Writing and(in) Recovery

06/03/2014
Caumsett

Hey there faithful brethren...  I know I only have two entries on this blog in over a month.  I feel like I should apologize for that.  Thing also is in the last week I have written a lot.  I just don't know if all of it is fit for being out here in this ether.
The first entry was inspired simply to start the thing in some loose sort of a direction.
The second was a fairly complete thought or idea that maybe carried on in that same direction I'm not even really sure.
Over the past week I made a commitment to myself to write a minimum of one thousand words every day.  So far I only missed one of those days.  Maybe not the most mind blowing accomplishment in the world but I am actually pretty proud of myself for that.  It's not been often in my life thus far that I've made a commitment to myself and stuck to it for any length of time.
The commitment came about as I was musing how I truly do believe that writing for me is (or at least can be) therapeutic in a number of ways.  In addition to that it is something that I have always (since around the age of five or so anyway) fantasized about possibly doing for a living.  Or if not for a living then at least enough that I could in good conscience call myself a writer.
For years and years this fantasy (for that's all I've ever allowed it to be) has played at the back of my mind.  Through all the dark, dirty, nasty, bogs of life I've dragged myself through as well as the brightest and sunshiniest moments along with everything in between...  Being a 'Writer' was always there lurking in the background.  If you look at most of my life and how I lived it and what spent most of my time doing you'll see very clearly that I was going to be the world's first writer that almost never wrote.  Absolutely never edited anything.  And above all showed almost no one the tiny bit of writing that I did manage to eke out unless it was three o'clock in the morning and there was a few gallons of booze and some cocaine involved.  And despite all this my words were someday going to change the world.
Fast forward to a week ago and there I was...  five months sober with this 'fantasy' still gnawing away in the back of my mind.  So I decided to move it a little farther forward in my mind and put in a little effort.  I know that if I'm not stopping every thirty seconds or so and there's any kind of flow going on a thousand words takes me about thirty to forty five minutes to commit to a blank screen.  If this writing thing is actually something I want to do in any seriousness whatsoever that half hour should not be something that I can't dedicate out of every twenty four hours.  So I did!
Now, as I did not envision this forum to be about me coming to terms with my inner writer it is something that for me is tied to my recovery from alcoholism.  I also see it as tied to my foray into alcoholism in the first place.
Let's start with how it ties into my recovery...
I've lived my whole life with this idea that I want to be can be and should be a 'Writer'.  I've also lived pretty much my whole life running away and hiding from anything and everything that I actually am and certainly from anything and everything that I can be.  The most profound and damaging way I enacted this escaping from myself was through active addiction.  (I know I tend to switch back and forth between the words alcoholism and addiction.  To me there is no difference between the two and frankly I think that if anyone wants to quibble their priorities need readjusting)
One of the reasons I still hold on to this idea of writing being in my productive future is the age and the state of innocence that I held when it first became a dream of mine.  Five, maybe six years old.  And it's stuck with me all this time through thick and thin.  Maybe I just want there to be something to that maybe there is something to that.  Doesn't really matter because if I stick with it there WILL be something to that.
Now one of the things that was always able to put me and keep me in a place of horrific self pity was the fact that I had this dream and never did anything about it.  Sure I dabbled here and there.  I joined a website for artists of all kinds and began to put some stuff out there.  I built a website and even started not one blog but at least two during my last dip in the pool of sobriety.  But once I leaped off the wagon again it all went bye bye along with the job I had, the girlfriend I had, the apartment I had, the self respect I had, the respect of those around me that I had, etc. and on and on.
Well kids, it seems to me that if I am to stay on the straight and narrow for a little longer than I have in the past I need to do some things differently than I have in the past.  Makes sense right?  I think so.  So do most people who stay sober for any significant length of time and are happy to do so.
Well...  Enter a commitment to no one but me.  A commitment to find out what might happen if I put effort into writing.  A commitment to give myself a chance in a way I never have before.  The obvious fact is I certainly have nothing to lose.  What would I be doing for the half hour that I spend writing those thousand words?  Watching TV?  Playing a video game?  Doing nothing but wondering what to do?  Most likely that last one but none of the other choices are more fulfilling in any way shape or form than the feeling I have when I complete another day.
So to sum this up because boys and girls we have reached our thousand word mark and as this is intended for the blog I don't feel it appropriate to ramble much further.  Just another little slice of 'ol Burton(your sometimes humble narrator)'s inner goings on.
Thank you for reading listening imagining.  Thank me for giving myself the chance to stretch my fingers.  Thank my evolutionary predecessors for developing the fingers in the first place, they come in quite handy...
...and so on...

