Sober24 - In My Shoes

A Wrench for Every Nut

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:16:13 -0400

After 31 years of recovery, I’ve learned one thing: I need more meetings. “Why is that?” I asked myself this afternoon – on my way, ironically, to a lunchtime meeting in my neighborhood – and, as I sat there listening to other recovering alcoholics sharing their experience, strength and hope, discovered the answer: so I can hear the things I’m unable to tell myself, especially when I’m caught up in my own personal fire storm – that special swirl of negative emotion that hovers over my head from time to time like a dark and bilious cloud.

Singing Along

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:32:27 -0400

by Ames S.
amess@sober24.com

When my wife sings along with the radio, her voice usually drags just a couple of beats behind the song. While my kids and I laugh and playfully cover our ears, on an emotional level I strongly identify: Most of my life, in one way or another, I, too, have been a couple of beats behind.

‘You Never Know’

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:18:05 -0400

by Ames S.
amess@sober24.com

I was parking my car the other day when I noticed a couple walking down the street. I was just finishing up – turning off the radio, closing the windows, pulling in the side mirrors – when they stopped, just across the street from where I was. It was a man and a woman, in their middle thirties, a genial looking couple, and they were getting into a car just as I was getting out.

My Life in Song

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:11:57 -0400

by Ames S.
amess@sober24.com

When I was a teenager, I played the drums. I played in a couple of bands, mostly light rock stuff -- some Kinks covers, a few Beach Boys songs, with a couple of blues numbers thrown in for fun. None of the bands were ever very good, but once in a while we got a chance to perform and at one point even had a few groupies who’d come to our rehearsals.

‘The Patient Lived’

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:32:28 -0400

by Ames S.
amess@sober24.com

In Alcoholics Anonymous, everyone has a story. It’s how members communicate, one with another. As Christopher Ringwald notes in his book, The Soul of Recovery: Uncovering the Spiritual Dimension in the Treatment of Addictions, “Humans tell their stories in order to become whole.”

Higher Education

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 09:15:42 -0400

by Ames S.
amess@sober24.com

It was graduation time in my neighborhood a couple of weeks ago. I still live near the university I graduated from, and even though I’m not a student anymore, I still feel the ebb and flow of college life. It’s ingrained in me, I guess, like one of Pavlov’s dogs. Just the thought of school ending makes me salivate for summer.

After the Apocalypse

Wed, 27 May 2009 10:07:33 -0400

by Ames S.
amess@sober24.com

In my apartment, all the closets are named. We have the “coat closet” in the front hall, and the “sports closet” in the back hall where we stash all the beach gear, sleeping bags and mismatched tennis racquets we’ve acquired over the years, and, finally, in the foyer, there’s the “tool shed,” a closet so filled with assorted paraphernalia it can be dangerous to open without a practiced hand.

Ken’s Bench

Tue, 19 May 2009 20:05:39 -0400

by Ames S.
amess@sober24.com

I have a neighbor who’s addicted to the lottery. I know because I see him every day on a bench near the park, his daily stash of tickets laid out in front of him, sipping quietly at a cup of coffee and methodically scratching off the numbers of each ticket, one at a time. Like me, my neighbor is also a recovering alcoholic, and I watch his daily activities with continuing interest.

Scene of the Crime

Thu, 14 May 2009 10:18:08 -0400

by Ames S.
amess@sober24.com

Sherlock Holmes is one of my heroes. His cool demeanor and powers of observation are attributes I’ve always admired and wish I possessed myself. His keen eye for detail, his esoteric understanding of the world and his profound ability to distill seemingly insignificant information into astounding conclusions turned me into a wannabe sleuth from the time I first read “The Hound of the Baskervilles” when I was ten.

Supersize Me

Wed, 06 May 2009 21:15:59 -0400

by Ames S.
amess@sober24.com

As an alcoholic in recovery, it all starts with meetings. Meetings in recovery are different from meetings in other arenas, the business world, say. I’ll admit, I’ve been to some absolutely unbearable work-related meetings over the years, but in terms of recovery, I don’t think I’ve ever been to a meeting that didn’t help me in one way or another.

