Happy 6th Birthday DJ and What I Have Learned

Just a quick blog to make everyone that reads this aware that my son, DJ was born at 11:58 AM on this very day, 6 years ago. It has flown by so fast, but there are a few things that I am very proud of that have happened in that 6 years. They are things that have made me a better parent, helped him become a more positive little man or both. I would like to share them with the hope that what I share could possibly help someone else.

For starters, his mother and I get along. Not only do her and I get along, but I get along with her husband and she gets along with my wife. It actually goes beyond that. For example, on Friday my wife and I took DJ and his baby sister to Silver Dollar City. We were joined by his mother, her husband and his two children. We had a blast and got to share that fun together. How great that my son gets to see all of us get along well.

When he was born I was an alcoholic. In fact, my alcoholism got worse the year he was born when my father committed suicide. Since he was born I have stopped drinking, smoking cigarettes, cussing, going to bars and getting into fights. I can actually set a good example for my son. I could have never done that before. In fact, when he was born I was a pretty good example of how not to act.

I married a wonderful lady who also does not drink, smoke or cuss and never has. She also sets a good example for DJ. We dated for a year before we got married, and the first time we had sex was on our wedding night. That is something that we can use to encourage him to wait until marriage. I treat my wife like a lady, and because of that my son has picked up a cute habit. He will open the door for her to get into our car, and holds the door for others when we are at stores and restaurants.

I do not listen to music that contains bad language or immoral things in it, because all I listen to is worship music. My son's mother is the same way. My son sings songs that praise God and talk about living moral and upstanding lives. He does not hear at home the garbage that promotes drinking, drug use, violence and immorality. That also gives him a better chance to grow up to be a good man.

The most important change that I made was turning my life over to Christ after living as an Agnostic since I was in the 5th grade. It happened before my son turned 2, so he will have no memory of the wreck I once was. Since the day I turned my life over to God I have not drank, smoked, done drugs, got into a fight (outside of a ring) or been promiscuous. I had what could be called a Pauline Conversion, and my life has changed forever.

I have learned several things along the way, as you can see. God is great, and truly believing in him and allowing him to influence your life will make you a better person. What I am saying is always put God first in all that you do. It will trickle down. You WILL become a better husband/wife, mother/father, son/daughter, friend, employee, neighbor and person! Treat everyone the way you would want them to treat your children, and never do anything that you would not want your child to either see or do themselves. That is all it takes, and by all I mean everything.

In closing, I have added another addition to my family, a daughter named Addison Grace. My son dotes on her. He is awesome with her. He is a good student and a good athlete, a good brother and a good son. I am so proud of him. I hope that between his mother, his step-dad, his step-mom and me he is given the foundation he needs to become a great man. He is already a great kid.

02/12/2013: My Bipolar Day

I do not say that my day is bipolar to to downplay the dangers or significance of bipolarism. In fact, probably quite the opposite. I actually know a lot about bipolar disorder. My grandmother, an immigrant from Germany, was diagnosed with manic depression psychosis. My father was diagnosed with manic depression and I was diagnosed with bipolarism. They are all names for the same thing. You could say it is a family tradition.

I also have a Bachelors degree in Psychology and a Master's degree in Social Work that was followed up by becoming a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. Part of my job is diagnosing mental health disorders, including bipolarism. Not only have I have lived bipolarism, I have studied it.

That said, life can be bipolar. It can go from extreme happiness to extreme depression with the blink of an eye. For me, today is one of those days. I have much happiness as an anniversary and much pain as an anniversary today. It is my choice how I look at the pain and happiness as well as what I focus on. Life happens, and it either makes us better or bitter. Which is a choice you have to make.

I will start with the positive. 6 months ago today, Addison Grace was born. She is one of the happiest babies I have ever been around. Her smile melts my heart. She is a huge blessing, and completed my family. I have an amazing wife, a wonderful son who is a proud big brother, and my angel Addison. She also scares me. People tell me she will have me more wrapped than my son does. If that is possible that is not going to be a good thing.

5 years ago today, my dad lost his struggle with bipolarism. My father committed suicide. I will not get into how  he did it here, but he used 3 different methods that each by itself would have killed him. He wanted to die. I had talked to him the night before and he was as depressed and down as I had ever heard him. The video tape showing him the next morning, shopping for the things he would use to kill him, showed him with a big smile on his face. That is where I find my solace.

My father had yo-yoed for his entire life, struggling with his disorder. He knew as he shopped that his struggle was over. He would finally be released from the roller coaster, and that made him happy. At the time, watching the video at the police station did very little to cheer me up. It helped me later.

