What did the old boy go and do?

Champions of reality!  Good day to you.  I’m not sure your hats are off to me, and I’m not sure of much, but I can say that I am no longer seeking claim to the title of sober.  I am also not not-sober.  I have revisited the experiment.  Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  You could say that. You could also say, trying something new.  What’s different this time?  That’s a very good question.  One thing is for sure, I was struggling with my brain a few years into another round of sobriety.  I kept not feeling quite right. Working the steps, being active in the rooms, being of service, and just not feeling quite right.  There was of course the DMT experiment, an attempt to get rid of a persistent desire, which had reoccurred, to drink and smoke pot.  Not feeling quite right will do that to you, if your brain-chemistry is just so. 

This brain chemistry is often referred to as the addictive mind, but there is a whole lot more going on in there than addiction, or at least a particular kind of addiction.  But the way this addiction phenomenon is explained, at least in regard to substance abuse and my psychiatrists understanding of it, is that it will lead a person back to a relationship with a substance that will insure that the carrier of this mental virus will participate in repeat self-administration of the substance over time.  In short, the patient will surely drink or drug again, and then they’ll do it again and again.  They will relapse into their problematic habit.  In my case, a bit more than a week off the wagon, I said that I wouldn’t drink the next couple days, to prove that I’m on different footing this time.  I did good all day, only taking doctor ordered medications for my mental health, and then, on a plane to Hawaii, “I changed my mind.”  A bit frustrated, a bit bored, I said to myself, “well, there is that pretty girl somewhere back there on the plane.  I’ll go use the restroom back there and have a look.”  I sighted the lady, like a blond Ms. Jenn, sharp features, eyes that protrude just a bit, like there isn’t enough room for them in there, but beautifully, so that you want to kiss them.  That feeling of nervousness, and a quest for courage welled up in me.  So I continued to the rear of the aircraft, parted the blue curtains, found the hidden flight attendants, and, the change of my mind firmed up, ordered one of those little plane bottles of red wine. 

            Here, we can say, is the nature of the beast in action.  This is what Bill W. and Dr. Bob wrote about in the book Alcoholics Anonymous in 1939.  They had a breakthrough, and articulated, in a way that drunks could understand, the phenomenon of craving.  They described a craving that occurred upon the taking of the first drink, and an obsession of the mind that would drive the drinker to take that first drink in the face of good reasons not to. 

            Well, I was sober, and now I’m drinking a little mini-bottle of airport wine.  Why can’t I just explain this decision to drink again as a simple expression of an alcoholic tendency?  After years of sobriety, with all in my life seemingly going well, I decide that because I’ve been feeling too depressed lately, having a drink or two is somehow going to solve my problem?  That seems a bit too familiar.  In the Alcoholics Anonymous book they talk about resentment being the number one offender, resulting in more relapses than any other cause.  They had my number there as well. 

            I never could seem to learn the lesson that dating women in the recovery community is just doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.  It never worked.  Not with the real love connections anyway.  I did have some nice mutually casual, beautiful relationships with a couple of women “in the program.”

            So there was resentment against women in play in the psychological drive toward my departure from strict sobriety.  Worse even than my hesitation to go to meetings, out of fear of seeing exes, was my grinding resentment against the very tool of every one of my extended periods of sobriety.  That tool is the program and the meetings themselves.  I found them more and more unbearable.  My fellows in these rooms, when I expressed my feelings about problems that I was having with the religious tone of meetings, the masculine God language, or the outdated texts, or the closing of meetings with the Lord’s prayer, scoffed at me, and told me that I wasn’t doing it right.  I was not showing enough faith.  I wasn’t accepting everything in my life. I wasn’t turning everything over to an all-powerful God.  The more sober I got, the less I could tolerate this dogmatism.  It’s a catch 22 for a man whose last sobriety date was 1/11/11.  Must one’s dogmatism increase the longer you stay sober?  These AA people seem to think that faith must grow and grow.  It seems all too petty to say that I was scared away by the Lord’s Prayer, but fighting against the religiousness of AA was just not a battle I felt I could keep showing up for. It got to feel silly.  In the bay area, this is a problem you rarely see, but in the mountains of western Colorado where I live, the Lord’s Prayer is the one you hear at the end of almost every meeting. 

