Wasted

I can have or accomplish anything if I just remain sober.

I guess this actually is a problem.

Like it is a problem.

I never actually have taken the time to sit back, analyze it all. Make great sense of it.

But I do slightly have a substance abuse issue that can easily be filled with being in motion.

Motion is much better, much more real than anything a substance can give me.

I legitimately made the decision to get sober this time. I know because it feels different and rather than focusing on the next time I’ll make an excuse for myself to roll a joint or have a beer, I’m focusing on the fact that without these substances, I currently feel like shit.

Using them only masks the fact that I feel like shit because I’ve been using them.

I think the substances kind of just were neutering me. Making me a bit of a pussy.

Eight year old me would have remained sober throughout his entire life though.

I used to think drugs were for losers.

What a silly thing this all is…

It really just seems so silly to have been an extremely high functioning — addict?

Fuck it sucks that you have to call things what they are.

I think what happens is, society presents to us one image of what this actually looks like. It’s so hyperbolic, it’s so absurd but really it could be something that looks as innocent as the dad drinking a beer while pushing his kid on a swing at the playground.

It isn’t necessarily bottles of jack daniels scattered around a living room, tv dinner trays stacked on a couch’s arm… it could just be… the six pack of modelos in the fridge that will vanish before bedtime, only to be replaced the next day by another pack acquired at the corner store before one starts cooking dinner.

Going out to smoke a joint in the rain.

Childish.

The craziest thing is that all the patterns were there I guess. They were all very clear.

Just too smart for my own good.

I really never thought I had a problem.

Never did I get a DUI, never violent, never anything I thought was associated with a substance abuse problem.

But this week, having to deal with detoxing and the anguish I’ve felt makes it all very real.

I guess I don’t really remember the last time I was sober since I started drinking again and maybe that should have been the alarm I needed.

I gave up alcohol for Lent. But still used THC. So of course that felt much easier than what I’m going through now.

I really can’t remember the last time I was sober for more than a 48 hour period since the last time I was sober.

It just becomes so normal I guess.

That’s terrifying to me because that means I would have misplaced who I actually am.

I would have tarnished myself.

I’ve said so many silly things…

“I run better when I’m drinking believe it or not.”

I’ve said that line verbatim, never called out on the ludicrousness of it all.

I couldn’t understand why this last time I started therapy they paired me with a substance abuse counselor. That seemed absurd to me.

I couldn’t understand why when he recommended I should abstain from alcohol and marijuana and I told him I tried but then one day, it just seemed silly to not enjoy a beer in the sun… he said “well yeah, addiction does that.”

Addiction?

My friend, I simply enjoy drinking beer in the sun.

It may be 11:30 on a Tuesday but if that’s the time and the place for it, is that not the time and the place for it?

It’s funny to me, that there’s this idea in society that only “real niggas” can handle drugs.

Amazing that not being able to navigate one’s reality without the use of substances is what makes one real.

I’m not trying to carry a holier than thou mindset with any of this. It’s just that I understand that anyone who finds themselves in this position… there’s a level of empathy that I have.

I don’t think my life was all that terrible at the end of the day, but I understand how without proper coping skills, even what we’d deem a privileged life can turn to coping with substances.

Real niggas have properly developed coping skills.

Imagine that.

This shit legitimately sucks and it’s disappointing that this is what I’m currently navigating.

I am committed to it however.

Yesterday was shitty. Shitty because I felt like shit and knew I’d feel “better” if I just smoked a j or even just had one beer.

But the thing about just having one beer is that one is many more.

I remember how we’d joke about a six pack being just one beer when I was in the Air Force.

A six pack is just one beer, unless it’s a six pack of Red Horse Strong, then you’re just playing Russian roulette and trying to find the one beer that is a six pack.

The bike has gotten me through this before.

I go to sleep thinking about the bike. Thinking about how strong I am on it when I take it seriously, when I show up every day.

I wake up.

For some reason, I wanted oatmeal.

I should have known what was bound to happen as soon as I craved oatmeal.

I put my running shoes on and it just didn’t feel right.

“No. You know what you’re supposed to be doing. You need to ride that bike like it’s your fucking job.”

I take my running shoes off and change into a bib.

It all starts coming back.

New Moon in Taurus.

Made a bowl of oatmeal.

Pulled Death.

Already planned to shave my head this morning.

A monk in motion.

I’ve been trying for the longest time to write this piece about my relationship with being in motion. Weaving my way through all the cars I’ve experienced in life, how they made me feel. The bikes. Skateboarding.

The piece is about 75% done. But maybe it’s something that goes on forever as in writing it, I’ve only learned more and more about myself.

The revelation was that I have a substance abuse problem. It’s funny because the title of the piece is Motion Abuse Problem. I thought it was just cheeky, but rereading it, watching the patterns that emerge, it becomes clear that there actually is a substance abuse problem.

