A Taking Care of Myself Moment

As much as I started this blog to address my hopes, dreams, fears, etc. as a homosexual drunkard, a weighty and often morose topic, I feel it's important to have some moments of lightness. My current sponsor (a great guy I'm sure we'll discuss at some point soon... like probably tomorrow, idea for tomorrow's post already germinating. Let's call him Mike.) was one of the first people to teach me the value of taking care of yourself in sobriety. Not just healthy eating and living, but in treating yourself well. A lot of alcoholics have some serious self-esteem issues, both organic to the disease (in that it was one of those character defects that started one drinking) and often from guilt as an alcoholic starts working on their fourth step and realizing the SHIT we've done to people. So it's important to be nice to yourself, to treat yourself occasionally.

So in a soon to be recurring feature, I'm introducing a Taking Care of Myself moment, the ways in which I tell myself I'm pretty fucking awesome and deserve this. This may evolve, like becoming a once a week thing, the same day every week, (hopefully) a wittier name, in keeping with the kickass post titles I've managed to yank out of my ass, or (even more hopefully) submissions from readers, should I ever get any.

This week's Taking Care of Myself moment comes courtesy of my friend CBGB (not his real name, obviously. Although I'd be curious to meet the parents who would name their child such a thing.) I had been planning to have anonymous sex with an asian guy I'd met on Manhunt when CBGB texted me to say he was going to Sephora, to which I replied with the gayest phrase I have ever written, "Oh man! I wish I wasn't about to get fucked. I wanna go to Sephora." So I took a raincheck on the Asian dude.

CBGB's finally gotten that bug that so many gay men get, when they realize they will be 30 someday, and Father Time is racing toward it right across your face. I'm actually jealous of him for realizing it at 24, when he can do a lot of preventative maintenance. I didn't get that bug until I was 34, so my process involves a little more reclamation and clever concealment.

At any rate, we met at the new Sephora in the Meatpacking District. I buy stuff at Sephora sometimes, and have their "Beauty Insider" card, but their selection of skin product for men is pretty pitiful. CBGB suggested we try the new Meatpacking location, as it's their closest location to the gay areas of Chelsea and the Village. Well, their selection of men's products were no better than other locations, but the people working there were really nice and shockingly knowledgeable. I asked one employee for a tinted moisturizer with SPF protection that wouldn't make my face look too shiny. I'd been using Clinique for Men's M protect, and I liked it overall, but it didn't do much on my big problems, my splotchy Irish face and raccoon eyes. Also, it gave me that "gay guy over 30 shiny face" thing. She immediately showed me this...

Dr. Jart's BB Beauty Balm-Multi-Action Skincare + Makeup

w/SPF 25/PA++

$32

It's a moisturizer with a light foundation. Tried it on and it gave my skin this even, velvety look. My Clinique is now being used to masturbate. (KIDDING! There's glycolic acid in it.)

CBGB was also looking for a signature fragrance, an important decision for any gay man of distinction, style, and just enough pretense. I myself love things to be pretentious about. The sexy tall black guy working in fragrances almost had CBGB sold on Givenchy for Men, but then we decided to see if the most exclusive and pretentious cologne we could think of would be good.

So we went to Bond No. 9.

Bond No. 9 is a luxury perfumer with half a dozen boutiques in the city, and counters in Saks Fifth Avenue and Harrods in London. They make amazing perfumes and colognes designed to reflect the character and experience of New York City. They have a bunch of different fragrances with names of neighborhoods, like "Wall Street" or "Flatiron." CBGB and I went, and both fell in love with one of their new fragrances that is ONLY sold in the NYC boutiques and Harrods, not online or in Saks. 

Harrods for Him-Bond No. 9 New York

$155

Now, $155 ($168 after tax) is a LOT to spend on cologne, I realize. But I've always wanted to buy one of their fragrances. Besides, it's not cologne, it's eau de parfum. There's a distinction. I swallowed hard and handed over my debit card. Thankfully I can say there's very little buyer's remorse here. It smells AMAZING. It's subtle but very lingering. It has a light mix of citrusy and floral, with a little muskiness and spiciness going on in the background. 

