High School
Proverbs 9.9: Give instruction to a wise man, and he will… “go to the restroom or learn the national debt of Mongolia.”
And then there was High School—good old private christian school, or NFCA, as we called it. New Franklin Christian Academy—a very small school run under the auspice of the same church just described.
I had originally planned on attending the local public high school; in fact, I had a class schedule for the first year of high school prior to going to the christian school. With that schedule, I would have accumulated college credit by the end of that first year. But, no, mom persuaded me to go to their christian school. Remember those rules of christianity? They didn’t get any better or any less in school; in fact, the madness intensified.
· Boys and girls had separate staircases.
· Boys and girls had to constantly keep a minimum distance of 18” between them. (I’m not sure which of the sexes had cooties, but apparently it was a real problem they were trying to avoid passing along to the other gender.)
· No facial hair for boys—more about that soon.
· Church attendance on-sight was mandatory.
· Strict adherence to dress code was expected—girls, long skirts or dresses, and both genders—long sleeves. (After all, those elbows certainly can be lust-inducing.)
Again, I could go on and on with enough pointless, senseless rules to bore you to the point of fantasizing about hanging yourself, so before we get to that point, I’ll stop. I’m sure they have plenty of rules about hanging yourself.
We didn’t have teachers, per se; instead we had “flag monitors”, people who would respond to the flag you placed in the hole above your cubicle. Each student had their own sectioned off cubicle, or petition, separated from the rest of the class by a wall in front and on both sides of them. At the top of the front wall was a hole, used for those flags I mentioned earlier. We had two flags—one for #1 or #2, and one for lesson questions. Those monitors I mentioned would answer the flags according to their assigned duties—bathroom duty or lesson questions.
“Yes, you may use the restroom.”
“You need to divide the smaller number into the larger number, add the sum of parts one and two, multiply by 83.75, and take it to the 10th power to discover the national debt of Mongolia.”
We had a PACE system—workbooks which contained homework and quizzes, followed by a final exam, once we turned the workbook in. Once completed, we would receive the next workbook, and the process would begin anew. While there were advantages to this system—I completed my senior year in November and was finished with high school at that point, there were also big drawbacks. One such drawback was that each lesson read more like a Sunday School or bible study lesson as opposed to actual school curriculum. It was more like Wesleyan Methodist Church 2.0 than school.
Diagram this sentence: “Since Johnny didn’t go to the altar during revival, he went to hell when he was killed in a car accident, and is there now, burning forever and ever.” P. S. Would you like to accept Jesus into your heart right now so you won’t have to join Johnny in the fires of hell?
Each year, the senior class would go to Washington DC for a field trip, and in order to raise money, we would hold a sub sandwich sale. The senior class would purchase the ingredients from donations, make the subs, and sell them, with profits going to help finance the trip. As I stated previously, I had finished the curriculum earlier in the year, prior to the sub sale. I came back to school to help with the sale, but in the meantime, away from school, had grown a mustache. Remember that facial hair rule? My sinful, god-frowned-upon mustache garnered me a letter from the school principal. The purpose of that letter? To inform my wicked self that I may not receive a diploma; that’s right—that little bit of facial hair on my upper lip might mean that I wouldn’t graduate. After all, god hates facial hair, don’t you know?
The principal eventually thought better of it, and I did go on to graduate, diploma, cap and gown, and all. Oh—and I was the class valedictorian, so there’s that. (Don’t tell anyone, but my graduating class consisted of all of six students.)
My Running from God
2 Timothy 2.22: Flee from youthful lusts (desires)…” Umm, on second thought, I’ll have a double helping of those lusts and desires!”
Needless to say, but I’ll say it anyways—I grew to want nothing to do with god. A god who burnt my mom, who was a ‘keeper of the rules”, who was distant, angry, and just looking to fuck you over.
