Gosnold - A Rockin' Treatment Center?

And John Z gets the gig.

Something strange happened today. Someone gave me a Fender Stratocaster that they found abandoned in a parking lot here on the Peninsula of Doom. It’s a black Fender with a white pick guard, has three single coil pickups, is duct taped over the volume knob and needs a major cleanup - but it seems definitely reparable to me. I plugged it into a 30 watt Peavey and played it. Not horrible tone.

But here’s the kicker it has got two patient ID stickers that read “Gosnold Treatment Center” on it. I shit you not. I have no idea what this means or if it means anything. I hate “looking for signs” and reading mystical stuff into everything and all that spooky stuff but there is definitely something odd about how this happened. All I can say is WTF?

I find it odd and strange that I just bought my son a new Les Paul -- that I am in the market for a new axe myself and here comes this piece our of nowhere and for free - an instrument that has obviously seen some heavy duty action and probably has a more elaborate drug history and seen the inside of more crack houses than a NYPD Bronx rookie assigned to the Four-Two in the Bronx PLUS I John Z just happens to be in the very same facility detuning ---- oh sorry, I mean detoxing in Gosnold, right now.

Once more - WTF?

But now the main story - John is staying for a month. I can't say that I thrilled with that prospect. John is not suffering from an illness that only a 28 day stay in a treatment center can conquer. What John has is an illness that only a spiritual awakening can conquer and unless he gets that, but soon, I'm afraid when he comes out of "treatment" he won't fell bad enough to go to that drastic length. I've seen it a hundred times. DAMN! And I like John too!

Here is the email I that I have just received from Mary:

"Hey Danny, John is at Gosnold till tom. he left me a message he was going to Catumet for 30 days his counselor got him in.He got away with yet another Christmas (no gifts) only kidding "


I can only pretend to be thrilled with this idea.

Tomorrow: Why I wish John would not stay for thirty days.

Peace,
Danny S - RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic
http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com/

Detoxing John Z

John does not appear to be nearly as deflated as I was when I hit bottom. Not as lowdown in spirit and ‘done’ as others I have witnessed in this avocation. Even in his alcoholically stimulated state he is way too smarmy - much too self-assured and still well ensconced on the imaginary throne of “King Genius” where he reigns over all he perceives - to be experiencing the kind of abject soul sickness and desperation that is the alcoholic bottom. He tries to appeal to my ego by telling me how wonderful I am and how I am his only friend and all that bull-crap designed to get me wrapped around his little finger.

I am not to thrilled about this. In reality - - I wish he were in worse condition than he is.

Then he might hurt enough to have some of that self-centered - ego-protecting armor damaged enough to allow some humility to seep in. Right now I see none at all. Not a speck.

I am convinced that he is a real alcoholic though and that moment of inner pain and severe loss of all hope can come at any moment - when least expected - so I dare not assume. I will put in the time for this man. For now anyway.

Gosnold. It’s a name. Bartholomew Gosnold was a Brittish explorer who in the early 1600s gave Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the Elizabeth Islands their names. These days on the Peninsula of Doom also known as Cape Cod, Gosnold is a word that flips from the tongue and off the lips of nearly every resident like a fleck of chewed, yet un-swallowed meat sucked out from between two teeth.

It’s an institution and everyone has heard of it. Like “Belleview” in New York - just say the name Gosnold on the POD and absolutely no one thinks you are talking about the town off the coast off the Vineyard in the Elizabeth Islands - or the street that runs along the coast in Hyannis. Or about ol’ dead Bart for that matter. They know you are talking about “REHAB”.

They tried to make me go to Gosnold, I said, “No, No, No, No.”

Yeah, they wish.

John suggests that he go to Gosnold. I really can’t disagree. Not for their wonderfully effective treatment or their highly successful recovery model. They have neither. Not for the true alcoholic they don’t. I wound like to get him in there where he can be safely detoxed and given the appropriate benzos like Ativan or Librium. If they won’t take him then it will have to be my basement where we can do the Wolfman thing. Lock him in till the full moon is over, monitor his vitals just in case we need to rush him into Cape Cod Hospital - and in a few days, after the EtOH is out of him we can then get down to business. If you understand the physical craving - the allergy - portion of alcoholism then this makes perfect sense. If you don’t, I hop you rent too appalled. A little will be OK though, but trust me we who have been blessed to do this stuff on a regular basis have been through this all before - some of us hundreds of times.

