You Think You High but You're Really Getting Low

I was listening to LeCrae’s song Blow Your High yesterday and there is part of his chorus that always catches my ear because of its’ truth, “You think you high but you really getting low.” Every time I hear that I am reminded of my own past, and the reality of addiction. I loved the way it felt when I first used, but by the end I hated it so much but could not quit. When I first used, bad things in life had happened to me. By the end, I was the bad thing that had happened to other people.

My first use was with a group of kids, and I instantly felt a connection to them. It was incredible. I had never really felt like I belonged anywhere and suddenly I was part of a group. All of the painful things I had been through and all the stress I felt instantly melted away.  I had always heard how horrible drugs were in school, and I knew that they had lied to me the first time I tried them.

Drugs were not horrible. In fact, they were quite the opposite. For once, I did not have to put up walls to hide my feelings from others. I could let them see how I really felt. I laughed, I lived and I loved constantly. I was using drugs, and the more I used the better I felt. The better I felt, the more social I became.  I was the life of the party, the center of attention. It felt great and I loved it.

At this point in my life, I was flying high. I was in Junior High and then High School, using to escape my past and create a new reality. I was having fun, acting crazy outside of school and doing pretty well inside of it. I was happy, but only because I was not dealing with life’s problems. In addiction things are often not as they appear.

I went from a stoner in junior high while I was living in Highland to a partying prep when I moved to Eldorado for high school. My junior year I began to get into trouble, drinking too much liquor and smoking too much marijuana. I moved to Hollister for my senior year and was introduced to methamphetamine. It was by far the best thing I had ever done.

To this day, I have never felt anything that compares to the rush I got from doing meth. It was AWESOME!!!! It made me feel so great. I felt so great that I wanted that feeling all of the time. In my previous addiction I would sometimes skip classes so that I could get high. I would get drunk every weekend, several times. But I still had a semblance of a life. With meth, everything faded but the drug.

In my previous use, I vandalized and swiped money and credit cards from my dad. I kept my grades up and I was a prep at school. With meth, I dropped out of school and started stealing so that I could afford to continue using. From there I started dealing meth and marijuana so that I could continue to use meth.

I was in and out of jail 15 or 20 times. I eventually wound up in prison, where I turned 21. I was on probation, parole, in jail or in prison from 17 until I was 29. I hurt people I considered friends: physically, emotionally, psychologically, sexually and spiritually. I stole from people, a lot. I introduced people to methamphetamine and the drug lifestyle. Many of those people are either in prison or dead.

Mister social, with tons of friends at the parties every night, ended up unconscious in a pool full of my own blood after slashing my wrists. Luckily, someone found me before it was too late. The guy who always had parties at his house, ended up all alone locked up in his room with a  needle in his arm while everyone else partied because I didn’t want them to know I was shooting up. Then I only started hanging out with other people who shot up.  

I was no longer doing drugs, the drugs were doing me. I was no longer using to have fun, I was using just to feel less bad. That is the lie many who have never struggled with addiction believe, that we use because we are having fun and life is amazing. The truth is, we often start using to escape life and end up addicted because we can no longer function without it.

I needed drugs to get out of bed. I needed drugs to think. I was sluggish; operating at less than 50 percent and when I used it would lift me to 75 percent. I never felt great, I always felt bad. Using allowed me to feel less bad. Depression that I had once been able to escape and numb from returned and was even worse. Not feeling like I fit in was replaced by social acceptance and that in turn was replaced by paranoia and lack of trust for everybody.

What had started out as freeing in the end became my prison! LeCrae’s lyrics remind me of a saying I heard once at an NA meeting, “Drugs gave me wings, then they took my sky away.” That was the reality of drugs. I have seen that occur not only in my life, but in the lives of countless others. We continually make choices that we swore we would never make and cross lines we never imagined we would cross.

In order to avoid this, don’t use. If you are using, stop. Although this is easier said than done, it is not only  a possibility but a reality if you apply the 5 Pillars of Recovery to your life:

1.       Higher Power: Find something that gives you hope, validation, forgiveness and more. I found that through Jesus Christ, others have found it through the fellowship. Find something bigger than you!

2.       Meetings: Find a community of people who have struggled as you are struggling and have overcome it. This is another great place to gain strength, experience and hope. Some use AA, NA, Celebrate Recovery, Rational Recovery, small groups or an amalgam of the above.

3.       12 Steps: Find a game plan that will help you live your life better. I have found both the 12 Steps and the book of James have been great advice on how to remain sober while building a great foundation for my life as long as I apply them in my life and then follow them daily.

4.       Sponsor/Mentor: Find someone whose life you would like to have in 5 years and ask them to help you get there. If you are working the 12 steps, find someone who has applied them to their lives successfully and have them help you work through them.

5.       Accountability Partners: Put people in your life that will support your future goals and hold you accountable. They have permission to call you out and to support you, through the good and the bad and they are not afraid to do it.

So in closing, although drugs and alcohol may make you feel great at first, for many there are negative consequences down the road. When those occur, there is a solution that can help you get your life back on track and the 5 Pillars of Recovery are a great place to start. I have never seen someone who was actively engaging in all 5 who went back out and stayed there! Never forget, there is a better life in recovery!

You Can't Unpickle a Pickle

Sitting in the rooms I once heard a man say that you can’t turn a pickle back into a cucumber. He was saying that as a reply to another person who had asked if they would ever be normal again. That is what was said, and the subject was dropped at that. Basically, the answer was, “NO!!! You will never be normal again!” The guy did not seem very happy with that answer. I guess that he wanted to be normal again. He wanted to become a cucumber again. I felt sorry for him, so I had to reply. This is probably not word for word what I said, but it is as near as I can remember:

There are “normies” and then there are the rest of us. I am blessed and optimistic because I am part of the rest of us. Take a normie and the comparison used. A normal person is a cucumber. They have not had a lot of turmoil in their lives, not many tragedies and their struggles are minimal. Due to that untested nature of existence they have been able to remain a cucumber. That is fine for them. I personally like cucumbers. They taste good in my salad. That said, I could never enjoy them by themselves because they are just too plain and ordinary. They lack flavor.

Then there are the rest of us, the pickles. We started out as cucumbers, just like the normies. Unlike the normies, we have gone through a process that has changed us. We have felt the fires of life and had things thrown into the mix that have seasoned us. Through that process we have gained strength, experience and wisdom that normal people just don’t have. We have attaining a better existence due to a process many people will never know.

It is hard to appreciate what you have unless you have had nothing. That could be financially, spiritually, hopelessness, etc. If you go from having nothing to have something, it is amazing. Saturday I went on a 25 mile bicycle ride and about 15 miles into it I ran out of water. When I finally got a drink 10 miles later it was some of the best tasting water EVER because I had gone without. When I lived a hopeless life,  mired in addiction worshipping drugs/power/sex as an atheist then turned my life over to Christ I gained a relationship with God that was unlike anything I had ever felt. I crave that relationship because I know how miserable my life was without it.

You never know how strong you are unless you go through difficult things. Much like the cucumber, it will not change unless it is goes through the fire. Once it goes through the fire it becomes pliable and able to soak up the spices to make it what I consider to be a much better product in the end. The same goes for the hurts, habits and hang ups we struggle with.

