Posts Tagged ‘AA relationships’

GA 58th Prepaid Convention in Gainesville, Amazing Speakers!

Posted: October 28, 2011 in Uncategorized
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Wow what an incredible line up of speakers last weekend. I’d forgotten how powerful a huge group of drunks can be while listening to incredible stories of recovery. As Charlie Y. said to me outside “These things are a real shot in the arm to your recovery, but sometimes by Tuesday its right back to the same ole meetings, haha.” He had a great story, and funny as hell. All the speakers I thought were strong and funny. And the leaves up here in the mountains have just been magnificent this year.

I even experience less headaches up here by the water.  Someone said to me “It’s less negative ions” and I don’t know if that’s true or not, but damn if it doesn’t seem to be true at least. Which takes me back to my last posting about Post Interferon Syndrome. I certainly don’t mean to be throwing a pity party. I’m very grateful to be Hep C free and I recommend everyone getting tested and getting treated as soon as humanely possible. I only stress that the value of clear thinking, and positive thinking as well, is now so acutely meaningful to me, that “Brain Fog” is a real unwelcome permanent side effect some days. I only want their to be studies to test whether there are ways of improving the side effects and bringing normalcy to people’s lives who are suffering from such things. It took me 20 years of drinking to figure out how valuable my state of mind is one Earth, and right when I did I polluted it with some of the harshest poisons on Earth, Interferon, and I just wish somebody, somewhere was studying the long term side effects, and potential fixes.

I’m not advocating permanent pity party, or a wallowing in whining, but I think it is important to state the issue clearly, consolidate folks who are feeling this way, and petition the scientific community, especially the billionaire profit makers of Merck and Roche who have gained so much, to at least study some of us, if not all.

Still it felt like I’d complained a considerable amount and then that very weekend I ran into quite a few people who’d done a year of Interferon and had not got rid of the virus. Please understand, I am grateful I cleared it, and I do recommend everyone get tested early and treat early as they say it’s more effective the younger you do it, which was the sole reason I went ahead and jumped on the grenade… well that and my liver enzymes were through the roof and liver failure was a possibility, so it’s not like I had too much choice, but still. Get it done, but also, be aware it’s no small thing. It’s more than flu like symptoms. It hurts, and it changes the way you think, feel, and even bleed.

So what do you do afterwards, double down on recovery, call your sponsor more, go to more meetings, and try not to fall into the Pity Party trap chronic pain sufferers. I’m looking into finding a support group, and it’s probably something I should have done a long time ago. People close to me have said I’m always angry, and it’s not true, I’m not angry, but there are days when I am having intense headaches and I don’t know how to fix them. When they come on, and admittedly at 3.5 years post TX they come fewer and fewer, but in year one post TX, they were several times a week, so that too gives me hope. Allen, the guy who was originally talking about Hippopotamus Sea in my meetings, (which I’d later come to find out was Hepatitis C) said it was about 5 years before he was totally better, so there is hope as well. Hope that the post TX side effects while continue to slowly get better. And of course for people just finding out they have  Hep C, they don’t even have to go the full year, Telaprevir now reduces it to six months, so surely those side effects will be better as well.

The Prepaid Convention in Georgia was amazing this year, and I think I’ll be incorporating that into my sobriety moving forward. No matter what I am saved from the obsession to drink and drug and that was killing me much more fast than any other thing on Earth, and I no longer have to suffer from that. Hep C, headaches, fatigue, I will manage, and I am grateful to God, and to AA for holding my hand as I walked this journey, and with patience, and faith, I pray every year post TX will get a little better than the last. Exercise, diet, prayer and above all else perseverance will pull me through.

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t address the issues, and ask big pharma what they’ve found, and if they know of any potential fixes, and if not, which I doubt, then to get fucking on it. They aren’t fictional side effects, and we’d appreciate the help or at the very least some studies be done.

Thanks for reading and if you haven’t read my story of sobriety, Hepatitis C and the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, its all available for free in my book Hippopotamus Sea: My Viral Sobriety by Jared Bryan Smith on http://www.books4free.com or in hard back on Amazon at the link below! Thanks so much for all your support!

– Jared Bryan Smith

Laid Off… That sounds so much better than it really is.

Posted: August 19, 2011 in Uncategorized
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Getting laid, or jerking off, now that sounds at least moderately enjoyable… but being laid off, just blows. In sobriety I’ve now been laid off three times in less than 3 years. This never happened to me when I was out there drinking and drugging. Now mind you there are some details I’m leaving out. Sure, sure, I was told I am actually free to continue to work, but commission only. I don’t think my car payment or ex wife will accept such terms however, and therefore I’ve been looking for work all week long. I’m fortunate in that I do have a good solid ten years of recruiting experience under my belt and I’ve had a few nibbles.

