I was built for a post-apocalyptic world, but most people haven’t gotten there yet and I hate to wait.
Trauma has isolated me from much of the world. Maybe this is what it feels like to come home from war. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been to a war, or at least not in the traditional sense, and I suppose like me, folks who have are isolated as well. Maybe this is what it’s like to be a quantum physicist at a Tupperware party. Maybe this is what it’s like to be an English professor on planet Xenu or a Thomas Sowell ever. They’ve never told me, but I feel like we may all be living within our own unique habitations, rolling around in big plastic balls of experience all over this planet. Everyone is smiling, chatting about obscure foods and the ambience of their stunted emotions, vibrant vacancy, assaulting flatness. “I love dogs. Like, I love them,” someone says and then someone else produces a photo of their corgi, Wilson. Wilson loves to watch birds through the windows and chased a shadow once. They all chuckle and that guy on the left straightens his tie. And here we are, me, Thomas, the teacher on Xenu, General Survivor, rolling around in our awkward plastic balls as we eye these strange creatures. They like anime. Ok? What do I say to that?
I like dogs. I don’t dislike them. I don’t really care, honestly. If a dog was suffering I would help it. I like piercings and cobb salad also, but who wants to talk about that? Who even thinks about that? In 2009 I pulled a man’s false teeth from his mouth so he wouldn’t swallow them as he had a seizure from a heroin overdose. He had just come back in town after spending a year living under a bridge in New Orleans. When he left for New Orleans he persuaded a friend to sell his truck and come with him so he could fund their trip. They both lived under a bridge and every morning they sat at the day labor temp agency hoping to get enough work to fund their habit. Sometimes they would call and ask someone from North Carolina to ship them syringes or buy gift cards. Did you know that Louisiana doesn’t allow the purchase of syringes without a prescription and gift cards are highly devalued? Hepatitis. I don’t want to talk about dogs.
I’ve done my best over the past years to reintegrate back into society, but honestly, I was never very good at it even before I experienced trauma. When situations were dry, awkward or emotionally perilous, I had a habit of commandeering the narrative into my own arena, often to my own detriment. I was arrested for passing a stopped school bus when I was sixteen years old and I plead diarrhea to the judge. “Your honor, I had sudden diarrhea. I’m sorry.” I said in open court. That time it worked to my advantage. That time. Last week I told my coworker that she looked like the type who would be a bridezilla and I was surprised that she wasn’t. I thought it was a compliment. It didn’t land as I expected. I was built for a post-apocalyptic world, but most people haven’t gotten there yet and I hate to wait.
I find it so difficult to entertain mundane conversation about weekend plans and mild illness. I want to change things! I want to be that person I knew from my first recalled memory that I was created to be. I want to shake it up, stir it around, juggle it behind my back and throw it triumphantly to the next. People are dying, I’ve seen them. People are hurting, I’ve been one. Neglected children are on their way to being destructive adults and we love dogs. We love sushi, too and that commute was terrible and Sailor Moon is my favorite. I don’t begrudge you, I just can’t take part. I can’t understand. I can’t form a response. My friends are dead, in prison dying, in the streets dying, clinging to what is left of their souls. My friends are ghosts. I have none. I have what I cling to desperately. I have faith, I have a family, I have proven endurance. I have a wall that is higher than my eyes can see and your dog doesn’t even come close to clearing it.
“You think weird,” I was told. I think like a sane person who was locked in a mental institution for decades only to come out and learn that the world has become the haunting ground for spiritual zombies. I think like a person who has embodied a corpse. I think like a person who has seen beyond the veil. I think like a person who is perpetually trapped in two worlds. I can’t tell most people what I’ve seen. They need safe zones and ice-cream socials. Everyday I want to scream, “You don’t know! You have it so good!” but instead I turn my head and hate Wilson silently. I don’t want a support group, I want a world where people are honest about their experiences. I want a world where we can communicate openly about what we have endured, witnessed — and then get over it. Half of me already lives in this world and if you choose to visit, we don’t require a passport. The other half of me begrudgingly pulls a paycheck.