So that's how I took care of myself this week. In the comments section, I'd love to read how you take care of yourself this week.

Burning the Bridges of Madison County

I recently decided to leave my home group, and join a new one. In AA, this is a pretty major life decision. It's probably not a stretch to say that most, if not all members of AA have one particular "group" they call their home group. It's a group whose meetings you go to regularly, participate in the service commitments (such as setting up chairs, making coffee, etc.) that keep the group running, and participate in the monthly business meetings that most groups have, in which all questions and business concerns of the group are democratically decided by the members. As it says in the preamble, the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. So you are a member of a group if you say you are, with all the rights and privileges that go with it.

The fact that I have so many choices of home group is one of the great things about living in New York. I once heard someone say in a meeting that there are over a thousand meetings a week in New York City, and hundreds of groups. Different neighborhoods, different vibes, different group consciences. Some groups are okay with, and even encourage discussion of other drugs, while some suggest a "singularness [sic] of purpose" in restricting one's contributions to their alcoholism. Some groups are set up by and targeted toward specific groups. I've seen groups for women, groups for African Americans, Spanish-speaking meetings, "gay-focused" meetings. All this adds up to a lot of choices for an alcoholic looking for the right fit. In some parts of the country and the rest of the world you don't have a lot of options. My first sponsor lived in the south for a while, and there was ONE group within driving distance which met twice a week. Here in New York I can find a meeting any hour of the day or night (except between 3:00 and 6:00 AM. Even alcoholics who guzzle coffee need some sleep.)

I'd been a member of a particular group on the Upper East Side since I first got sober three years ago. They're a large group, with hundreds of members and a meeting every night of the week. And they work a serious program. Everyone has a sponsor. Everyone is working on the Big Book and Twelve Steps with their sponsor. Everyone has at least one service commitment, usually two or three. And they're wonderful people, who kept my chin up and helped me become a functioning person in sobriety. I needed that structure and that accountability. I needed to be told and shown how to show up, be responsible, start living an honest and humble life.

With the last year's huge changes in my life, the weight loss, hopping back into the dating pool, my career (or lack thereof), I feel like my emotional and spiritual needs are changing. It would be unfair and slightly melodramatic to say I'd outgrown my old home group. I just felt increasingly troubled in my home group. The specific reasons aren't important, and it's not my place to take the inventory of another alcoholic, let alone a group of them. And my resentments toward that group are just that, my resentments, which I have to work on. Suffice it to say I felt that it was time to find a home group that was a bit less formal, more emotional.

Coming to that decision was very difficult for me. I'd celebrated all of my milestones in sobriety for over two years with these people. There are a lot of people in that group I respect, like and even love. Some of the "old timers" in that group have been so selflessly generous, loving and supportive to me that I still get dumbfounded with gratitude when I think about it. I was finally able to come to terms with making my program my program. I'm not doing this thing to impress anyone else. I'm doing this to keep relapse and insanity at bay for another 24 hours. So I started hitting different meetings, "trying them on" in a sense.

My close friend Auden had been going to a meeting in the Village for some time, and our routine of coffee/lunch and a meeting began taking us to that meeting more and more often. It just felt right. It was loose. People shared what was really in their hearts and on their minds, whether they were in a joyous and grateful mood or an angry and resentful one. So on my third anniversary, I celebrated there.

It felt right.

The point of this somewhat meandering post is that in this whole process, so many people walk into their new group badmouthing the one they just left. And that's just pointless. Like I said before, it's taking their inventory. Plus, it's poisoning your relationships in your new group with your anger and resentment. Plus, it's disrespectful of all the people in your old group who helped you. Not to mention the coldly self-preservationist motive in every alcoholic, you never know when you might need those people again, so why burn bridges?