I tell you also, the romantic notion of becoming a soldier continues to haunt my conscience. I have always romanticized the horrors of war. I have studied history, read dozens of books, and know academically how horrendous, monotonous, boring and terrifying war can be. I know the stats of double and triple amputees coming out of Afghanistan, especially those of Infantry, where I imagine myself going, and I know that this time last year we’d seen an increase of IED’s up to about 1000 and that this year that number is already at 1800 or almost double. It also seems they have something more potent taking helicopters out of the sky though nobody is about to admit that publicly. I know all these facts like the back of my hand, and yet I can’t escape the notion that I would love to serve, and to fight. I would love to fly helicopters into battle ultimately.

My record is such, bar fights and dui’s etc, that I don’t qualify for Security Clearance to be a medic or a pilot though, so the recruiter tells me I need a good year of good behavior to earn security clearance and then apply for Helicopter Pilot School. And my brain tells me no, but heart tells me yes. I pray for guidance, and I hear no voices, but when I think of the adventure while sitting in church, it’s like  thinking of the woman who slipped away, my heart pounds, adrenaline flows and chills radiate out from my spine through my bloodstream. I love the idea of it all. The journey.

Andrew Jackson once said “I was born in a storm, and a calm does not suit me.”

I know how he feels. I’m having a hard time getting motivated by mere corporate survival and sales goals as of late. Though I know the math is terrible, the odds dismal my age a huge obstacle, I can’t stop thinking I might be happier if I just followed my heart every once in a while instead of listening to my fact filled brain. I will continue to pray about I suppose.

I go back to Hemingway at war, and though I know I’m no Hemingway, you just can’t deny it would give a powerful subject to a voice I now have a lot of faith in. Also with 5k friends under my real name and about 2k friends under Jared Bryan Smith on facebook I could blog and post videos and picture from the war zone that would be mind blowing. Again, food for thought, just some of the things a grandiose alcoholic considers when his career gets sidelined yet again. We shall see.

-Jared Bryan Smith

 

“Flight of the seabirds, scattered like lost words Wheel to the storm and fly Fare thee well now Let your life proceed by its own design.”

Posted: June 25, 2011 in Uncategorized
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“Nothing to tell now
Let the words be yours, I’m done with mine”

By John Perry Barlow with Bob Weir
Recorded on Ace (Warner Brothers, 1972)
Cora, Wyoming February, 1972

I go months and months without thinking about certain things, including the grateful dead, and then in a wave and a rush, I’ll remember how much I love the music and how much the words can mean to me.

When I wrote the Robert Hunter quote from the song yesterday, it brought back all the thoughts of my divorce, losing my son as a full time father, and the loss of so many loves throughout the last 15 years. Today I woke up with Cassidy running through my mind. God those words are beautiful, so fucking poetic, just humming them brings back such memories. For me, this song brings back my mama’s passing, and the eternity of all life. The hawk I saw circling our limo as we drove to her funeral. Good music can be so personal, it can mean so many things.

Being a christian I believe death is only another passing moment. We will all get there, how we lived, who we helped, who we treated well, who we forgave, is all there is. If christianity didn’t exist we should invent it as the best way of living. I have reawakened to my faith in the last year or so and it’s amazing what I find reading through the pages of the new testament.

How much of the book is there, that we simply do not do? Fasting for instance. In all my life I’ve never known a christian that fasted. It’s prominent, it’s there, it’s in the words and yet I’ve never ever heard the first sermon on it. Also forgiveness. Real forgiveness. Turning the other cheek when someone maliciously, childishly attacks you. I know so many christian values that are spoken about, but barely ever practiced. I guess because it is hard to do.

But for me, in sobriety ever year I learn a little more spiritually and learn that the things I learn are generally good for me. Obedience to God and to spiritual principles that he continually shows me almost always has it’s own inherent rewards. Usually first though, it’s hard as hell to begin a new behavior.

