That Will Hurt Somebody
Vol. 2, Issue 14
There has to be some sort of connection among newly sober people drawn to super-strenuous activity. What else is there to do with all the displaced anger and newfound energy? I wrote about some of my attempts at new sober activities and the subsequent humility that came with those efforts like that time I farted on everybody in karate class.
Despite that ordeal I still had a strong desire to push myself into something uncomfortable like, say, boxing. I took a couple classes at a Foxy Boxing CrossFit gym with a ridiculously built trainer who walked me through some basic pad work. He led kitten-arm through the motions for $90 an hour, but wasn't much of a motivator. I liked it, but it was clear that I was too wimpy and winded to get any real benefit so I stopped wasting money until I regained my cardio strength.
I still wanted to box, though. In the spring of 2017 I was less than two years sober, just barely resurfacing after the Hogan mess, and yet I was about to be a first-time father responsible for a teeny-tiny human in a couple months. Rational first-time father fears aside, I was mostly consumed by an irrational fear of not being able to protect my family if they were attacked. What if I were pushing my son in a stroller and a deranged person tried to steal him? What if our home were invaded by hammer-wielding marauders?
I'd been in a couple fights when I was younger, mostly wild teenage swings during intramural football brawls. I'd also had one minor, hmm, let's call it a "tussle," with a dude on the back of the school bus. All no decisions.
I've definitely been beat up a couple times, though. One time in junior high I got walloped in the face for talking shit about an older, bigger kid in the middle of health class. I got jumped once when I was 18 in the Village while visiting my friend in NYU. Then, when I was 22 I got into a wrong-place/wrong-time situation and had my orbital socket broken and my tooth chipped after a bar fight spilled outside. I thought of all this right up until and after the time my son was born, panicked and humiliated all over again by these awful memories. I'm worthless and afraid.
I'm sure this is why people buy guns, but I just wanted to learn how to properly throw one punch.
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A guy at my AA home group knew a great trainer he met at the meetings who he said would probably be real cheap. His name was Shane Langford, a former Canadian lightweight with buzzard luck and a losing record. In the early 2000's Shane inexplicably landed at the Wild Card Boxing gym in Los Angeles and became a charity case of world-renowned trainer Freddie Roach. Eventually, Freddie began to let him train amateurs and little kids, but also let him observe ringside as Freddie trained the likes of Manny Pacquiao. He was rarely paid, but if he swept up and did other janitorial work at the gym, Freddie allowed him to stay there and shower. If Shane acted up, though, he was out.
He never stuck to that rule. He got in too many fights at Wild Card, mostly with other boxers inside the gym he perceived as taking advantage of Freddie. Eventually, he was let go and he was homeless, although he continued to sleep near the Wild Card gym mostly in unoccupied stairwells, hopeful that Freddie would let him back in his inner circle. It never happened.
During the day, though, Shane would hang out at my AA meeting, usually sitting in the back area taking up space while everyone else worked the program. Shane was a drunk, but never committed to being sober. As long as he was homeless, he wouldn't stop drinking because he didn't see the point.
He was at most 5'5", with matted dirty hair, a mangy beard, swollen hands, and a right eye that was completely closed, a result of a brutal beating he took during one of his final amateur bouts. His teeth were either brown, broken or missing. He carried around a giant book bag full of most of his belongings which were mostly oversized clothes and a pair of hand-me down boxing mitts. He had a cellphone, though.
I don't know why I agreed to train with him, but he just had something unique about him that drew me in and who was I to judge? Plus, he could beat people up.
We set up a time to meet. He told me to meet him at at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery at 1 p.m. the next day. I thought that was a strange place to train, but I figured maybe there was a temporary co-op space available for personal trainers or something.
There was not. It was just me and Shane, working the pads on the front lawn of a cemetery in plain view of a busy intersection on Santa Monica Boulevard. Since Hollywood Forever is a final resting place for many celebrities, it's also one of the most heavily trafficked tourist spots in Los Angeles. Our second session was cut short by a dumbfounded security guard who politely asked us to leave. "You can't do whatever it is you're doing here!"
Then we moved to an alley about half a mile away. We did half a session there, eventually moving over to Griffith Park. It occurred to me that we only went places where Shane knew he wouldn't be hassled by cops or anyone who typically shooed him away.
