Attached to outcomes

I got attached to outcomes this week. That's generally a bad thing.

I got a call from my health insurance company asking me if I would let my ex know that his upcoming medical appointment had been cancelled and that he should call to reschedule. She said that she had tried to call his home phone number but couldn't reach him.

I've been paying for his health insurance since he got fired from his job a few years ago. I'm grateful that my employer offers the same benefits for couples in domestic partnerships as they do for married couples -- even though the fucked up US government makes me pay "fringe benefit" tax on it but doesn't make my het, married coworkers pay that same tax, but I digress. And the fact is that in a way I'm cheating my employer by keeping him on my insurance. I was supposed to cancel his insurance when I moved out over a year ago since, technically, living together was a requirement for domestic partnership, at least when we were registered. At one point I picked up the forms to drop him from my insurance but I never got around to filling them out and submitting them. When I talk to him I tell him that next month I need to turn in the paperwork to end his insurance and he says that he should go in for a physical before it ends. But then I forget about it until late into the month and I want him to have time to switch to paying his own insurance (COBRA) instead of loosing coverage. So I always decide to wait until the next month.

And he never makes an appointment.

It's a big deal to me because he is still using. And that's a really big fucking deal to me. Really big. It's the reason I left him and ended our 11 year relationship. I had planned to spend the rest of my life with him. In 2004 we were married in San Francisco's City Hall. We were both high but that didn't lessen how much love I felt for him when I said, "I do." And I meant it. But when I decided to get clean, to stop using crystal meth, I couldn't keep that vow. I had a choice between my relationship and my life. I chose to live.

When my insurance called me about his appointment I thought it meant that he was finally going in for a checkup. Medical appointments are tough for drug addicts (well, except for pill poppers, I guess). Doctors have this thing about encouraging people to get help for their drug addictions. It can really screw up your high. This I know for a fact. I took the idea that he might have concern for his health to mean that he might be considering doing something about his addiction. I started working out the plan to keep him on my insurance through the end of June so he would have time for follow up visits. I started planning how we would coordinate our schedule at the chemical dependency recovery program run by my health insurance plan to give us each the space we would need. I thought about how I could leave the program early and start therapy in the psych division. Do you see where this is going?

When I called him to let him know about the appointment cancellation he sounded groggy...or really high. He said he knew about the cancellation. It had been a mistake. He had never made an appointment.

Yesterday afternoon a friend in recovery called me to say that he had seen me on TV. A news crew filmed part of our wedding. They were actually there to cover Rosie O'Donnell getting married to her partner. They asked me some questions. I don't remember what they were or what I said. But now whenever that station does a news story about gay marriage they throw in a clip of my ex and I getting married. I've never seen it. Inevitably someone who knows me, or knew us, but who doesn't know that we're not together will see it and mention something to me. "What's it like to be a poster boy for gay marriage?" someone asked me once. "I'm now posing for gay divorce posters," I said.

I'm trying not to get attached to outcomes anymore.

Flowers From The Heartland

I have 488 days clean and sober.

Chemistry projects

Shrink
I saw my psychiatrist yesterday. We talked about the fatigue problems I've been having. I didn't exactly explicitly tell him that every now and then I take a nap at my desk at work. I don't know why, I guess it's something that I feel embarrassed about. But I did let him know that the afternoons are tough. He wrote me out a lab slip to get some blood work done to check my thyroid (or is it thyroids -- how many do I have?). He also agreed to do a testosterone check so I'll go in on Friday and get blood drawn before I get my bi-weekly testosterone shot. We talked about switching me to a drug they give to people with narcolepsy but he didn't want me taking that along with the buproprion. Better living through modern chemistry? Oh well, it beats meth psychosis and depression.

Justin and The Bridge
SF Gate had an article about a documentary called The Bridge that was showing at the San Francisco International Film Festival. It's a documentary about people committing suicide by jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge. They set up cameras on both ends of the bridge and filmed continuously during 2004, recording 23 people jumping to their death. They interviewed the families of six of the people who committed suicide.
Carolyn Zinko of the SF Chronicle says:

By showing the final anguish of people's lives and the emotional fallout for their loved ones, his intention seems to be to turn moviegoers into eyewitnesses to one of the saddest and most controversial forms of violence.

Last December Justin committed suicide. He didn't jump from the bridge, he was afraid of water and the possibility of not dying right away and drowning instead. He jumped from a building in downtown San Francisco. Justin was, I don't know, an "intimate friend." We weren't exactly dating but we weren't not dating and we weren't exactly fucking we weren't not fucking. I guess some people would call him a "friend with benefits" but I don't feel like that really expresses the depth of feeling I had for him. Either way he's dead and I really miss him. Sometimes I'm surprised at how much grief I still feel.

