Guest guest Posted April 26, 2000 Report Share Posted April 26, 2000 Dear Kayleigh, I'm feeling badly because of re-reading my melodramatic bluster in the totally unjustified sign-off in my letter to (below) -- I am shocked at the cheap tone evident in parts of the letter and regret the " death to stepNazis " , very much, as I shouldn't be surprised, on reflection, if I get taken literally and therefore seem a highly questionable person. I would not of course kill anyone and I just let my gung-ho anti-12 step thing get the better of me in the exciting context of this new group. I'm afraid my E-etiquette is not that highly developed as yet. Partial anonymity goes to one's head. If you get a chance to apologise to anyone on my behalf, please do. Fact is, I'm not a model of good adjustment and spend far too much time experiencing what the poet Milton termed " the evill [sic] of solitude " which to some people probably comes as no surprise). Thanks for your letter. The contact is sustaining, as is your approval of my poetry. Yours, . > > >Dear , > >I knew next to nothing about AA before I was advised to go in 1985 during >a > >hard time when my drinking was becoming conspicuous. By my brother >actually > >(who subsequently went, very briefly, to meetings himself and now regards > >the whole bit as a no-no). > >I was high on the steps and on meeting my stepBunny wife for the first > >couple of months, but read a book called " Controlled Drinking " which >caused > >me to question the fellowship. She was about to leave me at this point >for > >doubting the AAword (she uttered divorce threats at three monthly >intervals > >throughout our marriage). > >I wasn't drinking or using -- 100% clean nicotine addict throughout. >After > >1 year I tried to begin moderate drinking, but she freaked out totally >and > >left me. Came back only when I agreed to go into Treatment. It was in > >treatment that I finally chucked the whole bit, or rather shortly after > >coming out -- the bullshit I heard in there was unbelievable. My wife is > >also a " trained " Minnesota Counsellor -- there's a big sick scene in >quiet > >West Wales where we lived and she still does centring on > " recovery.org.uk " . > > Hopkins is supporting them, a big Welsh name. > >Anyway, she fully expected me to do instant relapse etc, but nothing > >happened. I drank moderately for eight years, can of beer about nine in >the > >evening and that was all. Ocaasional more serious indulgence, but only >when > >I was away on a climbing trip or otherwise out of sight. We had a >strongly > >monogamous marriage and a sex life to die for. But always the phantom of > >the fellowship in the cupoboard at the back of her head. > >By nine years of marriage she's big in Coda and not going to AA/NA -- so >she > >decides we can start smoking dope. (Also comes out with some weird stuff > >amounting to how she knows the really top recovery people do have the odd > >toot, tipple, and toke -- have any of you heard this?) Great. We smoke > >dope. She decides we gotta stop smoking dope. She got some form of bad > >trip from her intense highs. Worth dwelling on this perhaps -- her main > > " bad past " stuff is in the amazing promiscuity she did in the late 1970s >-- > >real pincushion -- she had been abused as a child. So she was unstable in > >our sex life. For months she'd want it dirty, then suddenly call a " no >no " . > > Back to good clean none of that nonsense please. The nonsense often > >involved fantasies she began. She was scared of her own eroticism, and >her > >terror of drinking was partly that if she did she KNEW she'd start >screwing > >around. The two things are synonymous with her. With cannabis, our sex > >life was amazing -- not " dirty " especially, but a powerful experience >alll > >round. It was because of her problem with her powerful sexuality that >she > >got panicky and had to stop smoking. Back to meetings in freak-out and >born > >again total abstinence = the END for us and the kids. Anyway, the >poor > >bloody woman has always been too scared to move an inch and had a > >pathological need to have the whole family do everything her way. We >went > >through several failed business ventures together to promote her work as >an > >artists. She is a good artist (and I'm a good poet) but she always had >to > >be in the driving seat. Sort of monomania that the steps only encourage. > >Anyway, now she's clean and serene and the queen of the scene and has >some > >newcomer trailing along as Mr Stable Relationship. " Hi this is Mr Stable > >Relationship, not he's not an oxymoron, he's on programme " . My kids say >he's > >a fat loser, but I bet you he's workiung them steps like nobody's >business > >to keep snug up with NAhotstuff!!! > >Love and peace and death to stepNazis > >Doug. > > > >p.s. attaching poems touching on my obsession/the subject -- you asked >for > >it!!!! > > > > ORGONAUTS > > > >The