I know who’s dying and why. I know the status of their wasting and I know how it feels to be left behind. I know how it feels to know things no one wants to know or hear or think about or even believe exists because it makes them culpable. I know how it feels to tell the heinous truth and be shunned for the stun of it. I know what happens when the curtain is drawn and the soul stabbing pain of finality which is so great it makes death seem delightful. I’ve seen centuries of consequences pass before me, I’ve seen the waste of a different kind of war and I’m a better person for it. Those things made me worthy of knowing. Maybe you know a different loss, a different stab and if you do, I want to know it too. I want to know how you got the dirt under your nails and why you have that eye twitch and that thing you swore no one would ever understand because I swear too, I will try.
I want to tell it all true, hear it all true and never, ever have to pretend to care about a single thing that can’t clear the fence.
You are soft bacon, marinading in the fats of your mistakes. This is a recipe for a lifetime of suffering, but you came here to get high, so get high.
♠
You are too skinny. Your skin looks bad. You are sitting on the floor of a filthy hotel room. Your friends are hookers. Your boyfriend is in jail. You are wanted in four counties. Your girlfriend steals from her parents. Your kids have forgotten your name. Worse, they know your name and they’ve said it desperately as you lay in a heap on the bathroom floor. You haven’t had a job in years, or a bank account, or a car without cigarette burns and a falling headliner. You have a burner phone. You trade your food stamps for cash, your body for dope. You smoke two packs a day. You could be anywhere at anytime, you have no home base. You sleep late into the day. Your clothes are baggy and filthy. Your clothes aren’t yours. You wear a hoodie in the summer. Your spoons aren’t for eating. You do your cooking in a bathroom stall, you stopped dreaming after the first hit . You’ve got schemes and you are good. You know the courtroom well, the highway better, the trap house best. You’ve forgotten smells, sounds and hobbies. You think God is dead. You died sometime, you can’t place it. I see you.
I see your photographs on my feed and I hear you calling. I feel your pain as you walk past, a shadow of something that used to be. I understand as you struggle to pretend you aren’t dying. I would like to call you out for all that you have become, but I know the smell of defeat. I know uncooked meat. I know when it is time to turn a simmer to a sizzle and just how counterintuitive that seems.
The best thing that can happen for you, my filthy, lost friends, is to embrace total devastation. You are soft bacon, marinading in the fats of your mistakes. This is a recipe for a lifetime of suffering, but you came here to get high, so get high. Get high and crispy. Get burnt. Get as close to dead as anyone can, but not so far as we all will. I am rooting for you & I hope to see you on the cooling rack someday, sun-kissed, smiling and unscathed, save for the torment of memories that will serve as your updraft.
♠
These are the things I wish daily I could communicate to people who are still living in addiction. There isn’t much hope that any of them will read this blog post, but if only one…
He speaks through opportunity and the unlikely weaving of the unimaginable, unpredictable and unexplainable. He speaks through suffering, stumbling, sin and salvation.
I used to have an idea of God. I had an idea that He loved me, distantly, rigidly even, like the elementary school principal that I never had the occasion to meet. He was an observer. I had an idea that he existed somewhere outside of my environment, watching, waiting. He did a lot of waiting. I didn’t see evidence of His hand in my life and after a time, I gave up looking. I suppose, for me, God went missing and I didn’t bother to send out the search party. I wouldn’t have known who to look for, had I tried. I had heard of His voice, never his voice. I didn’t have a face or past experience to solidify the image of Him in my mind. He was elusive, vague, dreamlike and disinterested in me. So, this poorly formed idea disintegrated within me, dissipated and was forgotten.
In elementary school I was a very good student. I never behaved poorly enough to warrant consequences and thus, I never formally met my principal. In fact, I was terrified of doing anything wrong, disappointing even a single person. I suppose he knew my name, but I couldn’t say for sure. Maybe he saw me walk to class, knew of my parents or was familiar with seeing my face in the hallway. Had you asked me what he was like, I would likely have given you general terms associated with principals. Maybe he is kind, maybe he has a stern face. Maybe he is quiet and neatly dressed. He probably wouldn’t hurt anyone but he could be scary if you misbehaved. Such was my relationship with God. I had never had need to know Him intimately. Things change.
