I cannot
tell if I am awake or asleep. My dreams are as vivid as the world in which I am
typing. I assume the other world is of my dreams, it is all I can do – assume. I
may be asleep right now. Can I prove it? Can you? I know I chose to believe
this is reality, though I have no proof.
I wonder
sometimes, is this the price I must pay for the years I spent embracing the
darkness? Years of wallowing in excess and depravity with no regard for anyone.
The harsh truth is I miss those days. I find myself wishing I had stayed there
so many years ago and rode the dragon until the darkness became all I knew. I wrote
of this once before, though it was years ago. I wondered if I was going mad, as
surely as I was in my dreams. Now, I wonder if perhaps I did go mad and merely
embraced it.
In my
alternate world, I am close to my brothers, physically and emotionally. In this
reality, the only time I have seen them in over a decade was a funeral and two
weddings. I have no communication with them, save one. I sense in some their
grudges, or spite for me. Spite for the years I spent in darkness when no one
knew if I was even alive.
It does not
seem to matter I left it all behind. Changed my perception of myself. I went through
the rehabilitation process and can say truthfully, I have not ingested an
illegal drug or drank of alcohol for over twenty-seven years. Two exceptions in
the interest of transparency. I once sipped a so-called virgin margarita for my
17-year-old stepdaughter to verify the presence of Tequila, Cuervo 1800 to be
precise. My wife was not certain of it’s true Virgin status. The second time
was last week. I dropped a half once of Kahlua with cream into my coffee for a
sip. I poured it out and got a fresh cup.
Alcoholic Anonymous
Zealots would call that a relapse. I call it what it is. I decision to verify I
no longer have a desire for alcohol. Which brings to mind I was actually asked
to leave an AA meeting in Waterloo, Iowa in the early nineties.
Long story –
short. I was listening to a gentlemen share how nervous and scared he was he
might not make it to the coming Friday sober. It was Wednesday. I put forth an observation
and inquiry out of curiosity.
“It can be rough,
I know; especially in the first weeks and months. How long have you been sober?”
I asked.
This is his
answer. “Twenty-three years this Friday.”
I followed
up, and in all honestly, I followed up as myself. “That is only two days away.
How can you NOT make it to Friday after over twenty-two years?”
I was
admonished by a senior member, a man of tenure. “There is no call for rudeness.
Every day can be a bitter challenge.”
Perhaps I
answered with a degree of sarcasm. I did not think so, but I am a poor judge of
my own mood or tone of conversation. “Honestly? If I have gone twenty-two years
and 362 days without a drink, I’d say Friday was a shoo-in.”
I struck a
nerve. “We do not judge others in AA,” I was told with a venomous edge to his
voice. I was already borderline as I used the term clean versus sober or I said
clean and sober. That did not go over well in the early nineties. Drug addicts
were treated as second class. I often brought up alcohol IS a drug. I was told
by a physician the chemical compound of alcohol can is the same as ether with
addition of an H2O molecule. Don’t quote me on that, look it up yourself.
The reason I
was evicted; I said, “As long as you keep telling yourself you ‘cannot drink’,
the longer you will remain a slave to booze, because the statement is bullshit.
“You can
drink any goddamn time you want. I’s your fucking choice – not mine, not anyone
else. I stay clean because I know with certainty not a one of you can stop me if
I choose to do so.
“Staying
clean and sober doesn’t work when you constantly live in fear. To tell you the
truth, if I were three days away from twenty-three years and as insecure a mess
as you – I would be heading to the
closest liquor store because you are miserable. Fuck miserable. If you cannot
enjoy the clarity sobriety brings you, then all you are doing is pretending to
be sober, when all you are just another drunk who still wants to drink.”
That is when
I was asked to leave and not return. Such is life.
What the
hell does that have to do with my issues with reality? Not a goddamn thing.
That is the point of the digression. Staying clean for 27 years is no small
feat. My love-hate relationship with narcotics and mind-altering drugs is the
one thread that runs through my life from my early teens to the age of 40. My
success in staying clean for twenty-seven plus years is the tie than binds it
all together.
I will
continue to convince myself this is the real world – that I am truly awake
despite the vividness and often painful ‘reality’ of my dreams.
What I said
of my brother is true, but without malice. I gave up contacting them years ago
when I realized I was always the one initiating contact. I hate being right,
though I will say this, my eldest brother has invited me to visit when we are physically
in the same location.
The time I
spent in the dark side of Dallas – Fort Worth was never dull. I met movie
stars, athletes, rock stars and celebrities on a regular basis. I was never
impressed by their celebrity which endeared me to some who treated me as an
equal.
This is what
I do when I mind teeters on the fine line between sanity and insane. I do not
know which I am – and for the moment, once again I don’t gi
ve a shit.
So, I will continue
to fight in my vivid dreams. I scream in my sleep. I fight foes who do not
exist. I wake myself up violently – I dove out of the bed more than once to ‘tackle’
someone in my ‘dreams.
Perhaps,
when all is said and done, I am insane. If I am, I accept it. It gives me a
measure of self-confidence and fearlessness I use when faced with
confrontations.
It is simple
really. I died in my dreams and I will die in my reality. This much I know.
I am less
stressed now for putting these words to paper. I have never felt I belonged in this
world around me. Perhaps someday it will become relevant.
Until that day comes, if ever
it should arrive,
I remain, Robert Ullrich
Erstwhile poet and writer.