One Taco at a Time

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:12:10 -0400

by Ames Sweet
amess@sober24.com

There’s an anachronistic roadside restaurant along Route 22 in Patterson, New York, called the Texas Taco. It’s one of the weirdest places I’ve ever eaten, in terms of décor, though the food itself is pretty good. You can get beef tacos, guacamole, spicy chili, burritos, fiesta dogs and other Tex-Mex specialties. I used to live in the area and I remember when the place first opened up, nearly 35 years ago.

Earth Day

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 09:59:21 -0400

by Ames S.
amess@sober24.com

In honor of Earth Day (April 22^nd), I decided to pull out the Discovery Channel’s 11-part series called “Planet Earth,” which my daughter had taped when it first came out. The series contains individual episodes focused on the earth’s mountains, oceans and sources of water, its deserts, jungles, plains, forests, polar ice caps and caves. Trying to decide where to start, I opted for my favorite, the caves, since caves seem so characteristic of my own interior life.

The Onion

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:24:41 -0400

by Ames S.
amess@sober24.com
I don’t know what’s come over me lately. Maybe it’s the inevitability of spring or maybe it’s just cabin fever after a long winter, but I’ve become quite loquacious of late, talking to just about anybody who’ll listen.

Bedtime Reading

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:14:13 -0400

by Ames S.
amess@sober24.com

I read to my daughter last night before bed. It’s something I used to do when she was younger, but she’s sixteen now, and it’s been a while. But, last night she asked me to read her a story. I was a little surprised that she asked, and even more surprised when she handed me the book she wanted me to read from: Crime and Punishment.

Once a Pickle

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 10:46:42 -0400

by Ames S.
amess@sober24.com

It’s been said there is an invisible line that people cross from social drinking into alcoholism, a line separating what’s acceptable on one side and unacceptable on the other. It’s a line I’ve crossed myself, though I can’t say exactly when it happened.

Open and Shut

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 08:36:14 -0400

by Ames S.
amess@sober24.com

I’m surprised I haven’t caught a cold by now. My wife’s been gone for nearly a week and I’ve had the windows open every night. She’s visiting her mother down in Florida, so I’m able to have things my own way for a while, even though the temperatures here have been dropping down into the low thirties.

Beginning Again

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 22:16:05 -0400

by Ames S.
amess@sober24.com

Things disappear in New York -- like umbrellas, loose change, and bicycles. Even entire buildings can be swallowed up, sucked into the vortex of urban development.

Tombs of the Pharoahs

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:59:03 -0400

by Ames S.
amess@sober24.com

I got a memo this morning from the manager of the building I live in. I’ve lived here for nearly twenty years and in that time have utilized the building’s basement (along with many other residents) as a storage area for things I don’t exactly need anymore but don’t want to throw away, things like boxes and boxes of children’s books no longer read but fondly remembered; or the doll house from my wife’s own childhood; or the Oriental rug from my grandmother’s house; or the wooden lacrosse stick I used to score the winning goal in the final game of my last season in high school, a kind of stick they no longer make – everything’s plexiglass and aluminum now.

The Blue Hawaiian

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:19:12 -0500

by Ames S.
amess@sober24.com

Last night I was sitting on the subway next to a bartender-in-training. I know because she had a set of cue cards from the New York School of Bartending that she was thumbing through, trying to memorize the names and ingredients of what appeared to be hundreds of cocktails. The stack of cue cards she held in her lap had the names of each drink on one side and the ingredients on the other, like the flip cards my daughter makes to study Latin vocabulary in high school, with the word on one side and its definition on the other.

The Scrap Heap

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:22:26 -0500

by Ames S.
amess@sober24.com

I collect stuff, all kinds of stuff. Mostly bits of paper with little notes on them, often undecipherable, of things I’ve heard at meetings or ideas that have come to me on the subway or in a car or walking down the street, that I had to write down on whatever was available: a matchbook cover, an old business card, a piece of newspaper, the back of a theater program. My bureau is covered with them, stretching back quite a number of years. And there are other things, too, like pens, small stones, and pocketknives. It’s my own personal scrap heap.