Search and Destroy

In the haze of my sickness of recent days, I’ve been listening to a lot of music. It’s not like I can do much else. This afternoon, I’ve turned my obsessions over to The Stooges.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFfnAvqf1pw&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

The opening lines to “Search and Destroy” drag me kicking and screaming back to the mid 1980s, when destruction was my idea of a job well done.

I’m a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm

I’m a runaway son of the nuclear A-bomb

I am a world’s forgotten boy

The one who searches and destroys.

I used to hate everyone and everything back then. Burning objects and plowing rocks through glass wasn’t simple destruction. It was something to be done with craftsmanship and pride.

In the concrete storage room off the basement in my old Revere house I’d collect beer bottles from the frequent parties I’d have down there. Every time the pile got big enough, and it never took long, I’d go in there, light up a cigarette and start throwing rocks.

If there was a large pile of broken glass on the floor at the end, I would consider it a good day’s work.

It would be like an afternoon of chopping wood, only… different.

I played a lot of records on my shitty little stereo system while I did that. The Ramones always got me in the mood for breaking things.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa6O0yFv1bE&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

Van Halen’s “Fair Warning” album always did the trick, too. It’s been said that Eddie Van Halen wasn’t in a happy place during the recording of that record 30 years ago, and the darkness is all over his playing. I guess that’s why it’s my favorite Van Halen album.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3aW7oofNgs&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

I don’t break things anymore. Not out of anger or depression, anyway.

But I still listen to the music and it still makes me feel better.

I like to think of it as progress.

Something Broke

Day four of being sick. I’ve been bouncing from couch to chair to bed, looking for a place to be comfortable. I’ve been sleeping a lot. It’s a helpless kind of feeling.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dsp6jfzNGk8&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

The other day I wrote about covering the RSA security conference in 2005 with a fever and coming home broken. This was something of a repeat performance.

Some people relish the opportunity to lie around and do nothing.

I hate it.

Lying around means I’m useless. The world is humming along without me, and that pisses me off, too.

So what do I do about it? 

There’s nothing I can do but lie around some more and let myself heal.

Maybe while I’m down for the count I’ll be able to figure out when things started going wrong.

I’m anxious to set things right.

A Look In The Mirror

Written in early 2011, after one of my more spectacular failures as a husband and human being.

I’ve been dealing with a pretty sour mood in recent days. This post is my attempt to explain it all.

The other day, I wrote a post called “When the Truth is a Lie” and a lot of you commented that I’m too hard on myself. I appreciate that, but I don’t think I was being as open as I needed to be at the time.

I’ve realized a few things in recent days. One is that I’m not the bucket of honesty everyone thinks I am. Sure, I reveal a lot about my struggles. But I hold back a lot, too. Some of that is for the best. We all need to keep some things to ourselves, don’t we?

But this week, in a moment where I was feeling stupid about the things I forgot to do in my hurry to catch a plane, I lied to my wife and everyone on Facebook who was following the thread.

I found a Valentine’s Day card from her in my suitcase when I got to San Francisco. Then I remembered that I left her card at home, unsigned. I meant to do it right before I left, but forgot. She would have understood.

I lied about it, anyway. I told her I forgot to take it out of my laptop bag.

Why did I do that? I guess it was one of the stupid things you do in a moment of guilt. She found the card in a drawer while I was away. Naturally, she wasn’t happy about it.

Who could blame her?

I’ve always had a hang-up about Valentine’s Day, and I always seem to find a way to screw it up when I should be doing what everyone else does: Using the holiday to remind those around you that you love them. Especially the spouse and the kids. When I hurt my wife, I lose the ability to function.

If you look at the posts I wrote while I was in San Francisco, you can see this stuff slowly eating away at my soul.

Why am I telly you this? Marital disagreements are a private thing, after all.

I’m doing it because I didn’t just lie to Erin. I lied to everyone who was following that Facebook post.

I’ve realized something else recently: I’ve gotten a little too full of myself. I’ve had success in my professional life, and with it I’ve gotten praise. That praise has been addictive, so I push myself harder. In this case, I did more travel than I was mentally or physically prepared for. The result was my coming home violently ill. Thursday and Friday, I couldn’t move from the couch or the bed. Those who know me will tell you it takes a lot to render me motionless like that.

