Tag: accountability

Supermarket Stress

I used to poke fun at my late Grandmother for going shopping on a Saturday morning. My grandmother never worked and had her days to herself. While she kept a nice house for her husband, she had ample time during the week to shop for food. Yet, there she was every Saturday morning. She fought the “stop/start walkers”. She also faced the “I’m not paying any attention to who’s around me” people, and the long register lines. I never understood how she wouldn’t go during off hours, as well as question how she was so calm.

I would later learn that she liked being around all of the people. Despite her Yankee Blue-Blood mannerisms, she was quite sociable and found the supermarket to be stimulating. I also like to be around people. However, my going to the market today was a mistake. I forgot it was a Saturday. Before Christmas. My God, what was I thinking?

I am in the accountability phase of my life, which I imposed on myself. I think a segment of my blog will be about what I did right and wrong each day. I believe this exercise will help me. I often struggle to reconcile my desired behavior with my actual behavior. I want to walk the walk, as it were. In this vein, let me say that I could have done better today.

I like to food shop. I always have a carefully prepared list, often in order based on the setup of the store. I put my ear buds in, find a good playlist and do my thing. With the music drowning it all out I do my thing. I’m usually patient with the unaware aisle blockers. I always wait patiently and graciously accept the inevitable apologies for holding things up. I make sure that I am not in the way. I also look out for the short person who can’t reach something on the top shelf. It’s a great opportunity to do something nice, and it is much in need. And above all, I’m always pleasant.

Today, while I don’t think I was rude or offensive to anyone, I could have done better. As a well-established sufferer of General Anxiety, I have mastered preventative measures. One of them is to recognize situations as potentially anxiety-inducing and either brace for it or avoid it entirely. Pulling into the parking lot today was a more than adequate warning. The lot was packed. People were scampering back and forth. The impatience of people waiting for a parking spot was evident. That served as fair warning. I contemplated not going in. I did need food but only a couple of items were needed to get through today. I decided that I would only grab a few items. Which would have been a good plan had I stuck to it.

I would pay for that error in judgment. I set myself up to get aggravated. Normally, I can handle a little aggravation. But I wasn’t prepared for the sudden stops. The aisles were blocked. People were completely unaware and perusing labels. Carts were stacked up like planes on a snowy runway. Add to this stress soup my very favorite occurrence. Every item I searched for had at least one person standing right in front of it.
That is where I could have done better.
With every aisle that I attempted to navigate, I was trying to make sure that I wasn’t in anyone’s way. A courtesy I was clearly alone in extending. It got to the point that everything I was trying to get was blocked by someone. I became overwhelmed, and while I didn’t actually say anything my face surely spoke volumes. I’m know for that, unfortunately.

I do not believe that I hurt any feelings. But, in my anxiety-fueled quest to get out of the congestion and chaos, I am sure that I looked annoyed. I might have even looked angry. And for that, I wish I could have done better. I consider myself a tolerant, patient and social person. I try to not be in a hurry, and I always take a deep breath and remind myself that I share this planet with other people. It bothers me that I failed to exhibit that today. I was simply overwhelmed.

This is a victimless crime. I’m sure nobody is thinking about the rude guy in the black hoodie. Because I wasn’t rude and it wasn’t that big of a deal. To them. To me, whenever I fail to act as the person I want to be I make a big deal out of it. It is part of my quest to be a better, more virtuous person.

Which brings me to the heart of the issue. I am not perfect, and I don’t understand why I am so hard on myself for merely being human. I think it’s fair to say that most mere mortals don’t hold themselves to such a standard. My only consolation is that I know it comes from a good place. I’m just trying to be accountable.

Inevitable

I always knew it. I’ve known it for years, but I didn’t want to admit it. But after diving into the model of addiction as a profession, I’ve realized that I am no different than the people I work with.
I am an alcoholic.

All the signs are there. As we say, the circumstances vary but the progression is the same. There is no exact template; you don’t have to drink every day, you don’t have to have hit “rock bottom”(I believe absolute Rock Bottom is death), you don’t have to lose everything, you don’t have to have experience “blackouts” nor do you need to have crushing consequences of alcohol use. You merely have to admit that alcohol has affected your life irreparably and that is a problem that you have no control over.
That’s me.
I have been drinking at an unhealthy level for 40-plus years. I haven’t always consumed alcohol every day and I haven’t always gotten drunk. But it has been a destructive force in my life. I have drunk at the expense of my health. I have lost my temper with my family and other loved ones. I’ve driven intoxicated more times than I can count (the words “incredibly lucky” come to mind) and I know that I have set a terrible example for my children. I have made an ass out of myself in front of friends and co-workers more than I want to admit and I have wallowed in shame and regret more often than I care to consider. Even now that I’ve been able to achieve long periods of sobriety, I think about it every day. Not a day goes by when I do not think about going to buy a bottle. When I do buy one, I may not get plowed that day but I will drink out of it every day until it is gone. That means that working out, blogging, preparing meals and any other worthwhile pursuit will be left by the wayside as I feed an old, tiring habit. And I get zero value or reward from it.
It’s time for a change. I feel good about it. I don’t enjoy it anymore, I rarely get intoxicated, and when I do I beat the hell out of myself emotionally during and after.

