"The Power" is an electronic pop hit song for the group Snap! from its album World Power. It is particularly known for its hook "I've got the power!"

If you're like me you think/thought the idea of god was baloney, ballyhoo, and boring. God is the creepy-crawly word that kept me out of the AA rooms for so long. As someone who grew up in the papist church, I was turned off to the whole idea of gob and jebus and highber powber by the time I was old enough to pour my own drinks. Flash forwards (or backwards, depending on where in time you are) to psalm psunday, 2009. At my local watering dump, I see a woman who I knew drank little and went to church but yet hung out in that place. I says to her I says "Psst! Hey! I wanna go to church with you."

At that time in my drinking career, I was close enough to wrecked that I was just about ready to give up my athiesm that I got from these guys and here more specifically, and most convincingly, him. I had this crazy idea that if I could just get a little religion, I'd be able to moderate my drinking and not have to stop. Pssh! Girl, please! That psunday was no different than the last time I was forced to go to church (the feeling of terminal boredom, "this-is-total-nonsense" banner ads running through my mind, and the familiar need to pee a lot). Yeah, I wanted to get some religion, ME, who knew religion was just a result of how our not-yet-developed reptilian brains try to make sense of the unknowable, and to connect to people we're isolated from in several dimensions: time, geography, language, tradition, nationality, race...don't get me started, don't EVEN get me started.

Ok, fine. The mass I went to with this woman commemorating when the easter bunny was nailed to a palm tree or whatever (I wasn't paying attention, ok?; I skipped out asap!) did nothing to chink my armor of athiesm, and I think I scampered to the barfy-stinking bar and filled up on easter beers.

The next few weeks, not much happened. I think somewhere in there I got a TV. But other than that, life went on as sourly usual. I went into my first AA meeting, with the broken desperation of wanting to give up drinking no-matter-what. Flash forwards again past things I'll address here at a later time, and my sponsor says to me he says "Ok, I want you to do something for me."

"What," I says, "pretend there's a god?"

"Shut the fuck up," he said. "I want you to imagine there is a loving, benevolant god who wants you to be happy. And I want you to pray to him every night."

FUCK. Last thing I wanted to do, I said. Whatever, my sponsor knew his stuff, and I admitted the first step ("We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable."). I assented. I had a sneaking suspicion up until then that, while AA claims you don't need to be a believer and you can make up your own god, it was simply a cover for their backdoor monotheism. I was wrong. Sponsor told me to imagine god however I wanted to. The first thing that popped into my mind was:

KYAN DOUGLAS (see Figure 2)

Figure 2 : God

That's right. My idea of god is totally made-up. Please forgive his stupid pants and lame silk-screened shirt (this pic is like 2002, bro!) but, whatever, you've seen Queer Eye. He's the guy who never looses his cool. I could be all, "Kyan! If I cut my hair short I'll look like a water-head baby!" and he'd be all "Don't worry about it, Maxie, I've got you. Hold my hand." Kyan has it under control! Yeah, Kyan really is a dumb name. Like his parents were fighting over the two equally-boring baby names Kyle and Ryan and had compromise sex. Anyway, I don't know why I chose anyone from that show. It's basically unwatchable now, the music is too early-twothousands and the clothes are hideous. But look who else was on that show: the black guy in the pilot episode had no personality, the interior designer was pouty and too puffy about the face, the guy with glasses had no personality and his mouth looked funny, the blonde guy looked like a muppet thrown in the dumpster, and the porter rican guy was just too twinky. Thus leaves Kyan Douglas, the down-to-earth one who shares my enthusiasm for Kiehl's prodct.

So, when you get into AA, you'll call your sponsor complaining that your sobriety is making you antsy or frowny or what have you, and he'll tell you, "Send it up to your HP." He doesn't mean send it to that Hewlitt-Packard printer that never worked that your parents got you for christmas in the 1990's. He means Higher Power. Personally, I can't imagine saying, to anyone other than Kyan, "Hey, man, even though your arms are full of groceries, can you please take care of this first world problem I'm having?" He'll say, with his barely-audible lisp, "Abssolutely."

