Basic Progress - Prologue

As I galloped down the path of destiny, there always was an instinctual gut feeling, an inner conviction, maybe a conscience, that goaded me to be a different person. I did not know how to stop! I did not know how to be different. If I could change things I would, but where was the answer? I sensed that I needed to be the person that I knew I was; the young man influential in the youth group, the happy child who adored his parents, the teen whose most enjoyable time in life was church camp in the summer of 1975. Where had that person gone?

Doubt and frustration are the tour guides for the expedition of weak faith! In my intellectual realm of self-sufficiency, church and any residue of a relation with divine powers were discarded for the aimless pursuit of personal glory. At the peak of my rational prowess, I had reached a rugged, strong, and sturdy position that God didn't exist. Intellectually, I killed the value system and the God that did not like my behavior.

I associated myself with a sordid crowd that was in the business of counterfeiting coins for slot machines in the Las Vegas Casinos. Society does not allow this for long. In February of '87, I was arrested. I plea bargained a misdemeanor of burglary. The next five months and ten days were in the Clark County detention facility. Jail was a welcome reprieve.

For the first time since I had left Texas, I called home. They were comforted to know that I was alive. For a short period of time, they did not have to concern themselves with my plight. I was being fed and had a place to stay out of trouble. For them, this was an answer to prayer. That confused me and I was offended. I mean, who do they think they are?

I talked to my brother. By this time, he had graduated from Baylor law school and was practicing law. He said that he would do what he could to help. I told him that my rights had been violated, and that I wanted out. He kind of chuckled, and told me that I would have to follow the law.

I asked him boldly, "what about 'the customer is always right?'" Insanity had set in. I was the customer. He hung up.

I was placed on a parks and recreation crew. Every morning, we loaded up on a bus and went to the park service to dig ditches, plant plants, spread sand, build fences, etc.,... One day, an employee of the park service informed me that he had placed a beer in the park rest room. I didn't go to get it. I decided to never, ever take another drink. By refusing one drink, one time, I had proven something(!?).

In my heart, I knew that one beer would do nothing more than frustrate me. I knew that one wasn't enough. It had become obvious to me that drinking was my problem. That was easier than accepting personal responsibility for my failure.

This same warped reality is that which keeps the spiritually blind from seeing what he can't see, and the irreverent deaf from hearing what he can't hear. The lies we have told ourselves over and over have served to stagnate our existence, yet, in our own minds, there is always plenty to applaud!!? Our diseased perception has emerged as a pompous shield to the prayers and cares of our loved ones. At some point in the past, booze had ceased to be my willing source of camaraderie, --it had become a reluctant cane for survival. Self-sufficiency had shown itself to be self defeating. After a six month sentence, I was released from jail --still an atheist.

It was not long before I was again arrested for the same criminal offense. My resolve not to drink had lasted three days. Within three hours of the first drink, I was drunk for three months.

Upon release, I had decided that the best format for making money was to make the illegal coins and sell them to "runners." Runners are people who would actually work the casinos and keep a percentage of the returned coins. I would not be exposed to the security! I built up a crew and I was off to the races again. One night, I was desperate for income. I needed rent money the next day. I decided to make a run, 'just this once.' At roughly 2:00 A.M., I was arrested again. I had been out for two months and five days. This time I was looking at 30 years in the state penitentiary. Nevada really does not like you cheating at gambling. It's about like stealing horses in Texas.

I want to tell you about Delirium Tremers. The second and third day after incarceration, I was just really jittery coupled with terribly rank sweat and unsteady hands. About the fifth day, I was laying in my rack. I had been placed in a private cell. As I fidgeted, I heard some melodic music coming out of the air vents. It caught my attention. I sat up. I looked down at the floor. A hand was coming up out of the floor! The guys on the sixth floor were coming up through my floor to come get me! I looked up and there were spiders in the corner,... and they were breeding --fast. These visual and audio hallucinations went on for two or three days and every time I screamed, I'd be in a fetal position and the guards would come get me. They'd take me into a little place and they'd calm me down. It was about seven or eight days before I was physically normal. What you need to know is that many times when an alcoholic is going through that, it isn't because he's hurting, it's because he's scared they're going to get him! Raw fear.

