Thanks Tall Kay

Karen at Aha Moments honored me with an Honest Scrap award. She bestowed this award on me and 6 others because she feels we are honest bloggers and I think she is right, no ego intended. Karen has always given me encouraging feedback and support and I am greatly honor by this award. The award comes with the following rules.

1. Tell 10 honest things about me
2. Acknowledge who gave me the award
3. Pick 10 bloggers to give it to

Most you know about me from my October post “100 things about this ex-drunk”; I had to think some to come up with some new stuff and below is what happened.

1.Never watch the Pink Floyd movie The Wall when in a depressed drunk stupor! A few months prior to my first mental breakdown which eventually lead to me getting sober, I watched this movie. In the movie the main character Pink shaves his eyebrows, well campers alcohol and depression make you do some strange things and I shaved ¾ of my eyebrows off. I probably would have finished the job but I had just enough sanity left to know that I would have gotten into trouble with the Air Force.

2.Now I hate to fight, one of the reason’s is I am not a very big man, kind of tall and lanky, the other reason is I feel violence is wrong under most conditions, sorry Buddha I cannot commit to complete non-violence at this point on my spiritual journey. At a party one time a drunken co-worker for some reason was going to fight me, more than likely I was giving him a bad time and his sense of humor wasn’t where mine was at, anyway this co-worker was smaller and weaker than me. He started to throw a punch and I ducked in and gave him a kiss on the lips, surprised the hell out of him, actually it grossed him out, surprised everyone else too. My sexual orientation was in question from then out but I didn’t care because the fight was stopped and I was comfortable with my orientation, fighting really has nothing to do with being heterosexual in my book anyway.

3.I have a sister in recovery, come January it will hopefully be 3 years for her. For the most part we are estranged from each other. I use to see her at meetings when I lived in Kearney but we would never talk to each other, other people in recovery knew more about what was going on in my sister’s life than I did and where amazed that we didn’t talk to each other. I have tried to talk to her without forcing the issue; I am always one of the last to leave the meetings so she has had plenty of chances to approach me. At my mom’s birthday party I tried again to talk to her but was blown off. I don’t understand all the reasons for her shunning me; yeah it is sad for me. My speculations are, she has always been a bit jealous of me, being the baby of the family my parents always took a bit more interest right or wrong in what I was doing in my life, in the recovery community I was thought highly of because of my service work which I have always done out of a genuine interest in serving AA and the less fortunate so once again I was getting attention she probably wanted, I hold strongly to the traditions and the statement “ God as we understand him” but my sister has a more judgmental view as to who one needs to believe in, we have also had a lifelong disagreement about the importance of money, public image and material processions my decision to take a major pay decrease and lower my standard of living to pursuing a career serving God and others just doesn’t compute with her. These are all guesses based on having known her for 46 years. It just sucks that even though I don’t really care if we are best bud’s or not I would be nice to talk to her on occasion like we use to do. Once again I am powerless over more than just alcohol. My sister is in my prayers because that is the only way I know how to show her love at this point. Also if I have harmed her I would like to know so that I can make amends, my sponsor and I have been over the relationship and I can’t think of any wrongs done.

4.Alright since that last one was a bit heavy for me I am going to lighten it up. Some of my beautiful blogger friends of late have mentioned their love for the band Journey now is the time for me to say, “I loathe Journey” sorry campers but this is about honesty. I did at one time own the Departure album on cassette because of the prod rock flavored song People and Places and I will say that Wheel in the Sky is a great rock song but for the most part that is the extent of my love for Journey. For one thing they were all over the airwaves on the 80’s, seemed like every hour the radio stations where playing a song of theirs. I also lived with some guys who thought Journey was awesome, so every weekend there was a party at the house I shared with them and Journey was one of the main stays on the stereo. To be honest when this was going on I was heavy into Dylan who had just reemerged from his Christian period with a couple of great albums Infidels and Empire Burlesque. Back then I would say I was into substance music, today I laugh at myself, nothing can quite kill the mood of a party like a drunk putting on Dylan, Neil Young, the Grateful Dead, early Susanne Vega, progressive or jazz fusion, no wonder I never got laid. Here is another bit of irony, Steve Perry’s voice annoys me but I love Geddy Lee of Rush. Journey is just one of those bands in a list of artist who yes probably did make some great songs but over the last 25 years of listening to classic rock radio just really don’t appeal to me, certain prejudices just get stuck in the mind and don’t leave. But hey all you go right ahead loving you some Journey if that is what makes you smile, sing and dance! After writing this I have a strong itching for the Clash London Calling ;-D

5.O.K. speaking of music, one of my favorite subjects. I laughed at you for Journey but I have a guilty musical pleasure. I love the Carpenters! Karen’s voice was so sweet and beautiful, the harmonies where tight, the songs where simple pop gems. I was a young kid when they burst on the scene, I remember hearing them on the radio, watching them on TV and having a crush on Karen. All these years later, years that have been filled with sadness, life lived on the darker side, I can put on the Carpenters and be transcend to a simpler place and time, a place I never really lived in but know exist. It is really too bad Karen fell to her own demon, my comparison maybe wrong but she had a lot more in common with Janis Joplin than a lot of people would like to admit.

