Tales from a Mad Azorean: A Fictional Prose

By John A. Machado

Drug addiction and alcoholism can reach out and touch anyone-any family, any class, and any color, anywhere in the world. But overcoming it can be incredibly difficult. Brutally honest, yet full of hope, Tales from a Mad Azorean takes a look at one man's struggle with addiction and his triumphant victory over its deadly pull.
The youngest of five children born to middle-class parents, he began drinking and experimenting with drugs in high school and continued through college. When he landed a good job and kept moving up the corporate ladder, he considered himself successful-but he still needed the bottle.
Over time, his alcohol and drug addiction began to drag him into a slow, downward spiral. Numerous sexual affairs, a broken marriage, and even the loss of his job were not enough to make him stop the toxic cycle. He delved into ugly, dark places with bizarre individuals in his constant quest to get his "fix," but it was never enough to satisfy him for long. Eventually, his addictions brought him to his knees, and he ended up in rehab. Though the journey to recovery was long and slow, he found healing and inner strength in the process, enabling him to turn his life around.
John Machado mixes reality, fiction, and everyday life in Tales from a Mad Azorean, delivering a story full of hope and courage for those suffering from the pain of addiction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 15, 2008
• ISBN: 9780595620043

John A. Machado

John Machado lives in a cottage at the base of Mt. Diablo in the San Francisco Bay area. This is his first published work. He can be reached at [e-mail].

Book preview

Contents

Where I Ended Up

Where I Came From

Sober House

The American Work Force

Sober Employment

Nevada

Day–to-day Living

The Southwest

Potrero Hill

The Minimalist

Today

This book is dedicated to

Alysa Machado and Judith Seibold.

This book is a work of fiction, as defined by Webster’s New World College Dictionary, fourth edition: a making up of imaginary happenings, feigning.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Teresa Leach, Alysa Machado, and Judith Seibold for their support, time, and first readings of this book. I love you all.

Where I Ended Up

 Here’s the deal.

I am in continuous darkness, and it has been that way for the past two years. I feel just miserable—an uncomfortable numbness. I have been abusing alcohol and drugs since the age of eleven. I am now forty-three. These substances are no longer working the way I want them to. They used to perform their magic, but now, they are not creating the desired effect. Sure, I can use to the point of blackout and pass out, and I often do. But any fool can get there. I cannot hit the orgasmic, awesome-feel-good mark anymore, and to me this is very disturbing and disappointing.

Since I was a little boy it has always been about my feelings, but now there seem to be no options. Well, actually I consider two options, and I don’t like the sound of either one: continue to live this way, or check out. The problem with the latter is that you have to have the balls to do it and I am lacking in that category. I physically have balls, but not John Wayne-sized balls. So, what to do?

I choose option three. I make an appointment with a shrink. Option three is not new. I have been down this road before with only temporary self-manipulated relief. However, this is the best that I can come up with at the time. I call to make an appointment and find out that I will first have to see my primary care physician. These are the ridiculous HMO rules and they are not going to bend them for me. My initial thought is, Fuck HMOs, but I decide to jump through this bureaucratic hoop. I make the appointment with my primary care physician, even though in reality, I don’t have one. Two days later, I’m off to the doctor’s office.

I am poked and prodded; it’s what they do. Dr. Big Fucking Fat Fingers seems nice enough. He is British and this surprises me. I don’t know why it catches me off guard, but it does. He instructs me to go down to the lab so they can check my blood, and then he asks me a painful question: Why are you here?

Wow, how am I going to answer this? I quickly figure it out. I want to see a shrink, is my reply.

Why? he asks.

Because I’m not feeling right. He closes by telling me to head down to the lab, and adds that someone will be in touch with me once they receive the lab results. Another hoop to jump through—off I go to see the phlebotomist.

The results come within forty-eight hours and are delivered via phone by my real primary care physician, an Indian female doctor newly appointed to take my case. I wonder what’s happened to the British chap I dealt with before, but I decide I really don’t care. Once she is convinced I am who I say I am, she asks me a question.

Do you have a drinking problem?

My surprise probably shows. And why would you ask me that? I retort.

Looking at my chart, she says, Well, your liver enzymes are four times above normal levels, which is one indication of heavy drinking. I’ll want to re-test your blood in a week.

Great. A future trip to see another phlebotomist. At least she is very direct. I inform her, I was drinking the night before that blood work. I don’t tell her I was drinking the morning of as well.

She sighs, as if she’s heard it all and still isn’t happy about it. All right. Come back in a week for a second round of blood work. Look, don’t drink any alcohol in the meantime. None at all. It will screw up the tests and we’ll just have to do it all again.

Okay, got it, I say, although I’m thinking, Yeah, right, bitch. Like that’s gonna happen.

Day One: Do not drink alcohol for a week! My liver enzymes are out of whack! I feel like shit. So, what am I supposed to do now? I guess I will just think, dwell, be angry, and sit this thing out for a week.

c ttre.jpg

Day Five: If I drink today and not tomorrow then I will have twenty-four hours to clean out my system. That’s a great idea; let’s do it. I still can’t find that desired effect, but it’s better than being dry and miserable.

c ttre.jpg

Back down to the lab I go. The tech draws more blood. It is only a twenty-four hour wait this time. My liver enzymes are now only double what they should be. In my mind my alcohol experiment was successful. I can obviously control it, and I’m ready to check out. The doctor has other ideas. She wants me to see a psychologist in their chemical dependency program, or wait an additional six weeks to see a regular shrink. What a dilemma! Why can’t I get my way with this doctor? I give in again. John Wayne is shaking his head at me in a disappointed cowboy kind of way. So I’m scheduled to see the chemical dependency shrink the following day. I’m desperate. I’m not happy about