Research & Development

How manys days would you suppose it takes to get a 30 day chip of continuous sobriety?

Many drops make a bucket, many buckets make a pond, many ponds make a lake, and many lakes make an ocean.

And yeah, this cryptogram could be like asking, "which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of gold?" but the reality of recovery is, that it can take decades, years, months & many days of relentless work. The mental evolution required within ones self to aquire anything substantial to the outside world can wear your soul thin. "But if nothing changes, then nothing changes" This last go round it has taken me 116 days, 3 ER visits, 2 neuro-pyschiatric observations, and being incarcerated to get 30 days in a row of clean time.

A Beautiful mind is a terrible thing to waste..

 I have been sober at various times (sometimes months or years) in my life by will power, but that looks & feels much different than working a program of recovery. The basic distinction is that the white knuckle way of abstinence from drugs n' alcohol leaves you feeling restless, irritable, & discontent when you are left to cope without self medicating. 

Recovery has a beginning, goes in order, and maintains structure... however there is no end. You never graduate, there isn't a diploma or certificate of completion.  What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. Those early days, just like drops of rain gathering in a bucket, could someday add up to a sea of sobriety.

If long term sobriety & dying sober is the pot of gold at the end of the recovery rainbow, then what must does the beginning of look like?

Recovery is not all Butterflies-n-Rainbows-n-blowjobs...

I will attempt to explain:

It is climbing out of a pit of dispair.... a deep, dark hole with a broken shovel in the bottom of it after you didn't have the strength to dig anymore.. . hopefully. But once you climb out of that hole and see the sunshine for the first time in days, saying that you are going to "give up digging your own grave" like so many times before this. But this time IS really the last time. You're shovelin days are over, no more slave to the grind. 

There is really no one that can help you out of this self imposed prison, you have most likely isolated yourself from everyone that cares about you, so distorted was your reality that you might think the drug dealer is your only friend & everyone else is out to get you... and going from feeling like this to actually reaching out for help when all you feel is shame for suffering from incomprehensible demoralization can be a stretch to say the least.

The recovery rainbow looks more like this:  Instead of a perfect upward arch of blissful heavenly rise, it resembles a heart rate monitor. A sine wave / acdc... there are ups, some downs, maybe a plateau. . followed by a cliff. But eventually we hope for a upward spiral.

If I ever want to see that pot of gold I have to evolve, to form a new way of thinking, and surrender to doing things on my own. My way got me a bucket full of newcomer chips & a empty playground full of holes. Slowly but surely, I am figuring out how to live life on lifes terms, how to walk the walk in a new pair of shoes, and how not to grab that shovel.

Common Denominator

"If you could have any person in the world put your life back together, to pick up the pieces and arrange them how you see fit, who would that person be?"

As a person in general it's tempting to blame the cause of your problems onto other people or circumstance. In an Alcoholic and/or addicts brain blaming everything but yourself is considered S.O.P. "If you had my life you would use (fill in the substance) too. If you had my (fill in the problem) worries you would check out of reality too. If you had experienced my (fill in the negative adjective) upbringing, then you would seek escape and live a double life too."

''If you had my life, my problems, my struggles and proceeded to accumulate compound interest on them by abusing drugs, alcohol, sex, etc.. etc..,  going spiritually, emotionally, and financially bankrupt you would think that eating a gun was a solution when the other solutions stopped working too!"  .... Projection much? Dissolusioned slightly? 

 I would venture to say that as infants we relied on our parents to make everything better & safe in our bright, new, and shiny world. Then as adolescents most of us blamed all our seemingly serious issues of the day back onto our parents as the worlds luster began to fade.

 Once we figured out that when we liked someone, and they in turn liked us back, we felt validation & appreciation. Which in turn boosted our self-worth and ego. I suspect that many of us starting relying on outside relationships to build up our world and self esteem at an early age. What happens when that relationship fails? It couldn't be our own fault... we are fucking awesome.

 Once again the blame is usually swayed away from us and onto our former partners. This cycle was repeated into my adult dating life. But I longed to leave the uncertainty of dating behind me, to have something concrete and stable. I wanted to build an empire out of rubble, so when I met the girl of my dreams who would undoubtedly make me feel complete, I married her at 23. After all, I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Marriage is permanent. Marriage is a binding fucking contract of foreverness. 