I am a hope dealer. I am really good at what I do. I live my life for God with a focus on my family first and second dealing hope and decimating stigma that surrounds addiction and mental health that men, women and children struggle with every day. I am good at what I do because I was once a cucumber until the fires of life transformed me. Because of that transformation I can give hope to others that are hopeless. All because I am a pickle. A cucumber cannot do what I do.

You cannot help someone work through their struggles unless you too have struggled. You may not have had the same struggles, but you have to have overcome struggles. Addiction to food, alcohol, drugs, sex, codependency, pornography, power, anger, shopping, money, trauma, grief and loss, etc at their root are all very similar. I just want to know that you too have struggled.  That you are a pickle just like me. We have some common ground. So remember, the next time you get told you are a pickle and could never be turned back into a cucumber, be grateful. After all, what pickle in their right mind would ever want to be turned back into a plain, flavorless cucumber? I know I wouldn’t!

The Platinum Rule

Most of us know the Golden Rule, or ethic of reciprocity, "Do unto others as you would have them do to you." That was a quote attributed to Jesus in the New Testament. That sounds great, doesn't it? It sounds so good that you can find it in just about any other religion as well:

• Judaism, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
• Confucianism, "Try your best to treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself." 
• Hinduism, "One should not behave towards others in a way which is disagreeable to oneself." 
• Islam, "Not one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself." 
• Jainism, "A man should wander about treating all creatures as he himself would be treated." 
• Buddhism, "Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find harmful."

I have heard this saying multiple times throughout my life. I seldom saw it applied so I never really took the time to think it out. It did not register with me because I knew no one would want to be treated as I thought I should be. As a child who was physically and sexually abused as a child, I always felt less then. I expected to be treated poorly and looked down on by people. I thought that was my penance for the sexual abuse I had undergone. I was dirty and disgusting and I deserved to be whatever I got because of it. I never once doubted the beatings I underwent were not deserved. I thought that I deserved to be hurt. I was an outcast.

As I grew up, I became very angry and violent. The saying I heard was, "Do unto others as they would do unto you, but be first." That became my motto. In my addiction, my anger and self-loathing grew. I could only find happiness in chaos and that was fleeting at best. I wanted to die, and tried to put myself in countless situations were that would happen. In fact, I tried to kill myself once and almost succeeded. I wanted people to hurt me. I wanted someone to kill me. So at this point, I am sure you can see how the Golden Rule would have not been very Golden of me to follow.

As I got sober, I still believed that I deserved to hurt. I felt that I deserved pain for all of the people I had hurt. After all, there was a massive trail of broken lives in the wake of the tornado my addiction had created. I was actually going to see a dominatrix when I first sobered up. Then the Golden Rule was reintroduced to me by my sponsor. I still had trouble understanding it.

Next he introduced me to the Silver Rule, thinking I could understand that better. The Silver Rule posits, "One shouldn't treat others in a way they would not like to be treated." This still did not work due to my low self-esteem and disappointment in myself. I knew that I deserved all the bad I had gotten in my life and a lot more. When bad things happened, I chalked them up to karma and me reaping what I had sowed.

As I stepped into recovery, that just did not work for me. I had to become more positive, and making amends as I worked through the steps helped me, but I needed more. What I discovered was, as much as I disliked myself I loved my sister. At the time she was the person I loved the most. I did not ever want to see someone mistreat her. Even in my addiction, I always had her back. This is where I came up with the Platinum Rule:

TREAT PEOPLE THE WAY YOU WANT THEM TO TREAT THE PERSON YOU CARE ABOUT MOST

That was all it took to get me to understand the Golden Rule and apply it to my life in early recovery. When I had my son, he was added as a person I care about the most. Then I got married and my wife was added to the list, then my daughter was added after her birth. That expanded my list and made most situations I would find myself in very easy to come up with the right answer to. How did I apply the Platinum Rule? Here are a few examples:

1. Would I want someone to gossip about my sister and spread rumors about her? NO! I would want them to come to her with their problem so that it could be worked out. Therefore, I try not gossip about other people behind their backs and come to them when I have problems. 
2. Would I want someone to beat up my son because they were told that he wronged them? NO! I would want them to be handle the situation like adults instead of hotheaded children. So when I hear someone wrongs me, instead of hurting them as I did in the past I try to talk to them and find out the truth of what is going on. 
3. Would I want someone to yell at my wife if they had a problem with her? NO! I would want them to treat her with respect. So I don't yell at people when I have a problem with them, instead I calmly talk to them so we can squash the issue. 
4. Would I want someone to break into my daughter's house and steal from her? NO! By process of elimination I do not steal from other people. 

As you can see, the Platinum Rule works for just about any situation that you find yourself in. This rule has made a ton of difference in my recovery. When used properly it takes you a minute before you act. Trust me, for a lot of us that is not a bad thing. I was very impulsive in my past, and I seldom made the wisest choices when I jumped right into things. In fact, 99.9% of the time I made the absolute worst decision. That all has changed due to me changing my thought process. Now I ask myself, "Is this how I would want someone to treat my son, my daughter, my sister, my wife?" If it isn't, then I have no business treating them that way.

As usual, thanks for reading! I hope that this is something that you can apply to your life. Let me know if it helps!!

As a quick disclaimer, this is not the Platinum Rule that is trademarked. That Platinum Rule says that we are to, "Treat others the way they want to be treated." That is a horrible rule, in my opinion. I work with a lot of people who struggle with addictions and mental illnesses. Take me for example. If you were to have treated me how I wanted to be treated 10 years ago, you would have shot me in the head and put me out of my misery. That, or you would have got me high. Bad idea, in my opinion! I definitely don't want the Platinum Rule I discuss confused with that one!
 