At first I was shattered and I struggled. My drinking was already nightly and to the point of shakes if I went too long without drinking. It got worse. I took his suicide personally at first, and made it about me. How could he do this to me. I finally realized that he was miserable and did not see a way out. He was in pain, the kind of pain I can only imagine. He did not want to hurt anymore, yet I made it about me.

When I attempted suicide years ago, it was not about anyone but me. I was miserable and saw no way out of my addiction, so I just gave up. At least dead I could relax, I could be free. It took me a while to remember that and see that it was the same for my dad. He was wrong just like I was, but he felt that was the only way to overcome his struggles. He forgot about the casualties he left behind.

Suicide is not a victimless crime. It leaves people behind that blame themselves, wondering why they were not enough or if they could have said something different that might have changed the outcome. The truth is, the dead are dead. They have moved on. We are the survivors, the ones who are still alive. We need to find a way to move on ourselves.

I eventually gained the realization that his suicide was what he felt was best, and that if he was struggling that much I was glad he wasn't struggling anymore. I realized that my father had given me another tool in my counseling tool belt. I gained empathy for those left behind when a loved one committed suicide I did not have before his death. It also was a major portion of my upcoming rock bottom that saw me step away from alcohol/drugs/cigarettes/pre-marital sex and never look back.

In the end, my father's death helped me get sober. I am sure my wife is grateful, as are my son and daughter. I would not have them if I was still in my addiction. I still miss my dad, but I remember that he did the best he could and I loved him very much for it. I still do. Without him, I am  not the husband and father I am today. It is amazing how sometimes the worst experiences give us the wisdom and strength we need to grow into who we were born to be.

Today I celebrate all that my father did for me, and I focus forward on my amazing daughter. Two of the most important people in my life. I guess today is not that bad after all!

Alcohol........GOOD or BAD?

I had a friend ask me if I thought that it was okay for Christians to drink alcohol. I feel that is a pretty loaded question, because it is a very difficult question to answer definitively. Is it okay for Christians to drink alcohol? In all actuality, is it really okay for anybody to drink alcohol? Yes, but with all kinds of exceptions and qualifiers. There is simply no straight answer to this one, but here is my opinion on it. Drinking is not a bad thing in and of itself. It is a lot like money. Money isn't bad, but the love of money is. Same with alcohol, it is not bad but the love and obsession of alcohol is.

Here is where drinking is okay, but there are still exceptions. If you chose to have a drink with dinner or during a game, then drinking is fine. If you mow your lawn or go out camping and have a couple of drinks, I think that is okay. Dinner party at your house, card game, etc. then one or two drinks is okay. That is the end of my short list.

I am not your judge, so don't ask me to be. Based on my personal experiences I think that drinking usually leads to people making horrible choices. The truth is, if you have doubts, than you should not do it. If you have to ask whether or not something is wrong, best to not engage in the activity at all. We are not trying to see what we can get away with. That is not how we should live our lives. Now for the people who I will tell it is wrong to drink, not judging..................I'm just saying!

If you have several drinks and then chose to drive, then you should not drink. You could end up killing someone. If you have a drug or alcohol problem, then you should never drink, period. In the Narcotic's Anonymous "How It Works," it says that looking at alcohol as different has caused many people to relapse. Alcohol is a drug. I for one found that out the hard way. I never had a drinking problem until I quit doing drugs.

If you cannot always control your drinking, then drinking is a bad thing. If you say that you are going out to have just one beer and going home then end up drinking to intoxication, that is an indicator that you need to not drink. Alcohol actually retards your prefrontal cortex's orbital lobe, which is the decision making part of your brain (This is also the area of the brain that they believe is damaged in a lot of violent criminals).

What that means is in the cartoons when the devil is on one shoulder and the angel on the other debating your choices, alcohol takes the angel away. We do not think things through, or think as rationally, when we drink. We are more prone to violence and inappropriate behaviors are no longer inhibited. Totally unacceptable!!

If you work with addicts/alcoholics, youth in any way, or are in a position where people might look up to you and try to emulate you, drinking is a bad idea. It should simply not be done. I would hate to be the reason for someone who has an addictive personality to think that drinking is okay. I know, they have free will to make their own choices. That is a somewhat valid argument you could make. That said, I hold myself accountable to a higher standard then most. I feel that you should too. The consequences could be dire.

Matthew 18:6-7 let's us know how dire those consequences could be,“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come!

