Home from Conference.
I spent the last four days in New Orleans at the International Meeting for Simulation in Healthcare. It was a good meeting, though I am coming around to the feeling that it might not be my meeting. It’s very heavily focused on mannequin simulation, and I do discrete event simulation. There’s a couple of small groups interested in DES, and I presented twice to good receptions.
But overall, I don’t know that this is the right environment for me. Particularly considering there is a very strange person trying to hijack the systems modeling group into some kind of big data/number crunching agenda. He’s a very unpleasant single-mindtrack zealot. I don’t enjoy trying to participate in groups where he’s there, and no one else seems to either.
But it’s not my group, and I’m not calling the shots, and I don’t want to. So this is a case of, “When I’m uncomfortable, there’s a problem with me.” Whatever problems this man has, and however inappropriate his topics are to the group, it’s not really my business, because I’m not the one in charge of the group. So my only decision to make is if I’m going to participate or not. And I haven’t decided.
I probably should have gone to a meeting in New Orleans while I was there, but it honestly didn’t occur to me while I was. I thought about it before the conference. But during I had a lot of work to do and a lot of conference to attend and I simply never gave going to an AA meeting a single thought. That’s a little concerning. I don’t always go to AA meetings when I travel, but I often do, and I think I could have used one this week.
I got about 14 miles worth of runs in on the trip, along the brickwalks around the New Orleans convention center. It was nice to run in a little warmer temperatures. Though it wasn’t especially warm. I got in a 10K in a little under an hour, which always feels like an accomplishment. I won’t be able to run again until Saturday, but I’m planning a 10 miler then.
I’m tired. I was able to use the conference to catch up on a little bit of sleep by napping between sessions, etc., but I am feeling deeply tired. Headachey. The abdominal strain prevented me from doing the kind of workouts I really want to be doing for a couple of months, and now I feel a little slothful. I need to get myself into real shape if I’m going to run a full marathon this fall.
Things are going objectively very well. I’m just a little bleary today from travel. I should shut up. That’s good advice at almost any time.
Satire.
I have written before that offensive humor is the edge on the blade of liberty. Giving offense has a long and critical tradition. Without the right to offend, we do not have the right to breathe. Because someone, somewhere, right now, is offended by our breath.
Offending Muslims with caricatures of Muhammed isn’t nice. Nor is it nice to place crucifixes in jars of urine. Nor is it nice to picket fallen servicemen’s funerals with vile screeds that god loves dead Marines, as the Westboro Baptist Church did at my cousin’s graveside. These things are unkind. They are offensive.
But it is the right of every person to offend. It is the right of every person to assert their own truth, even if it is demonstrably absurd. No one is obliged to listen. No one is obliged to adopt someone else’s positions. But each of us has the right to shout them.
Even hate speech. Even lies. Unless the vocalizations create a substantial, direct, and immediate threat to human life, all speech must be protected.
Because someone thinks that your opinions are hateful. Someone thinks that your speech is harmful. Someone thinks that you should be silenced. Someone thinks that you’re not toeing the right line. And when enough of those people congregate in the same place, and assume power, you will find yourself oppressed.
I see this happening right now in my own community. There are opinions that it is simply not acceptable to voice in liberal academia. If you are pro-life. If you have laissez-faire economic ideas. If you challenge the academic conclusions of sexuality or gender. You will find yourself isolated, marginalized, and shunned.
No, you will not find yourself shot. And no, freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences. But there is no tolerance for thoughtful dissent in academia with regard to politics, because there is no admission that thoughtful dissent can exist. Therefore, attempting to dissent brands a person immediately as a reprobate. Frequently I’ve seen absurd contests to see who can be the most orthodox. Academia is becoming like a caricature of a small town church: piety and judgement and enforcement.
We all have the right, of course, to disassociate from people who hold objectionable beliefs. But when we as a community hold the keys to a kingdom – as we do in academia (publishing, grant money, positions, titles, advancement of knowledge) – it becomes exceptionally egregious to demand uniformity of thought. As academia makes impressive, long-overdue strides with regard to diversity of race, gender, sex, and origin, it is simultaneously exterminating diversity of opinion and politic.
Satire finds a soft belly and slashes it open. It exposes our absurdities. Giving offense challenges ossified ideas. We are all proud to offend those we think need offending. But when someone comes along and offends our own sensibilities, my community is as bad as any at stamping the nonconformist down.
The proper reaction to being offended is to shrug off the offense and, if desired, engage the offender in a discussion. Ostracism and gunfire cross a line.
Gratitude for a Good Year.