What I am Thankful For 2013 Edition

1. God - The Alpha and the Omega, our Creator. I am thankful that God not only created all that we see in the sky, but took the time to make the Sun the exact temperature it needs to be while placing Earth the perfect distance from it while placing the moon in a perfect orbit around Earth while giving Earth the exact atmosphere that it needs to support life. Then He created life, and out of the billions of males and females my parents and my wife's parents met and gave birth to us.  
2. Jesus - For without Jesus perfect sacrifice we would not have our sins forgiven and the promise of everlasting life. To think of the lashes and crucifixion endured all for us is beyond comprehension. 
3. Holy Spirit - I am thankful that I have not a man who walks beside me to coach me but instead a force that lives in me and nudges me to do the right thing when the right thing is often the last thing I want to do
4. Grace - Grace is unmerited favor, a gift that I did not earn. It is also the reason that I have a promise that can get me through the worst today has to offer. To think that after all I have done I will one day stand in front of God and because of grace will hear, "Son, well done!"
5. Hope - My life as a Christian and the promises that come with it have taken me from hopeless and depressed to hopeful and optimistic. What an amazing transformation.
6. The Bible - To think that I have a playbook that will get me through this life and into the next all while making me a happier and better person. 
7. Julie - My wife is so much more than I deserve. I am so thankful that she can see me for who I am today and not the person I once was. 
8. DJ - My first born has taught me the meaning of unconditional love. I was finally able to see how my dad felt about me. 
9. Addison - My daughter has been a fighter since the day she was born and her constant happiness through her operations and struggles is what has allowed me to stay sane through it all. 
10. Michal - My sister, because if she would not have been there for me when I was in the depths of my addiction I would be dead today. In fact, if she would not have come by my place after my suicide attempt and found me I would be dead for sure. 
11. My Dad - The greatest man I ever knew. He personified several things but the most important was how to love unconditionally and for that I am forever thankful. I am the dad I am today because of him not in spite of him. 
12. My Mom - She gave birth to me and always worked hard so that my siblings and I never went without. 
13. Heidi and James - I am thankful that I have them as the other set of parents for my son. I could not imagine not getting along with DJ's other parents. 
14. My In-Laws and DJs Grandparents - For giving me a chance to prove that I am not the man I once was and showing me love once you saw the love I had for Julie/DJ (depending on which person you are related to)
15. The Wessleys and Kearbeys - Without your love, guidance and support I would never have made it through the rough patch after my dad's suicide and certainly would not have stepped foot into a church. 
16. The Apostle Paul - I am thankful that I could read about a man who sinned in abundance like I did who was not afraid to talk about it. That he played such a huge part in the writing of the New Testament allowed me to see that if God's grace covered him it could cover me. 
17. The Book of James - It is nice to have a short and concise book that outlines the way we as Christians are to live our lives. 
18. Pastor James - Thanks for answering the hard questions that I had when I first started visiting a church and introducing me to the historicity of Jesus and the Bible.
19. Apologetics - There is a certain feeling that you get when you actually begin to understand how scientifically, historically and philosophically that God exists and can explain that to others who have questions about Christianity 
20. Lee Strobel - If not for The Case for Christ I do not know that I would have prayed that night and turned my life over to God
21. Celebrate Recovery - Thank you Celebrate Recovery for teaching me multiple things. First, that there is a huge difference between abstinence and recovery. Secondly, that many people who do not use drugs/alcohol still have the same struggles as I do and I am not less than or worse than. I am also thankful that we will be starting The Landing next month at Glendale Christian Church and my wife and I will have the privilege of being part of it. The Landing is Celebrate Recovery for 13-18 year olds, and it will be the first one in Springfield.
22. Narcotics Anonymous - For letting me know that it was possible to be an addict and quit using drugs. 
23. Prayer - I love knowing that when life begins to overwhelm me I can always call a timeout and regroup
24. Worship -  Not only does great worship prime me on Sundays and Fridays for the message that follows but worship music has greatly improved my mood and my attitude. 
25. Glendale Christian Church - So thankful to have a church that is ministry minded and feels like home!
26. Alternative Opportunities, Inc. - I love that I have a job I know makes a difference. I work at a place where I am surrounded by compassionate people who truly care about the populations they work with. 
27. BLiR AKA Better Life in Recovery, Inc - I cannot wait to see what 2014 has in store for BLiR and how many people it can have a positive impact on. 
28. Books - I believe one of the biggest sins we can commit against ourselves is to die ignorant and books have helped me insure this will not happen
29. Sports - I love that I have an amazing past time both to watch and participate in. Whether it is weightlifting, MMA, basketball, football, baseball, boxing, tennis, softball, handball etc 
30. Recovery - One of the greatest gifts I have ever been given was learning the difference between sobriety and recovery. Sobriety is simply abstinence while recovery is changing everything about yourself. I am so glad that I am not the man I once was and that thanks to the guidance of the Holy Spirit I have changed so much more than just my substance use: attitude, language, goals, outlook, etc.
31. My Past - If not for my past I would not be who I am today. God has taken my tests and transformed them into my testimony and my stumbling blocks into stepping stones so that I can share that there is a Better Life in Recovery that has taken me from dealing dope to dealing hope.

This is a short list and I did not get very deep into the reasons why I love these. I missed many things, such as coffee and motivational interviewing, unconditional positive regard and eternal optimism but I hit on the highlights. Mostly, I am thankful that I have a God that is good all of the time, a wife that I can tell loves me just in by the way she looks at me, children that I dote on that dote on me and all of my needs met! Hope that you have an amazing Thanksgiving!!

What Do You Want to be When You Grow Up?

I was in a group the other day and that question was asked, “What did you want to be when you were a kid and what is stopping you from doing it now?” What we were talking about was the way our various traumas and addictions had impacted us in the past, but at the same time acknowledging that we could still do anything we set our minds to.

I was not the first person to go, and I listened to various answers. One had wanted to be a fire fighter. There was the kid who wanted to be a bull rider, until he had gotten thrown a couple of times and he decided it was not for him. The opiate addict that had wanted to be a doctor, but both his drug of choice and the felony he had for fraudulent attempt to obtain a narcotic held him back.

Then it came to me. I said that I wanted to be happy and normal. When I was asked what that meant, I explained a little of my past. I was molested starting at 4 for a couple of years by a baby sitter. My parents were constantly screaming at each other from the earliest I can remember until they split up my first week of 5^th grade. From there I went to live with my grandparents, and my grandfather was an abusive man who would beat me and keep me home for the week “to help out on the farm” so the bruising and cuts could heal up. I thought it was because he had found out how “disgusting” I was.

So, all I wanted was to be happy, safe and normal. I had obviously not been safe due to the physical, sexual and psychological abuse I underwent. I was not happy. Who could be happy with all the aforementioned going on? I had lost my faith, as I could not imagine a God of love allowing me to suffer as I did and I became an Agnostic. Finally, and the part that probably hurt the worse, was knowing I was not like everyone else. I was abnormal at best and felt like a freak on my worst days.

I would hear other kids talk about their moms and dads and what they had done together. My parents were not together. In fact, I was being raised by grandparents. Because I had been molested I felt disgusting, as I had once heard my mother talk about grown ups touching children and she had said they were disgusting and sick. I thought that she meant me. Finally, I knew that the other kids were not getting beat like I was because they were always at school.

The kids I went to school with almost always had smiles on their faces. Somehow I knew that there smiles were real. Mine was not. I was dead on the inside but I build walls to keep the pain inside and not let it show to everyone else. I was crying on the inside, and it came out in the form of anger and violence as early as the 5^th grade.

In the 5^th grade I was already seeing both a school counselor and a counselor outside of school for my behavioral issues. I never once spoke to them about the abuses, because I did not want them to judge me for them the way I felt everyone else did and I feared my grandpa and what he would do to my sister if I told.

Instead, I kept it all inside. That is where the outbursts came from. It is kind of like a pressure cooker, if that steam is not released somehow you create a bomb that will explode when you least expect it. Not only that, but I felt I could never let people know who I really was. I looked normal but did not feel normal. I felt like an unloved outcast, because that is how I was treated.

It is difficult to function well when the people that are supposed to love and protect you are the ones that do you the most harm. Instead, you learn not to trust, not to love and how to mask your feelings. You learn to adapt and become a chameleon so that you appear to fit in. The truth is, doing that causes you to lose your identity over time and you forget who you are.

