Why I stopped blogging

There’s an old joke:

Q: So, what about your drinking problem?
A: What problem? I drink. I get drunk. I fall down. No problem!

By the end of 2009, I was having a personal crisis. I was never a falling-down, in-the-gutter drunk, but I was a drinker, and a steady drinker at that. Two beers, two Belgian ales a night, every night, and my habit was fucking with my life, not the least of it being my relationship with my wife. For one thing, I was lying to her all the time about when I was drinking, and how much I was drinking. We were in therapy, and she broke down, more than once, terrified that she had to live with an unrepentant alcoholic.

There were other things going on, the death of my cat Archy and then the death of my wife’s cat, Daisy, the year after. The loss of pets, any loss close to you, brings grief. I wanted to stop lying to my wife. By the end of 2009, I’d decided to stop drinking. I did so, on January 1, 2010.

I went into a deep depression as a consequence. It took 9 months to ease out of that depression, and to start seeing a glimmer of stability, not to mention happiness in my life. Two things helped. A Kaiser program, called Chemical Dependency Recovery Program, and a cognitive behavioral therapy based depression group therapy, also at Kaiser, were life saving.

But, I’ve never been very big into all that AA god stuff, all that “higher power” crap. I’m pretty much an atheist. What I did, instead, was start attending Zen Meditation & Recovery at the San Francisco Zen Center. I started going, even before I was out of CDRP or the Depression Group, and I’ve been going ever since. It has been more than a life saver, though my lack of belief in a deity prevents me from calling it a “god send.”

The past 4 plus years have been a slow, sometimes painful, but thankfully rather steady climb out of my personal crisis and depression. At some future date, I’ll post “How I started blogging again.” For now, enjoy this revitalized blog.