trouble is we entered outer space, > >Came through to somewhere neither dark nor light, > >Then slept, to wake and let the world take place. > > > >We didn't hurry so we lost the race > >And got dismissed to different states of night; > >The trouble is we entered outer space > > > >Together, not infrequently, the base > >Where one thing in our lives was always right, > >Then slept to wake and let the world take place. > > > >Your subtle, my conspicuous, disgrace > >Estrange us from what instincts might invite; > >The trouble is we entered outer space, > > > >Flew up through time's dissolving carapace, > >Got, cognitively speaking, out of sight, > >Then slept, to wake and let the world take place. > > > >Out there we turn, disclose a single face > >That won't come back and doesn't look contrite; > >The trouble is we entered outer space, > >Then slept, to wake and let the world take place. > > > >CONTACT > > > >Sad day, a patch where I crouch > >Fixed to the spot where the warmth was, > >Choking on the longing to swap > >Forgivenesses with you, > >Not to have to watch the baby die, > >To see what really matters now > >Making distance, passing me by. > > > >Quite far into the life without you, > >Somewhere else where we turn to meet > >By coincidence at a crossing of streets, > >And the world of loss > >Is as real as the charge > >The connection sparks with > >Till you switch it off. > > > >Places we are, coming into being > >When the hurt's so big > >And the stake's so wild > >On the one bet of your life, > >And all the other ways we could be > >Just by choosing differently > >Are there beside us like the dead we love. > > > > > >DORA, or, Deadly Orgone Radiation. > > > > > > " A bad conscience creates malignant behaviour. You make somebody else bad >in > >order to free yourself from responsibility. We call that the Emotional > >Plague. " -- > > > > Wilhelm Reich. > > > > > >She loves you, of course, wants you to be > >The special woman who deserves the best, > >Not this kitchen blotched with damp and grease, > >The dirt settled on skirtings, and a man > >Whose disapproval's your worst enemy. > > > >So she's killing your marriage. The half-life > >Of her transuranic emotions seeds the air > >With minute black specks, a swaying spawn, > >Your mind and his its jelly, a bad drift > >In worsening weather, falling pressure. > > > >When she comes back you'll tell her > >How you dumped him out past the swamps > >After giving him one last fuck, > >Left him falling into the ending, > >Lost in a great slaughter of starlings. > > > > > > > >On the Beach II > > > >Surf rushing back through banked shingle > >Is you withdrawing from the world > >As I recall between thrown stones > >We turn in separate orbits now. > > > >Systole and diastole, ebb, flow, > >Consciousness registered as loss > >Resuming traffic with the day > >Then falling into all you're not. > > > >I call this life, my children too, > >The reasons vague and all your own, > >A wind that's shifting on the sand, > >Some process that you're going through. > > > >I go on cancelling contempt, > >It doesn't suit, it will not do, > >Especially when it's object's you, > >For whom my love is always new. > > > > > > > > > >________________________________________________________________________ > >Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com > > > > > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >Do you love your Mother? > >Click Here > >http://click./1/3652/1/_/4324/_/956749125/ > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > > > > > >--== Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ==-- >Before you buy. ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 27, 2000 Report Share Posted April 27, 2000 Dear Kaleigh, I threw the poems in with my letter to , as he seemed interested in hearing some details of my personal situation. It's reassuring to know poetry does have a voice of its own, that my verse has been heard, and understood. Thanks for your kind remarks about my villanelles -- I was obsessed with it as a form for some time and wrote about a dozen, though I've pruned those down to about four or five for the forthcoming book. Print them by all means. They are in the book, and I hope it'll be out in the States. I rather assume you're in the States -- am I right Kayleigh? Do you write yourself? I'm trying to get an online creative wrtiiting agency going, but it's early days -- little site at http://www.geocities.com/editorial_uk. Will re-build it after I've completed my present HTML overhaul of Gallery Bouglaf at http://www/geocities.com/bouglaf [interesting(?) entry in guestbook on this one, which I think is from churchofgodanonymous.] To prove you shouldn't encourage poets, I'm enclosing a couple more villanelles and a Petrarchan sonnet, agasin from the heart of a marriage being hammered to death by the 12-step cult of pathological individualism. yours, . Provisional What-is-the-case