Then we ended the group talking about where we were today. Today, I am very grateful. I have accomplished my goals. I am happy and safe, though far from normal and that is okay. I have found that I was built from the ground up by God to do what I do today. Today, I get to share my strength, experience and wisdom with people by sharing the hope found in both grace and recovery.

What Is Recovery?

What is recovery?

That is a question that is open to interpretation and circumstance. Medically it mean being on the mend from surgery or an accident. A computer repairman would say it is getting back lost files on a computer. In this case, we are looking at addictive lifestyles. What is recovery from an addictive lifestyle look like?

To answer this, I decided to ask people who had lived addictive lifestyles to tell me what they considered to be part of their addictions. Here is the list they came up with: the use of drugs/alcohol/food/cutting to numb and escape past and present issues, Theft/stealing/shoplifting, Anger/Violence, Dishonesty, Casual Sex, Pornography, the inability to speak without using vulgarity, Greed/Love of Money, Egotism, Being inconsiderate to others due to focusing only on self/Selfishness, Lack of accountability, Only having Friends and hangouts that encouraged addictions, Focusing on the negative and Lack of Hope.

Today we will define recovery as the opposite of addiction. So in order to be in recovery, we need to get rid of the things in our lives that enabled and encouraged our addiction. Here is how we do those things:

1.       Face our current problems and work through our past issues either through counseling, step work and/or processing it out so we no longer have them as a reason to use.

2.       Stop taking things that are not yours. First we need to get and keep employment, then we can create a budget that we follow and save for the things we need.

3.       Realize that anger solves nothing and violence will only end up with us right back into trouble. An old saying says, “Never get into an argument with an idiot. It makes it hard for people to tell the difference between you.” That means that when we resort to anger we make ourselves look bad to those around us. Finally, violence only leads to more violence and violence never works out well. Ghandi said it best, “An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.”

4.       I lied so much that I began to believe my own lies. Lying was second nature in my addiction. In recovery, we have to be honest or we will never escape our addiction. Honesty allows me to hold myself accountable. We will look at the importance of that in #10 below.

5.       Research shows that promiscuity is an indicator of relapse. We really need to stay out of relationships for a while. We tend to focus on the other person when we get into new relationships, and we need to be focusing on ourselves. We also tend to find people who treat us as we feel about ourselves. Until we like ourselves we have no business in a relationship. Finally, a lot of the time we find our self-esteem based on our conquests. We need to find positive accomplishments to build our self-esteem and self-confidence.

6.       Pornography can lead to dehumanization, victimization and intense emotional reactions that can lead us to places we should not go.

7.       If using vulgarity was a major part of our addictive and criminal lifestyle, losing the negative language will help us separate further from our past lifestyles. It also makes us look like we have a larger vocabulary when we don’t have to resort to cuss words.

8.       Greed and money are a huge motivator for many a criminal. We need to remind ourselves of the difference between needs and wants and realize that we do not have to have wants in order to be happy. The happiest people are not those who have the most, but those who make the most of what they have.

9.       Egotism and selfishness go together. The world in not just about us, for we are merely 1 out of over 7 billion people. If the beginning of our step-work/sobriety is very selfish in nature, that is just to set us up for the 12^th step/rest of our lives. After all, recovery is very altruistic.

10.   In our addiction very little was our fault. We could justify everything we did by shifting blame. In our recovery we realize that the only way we can make changes is by realizing that we are responsible for our feelings, thoughts and actions. If it is someone else’s fault I can do nothing about that. I can only change that which I control. If I am not accountable for my actions they will never change!

11.   Change your playmates and play grounds. This is so important. If I live in the mud it is hard to stay clean. AA says “if you hang around the barbershop long enough you are going to get a hair cut” while my Big Book (the Bible) says, “You cannot put new wine in an old wine skin.” Our using and criminal friends may not mean us harm, but they make it difficult if not impossible to change.

12.   We need to shift focus, looking at the positives today can bring instead of the negatives in our past. One of my clients the other day said, “I like my new friends. They always talk about the present and the future. All of my old friends used to only talk about the past.” You cannot change yesterday, but you can sure change today. Focus on the present and you will build a successful future.

13.   I was stuck in my addiction because I had no hope for anything better. I began to find hope in speaker meetings and testimonies, hearing other people who had similar struggles share how they had found sobriety. That hope was increased 10 fold when I got saved and realized that this life is nothing but a short introduction to a book of happiness that will stretch forever.

So in closing, recovery is reversing all of the things that enabled and/or encouraged our past lifestyle. If we are to make positive changes in our lives that are permanent, we need to make holistic changes in our lives. There are 5 Pillars to doing this:

1.       Higher Power (God) – If our best thinking got us in trouble and we have not been able to change on our own; we need to find something greater than us that gives us hope, compassion, acceptance and love.

2.       Sponsor (Mentor) – Find someone whose life you want in 5 years, ask them how they got it and then work with them using a plan (see #3 below) to obtain it

3.       12 Steps (The Bible I recommend James) -  Find a plan that will get you where you want to be and put it into motion in your life

4.       Meetings (Small Groups) – Find a sense of community where people with similar goals that genuinely care about you(see #5 below) discuss how they are improving their lives and apply what you learn while sharing with them

5.       Accountability Partners – Find people that you are in contact with often who are living their lives well that can encourage and help you live your life well

Are You In Recovery?

In my past I was many things. I was son and brother, friend and co-worker. I was drug addict and drug dealer, lover and fighter. I would say I cussed like a sailor, but I have never known a sailor to hear what they cuss like. Instead, let me just say that vulgarity was my verbiage of choice and I spoke loudly in public while waxing prose. My music contained a lot of vulgarity and was mostly about violence and drinking/drugging.  I liked to play it loud so everyone would hear it, also.

I did not have any respect for myself based on my choices, so why would I have respect for anyone else? My music and language in public proved that. My lifestyle also painted a picture of who I was. Was I really that person? I would say, deep down inside me, I was never the person that I presented to people. I had been severely hurt and was terrified of being hurt again. I found that numbing myself with chemicals, seeking thrills and conquests as well as putting up walls of testosterone kept me safe.

It created a persona. I adapted to the people that my persona attracted. For the most part, we were the dregs. We were truly anti-social in our behaviors, even though the behaviors were not who we really were. I adapted to my surroundings and friends so that I could survive. Any weakness would get you at the very least used and taken advantage of. In the worst case scenario it could get you killed.

I became someone that I was not. I like to see people happy and laughing, yet I hurt people physically and emotionally on a regular basis. I am an honest person, yet I told lies so frequently that it became second nature. I would lie just to lie, and sometimes I would tell the same lie so often I would begin to believe it myself.

I enjoy my freedom, yet I got to the point I would go to jail with the money in my wallet to bond out and would stay in there for a week just to rest and catch up on sleep because JAIL WAS LESS STRESSFUL THAN MY LIFE OUTSIDE. I was smart, yet I refused to use it. I love my sister and respect her more than anything, yet I used her repeatedly.

I was a walking anomaly. Even after I stopped using drugs, I still was vulgar, violent and whorish. I was incomplete and miserable. I would feel all alone at an after party with 50 people there. I was hopeless, because I was not who I really was. In order for me to improve my life, things had to change. Some people work long and hard for that change. I was blessed. After being an Agnostic for 20 plus years, I gave God a chance.

