Lessons about life are rarely free. Lessons about love are also rarely free. In fact, I am unaware of any lessons that are free, period. Every lesson that I have learned has had a price tag of some sort. Either I have paid that price personally or someone who came before me paid it.
Prior to getting sober, I saw no value in learning lessons. I knew pain came with consequences and I only knew of one solution. I only chased things of this world for that solution, never considered God was the answer. I never considered service to others was a solution.. I exclusively looked out for myself in order to feel better. Never once did I attempt any sort of altruistic approach to achieve happiness. I very much dislike admitting this, but even when I did nice things for others, it was to either make myself look good or to feel better about myself in some way.
My son needs a present? I got it and felt like a real dad. I focused on what I provided rather than what I stripped from him. You know how you hear that saying about kids don’t need things, they need time and love? That is true. That is real. I am ashamed of all the time I neglected to give my son. I was never a good father to him prior to living how I do now, which means in turn…I never truly showed him love. Of course I loved him, but I also loved heroin. I just couldn’t give certain things up. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I was wrapped up in myself and things of this world. I was more concerned with what I could take rather than what I could give.
I learned about giving through helping others. I learned the lesson about what happens to my spirit when I try to serve others. It was a lesson that came with a very expensive price tag and almost cost me my entire relationship with Canaan.
Almost (thank God.)
I stopped talking about what I did for him and started grinding in order to help him. I grew closer to God through being of service to my son and my brothers and sisters.
I’m not sure if this is more common with alcoholics than it is you weirdos that can just have one glass of wine with dinner, but I could never really learn lessons by what others did before me. I always had to learn the hard way. That resulted in a lot of pain. Abandoning my son, disappointing my family, broken relationships, losing jobs, going to jail, ending up in psych wards and rehabs, sleeping in my car, sleeping in vacant Baltimore row homes, walking the streets of Baltimore in the winter, late at night, lost and eventually intentionally placing myself in situations where I could easily be killed because I was too scared to off my own self.
All these lessons I had to learn the hard way when a manual on how to live was already written for me. A clear cut, divinely designed set of instructions right at my disposal that I completely discredited having any value or practical application to my life.
First it was the Big Book, now it is The Bible.
I learned the hard way that being of service to my brothers and sisters in an effort to grow closer to God and to help others grow closer to God was all I ever needed to be happy. I needed to repent and to accept God in my heart, It was that simple and I turned my back to it. And it wasn’t ever enough to talk about it. Prayer was never enough either. Even saying I believed in God and having faith in the Lord being a solution was not enough. I actually had to act on it and I had to do so consistently.
In the book of James it says this…14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
I personally embrace the lessons I learned today, even though I did so the hard way because so far there has been no shortage of others just like me that I can share my experience with in an effort to help them find God.
I am very blessed for the life I have lived. Both of them.