Keeping Up Appearances

Have you ever gotten someone a gift that you weren't sure they'd like? When you first saw it in the store, you thought it was the exact perfect gift for your friend. But as you stand there and see him opening the other gifts, all of which are exponentially better than yours and clearly make him happy, doubt starts creeping in. Your impenetrable bravado is crumbling as the seconds pass. But he's seen you, and seen the gift in your hands, so there's no backing out now.

You take a deep breath, gather all the courage you can, put on your best face, and hand the gift to your friend. He takes it with a huge grin, patting you on the shoulder and eagerly rips off the wrapping paper. All of a sudden, the grin is no longer natural. It's frozen in place for a second, the brow furrowed, before returning even bigger, bigger than any human grin has any right to be. He looks at you with that maniacal, unnatural grin, and in a voice a half octave higher than his usual voice, proclaims his love for the gift. Makes a big production of showing everyone, saying, "Hey, look at this great oven mitt Buddy got me."

He hated it. Because he is a good person, he will never tell you that. He will intransigently insist that he loves that damn oven mitt, uses it every day (even though you know the stove in his apartment has never been turned on.) He will tell you and everyone to stop, move on, he loves it. Except he didn't. You saw the face. Can't fake immediate reaction.

This is what sex is like for me.

As I've mentioned before, I look pretty damn good in clothes, and my friend Auden is helping me with my wardrobe and style. I do have a style, but 3 decades of draping myself in baggy, form concealing clothes have made it difficult to ascertain what that style exactly is. At any rate, I'll meet a guy, online or in person, and he'll think I'm kind of cute. We'll talk, get to know one another, and he'll think I'm really sweet. So sometimes we'll decide to retire to the boudoir. We'll be kissing, making out, getting more serious. I'll take off his shirt. All systems go. He'll take off my shirt.

The face.

It's happened with every man I've ever slept with, except one, but he's dead now. They look at the mess that is my midsection, a hanging, swaying paunch of residual fat and loose skin ravaged by stretch marks and cellulite. The only thing that could resemble it would be Droopy Dog's hanging jowls, if they were made of shorn scrotum instead of dog fur. They're usually (but not always) kind enough to hide the initial shock and horror, but you can still see that moment of assessment and appraisal, as though they're asking themselves if they can endure sex with me. Can they live with the grossness that would be sex with me?

I can't explain how much this hurts.

I can't blame these guys. The only reason I don't make the face every time I look in the mirror is that it isn't a surprise to me. I'm used to it. And I'm doing everything I can to improve the situation, but when you've had that gut all your life, there's only so much elasticity left in your skin, and only so much all the toning exercise and cocoa butter can do. And I certainly can't afford a tummy tuck, upwards of $9,000 in New York City, unless I monetize this page or start a 7th Tradition collection, and that would be just a bit tacky.

It's my albatross.

So I don't know. I keep chugging on because what are my options? Not chugging along? Relapse? Suicide? Neither of those are particularly appealing, for the either gratifying or needlessly irritating reason (not sure which yet) that I still have the tiniest nugget of hope that somehow this will get better. If there is one object lesson in my past 3 sober years, it's that when I have put in the work and acted honestly and forthrightly, things have always worked out for the best. So as much as I hurt right now, I have to hang on.

I don't really believe it right now, but there seem to be others who love me who do believe it. The saving grace of AA. I've been emotionally carried so many times that I can honestly say that the success in my life is not just my own. It's AA's. So I'm chugging.

My Point, and I Should Have One...

So what's my point in this journey, other than to stroke my ego in having my own blog?

For one thing, I think I have a pretty unique perspective. I realize that I am far from the only gay man in recovery in New York. I am, however, the only unpretty gay man I know in recovery in New York. Now, before you roll your eyes at the impromptu pity party, allow me to elaborate.

I used to be fat. Really fat. In the past year or so, I've dropped almost 100 pounds. So in a suit I look pretty good. Take off my shirt, however, and it looks like a heaping bowl of tapioca pudding drying in the sun. Not sexy. Not attractive. Certainly not up to the exacting abdominal standards of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Skinny Jeans.

