I'm not sure. I could start with the superficials, like how the band is playing great and local radio started playing us and whatnot and we have shows coming up. But something deeper has been going on with me. From past blogs, that I have since taken down, I've delved into my struggles with drugs. Oftentimes, I would also make light of all the sacrifice and hard work I put into The Wanteds when it was a one-man band. I used to get emails about those blogs. About how much people really connected with me being honest about my past, and at the time of all those postings I really was being honest in that moment. But there is a reason I pulled those blogs. And I think I might be on the verge of figuring out why that was. It looks like I am heading into some new territory with honesty. That would be honesty with myself.
Right now I am in recovery.
The road to this started 13 months ago on June 5th of 2007. That was the last night I did drugs. It was intense. I did enough to have killed me and I am not proud of that. Normally, when I would do alot of drugs at once, there would be some sort of sick "I survived it!" kind of feeling. Almost like I felt powerful because I had done more than anyone I knew and still lived to tell the tale. Like bragging. After that night I just felt like an asshole. A complete and total asshole.
And that was that. I was done with drugs and alcohol. My famous willpower. I had planned that night as my last, I lived through it and that was the end. Life went on. Ryan and I put the band together. Went through a few drummers. Wrote some songs and re-worked them until we were real proud of them. Conquered some setbacks and took some chances and ended up recording an amazing record in January. Let me just say that I absolutely LOVE our new record. We actually ended up making the exact record I wanted to hear and I'm really proud of the accomplishment. From the outside it looked like I was back in action. Once again using my sheer will to cast aside the demons and make great things happen. But, under the surface, other things were kinda starting to fall apart.
While I was writing songs and making the record and focusing so intently on making the band get to where I wanted it to be...as I have sooooo often done...I was neglecting my relationship with Jen. We were definitely having some struggles. And despite the fact that she was being really supportive and giving me the space to chase my dream, I look back now and see how I was pretty much making her feel like she was getting in the way if she needed anything from me. It was pretty unfair. The whole time I was also urging her to chase her dreams but also keeping a scorecard on what she was doing...if she needed me, then she wasn't doing enough to chase her own thing. Oh man, when I type that it just looks sick. I was shutting her out in the good old name of "artistic progress". When you are a creative type, you can get away with playing that card. "My art makes me who I am and if you get in the way of it you are hurting me." If you've ever dated an artist or musician, you may have heard those kinds of things. I look back on that time now and it just looks selfish because I'm starting to see that the best barometer of how I am doing on the inside has to do with how I am behaving in my relationships. Right after the album was done, during mixing, is when things started to unravel.
All of a sudden, it was the end of January 2008 and Failure Looks So Good was done and I started falling back on other non-drug and non-alcohol compulsive behaviors to kill the time. I was keeping them secret. They all made me feel really guilty because I remember how the same things cropped up and were part of my first go at sobriety. At first I was ignoring the fact that I had been here before and just kept pushing ahead. We found a great drummer after the record. The band is in full-swing. Things are going great. A lie. My home life is still rocky. Ok, turn all my energy to the band. Wait, I've been here before. That was it...there was just this nagging feeling in my gut that I had been here before. And I had.
And where did that lead me?
Well, it led me down a path of destroying some relationships. Isolating myself supremely while touring and booking and whatnot until even being on tour and playing music was no longer enjoyable. I remembered the last two Let Go Afterglow tours. The last big one was unbelievably long and not fun. Everywhere I went, I was playing to rooms of people and after the shows some of them would come up to me and tell me how much the songs meant to them or affected them but the whole time I was playing them I wasn't enjoying it at all. In fact, I was actually hating playing most of the time. Feeling tremendously insecure and wishing the tour was over. It was exhausting. I came home and lied to everyone and told them how great it was when all I really wanted to do was never play music again. Now here is where it gets truly ridiculous. After that whole long, grueling, hating of playing music experience what did I do? I started booking another tour. I'm laughing right now because it just seems so stupid. What was I thinking? Apparently, I wasn't thinking at all because I went on that last tour, had the same problems as the tour before it, came home to an empty house...my son and his mother had moved out...and then I was back on drugs.
