12 Step Cruise Addiction Cure – a SCAM
People – People – People!! Do NOT be duped there ‘IS’ a 12 step program but it is NOT for quitting or in any way, shape or form designed nor intended to stop your cruise addiction. IN TRUTH [can I get an AMEN!] IT WILL ‘INCREASE’ YOUR ADDICTION. It will make you bore simple acquiantances with tales of your cruise; coworkers will see your tan and run in the opposite direction screaming, you will raise the value of stock in Kimberly-Clark because you will be buying and using copious amounts of Kleen-X tissue to absorp your tears. [ Yea verily, another AMEN!] The 12 step program is called, officially by every cruise line, the GANGWAY. In this one word you are doubly duped for it is not ‘just’ the GANG; it is also the WAY!! [Oh YES – louder now AMEN!! Hallelujah!]
As one approaches the ship, going thru security lines, up escalators, climbing stairs, working harder, faster, ‘must’ ‘board’ ‘ship’ – heart beat quickens, blood flows, face flushed, forehead sweating, lips parched, throat dry, tongue stuck to roof of mouth, the mind racing, mentally tasting an ‘ICE COLD BEER’, a frozen slushie, fru-fru drink of ‘ANY’ friggin day, you round a corner and there ‘it’ is, the GANGWAY!!! Now your heart pounds, the carry-on bag weighs a ton [Dear Gawd, what the f… did I put in here???] your hands, arms and shoulders ache with a pain no Motrin/Tylenol/Excedrin cocktail could ever relieve, your legs shake, trembling like Atlas carrying the world on his back. You want to DIE! But the GANGWAY calls to you. The siren song of the seas has you in its grip. You extend a feeble hand, grasping the handrail in a desperation few know or understand. With a surge of energy from a place in your gut you put a foot on the GANGWAY and begin your renewal of that exotic, intoxicating process called the 12-step program.
First one slow calculated step [Don’t fall now, you’re too close, steadyyyy.], then another as your grip tightens on the handrail and you now stand with two feet on the umbilical cord that is the GANGWAY! [AMEN my brothers and sisters – HALLELUJAH!!!] You feel its life blood coursing under your feet, a vibration, a rhythm, a pulse – another step, and again, ‘left’, ‘right’, again, closer now, closer……but wait!! A stumble, you hesitate, a fear shakes every fiber of your being, but you cannot, MUST not fail, for the GANG is behind you and this ‘IS’ the WAY and thus it has ever been and ever shall be – [HALLE-LUUU-‘JAH’, BROTHERS!! SISTERS!! AMEN!!!] – reinvigorated, your grip intense, you finish the steps, counting in your mind as each number makes your feet move, 10-11-12!!!
No, my dear fellow addicts, there is no magical 12-step program to ‘END’ your addiction. It’s existence is a scam!! I can only offer, as a balm, this prayer from the “Book of Cruising”, the ‘Siren’s Song’, Chapter 5, Verses 1-11.
The Lord is my captain, I do not get seasick! He leadeth me from one Carlos & Charlies, to the next. Hard Rock Cafes will always sell me trinkets. He saileth me upon still waters one minute then bounces me out of bed onto my butt the next. He filleth my head with visions of mermaids and giveth the weather report from the bridge. Wave swells and temperature readings comfort me. Verily, the barometer, humidity and blow force readings will follow us all the days of our trip. Yea!
Though I walk thru the valley of the shadow of travel brochures I will fear no travel agent’s land based sales pitch. For there is a cruise ship somewhere, going someplace, someday SOON. Surely, deals and discounts will be mine for the picking for the Lord is my captain; I do not get seasick! Amen.
