"I am more sensitive to being free..."

Jazz saxophonist Frank Morgan, in some ways, chose addiction. When he was young (age 7!), Morgan heard Charlie Parker play, and in his words, "I heard my voice. And a new life began... I heard the voice that I would like to be... I mean, his effect on me was really dramatic. I wanted to do everything that produced this voice, you know? No matter what 'no's I knew not to do, no matter what Bird said (not to do), no matter what the laws of this fine nation said. I wanted to be a drug addict. Simply because that voice experienced this."

Morgan became not only a great alto saxophonist like his hero; he also became a heroin addict, and lost many of his best years of playing to prison terms --over 25 years in prison from the 50s to the 90s.

In Ben Sidran's excellent collection Talking Jazz: An Oral History, Sidran asks Morgan if there was "a part of you that believes that having experienced addiction has made you a better player?" Morgan's answer:

"Yes and no. I mean, I couldn't deny that my use of drugs has happened, and I believe that I am more sensitive because it did happen. I don't want that to be interpreted in any way to mean that I recommend that it happen, or that I give it credit for doing anything for me. I think that one who has experienced cancer know how deadly cancer is and how fortunate they were to have survived it. So that is the way I mean it. I think I am much more sensitive to human degradation and to the loss of freedom just as I am more sensitive to freedom and the desire to be free, because my use of drugs took me to some places and took me to some depths in living that I know I don't want to go back to. So I am more sensitive to being free, because I know what it is to not be free."

(Sidran, Ben. (1995). Talking Jazz: an oral history. New York: Da Capo.)

AOL Welcome Screen Headline of the Week

Hi! I'm back. Did you miss me?

I'll start back into the bloggin' with this AOL Welcome Screen gem. Sometimes, I just don't know what to say when I read these:

When Libya's Gadhafi Throws Party, Ladies Are Left Disappointed

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Mice, Thoreau and addiction

Addiction is such a strange, self-divisive phenomenon, and it brings about so many strange, contradictory and conflicting desires and impulses and actions. At first I wrote "emotions," but then crossed it out, because if there is absolutely, positively, certainly one thing that addiction/addictive behavior does NOT stir up or bring about, it's EMOTION. Addiction, from my experience, seems to be about the denial of or replacement of emotion. I would guess that what "drives" it is when someone (like me) discovers that a substance (or, in my case, an activity) gives him a rush or a kick that is more reliable than joy. The problem with seeking joy or love or other "positive" emotions is that there is the risk that you will find, instead, sadness or disappointment. Addiction and the "kick" and "rush" it provides is reliable, relatively speaking. It eliminates the risk of disappointment.

But here is another thing that I've learned from addiction. There is something worse than feeling "negative" emotions, and that is feeling NOTHING. Feeling numb.

Addiction is a complicated cause-and-effect chain with so many factors feeding it.

Here's the thing to me: the addictive activity I've found is one that I "like" doing and WANT to do because of that rush, that kick. As a friend put it when I told her about it, it fills a lot of different emotional and psychological needs in addition to the "chemical" ones. But at the same time, even while I "like" it and WANT to do it, I also know it's something that I shouldn't indulge in, for all different sorts of reasons. So even while I'm doing it, and "enjoying" it, and feeling lost in it, there's also a part of me that is thinking I shouldn't be doing it... and then, as I'm "cleaning up afterwards" (the equivalent of an alcoholic waking up hungover from a bender and dumping all of the bottles down the kitchen sink), there's a feeling of dread, almost.... like I better not clear ALL of my tracks. Like I'm afraid to get rid of them. "What if I need them someday?" Meaning, of course, "what will I do if/when a few months/weeks/days/hours down the road, I want to do this again?" Actually, it's not a question of "what if"; it's a question of "when I do."

And that's where the other divisiveness kicks in: the instinct of self-protection and looking out for my own best interests, even (or, perhaps more accurately, ESPECIALLY) when those interests conflict with some desire that feels like a physical NEED.

And that is the factor in this that gives me hope. If addiction is a "brain disease" wherein the "healthy, normal brain" has basically been rewired and more or less trained/conditioned/programmed to seek addictive behavior in order to trigger chemical responses, then it seems to me that "rewiring" and re-training, reconditioning, reprogramming can also take place.

