Taco Night

Thursday night is Taco Night. 

Which really means it's Treatment Center Night, the night a couple of friends and I take a 12 step recovery meeting to a local drug/alcohol treatment center and then go out for dinner at a little taqueria down the road afterward. 

Before you say, "Aw, thats so nice", let me tell you how it often goes.

We get there and there's a roomful of 50 or 60 chairs that get put in a big circle. We always leave one chair in the middle, mostly just so the residents will wonder why it's there and who's gonna' have to sit in the "hot seat", which never happens (it's our own little inside joke). Sometimes we'll say that the chair is there for the addict or alcoholic that didn't survive their addiction, hoping to remind them how fatal their addiction really can be.

While we're setting up the chairs a few of the residents will start to wander in and help us. The early ones are often the people who seem most interested in really getting help. They might ask a few questions about what to do when they get out, or tell us what's been going on with them since last week, etc. 
Then there are the smokers and jokers, who mill around outside and slowly filter in as meeting time approaches. As the place fills up, the once quiet room builds to a cacophony of laughing, yelling, coughing, and the general mayhem that is inherent to a group of freshly detoxing drunks and addicts. Some are sullen and withdrawn, others loud and obnoxious, with all manner of behavior and attitude in between. By meeting time, it's often like a room full of human pinball machines.

"Hey! It's starting time! Let's have a meeting!" usually quiets the room enough to get started. 

After a brief moment of semi-silence and saying the Serenity Prayer, the meeting begins by going around the room and everyone introducing themselves with their first name followed by "and I'm an alcoholic, addict", or both; (is there really anyone who hasn't seen a 12 step meeting portrayed on television or in a movie in the past 30 years?).

It's not uncommon to see a young kid who got busted or who's parents caught them smoking pot and sent them to rehab. They say stuff like, "My name is (Justin/Brittany) and I'm like, um - an addict? Giggle, giggle..." 
Then a couple of people down the line you've got Joe. Joe's 58 and has lost his family, job, driver's license and all self respect. He says, "I'm Joe and I'm an alcoholic" and he knows it's true. 
Joe isn't laughing about anything.

As the meeting progresses, the residents show varying degrees of interest and participation, from intense focus to complete disdain for the whole thing. 

Some of these people really don't want to be here and would leave now if they had any other option. 

To be honest, trying to get them to realize that they don't have to live the way they're living and see the fact that they're some of the world's worst decision makers, can be infuriating. You take the time to come out there and try to offer some hope to a bunch of people who many times give the impression that they couldn't care less, and sometimes it can make you feel like giving up and quitting the meeting out there altogether. 

But we don't. 

Over the years I've watched people in this meeting and thought, "He/She obviously has no interest in being here and we're just spinning our wheels with that one", only to hear that person speak up later and say something so honest, vulnerable, and profoundly heartbreaking that I have to choke back tears. 
Or have one of them come up to me after the meeting and tell me what's going on and describe exact circumstances or feelings I went through when I was in early recovery and offer me a not-so-subtle reminder of why I do this. 
These can come in the form of a jolt of spiritual lightning or a gentle intuitive nudge, but they happen fairly often. I sometimes wonder if it has something to do with being so close to the raw spiritual condition of many of these people. 

It happened again last night and as usual, I wasn't expecting it.

Last week I met a guy out there who was pretty fragile and scared. Detoxing from meth has a tendency to make you that way. 
But he was asking questions, and it's always nice to see the ones that show enough interest to ask questions. I spoke with him and a couple other guys for a while after the meeting and as we talked, I could see he was worn out and had been down a very tough road. But I also detected what I thought was curiousness and hope behind his wild eyes. 

Last night he was one of the guys who showed up early. He said hello and mentioned that we'd talked last week. I told him I remembered him and that he looked a lot better today. I asked how detox was going and he said he was feeling a lot better. The meeting was about to get started so we both took our seats. 

After the meeting ended he came over to me and I said he looked a lot calmer this week and he laughed when I told him his eyes weren't lit up like roman candles anymore, either. I mentioned the connection between the mind, body, and spirit and the damage our addictions do to that connection. He quickly said he'd been doing yoga as part of his treatment, then he stopped mid-sentence, smiled a smile that was obviously from somewhere deep inside, and gave me a gigantic hug that I felt go through my whole being. Then he turned and without another word, walked quickly out of the room. 