I've variously described my god to people as my celebrity bromance crush, my imaginary friend, and god. I've somehow accomodated the idea of having god exist as this: our primitive reptilian brains are probably biologically adapted to believe in god, so why not play a trick on this and pretend, on a certain, strictly-personal level, that there is a divine being? We athiests can still be militantly against teaching garbage science in school, the church saying that gay people are no good, and that abortion is the worst thing ever.

Somehow I'm an athiest, AND, a believer. I don't pretend to have reconciled these two things yet. At least I'm fighting my papistly-ingrained homophobia...

Yesh, I'm tired. I wanted to write about how I'm grouchy and mood-swingy here, and how I deal with it (turns out, it's candy). I'll do that another time. I can't type now because my hands are covered in chocolate nyum-nyum bars chocolate.

In the meantime, please enjoy the most entertaining thing ever made: Dogville.



xo,
maxie

(Links)

Hi people. Hey, I just added some links over there. No, to the right. Direct your eyes rightwards (your right). Yes, now you see them? Not a single one has anything to do whatsoever with recovery. They's just sites I enjoy peeping at and/or friends' blogs. It includes pro-war left wing british blogs, blogs with pictures of pop culture detritus, and Arts & Letters Daily. Maybe when I get more into this I'll add more relevant links, but, until then, enjoy watching youtube clips of horrible animation of wonderwoman meeting the brady bunch kids.

Soberiously

Hiiiiii my name is Maxie (not my real name) and welcome to the first installment of SOBERIOUSLY. Come with me on a life-long blog-cruise of sobriety, because there is nothing more funny than recovering from a crushing and painful alcoholism. I'll be the captain on this blogboat as we sail the oceans and encounter the funny, scary, heart wrenching, but mostly boring, monsters of my own sobriety. about me, I'm a suburban white kid (aged 31) who lives somewheres in north Brooklyn. to continue with the water metaphor, i'm surrounded by all sides with poisonous liquids: a polluted river to the west and south, a polluted creek to the north, a giant oil spill in the ground beneath me, and Williamsburg to the east. meanwhile, this neighborhood (fine, it's Greenpoint) is full of bars and bodegas. you can't throw a single bag of garbage without it hitting someplace where you can buy beer or, you know, stuff like that. Temptation screams at me from every garish and ghoulish nook. The call of the bottle is often almost as loud as the cursing in Polish.

I'm a beer drinker, in terms of, I love beer. It's my vice, my crutch, my marital aid. Once when I was a wee pup, my pappy gave me a thimbler of Michelob. I had a sip and thought it tasted like what I imagined dinosaur urine would taste like. I vowed to never drink anything like that again, or to not drink until I had forgotten I made that vow. That being said, I don't have any awesome war stories. Unfortunately, you won't read about how I was sooo drunk this one time I blacked out and woke up marching in a parade. No, my horror stories usually involve me drinking beer and taking a nap. Whatever debauchery I remember will come up later. Wines and spirits and drugs and gambling and cakes never lured me in. Just beer.

Right now you find me at 3am (not the real time) on a Saturday morning, drinking too much coffee and smoking too much cigarettes, ignoring all rules of grammar and time and pants (I'm going to do this blog bottomless, okay?). today is my thirteenth day of sobriety. More accurately, I have thirteen "days back." Meaning it's been thirteen days since my last drink o'hooch. I'm a card-carrying member of this thing called Alcoholics Annonymous, and, keeping in mind the second word in that tongue-twisting name, I'll keep myself behind a verbal mask of Zorro. If I have to talk about meetings I'll lie, but like, a sideways lie. I'll tell the stories but replace details with parallel truths. For example, I've seen several celebrities at meetings, and I'll say "I sat next to Mark McGrath, the lead singer of Sugar Ray." That means I sat next to somebody similar to him, but not that guy himself. Also, I hate Mark McGrath. He literally is the visualization of the little man in my head telling me to have a tall cold one (see Fig. 1 and tell me you'd let this guy talk you into drinking).

Fig 1. Seriously, look at this tool. Can he be more awful please?

So subscribe to my newsletter why don't you! To make myself feel important I'll add a disclaimer: my opinions and poor writing skills do not speak for any organization. This blog is not accredited by the State of New York as a treatment for substance abuse. If you have a substance abuse problem see a doctor or something.