Seeing as how disc jockey’s are always talking up Thirsty Thursdays and great deals on drinks, cheap cover charges and the like I decided to take a different approach. As a recovering alcoholic I thought it would be interesting to link videos of people making asses of themselves while drunk. Thirsty Thursday is just a horrible marketing scheme that inevitably leads to What The F@ck Friday. But more on that tomorrow.

So this week I bring you “Struttin.” I can’t say for sure that this gentleman is drunk -- but he’s most assuredly on something. I couldn’t find any info about this video except that a Huntsville, Alabama reporter is trying to do a story and for whatever reason this passerby goes off about people that have to walk from place to place. As an Alabamian I’d like to point out that Huntsville IS one of our classier cities. Just keep that in mind. Now I’m off for a walk. Got to be struttin’ dat ass. Keep it sober, keep it safe and keep off camera.

It’s so tough to be bipolar. It’s harder than any war I fought or any battle I won. The highs and lows are more than you could even imagine. It’s as if your life is a roller coaster and everyday is a hill. One minute on top of the World admiring the view but the next the depths of depression; just waiting for that inevitable climb back up. But this ride never ends. It just goes on and on.

It’s amazing to me; I’m surrounded by happiness and what should make a person’s life fulfilled; a loving family, amazing children, incredible friends. But none of that makes a difference. One day I feel as if I’m finally on the path towards happiness. Then my brain switches, and I’m drowning in a sea of despair and unhappiness. And I think to myself – God please just let the ride end. There’s no worse torture than knowing and seeing what you want in your moments of sanity, but being unable to grab them.

It’s a vicious cycle fueled by self-medication, prescription drugs and my own mind. But I just can’t get hold of it. The mind is so powerful. I’ll make awful decisions; lose loved ones, damage relationships, damn near lose myself. But like a song on repeat the cycle continues. I want to stop it…but I can’t.

And here I am again today; after a day of bliss – of mania as a Psychiatrist would tell you – back on the low end of the spectrum. Wondering why I’m here, what my purpose is. It’d be so easy to disappear into nothingness. Life would be so much easier that way. But I can’t bring the shame of that unanswerable question upon my children and my friends. I can’t leave them asking why.

So I sit…a prisoner of my own mind: one day alive and moving 100 miles per hour, the next a recluse hardly willing to leave the bed. I don’t expect anyone to understand it. But it’s who I am. It’s the life I was born into. And one day I fear it will take me into a blackness that never ends.

It’s taken me 31 years, 3 months, 25 days and a few hours to finally decide I’m ready. I’ve had all I can stand of the wild parties, keg beer from trash cans, immature relationships, living paycheck to paycheck, having a job and not a career and just general tomfoolery that accompanies not being an adult. I’m ready to take the plunge and trade in my rock t-shirts for button downs and my Doc Martin’s for loafers.

In all honestly I should have made the change a long time ago. It’s not like I didn’t pay a price for this lifestyle. In my wake are failed marriages, ruined friendships, money problems, and God only knows how many dead brain cells. I just don’t want to do it anymore. Something in me clicked and I don’t want to be that person any longer.

Maybe it was watching my father nearly lose his life to heart problems. That was a sobering reality check for me. It certainly made me realize that I wasn’t as invincible as I thought. That in any given moment I could be gone. And there are a lot of things and experiences – adult experiences – I still want to have.

Perhaps it’s from being a father myself. Nearly losing my own dad has made me want to be an even better father for my own two children. Not the person I was; not the man who ran their mother off and lost himself in gallon after gallon of alcohol and bottle after bottle of pills.

Maybe I’m just now getting past many of the issues that held me back; an inability to let go, a penchant for living in the past, a silver tongue and quick wits that allowed me to bullshit my way through life.

However it happened, all I see now is future. The slate has been wiped clean and the World is my oyster. The question is what do I want to do with it? I want to rebuild my life back. Have a family, a successful career; be the kind of man and father that my father was. If I can be half the man he is and positively impact half as many people, I will have done something amazing with my time here.

