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I had a slow work time over the holidays and into the new year. I am a writer for a living, so my job now isn’t 9-to-5. Sometimes it is absolutely frantic for 10 days and then it is quiet for a week, then it is medium-level busy for three days, then slow for 10 more days. I’m in a slower period right now.
That sounds great, right? And it is. Every time my life is hectic, I find myself saying, “Man, I really need some peace and solitude.” And when I get that break, I have no complaints at first. I go to the gym, go in to have lunch with my second-grader at her elementary school, scoop the cats’ litterboxes, stay on top of whatever work stuff comes along, take a nap, watch sports, catch up on TV shows—it’s pretty awesome and I feel that every day.
But… I also felt like crap quite a bit. Sluggish. Rudderless. Looking for something to light a fire under my ass. I think that’s the addict in me. Half of being an active drug addict and alcoholic is the actual getting high part; the other half is the hunt for “dry goods,” and then the coverup afterward. In addition to the high, there’s a lot of adrenaline and mystery and high-wire acts that comes along with active addiction. If that sounds like a terrible shitshow, it is. But some of us love the shitshow. I’m guessing there are a lot of people out there nodding their heads. I can’t tell you how many sober people I have met over the years who handle boredom just about as badly as busy times.
It reminds me of a quote in the movie Heat, a 1995 classic directed by Michael Mann with Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and a bunch of other stars. Cops are onto De Niro’s bank robbery gang, and De Niro and Co. know it. But they have a big job lined up and are deciding whether to walk away, or go for it. De Niro asks Tom Sizemore’s character if he wants to bail or go through with it. Sizemore’s character, Michael, finally says, “For me, the action is the juice.” He votes to do the bank heist because bank heists are in his bloodstream. He certainly does them for the money. But he wants the thrill, too.
And I still find myself wanting the thrill. I don’t want to chase drugs and alcohol, and I don’t want to rob any banks. I don’t want to do anything illegal or dumb or unsafe. But I still feel a pang to do something exciting, to have something looming on the horizon that will fill me up with electricity. I’m one of those people that might complain about being frantically busy at work, or having to drive my family eight hours in a minivan… but I complain worse when there is nothing going on. The action is the juice, even if it’s a shitshow.
That’s not good. I’m far enough into sobriety that I should probably handle free time better. There is something beautiful and essential about having nothing to do for four hours, and nothing to fill up those four hours. I gotta think more about how to sit in my backyard on a warm spring day and just soak in the sound of the birds and the brightness of the sunlight. It’s a beautiful thing but it’s going to take me awhile.
In the meantime, though, there is a lot of buzz about a Heat sequel coming from Michael Mann. Maybe that will come along and when life slows down, I’ll just watch that 65 times like I have with Heat.
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
The speaker was going on and on. A man in the fifth row stood up and walked out. As the speaker was winding up, the man returned. After the meeting, the speaker asked the man where he went.
“I went for a haircut,” he said.
“A haircut? Why didn’t you get a haircut before the meeting started?”
The man replied, “I didn’t need a haircut before the meeting started.”
(Credit: AA Grapevine, June 2002, Jay C.)
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