Death By Misadventure

That was how I wanted to go. Having imbibed too much. Sounded nice – and neat and clean. No blood splatters or wrecked cars. Just alcohol poisoning. Would be like dying in my sleep, wouldn’t it? And sleeping people are pretty and peaceful looking. No harm done, right?

I didn’t think that choking on my own vomit and getting kicked into a life-and-death struggle to breathe for the last few minutes of my life wasn’t a thought that entered my mind — that acrid taste, that suffocating smell, and not having the physical ability to get up. I didn’t think about the horrible discomfort of hypothermia, my body temperature plummeting and being unable to get warm. Seizures would be possible, too.

I’ll stop and take your question now. “If one experiences death by misadventure on purpose , then that is suicide, isn’t it?”

Ohhhhhhhh, you raise a very good point. You do. But that was the beauty of it. I didn’t want to plan this. I wanted to experience it. I wanted it to be a surprise even to me. Ohhhhh, you got me. I guess this is what they call “passive suicidal ideation” in the psych world, right?

Of course how this would impact my family was beyond me. This was in part because I was so fucking selfish and partly because my self-esteem was at a crisis level. Death by overdose or alcohol poisoning or accident following a “celebration” is just so selfish; it’s the ultimate in having the last word on your bad behaviors.

But I think about what Layne Staley (former lead singer of Alice In Chains) said of his then late-stage addiction: “This f—ing drug use is like the insulin a diabetic needs to survive,” he said. “I’m not using drugs to get high like many people think. I know I made a big mistake when I started using this sh–. It’s a very difficult thing to explain. My liver is not functioning and I’m throwing up all the time and sh—ing my pants. The pain is more than you can handle. It’s the worst pain in the world. Dope sick hurts the entire body.”

Yes, he did Heroin. Do you remember him like this?:

Because remember he was once someone’s:

I identify with his quote, though. At first I drank to feel good. In the end I drank to NOT feel bad. That was the best I could shoot for. I couldn’t get drunk anymore. I just had to feel as close to normal as possible. Stop the shakes. Stop the high-voltage nervous system from doing its thing to my body and to my thoughts. Stop my heart from rambling on its bumpy-road-expressway. Dry up ……… dry up the sweats.

At that point I detested it. It was my master. It no longer served me; I served it , and I couldn’t stop. The consequences of not drinking were far worse and more immediate than the consequences of drinking.

Death by Misadventure. Sounded so appealing. Sounded so Hollywood. Sounded so Front Page. Sounded like the final , exciting crescendo before the final silence. And yet it sounded so peaceful. No more shakes. Just serenity.

Thank God my misadventures didn’t take me out. I remember everything seeming so hopeless and dark. I wanted the things other people had: families, houses, cars, jobs, etc. I had no idea how blissful it would feel to not only have those things but to know what to do with them. In early recovery I was like a dog chasing a car. If I caught one, I wouldn’t know what to do with it.

Poor Layne. He had fortune and fame. I don’t know about the family. I’m sure his relationships with everyone were pitiful and hurtful. He must have hurt people and known it. There must have been shame and all of the normal things we experience when we realize what we are doing to people. In his last interview, he asked the interviewer not to tell his sister Liz. He knew what it was doing to people.

How nice it would have been if he could have had the relationships worked out. We have that chance. We’re alive here today. We have that chance.

Taking Responsibility ……

So I’ll bet you read the title and thought this would be a Ninth Step kind of post. Or maybe I did my searching and fearless inventory and am taking responsibility for some newly discovered dark thing about me.

No. No. Alas, no.

What I write about is this kind of responsibility one should not take. Taking responsibility for someone else’s shit.

Yes, I’m an alcoholic and addict. But don’t we all have someone in our lives who, too, is an alcoholic or addict? And don’t they do to us what we did to others?

What I’m getting at is when a loved one relapses. I go to that “I should have seen it coming” place. I scrutinize the events and interactions leading up to the other person’s relapse. I put the days after they started using under the microscope. Many “aha” moments are enlarged there. The sleepy, glossy eyes. The fingers in the mouth — this person ALWAYS puts their fingers in the mouth when they’re using. Like a baby who rebels against sleep just as much as he or she wants it.

Somehow the whole feeling “duped” thing is something I’m taking responsibility for. Why am I responsible for being duped? Why isn’t it HIS responsibility for lying? That’s right. It is his responsibility.

And I can’t make him take responsibility for that. I can’t make him stop using. I can’t make him admit to using — been there, done that.

I put myself under that microscope as well. I squint and enlarge and probe. Was I in denial? Or was I giving a heaping, happy, healthy , loving dose of “benefit of the doubt?” Here I am going back to that place…….. I should have seen it coming. Or maybe I did see it coming but didn’t.

So I’ve been doing all of these things. But I’m going to stop. Just for today. Just for today I’m going to sit and be with me and accept that things are the way they are and that I’m powerless. Of course, I’ll have to see what happens when a counter-intuitive train of thought comes clacking and rattling into the station at top speed. I often get into a positive, powerful “just for today frame of mind” and unwittingly hop on these trains when they arrive. I have the power to watch them thunder past me, papers and dust flying in their wakes. I don’t always execute that power.

Good night.