My “external environment” outside of the home when I was a child was really scary, and my home environment was really scary because my mother went very off the deep end and expressed herself in SHADES OF RAGE. I’ve been asked in therapy if I’m sure she was NOT an ALCOHOLIC, because she really sounds like one. However, no, she managed to do all that cursing and gibbering (word salad with some personalized pointed attacks at her husband, mother-in-law and children) creating the structure between the cursing and meaningless stuff. That was just ONE FACTOR that caused the three of us “kids” to develop a WIDE VARIETY OF ESCAPE MECHANISMS. My sister did do drugs for a while. I never had to. I was much lucker.

First I stumbled into artistic roller skating (very similar to competitive ice skating and can do mostly all the same stuff). This was through the innocent pursuit of a Girl Scout’s badge in sports. The next thing I knew, my father agreed to pay for group lessons, then, my own skates, then precision skates, private lessons — and I was off and running. I was a skating addict. Remember Tonya Harding’s story about her early years of skating? I understood her story. For me, skating was like “joining the circus.” It was an ALTER-WORLD to run away to. Then I learned how to internalize the skating rink and theh people I skated with their, and my instructors into a MENTAL ALTER-WORLD so I could carry it around in my head and live in it whenever I was uncomfortable, like in school. When I left skating for a number of reasons (age, couldn’t get any better, etc.) I turned into a raging hypochondriac, A REAL ONE, UNTIL I could come up with my NEXT SOFT ADDICTION, which turned out to be painting and becoming a budding songwriter. I stayed with these for years, using all the same techniques of building up what felt like an internal safety zone — an IDENTITY — in which I lived as an ARTIST. And I became quite good at everything I did, in fact VERY GOOD. Why — WELL IT WAS THE ONLY WAY I COULD HAVE A LIFE. This was the result of the combination of all the STUFF that I experienced before the age of about 10 or 11. I think it’s QUITE TYPICAL. For a myriad reasons, I became withdrawn. REALITY WAS PAINFUL. I learned to live IN AND THROUGH ART. I wrapped a mantle of this IDENTIty: I KNOW EXACTLY WHY I’M ALIVE AND EXCTLY WHAT I’M DOING IN THE WORLD. I’M AN ARTIST AND I ABSOLUTELY LIVE FOR WHATEVER FOR CURRENT FAVORITE ARTISTIC ENDEAVOR IS.

Then, through being involved in music, I stumbled into THE TRADITIONAL IRISH MUSIC SCENE. I took up a numbe of instruments for years but wound up pursuing THE FIDDLE, which is exquisitely demanding. You’re either AWFUL or you’re good. I envisioned my self, in my “addictive way” — as being a very good fiddle player right from the start. So I had to LIVE UP TO MY IMAGE OF MYSELF AND WORK TO STAND IN MY OWN FANTASIZED SHOES, so to speak. WOW — THAT WAS THE BEST SOFT ADDICTION I EVER HAD. Well, at least it competed very amply with figure skating.

Then, I got a bunch of herniated disks in my neck and my scoliosis got much worse, and I had to put down the fiddle mostly. REALITY WAS TRYING TO STARE ME IN THE FACE AND I WAS TRYING DESPERATELY TO ESCAPE LOOKING AT IT.

Most of the time between 19 and 52 I had some kind of a job or was in school for a few years. By 52, with the long-term depression and anxiety I had been dragging along with me for years, while I used every ARTIFICE TO HIDE FROM THESE BY DROWNING MYSELF IN SKATING, PAINTING, SONGWRITING AND BECOMING A TRULY GOOD FIDDLE PLAYER. I finally CRASHED after being let go from a job, and wound up getting accepting onto Social Security Disability. I then worked from home for 10 years as a medical transcriptionist and I wound up working a night shift, which was AGAIN — ALMOST PROVIDING A WAY TO FEEL PART OF AN ALTER WORLD.

And that’s what I wanted, and that’s what I NEEDED: TO FEEL THAT I HAD FOUND SOME SAFETY SHIELD TO ERECT AROUND MYSELF, even if it was “invisible” to everybody else. As long as I knew what the parameters were and could keep them fairly intact, IT WOULD PROTECT ME.

YUP, I LEARNED HOW PAINFUL THE REAL WORLD WAS AT AN EARLY AGE, from a number of indicators. LUCKY FOR ME, my parents did NOT drink. Surely, if they had, I would have become an alcoholic. What saved me from messing with drugs was my ADDICTIONS to other behaviors, which provided me enormous doses of endorphin releases. Believe me, you can get VERY HIGH with a paintbrush and a good palette full of gorgeous oil colors in your hand, and a good imagination; OR, bonding with the Irish music session scene, and spending as much of your life as possible playing fiddle tunes in various pubs. The rest of your life makes no difference. You LIVE TO PLAY OUR INSTRUMENT, if you’re like many of the people I knew (not all — there were some players who were much more grounded).

ANYWAY — All of this is to point out, or describe, a slight TANGENT on the idea of ADDICTION. I suppose it’s becoming very popular now, the idea of “soft addition,” BUT UNTL YOU’VE BEEN LIVING IT FOR 40 YEARS OF YOUR LIFE and have fully realized that you really can’t live any other way, without experiencing huge amounts of pain, one wouldn’t really understand JUST HOW BIG A DEAL AND HOW REAL A SOFT ADDICTION CAN BE.

Unless you stop and think about how many writers and poets are either alcoholics or suicides.

Linda