As a result, sometimes I feel like a man without a country. Too gay to feel at home in "regular" home groups. Not pretty and fabulous enough to be welcomed in gay groups. Caught in the middle. To be fair, this is my resentment, so it's what I need to work through, not on AA, or straight home groups or gay home groups. In situations such as this, my sponsor likes to direct me to page 417 of the Big Book...

And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation—some fact of my life —unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concen- trate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.

Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” He forgot to mention that I was the chief critic. I was always able to see the flaw in every person, every situation. And I was always glad to point it out, because I knew you wanted perfection, just as I did. A.A. and acceptance have taught me that there is a bit of good in the worst of us and a bit of bad in the best of us; that we are all children of God and we each have a right to be here. When I complain about me or about you, I am complaining about God’s handiwork. I am saying that I know better than God. 

This actually does help a bit. This passage describes one of my biggest character defects to a T. I know better than anybody. If only things were set up the way I think they should be, the world would be so much better and everyone would be so much happier. Except that plans for world domination aren't usually hatched nude on a filthy mattress surrounded by empty gin bottles and beer cans... Unless Kim Jong Il and I had the same decorator.

So I get it. It's on me to adapt to the world if I want to find happiness, not the other way around. It's just that sometimes it seems like no matter how much I twist and contort myself, I never fit in. All my life I've felt like the outcast pressing his grubby little face against the window, watching the cool kids with envy and shame. Even in AA, sometimes, it feels like there's an unspoken agreement to put me on a lower tier. There isn't. I know that. I know that this is a disease of perception, that feelings aren't facts.

But I hurt right now. I think I will get through this. I've gotten through worse in sobriety. It just doesn't feel that way at the moment.

A Journey of One Thousand Miles

I've always fancied myself somewhat of a nascent writer. I'm pretty articulate, have a faster wit than the average bear, and know my way around a thesaurus. I've always let myself off the hook, though, telling myself I just didn't have anything UNIQUE to write about. Why write about what thousands of others have written about, especially considering most of it is better than anything I can contribute?


It's long occurred to me, at least in the three plus years since I've gotten sober, that this is an area rife for contemplation and exposition. God knows I spend countless hours a day talking and thinking about my sobriety and my romantic life and the interplay between the two. Because let's face it. It's not always easy being gay, and it sure as hell isn't easy to be a drunk. 


There ARE some complications, some baggage addressing sobriety and AA brings up, namely anonymity. Two of the Twelve Traditions of AA specifically address the importance of anonymity. The 11th Tradition, the short form of which states, "Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films." This speaks to the humility needed to succeed in the program, that the message of AA is best carried not by self promotion or flashy, sensationalistic ad campaigns, but by the quiet and earnest testimony of the people in our lives who've seen the program work for us. The 12th Tradition further stresses the importance of anonymity, stating, "Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities." This is meant to emphasize the spiritual importance of humility, that I don't go around patting myself on the back for getting sober, because I didn't do it alone, that no one person is bigger than the fellowship as a whole.


So anonymity is important, is what I'm trying to convey. Which brings us to ground rules. I'm sort of making these up as I go along, so if any readers think there's anything I'm missing, please feel free to comment or e-mail me with suggestions.


1. Names have been changed, especially those of alcoholics. Details about appearance, back story, etc. will be changed as well. It's about principles, not personalities.
2. Anything told to me in confidence by another alcoholic will never appear on this blog.
3. Shares or qualifications in meetings may be quoted, but only inasmuch as they are pertinent to the promises, prayers and warnings. I'm not writing this to share salacious drunkalogues. I'm here to talk about the daily struggle, triumph and failure.
4. I do not speak for, nor should anything written here be construed to imply that I speak for Alcoholics Anonymous, any group of AA, or any recovering alcoholic other than myself. Any quotes from the Big Book or any other AA literature are taken without permission, and any mistakes in transcription or interpretation are mine and mine alone.
5. Any comment that violates the above will be deleted without warning. 


Other than that, I'm kind of flying without a parachute here. I welcome your suggestions as I get going and this blog (hopefully) grows.


Now, without further ado...