Fine. If I can identify a problem, I can fix it I guess.

My relationship with alcohol and marijuana never seemed troublesome, it felt well managed. I never felt like a problem. No trouble, faithful, a present father.

But the more you sit with the idea that you have a problem, the more it reveals itself. The more evident it becomes that you weren’t giving your all to what matters.

Self-deception is a motherfucker.

Never put yourself in a situation you can’t get out of and once you’re out… stay out.

Selling myself short.

I lay myself to rest at the end of day seven of sobriety with one intention in mind. Write the remaining bit of the story that way I can set it out into the world and begin my new chapter, sober and intentional, truly pursuing my passions and what God has sent me here to do.

I wake up, make my oatmeal, and set out on the first of what will be an endless amount of training rides to come.

I return home prepared to write and see that I have a text message from the homie Charles.

He asks if I have a minute to talk and then breaks the news to me that my friend Sutton has taken his life.

---

The section that I’d set out to write that day was heavily dependent on Sutton.

We were two sides of the same coin stuck in the middle of Wichita Falls, Texas.

Sutton may have been one of the most punk rock motherfuckers I’ve ever known, which perfectly complimented my hip-hop upbringing.

We both enjoyed smoking Marlboro 27’s and riding around in his black ’96 Corolla.

I’d had a white ’95 Corolla the summer before the one I’d spend in Wichita Falls.

Two sides of the same coin.

We were both stoked to have been getting stationed in Japan with one another. Sutton had the same passion for motion I had. We’d sit at the skatepark and contemplate the cars we’d build once we were overseas. He’d been focused on drifting whereas I wanted nothing more than grip.

Food doesn’t taste how it should.

What should be pleasurable feels like it’s behind a condom.

What is painful is persistent.

The music I’ve made sounds too jubilant for how I actually feel and it’s frustrating me.

I had a Coca-Cola. It may have been flat. I hope it was flat because it was soulless.

I think I have to accept that this is what I was hiding from myself.

Grieving is odd.

It’s odd to have spent nearly every day with someone. A mirror of yourself in a sense. Spend every day with them. Bond with them through shared highs and shared lows. Going separate ways.

Time goes on.

And then you come to find that they’ve taken their life.

Having already mourned a friendship, you now have to revisit the memories and mourn the person.

Left wondering what would have happened if never the two paths split.

But also… in having looked in that mirror, finding better understanding of one’s self… you can understand their decision much more than you would have liked to.

It’s fucked up.

Anti-matter.

---

Had me fucked up.

Had me so fucked up.

I sit here.

Sober in a new way.

I haven’t been angry in so fucking long, but I’ve been sober for two weeks and now I’m angry.

And this is good.

I’m not angry because I haven’t had a drink or smoked a joint.

I’m angry because that’s how I should feel.

There’s so much fucking bullshit that goes on.

---

Sober in a new way.

---

It’s bullshit for one that my culture has been co-opted to make the people in the most pain believe that drugs and alcohol are for “real niggas.”

They don’t want us to have our eyes open to the fuck shit that goes on.

The complete fuck shit.

---

Robbing us blind of our culture.

Capitalizing off it.

Fuck em.

I haven’t felt the fire of anger for so long. The aggression.

It legitimately feels good because I feel like I also have the ability to manage and direct the energy where necessary.

---

I want to destroy the old guard.

The fucking bullshit tech world.

The soulless, community excavating technocrats who seek only to build for profit.

Simply building multibillion dollar projects for the sake of capitalizing. Not actually contributing anything to the world. Using charities as a tax write off.

It always starts as “we’re doing this so x can be better, you didn’t know you needed this.”

The famous Steve Jobs quote — “sell them something they didn’t know they needed.”

If they didn’t know they needed it, did they really fucking need it?

All of the shit we’ve been convinced we “needed” has only gone to remove us more and more from what we already have.

These people are villains.

Glorified.

Much regret having ever danced with the devil.

The substances don’t seem to be as grounded as they all once were. The rituals.

They’ve seem to fade as the substances have been optimized past the point of experience.

The God removed from them as rather than a tool of discovery and inner work, they’ve become something we turn to in search of relief from the reality presented to us.

Man just doesn’t know when to stop.

We chase the feeling out of everything. Everywhere where feeling can just simply feel good. We chase the feelings out, in search of optimization, in search of profit.

We feel nothing real.

I’m feeling called to feed as many people as I can.

As many people as I can feed with real food made with love.

I can have or accomplish anything if I just remain sober.

I can conquer the world if I’d like so long as I remain sober.

Nothing can stop me, so long as I remain sober.

That’s all there is to do.

Techno.

Bikes.

Bread.