I understood that if I did not do something, there was a very pronounced likelihood that I was to die a horrible death. The sad statement is that dying drunk did not scare me. So what? I'd just as soon be dead; I was looking at 30 years in the state penitentiary and there was nothing in this universe more powerful than human intellect. Seventy eight days until my court date.

I learned tonk in the navy, I learned pinochle in jail. While incarcerated, I developed my skills at chess and pinochle. The competition was a welcome distraction. One day, while playing chess, it dawned on me that none of this was my fault --not a bit of it my fault! To summarize the conversation:

It was the judges fault! Every time I went before a judge, they had awakened on the wrong side of the bed. I had a wife, she had called me a drunk and left me! Can you believe that? I was the best thing that had happened to her! I had cars that were the wrong color! That orange hatchback actually attracted the police's attention! Mom and Dad didn't love me any more. Nobody gave a rip about me.

In fact, two dogs at different times had run away from home! It was not a conspiracy they did not know each other. It is bad when 'man's best friend looks you dead in the eye and says,

"I'm outta here!"

I belabored the certainty that I had been framed, that my upbringing was at fault, and that above all, my gene pool was such that I was doomed to be exactly what I was. My statement affirmed that my purpose on earth was to be a bad example, but of course, a good bad example.

The gentleman with whom I shared these most intimate truths listened patiently. When I depleted my stock of well thought out rationalizations, he remarked,

"Jay, let me ask you a question - let's assume that everything you're saying is actually true, O.K.? ...Why is this happening to you?"

I didn't have an answer. Was I just chosen, picked out? O.K., this is what happened: when I was born... whatever powers that be, struck me and said, 'You're going to be a good bad example.' Boom.

Is that really what the deal was about? I thought back about the time when I was about twenyy. One particular night, I was out with a young lady. We had been at a party...

Physiologically, alcohol effects people differently. Of course, if you slam a dozen shots down the pope's throat, he too, would become socially unacceptable! I could absorb alcohol. Many times, I was the only one who knew I was wasted! I could drink a long time, but when it hit me, I had about ten minutes to find a place to lay my head. If I stayed too long, it would all hit me at once.

That night, that happened. As I fell into the arms of my girlfriend, I looked up at her and as elegantly as I could, I garbled out these words,

"I am not really this way. This really isn't me."

She responded with a very innocent question that has since wobbled my claims of personally targeted injustices,

"Jay. aren't you what you do?"

"I'm not really like this," was the last line of defense.

Two questions: 'Aren't you what you do?' and 'Why is this happening to you?' Two questions, ten years apart, that demanded of me to truly take responsibility for my actions and why I was where I was. Environment and genetics aside, why was I there, when, many others from similar backgrounds were mature, stable citizens? I had appraised me by what I could be, not by what I was. Where had I developed that perspective?

It would be comforting to blame that attitude on my upbringing. A quick review of my intimate, personal, and/or social relationships, would have demonstrated a barren chart filled with broken promises, could 'a' beens, and would 'a' beens. The ghosts of fair weather friends, and aborted allegiances had gone the way of the job, the family, and the local softball league. I judged them by their outside and my insides was coming up short. I felt forsaken, I was angry. I never even considered that it was my fault; that it was I who had been the emotional pirate who had alienated friends, children, spouses, and coworkers. The same selfish motives and delinquent attitudes destroyed my letters of recommendation and the certificates of achievement. My own actions had required of the authorities a complete detailed folder keeping track of my every move.

Afflicted with a recurring habit, leveled to the essence of failure, the truth came as a torturous jolt. It takes no more than a casual observer to determine that my life was a failure. In a heartbeat, any reasonable shrink would diagnose 'maladaptive behavior.' I did not see it. I could not see it. I was pride blind.