The fine folks at Gosnold tell John that they will not have a bed for him until Monday and that he needs to call back in the morning at 10 AM to confirm his ‘reservation’. That’s OK by me. What will happen is that we can get him on speaking with someone who will actually do his “intake” over the phone. Then he just need arrive alive Monday morning and he can begin with the folks there. Nancy, my non-alcoholic wife is off from work on Monday and has already volunteered to play chauffeur for John - as I will not be around on Monday morning.

I tell John I’ll see him in the morning and me and Kristen leave. We decide that we could use a little unwinding after all this and so we head to for The Mall. I’ve been wanting a new earring anyway and Kristen can talk me into something for herself I am sure.

Scarey Monsters at the Door

The lights were out. The room was dark. I could hear music through the door coming from inside John‘s ‘apartment‘. U2 I believe. Certainly Bono, “Uno. Dose. Tres. Catorce . . . ”.

"Do you hear that" I said in my Irish whisper to my nine year old daughter, Kristen. She shakes her head back and forth.

"Shhh. Listen . . . . He's in there. I can hear music playing".

This was not her first encounter with locked doors today. The reason she was even with me on this call stemmed from a harrowing experience less than half and hour before. Harrowing at least from her perspective. I had tried leaving her home but just three minutes from the house on the way to John's my cell phone rang. It was Kristen.

“Daddy some one is knocking on the door” she said.

“So? ” Something was wrong. Her voice was too quivery for everything to be OK. This was the first time that she had ever been home alone for a real live ‘door knocking’

“I told you . . don’t answer it. Who is it?”

“I don’t know. I ran upstairs and I am hiding in your bedroom.” locked in. In our bed. under the covers with her new Nokia I got her last month. “I’m scared” was all she could say, too upset to answer my question and she went quickly from quiver to a full out cry. That's all a daddy ever needs to hear to shake the world from the ground up. I think I left about twenty dollars worth of Michelin Man on Route 28 making a very Bronxy U-turn and headed back home.

She has never seen me drunk. I stopped drinking and was fully recovered three years before she was born. But she has seen a few others as shitfaced as shitfaced can be.

Now she is with daddy and instead of an imaginary monster on the outside of the door trying to get in to her - there is a real alien creature inside - a hideous monster - cunning, baffling and powerful, waiting for us - and we are trying to get in at it.

Almost immediately John opens the the door. He lets us in right away. John likes me, so there really isn’t much resistance to me ever. That is always a good thing. He is in his PJs and for a second they look like Dr. Dentons, then I realize its just because of the matching colors’ of hi s top and bottom.

He is drunk of course. Not slobbering, falling down drunk piss and crap the pants blitzed like a college frat amateur but in an EtOH diluted state of what I call "physically level drunk” the kind of drunk that functional alcoholics learn to reach so they can continue to work at their job and buy food - maybe even pickup the kids from school and drive them to soccer practice.

Meanwhile the mental arrogance, know-it-all-istic twisted thinking and manipulative freak can operate not like a real human being but more like a greasy over lubricated metal clockwork removed from its casing - cranking away at itself, busy and purposeful to look at but still not really getting anywhere because it isn’t hooked up to anything - like an aberration of human nature. Like an alcoholic.

All real alcoholics are freaks.

“Thanks for coming over” he says

“Well thanks for having me.” I say.

“You know, Danny, I wish I wasn’t in this position again like this. I really thought that I was going to be able to do this on my own.”

“John, we spoke about the obsession and the craving. You and your brainiac mind told me that you understood it.”

“I do. I do understand it.” he said.

"If you did you - if you truly did and if you thought that it applied to you then you would not have said what you just have". I told him and it was true.

How could someone truly admit powerlessness and still think that they could stay sober without divine help?

