Random Acts of Journalism

On the day that this gets posted, i’ll be in Pinedale and will get to see the progress/devestation of this project on both the town and the surrounding wilderness. It will be shocking and i’m not going to lie — it took away a little of the excitement of going there. It’s depressing. This was written in October of 2006:

I’m on my way home from Pinedale, Wyoming, where my family has had a cabin for 10 years now. It used to be an awesome escape to a little town of 1,200 that just built their first movie theater less than 5 years ago. But recently a huge natural gas deposit was found near our house and over the next 10 years, they will drill more than 10,000 wells and completely ruin my neighborhood, the hunting, fishing and quaint little small-town feeling. Actually, the small town feeling is already ruined.

See, when they do these things, they do environmental impact studies and they tell everyone that despite the ugliness of the wells, it’s really not going to hurt the land that much, the animals will be fine, etc. But they don’t talk about the impact on people. When you build that many wells, you need a ton of manpower and equipment. And when you bring hundreds of men into a town that doesn’t have hundreds of single women, you’re absolutely asking for trouble. Crime is up, violent crime is up. You don’t recognize people in town. It’s downright scary to go to what used to be friendly, neighborhood cowboy bars. May my town rest in peace.
But this wasn’t meant to be an indictment of the murder of small-town America, although we could certainly talk for days about that.

What struck me as interesting during my visit was all of the Halliburton vehicles driving around town. I guess what really caught me by surprise was my underestimation of the size of that company. They have vehicles and equipment being blown up in Iraq daily, they have contractors and employees being kidnapped, killed, beheaded and ambushed all the time and yet, on the other side of the world in Wyoming, it’s just business as usual.

And I’m trying to duplicate the conversation that I just had with my dad about it. And I can understand that it’s just so hard to wrap your brain around…after all that we’re taught in schools and we hear in the mainstream media, we try so hard to believe in the ideals of this country that this stuff couldn’t be true. But if you look at the facts on some of this stuff, it’s just shocking and overwhelming and completely frightening. It’s the feeling that no matter what we do, no matter how we vote or how we live, that we’re just completely outnumbered and basically, fucked. It’s a tough thing to realize that you really can’t do anything about it. It’s a horrible thing for me to say, but I honestly believe that what’s going on in this world is too big for us to stop. It’s out of our hands. Thanks for playing, please come again. The status quo is too entrenched, the wheels are already in motion.

The oil companies posted record breaking profits last year in the 10’s of billions of dollars. Exxon made $28 billion in profits alone. That’s not just revenue…that’s money they made above and beyond the massive expenses of that company. During that entire time, Americans were caught at the pumps complaining about gas prices. Now I’m a fan of the laws of economics, so I’m not saying that Exxon shouldn’t have priced competitively and made as much money as humanly possible, because that’s the idea behind business…you make as much as you can, when you can. But, what I am saying, is that when you look at those numbers, and you look at the people who stand to benefit from those numbers, it’s not a big surprise why we’re fighting where we are fighting and why we are willing to put up with death and destruction and human rights travesties and all the other byproducts of this war. Because the war is still profitable.

How many trucks does $28 billion in profits replace? How many pieces of equipment? How many lobbyists? How many government officials? How many soldiers and officers can be promised high-ranking security jobs after the war? How many terrorist attacks can you afford? (And that includes 9-11, because it cost a few thousand lives, 4 planes and a few really nice pieces of real estate. Add all that up and it was a fucking drop in the proverbial $28 billion dollar bucket. I hate to minimize that terrible event in monetary terms, but that’s what they’re doing, so for the sake of this argument, I must as well.) And most importantly, how many deaths does $28 billion in profits get you? It may make you sick to the very core of your stomach to think of death in terms of net cost, but that’s how those companies and this government is looking at it. It’s just the cost of doing business for them. It’s the reality of the situation that people are going to die. The companies (and we’ll go ahead and lump the government under the “company” umbrella from now on, because they are one.) will pay the families, express their pseudo-condolences, pretend on their faces that they’re actually upset and that something needs to be done, but in their minds, in their board rooms, in their corner offices, there is a chart, a cost-benefit analysis, a return-on-investment breakdown that puts a price on those lives and determines just how many they can lose before the profit dries up. And I don’t know if most of us even want to fathom that number. It’s high. If I had to guess, I’d say somewhere in the hundreds of thousands.

When I had this conversation, the statement was made, “I have to believe that if there was a better way. If there was a renewable energy source, if there was a way to quench this thirst, a way to market new energies that would be cheaper, easier to use, better for our environment and would reduce our dependence on foreign oil and make us safer, that we would do it.” And I can’t blame that person for making that statement. Because that thought is based in the ideals and the values that we’re all brought up with. We’ve read them in our textbooks, been told them by our parents, politicians and priests. We’ve bought into them, and none of us are at fault for wanting to believe that the people in power really are doing the best they possibly can to move America forward. But they’re not. Because there is no money in it.

There is very little doubt in my mind that the brilliant minds in this country have thought up and attempted to develop at least 50 different ways — if not more — to completely relieve our dependence on oil and I feel strongly that the oil companies, the power companies, the powers-that-be in this country didn’t hesitate a bit to buy that idea and bury it. Why wouldn’t they? The money is in the status quo. Always has been. For these companies, there is no benefit in them finding a new way to do it. You find me a company who has changed and adapted and grown into new technologies and new ways to do things; better, cleaner, healthier ways to do things and has stayed relevant over the last 50 years. It hasn’t happened. Sure, there have been plenty of companies in business that long, but they’re all still using the core ideas and philosophies of their original business. When someone finds something new and better, they don’t bring it up in an old company. They start (or buy) a new one. Google, Microsoft, Saturn, Gateway. All had a new idea, and did it themselves (and even now those companies are getting old and slow and they’re the ones buying the new ideas ie. Google buying YouTube). Research and development of new ideas takes forever, costs a lot and there’s no guarantee of any money in it. That’s a basic business tenet. So tell me what incentive Exxon, Shell, BP or Halliburton has to do it any different? None.

It’s absolutely easier and safer for them to maintain the status quo. Do you think the government is going to make them? They own the government, democrats and republicans alike. They own this war. Their bloody fingerprints are all over it.

The only reason America is in Iraq is to maintain that status quo. Those companies and this government — that they own and influence — is only in that country because there is a monetary interest in being there. Their return on investment will be so massive when Iraq settles down. And if it costs billions of dollars in equipment and thousands of lives, fine. I guarantee you it’ll be worth it financially to them. Would they like it to be all settled now? Sure, but I’d like my Microsoft stock to go through the roof right now. Will it? No, but I’m in for the long haul because it’s worth it. The only difference between them and me is the scale of it.

And if you think for a second that what I’ve said about ROI being the only reason we’re there, answer me this. Why don’t we have a standing army of 100,000+ in Darfur? How about in Somalia? Ghana? The Ivory Coast? The Congo? Russia? Why aren’t we there? The same things that happened in Iraq are happening in those places. Actually most of those places are definitively worse. (The people of Iraq were probably in less danger of dying horrifically before we got there to be honest. But that’s another blog, for another time.) But the bottom line is that we’re not in those other places because there’s not enough money to be made there. In the business world, they would say that those places carry a negative cost-benefit analysis.

What I’ve said is not hard to understand, it’s not radical and it’s not all that revolutionary. It’s basic business. It’s free trade. It’s the basis for all that we accept. And that’s the truly scary part.

I am reposting this because of the quotes at the beginning. I think there are so many great minds out there who said that we cannot let the government overtake us financially and socially…and here we are, 5 months from an election, bailing huge corporations out of bankruptcy and lifting bans on drilling and turning to the news to tell us how we should think. It isn’t good people.

I loved this post because i finally articulated what it feels like to be my brain and what alcohol does to me. I think i hit the nail on the head about societal and social pressures, family history, etc. I reference this post a lot when talking to my friends about drinking.

As a rule, i don’t write about myself. I mean, i obviously inject my moods, feelings and anecdotes into everything i write but the main theme is rarely, if ever, me. It was this type of public introspection that first got me into writing and then proceeded to get me into tons of trouble as people checked in on my myspace page or other forums in which i decided to unleash my mental diarrhea out of my fingertips and onto the unsuspecting world. It would just take a few clicks back in time on my myspace blog to get back to years such as 2003 and 2004 in which i bitched, complained and moaned about every shortcoming, rejection and insecurity available. Some of it was poetic, but most of it was pathetic. I wouldn’t encourage you to judge me based on those writings, but i would encourage you to take a trip back, even if it’s briefly, to see the context in which today’s writer came from. Those were some overly-sensitive times for me and now i’m a hardened, cynical, bitter and jaded grown-up in a post-9/11 and currently war-torn world who is fazed by just about nothing and never, ever talks about his struggles, issues or problems anymore, A. Because it’s none of your f-ing business, B. Because it never helped in the first place and C. I’m a dick and refuse to put myself in any more vulnerable positions.
For some reason though, i’m going to talk about this and see where it takes us. I want to say that it’s for all those other people going through the same thing or having the same thoughts, but that’s only partially true. It’s for me and me only and who the hell knows why i’m sharing it. Oh well. What will follow over the next few weeks, months, maybe even years, is a running diary of a hopefully sober Adam.

Anyway, as i write this i’ve been sober for 21 days. No drinks, no drugs, no beer, no shots, no glass of wine with dinner, no beer on the couch watching TV, nothing. The only chemical mood changer i’ve had in my body over the last 3 weeks is Red Bull, which while it probably isn’t good for me, has become my last bastion of alternate consciousness. Pretty lame really. (and ironically, the Red Bull is probably what’ll end up giving me cancer and killing me in the next 5 years once they definitively discover just how bad the shit is for you…)

Here’s the back story:
I’ve wanted to stop for a long time. I knew i could be living a better, healthier and wiser life all along. I knew that i have an addictive personality. I knew that my drinking habits affected my past relationships. I knew that i was making decisions on a nightly basis that i wouldn’t have made without the help of a few beers or a few cocktails. I knew that my family are heavy drinkers and i knew that i loved absolutely nothing more than watching the Broncos with them while cracking Coors or sitting at a family event drinking even though it was Easter morning or something. I knew that when i went out at night, i was what the American Medical Association kindly referred to as a binge drinker. I knew that i wasn’t going to have a few cocktails and know when to stop. I knew that i was going to be blacked out or close to it and i knew that i would feel great the next morning. I knew enough (from experience) to not get behind the wheel but i also knew that i could be persuaded to if the mix of BAC and the proper interest from the female persuasion were combined in the right amounts. I knew that i was spending hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars a month going out, having a good time and feeling no pain. It was a good place and i knew that i could justify it to myself at any time of day, any day of the week and in any situation. I knew that i was 20-25 years of age and more or less completely invincible. This has gone on for a while.

Now let’s make one point completely clear. I am not, nor have i ever considered myself to be, an alcoholic. And to completely prove that point, 21 days ago today i quit drinking completely cold turkey and have not had one single physical craving for alcohol. My brain has not compelled me to pour a drink due to the chemical void left behind when i stopped. Addicts crave the substance that they are addicted to. Alcoholics crave alcohol. This has never happened to me. Social constructs (bad day= need a drink, high stress situations=need a drink, out at night = have a drink) have tempted me occasionally but thus far i have not succumbed. I have not had a single withdrawal symptom. My body has not overtaken my mind/willpower and forced my hand to pour a delicious rum and coke, despite the fact that the half-full bottle is still sitting in my liquor cabinet in full view. And i have not even sipped, despite having been purchased drinks. I have had drinks in my hand for extended periods of time in the last 21 days and have not lifted them to my mouth a single time. I don’t believe an alcoholic could do this. I have. Hereto, therefore, i am not, nor have i ever been, an alcoholic. This is not one of those admissions. This is not a cry for help, a request for support or an admission of guilt. Let’s not go there.

I have done some dipshit things while drunk that i will not go into here. Some people have made a living off of these stories. I am a better writer than that kid and i have much better stories (but seriously, his book is pretty hilarious. Read it, if you haven’t. Just because i could do better, doesn’t make his book bad…). I could have kicked his literary ass all over the street if i would have chosen that path. I guess i still could but it all kind of seems kinda trivial now.
Anyway, since i stopped some interesting things have happened that i didn’t anticipate:

1. I eat better- This was never a conscious decision. It just happened. A month ago, i owned a deep fryer, ate red meat any chance i could get, loved bread and potatoes and wouldn’t order a salad for lunch or dinner if my life depended on it. All of a sudden i’m eating salads, checking labels, avoiding certain aisles at the grocery store, buying vegetables to go with my chicken or fish dinner and i’m having fruit as a snack instead of candy or popcorn. Almost every eating decision i’ve made recently has been impacted by this new thought process. I have no idea where it came from or why. I mentally figured that if i wasn’t going to drink then that freed up a shitload of calories in which i could eat more shit that was bad for me. Somehow that wasn’t what my body had planned.
   A year ago, i weighed 250 pounds. No joke. Six months ago i weighed 225. A month ago, i was 205. Today, i’m 195. Quit sitting in a cubicle and hating your life 60 hours a week and you lose 30 lbs, start working at a restaurant where you’re on your feet all day, lose 15 lbs. Quit drinking, start eating right and working out with the time you used to spend drunk, lose 10 more. That’s 55 lbs in a year. Fuck atkins.
2. ADD Disappearance – OK, it didn’t disappear…but it’s better. For the longest time, i’ve had no focus. I’m a procrastinator of the highest degree and since i stopped having a hangover, or at least an alcohol induced fog, to hold me back, my focus has improved. A bit. I won’t say that it’s gone, but it’s better. I actually feel good enough to do the things i need to. Maybe the actual ADD is the same, but now i have one less excuse to use when i don’t want to do something.
3. Awkward nights out – The first two have been pretty positive but this one is decidedly weird. I guess i should have seen it coming. What breaks the ice when you’re meeting someone new? What gets conversation flowing? What makes you feel more comfortable and at ease? What do you drink when you get dinner? What makes you a better dancer and more willing to talk to strangers? What makes the people around you better looking and easier to tolerate? That’s right, alcohol. Throw that alcohol out and the shit around you gets very fucking real in a hurry.
   I’ve enjoyed being a DD lately. My friends have cool cars that they let my drive and they’re amazingly funny drunks but really, how much going out can you take without a cocktail? My energy isn’t what it used to be, i yawn in mid-sentence after midnight. Things don’t seem like such a good idea anymore. And some of the things i used to enjoy are flat out annoying/boring/retarded. C’est la vie…
4. Meeting new friends – Jim Gaffigan has a joke about not drinking…he says, “How do you go out on a date? ‘Uh, yes waiter, i’ll have water and she’ll have a jagerbomb. thanks.’” It just doesn’t work. Here’s the interesting thing though, and this i really never saw coming. Guys are completely cool with it. I mean, they’re flat out awesome. Most of my buddies, my most hardcore drinking buddies, know that i’ve quit, and i thought they’d be pissed at me and that they’d always be buying me shots or beers and calling me a pussy for not drinking with them. Hasn’t happened at all. I am shocked. Most of my buddies will fall on a grenade for me in a second if they see me hesitating or thinking about it. I’ve had shots and drinks (that people have ordered for me without knowing that i’m not drinking) literally ripped out of my hands by my friends who then proceeded to slam them so i couldn’t drink it. They’ve been amazing.
   Alternately, the girls have been fucking awful. “You sure you don’t drink? You can have one, right? You want a sip of mine? Are you sure? Really? Nothing i can do to get you to have one? Have a shot with me? I’m going to get you drunk when you’re not paying attention.” I mean, i’ve heard it all. One friend that i went to dinner with the other night was on her second martini before she admitted that she didn’t feel comfortable at all drinking when i wasn’t. We tried to figure out why she felt that way and settled on a combination of social norms and vulnerability issues. Like if she did something stupid and we were both drunk that it wasn’t a big deal, but if she made an alcohol-affected choice and it was all her, then she couldn’t use the classic, “We were drunk…” excuse. It was very interesting and i’m curious to see how this sociological experiment continues.
5. The Awkward Explanation – This has been by far my least favorite bi-product of not drinking. Trying to explain to people why i am not drinking sucks. And i’ve told about 9 different stories depending on the person and my relationship with them. My family got the personal responsibility story, as in “I just decided it was time to lay off…” Some of my friends got the Dr.’s orders story (which is at least mostly true). And other people got a combination of “I was partying too much (true), I was hurting my business being hungover all the time (true), i was getting sick too often (true), i have an addictive personality (true), i have no middle ground. I’m either sober or blacked out (true)” Or some variation on all of those themes. Most of the time i’m scrambling to avoid the word “alcoholic” or the perception that lie their in. (To varying degrees of success of course.)
   I’m not an alcoholic. Alcoholics go to meetings.
6. Rampant Boredom – Jesus television sucks! I mean, it’s awful. I don’t know what i’m going to do next TV season. I imagine the Office will still be funny sober but i don’t know what else i’ll watch. Usually i’m 3-4 drinks deep by the time House or Grey’s Anatomy (blech) comes on. I think i’ll still like Simpsons and Family Guy but i honestly can’t see myself watching much else. Probably a good thing. The bad thing is that i’m so ingrained in laying on my couch and being completely entertained by the television that it is a major chore to watch movies, read a book or a magazine, or write. I mean, even writing these blogs were traditionally done with 3 fingers of beautiful amber Crown Royal melting slowly over 4 ice cubes in a crystal rocks glass (*wipes saliva from corner of mouth*). I’m friggin bored with my existence right now and i haven’t, as of yet, figured out how to change that. My first attempts were to get my friends to hang out and do sober stuff with me, but that has failed miserably. Eventually i’ll start knitting, owning large quantities of cats and going to movies alone. Someone just kill me now.

I think the most interesting part about this has been the self-analysis that it has forced. Why am i drawn to drinking? More importantly, why am i so hung up on altering my consciousness? Do i not like who i am that much that the only way i’m content is to get out of my own head by drinking? I think the answer is — at least partially — “yes,” which is more than a little scary. The problem, as i see it, is this: I have a writer’s personality. I have the brain makeup and personality that is absolutely status friggin quo for a writer. I see things abstractly and without personal affect. My life, ever since i can remember, has been shot from the overhead helicopter view. I’ve never felt inside my own head. I’ve never had an authentic, sincere or quality reaction to anything. (I talked about this on my Myspace blog over a year ago. This, apparently, is not new for me.) Everything i say, everything i notice, everything i write has been seen through the wide camera angle. It’s really hard to understand if you’re not that type of personality, but if you are, then you know exactly what i’m talking about. Some of the most emotional and gigantic moments in my life have felt completely fake to me, like i was outside of my body, watching it happen on TV. Because i don’t feel like i’m looking at it from my own eyes or processing it with my own brain. When i’m in those types of situations, i feel like i’m watching myself from another person’s view. It’s weird and my description is probably not doing it justice. Let’s put it this way…i’m not self-conscious in the sense that i’m insecure about myself (trust me, i love me a lot. i think i’m friggin great.) and i’m not self-conscious in that shallow “oh my god, my jeans aren’t designer” kind of way either. I’m self-conscious in the way that i’m always thinking to myself, consciously, “How am i acting right now? Is this appropriate? What is this person going to say when i say this? How is this going to come off? What do i look like right now? Are my hand gestures appropriate? Am i smiling an appropriate amount? Am i acting authentic for the situation?” It’s weird, but that’s the god’s honest truth. Even as i’m writing this from my heart, my mind is saying, “Are you saying too much? How are people going to perceive this?” and i’m erasing and rewording accordingly. It’s an absolute gift for a writer and an absolute tragedy from the sense of never having authentic experiences in which i react and don’t think or over-analyze first. And there’s the rub right there. When i drink, i don’t think. I do whatever comes to mind, the way most people do naturally. Alcohol lets me back into my own head (or is it out of my own head? I can’t decide. If i’m in my head over-analyzing all the time, then it lets me out. If i’m out of my head seeing everything from an outside perspective, then it lets me back in. I can’t figure it out. Makes sense though, right?). It lets me react emotionally the way normal people do. If someone pisses me off, i don’t let it slide, i fucking yell and stand up for myself and try to fight. I feel anger with justification, i laugh without wondering what it sounds like, i tell stories without wondering if they’re stupid or relevant (to varying degrees of success), i actually get to use my own emotions. I get to feel like the way i’m responding is authentic. And if you don’t have my personality type, you really have no idea just how fucking good that feels. I don’t over analyze, i don’t weigh pros and cons, i don’t wonder, i just react, immediately and instinctively. I hate to say it, but alcohol lets me be me…

Sometimes this is great. I can’t tell you how many people i know, how many solid relationships that have been forged, how many amazing nights i’ve had under the influence of alcohol. It is the social lubricant. There have truly been some fantastic moments that i would never give up in a million years. Alternately, i, like all other drinkers, have made thousands of regrettable decisions, spoken many regrettable words and most of us are considered lucky to have avoided jail time or syphilis in our lifetimes. It is, simultaneously, the best and worse thing that has ever happened to me.

More thoughts as they come…