Back to my point though. There I was. It was January of 2008, our new record was done and I was back to my old ways. Sober, but back to my old compulsive ways. And, like I said, the band was moving forward but that is easy to see from here. It's amazing how much work I can accomplish when I shut out all the people around me. It's also amazing how stressful and unsatisfying all that work can be when I have myself isolated like that. Things were going so well but I was perpetually unsatisfied and I could always find a way for it to be someone else's fault.
Lucky for me, Jen is not the type of person that is going to let herself be ignored forever. She kept pushing for things she needed. I kept insisting that those things were things she should be getting from sources other than me. There was a struggle going on and whenever she was insecure I was always quick to point out how much more evolved I was. But that was another lie. Inside I was flailing too, but mine was all happening in secret and since I am so good at being driven and productive, the people around me never know that I am sinking. When they sink, they can't get anything done. I can move mountains while I am falling apart. I always thought that was a blessing. Now I am not so sure. It feels alot like a curse.
I stuck to my guns and kept insisting that she reach out and address "her" issues with sobriety and it finally came to a head ten days ago...while we were sitting around the kiddie pool with Brice, who is my three-year-old son, in case you were wondering. Jen called me out. She told me how she felt about me insisting that she reach out when I was talking a big game but not reaching out myself. When she declared her feelings about it, it really hurt me. But for some unknown reason I couldn't evade the truth this time. She was right. My game was in plain view though I wasn't completely up to admitting it outright. Instead, I decided that it was so important for her to address "her" issues that I would walk my talk in order to initiate it. We made a pact. And right there we agreed to do it together. To both reach out and seek help independently.
And, in that moment, I stumbled into recovery.
Where do we begin? Right here, I guess. Right now. So far it's been a real eye-opener. Every day I am coming to grips with behaviors I engage in daily and how they relate to my struggles with drug addiction. They have become instinctive reactions to the world around me. And, I might add, a real pain in the ass. To myself and to those I love. For some reason I just couldn't see them. Maybe because I always thought it was the circumstances around me or the alcohol or the drugs that were the problems. It was never me. That just made me laugh again. So ridiculous.
I got started a mere 10 days ago and since then I've stopped engaging in those behaviors from January that I was talking about...but I discovered a new one. One that has been with me for who knows how long and went totally undetected until today. I feel like a goof because it might already be obvious to anyone who is reading this. I am talking about being a fixer. I never really fully acknowledged this until today.
That's what I do. I fix.
It always seemed like such a good thing. So noble. So helpful. As long as I can remember, I've been the guy with the answers who can power through anything. Friends and family have always flocked to me for advice and I've usually got some great nuggets to share, but it really goes beyond that. I do it compulsively and it brings me zero joy. When someone close to me wants a supportive listener to listen to their struggles, I walk in and start re-arranging their life as I see fit. Telling them what is wrong with them and what they need to do to fix it. Then, I decide what progress is and later on if they aren't making progress, I let them know. I get disappointed in them and myself for wasting my time when they aren't willing to work hard following my suggestions. Not to mention the fact that later I also get annoyed that they become defensive and resentful every time they try to talk to me, so simple discussions can flare into stupid arguments which would usually end up with me exonerating myself and pointing out how they in fact caused the argument and how I was just trying to be supportive. Once again, not my fault. Can you believe the nerve? Let's just say that it was a bitter pill that I swallowed today. Something that should be blatantly noticeable and yet was so invisible, I think this has been a huge source of a whole host of negative feelings that I carry around or create in my everyday life. When I think about my past there is some element of this is every relationship that I have ever destroyed. Why? Who knows. Maybe because ultimately it leads me to end up all alone where my mind can simply rage on in circles of fear, worry, guilt and resentment. So I can walk around feeling like I haven't done enough. Like I am not good enough. Like I'm not enough. And if I feel that way long enough, I will eventually give in and then I can self-destruct.
Now...to fix myself. I guess that's growth.
Itfeels like a small step.
But it's a start.
-Tommy
