I once was captured by police on Park Heights Avenue. I remember I was hacking (picking up people for money for you folks not in the know) up and down Park Heights and Reisterstown Rd trying to get $40. If I’m being real I would’ve stopped at $20. I don’t remember much but I remember this day. I made a left on Park Heights from Coldspring. Got about 2-3 blocks and saw the lights. I had seen the lights in my rear view plenty of times before, but this time it just felt different. It felt like it meant something. There had been many times when I felt deep inside of me that it was time for a change. There had been many times that I stole from my family. Stole from my kid. Left for weeks and months at a time. Bounced in and out of my son’s life. There were even certain points in my life when I felt real human emotions still. Guilt. Shame. Things like that.
I would wake up in a rest stop bathroom or a vacant home in Bmore or in a freezing car, spitting up pieces of what I think was my lung and feel like it was time for a change. But that feeling only lasted long enough to realize that I was ill and needed my medicine. I did want to change, but just never thought it was possible. I had failed at it so many times before. Shit, there were people in the rooms that jokingly called me “Lost Cause” because I just could never stay.
Recognizing that it is time for a change is a completely different thing than taking the action to change. Go ahead and think that bullshit about “Well admitting it is the first step” but it’s not. Not for me at least. Shit, if that was the first step, there’s like a million steps in between that and the second step.
There’s evictions. There’s health problems. There’s crimes to commit. There’s suicidal thoughts. There’s stolen cars. There’s homelessness. There’s broken relationships. There’s sticking a knife in the heart of your family then twisting it and smiling. There’s complete psychotic episodes in public. There’s violence. There’s so much fucking violence. There’s theft and manipulation. There’s selfishness. There’s death. There’s fear. There’s obligatory “love.” There’s jail. There’s rehab after rehab after detox after detox. There’s losing jobs and losing hope. There’s the sacrifice of every shred of decency and morals you once had. There is without a doubt a complete lack of love. Not giving it and incapable of receiving it.
There’s the absence of God and a perfect understanding of loneliness. There’s so much darkness.
I have experienced all of that and more. I lived through all of that and still couldn’t take the proper steps AFTER admitting the problem.
Since getting sober I have been given the opposite of all that. I have been given the purest sense of love and peace. I sometimes forget that and then I get rocked with a dose of reality. I get curb stomped by something that forces me to remember what my life was like before and who I was.
This happened very recently.
I got hit so hard by something in my personal life that I was driven to tears, multiple times…as recently as today even. Real tears…and I am the type of man that normally doesn’t have a need to cry. It usually is pointless unless I just have no way out of my feelings. There are certain things that can make me feel completely helpless and lost. Remind me that I don’t have control. Well, one of them happened and has been continuing to happen. Thank fucking God that I have good people in my corner…not to rely on, no. But people to point out reality while I am polluted with fear and delusion and to point me in the direction of God. My wife has been trying to do that. Thank God for my wife. Shit, if you know me, then you know what a good person she is for being able to tolerate me.
So today, when I recognize that it is time for a change, I don’t have to burn my whole life to the ground first. I just need to remember how I took the steps towards coughing up the ashes and how to wash off the soot.