The Recovery Monkey

  Gregg Allman, circa 2011 (New York Times photo)   The first time I got drunk I was 13 years old. I had no idea who the Allman Brothers were because I was already in denial of my southern roots at that early age, leaning toward “smarter” music like Elton John, Queen, and others. By the time I was 18 I was a certified anti-southern rock snob. I was also well on my way to becoming an alcoholic, drinking with purpose and abandon. Morning “skull-busters”, 16-ounce Budweisers, occasionally served as breakfast for a friend of mine and I and as we became regular drinking buddies, he turned me on to something that would blow my mind: marijuana and the Allman Brothers.   There was a July 4th weekend on St. Simons Island in 1977 when a random party broke out around a whole lotta Buds and a whole lotta bud, and my friend was determined to break me of my apathy toward his beloved Allman Brothers. After we’d achieved a remarkable high from a copiously fat joint, he put “Dreams ...

  “I know when to go out I know when to stay in Get things done…”       - David Bowie, “Modern Love”   For awhile now my recovery has been drawing on an account mostly built up during the first two years of my sobriety. I was in the comfy, cozy confines of a long-term residential men’s treatment facility – initially to get sober, then staying on as an employee. Working on my recovery wasn’t difficult there. It was a kind of recovery field test, and I could safely make mistakes, learn from them and make the necessary corrections. I had a routine of prayer and meditation and it worked very well for me, yet it has proved to be more theoretical than practical, and certainly not tempered with enough real-life experience. That’s because of a lack of transference. The skills I committed to developing there aren’t being pursued with near the same fervor as when I was desperate and hurting. Now, out here in the big, bad ‘ol real world I have more thing...