So what I need to do is follow that "self-protection" urge. For instance, a couple nights ago, when faced with the desire to "engage my addiction," I said to myself "O.K.... I need to go outside and build a fire or do something different to get away from this."

I have seen the power of my self-discipline at work in other areas of my life (in college with weight training, after my divorce with swimming, with my writing and with schoolwork) and while the little (VERY little) I've read about addiction tries to explain and even give solace by saying that addiction is not a matter of "weakness" or "lack of willpower" or anything like that, a part of me is loathe to fully accept the whole "it's just a brain disease and you're powerless over it" line of thinking. Because if there is one belief I have come to adopt over the last 25 years, it's that a person is NEVER powerless. I refuse to believe that my addiction is something I can only treat through medications. I have a feeling that claiming my power in this and finding "what works instead" is a key. So maybe I have not yet found the right way, or gone far enough in seeking an alternative. But when I was faced with the desire to engage my addiction a couple nights ago, and I thought "You know, I need to get out of this room and do something different"... even though I came back in and "fell off the wagon," still... I did do the right thing in walking away. And if I could walk away, then I know I can also do other things... and those other things may take some discipline and self-awareness. But I'm thinking that maybe this is the way to go about the "rewiring." Finding preventive measures to make it harder for me to engage my addiction is a biggie; that, in combination with finding new behaviors, will, over time, I'm convinced, lead to my "brain disease" subsiding through "rewiring" as the new behaviors reinforce DIFFERENT chemical responses than the addiction; thus, the "addictive pathways" weaken.

In any case, it's something that I take responsibility for, even though, at its worst and "in the middle of it," it really feels like something that is totally out of my control. But as I told a friend of mine recently, something about seeing that it IS "out of my control" has made me feel like I have more of a handle on it.

Funny: there was a great passage in the volume of Thoreau's journal that I signed out of the library: his entry of November 5, 1855. True to Henry Form, it starts "I hate the present means of living and getting a living," and, yeah, I do, too... and unlike Thoreau, I haven't really found MY solution yet... and, like Thoreau, I find that "the life which society proposes to me to live is so artificial and complex... that no man surely can ever be inspired to live it"... all that... etc etc etc. I almost copied it into my notebook or posted it on my facebook page or blog...

But the conclusion of the entry seems somehow appropos to all of this bullshit I'm going through right now:

"Thus men invite the devil in at every angle, and then prate about the Garden of Eden and the fall of man."

Which is to say...

...this whole thing with addiction is not something I really WANTED. I kind of backed into it not knowing any better, and now I'm trying to get OUT of it without getting tangled in the weeds or stuck in the briars. If I'd known, 20-some years ago, that what felt like "escapist" behavior would lead to THIS, I would have never taken that first step.

But I feel like there is a danger in calling addiction a "brain disease" or a "condition," and that danger, again, is allowing IT to have the ultimate power. I'm seeing addiction for what it is, and it's BIG and difficult. But the last thing I want to do is make excuses for it: treat it as something to which I could resign myself. I can see clearly how I very often "invite the devil in" and then get lost in my addiction. If I am in the least bit self-aware, then I must know my weaknesses so that addiction "doesn't have a chance."

It's like getting rid of mice. You gotta do three things: clean up the house so there's nothing to attract them, kill off the ones who are still hanging around, and then seal off the entry points so that the little fuckers have no way of getting back in. One of those things alone won't solve the problem. If you make a mess, clean it up. If you find a mouse, kill it. If you find you missed an entry point, seal it. Simple.

And when all that fails, I suppose, employ what, to me, is the solution of last resort: call in the exterminator with the heavy chemicals.

Here's hoping it doesn't come to that.

Hi! My name is Max, and...