Either my prior work with John did not include the successful taking of Step One and I had failed him or Johns failure to complete his housecleaning - his inventories - simply shot his alcoholic ass straight back to Step Zero.

He made a decision. He said he would turn his life and his will over to God and began setting pen to paper to make a beginning.The problem was that he wasn't very "strenuous" about it. He tried to pawn off on me an old inventory he had written some time in the past for another sponsor. Where was his effort then? There was none. Then he simply ran out of steam altogether. That decision, as vital as it was, was not worth Jack's crap and had hardy any lasting effect.

“John so far you have had all these fucking “epiphanies” and all you have done so far is misuse the information and the process. I don’t think you have had any revelations at all - not in a spiritual sense anyway. You know John, we aren’t suffering from an illness that only an intellectual awakening can conquer . . . . . We are suffering from an illness that only a spiritual awakening can conquer. You keep getting smarted and smarter - - and sicker and sicker.”

The look on John’s face is two parts grin and one part wince. My words are a rather a clever way of putting it and John knows it. He admires my way with words - I’m a writer ferchrysakes - but if the meaning of my words are wasted on him then that means that they are not worth shit.

Hey let's all remember those clever things that guy said from the podium. You know those things that he pulled up and out of his solar plexus - from his heart - from his experience bank? Then we can repeat them and sound cleaver and pithy in meetings. It’ll sound like we too have had those experiences even though we haven’t. Just like quoting the Big Book without having any experience with the Twelve Steps - except new material - good for laughs, uh huhs and “Hey that’s a good one”s. “I’ll have to remembers that one.” Yeah. That’s the ticket!

John Z CALLS!!!

All right! BOILED AS AN OWL he is -- but at least he has called.

This is exciting news. So it looks as though John Z might be climbing back into the picture. This morning he is anyway. Well, maybe climbing is not exactly the right word to describe it. Staggering I think might be a better one to use. Yeah. I think staggering more apropos in this case.

Apparently John is shitfaced. Nothing new there. By now, the time I have spent getting to know John while he is ossified-to-the-gills has surely bypassed any measure of time spent with him when he has been lucid. That is pretty typical though prior to recovery.

I received a phone call from him last night and I had fallen asleep. I heard the dam phone ring form my "writing room" across the hall but was too tired, lazy or entranced into the comfort of my slumbers to get up and get it. That's what I get for not taking my phone with me wherever I go. But he didn't answer when I returned the call about an hour later. He is not picking up hi sphone this morning either.

A few minutes ago I sat down hoping to get some writing done and checked my email first. Mary, Johns' significant other of twelve or so years, who if you'll remember had left him and headed for the mainland, off of the Peninsula of Doom for higher and safer ground - sent me this email this morning. I just read it minutes ago.

"John and I talked yesterday he sounds desperate told him call you or ER he missed his doctors appt. I am going to Cape but not willing to see him in this state kills me but I am trying to take everyones advice. I just hope he doesn't die."

Me too Mary.

That does not mean he won't though. God, I really hate when this shit happens. I have not had anyone leave the planet in a body-bag for a couple of years, now. AT least not that I have found out about. So many men I never hear from or about again I think it would be wishful thinking to assume that all of them are still alive. Over this past year alone, I have personally known an been close enough to to enough now deceased members, but I have not sponsored any of them. I really would not relish spending this Christmas season in mourning over John Z. That would suck eggs, big time.

I guess I'll have to go over and see what's up. If he i s there I'll check his vitals and if I am unhappy with what I find I may have to call a nurse in for more professional evaluation. If he needs hospitalization she'll be in better position than I to know. Hey we're not doctors right? Or nurse. That's why I keep one handy. Not all Twelve Steppers are as fortunate though - I just happen to have lined up a "former junkie" Registered Nurse whom I keep handy for these matter.

She also happens to be my little sister. There are are lots lots of 'medics in "the rooms" - both AA and NA - you know. It must be something about that liquid morphine that hospitals keep stashed away on those lock down cabinets that just seem to 'call' out to some folks. These AA members can be extremely useful for Twelve Stepping activities and I think it is a good idea to make use of them. Shit, even though a prospect or a protegee drinks - you might get to save the life of a doctor or a nurse by getting them involved. You never know.

