Dedication

When my drinking was at its worst, I could not drive past a bar, state store or beer distributor without--at the very least--gripping the steering wheel a bit tighter or clamping one claw-like hand down on my knee.

And there were many times when that was my reaction.

However, as I made a point of typing, that reaction was the "very least" of all possible reactions I could and would take. More often than not, I would end up turning off or doubling back, putting aside whatever plans or commitments I had made that day for another drink, another binge, another round in the ring with self-destruction and shame. And only afterwards, when the bottle was empty and my heart heavy, only after that incredibly strong impulse to drink had passed, could I lament (as best I could, hungover, inebriated or--as it was when my drinking reached its absolute lowest point--neither drunk nor hungover but completely sick and destroyed) the vows I had broken and promises I had swept aside.

An example of this: about a year and half ago or so it became necessary for my grandmother to move to Louisville, Kentucky, where she could live in a facility better suited to caring for her needs. Before arriving at Louisville, she spent a small piece of time in the geriatric ward of the hospital I work at due to some minor injuries and psychological issues.

My uncle David from Louisville came to visit, to check on his mother and to establish and then finalize the financial and practical elements of her transitioning from York, Pennsylvania to Louisville, Kentucky. David is exceedingly talented when it comes to this sort of thinking and acting, and I can remember talking with him and his wife while they were at the hospital. I can remember David telling me, after overhearing a conversation I had with my grandmother, that I had reminded him of Bernie (my father, his brother, now deceased due to alcoholism) in that moment. Very apropos, for that tender reason as well as one other: I was hungover that day.

Later, my uncle John--who lives in the area--came to the hospital to visit his mother. I was on duty that day, and so I headed up to the third floor to speak with him. We talked about moving my grandmother's packed up belongings out of the apartment she had lived in. I told John that of course I'd be there to help, and I sincerely meant it at that time. Why would I not want to help my uncle take care of his mother and my grandmother's personal possessions?

It should come to no surprise to anyone reading this, though it certainly surprised me then, that I did not help my uncle John with the moving endeavor.

By the time I arrived at the assisted living community, red eyed and hungover, the room was empty: the walls devoid of paintings and pictures, the furniture and boxes already whisked away. My uncle, his sons and whoever else had helped with the loading of bubble-wrapped packages and duct-taped boxes into trucks were long gone.

I walked outside, lit a cigarette and drove home, feeling ashamed and disgusted with myself. How could I have essentially stood up my own family? How could I have done that when, in a very real sense, I've got a little less family to stand up than most of my friends? What the hell was I doing, what was I thinking anymore to do this shit?

I can't remember if I drank again that same night--but I did drink again.

Obviously, I drank again. And when I did, as it always was and always will be for me, the most poignant and immediate response to this act was the quadrupling of all my life's problems.

The way that addiction rewrites the human mind is an insidious, deliberate process: our virtues, higher thinking and reasoning, traits and talents, our sexuality, our basic needs for food and water--all of these things become secondary to the consuming impulse to drink.

It becomes an obsession: when we're not drinking, all we can think of is drinking. When we are drinking, all we want to do is stop. And, caught within that fruitless cycle, all of these thoughts really amount to only so much nothing--we continue to drink despite them (or in spite of them) because drinking is the priority of the mind in active alcohol addiction.

And yet, there is something more to it than just that. More to this concept of obsession that walks hand in hand with addiction.

Addiction does not discriminate: it does not care about age, ethnicity, intellect, skin color, hair color or social standing. With that said, it does not surprise me that addiction runs rampant amongst the artistic and intellectual--that the strong currents of dedication (otherwise known as obsession) can prove to be so susceptible to being diverted into a new, skewed direction.

I have met many artistic, creative, thoughtful individuals over the course of my journey through rehab, AA and other sobriety/recovery groups. I have met fellow writers and musicians, fellow singers, I have met painters, dancers and teachers. The ideological background of these people has been varied enough to include, to list only a selection of principles, fundamental Christians, non-affiliated Christians, Humanists, Agnostics/Atheists, Native American traditionalists and unclassified free-thinkers.