"If you're fixing good heroin, there's nothing like it. It's like finding the thing at the end of the rainbow, or like finding God, or finding love. There's like a warmth that hits you in the stomach, at least it always did to me, and the stomach would just... it was like laying in a beautiful meadow someplace... and that would go to the rest of your body and you'd say 'Oh!' It just solves everything. There's no worry about sex, no worry about nothing... it's just marvelous... but the dues are so bad, you know, that anybody who uses it is really crazy, because they're gonna go through such agony. I still have dreams about it." --Art Pepper, jazz saxophonist, in the movie Notes From A Jazz Survivor


So, my friends, I have a confession: I'm an addict. So it's ruined my life in a lot of ways. It's miraculous, really, that it hasn't wrecked my life in more ways, really. Miraculous that I've somehow managed to complete a masters degree and finish a novel.

Not that my addiction has been life-threatening in any way, as much as it's just been energy sapping, time-sapping, isolating... and maybe that's because the vehicle I found to fuel my addiction is in no way life-threatening or physically toxic.

I'm still kind of new at this confessional thing; I feel really kind of scared to post this... and I don't really want to go into the specifics of exactly what the vehicle for my addictive tendencies has been; just suffice to say that I'm not a drug addict or an alcoholic. "It" is not that. When you get right down to it, what "it" is really doesn't matter much. "It" could have been anything. What really matters is that for the last two decades, I've kept going back to it in spite of myself.

Two decades. Yeah.... the feeling of being addicted --of feeling like there's some dark force in my life over which I feel like I have no control-- is one with which I've grappled to varying degrees since age 25.

So in answer to the question "You seem like a nice guy; why have you been divorced twice?" there you have it. There may be other reasons (immaturity, incompatibility, financial woes, etc etc etc ad nauseum) but if I had to cite a "big reason," addiction is it. My addiction overtook the good feelings of my love relationships and marriages; and rather than deal with those other problems I faced with my two wives, and the uncertainty that came with being in love with them, I escaped into the certainty of the feeling that my addiction engendered. And it killed love.

Anything that kills love is a problem. That's why, even as I grappled with this, I always sought a solution.

Addiction is a strange feeling. Indulging my addiction never felt like a choice, and yet... it always felt like something I could choose to overcome, if only... if only... if only...

I've always seen my addiction as something that indicated a weakness on my part. If I only had more willpower, I'd think, then I wouldn't grapple with this... if I'd just get a grip and grow up... if I'd just "get over myself," "get to the bottom of myself"... if I wasn't a bad person... if I didn't have "issues"... if I'd get to the bottom of my issues... if I'd go for counseling... if I'd connect with God.

A favorite quote from a friend of mine rattled through my head during (and especially after) a recent bout of addictive behavior: "Character is what you do when no one's looking."

Well, there you have it, I thought. I must not have any character.

I've noticed that solutions you need and answers you seek desperately come to you serendipitously if you only ask and remain open. As the spiritual writer Vernon Howard put it, "Requests to God for the light are never denied." And that's one thing that my addiction has made me seek actively. "Show me the way here, God... show me the light... show me what to do... show me what not to do..."

So of course, after one particularly terrible bout a few weeks ago, I found a little light on the shelf at the library: a book called Addiction: Why Can't They Just Stop?

It's not that this book has healed me; rather, it's empowered me with insights. Engaging in addictive behavior "repeatedly over time alters brain chemistry and function. Addiction is a brain disease." Physiologically, the way addiction works is that addictive behavior "activates the same brain circuits linked to survival, such as eating, bonding and sex." This "causes a surge in levels of a brain chemical called dopamine, which results in feelings of pleasure. The brain remembers this pleasure and wants it repeated." Eventually, the addiction "becomes more important than any other need" and an addict needs his drug of choice not "for pleasure, but... to relieve distress." Chemically, an addict's dopamine levels get disrupted and this "renders the addict incapable of feeling any pleasure--even from the drugs they seek to feed their addiction." (p. 56)

The worst part for someone who is addicted to drugs or alcohol (and again, I am thankful that, for me, "it" is not drugs or alcohol or some other controlled or uncontrolled substance) is that the "altered brain regions (are those) that control decision making and judgment," and since "drugs of abuse affect the regions of the brain that help us control our desires and emotions... addiction can develop in people despite their best intentions or the strength of their character." Thus, "Drug addiction is especially insidious because it affects the very brain areas that people need to 'think straight,' apply good judgment, and make good decisions for their lives." (p.56)

Reading this book (I'm about a third of the way into it) made me think two things:

1. O.K. This really isn't my fault. Finding treatment of some kind is my responsibility, but this is the way my brain works. Nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about. It can be helped and treated. Stop beating yourself up.