            What kind of faith is it that keeps people sober, and makes AA work for so many?  Is it the literal power of God helping get and keep people sober, or are they experiencing the psychological effects of their faith rather than the literal intervention of the “Father,” one of the many names for God that the book Alcoholics Anonymous uses to describe this magical being.  People seem willing to take on a belief in a particular thing in order to get a particular result.  In the Alcoholics Anonymous text it states clearly, “the self-propulsion idea didn’t work, but the God idea did.”  And maybe this particular God idea does work for getting and keeping people sober, but I’m afraid it may be replacing one addiction, which affects an addict, their friends, families, and communities, with another addiction that affects us all even more.  This faith in an all-powerful deity, in control of everything, and at your beck and call as soon as you “turn it over” to “Him,” may be good for getting off drinking or drugs, but it’s really bad at getting human beings to accept responsibility for the reality we have created here on planet earth. 

            Did the Lord’s Prayer chase me away from AA?  No.  I chased myself away.  I have to find out if there is a more honest program out there, or even find out if I can, like the majority of the people who experience issues with substance abuse, recover without a 12 step program.  It is not as though AA or its members don’t have access to the latest research; it’s just that they ignore it when it doesn’t support their rigid attachment to outdated AA literature.  AA members and their literature are in denial of scientific facts.  The AA’s and their book still claim some ultimate authority, or miraculous accuracy to a book that was written almost 80 years ago.  While this book does a fantastic job describing symptoms of problematic drinking patterns and demonstrating the mental factors that are at play in an illness with physical consequences, the “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous does not reflect or express the latest research data of this new millennium (which I’m not saying I believe without question either). 

The book also directs people to find their own understanding of a power greater than themself, and this power is repeatedly referred to as “He, Him, Father, etc. etc.”  It’s a bit limiting to a contemporary reader, contextually and scientifically enlightened by the facts of patriarchal history.  Most women in AA don’t seem to have a problem with language in their basic text that speaks to the “Alcoholic man” rather than the “alcoholic person,” and which contains a chapter “To Wives,” rather than one “To Spouses.” 

AA set out, when it was founded, to make sure it kept itself separate from religion.  But, despite the protestations of members around the world, I can only say that over the last 17 years, during the time I’ve been exposed to AA, I’ve watched it become more and more of a religion.  People adhere to the dogma, instead of their own experience.  They are stuck in the words of a book, instead of the life around them.  I haven’t gotten drunk, good and drunk since I gave this new drinking experiment a try.  It’s been 1 or 2 drinks, 2 or 3 drinks, 3 or 4 drinks.  I’ve written this little ditty, and just finished that one little bottle of airline wine (and they’ve gotten smaller than they used to be).  I may get one more, since I’ve already broken today’s oath.  One drink at a time.  If I were still willing to refer to myself as an alcoholic, I’d be one of the nitpicking varieties.  I’ve nitpicked my way right out my problem.  Or I’ve nitpicked my way right out of a solution to my problem.  Could be that addiction is smarter than me.  Probably yes; but we shall see. 

My gracious

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls!
The french twist of the java cartoon has returned again with a vacuum for the road. Yes the spoiled son of greek sperm, raised by oil money squeezed from spoiled texans, has purchased a guzzler of his own. Elenor, the white princess, who shakes the passengers, and is far too large to make the prince feel as cramped as she does. She was purchased in support of the WILD Goose farm, another unearned return, squashed fat from the account cakes of Eledelphia. And so, as she goes, we spoke with beloved Joe, dragged on into infinity, and said, oh yes indeed, one more day without a drink or a drug; but that didn't stop the fat boy from going shopping, with his Open Mind shoved out the window, and all his unawareness blowing in the wind.

Ahole. 