I was definitely down with sickness. But maybe some of it was me feeling heart sick about not living up to who I should be.

My life has gotten very busy. I’m involved with things at church and in the security community. I have a busy family life.

My skills at going through all that and prioritizing need work.

Family comes first, of course.

I also realize that I can’t just drop out of sight and stop doing what I do here.

I need to find the balance.

I also have to remember how small I am in the grand scheme of the universe.

I don’t have all the answers right now.

But I know I have to find them.

Meanwhile, to those I’ve lied to or been pompous and cranky to this past week, I’m very sorry.

Well, That Was Stupid

Almost every time I visit the therapist, right after he asks if I’m taking the same Prozac dosage as I was at the last visit, he glares at me through his glasses and says: “Remember, never put yourself in a position where you run out.”

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRat644_o_k&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

Those words ring through my head every time I travel. I’m always paranoid about it and the first thing I do when packing is put the pills in the bag.

This time, I failed.

I got through airport security and sat down at the gate, and opened the bag to grab my evening dose.

Nothing.

Clearly, I left them in the hotel room.

My first instinct was to panic. But panicking never works out for me so I’m doing the only thing I can do: nothing.

It’s three hours ahead of me back home and the pharmacy is closed until 8 a.m. So when I get home, instead of crashing like I need to because I have a fever and sweats coming on, I have to deal with that first thing when I get through the door.

This really pisses me off. But it’s my fault.

There have been rare occasions when my doses would be disrupted because of one reason or another. One example is that when I get a bug and need antibiotics or other cold and flu medications, the Prozac doesn’t work nearly as well. Once or twice in the four-plus years I’ve been taking it, I simply forgot.

Sometimes you get bone tired and it happens. 

I’ve been fried this entire trip, so clearly my attention span wasn’t firing on all thrusters.

The other times the dosage was disrupted, the damage was minimal. I’d have a moody day or two (Sometimes I have those even when I’m on top of things). I’m hoping this instance will be the same.

This was a successful trip in terms of work productivity and networking. I did a lot of writing and met up with a lot of professionals in my industry. But emotionally this outing has been less than stellar.

A dark mood has been hounding me. I explained why in the last post.

God has been with me, though. He has graced me with some wonderful friends in this business, and they look out for me. That can be a rare thing on the business side of life.

I’ve also been through enough hard therapy over the years that I have other coping tools to get me through that I didn’t have a decade ago.

For all that, I’m thankful.

I can no longer boil over the things I can’t control. When I passed to the other side of airport security, with my flight time ever closer, I effectively lost the ability to control things.

Now I have to do what addicts in recovery are trained to do: Let go and let God.

I’ll be on the plane soon, and chances are better than average that I’ll sleep the whole ride, thanks to the bug that’s coming on.

I’ll just have to wait until I’m home to fix this one, and that is that.

When Honesty Is A Lie

I’ve figured out another reason for my sour mood in recent days, and now is as good a time as any to get it off my chest.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/6YzKLRM-pr4

A lot of people have been coming up to me here in San Francisco praising me for being “so honest, open and courageous” in this blog. It was a similar thing when I was in Washington D.C. for ShmooCon a couple weeks ago.

I appreciate those feelings. I really do. But when I look in the mirror lately, those words don’t ring true.

Maybe I’m being too self-critical, maybe not.

But the feeling is there. And it stings.

Here’s the thing: I do open up about a lot of things on here. That’s why I do this thing. If one person can open up about himself, I figure, others will be less afraid to be honest with themselves and they’ll be happier for it.

But don’t think for a second that I tell you everything.

I still have trouble sometimes being honest with myself and other people. It’s not that I hide anything particularly insidious. It’s the more typical things:

If I run into a PR person who wants to pitch me something I’m not interested in, I often lack the honesty to tell them I’m not interested. That strings them along and gives them false hope, and it’s not fair to them.