For several years, I would go to altar call after altar call, being the good little Wesleyan Methodist that I was. I would go up front, confess my sins, blabber like an idiot, repent, accept Jesus into my itty-bitty heart, turn from my wicked ways, get up, go home, and try to be a good little christian. There was just one problem however; I sinned—especially when nearly every damn thing was considered a sin. And then the process would need repeating—after all, as they taught, the instant I sinned, I lost my salvation, and would once again be on my way to the hell they delighted in preaching about. So, I would yet again make that dreaded trip to the front of the church, to the altar, get saved…you know the drill. Go home, sin…go to church…go to the altar…go home, sin…lose my salvation…holy shit; when would this madness end? I remember waking up one Monday morning after yet another Sunday night trip to the altar. Upon waking up and remembering that I had gone to the altar, I thought, “Oh shoot (I didn’t dare say shit—something I have obviously since gotten over), I got saved.”
Thankfully, for me, it all ended about the time I turned 16 and lost weight, (which I have done several times since, including a current weight loss of 170 pounds), made friends, and started to think for myself. As a result, I vehemently wanted nothing to do with god, church, or religion. As long as I lived at home, which I did until I was 19, I had to go to church on Sunday mornings. Of course, I had no desire to go, so I concocted a plan which served me well. There was another church from the same denomination in the area. I would tell my parents I was going to that church, would sleep in, get a shower, and leave to go to a friend’s house just before they would get home from their church. I would then drive home and act as if I had been at church all along. This worked well until someone at the church I told them I was going to told my mom that they hadn’t seen me in a long time, and that they missed me. But by then, it was too late and they gave up on me going to church.
I ran long and hard from anything that looked, smelled, or reminded me of church or god or religion. In fact, at one point, I told my second wife that I would leave her if she ever went to church. As a result of running from god, I allowed the hurt, anger, and hatred to take me to some really dark places, all of which centered around heavy drinking and prescription drugs. During my rebellion, I often would cuss god out for many things, none the least of which was creating me. I grew to abhor myself; I absolutely could not stand myself. I came to believe that I was a mistake and a piece of shit—one that the world would be better off without. To this day, I am amazed that I didn’t end the suffering induced by the self-hatred. This, along with extreme emotional pain, served to fuel my addiction to drugs and alcohol. I could not see God as loving, good, or as any of the other characteristics christians so gleefully ascribed to the almighty. He was a vicious, cruel, vindictive higher power, against whose wrath and vengeance I was powerless—even more reason to hate him.
Addiction
Ephesians 5.18: Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead… “Oh, fuck it…I’ll have another, and another, and…!”
The hell I grew up in and with would be the catalyst for severe emotional pain, which would become the driving force behind my drug and alcohol addiction.
The first time I drank, I was 16. That night, on the way to a truck pull at the Cleveland Coliseum, an older friend bought beer. I polished off about 8 or 9 on the way there and got good and hammered. It immediately became apparent that I was not going to be a “social drinker.” I got drunk off my ass and loved it. I had a few more on the way home. Think about that…just 16, the first time I had ever drank, and I polished off the equivalent of a 12 pack! After that, it was game on, and I would get drunk as often as I could, which was far less than I wanted to. I drank more and more, as is the case with alcoholics. I smoked weed for a while but gave that up when my pregnant first wife and I got married. Drinking, however, would continue to be a best friend.
Around age 32, I was prescribed pain pills for my back. I quickly discovered that they took the pain away; they also helped with my back.
The alcohol and drugs gradually took over my life, and, in the process, became my life. In addition to alcoholism, I was blessed with yet another wonderful condition—depression, often severe. The depression led to my desire to die; the alcohol became my reason to live. If I wasn’t drinking, I was sleeping—often 24 hours at a time. On the rare occasion that I had no alcohol, I didn’t get out of bed; what reason was there to? Over time, the addiction took over entirely, causing me to not work, to not do anything but drink. I would hate myself, drink, hate myself…repeat. Eventually, what was my reason to live became yet another reason to die. Drinking was making me more miserable than I had ever been, if that were possible.
It got to the point where I was drinking two liters of vodka daily, along with taking a handful of pills—pain pills, benzos, muscle relaxers, and anything I came across in my wife’s medicine cabinet that had a warning label on them. After all, if it had a warning label, surely it would do something for me! All of this led to my second wife leaving after almost 20 years. She had reached her limit and couldn’t take it anymore. She moved out November of 2010. This led to my hitting bottom, which led to my getting help. ~continues in Part Four
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