I Was Anxious About Everything.
I went to see my therapist on Tuesday, right after my LSD-influenced revelation that all I needed to do was “do and feel and be.” I was thrilled with my knowledge, with the great wisdom that would allow me to take on the world – finally! – without being so anxious and inhibited.
My therapist, for some reason, wasn’t as enthused.
“If you want to use that knowledge in your daily life,” Dr. C said, “you need to be sober.”
“What do you mean? I am using that knowledge in my daily life!”
“Okay,” he said. “Tell me how you’re doing that.”
“Well, I think about it whenever I start feeling bad, and then I don’t feel so bad.”
“That’s great,” he said. “Are you still drinking?”
“Of course I’m still drinking but …”
“Do you think you could test your new knowledge on a day that you’re not drinking or using drugs?”
“Of course,” I said. I felt confident that my brilliant “do-feel-be” revelation would carry me through almost anything.
“Do you think you can go a week without drinking and let me know how it worked for you?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Okay,” he said. “Tell me all about it next week.” Our session was over.
Gregg – who had somehow been released from jail and come back – got us some pot. While getting high, I told him about my plan to not-drink and be wise.
Gregg sucked on the joint. “Good idea,” he choked, holding in the smoke.
The next day at work, I decided I would wait until I became anxious about something, and then I’d just feel my feelings and be in the now, which would solve everything.
I didn’t wait long. I discovered that I was anxious about everything, all the time.
I was so anxious, in fact, that my anxiety about talking to my colleague because I felt inferior overlapped with my anxiety about answering the phone with the right tone of voice, my anxiety about answering within the correct number of rings, my anxiety about hurting the feelings of my colleague who was interrupted by the phone, and my anxiety about the person on the other end of the phone asking me a question I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I could answer without asking someone else and what if the person I asked didn’t want to be bothered or what if I should figure this out on my own, … and why didn’t I know the answer in the first place?
And that was just one thirty-second exchange. My whole day went this way. My whole life went this way.
I did not have time to do-feel-be because “the now” was too hectic; I was 100% anxiety.
So I went home and got high with Gregg again. We smoked all the pot on Wednesday so, by Thursday night, I was drunk.
On Friday I wanted to do acid but Al told Gregg that all the local acid was laced with something that was causing bad trips. I didn’t want to take a chance with that, so I just went to the bar again on Friday. And Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
On Tuesday, I went back to my therapist.
“How did it go?” asked Dr. C.
“Not very well,” I grumbled. “When I was at work, I couldn’t figure out how to do and feel and be.”
“What about after work? Did you stay away from drugs and alcohol?”
“Not really.”
“Do you think that had anything to do with your lack of success with this experiment?”
“Not really,” I said, and meant it.