The thread that unites all of these creative people, despite their religious beliefs or principles, is the very thread of creation: of understanding, either on top or underneath, that creative people have a fluid nature to their character that is essential to being creative. I think that it's fair to say that, because of our nature as artists, we are more inclined to descend into full blown addiction while we remain uneducated and unaware.

When beginning to write, a writer will write the type of stories that initially inspired him to pick up a pen or sit in front of a keyboard. A singer will emulate the vocal style, genre and song themes of the singers who influenced him to stand behind a microphone. The same is true of painters, dancers and musicians. The precursor to interpretation is imitation.

But over time, over hours of effort, we begin to develop a sense of "self" within our respective form of expression that fits us--that is us. We become tethered to a general sense of what we are, what we do, by a strand of creative integrity the length of which is determined by our own tastes and lives.

For example: I could not foresee myself writing a rap/hip-hop song any time soon (the back of my mind even whispers "or while my heart's beating") and yet...I have nothing against hip-hop that is honest and meaningful. As a matter of fact, I respect and enjoy this sort of hip-hop. It's just not a form of expression that feels valid to me, for me--it's not who I am, it's not what I feel.

And yet we do allow incredible, expansive growth take place within the parameters of what we do feel: there is music I listened to and performed when I was younger that no longer resonates with me as it did then, there is music that resonates with me now more than I ever thought it would. Because these are the ways that my mind and heart have changed, the direction its grown in over the years and all of the trial and error.

Sometimes this kind of shift can be painful or surprising--art can be pain. And it's for this reason that I believe artistically inclined people fall so fully into the entrapment of alcoholic self-delusion. Through our efforts in art, we learn that suffering is a great tool for fertilizing the soul. We become intensely aware of these rifts taking place within our creative being and so, when these same sort of rifts begin to occur in our collective being, we apply that same sort of tenacious mindset to adjusting to and then living with the changes.

After all, if you had told a Megadeth-Slayer-and-Testament-listening-to, 16 year old version of myself that in ten years his version of hard-rock/heavy-metal would have just as much to do with traditional country and outlaw country as it did with Metallica, he would have just stared at you disbelievingly--as if you were speaking a foreign language or, even more so than that, were some strange breed of insect whose mind could have no way of understanding the intricacies of his own.

Dedication then, dedication now: the length of my rope has changed over the years, but not the essential grounds it's tethered to.

As I've said before, there is dedication at work within addiction. As I've said before, it's not just about punching in at 9 and leaving at 5. There's dedication at work when you begin to dry heave while singing, rush upstairs and away from your friends, proceed to cough blood up into your cupped hands, stare at it in disbelief...and then simply wash it away.

There's dedication at work there--self-delusion as well.

But self-delusion is also an important part of the foundation of an artist--of the creation of a person who creates.

No one begins "good" at anything--and if it wasn't for that streak of self-delusion, none of us would progress past the point of novice or hobbyist. No one, ever, would have published a book or released a song or painting to the public if they didn't have that internal voice telling them "This is good, this means something" while their parents softly encourage them to have something fall back on and acquaintances remind them not to quit their day jobs.

And, even when the tune of those around this budding creative person has changed, it is still this powerful, internal voice that holds the most sway over that person's conceptualization of the importance of what they are doing.

It's a voice that, in regards to my own art, became misplaced due to my alcoholism. It did not become lost: it existed as a twisted version of itself, no longer bolstering my opinion of songs or stories, but instead whispering the importance of the bottle or the can that the rest of my brain was telling me was so very essential to me now. Not lost then, but certainly not found: certainly not sound.

In this way, there is a strong parallel between addiction and art, between obsession and dedication.

There is a world of difference between my staying up all night drinking and my staying up all night working on a song or a story--a universe of difference. And yet...there is that similarity there, a resemblance that can't quite be called a parallel, but may be called a reversed reflection. Two pictures, side by side, one in full color and crisp, the other blurred nearly to the point of being unrecognizable. But similar, all the same.

I suppose, in closing, we should always remain aware of whether or not the things that we love, love us back. If they fulfill and fill us, or drain and destroy us. If the coin in our hand is showing heads or tails and if we're present enough to even tell the difference.

As always, my name is Zane Neumann and I am an alcoholic.