I think that this book is a valuable contribution even on the rare occasions I disagree with it, and I deeply appreciate the great bulk of it, but since I do not trust myself to understand, or to offer interpretations normal enough to be of use to other people—lack of normality is a great blessing, but only up to a point—I will not try to explain or choose among his points, especially about religion, which I think I would distort; instead I will simply talk about myself.

I have been diagnosed as schizoaffective, but this is not a useful way to think about myself, as it merely describes things that can go wrong with me, and not why and how not to have that. I don’t mean that it’s too negative; I can be a mess. I have excessive anxiety, and unstable moods and delicate nerves—mostly just deep and abiding anxiety. And I can have certain disordered “communications”, (with whom I will not say), although having since ceased to desire these they have long since gradually went away, although I suppose what remains is a certain sensitivity (to what I will not say), not always suitable to passing for normal if I choose to talk—being American and selfish, you know, and a certain schizotypal personality, clinical weirdness. I’m also just plain not very social, and as I’m creative it’s hard sometimes not to Imagine people saying things they “meant to say”, which used to make me very angry. It still can be distracting. But although I don’t dismiss all of psychology what I’ve read about schizophrenia isn’t very helpful. The meds are good, so I suppose there’s technical studies in that, since if your senses are telling you unstable and unreliable things it makes sense to stop “communicating” and sensing certain things. But a lot of schizophrenia writing (‘Surviving Schizophrenia’) is just modernity’s fear and anger and dismissal of the past as unreconstructable—who needs that. Everybody’s a victim, right. You’d think they were monolingual Yiddish speakers in the Midwest.

Anyway, religions like Judaism (and Christianity, not so uniquely, I know) and psychological systems like the 12 Steps are important to me. One of the good things about the traditional Steps, in this book, (and not Richard Roth’s book on this subject), is the social aspect—you need other people. (I’m terrible at this. People are so random: little balls of chaos.)

Anyway, what I really, really learned though, above everything else, is that I’m codependent. When I was actively schizophrenic I presented a lot like an addict of various things: unchastity, disordered eating, but these things are not my real problems. I’m really addicted to disordered relationships with people—both my parents, especially my father; also, to some extent, isolation, which used to deeply frighten me. When I started to recover from codependency, I found that I could gain information about things, like why to eat the right way or why sex doesn’t solve your problems. Also, non-addicts aren’t usually totally pure but they react to non-purity differently; if I have an occasional indiscretion of the heart’s eye or the stomach’s reach, it’s irrational and probably foolish, most of the time, but not Absolutely regrettable to the point where it ruins my life like it did when I was an obese dirty romantic. It comes, but it goes quickly. Codependency, on the other hand, IS the real problem. It doesn’t go away. I can choose not to be impolite to my mother or fight with my father. I can’t choose not to have these thoughts about him…. (Even when I argued with her, it was because she reminded me of him.) I can choose not to willfully empower the destructive hateful malicious side of myself that hates where I come from, but I can’t press a button on a computer and wake up with a different personality. I don’t have that power, so I surrender. My name is Teddy, and I’m a codependent.

Afterword: I’ve since switched to ACA, which is an even better fit or me, although I met my one-friend-so-far, friend 1/2, at CoDA.

Reading this helped me dissolve some untrue cultural stories about alcoholics. Alkies aren’t people with less capacity, whether spiritual or intellectual, and they’re not people to whom the idea of the holy has never dawned. This guy doesn’t say it quite like this, but really it is like God sends them on a mission to greater holiness, so like Jonah they immediately set off in the opposite direction. Some people are just destined to be “Much Better”, or “Much Worse”, because they just can’t join the normals’ club, so to speak.