Got my little Twelve Step 'kit' ready and off I go to John Z's house. It is 2:51 PM and his place is only in the next town over - Hyannis.

This ought to be interesting. Or boring. You never know. But it sure as shit is necessary- maybe for John and although I feel fine today, I believe it will be necessary for me in the long run of my sober life living as a recovered alkie - a moniker I truly hope Johnnie Z will share with me one day soon. Wouldn't THAT be a gas? Me and John Z - going out together to help other alcoholics recover from alcoholism . . . . . . . . MAN!

Peace,

Danny S

Turtle Bones Escape The Crack Whores . . .

. . . . But May Have Stalled On the Tracks
I have not heard from Turtles Bones, 'Barry F" if you have been following along - in a while. Too long - not since he left The Peninsula of Doom really. That concerns me.

He survived the tweakers and the crack whores at the Craigville Motel in Hyannis.

That in itself is is a miracle - especially the naked one who, several times during the week long course of his visit here, came to his door at three in the morning to "borrow a cigarette" or whatever else she might manage to put into her mouth - which of course would have made our Twelve Stepping friend indebted - perhaps to purchase a rock or two to smoke. Barry is not a drug addict though so we had that fact in out favor.

Barry is an alcoholic not an addict. While a drug is a drug is a drug - alcohol is not!

God those chicks were scary. Not scary in the sense that they could run out of their rooms to jab an icepick into my forehead or anything - but scary in a more visceral and blood thirsty sense. They slinked and peeked through the curtains every time I walked by. Sometime I would hear the squeak of a door opening a crack behind me and feel eyes upon me - but when I turned back to look a slam of the shut door went off just before my eyes could catch whoever or whatever had been there the second before.

I could tell they were female. Just by the silhouette of their heads. they peered out in pairs; milling back and forth in the shadows of their darkened room. Then for a second they would be gone - only to appear again as one side of curtain brushed aside.

Why would this place be allowed to sink to such a state. This is Cape Cod! All summer long this "Craigville Motel" is filled with families and kids who come to vacation here on the Peninsula of Doom. There is a decent pool in the center of the court. OK so the rooms aren't exactly furnished like the Plaza - well not even like a Marriott -OK not even like a Holiday Inn - but still - they don't have to become portals to hell do they?

I suppose they do. The local police must be aware of it. The owners of the motel I am sure are. Yeah, but money talks, right?

Now you have to know Barry and me and most self-absorbed, self-centered and deranged alcoholics. For us to be walking amongst drug crazed and naked twenty something year old naked girls who are dying to have you check into their bedrooms and are practically begging for it whole we do nothing more than shrug of a few goosebumps and laugh about it - is nothing less than a miracle. It is amazing how that works when motives are where they should be, isn't it.

Despite the environs, Turtle Bones made his getaway unscathed - un-tempted and unharmed.That means that he is right about to begin making his amends and he is stalling out -- right on the tracks.

He headed back upstate - we have done all of our one-on-one work - inventories - first step, ect, and we can continue now through a combination of periodic visits, email phone ect.

Well, right in the middle of Step Eight, ol TB turns up in North Carolina - halfway to Florida. Just upped and gone!

So. OK. Lets see now.. . . . 'Unfinished Amends' . . . . . . . total dispensing of accountability . . . now now. . . where might his be going . . .. I wonder. Hmmmmm.

This happens a remarkable number of times - just when the prospect is feeling some freedom he bolts. I really hope that TB isn’t going to be another one. Thing about it is --- I do expect him to be. That sucks.

Turtlebone's story will not likely turn out well.

Peace,

Danny S

Who Wants To Talk To A Drunk?

Finally, John Z, has lost his long-time female companion. She and I have communicate much during the time I attempted work with John but After twelve years she has given up on him. Good for her. But still it is sad. This is a note I received from her today along with my response to her.