Wellness

The madness is thick these days in sober land. I'm tired, agitated, self-righteous. Way to make sobriety look good Captain WRANGLER! Sorry folks, the lunatic on parade, the adventure continues, electric cool-aid lemonade. That's basically the gist of it. Still sober. Too many options, and the sludge sneaks up like a rabies infected badger, an awful, sneaking suspicion that it's all for nothing, but we keep going anyway. Cocky and afraid, the worst of ourselves shining back in the mirror, unmedicated, with nothing to soften and smooth the harsh veneer of an untamed mind.

From the Godfather:

"Our program, basically, was to drive the real estate goons completely out of the valley... No more huge, space-killing apartment buildings to block the view, from any downtown street, of anybody who might want to look up and see the mountains. No more land rapes, no more busts for "flute playing" or "blocking the sidewalk"... f*@k the tourists, dead-end the highway, zone the greedheads out of existence, and in general create a town where people could live like human beings, instead of slaves to some bogus sense of Progress that is driving us all mad."
Hunter S. Thompson on the mayoral campaign for Joe Edwards he was working on in Aspen, 1969, a year before he ran for Sheriff on the legendary Freak Power ticket. From Rolling Stone article, Oct. 1, 1970 "The Battle of Aspen: Freak Power in the Rockies"

Aloha Saints and Princesses

Ahoy old friends,

The gelatinous goo is sharply falling by the wayside, and the calmness of graduate life is gently setting in.  Have I graduated from sobriety? No; just from a masters degree program that was completed by a combination of showing up for class and doing my homework. This is a similar recipe for success in sobriety. Go to secret anonymous meetings, and do your step work. (Call sponsor).  Today I depart for a short stint in Hawaii, in a home full of drug and alcohol consumption (read Grandma's house).  But one day at a time  I will not be partaking in the general inebriation.  Life is good. So much to be grateful for, high on the only drug you don't come down from, sobriety. Real life shot into the main vein of consciousness. Trudging on and sending blessings from the Ghost faced bandit.

Aho,

The Goose Wrangler.

Secrets

Underground secret meeting today with a bunch of men. It was a beautiful thing. Real humans talking about the adventure of life. Talking about families and death and being present. Like an ongoing living journal, some star trek star log for earthlings. April, 21st, 2012, survived 4/20 and all the stoned bay area, chilled sober and a beautiful day. And today is another day. The madness of gonzo calmed through a simple life. Yes indeed, folks, it did get weird enough for me. Just for today, I'm appreciating taking it easy. Anger rises, anger falls, staying below and moving gently in the vast emptyness, the void in which everything exists. Everything in here is temporary, but it's all existent in forever. The emptiness is completely whole. Why not be present for the ride? The next frontier: mainlining life. Pure, unadulturated reality. Yeefuckinhaw!

Airport Update

Gracious me! It's been a long time brothers and sisters. I'm at the Denver Airport, sitting at the Woody Creek Bakery and Cafe, another seemingly Aspen Valley spun business expanding into the exosphere. I'm sweating profusely. Miles, a young Army reservist who was sitting on the plane next to me on the Aspen to Denver flight, was telling me how because he only cares about enjoying life (we only have one after all) he likes to drink and smoke and get crazy, and I was saying, for the same, only one life, reason, I'm sober. He asked me if I drink coffee. I responded in the affirmative. He told me that he had me cold, I'm not sober. My sweat glands don't seem to think i'm sober either. Between my ADD medication and a serious caffein habit, young Miles may have my number. Relativity may be a flawed theory, but in this case, I'm going to plead it. At least i'm relatively sober. Compared to getting stoned from morning till night, and getting nearly drunk every day by sundown, this caffeination may be some sort of dangerous super sobriety. I'm agitatingly aware of my feelings of agitation. This is no drunkenness, but I'm still avoiding my study of the prophets with this blogpost. So ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters both Gonzo and greedhead, I wish you all safe travels. Aloha.

Goose Wrangler

Happy Birthday Bob and your Sober fan Mr. Wrangler

2012 in Socially Constructed Reality.