6.So this brings me to the next bit of honest. I am a sentimental softy and cry way too damn easy. This was really brought home again this morning watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for what is probably the 20 something time. I can’t help myself, I just get misty eyed during tender or sad moments of movies and always have. My eyes start watering halfway through It’s a Wonderful Life and other great movies. It is really embarrassing sometimes, especially in mixed company or around people who don’t know me that well, not that I am overly vain but still I have enough of an ego to not want people to think of me as weak. This also crops up at meetings and on occasion during work when people are talking about heartbreak experiences. God has helped to control this at work, since I can’t show this emotion too much to a person I am trying to help, they may take it the wrong way and try and manipulate me.

7.I am a coffee addict. If I am home all day it is nothing for me to drink 4 pots of coffee, 2 of those will be decaf. I know bad wolfie bad wolfie but hey I like coffee and still don’t have the willingness to make myself drink water. I will justify my addiction by saying that I believe that my love of coffee and the cleansing it does to my kidneys helps keep me from getting sick.

8.During the beginning of my relapse when the insanity, the pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization was just being to pick up steam, I got into a really sick relationship. I was caught up in the attention and affection I was receiving. The woman I was involved in and later moved in with for a short period use to physically abuse her kids. It wasn’t a constant thing but if her kids started to get out of hand she would hit them with a belt. One of the sicker chapters of my life is that I did this a couple of times as well and may have even done this to my daughter once. I look back now in disgust and don’t understand how I could ever do such and thing, other than I was trying to please her and be accepted by her. Her kids due to this sickness would push things to the point where they would be beat, maybe they didn’t understand any other way and this was how they learned to calm down, to escalate things to point of requiring physical pain in order to gain some form of love and acceptance. The woman was raised with beatings so it was a family cycle and I pray today that those girls are not repeating it with their kids. I was raised with physical violence but with rare exceptions have never used it on my daughter; I understood the damage and broke the cycle. God opened my eyes up only a few months into the relationship and we parted ways, she became emotionally and verbal abusive to me.

9.I have no college education. Like Karen everything I have is a gift from God. Good leadership and management are common sense things to me plus I have tried to emulate the supervisors I have respected. I also have a gift for training people for teaching people in a way that makes things comprehendible, I am patient and have a relaxed way of communicating which is an asset. I worked 17 years as a purchasing agent, I wasn’t the best when it came to hard core negotiations but I had a great repoire with my venders and sales people, they would do their best to help me out of a jam no matter whose fault it was. I know I will have to starting taking college courses next summer in order to stay in my new chosen career; it is just how it works. I am a bit concerned about starting college since it has been so long since I have had to really study, work on term papers, the fear is I won’t be able to comprehend what is being taught, that the damage to my memory is too extensive that I won’t be able to past test based on remembering stuff. I know this is more than likely just fear of failure but it is real fear for me. I just have to trust God when the time comes and do the footwork needed to succeed.

10.On my list of resentments was the last sponsor I had before the relapse. I wasn’t comfortable putting him on the list since he was a friend of my sponsor, the one who I took my 5th step with. I knew then that the relapse wasn’t the old sponsor’s fault but in working step 4 to the best of my ability I had to add him because he did hurt me even if it was my own fault. See I feel I should have done a 4th and 5th step with this sponsor, I was 5 years sober when he became my sponsor, maybe if I would have done the steps my secret’s would have come out and I wouldn’t have relapsed. I don’t have resentment to this sponsor now but when I was newly sober the second time around I saw where he could have served me better. What I have learned is that we are all responsible for our own recovery; I know today how important it is to be honest, with myself, my sponsor and with others. I know what actions or inactions will lead me to another relapse and with the help of the God of my understanding I hope to never do that again.


Once again it is a long winded post, just my style and one I have to accept, maybe I was a Russian novelist in a past life. I don’t surf enough to have 10 bloggers to send this award to but I do have a few and maybe they have received it before but these ladies are inspiring and amazing in their honesty.

Shadow: 1 door away from heaven http://gsp-shadow.blogspot.com/

Sarah: Complications of a perfect life http://sarahkristen111.blogspot.com/

Gabi: All who wonder are not lost! http://mysticallyenhanced.blogspot.com/

Paula: Becoming myself http://pneumeier.blogspot.com/

Peace Love and Light campers and may the wonderful sunlight of the Spirit shine upon you even on those rainy daze.
Hugs from Nebraska
Scott