I have spent most of my life addicted to drugs and alcohol. I have 7 years clean and sober, so I don't have much experience at living life on life's terms. What I do know is still a hazy unsteady existence.
The years I was addicted to one substance, or another, taught me a lot about how to live life in desperation mode. Desperation is a state of despair, typically one which results in rash or extreme behavior.
Extreme behavior is a normal for me—between drugs and mental illness extreme or rash behavior was all I knew, but I still wrote during those times.
I have hundreds of "urgent napkin" poetries. Strewn about my computer hard drives, written in drug induced rages or fits of pain.
I remember the night it all came tumbling down though. It was the night I sat in my car in the driveway and got high on crack cocaine and my mom saw me through the bathroom window lighting something for much longer than it takes to light a cigarette, which I smoked back then.
In the morning, she told dad and he searched my car and found all my stuff for smoking and all my drugs. He destroyed them and then when I awoke, he confronted me.
I was devastated. I knew it was the end. I knew I had to confront what I had been doing and what came next.
I didn't go to rehab this time though I had been many times before. I went to Narcotics Anonymous instead. Dad took away my driving privileges because he didn't want me going off somewhere to do drugs.
I was stuck at home withdrawing from crack, which is tough but not impossible to handle, and going to meetings every day. I went, I listened, I didn't understand but I followed the program.
I got a sponsor. I went to 90 meetings in 90 days. I started going through the steps with my sponsor, but I held in my heart that I wasn't done.
After 18 months when I hit steps 8 and 9, making amends to the people you hurt, I bailed and relapsed. I was out there again running to Detroit daily for my drugs with friends. I even had a friend overdose in my car on the way back from Detroit and I had to rush him to the closest ER.
After about a year or so I got clean again and got a new sponsor. I went to meetings for a year. I was done at this point—desperate to stay clean.
I did stay clean but after that first year back I stopped going to meetings. I felt like they weren't doing me any good. I was clean but not working a program of recovery.
I was a dry addict. For a year I stayed like this until I was desperate for some relief from the depression and pain of being a dry addict.
I called the only person I knew that was working a program of recovery. She talked to me and invited me to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. I had never tried Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) but was willing to try anything if it worked.
At AA I felt like a sore thumb. I was an addict and here I dealt with alcoholics. They didn't know my pain—how could they, they just went to the bar too much is what I thought.
Then my friend that I called became my sponsor in AA and told me her story. She was a meth addict and an alcoholic. "It takes what it takes," she said.
I learned to be okay in a room full of drunks that talked about alcohol all the time. I learned that though I drank and never too much success, I too was an alcoholic.
I spent 5 years going to meetings daily at first, then three times a week, eventually just once a week, and now I go on occasion. I feel that if you have a program of sobriety that works for you like I do—prayer, meditation, affirmations, reading the big book, doing the daily readers every morning to start your day thinking about sobriety—then meetings are just an outpouring of negativity.
However, that doesn't work for everyone. Some people really enjoy the meetings; it makes them feel not alone. I didn't and don't feel alone. I have friends in the program that if I needed to, I could turn to in a time of need.
I am a perfect reflection of the God of my understanding. I am in love with life and life is going great these days. I utilize my writing as an avenue to explore my inner self and work every day at my writing. All in all, life is good and I am a recovering addict working the twelve steps the only way I know how.
However, my way is not traditional.