I was transformed. I have not used drugs/alcohol, smoked a cigarette, gotten into a fight outside of a ring or had premarital sex since that prayer over 4 years ago. Even though I was transformed, I still had things to prove to others if I expected them to believe that the new me was really changed and not just an act. So what to change? Everything!

I stopped listening to music that had vulgarity or extolled the virtues of sex, drugs, alcohol or violence. I switched to contemporary worship music. I actually found good rap and metal acts to listen to that only had positive messages (they are all Christian artists). I stopped watching and reading pornography. That was a struggle, because it was so accessible. I also became more aware of the impact my actions and words had on those around me.

I had been cussing most of my life. It was who I was, as was drinking, doing drugs and fighting. If I was going to quit one, I might as well quit them all. They all were part of my past criminal and addictive lifestyle. Why would I want to hold on to any piece of that? If you want to stay clean, you cannot dance in the mud.  It was a going out of business sale. My past life was bankrupt and everything had to go!

I gained humility. Even though I could argue that I did not care what other people thought or if I offended them so what, it was not true IF I were in recovery. Sobriety or abstinence yes, but never in recovery. A lot of the people that I have encountered failed to remember that although it starts out a selfish program, it does not stay that way.Addiction is egotistical, abstinence can be selfish but recovery is altruistic.

So, for those who feel that they are in recovery let me ask you a question: Do your actions and words show it? Or are you still holding onto your old, addictive, criminal lifestyle in one form or another? People can not judge our hearts or intentions, only our words and actions. We are to be beacons of recovery, shining a light into the world that accomplishes a couple of things.

1.       We should make people who are still in their active addiction want to be in recovery. Stop being such a “Negative Nancy” and buck up!

2.       Why so angry? It would appear that getting sober has sucked based on your attitude and language. Stop showing that you carry the addiction with you and let it ALL go, not just the using. New comers aren’t going to want what you have.

3.       Share sobriety and recovery with those coming to the meetings. When you are telling a 10 minute war story, it defeats the positive message. How did you get sober? What helped you stay sober?

4.       Stop using the rooms as a dating service. You are doing nothing more than taking advantage of emotionally vulnerable people and that could cause them to never come back to a meeting or trust a sober person again. Stop victimizing people!

5.       We should be vocal about where we once were outside of the meetings so that people can see that not only do we get sober, but we change and become morally upstanding members of society who give back TO SOCIETY! Is making coffee at a meeting a good thing? Yes, service work is important. But, do we represent recovery in our community and do COMMUNITY SERVICE?

Are You Comfortable?

Today I was thinking about two words, comfortable and complacent. These two words scare me to death. They are the last two words I ever want to use to define my life. I don’t mind words like struggling or challenged. In fact, I welcome struggles and challenges. They are the reason that we grow. Let us look at the word complacent and comfortable in a couple of different contexts.

For starters, I am in recovery from an addiction to more. Yes, I preferred methamphetamine then alcohol but I would use whatever was available. My addiction did not stop there, either. I was addicted to money, power, women and violence. I have been in recovery for 4 ½ years now. I work in the field of recovery and have for about 6 years (4 ½ years in recovery but 6 in the field may puzzle you. I consider abstinent and recovery two completely different things). I sit in multiple meetings every week, since I conduct them. I go to trainings and read the latest research on addiction and recovery but I know I do not have it figured out. 

I can never allow myself to get comfortable and complacent. If I do, I might lose focus. You see, my addiction is not gone. It is at work in the back of my head; lifting weights, running on the treadmill and doing research on the internet. My addiction gets smarter, stronger and more cunning. It is searching for a way to take my life over again. Comfortable and complacent has caused me to relapse once before. I cannot relapse again. I am pretty sure that I don’t have another recovery left in me.

How about work? I work in the field of addiction. I am currently a counselor for an organization that has DWI and Drug Court contracts, so I work with clients and teams from those 2 courts. I have been doing that for 5 plus years now. I have also in that time period worked with residential and outpatient clients. I feel that I am pretty good at what I do. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Sociology, a Master’s degree in Social Work and I am a LCSW (Licensed Clinical Social Worker). I have 4 ½ years in recovery after a 20 plus year addiction. I am street and book educated in this field.

I can never allow myself to get comfortable and complacent. My clients deserve better. Comfortable and complacent tell me that I don’t have to go the extra mile for them. I can kick back on my laurels and coast. Absolutely not, this is so much more than people’s freedom. It is their very lives that they can lose if they go back out there. If they do, is it my fault? No, but I want to know that I did everything I could to give them the best interventions and support I could. Complacency does none of that.

How about faith? I have been going to church for about 6 years and got saved 4 ½ years ago. I know the songs and I raise my hand when I worship. I tithe like I should. I pray. I don’t judge and I am accepting of all people. In fact, I love the services I go to and I feel accepted and know that I am doing what I need to be doing after I hear them. I know the primary message of the Bible and it comforts me because I know Jesus loves me and that I am saved. I love that everybody can go to my church and not feel called out and no one will judge me if I make mistakes here and there.

I can never allow myself to get comfortable and complacent. When I think of Christ and the early Christians the last thing I think of is warm and fuzzy. They lived a radically different life that led to many of them being killed. We are called to be Christ-like. Christ told us people would hate us at they hated Him and to daily pick up our cross. Those two things do not sound comfortable nor do they fit into a complacent life. I should be talking about feeling the Spirit move, not how rocking the band is.

In the end, complacency kills. It could cost me my job. It could cost me my sobriety. It could cost me my eternal soul. This is not something to mess around with. I should challenge myself all of the time. I should surround myself with people that help build me up and people that I can help build up. I should not live my life comfortably. We are called to lead by example, to be salt and light. I can’t do that when I live a comfortable life, blend in with everyone else and never call anybody out for their actions. That is ordinary. I don’t know about you, but I was born to be extraordinary!

Not Afraid to Die

I was never afraid of death. In my addiction I died multiple times and was brought back to life. I had my stomach pumped, slashed my wrists, flew a car 97 feet clipping trees 32 feet in the air and had a couple of overdoses. I continued to use drugs and drive under the influence, so needless to say I wasn't afraid of death. I kept doing the things that had caused me to die previously. I was not afraid and took pride in it.

I was hopeless. The best I could hope for in a day was to get high multiple times, make money and that was about it. In my addiction I would sleep once a week, and I did this for years. I always made sure I had drugs to take as soon as I woke up, because that was where I  placed my hope. My higher power was drugs and money and everything that came with that. When I was an alcoholic I  knew that if I slept through the night without having the shakes wake me up, not urinating in the bed overnight and didn't have a hangover  that was the best I could hope for. That was the best my life was going to get. Not much hope there.

I was ashamed. I had already lost most of my values and morals. I put up so many walls that I was like the heart of the onion; completely covered so no one could know who I really was. I lied to everyone about my past so much that I began to believe the lies myself. It became my persona, the gang banger who moved to southwest Missouri. I was so ashamed of who I was I would lie to people when telling them the truth would not even matter.

