Another Triumphant Return

In the words of Frank Zappa’s Central Scrutinizer: “Hey, its me…again.” The COVID-19 pandemic has given me some unasked for but valuable time to think and suddenly my mind came back to this project and you, my avid reading public. (All five of you.)

The truth is I need the outlet and it’s irrelevant who reads this. Somehow, by publishing it to the universe, no matter how buried it may be, I believe I will achieve some measure of satisfaction. And as I move on in life, it’s the little victories that I hope for.

I removed a couple sections herein, which I was dissatisfied with. But essentially the blog goes on, maintaining continuity with the prior format.

I’m really looking forward to the future, and presenting a robust offering of the kind of material that has made this so much fun in the past.

Derby Day Approaches

That’s right folks, our great national holiday is only a day away: the 136th running of the Kentucky Derby. This time tomorrow, I’ll be at the track on my way to a good drunk and reviewing, for the hundredth time, the field and odds for the race. No matter what happens with the results, a good time will surely be had by me.

As you well know by now, I’m a compulsive gambler. And if there’s one thing I know about compulsive gamblers, you should never take their advice on the subject of wagering. Nevertheless, I’m going to share with you, gentle readers, my current picks.

The race time favorite is going to be Looking for Lucky, a Bob Baffert trained entrant. Obviously, this horse has the pedigree and record that supports him going off at a mere 3 to 1. He also has the advantage of running in the first position. For a straight bet, however, these odds are simply too short to play, though you should consider this horse in any exotic wagering.

I see Dean’s Kitten, currently going off at 50 to 1 to be an interesting long shot wager. Though he did poorly on his only dirt race, last year’s Pilgrim, he has the ability to close late. If the race is tight and an opportunity presents itself, don’t be surprised to catch the Kitten coming down the stretch and hitting the board at a huge price.

I’ve always been a big fan of trainer D. Wayne Lukas. This is why I just can’t ignore Dublin, a chestnut colt. He has an excellent pedigree and is in the hands of the Derby master Lukas, which almost automatically makes him a threat. At 12 to 1, I’m going to get some action on this horse. If the price falls below 10 to 1, however, I may change my mind.

There you have it, degenerates. Now go out there and get your gamble on!

Marching Orders

I’ve been so remiss in maintaining this blog lately, and I’d like to extend apologies to my loyal readership. Most of us know the pernicious yoke of wage slavery, and I am unfortunately no different. I’ve been working like an ant lately and have been slacking off on my myriad other duties to society and myself – including nurturing and developing my functioning addiction. And while this period of intense labor is apparently going to continue for another few weeks, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Soon, very soon, to return: the time to dance.

Rose Bowl Bound

I’m not actually leaving for Pasadena until New Year’s Eve, but as I’m heading out to the track tomorrow and I’ll be busy the day of departure, I thought I’d put out the vibe now. Once again, I am going to ask you good people to gather up all your positive energy and good thoughts to influence, via the magic of quantum physics, the outcome of a football game. But not just any game. Dear no. For this is the granddaddy of them all, the one, the only Rose Bowl. My beloved Ducks will be facing off with the brutish Buckeyes of Ohio State, a team so uninteresting and bland that their coach wears, as a signature, a sweater vest.

As I informed you all before the Civil War game, I was present fifteen years ago when Joe Paterno’s Penn State team, led by Ki-jana Carter and Kerry Collins whooped up on my Ducks and won the game 38-20. I don’t think I can take it again, and I need my drunk to be a happy one this time around.

So can you say it for me one time, gentle, informed and intelligent readers: Go Ducks!

Another Festivus Miracle

Just when my bitching about the season was reaching its crescendo, Christmas came and went. And I’ve got to come out and be honest: it wasn’t so bad this year. The presents were purchased well in advance, my stress level was under reasonable control and I went into the day with as good an attitude as could be expected.

And a good day it was. My family does the big dinner on Christmas Eve, which I like because by the time 3:00 rolls around on the 25th, I’m about ready to pass out from exhaustion and dehydration caused by drink. What a dinner it was: we started out with an endive, avocado, cherry tomato and Dungeness crab salad – the vegetables fresh and clean, the crab impeccably sweet, pulled off the ocean floor only forty-eight hours earlier. We then enjoyed beef filet, scalloped potatoes and string beans with mushrooms. Delicious. For desert, we had a sweet fruit tart, pudding and ice cream. These delicacies, preceded by hors d’oeuvres and coupled with a boatload of beer, booze and wine, left me afterwards feeling weak and satisfied beyond expectation.