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After a couple months, the training with Shane became one of the most important parts of my recovery. So whenever anyone asked what I'd been up to lately, I'd always tell them about my boxing training. But if my wife was nearby she'd wave her hands and interject so there were no misconceptions about it.
"He fights with a homeless man with trench foot in the woods or in cemetery lots!"
It was a strange setup. But once or twice a week I'd meet Shane in the park and we'd do an hour's worth of work. He had some freakish power and an encyclopedic knowledge of boxing techniques used in most of the championship fights. He was also problematically racist and sexist. He'd been stabbed more than a dozen times in his life, yet he still would never back down from anyone. (I met Freddie Roach's talent agent one time who knew Shane and said that Freddie once called him "the best street fighter he'd ever seen.")
He'd have to cancel on some occasions because he'd spend the night in jail for assault or being drunk on the sidewalk, his gear stolen or some other calamity happening directly as a result.
He was never bothered too much by all that drama. The thing he feared the most was the Illuminati.
"They run everything, man. Even the traffic lights."
He was a bit unsettling, obviously, but I loved training with him. He knew my limitations, but took my one-punch goal seriously. He told me other ways to defend myself or my family from imaginary marauders, too.
This is a rundown of things I remember:
A guy your size, you want to use your head. Just push your head right up into someone's chin, break their fucking teeth...WHAM! Or you could slip underneath punches and just bite their fucking chest. Just BITE down on their chest and don't let go. But stay low. You're a small guy so use that to your advantage. Stay low, work the body and once they dip their head just use the hook right across their face...WHAM! Click 'em right on the chin...BLAM.! Night-night. I don't care how big they are, they'll fall like a sack of rocks.
As far as the personal training part of it, Shane usually winged it. We'd do about 30 minutes of weird calisthenics sometimes, but he'd usually get bored and suggest I get into shape on my own time. I'd get texts from him at all hours with suggested exercises like "75 Hindu push-ups and 30 wall walks" with little or no explanation on how to do them. He said the best training exercise was to "run for a full mile as fast as you can on the highway."
We trained for almost a whole year and eventually I got better. I developed an almost-decent right hook and one time Shane stopped the middle of our training to mention it.
"Now THAT will hurt someone."
Honestly, that was one of the best days of my life.
Shane got into another wild fight, this time it was either in Ralph's parking lot or somewhere near one of the encampments all along Vine Street, but the cops came and he was charged with assault. He decided the best way to avoid serious jail time was to head back to Canada and sneak across the border.
I did a video interview with him right after he told me that and asked him about his arrest (it was for "assaulting and battering people"); who his favorite celebrity client was ("Dave Chappelle. He also hates the Illuminati"); and how he's still alive if he's been stabbed 13 times.
"The people who stabbed me were more interested in surviving than killing me–except for the guys that stabbed me in the back. They were surprised when I didn't fall because I just kept fighting."
I have no idea if he ever made it to Canada. He stopped answering texts a little while afterwards and I'm sure I'll never see him again, but he will always be one of the most important people who helped with my recovery. He taught me that one punch and never made me feel stupid about it. – AJD
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Today we have an interview with my friend, Justin Power, who used his newly sober time to throw himself into CrossFit. He says it might be the most important part of his program. You can find that interview in the feature section below.
I Love Feeling Alive
By The Small Bow
Faceless Narrator
Here’s an interview with Justin Power. As far as cults go, CrossFit is probably neck and neck with AA. (Just kidding, just kidding.) Walk through the pain to heal the pain.
Did you begin CrossFit as a sober activity or was this something you did while still out?
CrossFit began as a sober activity. When I was drinking, I sort of looked in shape, but only because I ate one meal a day and my abs were slightly visible. I was weak as shit. I started fitness almost immediately after getting sober and bounced around from weightlifting to boxing and then on to CrossFit about a year into my sobriety.
Do you feel like this is an extension of your recovery? Or, do you feel like you do CrossFit 'alcoholically' and it's just your way of acting out?
Oh. I guess I never considered that it could be both.
On the surface, it's as important to my recovery as anything else I do. There's a lot of overlap between CrossFit and the program. Pick any common criticism out of a hat and it can probably apply to both. Self righteous, cult-like, holier-than-thou, you name it. The reality is that both depend heavily on community and accountability and I was severely lacking them in my life. I used to isolate so much when I was drinking, particularly at the end. I had a lot of shame and self-hatred and I was ready to do whatever it took to get my life back. There's that "Seinfeld" episode where George starts doing the exact opposite of what he'd normally do and everything starts going his way. I took the same approach. And you know what? It worked. I still had some athletic ability and I caught on pretty quickly.