slips through the net of speech, Something to do with missing you, the blues Elaborating silence, out of reach Of any lesson circumstance might teach. The props are old harmonicas and booze. What-is-the-case slips through the net of speech. It was the same out walking on the beach, The light upon the sea and other clues Elaborating silence, out of reach, Our distance, our disjunction each from each, Our bondage to the styles we think we choose. What-is-the-case slips through the net of speech, Renews its half-life after every breach, Love's not the sort of thing you want to lose. Elaborating silence, out of reach, It would not do to use the word " beseech " , Unless you're going to tighten all the screws; What-is-the-case slips through the net of speech, Elaborating silence, out of reach. Remission This is my life, these days filled with what's real, The streets, this cafe opposite the station, And each November moment's destination Is where I am and what I have to feel. With you here now, both honouring the deal To talk as friends despite our separation, There's coffee and a tactful registration Of what our touching knees do not conceal. Days pass the world along and it stays packed With all the tribes of objects days contain. The moments still arrive and one more fact Is that we have been lovers once again, And, shrunk into myself, I find the act Is something like a memory of rain. Chanson d'amour. If nothing changes, will it just get worse? I'll stay with you if you don't go away, Enjoy the blessings, tolerate the curse. Forget the moral logic we rehearse, Or did, when anger had its piece to say; If nothing changes will it just get worse? The past regrets it cannot reimburse Those customers whose memories decay. Enjoy the blessings, tolerate the curse. Despite the changes we must still immerse Ourselves in change to have somewhere to stay. If nothing changes will it just get worse, Intensify this abstract grudge I nurse, Provoking clearer statements of dismay? Enjoy the blessings, tolerate the curse. Beside you, my misgivings all disperse, But here the future's subject to delay. If nothing changes will it just get worse? Enjoy the blessings, tolerate the curse. ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 27, 2000 Report Share Posted April 27, 2000 Dear Group, Posting this as possibly general interest -- NA administrator-type with healthy misgivings but still on party line. I think I posted the earlier part of this correspondence. Contains intersting admissions of power-sick senior operators in NA -- a matter very close to my heart on the local basis to which he refers, as I blame them for wrecking the life of my family. Best, Doug. Dear Thanks for yours -- makes a lot of sense (though I stop short of agreeing with you on such points as " necessary brainwashing " ). I was not 's " partner " , with respect, but her husband in the sacrament of marriage -- she's a beautiful person and I love her no less, despite the fact we've been apart three years, and she's now got some NA recovery boy in tow (it's got to have a funny side). But there's no funny side in the hegemonic, incestuous, power-addicted know-nothings who thrive in Aberystwyth, and it's not my disease or my denial talking when I say that these people did a great deal to keep from carrying on through our marriage during difficult times like we might have done. Everything wrong had to be the " disease " -- 's an artist and a hurt child inside -- she's not rational analytic and she was totally prey in her fears and vulnerability to the viciously separatist dogma and power of the sick inner cadre and was sponsored into quitting the marriage by Barbie " the Terminator " Pat, Porsche owning airhead 1st class and wife (?partner) of Spamboy Menzies (sorry can't resist having a go at these two!!). Before we broke up she'd been in two minds aboutNA/AA -- was " only " going to Coda. We smoked dope together for a while -- no problems till other things made life difficult and ran back to meetings. That was the end. The one way street of NA/AA thought said it was chaos and death if she didn't leave me. And she's been hard core NA ever since. So so sad, because God loved us very much and gave us the two most beautiful little children on earth, who now only see their Dad once every couple of months while Mum gets on with her new NA life. I left Aberystwyth six months ago and live in Cardiff now. The place is a sink unless you're in with one of the cliques. Our bad luck was in with " your lot " . This is damamge, guy, DAMAGE. Don't trouble to quote the literature at me -- I now it well enouygh, was hard line NA myself at one time and put through treatment on moral blackmail to keep our marriage going in its early days. No, we didn't stand much of a chance with the heavy metal zombies like Pat and Graham running 's mind. It's a complex story, and one to which the simplistic stuff of the steps