I think drinking can be dangerous, and it is definitely a gateway into much worse behaviors and addiction for many. I feel that it is very wrong for ME to drink. I live and lead by example! I can only tell you what the Bible means to me. I CANNOT DRINK!! I am in the community speaking to youth and adults about the dangers of addiction. I am a recovering addict and alcoholic who is a substance abuse counselor. I would lose all credibility if I were to be seen drinking. It has the potential to impact people other than me.

I would hate to cause someone to stumble. I would rather be the reason someone strives to live their lives a little better. Therefore, I don't want to blend in with every one else. I want to be a lamp shining bright on a hill. I am in this world not of this world. If I look and act like everyone else, how Christ-like am I? How brightly will my light burn? If I drink, than I know that I can't shine!!

Celebrate Recovery Testimony 01/19/2012

Ridgecrest Baptist Church Pt.1

     
                                                       Ridgecrest Baptist Church Pt.2

Pure Joy and Eternal Optimism in Recovery vs Self-Loathing and Depression in Addiction

There are some things that make my life pure joy. There are some reasons that I am able to remain optimistic no matter what occurs. I can be positive no matter what happens in my life, and in spite of all that has happened in my life. Things may bring me down, but they will never keep me down. I have discovered several secrets, and I will share them here with you today.

For starters, I am blessed by the things that I have been through in my past. That is both the things that happened to me and the choices that I made. I realize that some people would look at my past and be horrified by it. There is abuse while I was in 5^th and 6^th grade, 23 years of addiction, prison, suicide attempts, mental health diagnosis and car crashes/overdoses/ fights that should have killed me )I have flat-lined, so I guess they did kill me). I am thankful for them. They created the person that I am today, and I like that person a lot. I know that he has a lot to offer.

I am optimistic because I know that no matter what happens to me today, whether it takes me 5 seconds or 5 years to work through that I will work through it. I know that it will make me wiser and stronger in the process. I also know that I will work through it clean and sober, and that is the best part of it. I know that I never have to use drugs and alcohol again. How does that not keep you optimistic!

I am positive because I know why everything that has happened in my life happened. It happened so that I would have the wisdom and empathy to help those who struggle with the issues that I used to struggle with. I can empower people to make better choices because I have had struggles in my past that I learned from. Today I am equipped to overcome my struggles, and that gave me the wisdom that I have to pass on to others! I will never be beaten down again. I am not who I once was, I am victorious and equipped to stay that way. Life is great, and I'm eating it up!!

The thing is, the longer that I live my life sober the more I owe back to those who are still in their addictions. I have an ability to use the negatives from my past as positives in the lives of other people today. I can help save lifes and in turn allow people to become who they were created to be: great not good, sober not drunk, clean not high, happy not depressed.

So I ask you, why should your life not be full of joy. The Bible says it best in Psalms 118, “For this is the day the Lord has made; I shall rejoice and be glad in it!” We will have ups and downs, but we never have to do anything alone if we are in relationship with Christ! We have supports, whether it is your faith in Christ or your 12 step recovery group. Use them, and then spread recovery to others.
After all, "I can do all things through He who strengthens me." All of this is what keeps my head up and a bounce in my step!!

The difference between sobriety and recovery

I went on a cruise two weeks ago. While I was in the Honduras I went parasailing, and there were two women that went with me that reminded me of how different sobriety and recovery are. The two friends were talking about parasailing, and one of them said that she was scared to death. When asked why she was scared by the guy driving the boat, she told him that she could not swim. "Thats okay," he said, "you will be 800 feet in the air. You have to be in the water to drown." This did not reassure her at all. 


Her friend was the first one to go, and she went screaming and came back laughing. She started off scared, but in the end loved it. She told us how much she had enjoyed the ride, how peaceful it was and that the view was breathtakingly beautiful. Then her friend went. As she was whisked off the back of the boat, she was screaming bloody murder, "I changed my mind!" When she came back, she was in tears and angrily talked about how horrible it was and that she hated it. When asked how she liked the view, she admitted that she did not even open her eyes. 

This was the exact same experience through the lens of two different people, who felt differently about what they did. It is a lot like working through addiction and being either in the sobriety phase or the recovery stage. It is the same experience through two different lenses. Not to say that sobriety is not necessary for recovery to occur, but you have only touched the tip of the iceberg when you are sober. Read on, and we will get into that more as you go.

At one point I had been sober for several years, but I never stepped into recovery. Like the example above, sobriety is not easy. It is generally the hardest thing to do. Sobriety is the work, recovery is the enjoyment. You can have sobriety without recovery, but you cannot have recovery without sobriety. It is vital to have sobriety in order to move onto recovery. But like the first chapter of a great book, without the other chapters the first one is incomplete and disappointing.