When we’re young we often feel invincible. We do wild and crazy things; never have hangovers; can function on little or no sleep and somehow manage to look good through all of it. Over the last two weeks I’ve watched as many of my friends lose their lives. The truth is we want to stay young forever; but we don’t. Every decision we make has repercussions that are felt now or later. There are certain lifestyles that aren’t safe to live anymore.

Jake and Misty were old classmates of mine that have left us over the last couple of weeks. I’m not sure what happened to Jake but Misty committed suicide. Both losses really blindsided me. My high school classmates were almost all still alive. I guess that made it easy to still feel young. Although I hadn’t see Jake since high school I had spent a fair amount of time with Misty since I left the Air Force – although not recently. It really reminds me how fragile life can be: Here one second gone the next.

If you’ve read anything of mine in the past you know I have battled for years with alcoholism and depression. My on again off again problems with drinking never scared me that badly because I always considered myself young and invincible. But as the last two weeks have shown me; I am not. It’s almost as if the Universe is warning me. Well, I am listening.

“Death is not the end of who we are. It is only a brief pause in the endless cycle of our lives. Each of us is a spirit that cannot die.”

I hate that I had to lose two friends to wake up and really see what’s going on around me and what I have been doing to myself; but sometimes it takes a swift kick in the ass. And that’s what I got. It’s so eerie and uncomfortable that as I was writing a blog Thursday about nearly committing suicide a friend of mine was doing that exact thing. I’m not great at reading between the lines – and thankfully this time I don’t have to. It’s time to start living right.

I’m thankful for the lesson I’ve learned from these tragedies, but I sure wish I could have learned them some other way. There are so many left behind; sons, daughters, parents, brothers and sisters. I wish I could have done something to help before it was too late. Now they’re just memories. To say they will be missed by many is an understatement.

As a Buddhist I hope your journey is a safe one; that your Karma from this life helps you get closer to enlightenment and that we meet again in the future.

As a recovering alcoholic I have an interesting outlook on alcohol. It scares the hell out of me. It’s so prevalent in our society. Maybe that’s because we make it so taboo – whereas in Europe it’s something that’s always around. I’m not really sure. But what I do know is this; it’s inescapable.

It’s been the biggest challenge of my life to try and stay sober. It’s like the worst itch you could imagine, and trying to not scratch it will drive you crazy. What makes it worse is how inescapable alcohol is in these United States. Watch a football game and count the beer ads. Stop at a convenient store and just look at the signs on the door. Go in your local grocery store or try to eat out and see if they don’t offer you a drink.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not for the abolishment of booze; there are lots of people who drink and can handle themselves accordingly. But I do find it strange that we have done away and regulated so much of the tobacco industry but not alcohol. I’ve never heard of anyone smoking to many cigarettes and beating their wife, or going on a smoking bender and then crashing their car and killing an innocent family. Aren’t we being unduly harsh on the lesser dangerous drug?

Is it all about money and lobbyist? Does common sense not win out? At the very least what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. They should be regulated in the same manner. I’m not questioning the dangers of tobacco. But it’s a struggle to quit when everywhere you look all you see is alcohol. We are inundated by it. And all those ads do exactly what they set out to – make me crave it. It’s a curse to not be able to put your disease out of sight or mind for even a few minutes. And it’s a battle I will fight everyday for the rest of my life. And that’s exactly how these companies like it.

No one ever told me moving to Atlanta would be easy. Of course, packing up a suitcase and just driving off into the sunset towards a new beginning, a new life – it sounded so perfect. It’s almost like something pulled from the pages of a novel. Applying to work in the gay adult entertainment industry? I don’t remember reading that in a novel…but it’s not really my genre. I’ll get back to that.

There's really nothing wity I can post here...the pic really steals my thunder.