When I talk to people about how I’ve cleaned up from an addiction, I’m not so revealing about the other addictions I still let control me (computer gadgetry, for example). Sure, I wrote about that and just linked to it. But I think I’m far more hooked on technology in ways that make life less manageable than I initially let on.

I’m also not honest enough about just how hard it is sometimes to be social and sober-abstinent at the same time. Last night I stayed in the hotel because I wanted nothing to do with people.

I’m not saying what I’ve written before was a lie. It wasn’t. But it wasn’t the full, naked and ugly truth, either. I hold little details back. Some things just feel too private to share.

I guess that’s just part of being human.

Whatever the case may be, I don’t want people thinking I’m better than I am and inflating my head with high praise.

Instead, just help keep me honest.

(Image originally appeared on the SodaHead site )

 

I Have A Bad Attitude

Last night, as I was walking around to different events in San Francisco, a dark mood came over me. My perception of everything went negative and my tolerance of people evaporated.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW8UlY8eXCk&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

I chalked it up to a serious lack of sleep. I’m still pretty sure that’s what it is. I didn’t pay attention to the three-hour time change when I got here Sunday and, as the clock approached midnight west coast time, I realized I had been up for nearly 24 hours.

When you are managing a mental disorder like OCD, staying up for that long is one of the dumbest things you can do.

No big deal, I figured. I’d go to sleep and be fine the next morning.

But my mood has been increasingly foul with each passing hour. As I write this, someone is sitting a couple rows in front of me in the press room playing a loud game of some sort.

My instinct is to walk over, take the device from his hand and smash it over his head. But that’s not my style. I vent it out here instead.

Not helping matters is that I have a compulsive need to produce material at these events. I keep pushing myself when there’s no reason to do so.

I’m fortunate in that my recovery program is holding and I’ve avoided the binge eating. But I’m leaning on the other crutches too hard lately, and that bothers me, too.

I hear it from addicts all the time. They put down the thing that’s caused the most chaos and heartache in their lives, but then they find themselves latching onto smaller addictions to fill the hole. Chain smoking, for example.

That hole inside is what compels us to harm ourselves in the first place. Fail to address the source of the pain you’re medicating and the demons will be back. You end up pushing down on all the different addictions like the keys on a piano.

I’m lucky in many respects, because I started dealing with my pain sourceyears before I even tried to address the addictive byproducts. I also have a powerful ally in God, and got a lot out of praying the Rosary on the hour-long commute to work this morning. I can also indulge in some perfectly harmless and always therapeutic metal music.

But truth be told, I still struggle with other addictions when the big one is under control, just like everyone else. They are the less destructive kind, but troublesome all the same. Especially when you can’t afford them the way you once could. 

Anyway, I’m going to work on adjusting my attitude.

Meantime, if you run into me and I’m less than friendly, I apologize in advance. It’s not you.

And if I become downright rude, call me on it.

And, if you really need to, break something over my head.

RSA 2005 (Fool in the Rain)

As I cover RSA Conference 2011, I can’t help but think back to my first RSA trip in 2005. This isn’t about security trends then and now. It’s about my state of mind back then.

Mood music (because I was listening to this one a lot back then):

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGshAiRp64Q&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

I had been writing for SearchSecurity.com for less than a year, and I was in the middle stages of an emotional breakdown. I just didn’t know it at the time.

Here’s what I do remember:

–Back then I was so afraid of the world that the very thought of getting on an airplane to cover this event made me stagger. I had several anxiety attacks in the month leading up to the trip.

–The plane ride was rough, and I had a four-hour layover in Denver. By the time I got to San Francisco, I wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

Pleasing my bosses and proving to them that I was the golden child was everything to me at that point, and I approached the conference with a “produce 10 stories or die trying” attitude that was wrapped in the fear of falling short.

–It rained constantly during the entire trip, and another thing I didn’t realize then was that bleak weather fueled my depression.

–I was sick for most of the trip. On the first full morning I woke up with a 102-degree fever and wondered how I would get out of bed. What got me up was a desire to spend as little time in that hotel as possible. The place was all concrete and brick, and I remember being terrified of what would become of the place in an earthquake. I wrote more than a couple stories that day.