Recovery is crucial if you want to stay sober for the rest of your life. Sobriety is not all that it is cracked up to be. I know that we feel that it should be enjoyable, but not drinking (or drugging or overeating or sleeping around or giving into rage or fixing everybody but yourself) is really just the beginning. It is a step in the right direction, but just that. A step! There is no magic that occurs, in my humblest of opinions. It does not guarantee a happy life to you. In fact, it can be just the opposite.

What we think should be the apex of our life can actually be the nadir. I thought that things would be all better after I got clean. I found it was really the reverse. Before when I felt low self-esteem, depression, anger, hurt or self-loathing, I could use and would feel all better. It would assuage my pain. Without the drugs, I now had to feel the pain with no buffer. There was no escape. What could I do?

I could have done a lot of things, but this is what I did. I began to revel in my character defects. I began smoking more cigarettes, having more sex, getting into more verbal and physical fights.  I began to find ways to look down on others. If they were not working their program “my way” I would belittle them at meetings. And thanks to principles before personalities that worked out well. So did my “13^th step” that I so often employed. I was now using others instead of my drug to make me feel better.

I did my 90 in 90 (more like 150 in 90) and I thought that I was doing good. If only attending meant better. You got to do more than show up. Like the pastor says, "Sitting in church no more makes you a Christian than my standing in my garage makes me a car." The same is true about meetings, just being there and not working what you learn outside of the meetings is worthless. But that was not me! I even worked the steps with a sponsor and told him what I knew he wanted to hear. I thought that I was in control as I counted the years. I eventually began drinking, but I could excuse that because it was not a drug. I was great at lying to myself and those around me. I portrayed happy and content, confident and strong. It was all a lie.

I could never find true happiness. I was miserable! I saw myself as an addict and a convict every time that I looked into the mirror. When I became an alcoholic, it should not have been a surprise to me. I tried to, as the Bible put it in Matthew 9, put new wine in an old wine skin. I tried to put on a new mind set but kept the old behaviors. That is a recipe for disaster. The new mind set was completely wasted as it spilled out onto the ground.

Eventually I reached the realization that I was back where I had started. I had taken a new route with a different vehicle, and I had arrived at the same destination as before. The worst part was that this time I could find nothing to blame it on. I had money, people I considered friends, a career I liked not a job I hated, a beautiful son, coworkers who cared, a boss that let me know I was appreciated, even the respect of people who never would have talked to me when I was an addict. All of that was simply not enough. I was still miserable. I began to realize that the fault was all mine. That was the beginning of my reaching the lowest point of my life. Then the jump to recovery happened, and I became happy almost overnight.

Recovery came to me for several reasons, but the most important reason is this. When I was an Agnostic and I woke up in the morning, I knew that this was AS GOOD AS IT GETS. I had nothing to look forward to. My life still consisted of terribly disappointing days followed by drunken nights. If I did not drink, I would get into my depression and isolate and feel miserable. If I did drink, I would get out of my depression while being around people and not feel miserable until the next morning. BUT…….I was always miserable in the end.

After I got saved, my entire outlook changed. I finally realized that I was forgiven. I could never forgive me before because I felt unforgivable. That is the smallest part of it though. The biggest thing for me follows. I did not believe in life after death. I believed that we returned to dust, and that would be the end. I would one day die, and this sinful, hateful world would be all that I would know. When I got saved I realized that even if this life where to be completely miserable for the next 30 years, after I died if I kept my faith and walked the narrow path that I would live an eternity in bliss. That was overwhelming, and it was enough to cheer me up........finally, I could smile and it was not fake!

This is when I finally realized what recovery is. Sobriety was simply me not drinking or drugging. I could still suck at every other aspect of life, still revel in all of my character defects, still be my own worst enemy and judge and hate myself, still make one wrong choice after another while justifying them and still care about me and only me juxtaposed with thinking only about others happiness and not my own. That is what I could do sober.

Recovery on the other hand was me changing everything about myself. I mean the floor to the ceiling, the windows to the walls. I began to make changes in recovery that I never would have made in sobriety. I began treating others with respect even if I felt they did not deserve it. I vowed to never have premarital sex again. I quit smoking, as it was just another addiction that was bad for me. I stopped fighting and started being genuinely nice, even when I would have normally resorted to angry methods of coping. I even quit cussing, as it was not really a nice way to conduct myself. These changes actually made me happy. I began to walk around positive, which made me positive. I acted positive, so I felt positive. I became an optimist instead of a pessimist.

