Hope from the Ashes : A Recovery Story

I want to tell you a story. It is a story about a young boy who took decades to grow up into a man. It is a story of a broken soul who ran from a loving God year after year and who always found a reason (or excuse) to hide from the issues of life and who created mess after mess trying to do things his way, which was the wrong way.

This is a story of a boy who always thought he knew what was best for him and each and every time, he would shatter his life and the lives of those around him as he would burn his life and himself to the ground and go down in a blaze of chaotic glory, a chaos filled with addiction, self-harm, and utter misery.

That boy was me and the story is my own.

It all started when I was a lanky, shy and fearful child growing up just outside of Boston in a home of two women who did their very best to raise me and give me a good life. It was a hard childhood and one that I would not trade for the world as it made me who I am today, flaws and all, I would not change the past as the past creates our present and the present as corny as it sounds, is a great gift.

I was broken from the start. My mom had her own psychological issues but did her best to care for me and my grandma, she was a saint, she took care of everyone and never complained about anything. She was such a strong and fearless woman and I miss her very much, she showed me what it meant to keep going and to never give up.

I had a hard childhood as I said but I just dealt with it and did my very best to push forward. I did not have many friends, I had a few, I just was kind of a loner and did my best to get through school and make the best of life, I guess many kids felt the same and still feel that way and I was certainly one of them as I grew up.

I will say that despite all of this, I did not pick up a substance until I was around 17-years old, minus the occasional sip on a beer of an uncle as a kid in the backyard or what have you. However, once I was in those late teens and there was an opportunity to partake in substances, I was off to the races and so it began — a journey of drug and alcohol use and abuse that lasted for the next 27.5 years.

Over that time, I had a lot of bottoms and a lot of wreckage and none of it I can be proud of, but all of it made me who I am today and as they say, “we do not regret the past or wish to shut the door on it”, and I can certainly say that about my past and about the path that I have been on during this recovery and in my addictions.

I took my first drink at age 16/17 and then it was on to drugs and all that goes with all of it. It took me a long time to find recovery, or shall I say, a long time to find lasting recovery. I would get sober and then go back out and this was my pattern for a long time. I would get some consequences and then go into recovery and then when the familiar itches to get loaded came back on, I would go back out.

I did this for DECADES.

I am happy to say that in just about a week and a half, I will have one-year of continuous sobriety from drugs and alcohol.

I have had some bottoms, some bad ones. Two out of the hundreds of them I remember are my last one and the one where I almost did not survive and make it out of alive.

It was in February of 2011 when I used and used meth for nearly a week and ended up at the end of that insane run flatlining in the emergency room in Reno, Nevada after my heart rate hit 304 beats per minute. I died on that table and God gave me another chance. This was not the first time that this happened either.

My last time using I was at a funeral of a family member and I collapsed and almost had yet another stroke. God spoke to me at that funeral and told me that I was running out of chances and that soon would be my own funeral and that this was it.

On this day, I heard God louder than I had ever before and I walked back into the rooms of recovery broken and willing. More willing than I ever had been before to do whatever was needed to stay clean and whatever it took is what I have been doing.

It was not easy, not at all. I am writing this for a couple of reasons and these reasons are as much for you as they are for me and each of them are equally important for myself and for the newcomer.

Reason #1 To show the newcomer that recovery is possible.

Reason #2 To remind myself of how far I have come throughout this process.

One- year of sobriety. Fully and honestly. This is a BIG deal for me.

I am sharing my story to help others who may be struggling to get sober, especially during this difficult time that we all are going through with the pandemic and isolation and everything that goes with all of that and all the challenges it poses.

I have used drugs and alcohol for a very long time. It started out as fun and then it was fun with problems and then at the very end it was just problems and insanity. We have heard this explained like this many times in AA and NA meetings and it is so true and for sure what I have experienced throughout the years that I drank and used.

I have written books in between my bouts with drinking and using and many of those books are political and there are people who for obvious reasons do not care for my political views and who do go ahead and use my past of being in active addiction against me and to discredit me, but I am an open book and will continue to be so.

Speaking of politics, many of my articles are political, but I am a firm believer in the principles of recovery and one of those principles is that politics is an outside issue and has no place in recovery discussions and issues, but I just wanted to mention that because of my views, many attack my past as an addict and alcoholic and use it against me.

I am okay with my past though as it has made me who I am today and I can use it as a positive today because I no longer live there and I no longer am that hopeless drunk and dope fiend that I was for so long. Today I live a different way of life, a way of life that is about service and unity and most of all, a way of life that is about living life on life’s terms.

