Meltdown

I had a meltdown last Friday which lasted all weekend.

I was a complete douchenozzle for some of the time (I was pretty well-behaved on Saturday night).

It started on Friday when I got home from my job in NY and found two packages I could've done without. One was a letter, with affidavit, from the NYC Transit Authority, wanting me to tell them the entire story of the transit fare card incident at 53rd & Lex on August 24th. The other was a packet from my surgeon wanting all kinds of tests and clearances, from my internist and from my cardiologist, prior to my upcoming robotic prostectomy on October 14th.

In and of themselves, they were nothing. I was out about $58.00 with the MTA and the other stuff would kill a couple of vacation days during the next few weeks.

It could be much worse. These are high-quality problems for somebody who, 11 years ago, didn't have a job and was virtually homeless.

Somewhere along the way, my gratitude, which ordinarily colors most of my thinking, flew right out the window.

What saved me was having a schedule and sticking to it, of meetings and forced association with other recovering drunks like me.

I arose Saturday morning, grunting with resentment, and dragged myself to my local 12-Step, 7:00 a.m. meeting. Then, I dragged myself to a 10:00 a.m. meeting in Princeton. Then I took myself to see the new Matt Damon movie (GREAT!) and capped it by driving 80 miles (round-trip) to a gay 12-Step meeting in Pennsylvania with a couple of beginners in tow. That was good. It kept me focused on them, and not on myself.

Sunday, I was a grump again. A fax machine in Atlantic City kept attack-dialing my home phone number, starting at 6:30 a.m.. I did a reverse look-up on the internet of the number and got an e-mail address and phone number for the company. I sent an e-mail and left a voicemail, basically threatening them with physical violence if they didn't subdue their lousy fax machine. Eventually it gave up.

I went to my usual Sunday 12-step meeting, sat in the back and growled at everyone, including my sponsor.

I fled the meeting, went to the supermarket, went home and spent the afternoon isolating, napping and generally feeling sorry for myself.

This morning, I attended my home group meeting at 7:30, got to the office, took all the steps to "do the next, right, thing" and suddenly life is worth living again.

I owe this mostly to a) God, b) the program and c) people who care about me.

We have a saying in 12-Step programs which is very annoying:

"This too shall pass."

It did.