march10th2001

   I told you I might be inconsistent with my writing, but presently I am in the process of re-energyzing my mind with the tools that have been taught to me by professors and work-shop leaders. Tools that I incorporate into my workshops with journal writing for people affected or infected with HIV or to adolescents who come from dysfunctional families.
     But as the sayings go: a lawyer can never be his best defence and an accountant can never balance his own finances. This rings true for a journal writer and/or novelist/poet/playwriter who needs to find the discipline for the work he wishes to accomplish. This even worsens when this writer, who could be spending time working on his craft, instead, goes in search of the proverbial place or person where the next drink might be attainable.
     And then the two worlds collide, this writer who drinks so much that evenings cannot be remembered and the work that remains stacked away in filing cabinets collect dust. Someone will eventually when these dual worlds and the positiveness will win over this large obstacle.
     Some people will say (or whisper) and/or even believe that JAP forced me into therapy. I will be the first to admit that he did have some fatherly influence in my decision after taking care of me like a son and after having to put up with an inner-anger that I was carrying around, I, always directing it at the first person I could lash out at, him. And then sometimes I even lashed out at my friends. And this lead to a lot of mistrust.
     If JAP and my best friends were starting to mistrust me, then what about my secondary friends and associates. I had come to the conclusion that I have to correct my behavior and become a man/the man that I was born to be.
     I thought the first step should be to build on my good characterisitics with a touch of charisma.
     Because it is difficult to earn a trust back that was destroyed by immature acts without thinking of the consequencs.
     For the past couple of months now, the sky around me has darkened to an obaque blackness. A sea of solitude was encased in frozen glass ice around my soul.
     Questions of my past were thrown at me as the ice shattered and gusts of autum leaves, swayed to the ground, unaswered lullabies landing softly, waiting with shivers for a response.
     And the response was to come from me. To search my inner soul for peace and face the demons that control my dreams.
     This is the time to deal with them once and for all. Then, slowly as I walk by, I will walk with my head up high and defeat the faults that are driving me down to skid row.
     After consulting with my circle of friends, I have finally decided on my own that the best birthday present I can give myself, which in turn will encircle them, that I will volunteer to enter a therapy program.
     For the past couple of months, I have been icing my already infected body with poison of froths and straight-on-the-rocks liquids, only to not remember the rest of the evening. I do not wish to leave the world in this condition.
     The consumer consuming the consumption is as dangerous as a man who cannot defend himself or the man who insults the ones he loves in a stupor, regretting it the next day, but the damage has already been done.
     Then after the apologies have been made for the first time, and the forgiveness delivered, the friends remain at arms length when it becomes twice and thrice. You will be kissing them good-bye, but won't be standing there to receive the kiss.
     What do I hope to gain from volunteering into a group for alcoholics. I want to be structured. Eat three meals a day, remember to take my medication, find solace in my house.
     I wish to discover inner peace and deal with issues that I have been carrying around in the trunks of my body, infesting the goodness within me.
     I wish to strive for happiness, not only within my household, but also with friends and outside family contacts. I want to feel the harmony and hear my heart beat with love.
      I want to be able to resist temptation with alcohol and gambling and instead use this energy to build knowledge and grow in experience.
     I want to be able to be a man -- not because society dictates it, but because I have a leadership quality within me. And when I quit the temptation of the liquids, then, I will not be hiding my true self behind glass that can be shattered, but instead have people walking beside me.
     I want to feel human.
     I want to see the beauty, as well as the pain, instead of being stagnated and only remember pain.
     I want to relearn the importance of sharing, the importance of communication, the importance that there are other individuals in this wolrd that I have yet to meet and share humankind with them on an intellectual basis and not in a stupor.
     I want to learn what the meaning of love is, so that even a disagreement or an argument between friends, becomes a discussion.
     It is time that Gregg Rowe came out of the alcohol-infested cacoon and start a metamorphosis of incorporating the duality of his existence.
     It is time that I face the truth: Cats, unlike lies, have only nine lives. (Mark Twain)
     Is this the pivotal arc-en-ciel that Gregg would make a piroutte and that I want in my life? The thoughts of never having another drink in my life, shivers my body as I think of the withdrawel.
     Where nights have been long and forgotten, where places were strange to wake up in, and where the night before trick won't give you the time of day when he sees you again.
     I don't know how many years I have left on this beautiful existence, but I think I should see the rest of it without road-map eyes and dry, alcohol skin.
     I owe this, first to myself and then to my friends -- who have been by my side -- my beautiful Angels In Disguise.