Well, on 1/11/12 I made it to a year of sobriety. I'm sitting here watching the Denver Broncos get slaughtered in the playoffs by the New England Patriots. It's not looking good. It's a blood bath. But i'm on the bus. No cocktails, no weed, no powdered inhalants up my nose. Not much to report, graduate school, secret meetings, studying, heartless romance, same old, same old. The Sober Gonzo has been preaching about once a month. That's always interesting. Oh, that's a good idea. Maybe I'll post the most recent sermon. Anyways. Doesn't look good for Tim Tebow and the Broncos tonight. Not looking good at all. But I'm going to sleep sober tonight. One day at a time. That's all it takes. One day at a time.

Still Here

Haven't given up yet. Last year about this time, I jumped off the wagon again, after I had a gym bag, a back-pack, and a couple of full journals stolen, car window smashed through in San Francisco. It was an Olympics bag from the 1980's. A few days before it happened I had a dream that there was a crackhead wearing that bag, who had a couple of my journals.  I had the dream written down, on the first page of a journal I was writing in, sitting in a restaurant in downtown SF, while my car was getting broken into a few blocks away. They stole one or two full journals, full of poetry, and the first few pages of The Father of Lies. They also got some gym clothes and an older pair of running shoes, and a bunch of theological books. Probably very little that a crack smoker was looking for. The glove compartment was unlocked. They left the ipod in it. There was also a camera and a hard drive with resale value, sitting under the Olympics bag, that the thief overlooked in the darkness and their hurry. Oops. Maybe they will finish my book for me.

A few days later I started getting drunk again, smoking weed and drinking wine. A month or so later I tried smoking crack. I bought it from a man in downtown San Francisco, but he wasn't wearing my bag. And the high was no good anyhow. I'm glad about that.

If I keep taking it one day at a time I will have 11 months sober on the 11th day of the 12th month of the 11th year of the 21st century; but numbers are just about as over-rated as crack.

Nonetheless, I think I'll just stay on track, play it safe, stay off the crack, and leave the past where it is.

Return to Aspen

The sober gonzo has returned
To his home
Full of drugs and beauty
Has left the drugs behind
Heading to the Woody Creek tavern
To drink iced tea
Up on the sunny mountainside now
And walking down
Into the future
After taking the ultimate drug
Life
Don't want to disturb it
With any silly substance
That I might have to come down from

The best part about sobriety is that you never come down. The worst part about sobriety is that you never come down.

Riding the Sharp Edge of Insanity

WEEHAA!!

Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, cawbirds, eagles, and squirrals, listen to the madman, who sits atop the dusty nest of twigs. The hardest part of madness is keeping the balance of its beauty; and doing this without the substances that you used for years to balance it all out, but which finally led you to completely flip out. Yes old friends, the Sober Gonzo has not yet lost the game. I'm still on board the ship, still dry up here on the sunny deck, but its foggy here in Berkeley, as I torture myself in the theological world of faith based hermeneutical readings. Take it one day at a time. That's what they say. And it's all I can do. Lighten the old boy up, and chill him out. California, surrounded by crazies. Just like me. Aren't we all reflections of each other when the chips fall, humanoids? As our DNA reproduces itself on down the line, running around the earth skin, cruising on up that freeway out of Africa? Yes, old friends, we're all going somewhere. Where are we going?

Take er easy,

Goose Wrangler

I fought the claw and the claw won.

Oh damn. Team, the dawn is hours away, and there is no cocaine on the table, it's another sober day. What to do? Pray? Ask for help? Both of those are probably good options. Insanity is such a pain in the ass. I have gotten sober so many times over the years, and I have gotten drunk so many times over the years when I started listening to the argument in my brain between the asshole who says "let's get drunk," and the still small voice that says "hang in there, don't pick up." When I listen to this conversation, the problem is that the still small voice gets quieter and quieter, and the drug addict, alcoholic, mind just gets louder and louder.