On Christmas day, there were no arguments and my inevitable depression was muted compared to years past. Looking back, it was a lovely thirty hours spent with the most important people in my life. It just goes to show: sometimes, mentally preparing for the worst sets the stage for a pleasant surprise.

The Winter of My Discontent

It’s the same every year, every year it’s the same…to paraphrase rapper Too $hort. The forces are identical as in the past: the grinding financial pressure that isn’t really related to purchasing holiday presents but still reveals itself at just this time in the year; the growing, often illogical resentment I feel at people around me, and the equally illogical solutions I seek to quell these burgeoning pressures and feelings, which, of course, only exacerbate them in the end.

And it’s very strange, because I like Santa, Jesus, Christmas trees, decorations and lights. I was raised Catholic, and though I have my serious doubts about eternal salvation I do feel strongly that this season is supposed to evoke those good values that Christianity purports to champion. I see glimmers at times, short bursts of clarity which warm me. But generally speaking, this is a month of tribulation that can’t end soon enough.

Viva los Patos!

Ladies and gentlemen, tonight the historic match up takes place and the great enmity is renewed. Yes, it is time for the west coast’s oldest rivalry game, the 113th Civil War: the revered, beloved Ducks of Oregon versus the much maligned when not ignored Oregon State Beavers. For the first time in its storied history, the winner of the Civil War – either team – will be going to the Rose Bowl to face off against the Big Ten representative Ohio State Buckeyes.

The Addict, as a graduate of the U of O, has been present for two Civil Wars during his lifetime and has watched every other on television. There have been so many memories made and lost around this game it is hard to keep track of them all. None were more important, however, than 1994, where our victory over the Beavers secured us a berth in the January 1995 Rose Bowl, where I personally witnessed Joe Paterno’s Penn State Nitanny Lions decimate the Ducks, despite a co-MVP performance by Oregon quarterback Danny O’Neill. (I remember I lost $250 on that game, even though I was getting 17 on the spread.)

I won’t boast up my team any more, for fear of the reprisal of the sporting Gods. I can only hope and pray for victory tonight, my friends. For those of you who have no feeling for the game, no interest one way or another, would you please give us a little quantum physics burst of energy and find the time today to say to yourself or another, “Go Ducks!”

The game is on ESPN and ESPN360.com at 6:00 pacific time.

Back at the Helm

Well, I’m back after coming off a brutal bender that began Wednesday and continued almost uninterrupted through last night. There was much celebration and indulgence this Thanksgiving holiday, an excellent cocktail party in Sacramento on Friday and the 49er tailgate and game yesterday turned into a long night out on the town afterwards. The result: my mind feels mushy and dull and my body dog tired. It might take a few days to fully recover.

Now that my favorite holiday has passed, we enter the bitter month of December. I don’t dislike Christmas, but I loathe the days and weeks running up to it. Every year, my indulgence goes way overboard as the month degenerates into a long booze-soaked haze of holiday parties filled with banal small talk and finger foods. The prospect is a little bit daunting, I must admit.

Thanksgiving Greeting

Thanksgiving: our national day of excess. What a truly wonderful holiday, by far my favorite. How can I list all the ways it pleases me? From beginning to end, it is the one day of the year where even the most puritanical abstainer gorges at the table of gluttony.

I’m anticipating the deviled eggs, cheeses and brie, pate, copious breads and who knows what other pre meal savories. The turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, creamed onions, green beans, cranberry sauce: these are dancing in front of my eyes. The deserts - Apple and pumpkin pie, ice cream and cookies. And all along the way, a parade of beers, wine and mixed drinks to benumb my senses and prepare my appetite.

And as if all of this were not enough, there is the unending stream of pro and college football games that will be on from the moment I arise until just before I pass out, emotionally and physically satiated.

I would like to extend my Thanksgiving greetings to all of you who may read it. As long as we live in a world where a day like tomorrow is allowed to flourish, where people can come in fellowship and family and test the limits of their personal consumption, there will always be something here worth living for. I hope you all enjoy your turkey day as much as I intend to.

Refining the Mission

These are not cautionary tales.
This is not my attempt at repentance.
I do not seek absolution or reformation,
but perhaps understanding.
I am not sorry.
More than anything else,
this is a celebration.

