A Beautiful Song Called Fear

A long, long time ago, and many, many years before I sat with a group of people and said, “My name is Denton and I’m an alcoholic,” I sang.  I started singing in something called the Choral Ensemble in high school.  This group required that I participate in their choreography, as well, and so I both sang and appeared to be slightly injured throughout most performances.  

But aside from my dancing inadequacies, I had a good voice.  I managed to snag the Aladdin solo my senior year.  Not long after that I even tried out for – and won – a spot in our county’s country music showcase.  I sang that weekend with a guy named Clayton Grissom, a man who would go on to steal the hearts of Claymates around the country when he finished second on American Idol.  And before you ask, Clay Aiken has no earthly idea who I am.

As the days wear on, it’s becoming that way with most people.  I very nearly dropped off the face of the Earth anyway.  At the very least, I considered suicide.  Most addicts do.  It’s part of our M.O.

I also sang in the college choir during my freshman year, but it was during that year that I discovered how much better beer made life, so I didn’t have time for that anymore.  Well, that’s not completely true.  The student government at the little college I attended put on a Mr. MOC pageant at the same time as the Mrs. I was first runner up two years in a row, but I won the talent competition both times.  I sang, of course.  There was still a HUGE amount of fearlessness in me back then.  One year it was George Strait’s “Baby Blue.”  The next, Gary Chapman,’s “Man After Your Own Heart.”  Looking back, it’s fairly ironic that I sang a contemporary Christian song about a man seeking a better relationship with God.  

I think I sang one more time in public after that.  My daughter is 13 now, but I shocked everybody (even my late wife) by walking over and grabbing a microphone during her baptism and belting out a decent rendition of a song called “Jesus Loves Me.”  But it was NOT the same “Jesus Loves Me” that everybody knows, and I did NOT believe the words I was singing.

And that was BEFORE my first wife died of brain cancer about two years after that song when our daughter was only two and a half years old.  I’m sure I will at some point, because this is therapeutic, but I probably don’t need to tell you what happens to a man’s faith when he is already pissed at God, doesn’t understand him, has serious doubts about his very existence, and oh yeah, literally wakes up and accepts the monotony of each day just to luxuriate himself in the reckless monotony of addiction each night.  Every.  Single.  Day.  And it wasn’t just the alcohol.  I was a tobacco user for over 20 years, too. Kodiak Wintergreen snuff.  Sexy, I know.

In other words, I was a single daddy who had failed at starting a business and failed at my first job as a banker and failed at all the dreams that once resided so deeply and persistently in my soul, and I was an addict, so I spent the better part of the next seven or eight years not only drinking and dipping in the reclusiveness of my sanctuary-like home, but I also started down the treacherous path towards paralyzing apathy, of which I am still trying to find my way out.  

I started a new career as a high school teacher right in the middle of my self-destruction.  It kept me mildly motivated.  The idea that I was doing something important made me feel good about myself.   But that’s where it ended.  I had no other real motivations.  The thought of dating was scary as HELL.  What if she fell in love with me?  She’d find out I was an alcoholic and a common loser and I had no interest in changing either (all of that eventually happened, but my wife deserves her own post, so I’ll save the accolades for that.)  

Aside from dating being scary as hell, the thought of keeping up with old friends became too daunting to even consider.  The thought of facing my parents and sister – even at Christmas – was so stressful I seldom went to any family gathering completely sober.  And yeah, the thought of singing was LONG gone.

And the singing analogy is in full swing now, by the way.  It wasn’t just singing.  It was dreaming, it was taking risks, it was maintaining self-esteem, it was working hard simply because I was too proud to be below average.  Addiction breeds apathy and apathy is one bad night away from tossing a coin to see whether the bottle or the shotgun wins.

I was very well known in my community and the surrounding area when my first wife was sick.  Thousands of people were praying for us.  When she died, and for years after, I was “doing an amazing job” as a single father.  I absolutely was NOT doing an amazing job.  To the outside world, I was worthy of Father of the Year.  In my little world, I would have never shown up for such an award.  Or if I did, I would have needed beer first.

But as I write this, I’ve been sober and tobacco free for 15 months.  I quit both on the same day.  The woman who I had somehow fooled into marrying me was on the verge of taking my infant son – and my daughter whom she adopted – and leaving me forever.  If that had happened, I can’t say with certainty that I would still be here today.

Even non-addicts have heard of rock bottom.   I honestly have no idea how or why it took that long to get there, and I certainly will never understand how or why my wife kept fighting alcoholism with love and love has been beating the shit out of it for fifteen months now.  

You know what the hardest part is, though?  The hardest part has not been the quitting or the cravings or the withdrawals or the nightmares or working my ass off to gain trust back from so many people or looking into my wife or daughter’s eyes and wondering if they think I’m finally a good man.  None of that has been very hard.  When I made up my mind I was done, I have seldom looked back.  Yeah, I struggle with apathy and this ridiculous mindset of “asking forgiveness instead of permission” because alcoholism also bred some sort of image-protecting asshole that I absolutely despise, but about 98% of the time, I’m a good man.  But none of that has been the hardest part of these 15 months.

The hardest part is that I don’t know how to sing anymore.   And I’m not talking about the physical act of singing.  I shattered a good bit of the clarity, pitch, and range of my singing voice throughout 20 years of drinking and dipping.  I’m okay if I don’t get to sing anymore.  I didn’t think I was very good at it anyway.