Eventually, my brain and body is completely hijacked by this beast, and doing lines, taking bong rips, and drinking vigorously, seems like the only answer. Then it's off to the races. I don't really want this to happen again. I'm not sure if it was the premature trip to rehab at the age of 16, having the 12 steps crammed down my throat along with a thorough washing of my brain, but somewhere after the third relapse and the 2nd or third year of my 3rd return to drinking, I began to hear an enthusiastic voice in my head that said "quit getting fucked up all the time!" It was really quite frustrating.

Anyways, I started trying to get sober again in 2008 after a good 4 year run on wine and herbs and other sundry goods. So here I am again, and where did that divine voice of my using go, that told me to sober up? Now that I'm sober again for a while, I hear this voice that tells me to get fucked up! Insanity, my friends.

It's 1:07 AM now, so I made it another day sober, in 9 days it will have been 7 months since my last inebriation. Time to go to sleep. Fuck it. Put the plug in the jug. The road less traveled. Where will it lead? Like I said, sobriety is the hardest drug I've ever done. Searching for the middle way, walking along a very sharp blade, trying not to fall off either side, or at least not snort any of those tempting powders up my nose.

Why does cable TV have to show such rampant drug use all the time? If it's not booze it's one damn show after another of people addicted to drugs, getting high in jail, getting busted with drugs, getting busted trying to smuggle drugs. Is it supposed to be a deterrent? Is this supposed to make people not want to get high? It doesn't have that affect on me. Watching Anthony Bourdain makes me want to get drunk; and the Discovery Channel should be called the discover drugs channel, they have more cocaine than the Sinaloa cartel. Anyways, there is going to be some new reality show called Weed Wars, I doubt that it's going to help with my cravings. Being a junkie is a real pain in the ass. It distracts a wrangler from his mission to save the world, and that can be frustrating, and that in turn leads to more cravings. It's a vicious cycle. Aloha. Good night.

The Old Craw

Well team,
The Goose Wrangler is home. The mother has left the material realm. She left her body. There was life in it, open eyes, then there was nothing. She faded away. There was only flesh. So we're still taking one day at a time. I spent a couple in Denver. At the airport I saw a bumper sticker that said Duck Commander, with a nice little picture of a duck in flight. My friend Chris said he knew of Duck Commander. He's a Christian Pastor who travels and speaks at Churches I gather. He is a relative maybe. Someday will we join forces? Goose Wrangler and Duck Commander take wing! We just don't know team. But drinking and drugs are not the answer to my problems today. Life in the present moment, that is the goal to be attained. Finding the NOW. That space right between two hands clapping. NOW. Right there. If I can just get right in there. The whole darn show is unfolding just so. Aloha to the crabapples, the flowers, the darkness, and the rainbows. AHO! the ghost says from the shadows. The dream continues.

Now did i mention...

I'm on the plane. Getting ready for takeoff. Free drink ticket in pocket, but I'm grateful to be sober, I will give it to a neighbor, and relax with a coffee or club soda. Feeling grateful today, as I prepare to fly to Houston, and since we are going to be open and honest, and this is digitally anonymous, I will tell you that on the 25th we board a merchant airship of the finest kind, my mother, little brother and I, and take off for Zurich, that bastion of assisted suicide, mom is going out in style. She will get a blessing, be saged, and exit the body, to explore the next dimension. This will be a new experience for us all. I was feeling very sober and on solid ground facing this little journey, but a baby just started crying in the row behind me, a desperate, miserable, dribbling, gooey, maddening, sort of cry. It is a chorus of awfulness from one little being. Time to give the drink ticket away. Say a prayer for your lunatic friend. Aloha.

