Quoc’s Web Journal

Hello my lovely family of the world and vessels to my direct contact to my Higher Power.  Sorry I haven’t stayed in touch… I’ve been seriously contemplating about the deleterious effects of my most recent blogs…  This is in light of my stumble coming to light in the eyes of my current employer. 

With that being said, I am gonna do my best to continue blogging as I know this is the only way that some of you folks get to stay up to date with the wild world and on-going saga of Quoc’s life…  For now, the nitty gritty details will be kept under lock and key in a written journal I do on a daily basis (yes in addition to this blog!).  The public information will be kept fairly generic for now… Doesn’t mean that my life is anything but generic.  But why do I need to share with you folks who have been reading on a regular basis…  You already know that!

Suffice it to say, I truly know the meaning of the phrase “cunning, baffling, and powerful” from the Big Book when addressing the disease of alcoholism.  I have to accept that this disease is 100 times more clever than I am and will find ways to poke holes and sabotage anything I do.  The Book also quotes that “probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.”  This means that I need to re-establish my conscious contact with a Power Greater than myself…  There is no possible way I can do that when under the influence of any mind altering substance…

As my past sponsor shares all the time, regardless of whether it’s yoga, AA, religion, meditation or any other ritual that is done…  It probably works better when I am not high on drugs…

I am thankful to be alive today.  I can’t express how grateful I am for your love and support.  I can’t do it without you… YES YOU READING THIS RIGHT NOW!!!  I need you so desperately.  Thank you for practicing and demonstrating what my Higher Power stands for: unconditional love, compassion, tolerance, mercy, and patience.

If you’d like to hear via a personal e-mail or talk with me about the “nitty gritty” details of my life, send me an e-mail at quoclam@gmail.com.  I will happily share it with you.  Again, please continue to keep me in your prayers and thoughts and thank you for continuing to send me your love via comments, e-mails, phone calls, text messages…  It distracts me from negative self-thinking and self-obsession and self-sabotage.

This process is a matter of life and death.  I need to be very cognizant of this.  With the whole process of being relieved of the physical craving of wanting to get high and the whole fun of exhaustion from withdrawals, there will follow the time when the insanity and the self obsession and the excuses I will come up with to take me out again…  I know I can do this, but only with help…  I can’t…  We can… I am willing to ask for help and accept it… 

Goodness this is a scary process… Relapse sucks when one has some knowledge and experience with living and being sober.  I don’t recommend it!!!

Stay in touch!!!

Quoc

PS – I will be in training all this week, but will try to do daily blogs…  From Friday April 4 – 7… I will be participating in a Men’s Spiritual Retreat up on Santa Barbara and will not have access to technology as I will be staying in a monastery for a weekend of self reflection, fellowship and spiritual re-connection with God.  This means I definitely won’t be blogging this weekend.

So, I am barely skating by right now one day at a time…  My body and mind is waging a war with my desperate action to turn my will and my life over to the care of God in helping me stay sober for the rest of today…

The one thing I do have going for me is my willingness to be COMPLETELY HONEST with some people.  As a matter of fact, I am (my disease) is shocked and appalled at the audacity I have by sharing sooo honestly on the world wide web!  I am questioning whether this level of honesty with where my life is and shared on such a public forum will end up being injurious to me in the near or distant future to come.  I need to be honest as this really is a life and death matter right now.  Perhaps finding the appropriate forum and just those few trusted people to share completely honestly with would be beneficial… 

Until I get some more direction or clarity on this, I guess you folks will get the uncensored and unedited and very very real version of what it’s like to walk through life as a brand new addict who has had years of sobriety under his belt…  As you can tell thusfar, it is far from lacking in drama!!!!  I welcome your feedback.

So what is so great about 8 consecutive days clean and sober from mind altering substances?  Well, I have 8 days or almost 192 hours or 11,520 minutes clean and sober!!!  The other part is that I still have insane thoughts of using and desperate fear of not getting to take another puff of meth and feel what I felt just over a week ago!!!  I forget the terror, paranoia and the feelings of emptiness and having vacated God from myself as a result of getting high and remember the temporary feeling of being high and sensitive and incredibly horny!  Oh man oh man I don’t want to use…

I want to be addicted to loving myself…  I want to be addicted to exercising and eating healthy… I want to be addicted to having fun in a healthy and sober way…  I want to be addicted to loving my life and aspiring to becoming a social worker, therapist, nurse or teacher…  I want to be addicted to making and maintaining and growing deep friendships with the butt loads of people that are already in my life.  I want to be addicted to taking as many contrary actions against picking up the drug, drink or anything that will cause me to lose my conscious contact with God…  I want to be addicted to embracing and owning and acting in a manner like my Higher Power and carry and own Higher Power’s attributes: unconditional love, tolerance, mercy, compassion, and patience…

