Tag Archives: addicted to violence

Call me sinner, call me man

Posted on by
Reply

Call me sinner. Call me man. Call me a human being doing best he can. Nothing always easy about the lifting veil to change. New beginnings, new muscles, or old ones long unused being called on again. It’s down to the pen from here on out. Words against violence I must write, many of them. Violence. Been done to me and I done to others, men and women; this crazy sickness besetting so many, all only getting sicker in their silence.

I ask no favors. I ask no sympathy. Will any of this be easy? No. But easier than living nothing, of that you can be sure. Men and women, boys and girls, all walks of life need to know that there is no difference between the alcoholic-addict clinging to the porcelain throne swearing he or she will never use again and the wrenched-up sobbing man or woman swearing they’ll never strike their family member again. In both moments both people are being honest, both can pass a polygraph with flying colors (never known flying colors to do shit for anyone). But both are wrong. Without treatment there will be more using and more violence. The diseases of both are bigger and stronger than anyone’s will power. Will power is not enough. We are talking about two real diseases, addiction and violence; I know this to be true because I’ve had both.

There is no healthy reason on planet earth to surrender decision making to addiction and there is no healthy reason on planet earth to be violent to another person, family or stranger, not unless you are defending your life.

I don’t know how many years I have left in life. I am two strides from 60. I do know that I can’t undo my past and undo the wounds I’ve inflicted on others, particularly my first wife, a woman who will always live full length in my heart and soul. I do know that I can, even with just the written word, maybe, just maybe, help others.

For those on the out-of-control addiction and out-of-control violence fronts it is time to surrender to the reality you are grappling with and get help. You are not responsible for the sickness, you are for those you hurt while you are sick and you are responsible for your recovery. You need and, more importantly, deserve help – professional help. It took me years of treatment to get well on the violence and addiction fronts. It will likely take you years to get well too. But, it is time well spent. It is a blessing, a tears of joy blessing, to be forever freed of the urge to use and the urge to strike.

For those on the receiving end of these behaviors…there is no healthy reason for you to stay around. I’d go through getting shot in the head 10 times over to both spare my wife the hell I put her through and the hell of losing her I put me through. But here’s the thing, her leaving me on February 12, 1981 was her last gift to me. It was my bottom on that front. It is what sent me into therapy where I worked with all my might for years, where I held no one but me accountable for my behavior.

When my time comes, if I know it is coming, I’d like to be able to close my eyes that last time knowing I did all I could to make amends, help others, breathe love and kindness into the world, add some peace.

Now soon I move and the focus will be writing, and doing so honestly,  and as courageously as I can.

Peace.

Honesty: Addiction’s Greatest Fear

Posted on by
1

Addiction has one simple goal – murder life.

In the meantime, it will feast on your life, people in your life, and destroy anything and everything in its path. As discussed in the previous blog post, secrecy is its favorite fuel. The extent of your silence, the degree to which you are leaving things unsaid, the measure of your dishonesty is, in truth, an accurate measure of the distance you need to travel to get well, to be free. Free to be you, finally and gloriously, you.

Honesty is, if not the most powerful weapon, one of the most powerful weapons you can use in your war with addiction. Addiction cannot survive when faced with honesty, real, rigorous honesty which includes being open about what is going on.

Know this: whether you are the alcoholic-addict or you are a friend or family member, the extent to which you hide or don’t admit what is happening reflects the danger you are in. The sunlight of honesty slays the vampire of addiction. Let the light in. And if you think I don’t know what I’m talking about, consider two things. I am seven years sober because I have learned what an extraordinary and honorable friend honesty is. My younger brother could never get himself into the light and I missed the signs. What happened? When he was 23 he put a rifle to the side of his head and fired. I was 24. There are no happy endings without honesty. and openness. You drive away or hide from the honest people in your life, you drive away and hide from your allies.

A warning. If you do call attention to the presence of the addiction, you may get wounded. Some find it easier to shoot the messenger than deal with the message. But mark my words, however difficult the message may be for you to deal with ain’t shit compared to the wrenching pain and destruction addiction will inflict on your life and the lives of your loved ones.

Do you hear me?

GET THAT NIGGER!

Posted on by
Reply
This is an excerpt from the memoir. In a day when too many are still addicted to violence, it seems real violence, like that in this chapter, ought to make your gut churn.

It is 1981 and I am walking down Court Street in Brooklyn with a friend of mine named Charlie. We hear angry voices behind us yelling and screaming. We turn and see a young black man running his heart out down the center of Court Street. He is coming towards us and maybe 20 angry young white male teenagers are chasing him. The young black man who looks to be in his twenties runs past us, his face lit wild with terror.

Voices scream, “Get that fucking nigger! Get that nigger!”

I tell Charlie get to the other side of the street, lets stay with this.

We are running on either side of the angry crowd of young whites now, watching what happens. Some are carrying sticks, pieces of two-by-four. One carries a piece of rebar about the length of a baseball bat. I am hoping the young black man gets away.

He doesn’t.

They catch him and the angry young white boy with the rebar slams it across the back of the young black man. He crumbles to the ground. He tries to get up but another angry young white breaks a piece of wood across his back. The young black man now wobbles upwards, but he is downed again when a bottle smashes across his head. There is blood everywhere now. He is on the ground screaming.

“Please God don’t kill me! Please God! Please God! I have a wife and children! Please God! Please God don’t let them kill me!”

I lock eyes with Charlie and motion for him to call the police. I move fast into the crowd, reaching the young black man through a barrage of kicks and punches. There is a pause in the violence, a sudden quiet, the angry mob not knowing what to make of me. I pull the young black man up into my arms and hold him against a parked car so it shields him on one side. I shield him on the other.

We are surrounded by anger and hatred, the white teens reach past me to punch him and I push him down out of their reach. They are the clean cut Italian boys from the neighborhood, I am the long haired one with an earring and beard. I know I am a look they are not used to, a look they are wary of. Ignorance is not bliss. Sometimes its an ally. One boy reaches in and I drive my hand into his throat, pushing him back into other boys and glare as viciously as I know how. I know they must think I am willing to kill one of them.

Again some surge forward and try to reach past me and punch him. When this happens, I push the young black man back into a crouch , keeping him out of reach and firing hard vicious words like bullets back into the the pack of angry white teens. A pack that is now nothing more than a single rage-filled being: seething, pulsing, breathing as one, dripping with hate.

I say, “The fuck you doing? You really want to kill him? You want to go to jail for him? You want to die tonight?”

One reaches in again and again I drive my hand into a throat. Our eyes meet. I know if this mob explodes into us I will have to damage or kill someone quickly. Suddenly a big Italian man joins me in protecting the young black man. He is older than all of us, huge and burly and powerful, no nonsense. His presence nearly stills the mob completely. Later I find out he is one of the powers in the neighborhood and deeply respected by all.

Police units arrive and take the bleeding terrified young man to the hospital. I thank the big Italian man. He says, “Hey, I hear him say he got a wife and kids. That’s all I gotta hear. The man’s got family.”

The police say they are taking the young black man to Long Island College Hospital. The police are from the 84th Precinct, the same precinct that will save my life three years later.
_________________________________________________________________________________