This year has presented me with many significant challenges. And I’m going to lift them up out of my heart and set them aside today. Because in all objectivity, this has been about the best year of my life. The number of wonderful things I have going on dwarfs the difficulties and trials, and it’s high time I accounted for them in a meaningful way. I have a good life. A far better life than I deserve, or have earned. And I say that while feeling like I’ve earned a good bit, as well.
One of the fundamental aspects of sobriety, at least as practiced in AA, is to keep careful track of the things we’re grateful for. If we don’t do that, it is easy to fall into the traps of self-pity and resentment, which all too frequently feel like they will respond to inebriation. Relapses happen when we don’t focus on our gratitude. On what we have, rather than on what we want. So. Here’s what I’m grateful for about 2014:
- I didn’t drink this year. This marks the sixth complete year that I have not had a drink. And if I don’t drink again before mid-February, it will be seven years since I have had a drink.
- I didn’t smoke this year. It’s been more than five years now since I had any tobacco. I ought to be nearly approaching the health profile of a never-smoker.
- I have an incredible love in my life, fulfilling and exciting and thrilling and generous. I am feeling a sense of partnership I always longed for, and finally have.
- I have a great job that I’m good at. I enjoy my work – most of the time – and I like the people I work with. I believe in the mission of my institution and I’m pleased to be a part of it.
- I’ve seen more of my family in the past year than in most years, and I’m grateful to have been able to see my nieces and nephew growing up bright and strong.
- I am in the best physical condition of my adult life. I have run hundreds of miles and three half-marathons. I’m working on strength and fitness and gearing up to do more.
- My hernia scare turned out to be nothing more than a muscle strain, and it is nearly healed. No surgery for me in 2014!
- Despite all the vexing and expensive troubles, I have a pretty good home in a pretty good place to live, close to work and with access to everything I really need.
- I had two wonderful vacations with my partner, including a two-week trip to the far east which was magnificently rewarding. I learned and experienced some of the most amazing things of my life.
- I published three papers this year and have another accepted and coming out soon in the new year. I’m contributing to my field in a way that will have impact.
- I helped mentor a student into medical school.
- I was promoted at work, and may be getting an academic position at a local university from which to do some research and increase my academic presence at my own institution.
- I have a long list of close friends that I see and interact with regularly, and I have chosen to embrace my online experience in a new way, accentuating its positive impact.
Those are the highlights. Every day I wake up grateful not to be hungover and hacking up brown phlegm. Every day I wake up grateful for the people I love in my life and the wonderful ways they enrich me. Every day I wake up grateful for the opportunities I have to contribute to the world and make my environment a little bit better place to be, for myself and for others.
I am profoundly grateful for the privileges and good fortunes I have that have allowed me to flourish here. I am proud of the hard work I have done which has taken advantage of both those fortunes and new opportunities. I am moving upwards and forwards. And I am learning more each year that perhaps my greatest privilege is to be an alcoholic. Because it has provided me with a framework for my life that encourages me to work hard, and recognize all the wonderful things I have.
This has been a good year. This has been a great year. My biggest challenge is staying focused on all my manifest blessings, rather than on the small things that irritate and frustrate me. And the fact that my biggest challenge relates to my perspective, rather than my health or my relationships or my economic stability, is by itself a matter of extraordinary gratitude.
I hope you’ve had a good year. I hope you’ve had your best year. And I hope that the blessings in your life are as profound and encompassing as mine have been. May 2015 reveal in all of us a lightness and meaning that we can celebrate together.
What a Difference a Day Makes.
So, relieved of my anxiety about having a hernia (see previous post – I don’t after all), I am treating my lower abs issue like a muscle strain. The relief of knowing it’s not a hernia is palpable, and the pressure/tightness/whatever has subsided a lot. Probably in part because I’m not poking at it constantly. I got the news Tuesday, and did light workouts that afternoon and Wednesday, and yesterday I ran an easily-paced 10K.
It was nice to get out on Christmas and go for a run. The last couple of miles, the strain was barking at me a little bit, but not painful. Today it’s still there, but diminished. I’m taking some NSAIDs to hopefully bring down any lingering inflammation. But basically, I’m going to treat it like the nagging injury it is, take things light but not sedentary, and let it heal on its own.
Considering it’s been bothering me for about six weeks now, I’m frustrated, but I believe it will get better with time. That’s not necessarily a safe assumption. I hurt my shoulder about two years ago, and it’s as bad as it’s ever been. I think I damaged a ligament or two. But I’m not going to do anything about it, because it doesn’t impinge my normal range of motion, or diminish my strength. There’re just some awkward type movements that hurt.