Alcoholism is about control. I no longer have control over it. Being able to avoid it is a mild accomplishment but I need to change my mindset and work towards a healthy and fulfilling life. Yes, I already crave this, anyone who knows me can confirm it. But I can do better.

I always tell my Clients that the key to embracing recovery is to not look at it as a continuation of the Old Life, but instead to look at it as a new beginning. It has occurred to me that I may be full of shit when I offer advice but I know I’m not. I am knowledgeable of the model of addiction and can speak with some conviction. But I need to go one step further and join them in doing the work. I can live the life that I want for them by joining them in the battle.

Today I am beginning the 1st of the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. I am admitting that I am powerless over the lure of alcohol, and that I currently live a life that is unmanageable. This is an important step in my overall goal of being an honest, accountable person of substance. It makes sense finally.

What is a man?

One of the hardest things to be in today’s society is a man. As we have strived for equality of the sexes, the thin black line between the sexes is now a thick grey one. In many, if not most, ways it has been refreshing and long overdue. Good riddance to the notion that men belong in the workplace and the “little woman” belongs barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. Good riddance to gender pay gaps (yes I know we’re not there yet but we’re making progress). And good riddance to the notion that women are objects to be leered at and objectified. We’ve made tremendous progress in righting the scales in so many areas, but unfortunately in the process we’ve made it somewhat difficult for men to be men. It goes beyond eliminating bad behavior, society is pushing for the de-masculinization of men, and that will not end well. In the process of rehabilitating bad men we are destroying the good ones.

So what is a good man? This may be just my opinion but a good man has old-fashioned values, values that the men who built this great country possessed. Men with resolve, vision and a strong work ethic. Good men still exist today, despite the active marginalization, but they don’t thunder across the tundra in the numbers they once did. The ones that still exist possess the following qualities.

Honesty
Let’s face it, at the core of everything is honesty because the antithesis is dishonesty which is the root of all bad behavior. A good man is almost entirely defined by the trait of honesty. Without the reputation of being an honest man, one will not be trusted and his services and company will not be sought. Honesty is displayed through our words and our actions. If a promise is made verbally, the honest man considers it a binding contract that is iron clad. Consequently, failure to live up to the promise makes you a liar. Once you’ve earned that moniker, there is no turning back.

I was raised by two honest men, my father and my grandfather. Both showed me at an early age the value and virtue of honesty. My grandfather started me off at a young age with telling me,
“Nobody likes a liar”, and “In order to be a good liar you had better have a great memory.”
I watched my dad and grandfather in their professional and personal dealings and it became evident early on that they placed a lot of emphasis on a handshake, eye contact and keeping their word. A handshake was the measure of a man and dads spent great time and effort teaching their boys both the technique and the importance. Combined with a promise, the handshake solidified a verbal contract, one that was meant to be kept and honored.

Both my father and grandfather did side work to supplement their incomes and my grandfather once under-quoted a roofing job. He completed the job, on time, and stuck to his original quote even though he made almost no money. My father told me about it, as an example of what an honest man does.

Today the handshake means almost nothing. Eye contact has been replaced by staring at screens and the verbal contract thing? That is also a thing of the past. Entire professions are dedicated to finding ways to get out of written, signed and notarized documents. Is it any surprise that in our dealings with others we find ourselves at the least cautious and at the least fearful of being lied to? The good men among us still value the handshake and the word of an honest man.

Accountability
I have chosen Accountability as the second virtue due to its close affiliation with that of honesty. While honesty speaks of our dealings with others, accountability is about being honest with ourselves.

How many of us have taken a deep, hard look at events and realized that we made a mistake. How many of us have taken a hard look at our entire lives and realized that who we are and who we think we are to be two different entities? They’re both bitter pills to swallow regardless of age. From being in a leadership position, to analyzing a particular incident or realizing you’ve been living a lie for decades, to reach the point where blame can be put on yourself is extremely difficult. It is also cathartic and the beginning of the road to self-improvement. If only we were all capable of it and spent more energy rectifying and improving the behavior than we do denying our involvement and shifting blame.

3 months ago I took a motorcycle safety course. I failed the skills test and I was furious at myself. My first reaction was to blame the instructors, the course itself, the bike I was riding. But I quickly realized that the course was about low-speed handling and I, despite having ridden a motorcycle before, never learned those maneuvers. It was my fault, no one else’s. My next step was to set up cones in my driveway and to spend hours learning them. I then took my road test and passed. I needed to be accountable and when I did, things worked out.

From learning from a single incident to re-evaluating ones entire life, you cannot be a good man without being accountable. Your light shines from within and, as Harry Truman famously said…”the buck stops here.”

to be continued…