Despite what you might think about a CrossFit gym and it's members, everybody was incredibly welcoming, encouraging, and supportive. (Like meetings, it's helpful to find the right one for you. Seriously.) Also, CrossFit really works. If you show up, you will get fitter. You will become more confident. You will continue to surprise yourself week to week, month to month, year to year. I'm four years into CrossFit, five into sobriety, and I am not sure which has changed my life more. But I do know this–for me, one can't exist without the other.
That said, it's a bit of a replacement addiction. It gets me high and I crave that. The endorphin rush is very real and on days when I unexpectedly don't get to go to the gym, I'm an absolute brat about it. Workouts typically get posted the night before at 8pm and when it's a particularly punishing workout I look forward to it like I'd look forward to a party or bender. Acting out is a good way to put it. When I drank and used, I had no fear of overdose and I loved overconsumption and staring down huge amounts of chemicals without flinching. CrossFit is incredibly hard, it's not for everybody, and I like that about it. I'd guess both have to do with some form of overcompensation/low self-esteem that I continue to battle. Like trying to prove that I'm a badass. How lame!
How much do you enjoy physical pain? Do you get off on it?
I actually think I hate pain. But I love surviving pain. I love feeling alive which so often seems like something I don't experience the same way normal people do. What I get off on is taking on an objectively difficult challenge, rushing toward it, and conquering it. Until I got sober, I shirked responsibility my entire life taking the easy way out every fucking time. I simply don't do that anymore. CrossFit gives me an hour a day to prove to myself that I'm good enough and I'm not the loser I used to be. It completely validates me. If it was a half an hour on a treadmill at Planet Fitness it just wouldn't have the same effect. And please don't get me wrong–if a half hour on a treadmill is all somebody does, that's great! I'm all for movement and physical fitness any way you can get it, but for me to repair my broken self, it just has to be this. The pain creates a meditative state that less intense exercise doesn't replicate. When you reach an anaerobic level of training, it's nearly impossible to focus on anything but the task before you and the movement to be completed. When I'm finished, it's a reboot for my brain where my baggage doesn't seem as important anymore.
What happens if you get injured? Do you think that would be a huge setback for your recovery or do you think you're emotionally prepared to handle it?
I hate to even think about it. Would I drink? I doubt it. Would I become depressed? Probably. I have enough alternative practices in my recovery that I feel confident would keep me sober, but the key part of all of this, from why we use to how we heal (I think?) comes down to self-esteem and loving ourselves. CrossFit fast-tracks this for me and without it, I'd have to work a little bit harder. I've factored this into how I train now versus how I trained when I started. I'm much more comfortable and aware of where my boundaries are and I'm not as willing to push it to the point where my safety is compromised. I'm also going to be 40 this year and at this point in my life, my priority isn't to go to the CrossFit Games (impossible) so much as it is to do CrossFit for the rest of my life (possible!).
What have you learned about yourself and your sobriety doing CrossFit?
I've learned that I don't have to be afraid of doing hard work. It's dragging your ass out of bed, in the dark and cold of winter to go do an incredibly hard workout at 5AM. It's taking that very first step into a meeting or a gym on day one. It's making amends with somebody you're terrified to confront. Cold calling somebody to ask for something you have no business asking for. You dread it, you lose sleep over it, and you make up every excuse as to why you shouldn't do it–why you don't actually need to do it. You tell yourself that tomorrow's probably better.
But on the day you decide to do it, you feel better when you're done. Every time. So you go back the next day and it's still hard but it's a little bit easier than the day before. And days turn into weeks, weeks into months, and so on. When you regularly do hard things, you gradually build an immunity to them. Your threshold for pain and suffering rises. You become less afraid. One of CrossFit's tenets is that you're either in a state of fitness or a state of decrepitude. It's a bit heavy handed, but it's also probably true. I think that applies to recovery as well. We're either doing the work and getting better or we're receding. I'm done searching for that perfect thing that will make me feel ok for I know it doesn't exist. I just want to keep doing the hard work. It finally feels good.
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Illustration by Edith Zimmerman