and their fascistic practice can never do justice to. You sound like a member of the human race after all. Good luck with staying clean, but don't go putting your alleged " disease " before the honest promptings of your mind and heart. Best wishes, Doug. wrote: >I actually agree with quite a lot of what you say here - although not with >the >language that you use to get your point over. > >I'm not a member of AA (though have been) - I'm a member of NA, which is >pretty much >the same thing, but I find it more relaxed and more broadminded. > >Having said that, NA - >1) Does not claim any universal efficacy of it's recovery programme: >Here's the " offical " view: > > " Its members recognize that NA is but one organization among many >addressing the >problem of drug addiction. NA members feel they have had significant >success in >addressing their own addiction problems, but NA does not claim to have a >programme >that will work for all addicts under all circumstances or that its >therapeutic views >should be universally adopted. " > >2) regarding addiction as a disease: > > " The Narcotics Anonymous programme describes addiction as a disease. NA >does not >qualify its use of the term 'disease' in any medical or specialized >therapeutic >sense, nor does NA make any attempt to persuade others of the correctness >of its >view. NA asserts only that its members have found acceptance of addiction >as a >disease to be effective in helping them come to terms with their >condition. " > >Up to a point, I think that some form of " brainwashing " is necessary in the >very >early days of recovery. Like chanting a mantra or something - just to keep >the brain >occupied with other things for a few weeks while the person's body/mind >slowly >becomes free of drugs and/or booze. > >And I don't have any problem with the " chronic, incurable and fatal " bit. >I personally know it's chronic (i.e. gets worse); I know it's incurable >(i.e. never >goes away completely); and I know it's fatal (more than 30 of my friends >have died >through drugs or booze, and more are dying right now). > >Having said all that. I must say categorically that I despise treatment >centres (and >yes, I've been in 'em) and the staff that run them - which operate on a >fear/shame >based philosophy, backed up by emotional terrorism. >I won't name the one I particularly have in mind - but you might guess. > >But just because there are some disgusting treatment centres, doesn't mean >that the >whole 12 step recovery philosophy is a wate of time. I keep the two >completely >seperate - as they should be. > > > You come on like a businessman, and business is business -- keep > > the old recovery machine churning 'em out on the relapse-and-back double > > your money route. Why do you pick on Aberystwyth? Is it because you've > > such an expemplary crew of airhead front-liners as Graham, Pat, Joe, > > , , and their enchanted minions? > >I'm not sure if you know who I am. Let me clear it up for you. >I don't work for Ceredigion Contact - I'm just a volunteer who wrote their >website. >I don't live in Aberystwyth. Used to, but now live in Bristol. > >As I understand it, you used to be s partner. I didn't know her very >well, but >she came to the Saturday NA meetings for a while a few years back. I wish >her well. >Got nothing against her. > >As for the other people you mention. I have little or no respect for any of >them. >For different reasons in each case. The recovery " business " as you call it, >in >Aberystwyth is - by the nature of the place - almost incestuous. That's >because it's >such a small town stuck in the middle of nowhere. So the sort of situation >that you >seem to be alluding to - i.e. an " inner circle " of recovery gurus, can >easily come >into being. In a larger, less isolated, town it just wouldn't happen. > >I've been back in Bristol for 18 months now - after 5 years in Aberystwyth. >I'm glad to be back here (it's my home town). I was beginning to find Aber >to be >very stifling. >So - it was time to move on. > >Maybe it's time for you to move on now as well. > >Take it easy > >Chris > ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 27, 2000 Report Share Posted April 27, 2000 Hi : You're cracking me up here. Ok I'll bite. I'm curious as to why you keep mentioning that guest book entry? If it is from the CGA they may have found you through this list or via the referrer information your browser passed along if you visited their site directly from your site. (one reason I don't surf without my firewall running blocking referrer information). It may be, if it is from CGA, the author's attempt to show you his sites stats. Whoever's site the stats are for their pretty good. Heck of a lot of visits. Re: atheist AA http://www/geocities.com/bouglaf [interesting(?) entry in guestbook on this one, which I think is from churchofgodanonymous.] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.