As my video blog mentioned the other day, I was turned down for a janitorial job. That was a really low blow to my self confidence and mental well-being. I’m not really sure why in the hell I was even applying for that position. They were correct in assessing me as overqualified for that job – despite the fact I have the greatest mustache ever. I assumed it would make me look more everyday-kind-of-guy. At this point though, a job is a job. I believe I said that job was as far down as I felt I could fall, but I was wrong. (No offense intended, janitors of the World.) I actually applied a few days back to be a stock worker at a place that stores and distributes gay pornography. Yes, you read that correctly. It’s most definitely not my dream job. Hell…I didn’t even realize such jobs existed. But at this point I’ll do ALMOST any and everything. I never heard back from them. Apparently I’m not qualified for that gig either. It’s probably a good thing. That’s a job you don’t want to have to explain to future employers.

All this time off and job searching has made me realize this: the world doesn’t have that much work for unskilled labor. And unfortunately for me, the things I am skilled in – Public Relations, Marketing, playing music loudly, drinking copious amounts, using cheesy pickup lines on women way out of my league, wasting hours on the Net – it’s very beneficial to be a hot chick, have finished college or more than likely both. (No offense intended, hot chicks of the World) I have never watched gay porn, so I guess I don’t have a background in that field. Maybe that’s why they too didn’t offer me a job.

My buddy Ted called and asked if I would come and help him paint all day tomorrow. He has a condo he’s trying to get ready to rent out. I thought this would be a great opportunity for me to make a little side cash – get a little change in my pocket, if you will. But alas, he wants to pay me in alcohol and food. I’m not sure what that story says about me. I like beer, maybe? Check. It is the nectar of the Gods – as good as cash in my book. Besides, it will break up the monotony that is my last few weeks. Painting while drinking and listening to some good ole’ Southern Rock – it’ll be like I’m right back in Alabama. I can’t wait. And it’s got to be better than stocking porn. So I’ve got that going for me.

As always, be safe, be good and be happy. See you on down the road.

First off, let me say thanks to all the people that have checked in on me lately. I am alive and well, and still plugging away one minute, one second at a time. I know some of you caught my last blog before I removed it – and for that – I apologize. If you didn’t I will summarize. ‘I hate myself; I hate my life; and I shouldn’t be here anymore – period.’ I had gotten into a really rough and difficult place – and then couple that with some alcohol – the first time I had drank in many, many months – and you saw what happened.

The good news is that I recognized it and pulled myself up by the shirt collar and am chugging away once again – back on the right path. That “Missing Blog” – while being brutally honest – was not something I wanted to share with the world. There are still lots of parts of me I am trying to deal with and learn to handle and accept – things I lack the understanding or clarity to write about currently. I apologize again to those of you who read it. Honestly, I meant a lot of what I said in there despite my poor ability to put my emotions onto paper…errr….into a word-processing program.

Every day is a challenge for me still; every day it is a fight for me to get up and take on the world. I live perpetually scared of failing, of losing myself, of having the things I love stripped from me, of letting my friends and family down or my children down. It’s a slippery slope. The tiniest mistake could send me tumbling down a rocky slope that ends right back behind steel bars. I know that, and I see that, and it scares the hell out of me. I walk around every day with a giant monkey on my back. I carry my troubled history like a box of rocks – the weight of it constantly tugging at me.

Some days it takes every ounce of willpower I have to make it through the day. I have been on a long journey and I have learned quite a bit. But I have many, many more lessons ahead. To put it bluntly, you have to lose yourself to find yourself. That’s what has happened to me. But I’m not sure that I like the person I found all that much. Or at least, the pieces of the person I have found thus far. The core is there – the basis for a good person, a productive member of society. But at the moment I have to work out all the kinks. It’s like finding your favorite old car again and it hasn’t been cranked in years. The shell is there and the body is still intact – but I am in need of a good tune-up.

So that’s where I have been and what I have been doing – tuning myself back up. I’ve been staying busy exercising my mind, my body and my fists. (Boxing, mind you – not beating the hell out of random strangers.) I’ll try to be more proactive with posts in the future – I just had to step away and take a good, long, hard look at myself and what was happening. I felt like I was on the edge about to fall and there was no safety net. But things turned out alright. The sun continued to rise and set. Every day that I wake up and open my eyes is a another chance for me to set myself on the right path – to continue on this journey and find what it is I am so desperately seeking – me. Until I truly rediscover myself happiness will be a fish that I cannot catch. A journey of a million miles starts with a few steps, as they say – I have just now rounded the first turn. Thanks again for all your concerns and notes and kind words.

