Paper Thin

I don’t know exactly where or when it happened. Don’t really care? Of course, I do. AA meetings have always had a Stepford feel to me. Something beaten down into our souls. So far in grained that the recourse, production and aesthics of it all are similar to a faded water-color painting.

You don’t need drugs to show you heaven, baby
’cause there’s plenty clean in hell

How does one get over the hump? How do you focus on something that is the same something as the something before.

For instance, today, I went to my home group. Like the good recovering alcoholic/addict I am. I listened not intently to Jim babble about the existentialism in his recovery. Jeanie complained about her constant struggle with a higher power, even after 35 years. Suzie reread from the Came to Believe book. Re-emphasizing the same verbage we just heard. And, finally, Roy coughed, spat, picked at his nose and pulled out a nasty example of a snot rag to dispose of item once lodged in his over the top broken blood vessel nose.

Focus Ruth! That’s what I kept telling myself. Keep your eye on the ball! Don’t let up or it will all go down!

So, an hour after saying my usual assault of verbal AA redundant diarrhea and listening to others with the same affliction; I felt better. I felt good.

Dare I say what has been said before me? Keep coming back, fake it ’til you make it!

These are Ambien dosed alcoholics that are laced with an Oxy dependency.  They have found volunteer work with the government.  There  are the spoiled middle aged men that drive horribly reproduced sport cars on inheritance bestowed upon them by Mommy and Daddy.  There is of course, the twenty-something’s trying against all odds to free them selves from the trailer and it’s trash.  Usually these kids look like deer stuck in headlights.

My heart goes out to anyone who has battled a bias of some sort from the day of their conception forward.  The inspiration in that there is no reliance on anyone but themselves…lifts me up.  I have been there.  Hiding from the emotional abuse.  Wanting so badly for a beating instead of the constant threat of one.  Drinking myself into another dimension and passing out and coming to.

I drank on a regular basis; a half a gallon of Vodka (cheaper the better), a twelve pack of beer (cheaper the better) and would find that I had gone past the point of drunk and remained stone cold sober.  A life time of blackouts and gray outs and pissing my life away with bad choices.

In these little church basements, Veteran’s Halls, Rec Rooms and seedy old abandoned by life state offices…there is and are, pamphlets, books, coins and hoards of militant looking eclectic persons.  By day and by night and everyday of the week…a hand is out.  I received at hand in an old gymnasium on the State Hospital grounds in New Hampshire.

Norma had been the women’s name.  She had more years of sobriety than I had living on this earth.  She smiled, shook my hand, offered me a burnt but wonderful cup of coffee and led me to a chair.

Since that day my drinking has never been the same.  Being clean tends to put a damper on the edgy chaotic life we all strive for when overly fed on booze and ego.

To be a regular and a fixture in the halls is a privilege to which many Ambien and Annie Grace’s will never see.  For the bottom has been covered over by a regular visit to dishonesty.  For the rest…the twenty-something’s clinging to a hope that lived inside them on the days when Dad didn’t come home or Mom was out using?  They are an testament to true strength and belief in there being plenty excuses to use but no reasons.

Sometimes I miss that feeling of falling
Falling on over the ledge
You know I miss that feeling of falling
Falling on over the ledge
And when my mind it gets to worryin’
And I just can’t get no rest
Oh Baby, that’s when I call you up instead

It’s after midnight baby, I’m sittin’ here all alone
I tried to call your number baby,
But you weren’t at home
I been a good girl baby, through with all that mess
But the way I’m feelin’ now, darlin’
Well it scares me half to death

Well I miss that feelin’, of fallin’
On over the ledge

That summer night in Texas, baby
Too hot and wet to sleep
I heard you pull up in the distance
You’re comin’ to get me relief
We went screamin’ down the highway, baby
So much faster than we should
You pulled me over in the moonlight
Man, I still can feel that hood

Well I miss that feeling of fallin’,
On over the ledge
When that rain starts baby, I want to take a real
Good look at that ledge

It ain’t something you get over
You might think you made it through
You can turn your head and walk away
But it never takes it’s eyes off you

It’ll push your foot right through the floorboard
Make you cut them streamers down his back
You waste what’s precious and you can’t afford
It runs your life right off the track

Keeps you boilin’ in that poison
Only the truly twisted know so well
You don’t need drugs to show you heaven, baby
’cause there’s plenty clean in hell

That miss that feelin’ of fallin’
Of fallin’ on over the ledge

When the blues start callin’ I want to crawl way up close to the ledge

miss that feeling of falling