Another 4th of July Passes and there is Booze Everywhere!

So what! There are gasoline stations everywhere and I am not going to go light myself on fire. There is a Dunkin Donuts, a liquor store, or convenience store around every corner but that does not mean I have to buy a bottle of Jack, a Doughnut, and some cigarettes everyday.


Why is it that I have to sit and read the twitter feeds and read the blogs of alcoholics who are constantly overwhelmed by the presence of alcohol in their lives. Then a holiday comes around and these same people take the social media like ants to a picnic or more like dogs to their crate during alighting storm.


It's because people love labels and AA and 12 step programs as well as rehab centers and doctors love labels. Labels free these people and organizations of the responsibility they have to being human and understanding the true nature of what exactly happens when you label yourself. 


This fourth of July I ran 7.5 miles and continued my journey on as I prepare for a long distance obstacle course race. 8 years of sobriety without one single slip or mishap. I actually went straight from detox to the bars with my friends and hung out all night. Then I quickly got rid of those friends. The next days that followed I went to all the liquor stores that served me when i was shaking and had just puked on myself. I asked each person there why they served me when they knew I was slowly killing myself? The answers I got were varied and the whole process was very amusing and telling. I'm going to tell you that those people that I once considered friends were diseased and part of the group psychosis that affects everyone in this country. It's unsaid understanding that everyone should drink. If you are not drinking something must be wrong with you or you are just an alcoholic. I will also tell you that the people and bartenders that serve people booze until they cant see straight or walk out and get intheir car are also diseased. They feed into the same group psychosis and unsaid understanding that everyone drinks and that if they were not serving people their competitors would.


So then there is you and I. We are told from the time we we first go to AA from a court order or as a rehab mandate that we are diseased. However in this instance it is not an unsaid concept. It is is actually encouraged that we call ourselves diseased and spend as much time as possible with other people that are diseased. Then on top of that we admit that we are powerless to control that disease. Then we keep the company of all these defeatists who have created their own disease with the help of the American Medical Association and the Pharma companies so that we can avoid the pitfalls of the disease. We form our own local secret club to replace the friends we had and to fill the void in our life of the need for belonging and the need for both empathy and sympathy. It's the secret club that everyone knows about but that you just don't tell people about at your job or among people you don't consider very close friends. You know what I have a surprise for you. even your very close friends think less of you because you have a disease.


Well I don't know about you but the last place I wanted to be on the 4th of July this year was in a room full of people quivering at the thought of alcohol and telling stories. So * years ago I got up and walked out of an AA meeting because I decided that the people I was surrounded by were doomed to a life of living with a label that did not need to be there. I will go ahead and say that is you are in AA and if you believe in everything they tell you, you are cutting yourself off at the knees. My grandfather dies of cancer. He had a disease. I started drinking one day and it almost killed me 15 years later. It's called bad habit that takes over your bodies systems and can kill you. 


However, you started it and you can control it and end it. This fourth of July I ran 7.5 miles. I am in the best shape of my life and some would say I am middle aged. I ran a six minute mile the other day in 90 degree heat. I was told I had diabetes at 185 pounds and so i lost 50 pounds and took myself off insulin against medical advice. That was a year ago. I don't have a disease called alcoholism because there is no such thing. The habit starts, you feed it, you can get medically detoxed, and you can never drink again. If you do that, no doctor in the world will examine you off the street and tell you that you have "alcoholism"


Another fourth of July and there was alcohol all around me as I went to three different business and social gatherings over the past few days. I watched people act ridiculous, I saw people grossly overweight, I saw people who definitely had a problem, I saw people who drank socially, I even saw people who were just drinking a cold bottle of water. Imagine that! They must have been an alcoholic. The best part is that the phenomenon continues to show itself and no matter how many times someone sees me I have the opportunity to have a pleasant exchange with someone who really needs for me to have a drink in my hand. Sometimes it's just someone being social, other times it's a drunk asshole who feels guilty about the fact that he is drunk.

My favorite exchange was with a drunk asshole last year while I was watching the fireworks with my son at a public fireworks display. This guy had the balls to ask me if I wanted a beer three times before saying," what the fuck is the matter with you man, are you some kind of alcoholic or something? My honest response was this;" i don't really know what that means but if I had to guess I would say that an alcoholic would more likely be the guy who is pushing drinks on strangers, wasted at a public fireworks display in front of his family and is probably 50 to 60 pounds overweight and carrying all of it in his gut from all the carbohydrates in beer." The guy guy looked at me very puzzled and said that I was an asshole and that he would kick my ass if I was not in front of my little boy.  I explained to this guy that i really had no idea what an alcoholic was because I don't know any and that i was not drinking alcohol because I don't like it and it does nothing for me. He said, ohh okay well I thought you were some AA nut or something."  That's an alcoholic and if he doesn't stop what he is doing he will die.

I'm not an alcoholic. I'm a three sport athlete with almost no body fat on my body. I'm a Director level executive at a company and father and a husband. However those are all labels. I guess the most important thing I learned over the past 8 years is that I don't want to be around alcoholics. They are either in the training phase, the dependence phase, or the defeatist diseased phase and none of those type of people appeal to me. I guess the only label I would have for myself is that of a rational thinking human being that had a problem with alcohol and decided to put an end to it. Was it easy? no? Am I diseased? You tell me? Could I drink again? I could but why? I'm so much better off without it.