“You are not discovering yourself, but creating yourself anew. Seek, therefore,

not to find out who you are, seek to determine who you want to be.”

In March of this year, I blew out my knee. Then in April I woke up to find my wife and children gone. A month later I found myself in a jail cell. To add insult to injury, a month after that I lost a $70,000 a year job. I thought I was finished – but what I didn’t see, or couldn’t realize, was that life had different plans for Russell Crowe.

The longer I make my way through this existence, the more clear things seem to me. I use to think a mistake meant that something was gone – that I had lost something I could never get back. But I am realizing that a mistake or bad decision often is simply a way of life telling you “not now” – or to take a different approach. And believe me; I have made some bad decisions.

But it seems more and more as I sit back and look at it, that life has a peculiar way of working in circles and always taking you back to the places, people and things that you are meant to be with. No matter how much you try and escape yourself – you simply cannot fight that power. But if you open yourself up to this, and look for the positive in this experience – it can be life changing.

As Albert Schweitzer said, “In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out.   It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being.  We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.”

I have been fortunate to meet so many people over the last 6 months who have rekindled my fire – who have taught me about me – and about what it means to really, truly be alive. To love and long, to be open and honest with yourself, to hurt and heal, to be the person you were meant to become. My ends were eerily easy to see – a prison cell, a mental hospital, a ditch or dead. But a force more powerful than me gave me new people to learn from, as well as reacquainting me with old ones that I continue to learn from and who reignite the fires in my soul.

As I sit every morning and stare at this computer screen debating on what to write, and I can’t help but think about when I was trying to do this one year ago. My life was a blank slate – I couldn’t express my feelings or thoughts, they were smothered by my addiction, by my bad decisions and by my fears and misery. I was a slave to life and to the monotonous grind of working in a place you hate. Now when I look at that same screen the possibilities are endless and the opportunities are completely open. I guess the blog writing is simply a metaphor for my life.

So here I am, full circle back to the wide-eyed young man I was 12 years ago, albeit a little wiser for the times. I am full of energy, passion and zest for each day and breath I take. It was a strange lesson life gave me – what it took to get back to this place. But it was never more than I could handle. I was tested, and I passed. I have found the things, people and places that make me who I am and who I want to be. I am forever indebted to those trials and tribulations for taking me full circle – and helping me find the person I lost many years ago. I thank each and every one of you – you know who you are – for helping save me. I am forever in your debt.

Dear God, If I make it out with my anal virginity I will never do it again!

I have had the unique pleasure over the last few weeks of attending a Level 2 Substance Recovery Class courtesy of the fine state of Alabama. Every Sunday morning I get to go and sit with a strange and eclectic group of pot smokers, beer drinkers and a guy who got a public intoxication charge at a hot-air balloon festival.(He is at the bottom of our class hierarchy) I’m going to be honest – I dreaded attending this thing more than a 18 year-old girl does gaining the “Freshman 15.”

I was smashed when I received this sentence for a first-time DUI. Then again, I was also really smashed when I got arrested. This is probably why I am not nor ever will be a judge. But I have taken so much from this class – I have learned a great deal about myself by talking and listening – something that has never been my strong suit. I learned that it’s very, very easy to make one impressively bad decision and have that effect the rest of your life. But I have also learned that it is equally easy to make decisions to change yourself and get what you want out of life. Not to mention I have picked up random tidbits of knowledge from the wise musings of a few ex-cons who spent several years in prison.

1.There are many great, easy ways to make Meth – but doing so will most likely end up in you blowing yourself up or losing your teeth. Lesson Learned = Meth is bad for your future and your dental hygiene.