I felt all alone. I could be in a house with 10 other people or a bar with 100's and would feel alone. I would spend hours shuffling cards or playing video games, making no contact with the outside world. I would have sex with people for the conquest. I would not know their name and  half the time they did not know mine because I wanted no one to truly get close to me. That way I could stay alone.

I hated myself. I would let no one get too close to me. I dated a lot of people. We used each other. I used them for the conquest, arm candy or to try to fix them up as a project. They used me for money, protection or drugs. If a girl I was dating told me she loved me I would break up with her if I thought she was telling the truth. "If you are sick enough to love someone like me, I can't be with you," I would say.

I felt numb. I think that is why I took the drugs to begin with. Maybe not in the very beginning, but in the end. The first time I smoked marijuana I did it to fit in, and I did. I soon learned that drugs numbed my pain, helped me forget about the abuse I  had suffered through as a kid. The hurt I felt from not fitting in disappeared. I learned that no one could hurt me if I was high, so I stayed that way all the time.

I felt dead. I no longer felt alive without putting chemicals in my body. In fact, the only time I felt alive was when I was sticking a needle into my arm or putting myself in a situation where I might die. I would feel alive when my car got searched and they didn't find the drugs. I would feel alive when I got into a fight or was running from the police. I felt dead and empty unless I was doing things that released massive amounts of adrenaline and/or dopamine.

I was evil. I consider meth a drug straight from the Devil. In my addiction, I was a soldier for Satan. I did his bidding and I brought more people into  his fold. I helped manufacture a drug that enabled society to continue its rapid decay. I dealt a drug that is associated with murder, rape, burglary and assault. I would take food stamps for 40 cents on the dollar from friends and 25 cents on the dollar from everybody else then throw the food stamps away because I felt they were beneath me and its not like I ate anyway. I took money out of kids mouths that needed it. I hurt friends physically over $25 to make an example of  them.

I wanted to die. I had no hope of getting of drugs, changing my lifestyle or not going back to prison other than death. Death would have been a reprieve at the time. Supporting an addiction to drugs, power and money is a very stressful job. Once a month, I would put one round in a .38, spin the cylinder and pull the trigger. I did that for the last year of my addiction.

But here is the truth...................................

I was scared to death. I was afraid that if I let someone in my life they would  hurt me. I had been hurt by people that were supposed to nurture and love me because they were related to me. I had been devastated by people claiming to be my friends and if I kept my walls up they could never hurt me again. Would I have really been so paranoid I played curtain patrol and had motion detectors and recording devices set everywhere if I wasn't scared?

I was afraid to live. I was afraid of truly trying because if I didn't try I couldn't fail. No one would expect much from me. I had tried and failed enough times in the beginning of my drug use that I was afraid to try again. I dropped out of high school and had never had a long term relationship. I broke off any relationships I had with people who truly cared about me so that I could simply exist. If I never tried anything, I could never fail again. If I kept people in my life who expected nothing of me I could do nothing.

I wanted to not hurt anymore. To accomplish that I tried drugs, alcohol, sex and power. I was still scared, angry and hurt. I tried suicide. I wasn't very good at it. I tried jail, house arrest and prison without any success. I was using half an hour after I got out of prison. I tried rehab, counseling and prescribed medication. The result was temporary at best and I would relapse within weeks at most. I could not escape who I was and what I had done.

What was the reason..............................

All of the trauma I had been through (whether it had been done to me or I had done it myself) had created a hole in me that I kept trying to fill with sex, money, power and drugs. Unfortunately, there was only one thing that could fill it. It was a hope sized hole that nothing man made could touch. There was not enough money, sex, drugs or counseling to fill it. And trust me, I tried. I still felt empty and broken, unworthy and worthless.

What is the answer.........................

Spiritual Spackle is based solely on one concept. Life creates holes in our souls, and the things we have available to us in this physical world only cover the holes. Notice I didn't say they fill the holes. They only cover them. The holes are still there. The Holy Spirit is like spackle for our soul. It is what is meant to fill the holes in and restore our hope. You can read more about the Spiritual Spackle Theory here http://spiritualspackle.blogspot.com/2011/08/spackle-theory.html

God is the bringer of true hope and purpose. In order to accept Him into our lives and live differently we have to:

1. Accept -  Admit that you have sinned.
2. Repent - Not just feel sorry for what you have done, but be ready to live your life differently.
3. Belief - Believe that Jesus is the son of God and that He died to forgive your sins
4. Action - Live your life differently. My life revolved around drugs from waking to sleep. Now it revolves around God and living a life I hope He finds pleasing
5. Prepare - (for Success) Use the 5 Pillars http://spiritualspackle.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-5-pillars.html or try the Locker Room approach http://spiritualspackle.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-locker-room.html

If anyone has any questions or requests, please let me know. Remember, the journey has just begun!

4 People Who Found the Reason for Their Hurts

Have you ever had one of those days, or better yet one of those years that just kicks your butt. Come to think of it, some of us have one of those lives! You have the absolute worse things happen to you. You are abused as a child either physically, mentally, sexually or all three. You get abused not just by a parent (or grandparent or uncle or step-parent) but by your siblings and/or their friends as well. Your parents are addicts/alcoholics and your mother gets beat all the time. You grow up poor, and the kids at school make fun of you. Everybody you care about either leaves you or dies. Does this sound familiar?

Some of you live in constant fear of what is going to happen to you next. You can never figure out why. You sit by yourself in tears, wallowing in depression and fear, just wishing it would all go away. There are questions and thoughts that always wander into your mind: "Why does my luck always suck?" "Can God see me?" "Does God hate me?" "Maybe I should just end it all." "There can't be a God or He wouldn't let this happen." "Why does this always happen to me?"

At the end of this I am going to play a song that my wife wrote and performs called "There's A Reason" that addresses these questions, but first I would like to share a few stories. Here are stories about 4 people who most would think have been dealt a pretty unfair hand. They could have turned their back on God and just given up, but they didn't!

1. Nick Vujicic is a pastor and motivational speaker who has traveled all over the world. His ministry is called "Life Without Limbs" because Nick was born with no arms and no legs. He has never let that stop him. He has spoken to over 3 million people on 5 continents about hope and finding meaning in their lives. He talks all over the world about how God can use anyone who is willing to do his work no matter their disability. 
2. Ellie is 11 years old today. When she was 7 she was molested by her best friend's step-dad. She came forward a year later. She took that long because she was filled with shame and she thought that her parents would not believe her because he was a friend of the family. Her family pressed charges and other girls came forward too. He was eventually placed in prison. Ellie now goes into churches, schools and prisons to talk about the abuse. She wants children to know that if this is happening to them they should not be afraid or ashamed, because it is not their fault. Because of her conviction to help others many children who were being abused and had never told anyone had the courage to come forward after she spoke. 
3. Harold and Betty Donaldson were hit head on by a drunk driver. He was killed and she was incapacitated for a long time. The Donaldson's children learned how to live without many of the basic necessities that  we take for granted. The local community and churches intervened and made sure that the Donaldson's had food and shelter. The generosity that they were shown not only gave the Donaldson's hope, it also instilled in them a desire to one day help those in need. In 1994 they created Convoy of Hope, which has given over $299 million worth of food and supplies to over 52 million people in more than 100 countries. 
4. I did not have the best of life growing up. I was abused sexually when I was in the 1st grade by a baby sitter. In 5th and 6th grade I lived with a highly abusive grandfather. I went on to abuse drugs and alcohol for 25 years of my life, living a lifestyle that landed me in rehabs, jails and prison. I overdosed 3 times, have been found unconscious in a pool of blood after attempting suicide and have died several other times after a car accident. I was diagnosed Bi-Polar, Anti-Social Personality Disorder, Generalized Anxiety, etc. My life was not alright. Since I turned 30 I have gotten an associate, 2 bachelors and a masters degree off of a GED that I got in prison. I have 3 years clean and sober and live my life working as a substance abuse counselor and sharing the message of recovery, Christ and hope in churches, colleges, youth groups and communities. I am currently forming a non-profit to take that message into groups, communities, churches, colleges, junior high and high schools. 