Here I am...

Ok boys and girls and friends of all ages...  Here goes nothing...  My mind beside itself is going to see its first post...

I have been inspired by someone very near and dear to my heart to give this a shot and just see what happens.  Surely nothing bad could possibly come of it right?  I guess we shall see.

As is very common with me upon sitting myself in front of a blank screen with fingers poised upon keys awaiting instruction from my oft muddled mind to strike downward in such an order and a fashion as to form words upon said blank screen, I find my (now) muddled mind not initially wanting to cooperate and send the necessary electricity down my arms and through my patiently waiting fingers.

How does one start something like this?  I can assure you that this one has not the faintest of ideas so I will do this...  I will pretend that I am talking to someone (unlike my usual imaginary audience) who does not know a thing about me and I will introduce myself and we’ll see where we end up from there.  Sound good?  Good.  Let’s begin then...

I will begin by informing you that while Burton J Lomax may not be my given name that makes Burton J Lomax no less me than my “Christian” name.  In fact it may even make Burton J Lomax even more me than even I realize.  Perhaps simply based on this information alone you can see where the name of this blog might have originated.  So now you know that you don’t know my "real" name but if our relationship works out the way I hope it will you may get to know the “real” me and the name thing won’t seem that important anymore.

I don’t feel my age is very important (at least not at this particular juncture so I will leave that where I left it in my profile.  I’m old enough to think and express anything that ends up on this page and for me and for the moment I feel that that is enough.

I suppose what is a very important thing to mention to anyone who might stumble across this thing is that I am a person who has struggled for most of my life with addiction.  Particularly addiction to alcohol.  It would then be just as important to note that at the moment I am engaged in a period of recovery from that addiction.  This is far from my first period of recovery from that addiction.  It is not something I am unfamiliar with but becoming reacquainted with.  I mention this mostly because I think if this blog continues anyone reading it can most likely expect this and all kinds of things associated with it to be a part of what goes on here.

So over the course of this life I have led thus far there have been bright periods, there have been dark periods, there have been grey periods.  I suppose this sort of puts me in line with most other beings out there in the ether who might consider themselves human.  Who knows, perhaps this puts me in a similar league as yourself.

Through all these many ups, downs, ins, outs, and whathaveyous I have learned.  Sometimes more than others.  Sometimes fruitfully.  Sometimes fitfully.  Sometimes very very repetitively.  Apparently the hardest things to learn are the ones which cause the most pain and again apparently they are not really learned until the pain is so great that it really doesn’t even seem like an option to finally learn.  It becomes simple survival.  As the much wiser than myself Mark Twain has said, “A man who carries a cat by the tail learns a lesson he can learn in no other way.”  Well old friends (and hopefully new friends), this is certainly quite an applicable idea in my life.  Once again perhaps this actually makes me what’s called human and means that I have things in common with some of those other humans with whom I share the world around me.  

I would imagine that perhaps that may be what can be found here moving forward.  Tales of cats being dragged by their tails and the results of such unfortunately necessary experiments as well as the things that can be (and are in the process of being) implemented in order to avoid at the very least carrying the same cats again and again.

I really have no idea if there is anything whatsoever in this opening post to grab anyone’s attention but I will make it a mission to stop back and leave more.  Who knows...  Maybe I’ll find you here...