Mental Terrorism

Well the excrement is thick these days kemo sabe, washing up on the mind shore like oil spill scum. These rats of faith, pouring out fear on the masses, amassing billboards of lies. This is nothing less than mental terrorism and we call it freedom of speech. Burying positive potentialities of our consciousness under dark, spirit crushing mud. Tomorrow is the 21st. Judgment day. There is poison in that cool aid. See you all on Sunday. We are all going to die. But very unlikely that we all die at the same, except in cases of wrong place wrong time. But that's just life. More shall be born, and this psychotic way of projecting our fear of death, our self centered attachment to our individual selves which culminates in a theology of a faith in an eternity of me, myself, and I living in eternal award or punishment is just the limited consciousness of the past, of a psychotic, lonely, judgemental god concept without a wife, with a son he sacrificed on the cross. We could really draw a prettier picture of a god that might help us stop lying to ourselves so vigorously. Know nothing. Know Nothing, and you might find yourself closer to God, not that there is ever actually any separation in the first place, outside our minds. Aloha. Now is it. Here it is. How can the world end right now? How bout now?

Dont Get Lost in the Disintigrating Holes.

That's right amigos. Ho ho ho. The ghost faced bandit creeps along, under the grass.
You have to want this thing. The substances are indeed cunning foes and you will hear a lot of bullshit in those anonymous meetings, but that's a terrible reason to run, because its also where you will find the answer. It's like big Al from Dana Point said... we tell ourselves a lot of stories, and a lot of them aren't true. Like we tell ourselves that we have this big hole inside of us that we need to fill with fill in the blank. And if you are talking about your stomach then you might be onto something, otherwise, stop kicking yourself in the groin. You are a beautiful child of Creator. You are whole. It's those stories you told yourself that got you drunk... like the world isn't good enough already... like life isn't a miracle to begin with, you need to get stoned all the time to feel how you want to feel, get drunk with your buds to feel connected, do a couple lines to get the creative juices flowing. Bullshit.
Here it is. Right now. This moment. You wanna do the hardest drug tuff guy? Try straight reality on the rocks. Here and now. Raw life. Confronting the bullshit stories the mainstream is feeding you with a firehose to the face. "You're not good enough" "life is hard" "death is scary" "there are bad people everywhere" in fact, "people are bad inherently" "we're fallen" "judgement day is coming on the 21st of May, 2011." In fact, "The date is 2011." Really? Since when? For who? And why? 2011 years ago? Hmm. As far as I can tell it's still right now o clock... and God is way less of an asshole than the firehose police and billboard mind terrorists would have me believe. I so seriously doubt God had his only son crucified. But I don't have to know.
Ah.
Breath in.
Breath out.
The best thing about the sobriety cool aid is that you can let that opinion go. What's between my ears? A brain that has been conditioned by 31 years of limited experience. I really don't know what's going on here, but this so called reality certainly does not need any more hallucinogens to make it seem strange or bizarrely entertaining. This is one trippy ass show. I sure hope the bus driver is sober. That's gotta be a tuff job, all those lives in your hands. Who would want that kind of responsibility? Better to just go with powerlessness. Take er easy, like the Dude's sasparilla swilling friend suggested. Yep. Just take it easy kemo sabe. One day at a time. The whole darned show is just unfolding. Might even be a plan for all we know. What with our limited mortal understanding. But awe shucks. I just can't be sure. Another day walking down the road. It's a spiritual sort of road these days. Stay on path. We just don't know where it will lead. Vaya con dios amigos. Aloha.

Sober Gonzo wasn't Always Sober... Here is Something From 2008 (I think)

Bright, and not yet early, or early, but not yet bright? I can’t be sure. This seems one of the great dilemmas of our time. Are we crazy? Or can we just not sleep tonight because there are so many voices, and faces, and people we haven’t seen in too long, and they seem to be really popping around in the unconscious, but after a couple of sleeping pills (prescribed of course) I found myself in the living room spinning records and reminiscing about a camp on the coast of South Carolina, (or maybe it was North Carolina) where homesickness gave me lime disease. In the world of the conscious unconsciousness, induced by strong benzodiazapenes, dream and reality mix, you are awake, and only the sudden silence as the records run their course, breaks you from your still keen statuary bliss. They need reloading.

