Too Much Love and Loneliness Trying to Break Free
June stories you may have missed, and a call for July check-ins!
I have it on good authority: Time is passing. Yes, right now! Again now! Still now! Time is passing, whether you like it or not. I don’t, particularly. It’s a parade of fresh horrors spotted with moments of, fine, transcendent joy. It’s a flat circle the fourth dimension consciousness annoyed but persisting. It’s agony! It’s the end of June. Time for a roundup of Small Bow stories from the past month.
And! Time for you to tell us how your time is passing for, what else, the July Check-In.
The perfect length is 150-300 words. Here’s a great one from last month’s round-up to give you an idea of what we’re looking for:
When I was using coke I’d have dreams about wanting to do more of it. In these dreams I’d find myself in front of a huge pile of the stuff ready to have at it and then something would get in the way. Dream logic would intervene, keeping me from just having more. I’d wake up feeling frustrated.
I’m five months into the coke-free rest of my life, and I still have coke dreams. Except now when my dream self has a bag in hand or is chopping up lines, I’ll start to feel guilty. I’ll think about how doing it would hurt me, how I’d lose the progress I’ve made, and I choose to not do it. I say no.
When I wake up I feel relieved and so happy that I’m still on the right track. Progress.
EMAIL US HERE: tsbcheckins@thesmallbow.com SUBJECT: JULY CHECK-IN
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MOST POPULAR STORIES FROM JUNE:
Maybe I’m Not the Worst Person in the World After All
by Anonymous
“The easiest way to break the ice at Gentle Path — the facility which famously had Tiger Woods as a patient after his public cheating scandals — is to mention how little resemblance the place bears to the lush, leafy green compound shown on the website of its mother hospital. I’d been stoked to get away from life and go to a place whose publicity shots just screamed ‘stereotypical rehab.’ Tons of trees, a walking path, maybe a water feature or two? I could do 45 days there, no sweat. Problem is, the sprawling campus featured online (which I proudly showed my freaking grandparents to put them at ease) is where the drug and alcohol addicts get to go. Gentle Path is a few minutes down the road, adjacent to an Enterprise Rent-a-Car and sandwiched between two auto-glass shops. It’s on the former site of what locals fondly remember as ‘the sleaziest motel in Hattiesburg.’”
*****
Interview with a 56-Year-Old Sober Person: Margaret Cho
by TSB/Oldster
“I was definitely born with the ‘need.’ That urge to put something between me and living. It’s like ‘How do you expect me to live without something between me and life?’ I still have that feeling, but I’m able to put a lot of things between me and life now, which is my meditation, my writing, my support system. I have a lot of friends who are doing the same thing, so it helps.”
*****
How to Mourn the Friend on the Other Side of the Bar
by John Saward
“There were months when I saw Jim and the guys in that bar more than I saw girls I was living with, more than I saw my parents when I was a child. We’d close up at 2 in the morning and they would be there again at 1 in the afternoon the next day, asking if I’d turned the fryer on yet. Sometimes they brought their half-eaten takeout with them from home, container still cold from the fridge.”
*****
Men Who Are Afraid Part III
by Henry Giardina, Mark Pagán, Chris Gayomail, Joe Schrank, and Hamilton Nolan
“When I started, I was scared of whether or not looking more male would make my family scared of me or weirded out by me. Now that I’ve spent some time with them on T, this fear is receding into the background. What I’m much more scared of now is having this thing that actually helps me get taken away forever.”
ALL ILLUSTRATIONS BY EDITH ZIMMERMAN
RECENT TSB PODCASTS
W/Amanda Hess
W/Casey Johnston
ZOOM MEETING SCHEDULE
Monday: 5:30 p.m. PT/8:30 ET
Tuesday: 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET
Wednesday: 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET
Thursday: 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET (Women and non-binary meeting.)
Friday: 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET and 4 p.m. PT/7 p.m. ET
Saturday: Mental Health Focus (Peer support for bipolar/anxiety/depression) 9:30 a.m. PT/12:30 p.m. ET
Sunday: (Mental Health and Sobriety Support Group.) 1:00 p.m PT/4 p.m. ET
*****
If you don’t feel comfortable calling yourself an “alcoholic,” that’s fine. If you have issues with sex, food, drugs, codependency, love, loneliness, and/or depression, come on in. Newcomers are especially welcome.
FORMAT: CROSSTALK, TOPIC MEETING
We’re there for an hour, sometimes more. We’d love to have you.
Meeting ID: 874 2568 6609
PASSWORD TO ZOOM: nickfoles
Need more info?: ajd@thesmallbow.com
This is The Small Bow newsletter. It is mainly written and edited by A.J. Daulerio. And Edith Zimmerman always illustrates it. We send it out every Tuesday and Friday.
You can also get a Sunday issue for $7 monthly or $60 annually. The Sunday issue is a recovery bonanza full of gratitude lists, a study guide to my daily recovery routines, a poem I like, the TSB Spotify playlist, and more exclusive essays. You also get commenting privileges!
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A POEM ON THE WAY OUT:
My Dream
by Han Yong-un
translated from the Korean by Younghill Kang
*****
When you go walking through the clear dawn in the shade of trees,
my dream will become the few little stars
that are staying on over your head.
When during summer days you are sleeping a daytime sleep
unable to conquer the heat, my dream will become the clear winds
that are floating about your vicinage.
When in the still Autumn nights, you sit alone reading books,
my dream will become the voice of the cricket, crying
under your table, “chirrup, chirrup.”
—Via Poets.org
*****
You opened with a story about dreaming about Cocaine. When I finally quit the alcohol, 6 months after quitting the drugs, I had a recurring dream of being in the desert and there was nothing available to drink except beer. I would wake up in a cold sweat and wonder where this dream came from. During my days, I never thought about drinking, even when I had to take a job at a liquor store after my license was suspended.
To be quite honest, I would certainly drink that beer in the desert as dying of dehydration would be far worse than sobering up again!
Working in the liquor store was interesting, they all knew I didn’t drink. When one wise guy put liquor in my coffee, the manager of the wine department threw him up against the wall and told him how much he would regret it if he ever did it again.
I was not drinking but still had other bad habits. Management was thrilled that I wasn’t sneaking bottles of cheap wine like the other young employees. What they didn’t realize is that I was more aware and, instead, snuck Chivas Regal out for my disabled aunt.
Fortunately, I soon gave up all my illegal habits!