Why do I tell you all of this. The number one reason is to let you know that you are not alone. Life hurts many of us deeply. Second I want you to know that no matter the abuse you are living through/with or the tragedies and losses that you have suffered; there is hope. I know that you may not want to hear it now, but there is a reason these things have happened. God has a plan that is bigger than you and bigger than me. 

In my life, God has used my hurts and my habits to help others. From my addiction to my mental illnesses to my dad's suicide, everything that has ever happened in my life has been a blessing. They have all given me the passion to do what I do and the drive to do it. Me and the other 3 people that I talked about all had horrific things happen, but today we would all tell you that there was a bless in the mess. 

Life happens and life hurts, sometimes really bad. Life can either make us better or bitter, I choose to let it make me better. When I let it make me bitter it was killing me, and I want to live. I still have a lot of hope to share!!

Celebrate Recovery Testimony 01/19/2012

Ridgecrest Baptist Church Pt.1

     
                                                       Ridgecrest Baptist Church Pt.2

Scriptures of Recovery James 1:2-4

James 1:2-4 - "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking of anything."
I used to be very ungrateful. I felt that life was a chore at best, and punishment for being born at worst. I was generally not in the best of moods, as most of my peers and co-workers would gladly inform you. I was a bummer to be around most of the time. I was this way due to my viewing life as a punishment for being born. That was how I actually felt most days.

To work through this, I did my best to remain drunk all of the time. The only exception was while I was working, and for many years until I began the job that I have now even being on the clock never stopped me. In my drug using days, I would bring meth with me to work. You know, just in case I started to come down.  I would also bring the other drugs I was doing at the time. I remember bragging once after a double that I had pushed my crack pipe two dozen times and gotten a hit every time.

That was my life, stay high and drunk. The only purpose for living is so that we may one day die and that will be the end of it. There in a nutshell was how I personally lives when I was an Agnostic, which I was from 5th grade until I was 37. When I had problems in my life, they occurred simply because life sucked......then you died. I saw death as the end of suffering.

I can remember seeing the faces of my friends after they died and being jealous of how peaceful they looked. The only reason that I refused to commit suicide was because my sister had found me unconscious after a failed attempt and I promised her I would never try it again. That said, I wished for death and tried to put myself in situations where others would kill me. I was unsuccessful at even that.

Now I live my life differently. I have come to realize several things, and this scripture is a large part of why my perception has changed. I no longer feel that what happens to me are horrific things with no purpose. It took some knowledge for me to realize what the purpose were. To realize the reason things happened to me I had to get busy living instead of busying myself with the act of dying.

Know I know that I needed to learn lessons, and every trial and tribulation that I have gone through in life has made me a wiser and stronger person once I learned to work through it. This has in turn given me the ability to have compassion and empathy for my fellow man that I would not have had otherwise. It has also given me the wisdom I need to empower others to work through their issues that are similar that I would have never had otherwise.

Secondly, when life is complicated I know that there are a lot of twists and turns in this life that I will need to work through. For starters, the devil would like nothing more than to steal my faith and hope and bring me back into his flock. Also, this is nothing more than a great way for me to show my faith and hope in Christ. I have hear it said that worrying simply shows that you do not have enough faith in God.

It is quite easy to believe in Christ and praise him when things are going well. The true testing of our faith is how we react under pressure. Do we consider it a joyous occasion when we are being attacked by life. Do we realize it is an opportunity for growth, or do we get angry. Do we remember or do we forget one simple truth, "God's got this!"

In my past I got angry and upset, which was a sign of both my immaturity and my lack of belief in God. Now I gravitate towards appreciation, which is a sign of my maturing. In order for me to change my perspective, I needed to make one chane. I did that by gaining faith and hope that I never had. All that took was me looking at the trials of life through a different lense. Now I see life through the lens of a believer in Christ, and that has made all of the difference.

Why Me....How can I make peace with my past? Part 2

I would wonder for days, "Why me?" and it got me absolutely no where. I would try to escape my past by doing good things: volunteering to help my friends move, giving the panhandler money, community service and even counseling. Yet no matter what I did, I could never come to any kind of peace with who I was, what I ha done and what had been done to me.

That question would repeat itself over and over in my head, and I never had a good answer. Was I born unlucky, did God hate me, was I the devil's special project? Why, why, why did all of these negative things happen to me. If bad things in life were garbage, I could have started a land fill at birth and would have been out of room by now. I was stuck in the victim role for years.

Somewhere along the way I discovered that I was not a victim and accepted the things that I had done and what had been done to me as simply a part of my life that I had to go through. That said, there was still that part of me that wondered why did I have to go through it? Why me............? What was the purpose of everything that had happened to me? I was stuck in the survivor role with those questions, and not having the answers fueled my drinking and increased my acting upon the other "character defects" that I have.

Over time I came to realize what the purpose was! I realized why I had gone through all that I had, why I had made the choices that I had made, and why I was still here when it has killed so many others. I call it my trash/garbage theory. It is why the 12th step is so vitally important for those who are in addiction. It is why we not only get experience, strength and hope from others but we also share ours with them. We have to own our past and see it for what it is.

Imagine that everything in our past is garbage. The poor choices we make, the things that others do to us, the trouble that we get into with the legal system, etc. I mean everything that happens. We tend to not really deal with it and keep it inside of us. We are like a huge hoarder, and our lives become full and stressful. That is the victim stage. We have all of this inside and we are internalizing it.

Once we accept what has happened to us we externalize it. We realize that many things are beyond our control and that addiction is a disease. This allows us to throw the stuff out. We are now in the survivor role, which leaves us questioning what has happened to us. We accept that things happen, but we do not see the purpose behind it and it takes on no meaning. There is still no purpose! Because of that, the garbage we have now been able to get rid of just sits outside of us and begins to accumulate.

We now are creating a landfill that begins to mound up, and to be honest it has no purpose other than to stink and destroy our view. We have now built a trash site, and the garbage begins to accumulate. When your everyday view overlooks a stinking landfill site, your demeanor does not improve. It causes us anxiety, depression, anger, fear, etc. We now have feelings that are overwhelming us because there is still little to no hope or positivity. Then, the magic happens!