Taking a year off of dating, which was suggested by minister Andy Stanley for a year, long after my sponsor had suggested it for several years, is finally starting to sound like it might have some actual validity. I’ve made nothing but messes of every single relationship I’ve ever been in in my entire life. As the 12 and 12 states and I was moved by the very first time I ever read:

“The primary fact that we fail to recognize  is our total inability to form a true partnership with another human being. Our egomania digs two disastrous pitfalls. (THIS IS THE BEST PART) Either we insist upon dominating the people we know, or we depend upon them far too much. If we lean too heavily on people, they will sooner or later fail us, for they are human, too, and cannot possibly meet our incessant demands. In this way our insecurity grows and festers. When we habitually try to manipulate others to your own willful desires, they revolt, and resist us heavily. Then we develop hurt feelings, a sense of persecution, and a desire to retaliate. As we redouble our efforts at control, and continue to fail, our suffering becomes acute and constant. We have not once sought to be one in a family, to be friend among friends, to be a worker among workers, to be a useful member of society. Always we tried to struggle to the top of the heap or to hide underneath it. The is self centered behavior blocked a partnership relation with any of those about us. Of true brotherhood we had small comprehension.”

page 53 – The 12 Steps and 12 Traditions

Wow, what precision. How can they have mapped us out so effectively?

I guess the only fix is the 12 steps, time and layers of the onion.

-Jared Bryan Smith

 

 

“You told me goodbye, How was I to know, You didn’t mean goodbye, You meant please don’t let me go.” – Robert Hunter (Grateful Dead)

Posted: June 24, 2011 in Uncategorized
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Woke up thinking about work again, it’s been an amazing few months with our software going into almost every major nightclub and dozens of great restaurants throughout Atlanta, and I’ve hired three sales folks, and I’m just amped still. We release on iphone very soon, and the anticipation to see how everything all works is palpable.

Staying busy has kept me emotionally stronger than I think I would have otherwise been with all the damn goodbyes this year. Starting with the one at the beginning of the  year that still stings most prominently no matter how much i wish it didn’t, it’s like my professional life had to make a trade with my personal life or something.

I still feel good sobriety wise though. Had an ear infection in the beginning of the week and my hearing is only about 50% of what it usually is, but it finally seems like its getting better. That’s always scary in sobriety, in our heads its never just an ear infection, I was positive I was going deaf. But 100 bucks for a drs appt and some antibiotics and it seems to be going back to normal.

Visited my sister for her birthday and got to hold the new baby, and she is gorgeous. They are so happy with their perfect little family. I remember those days, when my now 15 year old son was first born, every breath is magic, and they smell so good. My son still smells sweet to me. My cousin has two kids as well and me and the older one, who is 3, played angry birds and ant smashers on my phone until he killed the battery. There was a hyper dog running around as well. How is it the people who already have 2 kids, working on three, also have a hyper dog running around, and just don’t even seem annoyed by any of it? I guess when you’re happy those things don’t irritate you, and they are all very happy in their new families.

I guess I’m just lonely, but hey thats the brakes, nobody ever promised me anything in sobriety except for work, and a daily reprieve. I didn’t wake up with an obsession to drink and drug and somedays that is all the victory you’re going to get.

Still no word on the addicted project interview but I’m definitely looking forward to seeing that in print.

Tomorrow evening, 8 pm, telling my story at the 8111 clubhouse for those in the know! Hope to see you there!

– Jared Bryan Smith

At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want. – Lao Tzu

Posted: May 24, 2011 in Uncategorized
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What a long, long weekend.

Sobriety is filled with firsts. Whenever I’ve begun to feel comfortable and well rounded in this program, seems like I always find a new challenge to face, a new layer of the onion to peel and learn somehow to yet again grow a bit. I’m a VP of Sales for a technology company that sells to amongst other clients, restaurants. The National Restaurant Association has a huge event in Chicago every year and my boss signed me up to go this year and I didn’t think twice about going, in fact I was quite excited, as I’ve always done inside sales, and never in my career ever traveled to do any kind of sales at all.

How’s the saying go, wear your sobriety like a loose shirt, but don’t forget to put the shirt on every morning. Well, for some reason, I forgot to put the shirt on. Or I was just careless or didn’t think it through, I’m really not sure. I asked a friend of mine who I’ve known in Chicago for over 20 years, who grew up with me in Atlanta and whom I began my drinking and drugging career with back in middle school. Why the thought didn’t occur to me that this might be careless, hell, even dangerous is beyond me. I really just didn’t think it through.

I woke up early to get to Chicago and after landing, walking the convention all day I get back to his place, where he’d left a key, and try to go to sleep. After about an hour, he comes in there, into the room I’m sleeping, and drunk as hell, shakes me until I wake up, all with the best intentions, but just 100% oblivious as to what waking up to an obnoxious drunk idiot might be like to a recovered alcoholic. I was already irritated he failed to mention his huge white lab, as I’m allergic to dogs, but good lord, to wake me up in the middle of the night drunk off your ass, to reminisce, I mean seriously? It went downhill from there.

