk about wanting to live life on life's terms. And, because we have this disease the only cure appears to be working and reworking the 12 steps. That is a tall order for someone as lazy as me. It would be so much fuking easier if the alcholic part of my brain could just be surgicly removed. "There you are Mr. Alsdorf. You're all better now. By the way... We bought you a new pair of cowboy boots, your physical theripst will be teaching you a new cowboy 12 step dance".