I made these changes not to impress anyone, but because they were the right thing to do. That is what recovery is, not just doing the next right thing but insuring that I do not do the wrong thing. I act the same way behind closed doors as I do when I am in front of people, the same way to my wife I do to my pastor. I do not simply treat people as I want to be treated, but better than I want to be treated. In recovery we should treat people the way that we would want them to treat our sons and daughters. We should not engage in behaviors that we would not want our sons and daughters to behave in. That is recovery, total change of our lives.

The sad thing is that as I look around the rooms, I see a lot of people that are sober but very few that are in recovery. I feel that way when I look around churches, too. I will get into this in my next blog, because getting baptised is a lot like getting sober. It is simply the first step in the right direction. There is a long way to go, still. It is simply not enough. I see many who look down on addicts and alcoholics in recovery that could learn a lot from them. Recovery is something that we should all want, as we are all recovering from something. I’m not judging, I’m just telling the truth.

Whether you are in addiction or recovery, a Christian or an athiest, I want to leave you with one thing. Even if you do not believe the Bible is true, there is still good stuff in there that everyone could learn from. Here is one of those good passages. In Matthew 7 of the Big Book I live my life by, it says that they will know you by the fruit you produce. So, what does the fruit you produce say about you? Think about the two women parasailing. You can either open your eyes and enjoy the ride of sobriety, or you can wish that you were anywhere but sober and do it because you have to. One way will keep you sober  and make you happy. The other way will only lead eventually to failure. The choice is yours!

The Documentary

My wife and I will soon begin an industrious adventure that will start this year in September. It will be the shooting of our first in a series of 3 documentaries that will look at substance abuse/alcoholism. The documentary that we will begin with will contain interviews with 10 people who are now clean and sober. It will contain first person testimonials of those who have waged war with addiction and have found a better life without drugs and alcohol. Those interviewed will consist of both males and females who are in their teens and early twenties. There will be a couple of interviewees who will be older, and have suffered more dire consequences from their addiction and now have extended sobriety.

The documentary will address how the interviewees were raised in order to show the diversity of backgrounds that they came from, both financially and in regards to parenting and school activities. We will then look at the first time that alcohol or drugs were used. They will describe how they felt when they first used, and what the substance did for and to them. Then we will delve into how their use progressed and why. Next we will transition into how intense their use got to and what their rock bottom, or low point was. From there we will discuss what motivated them to get sober, and if a relapse occurred. If a relapse was present, we will discuss the mitigating circumstances as well as the force of the relapse and what got them back into sobriety. Finally, the subjects will discuss what the most important parts of their continued sobriety have been, what helped them transition into recovery and what they have gotten positive from recovery that they had either lost or never had.

The main function of this documentary is to hopefully be a tool to use with not only those who are in addiction in rehabilitation centers/prisons/jails/juvenile detention/outpatient treatment, but also to those who are not yet using or in trouble with the law. It will be a great documentary to show in junior high, high school and college venues as part of forums, conferences, training and drug prevention/education programs. Our hope is that this documentary will hopefully be an eye opener and encourage those who view it to engage in open discussion, question/answer sessions and maybe even encourage those who see it that are using to quit or seek help.

This documentary has several primary purposes. The first of those is to inform adolescents and young adults about the inherent risks that using drugs and alcohol pose. The second is to let those watching know that they are not alone in the problems, pressures and hurts that they feel. We want them to know that there are many people who suffer from various consequences of life ranging from sexual/physical/emotional abuse to depression and not feeling that they fit in. Finally, it is made to encourage those watching by showing that there is life after addiction and that recovery is not only possible, it is rewarding.

There has been a new page added to the Spiritual Spackle blogsite. On that page we will be keeping you updated about this project in the comments section. We are looking at several funding opportunities currently. If anyone knows of any grants or foundations that might be helpful, please let us know. We may be calling on you to help with the project, so please keep checking this page out to see how the documentary is coming as far as shooting and editing as we prepare it. Our goal is have the documentary finished by the end of next year.

We will also let you know what the future documentaries are about and how they are coming as we get to them. Right now the focus is on this one, and it will be the focus for a while. I imagine that I will be working on my book in the living room and my wife will be editing in the office next to me for many months to come. I am super excited! Any comments of encouragement, offers of support and/or feedback will be appreciated. There will also be several contests that we will have as we work on this project. STAY TUNED FOR MORE!!!!!!!!!!