Danny,

Hope you are well. Brookline sure is different, a little culture shock. John is a mess. I am sure you know that.

I try to talk to him every night but I am losing my patience quick. Who wants to talk to a drunk?

he did take a trip up to see me and his grand daughter thought it would have an impact but wrong!!

If you or your family ever need a place to stay in Boston, please call. Take care

Mary

********************************************************************

Mary,

Thanks for staying in touch. Who wants to talk to a drunk? Well, believe it or not, I do! But that's my thing and you sure shouldn't have to. I left him a message last week telling him that he was fired. Had to do it. Fact is that he is not willing to do anything to solve hi s drink problem - and I have several men in the wings who need my time. What I am offering him is quite drastic and difficult to do and where the rubber hits the road . . . .on the Twelve Steps - John would still rather drink than go through the severe Program that will spiritually free him to stop and remove the insane desire from him - and that's all there is to it. He doesn't want the consequences but the consequences haven't gotten bad enough for him to want to stop. If they ever outweigh the benefits maybe he'll want to stop. He wont be able to of course - but that's what our Program is all about - helping people stop who can't. Prerequisite is that he has to want to - and he's no there. May never get there.

He knows how to find me. And I will check in on him periodically too. We DO PROMOTE our services it isn't all about attraction only - so I will be proactive in at least letting him know I am available.

I had a guy (Turtlebones) check into the Craigville motel last Thurs. He came down from somewhere upstate MA. He' gone through all the Steps this last week and is leaving to go back upstate a FREE MAN!!! He was here last night as we were going over the last Step - Step Twelve and Nancy saw him - she didn't recognized him. He's a new man - Its staggering. He's done everything that John is NOT WILLING to do. His story could be Johns story. But Barry wants to stop drinking and John does not. John wants to blink with immunity and that is an insane idea. Don't blame John entirely. I have delved deep into him and I am of the opinion that he is very, very sick man - even sicker than you may be aware. One of the worst I have ever encountered and that's saying a lot, trust me. He is so far beyond human aid that I am convinced he will likely die from alcoholism unless he forgoes all human help - rehabs, hospitals, counselors et al - and seeks the spiritual solution.

I am always here. For you, John, the family etc. Please remember that and let his mom know too. Write or call anytime.

Peace,

Danny S

http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com

Later . . . for John Z

and Hello Turtlebones!

Well .. . . . well . . . and oh well! John Z had been a very promising prospect but he has not returning my calls for several days now. He did drink. I had taken him to Gosnold, a local windup joint, for their very decent detox facility and instructed John to call me the night before his release and to stay at least 72 four days. He didn't call. Instead he left against medical advice and took a bus home. Said he didn't want to "inconvenience" me by sticking with 'the plan' and calling me. Complete bullshit of course. Immediately upon his arrival home he hit a bottle of vodka the way a lost man out a desert hits a tin ladle of well water after he is rescued. The bus home was not a simple ride home. It was his rescue from the desert.

I say him yesterday morning walking along the highway to his job a mile away and tried to call him but he never picked up.

No matter. I will be bringing this Reality Blog up to0 date and it will include what actually led ep to Johns dropping out of recovery. Stay tuned over the next week or so. For now, no matter . . .

. . . . .. I received a call three days ago from Barry F. -- AKA "Turtlebones". I met Turtlbones - the name I will explain later on - at a windup joint run by a service called Highpoint. They run the TSS facility in New Bedford, MA , home of Moby Dick and Bill W's first drunk - tasty little number called the Bronx Cocktail - if you can believe it. What is a Bronx cocktail you ask? its a simple little concoction that is nothing more than a perfect martini with added orange juice. In the summer of 1917 2nd Lieutenant Bill Wilson is twenty two years old in the coast artillery unit located at Fort Rodman, Massachusetts.

Today it is a the Fort Rodman Military Reservation and marine campus of the University of Massachusetts. I had the honer of doing an AA History talk there at the UMASS campus several years ago. At the time I had not realized that this was where Bill was stationed - I mean I knew he was stationed there but I was not told that "there" was were we were when I was booked to talk - when I was here - if you get my drift.

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