2. Making “Julip Juice” – aka Prison Wine – in the toilet of your cell will land you and everyone in your cell block 6 additional months if caught. Lesson learned = Do this and find yourself on the wrong end of a shank

3. Prison Food is not only unhealthy to eat but can be used as a weapon – if you turn your tray upside down the grits will not fall out. Lesson Learned = if the meanest SOB on your cell block steals your biscuit – grow eyes in the back of your head, he could kill you with it.

Of course, aside from this knowledge that I hope I, or any of you for that matter, never need to use in the Big House, I have actually learned some amazing things. I have tons of respect for my classmates and one in particular told me something yesterday that really got me thinking. Life is not something that happens to you, he told me. It is something that you make happen – just one tidbit of wisdom he spouted to me after 7 years of soul-searching in a federal prison.

And it is the most direct and accurate advice I have ever been given. He said it with such certainty and for good reason. He has changed his life, finished a degree and completely changed his world all despite being an ex-convict. I feel fortunate I don’t have to learn the same way he did. If there are things you want, goals you aim for, places and things you want to see and people you wish to find again – YOU have to do it. Sitting idly on the sidelines never helps win the game. If we wait for great things we will wake up one day and wonder what happened to life. Nothing in life is given to us – but it is all there for the taking.

I feel like a new person each and every day as I rebuild my life into what I want it to be. I wake up with such excitement and passion every morning. Each day is an adventure and a chance to get what I want. I didn’t think about this class in those terms. I could have gone and just sat through it and learned nothing – an opportunity lost. But instead, I grabbed life by the horns, embraced the course, and it has given me more lessons and tools in 2 months than I had learned over the last 29 years. Now if you’ll excuse me I’ve got to dry out some Skoal so I can hand-roll some cigarettes out of it. Those trade 4 to 1 or so I’ve heard…

Warning: This drink has been know to cause sore buttholes with no recollection of how it happened.

Today officially makes it so long since I drank that I can’t even remember when I quit. I think that’s a good thing – I sure as hell feel better, but sometimes I sure do miss my old friend. Yes, I feel about 10,000 times healthier and better – and yes, I have lost a ton of weight – and yes, I have managed not to go to jail or have any run ins with John Q. Law – so all in all, I would say this little experiment in sobriety is going quite well. Everyone once in a while though, when life really kicks me in the twins I just have the strongest desire for something….I think tequila.

Of course, my arch nemesis (Mr. Jose Cuervo) hasn’t really done much to help accomplish things in my life. If I was looking for liquor that has ever benefited me I guess it would be Peppermint Schnapps (don’t even ask) – but honestly, I don’t need holes punched in my man card for walking around a University of Alabama tailgate party sipping schnapps. That’ll get your ass kicked – at least in this part of the country. I couldn’t imagine sitting in jail with murderers and rapists and being asked what you are in for:

“Open container – peppermint schnapps. This is my second time”

I would either never, ever shower in prison or absolutely refuse to use any kind of soap product I could drop. That’s almost as bad as going for littering. In the prison hierarchy, certain crimes just don’t win you a lot of respect. More specifically anything that involves a liquor frequented by women, crimes involving animals and the case of the robber who tried to knock over a store and left his phone number with the clerk so he could give it to the manager and have him call him back to open the safe.

I actually don’t need – and will not – drink again. Damn it feels good to be a gangsta – a sober one anyway. But life has been trying to push me around a little bit lately and I always seem to want to fall back to that old pattern. I have taken to replacing alcohol with a new vice – Diet Mountain Dew. I can’t tell you I get as buck wild juvenile as I once did, but it seems to work quite well. It was suggested I could drink near-beer (that’s the non-alcoholic brew), but again, I like my man card clearly stating that I do in fact have an “Ankle Dangler.”

Life is testing me like it does everyone. But alas, every day comes and goes and I am still here, mountain dew in hand. They should sell this stuff by the keg. It’d help scratch that itch. Of course, the Splenda hangover would be awful. But I wouldn’t have to worry about losing my anal virginity in the big house or waking up next to a complete stranger with a sore crotch. Ah, the good ole’ days – now that I think back about some of them, they don’t really sound all that good at all. What the hell was I thinking? Beso mi culo, Jose Cuervo. Verta a la verga!