Close Call

I came close today. Too close. Scared me, but I am glad that it happened because it helps me to remember I must stay vigilant. It also is a reminder of how much progress has been made this past year. Not too long ago I would I have been sitting here wondering how this happened and feeling guilty for failing to stay clean once again.

Today’s main event? Nick’s funeral. What a waste of such a wonderful and gorgeous man. His sister asked me to sing at the funeral. Now those who may be reading this who have known me a long time may remember that I used to sing quite well. Some readers may know why I can’t anymore. I have been told that my voice is not bad now, but since I can’t do what I used to be able to do, I hate my voice. As a result, I haven’t sung in a long time, leaving my vocal chops weak and out of shape. But I agreed to do it. It’s not about sounding professional or even good as much as honoring the wishes of the family and the memory of my friend, right? Whatever.

Two funerals in two days. It’s too much. I hate the way drugs and alcohol have taken so many people from my life, and I’m not even thinking about all the people I pushed away while active in my own addiction. Too many faces too many times. The stress has been so high. I had forgotten how much this hurts, partly because I did everything I could do to add to my body’s chemicals to avoid said pain in the past. So, I was already a wreck by the time I stood up mere feet from my friend’s coffin.

Even when you have a good voice and it’s in good shape it’s hard to cry and sing at the same time. I fought it as much as I could, but even that effort effects the voice. I butchered it. Both songs. And as I did, regrets flooded my soul. I destroyed my voice. I did it, and did it on purpose. Sure, I was messed up when I did, but that doesn’t change the result of my actions. I hurt my throat not far into the second song, which made the whole thing that much worse. It took everything I had to stand there and attempt to finish the song as anger and, yes, self-pity overwhelmed me. What a stupid way to act and think. This was not about me. It was about Nick and the people he left behind. I feel so ashamed that I sunk so far into myself.

Within a half-hour of the disaster I just described I had some magic feel-no-more powder in my pocket. I know what I was feeling, but what was I thinking? I couldn’t say. I need to reflect on that some to help make sure it doesn’t happen again any time soon. I carried that crap around in my pocket for about two and a half hours before I brought myself to flush it. So close to blowing it less than three weeks before I hit my one-year mark. But I am not beating myself up over the close call. The fact is that I did stay clean. I didn’t use it. And that is a miracle. There was a time when even hesitation would have been impossible. Alcohol and drugs were my Borg….Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated. But today I am free. Not well, not immune, but free. And as long as I keep working toward improvement, making positive steps and changes in my life, and most importantly, maintain my relationship with God I can remain free. As long as that happens, I will only grow more able to handle the curves life throws at me without having the temptation to try to escape.

Shadows

I should be asleep. I want to be asleep. I need rest so badly. I feel as though I haven’t slept in a week, and considering that I have only had about 12 hours of sleep in the last four days, that’s a lot closer to the truth than I care to admit. I’m not twenty anymore, and I simply do not hold up well going on and on like the blasted Energizer Bunny. Especially since I no longer engage in the use of chemicals to aid in such craziness.

It’s been such a horrible and devastating and long and draining week. As if I needed any, I received not one but two reminders in three days that addiction is deadly. A very good friend of mine lost his fight with this beast early this week. I went to his visitation at the funeral home tonight, and I can’t tell you much I felt like I had stumbled in to a bad Twilight Zone episode. It just doesn’t feel real. It damn sure doesn’t feel right. No, all is not right with the world tonight. Telling the girl my friend loved that she’d never see him alive again broke my heart. I have been told I helped her as she received that horrible news, but I don’t feel like I did. I felt so helpless and powerless to do anything that would make it right. Because that just can’t be made right.

And one was never enough with my drinking and drugging, so it shouldn’t surprise me that it didn’t stop with one when it came to the addiction monster taking lives from me. Yesterday, I found out that an old friend of mine, something of an ex actually as we had hooked up a few times and partied together many, overdosed and died. His funeral is coming. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to handle this. It’s too much too soon too close together.