So. I hate running in the cold and I hate running in the dark. But the sky will be lightening rapidly now, though it will probably be getting colder. Damn seasonal phase-lag. But I have a half-marathon to run in March, and I intend to be fit for it. Which means I’m going to have to get my miles in during the winter. I’m not going to try to stay in peak condition at all times. I’m going to try to keep up 10-12 miles a week and work out at the gym a couple days a week too.
Fitness is a lot like sobriety. Regular practice. A commitment that feels vaguely spiritual in nature, at least to me. Running and fitness make me feel like I’m using my body, and maintaining my body, the way it’s “supposed” to work, whatever that means. Whether we were designed or we were simply optimized for a particular ecological niche over millions of years of essentially random evolution is not particularly important to me. I’m here. And I’d like my body to work the way bodies are supposed to work.
That requires effort, time, and good fortune. I’ve always had good fortune. I’ve arranged my life to have time. So I need to put in the effort. I’ve found that willingness, in my life, in the past few years. I’m grateful for that.
Fear and Anxiety.
I’m typing this on my phone so it’ll be brief. I’m on my way to the hospital this morning to get an ultrasound on my groin to see if I have a hernia. I know that the imaging is no big deal and I’m not worried about the procedure. I’m scared because my doctor things I might actually have a hernia.
Yep. Yesterday, a 50-something physician pawed around at my groin region and told me he felt something g he shouldn’t have. So now I’m going to the big fancy hospital in town to let someone else paw around at my groin with a magic wand. As BB says, “whale song for my balls”.
I don’t know how long it takes. I don’t know what to expect. I don’t know when I get the results. I’m generally nervous and unhappy. Especially because the treatment for a hernia is surgery. And I want surgery like I want a hole in my groin.
But it is what it is. Part of my program is facing the truth of the world honestly and with my eyes open. I cannot afford denial. I cannot afford to let my nature, which wants to run and hide and hope it gets better, take over. I’ve been sick and indolent and delusional. I’m not going back.
Im especially scared of a surgery that would require me to choose between pain and an addictive pain medicine. I hope I’ll choose pain. Please help me choose pain. Tears in my eyes in the coffee shop, I’m praying for the strength to choose pain.
But that’s not where I am today. Today I’m just going to the hospital. To let a stranger whack at my junk with a magic wand. To find out. And then go from there.
UPDATE: The ultrasound was negative. The radiologist neither sees nor feels a hernia upon direct examination. I’m probably fine. Now I have a lot of emotional energy to bleed off.
How Long it Takes.
When I was starting out on my journey to sobriety, I was all about milestones. A day. A week. 30 Days. Holy shit was 30 days amazing to me. I was feeling great – what newly sober alcoholics call the “pink cloud” – and I was still in rehab. I felt like I was emerging from some kind of sludge I’d been trapped in for a decade.
I left rehab at about 42 days, and on I went. My first meeting alone. 60 days. Get a sponsor. 90 days. Fire my sponsor. Get another one. 6 months. Do the steps. One through twelve. A year. On I went. Learning the tools I needed to live a new sober life. In there, I got my job and started work. I began to grow in my sober life, and clean up the messes of my drunken one.
I needed to hit other milestones. Like a divorce. Like changing careers and cities. Learning to live alone. Learning to be responsible for myself. Learning to have relationships in sobriety that weren’t poisoned by my toxic past. Making terrible mistakes at that, getting hurt and hurting others. Trying to make amends. Being unable to. Finally finding a romantic relationship that makes sense for me. Being engaged and present in it. Learning to relate honestly and completely.
I’ve been told by many people in AA that it took them five years or so before they truly “got it”, whatever that means. I’m starting to understand what that means. I’m approaching seven years of sobriety now, at the steady pace of one day per day. I remember when I got sober thinking that I’d have 7 years the year I turned 40. And it looks like I will.
And I’m starting to get it. I can look around and see the world in a new way now. I’m not just struggling to survive from one day to the next. I’m actively participating in the life that I’ve been working on building. I’ve learned how to practice acceptance. I’ve learned how to manage a lot of things about my life, and how to let go of things that I cannot. It’s daily effort. But it’s possible.
Sometimes I’m sad that I didn’t learn these lessons many years ago. Sometimes I’m glad it took me as long as it did. Sometimes I wish I weren’t an alcoholic. Most of the time I’m grateful that I am. Sobriety, and the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, have done precisely for me what they are designed to do: they have made my life about more than alcohol.
