7 Years...Amen

At times this world can be so beautiful, it's hard to take it all in.
But don't you be afraid, just let it rain...and say Amen.

~Jen Foster~

August 23, 2010 marks 7 years of sobriety in my world...7 years since my world fell apart...7 years of slowly picking up the pieces and figuring out how they all fit back together...

August 23, 2003 was a Hell hot day in Dallas, and I guess I could say that it was the worst day of my life. Then again, I suppose I could also say it was the best. We all have moments in time that alter not just our circumstances, but the very essence of who we are...and, for me, this day and the weeks, months, and the immediate years that followed held many of them.

So much has changed, in fact, that I cannot even recognize the person that I was before I got sober. That person had such different values and perspectives than my own - and yet, there is proof of this existence in a handful of writings, photos, and legal papers that I keep in a box underneath the bed that I sleep in today - 700 miles from where it all happened. Most days, it might as well be 10,000. Some days, it feels more like 10. Always, I am aware that the road back is as short as the journey here has been long.

Every year on this day, I make a point of going back there in my mind and making a concerted effort to re-experience the "highlights" of the two years after my active addiction ended. Police cars, courtrooms, handcuffs, strip searches, work detail, letters home, family visits that never happened...endless days, and nights that seemed even longer. I don't force my mind back there to punish myself - I do it to remind myself of where I can never be again. For whatever the reasons I will say out loud that I stay sober...the real thing that keeps me clean is the pure and unadulterated terror of returning to that place. There is nothing that I fear more - and nothing makes me more grateful to be alive, and to be who I am now than the humbling memory of the path that led me here.

And then I think of how the story has changed. I think of how broken I was, and how strong I am now - mainly because I was just too dumb or hard headed to understand that giving up was, indeed, an option. 7 years - more than 2500 days - have passed since then, and each and every one of them has begun and ended with a prayer of thanksgiving to the higher power of my understanding - an entity for which I have no name...only the concept of a universal energy that encompasses the ideals of truth, love, compassion, wisdom, kindness, tolerance, patience, humility, forgiveness, mercy, and faith. The hours in between are filled with steps counted one at a time in the hopes that enough of these steps taken consecutively will eventually come together to create some sort of productive and meaningful life that is worth at least an honorable mention. It's a work in progress. When I stumble, I get up. When regret threatens to choke me, I fight myself out of it's grasp until I can breathe again. When the winds of change blow so hard that forward movement seems impossible, I go through the motions anyway...step...step...step...step. Eventually, the storm will calm and I will be on my way once again. Building my life upon these foundations has brought immeasurable joy and blessed me with the ability to reach beyond my comfort zones and into the places where my dreams await. There is less fear, and more risk (calculated as it might be) with the understanding that any given failure will not be my last...or necessarily even the end of the story at hand.

Looking out into the rain at the dawn of the 8th year of my second chance...I acknowledge the battered and broken person that has become a mere whisper in my mind in the darkest moments of night...and I celebrate the strong, hopeful, (and ever so slightly neurotic, many would say) individual that has taken her place. And each breath I draw into my lungs is released as a prayer of gratitude to the universe...

...Amen, once again.

The List

From the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous:

8
We made a list of the persons we had harmed and
became willing to make amends to them all.
9
We made direct amends to such people whenever possible
except when to do so would injure them or others.

I have a list. Anyone whose life has ever been touched by the disease of addiction has a list. The list that I keep consists primarily of those people and offenses that I remember, however vaguely - but I am certain that there are individuals out there that I am not even aware of whose names should be added. If I got really honest, I could likely fill a novel sized book with situations and events in which someone other than me was hurt, offended, saddened, or otherwise affected during the course of my active addiction.

Early in my recovery, as I tried to burn through the steps in record time, I tried to "do" amends. I made it my mission to try to track down every soul that I was aware of ever hurting so that I could tell them I was sorry and make amends to them in whatever way I needed to. One person after another responded with a mostly lukewarm "That's Nice" or "I'm Happy For You." Some were a little slow to respond, and some never did at all. A handful made it clear that no amend that I could ever make would undo or repair the damage that had already been done. Since that time, I have learned more about amends and what they are supposed to involve. I have accomplished some milestones related to step 9 that I never thought I would be able to accomplish. It has taken great patience and monumental effort, along with deep compassion and forgiveness in most cases - to begin to rebuild some of the relationships that were lost so long ago. But it is the images and memories of that handful of people that stay with me...visiting my dreams and occupying the dark corners of my heart that I only become aware of in my most solitary and silent moments. This is the regret that I carry with me. Some days it feels like it is strengthening me, and others, it seems to be crushing me. But always, it is there...like a boulder that I can't seem to set down.

Every night as I leave my job, I pass under an arch that reads "Let Go and Let God." It is a concept that all in recovery are familiar with, for it is only when we loosen our grasp on trying to control that which we cannot, that a new freedom opens up to us - not surprisingly, we also have to be ready for that freedom in order to really, fully, completely let go and give in to the surrender. Almost on a daily basis, I ask myself what purpose the pain and regret are serving in my life and what it will take to finally be able to loosen my grip on them, turn them over to the care of the universe, and free myself from limitations that they put on my own growth and happiness. Sometimes I think that keeping them with me provides the punishment that I feel I deserve for some of the things that I have done, and sometimes I think holding on to those regrets is my way of keeping those people with me that I cannot bear to think of living the rest of my life without...even though I know in my mind that there is not enough good intention and positive change in the world to restore what those relationships once were to me.

And so, even as I continue to go through the process of righting wrongs, rebuilding that which I destroyed, and marking off my progress with tiny little check marks...I doubt that I will ever be able to completely relinquish the hope that one day the list will be complete.

Until that day, I keep working.

The Things We Cannot Change

I open my lungs
To breathe in forgiveness and love
Haunting me now
Reminders of how I used to be...

...Tell me how to make right
All the wrong turns that I've learned
So this can all end tonight...

-Chris Daughtry