I didn’t get back to sleep till 4 am, I walked the convention the whole next day, when I returned he was drinking red wine. I love the guy, but I don’t hang out with drunk people for a reason. I’m just a different person than I used to be.

What’s more was the insight into my personality changes he noted. He told me, “As soon as I saw you, I could tell your confidence was shaken.” I am still not sure how to take this. The thing is for 20 years I had a false bravado, an alcoholic fueled, megalomania that was delusional, dangerous, and was leading me to death. Perhaps humility is what he saw and just misinterpreted it. I don’t really know. I don’t really care. As the quote above says, deep in the center of my being I know who I am and what I want, and I have the answer, and it is to be a good humble human being, not a self assured, ego driven nut-job that I used to be. I’m much more confident now in my heart of hearts than I ever was before, whether that shows on my face or not.

I know what he means. He’s referring to the kind of confidence, a con man uses to pull his cons. Or a womanizer uses to seduce. He’s referring to a certain arrogance that actually does work in this world most of the time, but one that I don’t and prefer not to emit anymore. I can still sell good ideas I believe in, and I can still convey good ideas, I need not beam a ray of greater than thou bullshit to accomplish the missions I choose to embark on now. I might lose a few girls, or a few accounts, or be thought of as humble or weak from time to time by not emitting that King of the World egotistical confidence game I used to carry around with me so effectively, but in my heart of hearts I knew that person was a fraud. I was never that confident, it was always a lie. An egomaniac with an inferiority complex we call it. How true, and how sad. I didn’t fight because I was a bad ass, I fought because I was scared. Mark Twain said “Never fight a little man, he will kill you.” I carried around an aire of superiority while I was drinking and drugging that some recognized and even loved, but that ultimately drove me to drinking alone, friendless, hopeless, dying in a rat infested shack all by myself. I may not be that same confident man, but I am a better man for it, no doubt.

And it’s no great loss that someone still suffering in the throes of addiction, and ultimately denial, would recognize my lost ego, and point that out as a blatant negative change, and then lecture me on how it’s all about a relationship with God and a higher power, drunk and high, at 3 am, walking in an alleyway in Chicago, while all I wanted to do was rest. In fact, I should have expected it, and I should have prepared better for it. Fortunately I have a program of recovery. I have a sponsor, who has a sponsor, and even after the meeting at the Mustard Seed AA Clubhouse in Chicago turned out to be another fiasco of the trip, I had a network of men I could call in Atlanta and talk to and thankfully, relate to. I didn’t need a drunks approval, or assessment of my “confidence”. I have a network of men in Atlanta that know how much I’ve been through, how much I’ve changed, and know that there’s no going back to that old ego driven JB but that the way to self esteem is doing esteem-able things, and if at 4.5 years sober that’s still not as high as it was when artificially amped up by drugs and alcohol, well then you just need to keep on working on it. So I don’t have the woman of my dreams yet, or all the tea in China, or the BMW M3, I still have good friends and family that love and care for me, that know I’m way better off here and now than when I was back there killing my self slow.

Still it was good to land back in Atlanta and get to a meeting. I went straight to 8111 and caught the 10 pm meeting, and I felt like I’d touched home base. Confidence shaken, lol, yeah, well, I learned a few things this weekend. 1) Don’t stay with friends who still drink like fish 2) Know where the good meetings are  3) don’t park next to the anthills at hartsfield and 4) get your own rental car in strange cities. I am an alcoholic, and I can’t be dependent on other people to get to meetings when I’m elsewhere, period the end.

Oh I did think of an awesome APP we should develop though, “CLOSEST AA MEETING” using your smart phones GPS ,geo locate you and timestamp to find closest applicable AA meeting. I can’t believe it’s not already on the market?!! Who wants to partner on this, I kind of have my hands full. It’s good to be home, great to be sober, and good to know just who I am, and who knows me. My name is JB Smith and I’m an alcoholic, and also… not fond of smelly people on airplanes.

-Jared Bryan Smith

“Ego Rape” – Original Jared Bryan Smith Poetry, April 8th, 2011

Posted: April 8, 2011 in Uncategorized
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Ego Rape

Land soft again into my arms,

Deny the duplicity, deception of charms.

Awaken the truth, the light and the way,

Set aside the pettiness, and seize the dying day.

Time slides by in endless waves,

Yesterdays tombs, flooded crypts and caves.

Regrets forever sealed, mistakes piled on tragedies,

Against the grain we raged, self inflicted maladies.

Surrender all your silliness, seek your heart for truth,

Beg your God for clarity, await your thoughts to soothe.