For now, what I battle is the struggle between being taken hostage by my disease who continues to negotiate for my demise and my death…  It continues to negotiate so I may sell my body, mind, and soul in exchange for a few puffs and fleeting moments of euphoria…  It’s like some incredibly charming used car salesperson who knows all the ins and outs about me and using all of it to take me for all I have and leave me with nothing…  Not even the ability to take a breath of life in the end…

Knowing all of this, I honestly can tell you I still have the desperate fear of not getting to use drugs and get high…  I need God’s help to continue walking me through this… I need your help to continue to remind me to dumb it down and stop thinking and continue to utilize my smart feet and hands to take me to a meeting and dial the phone and tell the Truth and ask for help and to get out of myself by being of service and asking how others are doing… 

Right now, I am in the grips of my disease right now…  It’s taking all of you to help negotiate the disease to release it’s grips for the tantalizing opportunity of getting something else in return… I can’t thank you enough for EVERY ONE of you and your efforts in supporting me and helping me in fighting for my recovery and fighting for my life.  I am in sooo much pain right now… 

Keep the calls, text messages, e-mails, prayers and opportunities to hang out with me coming as things like that kept me from giving into the fatal attraction I have with the disease and a dance with the undertaker… What is worse than dying from this disease?  Living with this disease and suffering terribly and in essence creating pain and torture for all those around me who love and support me…

INSANITY IS WHAT I HAVE…  Sober is how I need to stay and just holding on one minute, moment, breath at a time is how I do it and NOT ALONE…  I can’t do this alone… I need your help…

 HELP!!! (aka His Ever Loving Presence)

Quoc

So, the conclusion I have drawn from this last bender is relapsing sucks!!!  Well “duh!!!” you folks respond I am sure… Especially for a “real” addict/alcoholic like myself… Goodness me this last bender really demonstrates that I am indeed a genuine bonafide 100% real alcoholic/addict through and through! 

I indeed do suffer from a disease that manifest itself in three folds… First “no God” that leaves me with a gaping void in my gut that I can’t help but feel; consequently, there is that constant “obsession” to fill that void with something first without any recovery, I filled it with food, sex, drugs and anything I could’ve overindulged in…  With drugs like crystal meth and being an addict, the third fold is the physical allergy once I place any mind altering substance into my body…  Instead of breaking out in raised hives as an allergic reaction, I break out in an “irresistible craving” and urge to continue using until I blot myself out of existence!!! 

So, thank God I made it through the day and just about to go to sleep…  Here are some highlights to mark the occasion:

- I called my former sponsor and thanked him for sponsoring me and formally announced that I have asked someone else to sponsor me…  I went to work still with great difficulty getting up and finding motivation to work… Upon arriving home, I found it very difficult to will myself into action as I really wanted to do something about my home…  I called my current sponsor to let him know that I had some using thoughts… He had me write a list of the rewards of going out and doing drugs and then another list of the things I stand to lose if I do go out and use again… 

It didn’t help… I proceeded to take action in setting myself up for relapse and going out and using drugs despite having the list sitting in front of me with some of the things listed as losing my “life, mind, home, job, health, opportunity to attend my Sister’s wedding, sleep, my 7 days of working so hard staying sober, teeth…”  How can I not be an addict if I have to debate whether to use or not if I stand the chance of losing these things!!!  Oh my goodness…

I took a last ditch effort and got on my knees and prayed and asked God to help remove my obsession to use and help me staying willing to take the contrary action to fight for my sobriety.  I immediately received a phone call on my land line by some lady that needed me to help her get into a program.  Instead of hearing back from the dealer, I received text messages from a friend who was willing to go to a meeting with me.

Just a quick digression… I am saving my dealer’s number in my phone and listing it as “Devil’s Revenge Upon God’s Subjects.”  The reason being is that I have added and deleted this person’s number from my phone so much that I have not committed it to memory in my brain!  That’s f*cking great!!!  I can’t even delete that person’s number out of my mind if I wanted to.  I am just thinking by saving it into my phone and not using it, I will eventually forget the phone number and then eventually deleting it will help me forget about it all together!

I prepared myself to go to the meeting.  I made a couple more phone calls and text messages to a couple sober friends telling on myself stating that I wanted to go out and use and that I had taken some measures and set myself up to do so…  I got to the meeting and sat in on it… I identified as a newcomer…  The speaker had 38 years and shared a lot of good stuff… Of all the precious sober tools and jewels that she shared, the one thing that made the most sense was her sharing about sobriety having “rituals” and to take time honoring those rituals and that my decisions and my actions got me to where I am and that I need to listen and take direction from anyone else besides myself until I can get to a place of some sanity and have some more sobriety…  One of the rituals I will put into practice immediately is when I wake up to make my bed up really nice.  That way I won’t be tempted to get back into bed.  This perfect as I have been having a hard time getting out of bed and staying out of bed until bed time…  I also bought a book per suggestion by the speaker that we always have our own big book and another big book on hand to give to someone that may need it as we don’t want to cop a resentment from giving away our own big book.  We also want to have a meeting directory and a spare one to give away to a newcomer as well… She proclaimed that we do not give up our copy of the big book, our meeting directory or our seat!  We claim that much for ourselves and our sobriety, but what we get to do is to have a spare one for someone else that may need it as well… I really like that!!!