I know what that life of active addiction is like and that is why I am so open and honest about it. I always hope that by sharing where I have been that I can show others that it is possible for them too and that they can also find this new way of living that is working for me. I find that by sharing my experience, strength, and hope that I am able to feel better about my day and give others hope for a better way for them.

These changes did not happen overnight, they never do.

I worked a long time to achieve sobriety and in that process I would relapse and relapse. I was never able to get it and continued to take that first drink and then use and because of this I always got what I got and that is because i continued to do what I did.

I used my drug of choice meth for close to 16 years. I used alcohol for even longer than that. I used everything else in between and I got a lot of things that happened to me because of all of that and most of it was not good and did not give me what I sought, although much of the time I truly thought that it did.

I am writing this as a way to remember where I came from and to show others that they too can recover. It is important that the newcomer get a message of hope and is shown that we can recover from a seemingly hopeless state of mind, body, and spirit. It is important that we get to share with others where we came from and show just how we did it and how we continue to do it one day at a time.

People judge me for being an addict and that is fine as I am in good company being that more than twenty-one million Americans suffer from some sort of addiction. There are so many addicts and alcoholics in this nation as well as around the world and we all have a voice, we all have a story, we all have a path. It is important to distinguish between a sober addict/alcoholic and one who is not sober and I am a sober one and one who works a program of recovery and I say that proudly.

This is my journey. This is my story. This is who I am.

I have a year coming up. Saying that gives me chills as like what I once saw on a medallion, “I love the person I am today because I fought to become him” and that is my truth today. This is who I am and I am sharing who I am and where I have been so I can show others that recovery is possible and that change can happen if we are willing to work for it.

I have had multiple heart attacks, strokes, been homeless more times than I can count, have had drug induced psychosis, and much more from the years and years of abusing drugs and alcohol and at times, I thought I would die and even did a few times from an overdose. God had other plans though and he gave me another chance at this life and for that I am forever grateful to my higher power for this 10,000th chance to get it right.

It was around this time last year when I was trapped in utter chaos and insanity and I did not think that I would make it back into the rooms of AA and have this new life. I used to live and lived to use. It was my solution to life, it was how I had fun, it was how I dealt with pain and difficulties, and it was how I existed for so long. I did not know any other way and then I did know another way, but did not want to do the work required to stay clean and sober.

Today I have problems (a lot of them actually) but I have this solution, a spiritual solution to all of the problems of life. I try my best to live in the solution and not the problem these days. I try and listen for the similarities and not the differences and I try and do the next right thing, whatever that may be.

I do not do things perfectly. I mess up still and sometimes I mess up quite a lot and fall short of the glory of God, but I still get back up and look at my part and where I went wrong and try and do better the next time and show the tolerance that I myself crave from others. I have character defects and I have shortcomings but I do my best to do better and be better and because of that I get this daily reprieve from active addiction and alcoholism and for that I am for sure thankful.

I will say that because I am clean today a lot has changed. I still have issues with financial insecurity and struggles, I still deal with loneliness, I deal with fears, I deal with guilt and depression, and I still have issues and defects of character that plague me at certain times, but there are things that do not happen anymore because I do not take that first drink.

I no longer end up in the back of ambulances or in ERs.

I no longer end up homeless.

I no longer peak out of my blinds for the cops or live in fear.

I no longer live a hopeless and useless life.

I no longer end up in mental institutions.

I thank my sponsor, my best friend/ex-wife, the program, and my higher power, and everyone who never gave up on me for the changes in me and for another chance at recovery and at life. I never thought that I would get a year but in just a few days I will have that year and I will have what I never achieved in my years of in and out of the rooms of recovery and I am beyond grateful for that.

As the saying goes. We DO Recover. It is absolutely true and we remain that way by continuing to the work and continuing to put one foot in front of the other and never give up. I absolutely believe this to be true and I am forever grateful that my God sees the strength and specialness in me that I do not always see in myself.

Today, I love me! Today I am accepting myself, my sexuality (what I used over for so long), and my place in this world and for the first time I can honestly say that I am okay with me and confident in who I am becoming day after day and I finally believe in the following quote that I love… “Do you believe in the day that you were born?”

I do today. I do.

I believe that I am where I am at today because of the following …

Action

Faith

Acceptance

With these and with continuing to take the next step .. this journey will continue.

At last, I have risen from the ashes and out of the mess that I made of my life and I have hope and that is the real miracle of all of it, that today I have hope and I have peace!