–I was listening to Motley Crue’s comeback compilation, “Red White and Crue” nonstop for comfort.

–Once I got home, I was emotionally and physically sicker than ever. And in response, I binged and binged until I had packed on nearly 30 extra pounds.

That period was the lowest of the low.

In hindsight it was an important year in my growth as a human being, because I was finally starting to deal with the fact that something was seriously wrong with me and that I had to do something before I tore myself and my family apart. 

Today, I’m staring out a rainy window from the 14th floor of the hotel I’m staying in. The rain still has a depressive effect, but my program of recovery is keeping it manageable. My eating is strict and clean, and while I have done a lot of writing so far for the job, I’m not doing it to please the masters. I’m doing it because this is what I do and I love it.

I do miss my wife and kids, but that’s always the case when I’m away.

In any event, I’m in a much better place now than I was six years ago.

I’m grateful to God and everyone around me who makes it possible.

Do Drunks and Recovering Addicts Mix?

It can be tricky socializing with a recovering addict at a party. In some ways the guy who can’t drink or eat whatever he wants  is socially awkward. So how do you deal with someone like me?

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSih4o2YfmA&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

It’s a fair question, and one I’ve put some thought into since a good friend sent me this feedback:

“As someone who knows several people who struggle with addiction issues I’m always hyper-sensitive to everything I say and do around them. The last thing I want to do is add pressure to someone who may be at the end of their tether…but at the same time I don’t want to bring attention to the issue or treat them differently. What, in your experience and belief, are things people like me should do/not do/worry about/not worry about so that we are helping and not hurting those around us.”

I’m glad my friend posed the question, because I’ll be honest: Sometimes I feel the same way around someone who’s drinking. I’m sensitive about coming off as the snob in the room who thinks he’s better than everyone else because everyone else is drinking or drunk.

I just want to blend in, enjoy the company I’m with and drink something without alcohol — usually tonic water with a splash of cranberry juice if I can’t find decent coffee.

That’s what I drank last night at a gathering in San Francisco, where I’m covering RSA Conference 2011 and BSidesSF.

I need to make one thing clear: I don’t mind if people around me are enjoying a few drinks. Sometimes I envy them for being able to do it and still function, and I want them to have a good time. I had a good time last night catching up with industry friends, and nobody made me feel uncomfortable. Not once.

I certainly don’t want to make them feel uncomfortable.

It’s my responsibility to keep my sobriety and abstinence intact while functioning in these surroundings. It’s also up to me to know how to behave. Some recovering addicts can’t be at a party because they’re deathly afraid of slipping. Fortunately, I’m not in that state of mind.

Occasionally someone will ask me if I want a beer or some other alcoholic beverage. Or they’ll ask if I want some of their fried and breaded appetizers. I just say no thanks and it’s no big deal. If you have no idea I can’t have these things, how could I be upset when you’re just trying to be friendly and sharing?

If you offer me something I can’t have and find out later, don’t sweat it.

If someone were to keep badgering me with the “why not” and make fun of me for not wanting to have a good time, I’d have a problem with it. But it’s rare that it happens. And the person who does that is usually the same one who can’t hold his liquor and makes a spectacle of him or herself.

Now, I’m not a mirror image of how sober people feel about this, and no two people will have the same reaction. I only know my experience. 

So far, my experience is that most people are respectful of what I do.

It comes down to this:

You let me be myself.

I’ll let you be yourself.

Snake on the Plane

Tomorrow I get on another plane to another city — this time San Francisco. It’s time to go cover the RSA and B-Sides security events. I used to be a raving lunatic the day before a flight. Not anymore. Still, I feel uneasy this morning.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwzGvMwO-yg&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

My mind has been raw all week for a multitude of reasons. Mostly, it’s a case of winter getting to me. The sun is setting later each day, which is good for me, but the cold and snow have done their damage and plunged me into a depression.

I’ve pushed myself hard with work and at home I’ve been a slug. I forget to do simple things and I just want to collapse on the couch. I sigh a lot and swear even more.

It’s not fair to my family. But I can’t seem to help it.

On a positive note, I’ve kept my recovery intact. That’s real progress, because this kind of mindset used to make me binge my brains out. Those days were so much worse.