The winning part of the share that I heard was that having 38 years means that her support group dwindles not because they relapsed, but because they died from old age…  She has a responsibility to carry the message of experience, strength and hope for newcomers like me who come in and need to hear these medicinal words that will alleviate the pains my disease causes me.  She followed up with sharing that it is our “primary purpose to stay sober and to get out of ourselves and help another alcoholic to stay sober.”  Even if I have one day sober, I carry a responsibility to reach out and help another alcoholic stay sober…  This is how AA thrives and survives by giving it away…  This gave me a sense of accountability and gratitude for what I have and instead of obsessing about how disappointed I am in myself and how poorly others must be thinking of me and just “poor me, poor me, pour me another drink” I get to get out of my selfish thinking and start thinking immediately about helping another alcoholic by doing esteemable acts!!!

I didn’t mention how p*ssed off I was at my friend for promising to be there to sit with me through the meeting…  I hung my head low and took a newcomer chip to a thunderous applause and cheer of support.  I got lots of hugs and couple phone numbers at the conclusion of the meeting.  I got an offer from someone to have coffee with him right after the meeting.  I said ok…  Upon sitting there in the courtyard of this posh plaza sipping on coffee bought by this new friend, I looked at my text messages with responses from people I had texted asking for help and even people I didn’t text who sent words of support, love and encouragement… Then I found a couple text messages from my friend who was supposed to meet me for the meeting tell me that he is still on his way and he’s waiting for the bus…

I almost burst into tears realizing that this friend of mine didn’t have a car to drive…  He had been trying to get to where I was by bus and even half an hour after the meeting had ended, he was still trying to make his way by bus to meet me so he can support me through this process…  This is what people in the program get to do for each other… Go to any lengths to be of service and support another fellow alcoholic.  He finally arrived over 40 minutes after the meeting was over.  So, I was passed on from one friend to the next who I got to hang out til past 11:30P.  Of course I took him home and then came home myself…  I got caught up watching one of my favorite TV shows “Make Me A Super Model.”  It was a rerun, but I love the music and the drama as we wind down to the finale which will take place tonight on the Bravo channel at 10P (9P central). 

With that being said and with my crazy insane attempts to get high, I manage to skirt through another day clean and sober.  Day 7 is under my belt and I get to work on day 8…. I am a couple days away from double digit sobriety!!!  What I get to focus on is gratitude for the past 24 hours clean and sober, go to sleep and wake up asking God to please help walk me through another 24 hours and not alone…

I am still very very new with a head full of tools and sobriety, but a body that is still wreaking with the irresistable craving to use… With one hand in AA and one hand with God, I got through another day!  Thank God!!!  Thank you!!! 

Please continue to pray, call, text, e-mail, post comments and just support support support me… I NEED YOUR HELP to get through another 24 hours.  My life is on the line… Literally!

Grateful for another day clean and sober,

Quoc

http://www.dfg.ca.gov/marine/grnindx3.asp

Hey folks… I am trying to fill up some of my time with activities that involve friends and family!  One of the most fun highlights of activities I do on an annual basis is a grunion run.  I am gonna see if I can coordinate a big fun event that will involve a evening barbeque and fire pit gathering at Cabrillo Beach where we can all enjoy one of natures most interesting phenomena…. The GRUNION RUN!!!

 If you don’t know about it, check out the website above.  I am taking a tally of when people may be available to partake in this fun fun event!

Let me know…

 Cheers,

Quoc

As you notice folks that I am staying on top of the blog not just to keep you folks updated but to bring me into the present one day at a time as to reaffirm myself in the hard work I am putting forth in staying clean and sober just for the rest of today…

As usual, I woke up not wanting to get up and do anything.  It took all the strength and will I could muster to get up and drag my languid body up to bring in the day.  It’s the getting up part, once I am up and about, things are pretty much happening by momentum.  I am noticing my most challenging times are getting to sleep at night and waking up in the morning and feeling motivated to wake up and live.