I don't know what happened with him in that moment, but I do know that I experienced the connection we have to one another when we let our guard down enough to allow it.

I don't have a clue what the future holds for that guy, but I got to experience the joy that comes from simply "showing up" and connecting with another human being. And that's the constant reminder I need about withholding judgement of who is and who isn't gonna' "make it". 

Then we went to the taco joint and I had a delicious burrito and enjoyed the company of my two comprades.

Like the song says, "C'est la vie say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell..."

Mercy for me, Justice for you...

I wasn't always as young as I am now.

I used to be a very old man, drunk on alcohol, yes, but just as drunk on selfishness and ego; dirt poor inside and out. I ran the car off the road over and over, literally and figuratively, each time promising to let someone else drive, only to find myself behind the wheel again, out of control and headed for the ditch one more time.

I was trapped in my own thinking and I didn't trust anyone enough to follow them out. I was drowning in self pity, self delusion, and self loathing; totally self consumed. I was offered many lifesaving hands, but always insisted they were the wrong one, until I knew I was going under for the last time. I finally accepted the hand that was offered without reservation and began taking the suggestions of people who had been where I was. I started rebuilding my life and it almost felt like I was aging backwards, aided by a spiritual curiosity I'd ignored and left behind as a very young man. That was many years ago, and while my body has aged, I am decades younger inside than I was during those last years of drunken spiritual crisis. I never want to lose sight of how it felt when I was on the verge of drowning.

Which brings me to what's been on my mind for a couple of days.

The local news recently reported on the tragic death of a police officer who drowned while trying to stop a suicidal woman from driving her car into the river. If the news accounts are accurate, this officer died trying to save a woman who has an arrest record going back years, consisting mostly of drug and alcohol related offenses. She survived, and after being released from the hospital will be facing criminal charges that will change the rest of her life, for better or worse. 

The comments on the Facebook page of the local newspaper show a mob verdict of guilty with a sentence of death. 

But what would that officer say if he could speak to us now? Would he ask if he died in vain, trying to save a woman who's life wasn't worth saving? Someone who'd lost hope so deeply that they thought suicide was the only option left? Would he question the desire to see her dead after he had sacrificed himself trying to save her? Or would he want to see her turn her life around and show others that they don't have to go down the road she travelled, making his attempt to save her life a success? 

A wise man once told me that most people want, "Mercy for me, Justice for you..."

Two Bills

First things first. 

A confession:

I can't take credit for the blog name, "Shaolin Wolf". 

I stole it from my friend Bill, who once said that he wanted to "spend my next life as a Chinese monk. I'll play and sing the blues, and call myself Shaolin Wolf."

So credit where credit is due. 

Bill and I sometimes differ politically, but unlike some other friends, I respect his insight and intellect. He's also got a dry, sarcastic, roadie sense of humor that I'm very familiar and comfortable with. 

Bill and I once spent a weekend working a show next door to the Super Bowl and he kept me laughing with some very inappropriate humor when the hours got long. I also got Emmett Smith's autograph that weekend, the day after the Cowboys won the Super Bowl. And while I'm talking about celebrities, Bill was the lighting guy for a famous old school country singer who died on the road while Bill was working for him. He said, "If anyone ever tries to tell you that he's still alive like they do with Elvis, it's not true because I saw 'em take his body off the bus."

So Bill is the original Shaolin Wolf.

The other Bill is the guy who suggested I start writing some of this random nonsense down.

He's a writer. A very good writer. He says he likes the way I write, and suggested I investigate that, so I'm doing it. He's another one who's insight and intellect I deeply respect. 

I was introduced to Bill through his books about ten years ago when I was at a pretty tough fork in the road. The old saying, "when the student is ready the teacher will appear" was never more true than when his books showed up in my life. Bill appeared with what felt like a message of, "Yeah, it's weird, but follow us, we know the way. Not the way 'out', just 'the way'."

Then I found out he's an old Tennessee boy with a heart for the blues, and a head for zen mindfulness. Apparently the student was ready and the teacher appeared. His words have been a constant companion ever since. 

I finally got to meet him and break bread, where he told me stories of Hollywood actors and trickster gurus. I don't have many "heroes", but if we're lucky, sometimes we get to know people who have a way of ringing the bell of truth inside us. Bill is one of those people for me. Having been in the music business for many years I can attest to the old adage, "Never meet your heroes because you may be disappointed". 

I'm glad to report that this was not the case with Bill. 

And that's how this space came to be...