That doesn’t make me satisfied about my current state of mind.

On one hand, I’m excited for the coming trip. I love the fast and furious writing and the copious networking that gets done. I love seeing friends I usually only see on Twitter and Facebook.

On the other hand, I feel terrible about abandoning my family for four days.

It’ll all work out. I know this. But the uneasiness is still there.

I don’t dive into bouts of self-hatred in moments like this like I used to, and that’s very good. I’ve learned to see this mood for what it is: A mild-to-moderate depression that hits after a serious lack of sunlight. Duncan suffers from it, too, though not in the same ways.

It’s just something we have to keep working on.

The depression hit me later this time than it usually does in winter. The happy lamp, proper Prozac dosage and program of recovery have served me well. But I’m starting to realize I’ll probably never be able to go an entire winter without feeling this way.

Tough shit. That’s my cross to carry, and I just have to keep getting better at managing the load without complaint and without becoming useless to those around me.

My Faith will see me through. 

My wife and kids will see me through, even if they’re not happy with my impending travel at the moment.

The 12 Steps of Recovery will see me through.

And once I get to San Francisco, the work at hand will see me through.

When The Music’s Over…

Twenty years ago, as a student at North Shore Community College, I was obsessed with The Doors. My ambition was to be Jim Morrison. I’m glad I got over it.

Mood music:

Back then, I fancied myself a poet. I joined the Poet’s Society. I grew my hair long and started wearing a pair of leather pants I had borrowed from Sean Marley (back then, I could actually fit into them). I wore a suit jacket and leather boots to complete the look.

I didn’t like who I was, so it made perfect sense to try being someone else. It was a habit I would indulge in many times over.

It was also a side-effect of the fear I used to carry around. The first Gulf War was about to begin and there were a lot of kids worried about getting drafted, including me. So we tried to relive the lives of Baby Boomers from the 1960s as a bizarre comfort ritual.

One guy from Lynn took it further than me. He wore tie-dye t-shirts with fringe boots. He was a big guy and looked more comical than anything else. He would tell anyone in the smoking room who would listen that John Lennon was something close to the Second Coming of Christ.

Me and Sean took a bus ride with this guy down to Washington D.C. for a peace rally in front of the White House a couple days after the war started.  That was quite a sight: Me trying to look like Jim Morrison, the other guy trying to look like Jerry Garcia. Sean was the most normal looking of the three of us. Those who knew Sean and his frequent hair-color changes will appreciate the absurdity of the sight.

The war ended quickly, but then Oliver Stone’s “The Doors” came out, with Val Kilmer playing Jim Morrison. I latched on to Morrison’s rejection of his family. I wasn’t getting along with various family members, so there was another easy out from dealing with life.

I started drinking harder alcohol and fasting because that’s what Morrison did. When I would shift from fasting to binge eating I would grow a beard and just carry on like I was the Morrison of later years, when he got bloated from drinking and grew facial hair.

The dean of students at N.S.C.C. brought me in a copy of Rolling Stone from 1971 — the issue covering Morrison’s death. He let me keep it, and wrote a note across the bottom right side of the cover about how Morrison was an interesting figure, but that I needed to find my own path.

I also started singing in a band called Skeptic Slang, where I started trying to perfect the grunge version of Morrison.

Then I started to really get out of shape and lost the ability to keep up with the hours musicians typically kept. I turned my attention to journalism, and that’s where I made my career.

Of course, I developed a lot of the bad habits that fit the stereotypical image of a reporter in the 1970s and 80s — bad eating habits, drinking and smoking and other things a person can rarely afford on a reporter’s salary.

I stopped listening to The Doors for a long, long time. But the other day, for whatever reason, I started listening again.

But it’s not the same as it was back then.

I have a real life now, and it’s easier to be me than somebody else.

Besides, I’ve tried to be other people at other points of my life.

It didn’t work out.

I do still have the facial hair, but I found it easier to maintain a bald head than maintain the hair style.

To be me is much simpler in that respect — even if being me is hopelessly complicated in other areas.

Jim-Morrison-Rolling-Stone-543709