I must say today, the obsession to use has lifted.  We’ll see how long that lasts.  Last night my outgoing sponsor spoke.  I was reminded of how my disease manifests itself in 3 folds… First, “no God” that leaves me with a gaping void in my gut that I feel the need to fill.  And that drive to fill it leads to the “obsession of the mind” to constantly find ways to fill it and by default, we as addicts/alcoholics are hardwired to fill it with behavior that will give the result that will temporarily fill it whether it be to shove a mind altering substance in the body or some action that will trigger the release of chemicals equivalent to a mind altering substance (for me it’s acting out sexually).  When one succumbs to the disease and fills it with the mind altering substance, we break out in an “allergic reaction.”  Instead of having raised hives, the allergic reaction manifests itself in an “irresistable craving” to continue to want more!!!  There in lies the insane and sometimes fatal cycle of addiction for someone who is not treated.

The past days have yielded much prodigious results in my active search for a new sponsor and securing an appointment to meet with one and having had conversations with a couple other candidates.  I also have reached out and received phone calls and e-mails and text messages of support.  The context of the correspondences have normalized my feelings and left me warm and squishy and loved and motivated to want to come back and that I do belong and that I am very welcomed back into the rooms…  Thankfully these correspondences have been louder than my disease for the most part.  This does account for my having stayed one day at a time through today… 

I am sure I have exhausted my sentiments of gratitude, but I must repeat myself in saying thank you for your prayers, phone calls, e-mails, text messages and those who actually have taken time in spending time with me…  You certainly are God’s hand reaching out to me and cradling me and loving me until I can love myself enough to want to do this for myself again.  Those prayers and moments of silence have wrought amazing miracles in bringing newcomers into the program and keeping people like me from entertaining the idea of going back out again.

I give thanks for this brief respite from feeling uneasy, uncomfortable, unworthy and giving into the disease telling me to go back out there.  I continue to hold onto my arse until it’s glued back on again…  May I complete day 6 clean and sober.  That is all I ask…

Thanks again for your support…. I will have some pictures to share with you peeps tonight.

With gratitude,

Quoc

Hey peeps…  I’ve had such a full past few days…  My loving support group just won’t leave me ‘lone!  You’ve walked me through some really difficult days!  Here are some highlights…

Saturday, day 3 was hard as I slept most of it away…  I gave myself time to just feel the acute fatigue and depression sink in with my body adjusting to the much much lower levels of dopamine from not having anything mind altering chemicals induce raises in these chemicals.  Ack!  I went to my meeting on Saturday evening.  I was greeted with a mixture of people who welcomed me back warmly and your typical crowd of older peeps who lovingly welcomed me back with shameful remarks.  I know they are all coming from a loving place.  I try to stick with the love as that is what I need…  I don’t need anyone to beat myself up more than I am right now…  I hung out with a friend after the meeting for some good food and some company…  They I went over to pick up  my friend Brad who is in town from Chicago for a few days…  We drove around and hung out for a spell…  Then I dropped him off as I was physically, emotionally and mentally exhausted!

It was difficult getting up on Sunday too, but I had an opportunity to hang out with a couple friends to go to Universal Studios.  I even invited Brad along to make it a happy foursome.  We spent the day going on this ride and watching that show and ended the day with the traditional relaxing tram ride followed by Shrek 4D.  It was a fun day!  My back was aching sooo much!  Argh…  We actually spent the whole day there and had time enough just to drop Brad off and for me to trek over to the Sunday night 8P meeting.  I made it just in time… 

I was heaving and sweating as this is a big meeting and I was incredibly nervous about standing up and identifying a newcomer and taking a chip.  I didn’t want to…  I needed to take action and fight for my sobriety.  I was crying and stumbled my way up to the front along with the other newcomers, some returning also, others brand spanking new.  I took a chip and hug.  I was sweating, head hung low and I felt so humiliated…  I probably made myself look newer than I was as my nerves caused me to break out in a sweat… I was crying and shaking…  God that was hard!!!  Hopefully that was challenging enough to give me incentive not to want to ever ever ever do this again!!!  Taking that newcomer chip sucked nutz!!!!

I got lots of hugs and kind words and support from many at the conclusion of the meeting.  I think those who were judgemental and didn’t have anything nice to say just stayed away.  I am glad about that…  Perhaps there was no condescending and shaming person came up to me because there were no ill words or ill feeling towards me.  It doesn’t matter…  All I remember is the love given and the love received.  So marked the end of day 4 for me last night…

Today, was just as difficult waking up to go to work… I am just dizzy with sleepiness and feeling very very lazy…  There is a little heavy blanket weighing down on me keeping my mind, body and spirits from just lifting up to embrace the beautiful day that is here…  The weather is great, the air is warm.  There is the pungent aroma of orange blossoms growing in the area I work in.  All this and yet my senses are muffled as a result of my body trying to find some balance and unscramble my brilliant attempts to mess it up with throwing toxic chemicals in it…

Thank God for a resilient and strong body.  Thank God for you guys and your undying support!  I couldn’t do it without you!!!  THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

May I stay sober for the rest of today…  The sanity and bright spirits will follow in time I am sure… For now, I don’t need to worry about that.

Quoc