The records are old and dusty and beautiful, a bit of Hollywood remakes of the “Music of the East” mixed with a classic exercise record… a bit of stretching and what not, and now for the overture: I spent a few minutes adjusting the minisculescentes, the little tweaks and tone, beat, switch grab the toe slide, etc, etc. So now the Platipus is licking all around the edges of the glorious sounds of Frank Chacksfield and his most astounding 1950’s record which takes us Inside the Mystic East. It is like a Broadway show of jazz inspired, cliché, Orient delights. Some choice songs off the album may give you an idea of the immaculate way in which they enhanced the Asian vibes: “Japanese Sandman,” “By an old Pagoda,” “On a little street in Singapore,” to name just a few. I’m feeling giddy.

Here is the dawning morning, sitting here draped in an old American flag and contemplating the future, sedated and elated, enjoying the gentle tug of war between ambien and cocaine. There are only crackles and pops on the phonographs. Excuse the author for one brief interlude. We are now back to square one. The breathing. Swedish yoga with a techno beat. The gentle voices, “chin down, inhale breathing in, exhale breathing out. Hold the pose, just breath. In, out, in, out.” Just breathing, just gently breathing, as we question the future, the choice between man and machine. Finding ourselves the slaves of our creations, watching as the scavengers lurk on all the highways. The rhythm is what is important. Some things are meant to help a man extend his vildormationalsticsam. At the potential expense of what he is familiar with, and what he cares about, when a man is called must he answer? Which pill must he swallow to put his body in the game. This is not what we call a sissy fight. This is the pedal hitting the metal, and we’ll be damned if we are not prepared with the weaponry of the future. Our weapons are the Owl, the Coyote, and the spirit of Peyote. All the little pioneering adventures we embarked on in the name of what we must do, are all moments when we come to terms with our innermost demons, these fun loving imps who most often live in our unconscious to keep us balanced, but then you see them, sprouting their little wings on to freedom.

We are the mothers of our own inventions. And some may be from pharmaceuticals, especially when we must write at all costs, so as to prevent total collapse. We need drums, noise, beauty, and bliss. The adventure as it should be. We have to keep expanding. Did we want to get sober, to clear away the mystery, and return to the fold of the great know: the secret world of happy, joyous, and free? Once you want to quit drinking, once you’ve really faced the fact that you can’t do it like normal folks. The need (you made it very clear for a long time that it was only a want) to drink almost everyday, even the ones designated as nondrinking days. The sauce is always near. But the important thing is to remember that it is all an illusion. The tasty beverages, in their bottles and carafes; ah how I love red wine. It has been my faithful lover, but even she may be turning on me, at least at the bars here in Aspen. The right amount of drugs at the right time can really induce that marvelous insanity on which we all thrive, because the little tastes we get from the little reflectors around us, temporarily allowing us to reach around the stubby imps, these little nuclei of chemicals, as they challenge our brains in conversation. But they become addictions. These are the illusions that offer us visions of delusion. The geniuses of our substances, they deliver us that very genius with one hand, yet with other hand they take away the capacity to profit from it. So the circles go round and round down here at the bars of society. With one hand it giveth, with the other it taketh it away. Once we reach the point where we actually want to be sober, trouble most certainly approaches. This state generally follows many heartfelt oaths to abstain for a while, a week maybe, a couple of days, many a negotiation with the mind and liver and then the sudden realization that a coke habit could really expand my spiritual development. Insanity is the mother of invention.

I’m stepping down to the porcelain bird plate to give another prostration before Charlie
[white lines].
The point I was trying to make is that coherence does not always come in the most straightly straight ways. Just make it conscious. Prescription medications are a keen and recommended way to keep one sane, and out of involuntary institutions (although you realize that we often think we might be happier on the inside where they take care of you and relieve your every stress with a pill or shot or hot plate of food).

Ah… That short little glimpse. The circle round the dime, it’s the purity that you seek. The truth without the lie. Pure god, not just the helpers on the path… we must question everything, including why we are afraid to say this, to go against the accepted norms of society.

Have to take a nap. The healthy life proceeds. Round and around we go. Still drinking, doing the drugs, oh don’t you know. Just moving forward. How fascinating. Following the path… what path? The path down this crazy road, toward some destiny.