Can I help you? Yes! You just have to believe that you are not diseased and that you should not feel any different on the 4th of July or new years or any day just because there is alcohol around. Truth is I think mostly everyone else is diseased and I am right where I need to be on the evolutionary ladder. another 4th of July, another analysis of my sobriety and truth.

The Method Behind The Madness

Hello to everyone and anyone that reads this. It's important that you understand the history behind why my crusade for self improvement started. It's important that you understand that the aggressive nature of this blog and it's anti #AA $12 step #rehab and #god message is the way it is.

I have tried all of those things and taken enough depression meds to kill a larger horse. I was triple diagnosed with all types of things but the reality is that I am just fine and I take nothing ow except aspirin for a headache. As much as I hate the idea of making this blog anything like an AA meeting, I will recap. I had a physical addiction to alcohol and huge problem with cocaine, marijuana, and acid. Mostly I drank myself down to 118 pounds at 5 foot 6 and had multiples seizures, developed chronic pancreatitus and later in life my pancreas gave up and I have diabetes now.

I arrived at a rehab full of people that were spending some of their time in rehab before going to prison for a long time. Murderers, rapists, bank robbers, gang members, and 85% of the population had full blown AIDS. I entered the facility and could not walk, had trouble speaking and had no idea where I was. I had not eaten in days. I was brought there by a friend who literally carried me out of a hospital in the Northeast and flew me out to the middle of nowhere in the midwest. I was medically detoxed and then subjected to what I considered to be madness.

Madness to me was the stranglehold that the facility put on people's minds during counseling sessions that boldly told me that I had a disease that would never go away and that my chances of staying sober were slim to none? What? I was told I need to "surrender" to god and surround myself by people who were trying to stay in recovery for the rest of their lives in order to have a support system around me. I was told that I was powerless against alcohol and drugs and that I needed to surrender to my higher power in order to make sure I knew that the disease was more powerful than I.

"Record scratching noise" One day I stood up and told my counselor that I was not going to listen to this "shit " anymore and than I was excluding myself from group sessions and meetings, and anything else that involved any of the above mentioned topics. The facility had a gym that literally was open 30 minutes a day for people to have supervised workouts. I Lobbyed to have the gym open for more time and eventually it made sense to the rehab facility to have it open for a few hours a day at different times and the program was restructured to allow people to have a choice. There also was nothing to read except self help books authorized by the facility. I lobbyed to get books of all types brought to the facility but that did not happen. people had to have books sent tot hem and screened for approval. Eventually I was reading a history book, philosophy, or psychology book every two weeks. finally after interacting with the people I was surrounded by, I was asked to stay there and become a counselor but that i would need to be trained on their methodology and incorporate some of the things that I had introduced. That was not going to be the case. I had seen the way things could be done and then I decided that someday I would do things the way they should be done.

Today I am a father, husband, brother, son, grandson, corporate executive, 3 sport athlete, still five foot 6 but standing at a mean lean 155 pounds. I lost 20 pounds to enter an obstacle race. I was a bulky 175 pounds of shocking muscle. I have read more than 50 books on many topics since my rehab days and continue to read every week. I train 5 days a week. I have diabetes but I got my body to the point where I am no longer insulin dependent due to diet and exercise. I have chronic pancreatitus but control that with diet and exercise. The on thing I do not have is alcoholism. I had a problem with alcohol and drugs but I conquered it through the systematic transformation of my mind, body, and spirit using exercise, my mind, and the only higher power I ever needed. That higher power stares back at me everyday in the mirror.

I am currently in pursuit of a grant so someday I can quit my silly day job and open a center that will allow people to have the opportunity to strip away all the conventional notions of AA, 12 step, god, drugs and all that other unnecessary dependency replacement activity. I want to create an environment and a refine the process I went through by surrounding myself with brilliant people who can help me bring this project through to fruition. I have a concrete plan and a sound methodology for people who just want to be free of all the constraints of the current way of doing thins.

My blog is angry, my blog is forceful, my blog is opinionated and I will not apologize for that. I've watched people die, I've carried bodies to the er, I've seen people OD, I've listened to people tell me how hard they tried to "work the program" or surrender to god and they only find themselves with a hand full of coins or on the phone with another addict at 3am begging for help. My program will never have anyone on their knees or collecting coins. My program will create lasting sobriety for someone who has the ability to strip away all their understanding of addiction and alcoholism as a disease, remove all their barriers to success, eliminate crutches, and simply live within themselves until they find that they are capable of being able to bring others into their world to share in their success.

So for as many times as I angrily bash #AA, #12step, #god,#rehab centers,# medical doctors, 3pharmaceuticals, I also want to make it very clear that if you are sober and you use any of these methods, than I applaud your ability to stay alive because the odds are against you. If my comments anger you or offend you, then my approach is not for you. I understand that and respect that but in the end keep it in mind that I want to help people.

If I get my wish and my program takes off then people will need to be interviewed and qualify for entry into my program. The greatest gift I could ever give them is the gift I have given to a few select individuals who I have taught my system to. I have given them the ability to understand that not only are they not diseased and do not need anyone or anything to keep them sober except themselves, but the reality of their existence and their story is inspiring others to try and learn how to work this method themselves.

How does this program work? That information is coming soon. If you read my other blog posts you may get a sense of madness, anger, determination, and disgust for the current way people do things. It's only because i know there is a better way and I have tried every other way.

There is a method to my madness.