It's Fun to be in the I-O-OH P (Not!): AA= Antipathetic to Asperger's

Just back from my third (and last for this week, thank goodness!) official AA meeting. We are required to attend three each week as part of the Intensive Outpatient Program, and for this reason alone I may have to leave the program. I don't knock it -- if it works for 99 out of a hundred people, then it's doing what it's meant to do. But I strongly believe at this early point that I'm the one in a hundred that it's no good for.

The second two meetings at least were not as bad as the first, because I had the sense of get out of there before they all started holding hands and reciting The Lord's Prayer. Now there's a point in itself. They pretend to welcome all beliefs, sects, denominations -- but let's say I were a Muslim Alcoholic. Holding hands and saying the Lord's Prayer would not be cool.

For my part, when it comes to God I don't say yes and I don't say no. I say, "Whatever happens will happen." But I also say: "Don't anyone dare shove your damn religion down my throat because I'll puke it up and shove it right back at you!"

The strongest adherents of AA insist that it's not a religious organization. And yet God is all over the place in AA, and the very structure of the meetings is similar to that of a church service.

Never mind. I can deal with that aspect of it, knowing that it's there, seeing it for what it is -- and also knowing that I do have a Higher Power -- and she works in the building next door. If AA is telling the truth about letting you decide who or what your Higher Power is, they'll just have to accept that.

No, the part of me that makes AA so difficult is the part of me that is strengthening again the longer that I'm sober.

It's not that I'm an anti-social person, as so many people have misunderstood throughout my life -- it's that I'm a non-social person. Alcohol loosened and opened me up and made me much more social than I truly am. The head psychologist who spent a total of fifteen minutes with me before rushing to judgement after hearing a fraction of my issues was quick to dismiss my self-diagnosis as being someone with a mild case of Asperger's Syndrome, and gave it a completely different name -- more to prove that he was The Boss and would be Making the Calls than for any good reason. Then a third guy came to my room and gave it a third Completely Different name.

And you know what? I no longer care what anyone wants to call it. The fact is that I have a  social disorder, the symptoms of which seem to be pretty much the same across all three diagnoses.

And when I stepped into that first AA meeting on Thursday night, my heart shot up into my throat and it was just as if my soul was lifted out of my adult body and deposited back into the body of that little kid in the First Grade who sought out the most remote, emptiest part of the playground and just sat there in silence, waiting for the bell to ring.

Here was a gymnasium full of people, all of them strangers, not one of whom I could talk to.

My old instincts took hold, and I went straight to the back of the gym, where I sat with my hands pressed between my knees and my shoulders hunched.

If there's anyone left out there who doesn't know how I feel about large gatherings of Strange People (and to me, most Normal People are Strange), I'll refer them to an earlier post on this blog called "A Nightmare of Hell." I went into this meeting in a state of serenity and strength, knowing that alcohol would not be a problem for me that night. I came out of it desperate for a drink, clawed by anxiety and fear, so upset that I shouted out loud and scared Whitey.

Instead of drinking, I took one of my anxiety pills and my last mood-evener of the day, poured myself some ginger ale. By mid-afternoon of the next day I had finally regained my Happy Place, the place where I knew that I was safe from drinking.

But then there was another AA meeting last night, and another this morning, and I sure hope this gets easier as the four weeks in IOP roll on ahead of me. Because if it doesn't, I will be buyig a bottle and relapsing before you can say "Danger Will Robinson!"

Not all solutions work for all people. I understand that most Normal People like Rituals and Large Gatherings -- but I can't stand either one. And since neither AA nor I will change anytime soon, I guess we're about to find out what happens when an Irresistible Force meets an Immovable Object. . .

-- Freder.

The Doctor asks Pointed Questions. . .

She said, "Are you married?"

"No," I said.

"Do you have children?"

"No," I said.

"Do you have a Significant Other?"

I thought, Why are you doing this to me?

"No," I said.

"Why do you think that is?"

Is it a requirement of life? Am I breaking a law? Am I deficient, an Underling, because I am alone?

I thought, Bitch.

Pause. A beat.

I thought of all of my ex-girlfriends, and how the relationships all ended the same way, with them dumping me because I could not be, no matter how hard I tried, the person that they wanted. I tried so hard. It never made any difference. I can't read minds. I Don't. . . Understand. . .  PEOPLE. I can NOT Play the Game of "Guess Why I am Angry at You Today." My last relationship lasted just three months. That was, Christ, a decade ago.