As an alcoholic, my live revolves around the pursuit, acquisition, and consumption of alcohol. That is the only thing that matters to me, whatever I might say. The lies help me get what I need. But as a sober alcoholic, my life is about my life. My health. My relationship. My work. My contribution to society. My experience. My participation in the world. All the things I can’t do when I drink.
Most of the time that’s amazing and rewarding. Sometimes it’s maddening and frustrating. But it’s always living. And without sobriety, I was headed for a prison-yard grave. I’m not entirely certain where I’m headed today. But I’m not afraid of it. 2,502 days. I think I’m starting to get it.
A Frightening Episode.
A couple of days ago, I passed out at my desk. Now, I have a lot of experience passing out from alcohol. This was not like that. I felt hot and tingly. It came on very suddenly. I felt very disoriented, and then I lost consciousness. I awoke a moment or two later, drenched in sweat and feeling very weak.
It took me a moment to gather myself. I took off my jacket, and found my shirt soaked through and I was still dripping. After a few minutes, I felt strong enough to stand and head to the bathroom, where I locked myself in a stall and called a friend of mine who is a physician, and he ran me through a long series of questions.
Short version is, I think it was something called Vasovagal Syncope. I’ve passed out like that once before that I recall (about 7-8 years ago), right after a very hot bath. In both cases, I was very dehydrated. Tuesday, I was down almost 4.5 pounds of water weight. I drank a Gatorade, and then had lunch. I felt better and yesterday I felt fine all day.
Yesterday evening I wanted to skip my meeting and work out. I found myself thinking: “I don’t need a meeting, I’m doing fine.” Yeah. That’s how desperate my disease gets sometimes. I’m not fine. My anxiety levels are so high I’m passing out, apparently. I needed to get to my meeting, so I got to my meeting. And shared about the episode and these other feelings.
So, we move forward and on. And I hope I stay upright. I’m seeing my doctor Monday, to talk about the “hernia” and the fainting episode. We’ll get me straightened out.
Everything is Slower than I Want.
I’m in an impatient place at the moment. My anxiety has been off the charts lately, about everything. Health, home, work. I’m disappointed at how rapidly my fitness falls off when I take a break. Even just a few weeks off and I feel like I’m substantially degraded from my peak at the end of November. And I’ve been injured.
My big injury from the scooter crash is mostly healed. My knee will need a couple of months before it’s back to normal, but it’s just a scab at this point, and doesn’t hurt unless I kneel on something hard. My ribs, which were significantly bruised, are at about 95% now, and I can do things like push-ups without shrieking in unholy agony. But I also have a more enigmatic injury.
I pulled something or tore something or did something to my right lower abdomen. Reasonably close to where it would be, I think, if it were a hernia. It doesn’t hurt, exactly. It’s just there. And has been for a month now. I’m terrified and very anxious that it’s a small hernia. But it doesn’t seem to fit what I know about hernias in other ways.
It doesn’t, for example, have any bulging or hurt a lot. It seemed to get better after a two week rest, but then got worse again when I started running and working out again. But the truth is, I don’t really know much about hernias, and so I don’t know if this is one or isn’t. I should probably go see my doctor. And I will if it doesn’t get better. I did a good hard workout yesterday, including a bunch of stuff that hit my abs, and it feels fine today (though it is not gone, just there, but not painful).
So I’m annoyed that I’m injured and not healing rapidly. I’ve been working on doing pull-ups for about two months now, and I can do two sets of eight, as long as I have a support strap assisting me. I still can’t do one with no assist. I’m getting stronger, slowly but surely, but it takes time. I’m just vaguely disappointed that it’s so hard to get into shape, but easy to get out of shape.
Getting reasonably fit has been, now, nearly a four year process. In that time I’ve dropped 55 pounds, and gone from being able to run a quarter-mile to being able to run 14 miles. Now, of course I could have done that faster and better by being scientific and disciplined about it from the outset. But I did it the way I’ve done everything: idiosyncratically, foolishly, haphazardly. Without direction or plan. It’s worked, mostly.
Now that I have a partner who actually understands how to train and improve rapidly, I’ve make great strides in a short time by following her advice (mostly). That’s wonderful. And I’m now in a place where the training needs to be more disciplined because it really is easy to injure yourself when running for hours at a time. And I suck at that discipline.
I want it to be fast. Just like I wanted to suddenly be 20 years sober, and wise. Learning how to slow down and enjoy the journey is hard for me. I can see it in the way I run, versus the way BB runs. When I run, I stare at the pavement 6 feet in front of me. BB looks around and sees things, like deer and other people and bicycles about to run us down.