I feel my world has been spun and tipped over and shaken. It’s like fate picked up the snow globe of my life and gave it a good shake to see what would happen. As my life splits into pieces and I see everything spiraling out of control I imagine a twisted fate fairy watching the scene and going, “Cool.” I just need a break. I can’t take much more of this.

I have a song running through my head that just won’t go away. It ends with a prayer that is my prayer, because this is so how I feel right now. Hurt, scared, confused, afraid, angry, scared, determined, afraid…..

“Shadows” performed by Rez Band, written by Glenn Kaiser

…You, you chased the shadows because your hopes and dreams have been lost to the night…

Johnny's dead and buried now out on the edge of town
Drove by his grave the other day, that's when the fear came down
I hate the night that took his life, but now it's haunting me
I may be young, may be confused but I gotta be free

God, are You there, can You hear me now?
Show me how to hope
Lost in the dark on a dead end road, please save me from myself

Lord, You, You took the shadows - all my fears and doubt and brought me out of the night
Lord, You , You take the shadows - give me hope and love and turn my darkness to light


That's the part of the song that I was talking about, but the whole thing speaks to me. If you want to give it a listen here's a link...Shadows by Rez Band

My quest for acceptance changed direction

I believe that God wants, no intends, each of us to have a life of contentment and joy. I just don’t know very many people who seem to have found that as a normal state of life. I know that I didn’t. And still don’t, at least not to the extent that I would like. I have tasted this contentment and joy at times, and like any good addict, I want more and more and more.

For almost as long as I can remember I have lived as a hunter, seeking to fill an inner yearning I didn’t quite understand. Trying to fill the God-shaped hole in my life that I didn’t even know I had. That emptiness in my life forced me, when I couldn’t bring myself to see God as the answer, to look everywhere, anywhere, for people who would love me. My desire for the acceptance of others transformed me into a performing monkey, making myself miserable and destroying my life doing whatever I could to find that fleeting moment of satisfaction, contentment, hope for love in the praise and attention I found in others.

But no matter who or how many times I found “love” and acceptance from others, no matter how much attention I received, it never satisfied for long. I don’t believe it is possible to find lasting fulfilling peace while continually trying to prove myself to others, to be who or what someone else wants or needs. This desire to be loved and accepted that drives me all too often is a symptom of the root of my emotional pain, my need for self-worth.

My significance, my validation, my self-worth can not be found in the acceptance or attention of others. It must come from knowing that I am special to my God. My Higher Power wants me to have a life joyous, happy, and free. But that happy, joyous and free life is lived in a real world filled with pain, rejection and failure. So God never said that happy, joyous and free meant problem free. I can not find that wondrous trio if my expectations take me to an unrealistic place of thinking my life should be, will be, or even can be problem free.

No, life is a voyage through problems and stress that interfere with my personal search for value and worth, but a life worth living is experiencing the love, forgiveness, and power of God in my life in the midst of these problems and stressors. It’s not life without storms, but the freedom to dance in the rain.

My life today, that life worth living doesn’t consist of being able to avoid problems, but on my ability to apply specific solutions to those problems. Not solutions of my own design or birthed from my own ideas, those solutions have failed time and time again over the years. No the solution that works in my life today is the one that comes from my relationship with my Higher Power.

Today, thanks to the tools God has given me and the relationship I have found there, my idea of self-worth goes far beyond the idea of simply feeling good about myself. While I am not entirely there yet, but more and more each day, more than I ever have before, I am finding my self-worth based on a more truthful picture, an image that has both strength and humility, my strong points, which do exist, as well as my character defects which are also still there. I don’t need to inflate my ego by enlarging the perception of the strengths, nor do I have to beat myself up over the shortcomings. I am who I am today. Tomorrow I hope to be a better man. But regardless of if I succeed or fail to improve over the next twenty-four hours, I know that my God loves me, just as I am right now, and that is the attention and acceptance I need today. I can love myself because of that love I know my Higher Power has for me. I don’t need the attention, acceptance, or approval of other people to determine my self-worth today, and for that I am grateful.