But I still have a voice in me somewhere.  It’s not a singing voice, but it’s an absolutely beautiful voice that needs to be heard.  If nobody hears it, I still need to sing.  I know I do.  At this rate, I will look back in twenty years and know I never fully recovered from what alcoholism took from me.  So I’m going to sing now.  Or I’m going to try to.  It might start out a whisper with so much trepidation and fear that it sounds like a kitten purring through a brick wall, but it has to start somewhere.  

And no, mama, I’m not singing at church.  Not yet anyway.  My song will be my words for now.  My story.  The struggles.  My recovery.  My actions from today until the end.

Somebody out there, somebody that is on the doorstep of death and hell, will hear my voice one day and take a step back.  Who knows?  Maybe they’ll hear what to them is a beautiful voice and get help for their addictions.  Maybe they’ll save their marriage or restore relationships they lost long ago.  Heck, maybe they’ll find a voice that keeps this ball rolling towards helping others whose paths they cross.

Today in church, the preacher had a very simple message:  What scares you?  This scares me.  Absolutely terrifies me.  It’s not the words that terrify me.  I’ve always been able to sit down and write.  I’ve always been able to sit down and find the right words, even find a way to explain the feelings that encapsulate the message, but what scares me is what happens after the words are written.  I’m still a recluse sitting at my computer.  I’m still a man that can admit that even though I might be sober a full 15 months now, I have failed in actually completing those damn twelve steps. Most of that has to do with that pesky second step about “Came to believe a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”  

In other words, for fifteen months, I’ve only successfully completed the first step.  I even suck at recovery.

Somehow, though, in His own way, God spoke to me today.  The preacher asked the congregation a very simple question.  What scares you?  He said the only way to grow in faith is to step outside your comfort zone.  The ultimate comfort zone for an addict is reclusiveness.  Addicts are comfortable hiding.  We’re comfortable hoping nobody acknowledges us.  We’re comfortable with that “anonymous” tag. 

But I never wanted to be anonymous before alcoholism.  Why can’t I get there again?

What scares me?  Finding my voice again.  Finding out how to make dreams a big part of my life again.  Going up to old friends I’ve long since pushed away and simply asking them to forgive me.  Being a leader in my job and community again.  Honestly, maybe I CAN sing in church again one day.  That scares the absolute crap out of me, but I guess it’s possible.  I’m not saying I’ll do it, because my voice is seriously bad compared to twenty years ago, but I don’t want to shut the door on it.  

I realize one big thing about these past 15 months.   No matter how much I might wish it, I don’t get a do over.  I don’t get to do the last twenty years differently.  But what I do get is to experience a whole lot of “firsts” again.  I don’t even know what they all are yet, but I get to do a lot of things for the first time SOBER.  Another thing I “get” to do now – and trust me, it’s much easier said than done – is simply enjoy every day purely and plentifully because I’m alive and sober.  I “get” to be happy for no other reason than I have a buttload of blessings in my life.

Yet some days, I can barely count a single one.  Depression: another of those wonderful side effects of both addiction AND sobriety.

If a man that can stand on a stage in front of family, friends, strangers, bullies, critics, and maybe even fans, and he can stand up there and sing, he knows a confidence, a fearlessness, a self-esteem, a bravery, heck, even a somewhat brash ballsiness that I once knew.  I want that back.  I don’t have to physically sing.  It was the analogy that worked for me because I was once fearless, brave, confident, and ballsy enough to get up on a stage and sing.  I don’t want to look back in twenty more years and wish I had taken a chance at becoming exactly the man I dream about but am too scared to go be.

It’s for all of these reasons that I need to sing again.  I know I CAN sing.  The capability has always been there.  Addiction took it from me.  I allowed it.  And now I have to work REALLY hard to find a voice beyond the end of this post.  I have a feeling my voice is going to crack early and often, and there are people that are going to laugh at me, but I have to let them laugh.  I need to – and I’m going to no matter how paralyzed with fear I may be – sing the whole damn song and just keep going til I can’t sing anymore.  

When I finally look in the mirror one day and I’m not terrified of trying to find the man I yearn to become, I will have beaten fear and self-loathing and depression and inadequacy and the feeling of constant failure.  Until then, I’m going to be terrified. But I need to sing.

And if you struggle with addiction, I hope you listen.  One day I (or someone just like me) might just say something you’ve said to yourself a million times, but maybe the way I say it convinces you that there is a fabulous life after addiction.  That’s why I have to talk about it, no matter how scary it is.  What if my story and my struggles and my discoveries save somebody’s life?  What if it’s somebody I already know?  Or what if it’s somebody you know?   What if it’s you?

Nothing in life worth having is easy.  Addiction isn’t easy and recovery damn sure isn’t easy.  But I want more than that now.  I want peace, contentment, fearlessness, I want to take risks, I want to find inside me that goofy, weird man that has no idea what a 40 year old man should act like.  I have no idea how to find those things unless I start by writing about them. So this is my song for now.  I’ll get louder. It might be wretched at times, but I can’t grow unless I step out of my bubble.  And that terrifies me.

But what if I say something that scares the hell out of somebody else enough that they start singing, too?  I don’t care how wretched our voices may be.  Whoever it is, I’ll sing with them.  It’ll SUCK, but we’ll sing as loud as we can.   And that’ll be a beautiful song.