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Mocking the Voices in My Head — Motivated by Fear pg182–183
Colorful companion to my memoir The Incompetent Psychic
1994
While trying for better behavior, I made an effort to stop viewing everyone with the initial thought, ‘how can you benefit me?’
A carefully fashioned facade that I was a fun-loving, bright, talented, adventurous artisté was peeling away like old lead paint, exposing a spongey under-layer. That under-layer gave off a miasma of acetone. That is the smell of a person whose liver can no longer process quarts of liquor flowing through the bloodstream. An overburdened liver shunts unprocessed alcohol aside as poison, which is released through the skin. By the last year of my drinking I smelled like paint thinner.
As I learned more about the physical and behavioral characteristics around late stage alcoholism, more creepy crawlies came into sharper focus. Realization, resolve and eventual restitution happens over years of just being willing to do better. Listening helps. There were certainly kinder voices saying better things, and those voices weren’t the ones in my muddled head. — From Chapter 9
By now I was up to Nine in the 12-Steps. I had seen my demons, written a full journal of resentments and looked at my participation. I was ready to make amends…
