Picture this: You are at a rock concert, and twenty bands are playing. Only they don’t take turns, they all play at the same time. And twenty of your friends are trying to talk to you at the same time. And you are trying to solve a complicated math equation while trying to hear your favorite song.
My head screams at me. My thoughts race from one idea to the next. It’s as if I have no chance of completing a thought to get anything done ever. “You fucking loser! Get up, go do some laundry! Go kiss your baby! Wash the car, it’s fucking filthy! Call your dad, you haven’t…SHIT, I gotta throw…My fucking cell phone is gonna get shut off if I don’t…You’re gonna need to get up with Black before he goes…Where’s my wife, she’s going to…My P.O. is probably pissed off that I…etc…”
This is what’s it’s like. And it doesn’t matter where I am, or who I’m with, it’s just there constantly. Dinner with my family, it’s there. Playing on the floor with my son, it’s there. Driving my car, it’s there. At a job interview, it’s there. When I’m trying to go to sleep…it’s there, that’s when it’s the worst.
So tell me, how could you ever get anything done if that’s how your head worked? You couldn’t. And I am no exception. I couldn’t even brush my teeth without a hundred different thoughts buzzing through my head.
But when I fill that needle up, when I crack that bottle top, when I here that crackle in the end of a pipe…All of that stops. In fact, the only thought I have to shuffle into action is “Where and how will I get more.”
You would think that, that’s a good trade. Well, so did I. So that’s how I managed for years. But there are big problems with that way of thinking. I still didn’t get anything done. My son went hungry, he went without so much that he could’ve had. And once the pain got great enough from watching him suffer, from watching my wife suffer, from watching my step-son suffer, and not to mention all my family and friends suffer…I did more. I didn’t stop. It wasn’t enough. And then I got to a point where I wanted to stop and couldn’t. And I don’t need to be shooting heroin everyday to lose the power of choice. No, I just need a sip of alcohol, and sniff of dope, and it’s over.
This is who I am without the only solution that works. G-d is the thing that has been able to shut off that noise in my head. The only thing that has given me any purpose. The only thing that gives me peace and quiet. Today, I take time to quiet myself in the presence of Him. I just stop. I breathe. I wait. Then I start my day. And all those self seeking thoughts I used to battle with are substituted with thoughts of how I can help you. I assure you, I’m not wired to think this way, and I’m not sure when that changed. All I know is, it’s a lot easier to live like this, to be a Daddy to my son, than it is to live the way I used to.