2. It could have been a lot worse. What if I HAD gotten hooked on some chemical somehow... alcohol, or hard drugs, like, for instance, Art Pepper?

In the documentary Notes From A Jazz Survivor, Pepper described the first time he used heroin:

"I sat down when one of the bars closed in Chicago, and I was in Stan Kenton's band, and I was rooming with someone who was using heroin, and I knew that I would become hooked if I ever tried it. I don't know... I guess I just gave up... my wife wasn't on the road with me, she was at home with Patricia, my daughter, and I had this real strong sexual drive, and... so I said, 'O.K.'... so... I sniffed it, you know... this girl came into the bathroom and locked the door and she just ran the whole thing down to me and after I sniffed it she said 'Look at yourself in the mirror.' And I looked at myself in the mirror and I saw my pupils go, like, from big to just tiny pinpoints, and the feeling was just... it was so beautiful... and she rubbed up against me and, you know, started, like, fondling me, and I said, 'Boy, if this is what the devil's got, man, then that's what I want.' And that was the beginning and the end. From that moment on, I was hooked."

And...

"I thought that I was, like, you know, sort of unique because I got so scared. I just got panicked. I would start getting hung up for three or four days before I would play. I would get sick. I would actually get sick to my stomach, you know, and the only way I could handle it was getting loaded. It's like, if you're really going to do something different, it's going to scare you, and if you're not scared, it means you're not really planning on doing anything different."

What rescued him? Love, basically. He met his wife Lauri, and, in his words...

"She saved my life. I never thought I could stop using heroin and (now) I have no marks, I don't use heroin, and I'm playing better than I ever played before. I'm making as much money as a jazz player can make, and she did the thing with the book, the autobiography, everything that we've done. She gets royalties from records that I didn't even know existed... people just used me and used me and used me... all I cared about was if I get enough money to buy a quarter of heroin so I could shoot it--- yeah, take a job, I don't care about royalties, songwriting, contracts, as long as I've got enough money to buy some heroin, you know, everything would go... except my honor."

In a way, seeing Art Pepper talk about his addiction in that documentary helped wake me up to my own. Seeing him talk about it honestly and openly helped me to see that I needed to face this and admit to it and, using my writing, find a way to help others who might be suffering in the same way.

So that's what I'm doing. I'll write more about this occasionally.

In the meantime, if you're grappling with this sort of thing at all in your own way, all I can say is, I feel your pain. Not just "been there, done that"... am there, doing it.

As the book Addiction: Why Can't They Just Stop? says, addicts "are not bad people who need to get good, crazy people who need to get sane, or stupid people who need education. Addicts have a brain disease that goes beyond their use of drugs." Addiction is not a "willpower problem... addiction occurs in an area of the brain called the medolimbic dopamine system that is not under conscious control." Addiction is not a "behavioral problem... addiction is a brain disease that can be treated by changing brain function, through several types of treatments" that include counseling and medications. (p.37)

What you do with that information is up to you. Like I said, I'm new at this; I'm still getting used to the idea that I can do ANYTHING.

But I'm glad I can. And I'm glad we had this talk.

Email me (maxshenkwrites@aol.com) if you need an ear or a shoulder or a hand.

As Red Green put it, I'm pullin' for ya. We're all in this together.

How To Tackle Writer's Block

Found this quote in an interview with writer Frederick Manfred, in the book Finding The Words: Conversations with Writers Who Teach, by Nancy Bunge (Swallow Press, 1985):

"I rub my hands in glee whenever I hit a wall in my manuscript and I don't know where to go next. There's a damned good reason why: it's something I don't want to look at. If I can push through and get to that area, I'll find something not only about myself, but something that may be of real value to someone else. And inadvertently, everything you need, the theme, the plot, will jump right out at you as you go along." (pp. 68-69)

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Step right up!

For some reason, the mishmash of AOL Welcome Screen Headlines this morning struck me as a freak show in search of a circus tent. All that was missing, I thought as I read them, was a carnival barker.