I worked so hard to get INTO relationships, and I never walked out of one, not one single one.

I said, looking at the floor, "I'm not very social. Borderline Asperger's."

Silence.

I said, "I don't have a diagnosis or anything. . ."

And she put up her hands and said, "No. . ." in the way that said, You don't need one. I know all about it. It's obvious.

-- Freder.

Down the Road a Piece

Up at an ungodly hour to get out to Albion by 8:00 AM for my three-week follow up with the doctor. It went so smoothly and quickly that I got back into town with time to kill. I was able to do my grocery shopping, take it all home and unpack it, and still get to work fifteen minutes early.

Last time I went out there, by blood pressure was 171 over 110, and nobody even wanted to discuss my liver. I was drinking nearly half a bottle of vodka every night, and for all of the Wrong Reasons -- only slightly less than what put me in the hospital last year around this time.

It all started with that disastrous experiment a couple of months back of cutting the Prozac dosage in half. By day three, as you may recall, I was crying all the time. The little detail that I left out was that I immediately returned to self-medicating in a big way, draining the bottle to numb the sadness and stop the tears. You start drinking for those reasons, that's when you're really in trouble. You think you need more all the time, but what you're doing is feeding the Melancholy Beast -- which immediately starts to demand more. And I didn't stop when I felt the drug begin to kick back in -- the Prozac never seemed to work as well after that. I never made the connection.

It wasn't easy at first, but I managed to dial back significantly on the vodka. . . and the difference it made on my emotions was, as I told the doctor, both immediate and dramatic. That, in turn, made a deeper reduction possible. I can drink in moderation when my emotions are under control. When they're not -- forget about it, all bets are off.

My blood pressure today was 144 over, I think, 98 -- still high but within the acceptable range, or so I am told. At least, he didn't make me go on medication for it, which is a triumph all by itself. As well, I know -- for reasons that we won't get into -- that my liver is doing better.

Of course I got the speech that I should stop altogether, and I know that my doctor is right about this. I'm not in denial. I know and am the first one to admit that I'm an alcoholic. It's not for nothing that I've labeled dozens of posts here with the word "alcoholism." When it gets out of hand as it did recently, it ceases to be a pleasure and becomes a problem that needs to be brought under control. But I've no interest at all in stopping completely. I won't make any excuses about that. It may well be, as the doctor suggests, that this is the addiction talking, but if so, it's not talking alone. With my whole heart and conviction, I say to you: I have few enough pleasures as it is. Not giving this one up, at least not now. 

Lesson learned: that I'm on Prozac for life. Because if I ever try to get off of it again, it could shorten my life by a considerable bit. . . for more reasons than just one.

-- Freder.

Plumbing and Backsliding

I was dismayed when the plumber got out of his truck. He was tall and lanky and he looked like he was about sixteen years old. Service and Repair people are supposed to be older than me and come with an air of reassuring authority. When did that change? When did they start sending out babies?

But he got the job done all right. He was only here for about half an hour. He snapped my leaky valve off in nothing flat and slapped a new one on. Done! Now I can water my garden without having to fill the watering can indoors.

So that appointment went well. The same can not be said for my doctor's appointment this afternoon.

My blood pressure is through the roof, and he didn't even want to take a blood test to see how my liver was doing.

The fact is, and I was perfectly honest with him, for the past couple of months, ever since my disastrous attempt to cut my dosage of the Prozac, my alcohol intake has quietly and insidiously been on the rise. It has reached the point where I look at the bottle in the morning and think to myself, "How in god's name did that happen?"

And as my doctor pointed out, this is probably why I've felt like the Prozac never really worked as well once I got back up on my dosage, probably why I'm having frequent and extended anxiety attacks, probably why my emotions have been so out of whack lately. You drink too much and it cancels out the Prozac.

I was doing well enough for so long, and then a couple of months ago everything seemed to fall apart. Now I'm at the point where I have to back away from the edge yet again and at least be more mindful of what I'm doing and how much I'm doing it.

And, damn and blast it all, I have to back over there in three week's time. If my blood pressure isn't down to a reasonable level, he's going to put me on medication.

Bloody hell. I came out of the doctor's office even more depressed than when I went in, and wanting nothing more than a quick slug of bottled courage.

Instead, the wall of hot air that I walked into when I got home convinced me that it was time  to install the air conditioner. 87 degrees inside, and humid -- my quats are all flopped on their sides on the floor, making themselves as flat as they possibly can. Me, I'm staying in front of the fan.

-- Freder.