- Drugs
- Faith
I hit my knees in a jail cell after years of the revolving door of the corrections system. I prayed to a God I had been told about, although I didn’t know if he existed or knew who I was. If he was there, why would he want to help a guy like me? I prayed anyway, and I said, “God, please give me help or bring me home. I can’t do this anymore.” That was the last time I prayed without faith, as that’s the day God taught me we have the power to move mountains, when we have the simple mustard seed of faith.
Before that day I didn’t want to wake up anymore. I isolated myself from the real world that had haunted me for so long. I would think of ways to end my life like taking enough heroin or benzos. This was my day-to-day life for nearly two years, but it all changed, when I just couldn’t do it anymore. I finally made the decision that I was either going to get better, or I was going to die.
I was given the gift of treatment. I was taught not just about drugs and alcohol and treatment. I was taught about life and about how real, raw emotions are a normal part of everyone’s story. They taught me that each day is a gift, no matter what happens and no matter how it happens. Even if the day ends with me feeling sad, it’s okay to feel exactly how I am feeling. I had been raised to believe that happiness was the only real and “good” emotion, and I spent most of my late teens and early adult life chasing happiness at the bottom of a bottle, in a pile of powder and from a balloon of dope. What I began to slowly realize was that happiness was relative. It is a state of mind. When you become honest, open minded and willing to look at each moment of life as a gift of a moment to learn and grow beyond the present, you have tapped into the proverbial fountain of youth. You have gained insight into a world that revolves around the eye of its beholder.
No matter how far gone you feel and no matter how alone you may be, know that life can and will continue to go on. It can get better, and it will get better, if you wish it to. I was raised in a humble and loving home and still made the decision to take fate into my own hands. By the age of 20 I had been charged with 26 felonies and was on my way to prison. By 22 I had picked up 2 more felony charges on felony probation and did not go to prison. A year later I was sent to drug court, where I ran and continued to use and still did not go to prison. Today I am sober for over four years, I own my own business and I have a beautiful child and a wife who loves me unconditionally. Anything is possible, when you take the cotton out of your ears, put it in your mouth and listen. When you realize the world does not revolve around you and that there is a God, life will change. Let go. Let God. Let live.
I now have a sense of peace knowing that at the end of the day I don’t have to be a perfect human being to be completely perfect to my creator. Life is beautiful and allows me to gain experience and learn each and every day. People are beautiful. Love for my fellow man has helped me understand how service truly can add so much to the soul. I know, because I haven’t picked up today or for the past four years of my life. No matter what problem or equation life throws at me today a positive solution or outcome is possible. When I don’t put drugs or alcohol in my system, I know one thing. Anything is possible. When I put chemicals in my body, there’s only one outcome: I have an allergic reaction and break out in handcuffs. I think I will take my chances on another day of sobriety.
God is good. You are worthy of love. Anything is possible.