Crash delicate upon loves shore,

Humility beckoned you here.

Love is its own just sacred war,

Where victory grips you like fear.

Faithfully seek your soul for honesty,

The rarest form of being.

Cry foul the common brutality,

For EGO rapes us of seeing.

-Jared Bryan Smith

For more original poetry please read my book via books4free.com, smashwords or of course the hard cover hard back via the amazon link below:

Thanks for the support and if you like the book please leave a review on amazon AND smashwords as Indie publishing lives and dies by grassroots support and we appreciate all the word of mouth we get!!

“Temporary Empty” – Original JB Smith Poetry

Posted: April 8, 2011 in Uncategorized
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Temporary Empty

Should that teardrop reverberate in the emptiness?

Would that spark ignite the void?

For that which felt like loneliness,

Was preparation for this noise.

Explosions need space to expand,

Love was never lost, just reorganizing.

Exponential tidal wave, emotional reprimand:

Be it real and true,

Then patience will allow it growth,

No jealousy or anger can fool,

No defect can defunct.

Be Cool. As water flows downhill,

Love returns, of its own free will.

-Jared Bryan Smith

PS: More original JB Smith poetry for free in the book Hippopotamus Sea on http://www.books4rfree.com, smashwords via the link on the left, and of course in hard copy via the amazon  link, thanks for your support:

Books4free.com radio plug tomorrow, http://www.newstalk1160.com/shows/weekend-hosts !!! “Technology Cafe” – Xmas 2010 & The Lady & MY 4 YEARS SOBER ANNIVERSERY!!us

Posted: December 24, 2010 in Uncategorized
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Wow, even my stepdad was impressed I was able to get on newstalk1160 this Saturday and Sunday from noon to one. Too bad my stats show that the only blog of mine being read is the one about Anthony Kiedis and Johnny Delirious, haha, or perhaps I’d be doing a little better job of promoting it. It’s all good though, it’s just a good first start, hopefully Gus Cawley will let me back on Technology Cafe to explain the Free Books on books4free.com idea in a little more detail, as well as go into length about the subject matter and unique story of Hippopotamus Sea: My Viral Sobriety. No matter what, even though I feel like I bombed the beginning of the interview, it’s still free publicity, and that is just free advertising.

So if you read the saga/blog of yesterday, you may find it even more humorous, that after all of that adventure, I found myself back at Phipps Plaza yesterday afternoon, repurchasing, on my now third visit to Tiffany’s, the silver locket with the number 6 on it, so that I could give to the girl I’m madly in love with… I told her friend I was a moron as I was walking back into the store, and she eloquently put it “No you’re not, you’re just in love. It’s crazy.” Yes it is. For someone with less than a year sober, and going through a tough divorce, my girls friend has really got a good head on her shoulders, and I owe her a big thanks for the gift advice, but also in just all her kind words as me and the blond have gone up and down, up and down. She could have crucified me, and instead told her friend nice things, and I’m grateful she is in both  my girls life and mine. So yeah, I couldn’t even get home before I’d texted her the picture of the Tiffany’s box. she first played like she was upset I got her something, and then admitted she’d gotten me something too. Haha.

Here’s the thing though, it wasn’t for Christmas as we’d discussed. I got hers for her six months, and she got mine for my 4 years. The thing is, she got me a little model of a sailboat with the inscription on the sails “We can’t change the wind, but we can adjust the sails.” It’s quite literally the most  thoughtful gift anyone has ever gotten me in my memory. Nobody in my mind has ever taken the time to know what I like,  or get something for my office where I spend so much time. It was really amazing. I’m humbled and grateful to God she was put in my life. Even if the whole thing goes south tomorrow, I’ll be grateful just for having met her. It was an awesome gift, and exchanging them with her was more fun than I can remember in recent memory.

So yeah, today, the 24th, is my technical and actual 4 year anniversery of picking up a white chip. I’ve already picked up  a candle and a chip though, I just couldn’t wait. I used to be superstitous about it but at 4 years I feel pretty confident I won’t relapse by having picked it up early. I think I’m going to pick it up early and often from now on, eff being shy, I’ve earned it!

So yeah, tune in tomorrow on http://www.newstalk1160.com/shows/weekend-hosts under Gus Cawley’s show “Technology Cafe” where I plug books4free.com. I didn’t get a word in edge wise about Hippopotamus Sea but I at least mentioned the website books4free.com twice. Maybe that’ll spike a few book sales, we shall see!

Merry Christmas everyone, and thank you all my AA family, I could never have done any of this without you!

-JB Smith