Birds of a Feather

My heart is breaking for a friend, a crazy-ass drunk who's life is spinning away from him. Usually I don't have much sympathy for alcoholics who know how and where to get sober, yet choose to continue to drink dangerously and complain about "not getting the program" as a bigger attention getter. (I guess that's the German part of me, intolerant even while educated. ) I mean, really, why would you sit down, shut up, listen, and do what others tell you when you can swing from chandeliers, fall down stairs, swerve over the yellow line, and bang rails in the men's room of the County Line til 5 am? (Damn, when I think of cursing the birds at 5, because they were waking and I was NOT sleeping...well, that's why I'm here.)

So, my friend. Whom I took to immediately upon meeting him, because I recognized myself on his surface. He is searching religions for spiritual recovery, searching his sexuality for soul recovery, reading voraciously for intellectual recovery, switching up his exercise regime for physical recovery. This is where his spinning begins, increases, and hopes the end is coming pretty damn soon, or he knows he will whirl away to nothing, a no one, no where. He practices yoga while reading Voltaire. He stays up all night making an origami zoo, agonizing over the recipient, either the latina with the fuck-me smile or the young tough with the fuck-you eyes. He stays at home lately because he is tired of getting pulled over/beaten up/thrown out. He burns CDs with elaborate themes, like "If I Was Your Boyfriend", and "Volume Two", mixing Chicago with Zappa and The Hollies. Yes, Chicago. I mean, this kid is pitiful.

And I get it! I get him! The whole show! The search to try anything at all to bring sanity to life, except of course not drink. This guy gets nothing but sympathy from me, maybe because he tries so damn hard. He's not hopeless, he's got plenty of hope! "Life WILL get better, if only_____happens when I find ______ and can go ______ with ______!" His life is, like my life was, as meaningful as a blank Mad Libs page! And I love him. I wanna chuck him on the shoulder, pinch his cheek, "aw-shucks" him into recovery. Not baby him, so much as call him buddy and pal, and say things like "if-I-can-do-it-you-can-do-it". Which is all well and good if his name was Opie Taylor, but it isn't, and really, he is killing himself. And that is one really heartbreaking experience that folks in recovery have in common: We watch other people kill themselves daily. It's part of our collective recovery. I guess that is part of my impatience with so many drinking drunks, that part of me is freaking tired of watching them. Enough already! "If-I-can-do-it-you-can-do-it". It doesn't get boring, it just gets sickening. For me, at least. Except, with my friend, at least for now. My tolerance can turn on a dime. Maybe I will get bored, or sick, or tired of him. That might not be a bad thing--I got sober when I got bored, sick, and tired of myself.