Reader Response

I recently received a reader response to my original post on this blog. (Introduction and Mission Statement, July 28, 2009.) I was so enthralled with the insight that this woman offered that I wanted to share it in the corpus of the forum, and not let in languish, buried in the comments area. Here it is:

"Someone once asked me - who is your hero - without a second thought I said it is my addict. Now that may seem strange to some people, given the emotional, health, financial, spiritual toll it has taken on our family but she is my hero for the exact reasons you stated at the end of your mission statement. The "beast" may never go away but it has been an amazing journey watching someone figure out how to deal with addiction and still function in society, be a loving person and process how much she has lost in life yet realize how much more there is too gain. The battle within takes strength and courage and for that she is my hero - my addict."

This is a truly profound passage and I am so pleased that she would share it. My belief is much the same. Addiction turns the mere human into a superhuman, because the addict faces immensely greater obstacles in the simplest functions of life. Suddenly, just getting up for work is a Titan's struggle with the universe; appearing "normal" to others is a primary purpose. It is a self inflicted handicap that annihilates the boredom of the day to day and creates in our otherwise banal lives an interesting backdrop for our existence.

"Who am I? What am I doing with my life? What is my purpose?" How many of us really want to answer these questions by responding, "I'm a plumber who works a job he hates so that he can pay the bills and merely survive." I think for many people having children - when all else fails - becomes the answer to these eternal questions of life. "I live for my kids, so that they may have a better life in the future than I do now." And I think this is a very noble sentiment and an excellent purpose; and, possibly, one of the primary reasons our species continues to survive. But philosophically, where does it leave those of us who actually need an answer to the questions, not just a postponement beyond our own lives as the answer?

The functioning addict has an answer to these questions. "I am an addict and my purpose is to wrestle with my addiction and try to give the world as much of myself as I can in spite of it all." And for many of us, the attempt to fulfill this, to make it true is what keeps us going.

Introduction and Mission Statement

The title says it all: I’m a functioning addict and these are my memoirs. What’s my poison? Take your choice. Alcohol, I can’t imagine life without it. Drugs, they go great with alcohol. Gambling, it has been and continues to have the potential to be a problem ten times greater than the first two combined. But I’d be lying to you – and what is infinitely worse, to myself – if I told you that these three vices, the holy trinity of my addiction, embodied the essence of my plight. Because I could give up all three and I’d find something else to replace them with; for the struggle of my life is not only with the aforementioned vices, but with the process and love of addiction itself.
This is being written for all the functioning addicts out there that spend their lives controlling, resisting, indulging and negotiating with the beast within. I don’t care if your thing is overeating, hoarding, sex, television, prescription pills, shopping, adrenaline, smoking, overwork or bee stings. If you are addicted, yet you are surviving in society, contributing to something outside of yourself, if you are struggling to maintain your existence as you see it, even in the face of everything everyone else tells you, even if you are defying logic, you are my sibling. I embrace your struggle and your dilemma. I offer you something greater than hope. I offer you my understanding and my fascination with and love of your condition. I sing the body addicted.
What is this experiment? Where will it lead? There is really no way to be completely certain. Sometimes entries to this forum will take on the structure of personal remembrances, thoughts, ideas and experiences. Sometimes fiction will also be indulged. I guess if anybody writes to me or wants to add something to the forum I may feel obliged to publish their thoughts as well. It is important that the medium be flexible and amorphous so that it shall remain inclusive, non-judgmental and open to all.
There are a few unifying tenants that I have compiled, however, to give the forum some semblance of structure and direction, and to remind myself why I am writing this. These tenants can be increased or eliminated as time goes on and further truths reveal themselves. I only apply these tenants to myself, so you may take them or leave them as you wish. It would be unfair if I did not thank the good people at Alcoholics/Narcotics/Gamblers Anonymous for a part of the inspiration which lead to them.
1. I am an addict. I remind myself of this regularly and never deny this essential truth.
2. Despite this first truth, I submit that there is no power outside of myself that is responsible for my behavior. I own the mistakes I make.
3. I function in society, albeit with great difficulty at times. I want to contribute something to the lives of others.
4. I have decided that my will alone has to be enough. Hopefully it shall be supplemented by the help and understanding of others like me.
5. I embrace my shortcomings and my character flaws so that I may successfully live with them.
6. I seek to know, understand and help others like me.