I was divorced at 25... I was alone in a state I didn't want to be in, lost in a state of fear I didn't think I signed up for when I said "I do", left as a statistic in a category  that I didn't want to fall into after signing the divorce decree.  It certainly wasn't my fault. I was actually sober during my marriage. I didn't even show up to my own bachelor party. (Out of fear of what I would do to screw up my soon to be perfect union) This fact alone should prove it couldn't have been anything this addict did. 

I would spend the next decade trying to live in the bachelor party I had thought I missed out on, the one I thought I should have went to and done massive rails of blow off of strippers naked bodies. I was living lost and full of fear, seeking escape from being alone with relationships I wasn't present for, not caring to much if they failed as I was quite certain that they would.

I started recently thinking that it could be something to do with my behaviors, my selfish way of thinking, and I  actually am at fault. I am the common denominator of every relationship I have participated in. I blamed everything else when things didn't go my way or to plan. I had so much selfish pride mixed with an ego that was not my amigo... I am quick to take credit when good things happen to me or even around me. If the sun is shining, I probably had a hand in it.

On the flip side if a storm rolls through and rains on your parade I had nothing to do with that horse shit. 

Until I accept myself as the problem or the cause of the problems I am facing, I am not able to live in the solution. I am blocked from it. I cannot solve the equation until I except my own value in the problem.

Give up. Own up. Make up. Keep up.

Not Going out Today.

Not on this Fucking day. This is not that fucking day what so ever. This is not that fucking day that I listen to the voice say that it will somehow be different this time getting loaded on drugs and alcohol. That this time will bring guaranteed relief instead of inevitable misery.

I think it's fucked up how I'm still fucked up. It's this tug of war between what is comfortable, and what I really want out of life. I really want clarity, security and freedom from living in fear of being me.

Everyday sober day is a a day further away from living in active alcoholism/addiction. Which is a amazing feat, an amazing accomplishment, but on the flip side of the sobriety coin, everyday sober is another day this disease has a reason to say that things are good now... you would be OK drinking a beer.. smoking some weed. Just kick back and relax. Think of the good times, not the breakups.

What we alcholics and addicts have is a perceptual problem. I am a victim of the world and everyone in it. You were always the problem, never me, always you. I have been hearing it said and explained to me that through hard work and a long road of recovery that eventually I will come to the realization that "You can't hurt me. Only I can hurt myself."

Everything out there.... everything outside of the space between our ears is just noise and movement. It is our own choice to see what happens within that movement and what we hear within that noise. Only then can we process if it is good or bad, if it is Heaven or Hell.

We are not bad people getting good, we are not stupid people getting smart, we are sick people getting well.

Jesus take the Wheel

While I was driving down the I-15 the other day in road construction, My dear mother ( who was born and raised in rural West Virginia / Maryland, where there are dirt roads, gravel roads, single lane paved roads, and an occasional dual lane highway) exclaims, "Five lanes of highway, and they are building more?  I will never drive on this freeway or in downtown Salt Lake city. Can't I just take the side streets or Redwood road to get where I am going?"

I retort, "While there may me five lanes on the highway, you really only have to worry about the one are currently driving in. It's like having 7 days of the week, luckily you only have to deal with one day at a time, not all of them at once." 

"It's the other drivers I am worried about, what if they swerve into my lane or cut me off?" 

Another legitimate concern, but it is ultimately out of our control, what other drivers, pedestrians, animals, a falling tree or debris does or does not do on our road of existence. Same thing applies to all people, places, and things, of this fucked up world. The sooner we realize that no one can hurt us except ourself (and I have hurt myself an awful lot ingesting poison and expecting someone else to suffer from it),the sooner we can be on our way to freedom of more self-harm.

It all refers back to the principles I have learned and continue to learn in recovery. I can only control myself and stay in my lane while letting a power greater than me take care of the rest.  We must focus our attention to the present day we are living in, not dwelling on the past, nor worrying about the future. 

"Forget yesterday, yesterday has already forgotten you. Do not sweat tomorrow, you haven't even met yet. Instead, open your eyes and heart to a truly precious gift. Today"


No, I do not have this philosophy or way of life down pat. I struggle with it daily, so I must turn over my will as soon as I wake and then multiple times throughout the day. It gradually gets better, but I need to be constantly reminded that if I try to run the show, I will be the one swerving out of my lane, running red lights, crashing in my truck-boat-truck full of explosive gasoline.