Here are a few samples from today. Try reading these out loud... shouting them, if you can:

Daring Beauty Skis in Skimpy Bikini
Actress Flaunts Her Gorgeous Lips
Reality Star Shown Without Limb
Couples Tie Knot on Roller Coaster
Coach Loses Job Over Nude Pics
Disney Star Wasn't Always Hot
All Octopuses Found to Be Venomous

When I read these a little earlier, there was also one in the mix with my favorite AOL Welcome Screen Headline word --"racy"-- but alas and alack, that one has already been bumped.

Give it a day, though...

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Outta here...

I already cried once for Harry Kalas this spring.

Baseball is about rebirth. It's not ironic that its coming every year coincides with spring... that in the coldest days of February, when we've had just about all we can stand of winter and snow and ice and single digit temps, the days are also starting to get noticably longer at both ends.

For a baseball fan, four words usually melt most of the February chill, or at least make it tolerable:

PITCHERS AND CATCHERS REPORT.

Every February, those four words mean as much to a baseball fan as the first robin. If the pitchers and catchers have reported to spring training, then spring is on its way. Winter no longer stands a chance.

Baseball is about rebirth and the return of spring every year, yes, but it's also about continuity, about a game that connects not just day to day or week to week, but season to season, decade to decade... a game that continues at its essential core in spite of Balco, insane salaries and even more insane ticket prices, and whatever other evils the dark lords of sports attempt to inflict on it.

Doubt it? Take an evening this spring and go to a Little League game.

Try as anyone might to profane it, baseball itself is, with little exception, the same game we played as Little Leaguers, and the same game our dads watched and played when they were kids, and that their dads watched, and so on all the way back.

You can't say that about many other sports. Jim Thorpe or Y.A. Tittle might not be able to hold their own against the Steel Curtain, but put Babe Ruth in the batters box against C.C. Sabathia, and it probably wouldn't be a mismatch.

I suspect that it's that timeless quality, and the feeling that this season's games --today's game-- is part of a bigger continuum that stretches further back than memory and will go on beyond all of our deaths, that makes baseball so deep to its fans.

To those of us who could never quite learn how to hit a curve ball, baseball was defined by our favorite teams' successes and failures. And for a long time fan of a team, players, managers and owners may come and go, but the continuity is what you hold onto. Anything that links you to the team's past defines you as a fan.

Part of a team's continuity is its broadcasters. Baseball broadcasters are the link between a fan and his team. On the radio, a broadcaster is a fan's eyes at the park. More than that, a good broadcaster is a person who respects the game, respects the team, respects the continuity and the tradition, and respects you as a listener.

For 38 years, Harry Kalas was the voice of the Phillies. His voice on the radio every spring was my "first robin." I may have been hearing "pitchers and catchers report" for weeks... may have been seeing the ever-lengthening days while I read spring training dispatches from Florida... but until I turned on the radio and heard Harry Kalas' voice calling that first spring training game every spring, there was still a little doubt.

Would the season go off?

Hearing Harry's voice every spring the last three decades was always a tremendous relief. The moment itself almost always sounded the same: one of his colleagues (lately, Scott Franzke on radio) would handle the pregame, the lineups in that first spring game, or maybe even the first couple innings, but eventually it'd come down to: "It's my pleasure to turn you over to the Hall of Fame voice of the Phillies, Harry Kalas."

And then a short pause, like it still might not happen...

... then...

..."Thanks, Scott! Good afternoon, everyone. Jimmy Rollins steps in and the first pitch is outside, ball one..."

...or whatever the pitch was.

And that was all it took. With those simple words, with that benediction, spring was officially here. Maybe it was still snowy out, maybe it was freezing and still a month or more before the robins or buds or flowers appeared, but if Harry Kalas was back on the air calling that first spring training game for the Phillies, then the rest would surely follow.

And in spite of myself, it always made me cry. Tears of joy. Baseball is back. Spring can't be far behind.

For close to 35 years, that moment has always been the happiest moment of the spring for me.

So like I said: I already cried once this spring for Harry Kalas.

I wish I wasn't crying for him again today.

Rest in peace, Harry. And thank you.