The most perplexing aspect of chronic selfishness is the sufferer's inability to perceive him or herself as impotent in regards to self preservation. I always felt like 'this time would be different." Because of the gradual and imperceptible erosion of things worthwhile, I had mastered the art of intellectual and emotional survival by hurdling over and dancing around the shadows of otherwise intolerable thoughts, feelings, and facts. This delusion, self-deception, rationalization, justification, or denial, however defined, had become a stanchion for crumbling hope.

Raising my head above the gutter, I had defiantly and condescendingly asserted that I had just run into a terribly long streak of bad luck(!) and, by the way, "what are you looking at?"

The unrivaled idea that I would emerge victorious, 'if only,...' had seared my mind with a blind determination to hold fast to my values. I could not be wrong. Throughout my adult life, my normal approach to failure had been finding fault and laying blame elsewhere. As a child, moving from place to place from time to time was devastating, but...

Often, the individual in crisis will blame a past event or an unfortunate experience on their current plight. It could be abuse or neglect, improper guidance or broken trust. Many have had troubles and circumstances that are not their responsibility and completely out of their control. These problems are wonderful excuses for suffering.

It seems to me that at some point in a life focused on victimized comfort, someone ought to tell that person to "get over it." Since then the Eagles sang a song, "Get over it" that has these lyrics:

You drag it around like a ball and chain
You wallow in the guilt; you wallow in the pain
You wave it like a flag, you wear it like a crown
Got your mind in the gutter, bringin' everybody down
Complain about the present and blame it on the past
I'd like to find your inner child and kick its little ass.

I understand that there are critical instances in life wherein the victim had no part to play in the situation -abuse, rape, murder, natural disasters, etc. Life's direction is often altered by people who don't even know your name. In fact, we are powerless over most of life's pressures. It is not a matter of acceptance, but an ongoing condition of adaptability, which inherently includes forgiveness.

Forgiveness cannot be overstated. Harnessing its power might make one the single most important person in human history, just ask Jesus. Nevertheless, attaining forgiveness is only a fleeting pat on the back if we cannot accept ourselves as we are. Even when confronted with the harshest of circumstances, we still must move on. We have to or it destroys us. Wherever I go, there I am!

Please don't misunderstand, there should be a healthy process of grief that should not be restricted to a time frame --unless that problem becomes the excuse for unrelated failure. I would consider one example of 'unrelated' to be the loss of employment fifteen years later. At some point each individual must accept that there is much in life that is not fair. Unethical behavior and unethical activity by others is offensive and should not be tolerated, but anger does not give me the right to be cruel nor is it a license for failure. That fact is that approaching life as a victim is a losing proposition. Whatever the remedy, whether forgiveness or acceptance, right now is the perfect time for healing.

Having arrived at this point in my life, the most appalling fact is that how I felt about it, the 'what ifs,' the 'why mes,' and even my perception, was irrelevant. I had to face the obvious truth that regardless of my attitude, drive, intentions, desperation, heartache or enthusiasm, the world just ain't stoppin'. All concerns, formerly relevant, had become obsolete. Nothing had worked. Not God, and now, not atheism. Spiritually, that doesn't leave a whole bunch of options. This same warped reality is the advocate the keeps the spiritually blind from seeing what he can't see, and the irreverent deaf from hearing what he can't hear. The lies we have told ourselves over and over have served to stagnate our existence, yet, in our own minds, there was always plenty to applaud!!?. Our diseased perception has emerged as a pompous shield to the prayers and cares of our loved ones. At some point in the past, booze had ceased to be my compliant source of camaraderie my willing source of camaraderie, - it had become a reluctant cane for survival.

Nothing had worked. Not God, not me, not career advancement, not marriage, not jail, not booze, and now, not atheism. Spiritually, that doesn't leave a whole bunch of options.

Again, I called my father and informed him of my current plight. It broke his heart.

"HnnNNnnn!"

I heard my dad give up on me.

Sometimes the message just gets garbled between you saying it and me hearing it...

...He hadn't give up, he was just give out.