Dean commits suicide

I’d been around death for some years. I use ”been around” in a most intimate way. In the Hospice work with Issan and Maitri, death never lost its finality nor its unpredictability, and it was always in the context of Buddhist practice which allowed for some deeper exploration of feeling the personal impact and consequences.

In 2010 I was living in a room on 14th Street a few blocks above Castro. I found the room on Craigslist. The man who had the lease on the flat worked online from home. He was facing some financial difficulties and my $800 really helped him defray the cost of his living expenses. Or so I thought. 


Sometime around the Memorial Day extended holiday, I went to Berkeley to house sit for Jon Logan.


I came home to discover my roommate's bloated body dead for at least three days. Just the smell of the house was overwhelming. The shock sent me spinning emotionally and psychologically. The police and medical examiners suggested that I call a friend. The man I called came right over, put an arm around my shoulder and listened without any judgment to whatever came out of my mouth as they carried Dean's body down the stairs. 


I was also deep into a very bad addictive phase of my life, extremely unhappy, and unable to see a way out. My response to finding Dean’s body was to lapse into an uncontrolled rage of using drugs and drinking. 


As I look back over those few days and weeks, Ash proved the depth of his friendship even more: he wouldn't allow me to play the victim, "Oh you poor guy, how horrible!" or indulge any self importance or fake heroism to let myself off the hook. He told me that even if I was just a guy who happened to be standing by when a tragedy unfolded, I still had to clean up the mess before I could move on. I had no other choice if I was going to choose life. He encouraged me to face the circumstances without drama, and get it done. And he took me to a meeting. Friends don't get any better.


Dean’s death happened at the height of my addiction. I promise to be as honest as I can, but I have to admit that I feel humiliated when I talk about my addiction publicly. Speaking in the 12 Step Rooms affords some protection, and because in general the feelings are shared, I can tell my story in a sympathetic environment. 


The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous puts the first step in simple, straightforward language: "I admit that I am powerless over [alcohol, drugs, food, sex]—that my life has become unmanageable." It's just the first step on a journey, and there is a story connected with my personal surrender.


I had been practicing meditation for decades, but I missed the immediacy and urgency in that question—right now, right here, people in this room were suffering real biological and psychological effects of drug and alcohol abuse. If I'd been paying closer attention, it might have been easier to see the delusions I'd have to give up, and admit that I'd lost control of my life which is the baseline for any real conversation about sobriety. Another question follows an honest yes: could I examine the roots of my addiction clearly and move beyond denial? 

 

In zen I am never asked to believe anything outside my own experience, not even for a split second.


What transformed this question for me from an intellectual consideration about the nature of addiction and alcoholism to one with all the force of Bodhidharma's coming to the west and facing the wall for 9 years in meditation? My roommate committed suicide, and I found myself hanging from the branch by the skin of my teeth.


A long meditation practice follows me into the 12-step work, not as baggage but as a friend. When I listen to someone in one of the rooms coming to terms with the concept of a Higher Power, having been told that his or her program depends on acknowledgment and surrender to Something greater than the self, I can only admire the struggle and right-mindedness of their effort. My own experience was very similar. At some point the practice of meditation, or maybe just growing older with more life experience, I dismantled most of the conceptual notions I had believed and put my trust in, but what replaced it was a far more intimate sense of how I am, at the core of my being, connected to the profound inner-workings of the universe.


And even though my own inner experience started to become clear only after long hours on the meditation cushion, I know that this path is open to anyone, even in a blink of an eye. So my recommendation, if it is something that you are comfortable with, or even if you’re not, meditate. Just do it.

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