I really want to go see "The Bridge." I want to see how other people have grieved. Maybe I want a reminder that the way I'm feeling is "normal." Maybe I'm looking for some kind of connection to someone who has felt this before. When I met Justin I found all of these connections between us. I want to see this movie but I definitely don't want to see it alone.

Suicide Awareness Voices of Education - www.save.org
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention - www.afsp.org

Spray painted on sidewalk:
"I don't think that I could love you any more."
How is that different than
"I don't think that I can love you any more."
Answer and explain your answer.

Thinking and loving have nothing to do with each other.
~Mike

Did I mention that I'm a drug addict?

It was a warm and sunny day in San Francisco today. I probably should have spent some time in the sun getting a sunburn but instead I came home from the 10:30 Crystal Meth Anonymous meeting, surfed the Internet and took a long nap.

I screwed up and didn't get a speaker for my Narcotics Anonymous Hospitals and Institutions commitment at a recovery facility. I have to stop doing that. There's something behind not asking someone to speak that's more than just laziness. And I've learned that when I procrastinate or avoid doing certain things that there's usually something I'm afraid of that is at the core of it.

I decided that I would both speak and secretary the meeting. I talked about the moment of clarity concept that I was thinking about yesterday. How there was just this small window of time when I had the clarity to realize that I was destroying my life with drugs and also had the willingness to do something about it. The two don't always come at the same time. That probably doesn't make sense to most people. "Why wouldn't you stop using drugs if you realized they were killing you?" many would ask. Because I'm a drug addict. The obsession and the compulsion to feed my addiction was stronger than anything else. Stronger than my moral conscience, stronger than my intellect, stronger than my love for my partner, stronger than my will to live. That's what addiction was for me and even after 15 months of being clean and sober the addiction is still there. I don't have the compulsion but once in while the obsession returns: the idea that a drink would make me feel better, the idea that there's no point in trying anyway so I might as well just go get high. I know that a drink or a drug won't solve anything, that they will take me right back to where I was: scared, alone, hopeless. But the knowledge doesn't make that obsession go away, or the addiction.

I felt good about my share. My voice didn't quiver and I didn't find myself having to back up to fill in some detail of my story. I just told the truth and shared my feelings and it felt really good.

Afterwards I felt so good that I decided to go to another meeting and try to and keep that feeling a little longer.

I used to think that I didn't have anything to offer anyone. Doing service for other drug addicts has helped me to see things differently. I'm very grateful for that.

482 days clean and sober.

Moving in to my blog - profile photo

Moving in
I decided to upload a photo for my profile. I think it's one of my better self portraits.

Do these shoes make my dick look big?

Man Bait
So tell me, do you think these shoes make my dick look big? Everyone knows the big feet + big hands = big dick theory. It just never occurred to me to wear shoes that exaggerate the size of my feet as man bait! Where have I been?

Kind legs and a great face
I made eye flirts with a guy on Castro Street last night (while eating a pizza slice for dinner, how chic!). I thought to myself, "He has a kind face and great legs! Now that's what I really like in a man." I'm not sure if it was dyslexic or Freudian when I thought about it a moment later and my brain had changed some words around.

Sobering Moment
I went to the 11 a.m. AA meeting in the Castro hoping that my New Future Boyfriend would be there. No luck. I'm not sure what meeting to try stalking him at next.
But I did get to hear a friend give a great share. His discussion topic was the third step, "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of a God of our understanding." I shared how my understanding of Step Three was changing over time. As I started coming out of a two depression earlier this year I gained a new understanding of what that step means to me. Now I feel that I only understand it as it applies to today. Tomorrow it will change because my life is constantly changing. Things didn't change much when I was using. My life just contracted until I was alone with my drug.
In my friend's share he talked about that moment when you realize you have a chance to stop, to put down the drug or the drink and get help. If you don't take that moment you loose it. Like the Monday morning when I stood in front of the mirror looking like shit and feeling like shit and I realized that I was addicted to crystal meth. That sobering moment when I saw I had a choice. That morning I chose to get high and not think about it. Fortunately I had a chance to make that choice again a year later and I chose differently.

Dharma Punx
I spent some time surfing on Dharma Punx this morning and Vipassana Buddhism (del.icio.us link to follow soon). I watched a trailer for "Meditate and Destroy," a movie about Noah Levine, the author of Dharma Punx. In the clip Noah says, "Act justly, love tenderly and walk humbly." I guess I would add "live courageously." I'm hoping to make it back to Urban Dharma next Friday.

Fear, Sloth and Procrastination
Here's what I'm not doing today:

• Calling my parents
• Calling a college friend I haven't talked to in years
• Paying an overdue credit card or answering their collection calls
• Laundry
• Writing out my Eighth Step
• Cleaning house
• Meditating
• Learning something technical
  
• Getting laid

Bloggering
And I started a blog today. What do you think?