I’m tempted to say, “I need to do a better job of enjoying my journey.” But that’s placing more pressure on myself. I should relent and let go of needing to do a better job. Relax. Let myself miss things, let myself be imperfect. Here is my life. This is my time. Pause. Breathe. And then run.
Back to Center.
I give up. I am pulling back from things I tried to force because I wanted to be popular and important. I like being popular. I like people respecting me and wanting to be around me. But none of that is good for me. Pursuing it is not good for my ego, and I don’t like the me I become when I do it. I don’t need to be spotlighted.
I struggle over and over with this. I feel like I’ve written this same post half a dozen times. That’s ok. I learn slowly, and it takes me time to understand what I’ve done wrong. Recently, I’ve been trying to have my opinion valued by people who don’t value other people’s opinions. I want them to consider my thoughts and experience, despite knowing that that’s not what they do.
I want to be important. But import rapidly becomes a negative quality in me. When I start struggling to make myself heard, I am struggling with my own sense of worth. I try to bolster it externally, by convincing others of it. As if their opinion of me could change how I feel about myself.
Sobriety is in large part a journey of serenity. I seek peace of mind first of all. But I’m easily confused. I can convince myself that I will achieve peace of mind by having people agree with me, and value my ideas. But external gratification is a phantom. Being validated is ephemeral. Finding serenity and peace can only be achieved by looking within.
I do not need to convince others of my value, of my opinion. Because I do not need to be right. I do not need to have influence. I am not important, and that’s a good thing. I need to return to my center. My peace is found in recognizing my limits, not striving against others, and doing the good that is available for me to do. And to do that, I need to remove myself from some places that I don’t belong.
Of Hammers and Nails.
One of my friends (with whom I often clash a bit) over on twitter is Sciliz. A while ago, she commented that as an alcoholic in recovery I had finally found my hammer and now everything was looking rather nailish to me. That was about seven months ago, and I’ve been thinking about it periodically ever since. And I have come to believe that she was exactly right.
I have found my hammer, and yes, a lot of things look like nails to me. Huge swaths of the negativity in my life were centered around the fact that I couldn’t stop drinking. And I couldn’t stop drinking because I’m an alcoholic. And because I felt ill at ease with the world, and needed to address that ill ease with chemical obliteration. When I became sober, and worked the steps of AA, I discovered that I was able to remain sober, yes. But far more important, I was able to address the terrible discomfort I felt in the world in a new way.
And it works for me, as it has worked for millions of sober alcoholics. And as I believe it will work for any alcoholics able to devote themselves to working the program. I cannot say if every alcoholic is capable of that, I don’t know. But for the ones who are capable, the program works. We learn to re-enter society as productive, healthy, happy contributors. People who face life on life’s terms, as we say, and make progress.
But I need to respect that this is my hammer. And these are my nails. I recently had an experience where trying to advise someone who is not an addict or an alcoholic on using program-type tools to address other issues has not worked. And it hasn’t worked in a couple of important ways: first of all, it hasn’t addressed the issue they have; second, my suggestion was not useful in our interaction. My insistence that their problem was a nail, and that they should use my hammer resulted in friction.
Looking at where this comes from in me is crucial to my own development. Many people tell me that AA doesn’t or can’t work. Many scientists tell me that because AA doesn’t “work” for everyone that means it’s just an elaborate placebo. I confess that this makes me somewhat defensive. It’s important to me that the program “works”. Because I use it, and I stay sober, and I’ve watched so many other people recover and become happy and productive through it.
Of course, there’s no science behind AA’s program, and there’s never been any useful science studying it, because we don’t really have the first clue how to measure sobriety or effectiveness for something like AA. The tools we use in science actively prohibit appropriate analysis of AA’s program. It is, in my opinion, currently impossible to study at the level of rigor required by academic science. As such, I can ignore it when scientists draw profound conclusions about AA. They don’t get it, and they don’t need to.
But I want the program to work in the lives of others, because I want them to gain what I’ve gained: relief from addiction, anxiety (Often, not always!), depression, self harm. But the fact is, the program doesn’t work for everyone. And it is far less likely to work for people who are not addicts or alcoholics for things that it was not really designed to address.
And that’s ok. This is my hammer. These are my nails. I can support non-alcoholics through their own trials without needing to guide them along the path I’ve walked. It’s arrogance to presume that that’s the right thing to do. But arrogance is one of my nails. Defensiveness is one of my nails. And I have a hammer for them.
Infactorium 