Bob Forrest Talks About New Shoes and a Midlife Crisis
- 2 years ago
https://www.OroRecovery.com - Bob Forrest tells a story about how he decided to go to therapy to a group of young addicts at Oro House's outpatient treatment facilities in Los Angeles.
It's called a Midlife Crisis. I was four or five years sober, and really just miserable. My relationship ended and my kid was like fifteen and he told me he hated me. I didn't know how to get along with co-workers and I'd been bullying them and causing all kinds of friction and chaos with them.
So my work blew up and I didn't have a job and my girlfriend left me and I was really in a bad spot, but once I made the decision to stay sober my mistakes were over no matter what.
I decided to get some new clothes and that'll fix it, right? Have you ever thought that? That kind of fixes it for like fifteen minutes. So I went to a store and saw these really cool Puma tennis shoes and they were black with a day-glo Puma logo and I thought, 'those are dope' right?
I put them on in the Puma factory store and they had mirrors where you could see your whole body. I looked up at old dude me and the cool young guy shoes and I thought, 'what am I trying to do?' It was a moment of self-pity and self-realization and I took the shoes off and went home without buying them.
I was so depressed and felt like I was old and nobody liked me - that kind of self-pity thing that comes from childhood trauma. So I thought I had to grow up somehow.
The next day I woke up and changed my mind and went back to the store and bought the shoes. The way that we deal with childhood trauma and cope with life doesn't make any sense. My conviction the night before was that it was time for me to grow up and maybe go to therapy but the next morning, it was like, who cares, get the shoes.
So I got the shoes and wore them to an AA meeting that night and this dude I don't like says 'nice shoes dude.' And I thought, what did he just say?
So I stared at him all night like he was putting me or my shoes down. I didn't hear anything in the meeting and only thought about how I could destroy him and got what Buddhists call "Monkey Brain" and the 12 step world calls "alcoholic thinking" and I was fully engaged in it for an hour.
I stormed out of the meeting and went home and called a guy I know that also doesn't like that guy. I told him he made fun of me in a meeting in front of a bunch of newcomers, which was a lie. Now I brought another person into this conspiracy of mine, and he asked what I was going to do about it. He said I needed to confront him.
So I followed him to another meeting and some other people showed up like it was an 8th grade showdown and I told him we needed to talk after the meeting. I was going to give it to him. And he says, 'where did you get those shoes, they are really dope.' And I was like, huh?
He went on and on about how he really liked the shoes, and I was taken aback. In that moment I realized so much about my personality and it was a moment of clarity about how I was, and ther
It's called a Midlife Crisis. I was four or five years sober, and really just miserable. My relationship ended and my kid was like fifteen and he told me he hated me. I didn't know how to get along with co-workers and I'd been bullying them and causing all kinds of friction and chaos with them.
So my work blew up and I didn't have a job and my girlfriend left me and I was really in a bad spot, but once I made the decision to stay sober my mistakes were over no matter what.
I decided to get some new clothes and that'll fix it, right? Have you ever thought that? That kind of fixes it for like fifteen minutes. So I went to a store and saw these really cool Puma tennis shoes and they were black with a day-glo Puma logo and I thought, 'those are dope' right?
I put them on in the Puma factory store and they had mirrors where you could see your whole body. I looked up at old dude me and the cool young guy shoes and I thought, 'what am I trying to do?' It was a moment of self-pity and self-realization and I took the shoes off and went home without buying them.
I was so depressed and felt like I was old and nobody liked me - that kind of self-pity thing that comes from childhood trauma. So I thought I had to grow up somehow.
The next day I woke up and changed my mind and went back to the store and bought the shoes. The way that we deal with childhood trauma and cope with life doesn't make any sense. My conviction the night before was that it was time for me to grow up and maybe go to therapy but the next morning, it was like, who cares, get the shoes.
So I got the shoes and wore them to an AA meeting that night and this dude I don't like says 'nice shoes dude.' And I thought, what did he just say?
So I stared at him all night like he was putting me or my shoes down. I didn't hear anything in the meeting and only thought about how I could destroy him and got what Buddhists call "Monkey Brain" and the 12 step world calls "alcoholic thinking" and I was fully engaged in it for an hour.
I stormed out of the meeting and went home and called a guy I know that also doesn't like that guy. I told him he made fun of me in a meeting in front of a bunch of newcomers, which was a lie. Now I brought another person into this conspiracy of mine, and he asked what I was going to do about it. He said I needed to confront him.
So I followed him to another meeting and some other people showed up like it was an 8th grade showdown and I told him we needed to talk after the meeting. I was going to give it to him. And he says, 'where did you get those shoes, they are really dope.' And I was like, huh?
He went on and on about how he really liked the shoes, and I was taken aback. In that moment I realized so much about my personality and it was a moment of clarity about how I was, and ther