We suddenly think of what the purpose is.........LIGHTBULB!!! What are the uses of trash? The only one that I can think of is compost. Compost is breaking down our garbage and using it for fertilizer. What do I have to turn into compost? I am someone who has/is: an addict, attempted suicide, convicted of felonies, done time in prison, a recipient of childhood abuse, overdosed several times, woke up in the middle of the night from shakes that I had to drink to make go away so that I could go back to sleep, dropped out of high school, seen multiple friends die, lost a parent to suicide, been diagnosed with multiple mental health disorders, a child of an alcoholic, parents who divorced when I was young, always felt alone, violent, scared but afraid to admit it, etc.

As you can see, I have a lot of garbage in my past. I have also once I discovered it had the ability to use that trash to build up others. I can use overcoming all of my past choices and tragedies to give hope and instill strength in those who are still suffering in their addictions. I can also help those who have not yet began using drugs/alcohol/food/sex/violence/shopping/codependency/etc. as a way to cope, escape and numb to let them know how it can end up.

That is the positive reason for my horrific past. I have wisdom now that I never would have had without my past. Wisdom only comes from experiencing something and battling it. Those things that I have experienced and overcame have given me vital information that I can pass onto others. I can share my strength, experience and hope with them. I can save lives! I am like a doctor, nurse, paramedic, fire fighter! I have been giving training from my past that enables me to save peoples lives today.

How exciting is that? To know that what you once felt guilt over, which you internalized into shame and self-loathing, now has positive power! It can enable people to make better choices. It can save lives and make families stronger. The longer I am sober, the bigger my responsibility to help others. The greater the negative coming in, the greater the positive going out. As Einstein said, "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."

For me the action was the negative choices and negative things that others did to me. The reaction is giving my testimony and sharing how incredible my life is now. I am eternally optimistic because I have seen rock bottom and came back on top. For that I am blessed, and I will share my story to inspire others to attain true recovery. I am in recovery from the consequences of life and I love to share my struggles and victories with all that I meet. I know for me, that has made all of the difference!!!

What I Have Against the Word Recovered

I have personally never liked the term recovered. I know that Bill W used it (he also used LSD, nobodies perfect) and so does the AA literature, but I have never been a fan. To me recovered means that it is over. This will never be over. I once heard said that the greatest trick the Devil ever did was to convince the world he didn't exist. MY addiction exists. My addiction is looking for a way back into my life. It wants to see just a tiny crack in my shield. That is all it needs to get active again in my life.

My addiction is currently in the back of my head lifting weights and running on an elliptical, getting stronger and stronger. It wants me to believe that I am cured. If I am cured, I can stop all of the positive recovery oriented things that I am doing today. After all, if I am recovered I really don't need them. That is what my addiction will convince me of. I know, it has done it before!

The Devil works in the same way. He will convince us that we are better and that we do not need to do positive things that bring us closer to God daily. "You don't need to pray all the time," the Devil whispers. "You don't need to read the Bible today, you read it yesterday," he tells us. My faith and my recovery have things in common. They both need to be fed. They both have the ability to continue to grow for the rest of my life. They will both always be fighting against their opposite.

I have found that the more I pray, the more I meditate, the more I read God's word the stronger my faith will become. I need accountability partners for both my faith and my recovery. The more that I am around positive people in recovery or of the same faith, the stronger mine will become (accountability partners). I need a sponsor, a person with stronger faith/recovery than I have to be an example for me to follow. If I outgrow them, then I replace them.   


You see, the problem with recovered is that it is way wrong terminology. Recovered means that I am out of danger. I am never out of danger. In AA it is said there is a reason that it is called alcohol"ism" not alcohol"wasim." It will never change, the fact that I have an addiction. I can change whether or not I use, but once I use all bets are off. Just because I do not think about it 24-7 does not mean that I am cured. My addiction wants me to think that I am all better, but I am not. When life is going great, the thought may not be in the forefront of my thinking, but it is still there somewhere.

I no longer obsess about using, but the desire is still there. Example, when my dad committed suicide several years ago the first thought that popped into my head was to get high. "That will make you feel better," my addiction reasoned. My second thought was to call my sponsor, which I did. If I am recovered, that thought never touches my mind. Either one of these things does not occur. First the desire to use is gone, so I do not think about using. Secondly, the sponsor would not have been available to talk to because I would not have had one.


I am not cured, I am in remission. I am in recovery, which is present tense. Recovered is past tense. When you are recovered you leave the hospital. I will never leave the groups that I attend, because I need to not only give but receive strength, experience and hope. The day that I am recovered is the day that I die. Only then will it be over. I am blessed and grateful to be in recovery and I would hate to be recovered. I might forget where I came from or how I got there. Recovered means that I can use or drink again. That will never happen.

The truth is that I have a spiritual disease from which there is no known cure! I am thankful for that disease. It has given me knowledge, wisdom, strength, insight and the ability to reach people and positively impact their lives that I would never have had without it. That is awesome! Still there is never a time while I am alive that I will not be an addict. But there is recovery. There is remission, and for that I thank God for through Him all things are possible! For that I am forever grateful!

Documentary Update - Please Like and Share New Facebook Page

I know that I have been on this documentary kick the past week, and that kick is going to continue. Tomorrow I will have a new blog up that will address something other than the documentary. The truth is, this documentary is vitally important to those who are struggling with the consequences of life. I know that this documentary and the way it will be presented are going to really help some people who are in pain. We want them to be able to work through that pain and come out victorious!

Those who are already in their self-destructive behaviors may find the hope and faith that they need to find their way out of them. Those who are not yet engaging in those behaviors and are only thinking of them will find that they are not alone and that they do not have to go down that road, and what will happen if they do. I do not want victims or survivors, I want thrivers. I share the difference between those three roles in my blog entitled Spiritual Spackle (read it here: http://spiritualspackle.blogspot.com/2011/08/spackle-theory.html)

The purpose of my blog today is for you to share the new Facebook group that I have started entitled Better Life in Recovery. I would like for you to join this group and get this group out to as many people as you can. You can find it here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Better-Life-In-Recovery/171246616294150

Share this group with others. This is of vital importance to the new documentary. The Facebook group  will soon be connected to the new website with the same name at www.betterlifeinrecovery.com. The reason this is so important for people to be part of this group is that when voting starts for the Pepsi Refresh grant on November 1st this will have all of the voting information on it. People will be able to go here and get information on how to vote, where to vote and the name of the project.

We will need  thousands of people giving us their votes every day in the month of November in order for us to win. This will allow us to get the documentary shot quicker and begin presenting it sooner than if we do not get the grant and have to fund everything out of our own pocket. I cannot stress this enough, PLEASE LIKE THE FACEBOOK GROUP "BETTER LIFE IN RECOVERY" AND GET AS MANY OF YOUR FACEBOOK FRIENDS TO LIKE IT ALSO SO THAT MORE PEOPLE WILL SEE THE VOTING INFORMATION WHEN IT IS POSTED. THAT WAY WE CAN INCREASE THE PROBABILITY OF OUR WINNING THE GRANT IN NOVEMBER AND CAN BEGIN TALKING TO OUR YOUTH EARLIER!!!! WE ARE TRYING TO SAVE LIVES HERE AND YOUR HELP IS VITAL!!!! THANK YOU!




This is what the documentary is about: