my fifth step

[honeydumplin]

Man, I'm really glad that post is over.

Its important for me to realize prior to a fifth step, that I may
not cover everything at one time, and that I may not do it
exactly right. I'm not reinventing the wheel, but taking what
I have hopefully learned in step four, and using it to shine the
light on five, in looking at it the way that it really happened,
as opposed to how my early sobriety wants to see it.

There is step ten for daily inventories, and if one desires,
another step five. The most important thing for me was
to start foremost with what was eating at me continually,
which were sex, self righteous anger, politics, and a serious
case of being anti-social, almost to the point of not wanting
to be around anybody.

Problems were something that I ran away from. Wrongs were
swept under the rug. Whatever damage may have been done
to anyone was soon forgotten. As my wife left one afternoon,
as the house sold divided, as the bankruptcy happened, and as
cars were repossessed, all I wanted to do was escape from it all;
wanting to drink, get high, and get the heck out of this place.

So at 27, I enlisted in the navy, not because of patriotism, but for
those neat looking cracker jack blue uniforms, and for thirty days
worth of vacation. What I needed, instead of crawling around in a ditch,
was an easy desk job, somewhere far, far away.

While waiting for boot camp, I moved into the deep southern Alabama
of my early upbringing. During those few months waiting to enlist,
I worked graveyard shift. An afternoon cocktail and a joint before work
were not unusual. I practically stayed high. I went to work stoned,
and usually had one rolled for later. It was the way of coping and
just getting through the day.

The night before I was sworn in, I paced back and forth
in front of a motel in Beckley, WV. I had cold feet, sorta like
the day I got married. But I decided to try. To make the best of
whatever was ahead.

I had been off the dope for 30 days, and had no idea that I would be
tested for anything else. After taking the oath and getting a plane,
I got settled in for the last few hours of freedom for the next eight
weeks. They were used to numb myself up as much as possible.

First there were the two beers on route to Charlotte, and a three hour
layover in the lounge. The flight to O'hare was another hour. After
landing there, and having some dinner there was more time for a few
more. So there were several hours of non-stop drinking.

Then I was informed that a breath test was something in my immediate
future. I waited as long as possible, which did nothing but increase
the anxiety, because sobering up at the point was basically out of the
question. I got on a late leaving van and proceeded to pop a whole
roll of certs during the ride in hopes of somehow hiding the smell, like
that might help. Yeah right. I reeked of alcohol. That unmistakable
smell of booze disguised vaguely with breath mints.
Not to mention that I was simply drunk, and had slight problems
every now and then with something called composure.

We were greeted on base by a group of navy guys screaming at
us, and demanding we stand at attention. I kept as best I could
a low profile, but knew that the inevitable would occur. It did.

After being taken into a classroom with these other recruits,
I saw several of the machines located in the back. Eventually
my name was called. I exhaled a small amount, hoping that
I could somehow cheat the results. Not long after the reading
came through, more of these white-clad men began to
appear out of the woodwork, or in this case, the bulkheads.

Then I started hearing words like, "Wow", and, "You gotta
be kiddin'".

No one ever mentioned a word to me directly. They kept us
up all night, yelling at us, and later running us through these
cold showers. As dawn started to eventually come into
focus, we were processed and given the standard sweats,
some flip flops, and the head shave.

There seemed like so many of us. And yet everyone was
given an adequate opportunity to prove ourselves to be
fit for special companies. If we could march, or sing well,
we could qualify to be a part of the more elite units, that
would travel around, and do different things.

That morning a company commander came up and stood eye
to eye with me, and after giving me the once over, asked
me how tall I was. I was so caught off guard, nothing
at all would come to mind.

"Man you don't even know how tall you are?" he asked again.

The try-out for the glee company was even worse, when
I made a feeble attempt to match a simple note struck
on the keyboard of a piano. The sound was so hideous.
I tried to talk them into a do-over.

"No, we're NOT doing it again!" was the reply.

Later on that same week, I was summoned to the office
of psychologist where an interview took place. I was
given a chance to opt out altogether,
or stay and stick it out. Since I had done such a terrible
job of finishing what I started in the past, I chose to
endure, and after some extra duty, and some more
yelling, I was in. For what, I was still unsure.