Suffering is an opportunity unlike any other. There is little that can match the magic that happens when a person is utterly vulnerable. Whether self-imposed or otherwise, being without any worldly solution, being impotent to change our situation, is the impetus to surrender. In the past, when I heard that word, surrender, it would make me angry. ‘Surrender’ sounded counterintuitive. If I had a problem, I had to act, not give up. Right? I am a fighter, not a quitter. I don’t give up, I win! Except that through all of my fighting, I never won, not even once. Years later I would learn that surrendering didn’t mean giving up at all.
A few months ago my daughters asked to go rollerblading. I took them out to the lot behind our house, but they weren’t very good at maintaining their balance. My youngest was about to fall and grabbed on to the wooden fence along the edge of the lot. As she fought to catch herself, splinters sliced into her little hands, fifteen or so. For the next half hour I grappled with her, trying to remove them from her hands. Each time I would bring the tweezers close, she would squeal and jerk away, tears flowing down her face. Obviously she was in anguish, but I couldn’t help her until she relaxed. She was fighting against her own self-interest. This is what we do everyday. We squirm and struggle in a weak attempt to initiate change, all the while, God is waiting for us to calm down and let him help. Surrendering is not an act of accepting defeat, but rather an act of accepting help, and in times of great suffering we are presented with an opportunity to do just that.
I never did meet my principal, but in 2011 I did meet God. That was the year I got sober and by no coincidence, the same year I realized I had absolutely destroyed everything in my life. An amazing thing happened during that time, though. Because I had nothing, I found what I had been looking for all along. It was like cleaning a messy room and finding the floor! When there were no enablers, no cheerleaders, no televisions, radios, bars, drinks, dope, cigarettes, swimming pools, beach vacations, shopping trips, home-cooked meals, manicures, jobs, hair cuts, days in the park—-there was God, waiting. He had done a lot of waiting. And I heard his voice. First, softly and then, the more I listened, the more pronounced it became until eventually it was the loudest voice in the room. And then came the dreams.
Some Christians worship a God who is distant and incommunicative, but my God speaks and he speaks in every way imaginable. He speaks in the wind and in the waves. He speaks through people, through timing, through patterns and the simplicity of a child. He speaks through opportunity and the unlikely weaving of the unimaginable, unpredictable and unexplainable. He speaks through suffering, stumbling, sin and salvation. He speaks through His word, he speaks through victory and sometimes, he speaks through dreams.
When God has given me a dream, I know. They have a vivid quality to them, closer to living than dreaming. But more than their appearance, they have staying power. When God speaks through a dream, it will remain with me forever. It will continue to reveal more and more wisdom as time goes on and always it will be corroborated by something that happens subsequently in my life. It is my favorite form of communication with Him because it is a dialogue which unfolds artistically and always in a manner which I couldn’t have anticipated or designed.
The night before last I had a dream that I was in Las Vegas. I wasn’t there to gamble or party. I was just there, visiting I suppose. I had spent exactly $60 dollars to get there and on whatever other needs I had. I don’t know why but I knew the exact amount. I also knew I was very poor. That $60 was the last of my money.
I went to the laundromat and as I was loading clothes into the dryer, I realized that none of the people at this laundromat ever cleaned the lint trap out. I thought, these people are very inattentive. This could cause a fire. I began cleaning out the trap, which was angled outside of my vision. I reached in blindly and felt something crumpled and hard. I pulled out a twenty dollar bill. I reached back in and pulled out another, and then another. Then I pulled out a ten. I reached back in to feel for more but it was empty. I had found a total of $70 and I marveled at how I came to Vegas, didn’t gamble and somehow still managed to get back all of the money I spent, and I made $10 extra — all from just doing what needed done— cleaning out the lint trap.
That was the dream in its entirety. It doesn’t seem like much does it? But that is how I know it is everything.
Yesterday I went to church and realized my money was at home in my pants pocket. All I had was a little change to put in the offering plate. At first I wasn’t going to put it in, thinking how insulting it would be to give coins. Then I remembered the widow’s offering in Mark (Mark 12:41-44) and thought of the mere seven dollars I had left at home. What made me think of that, anyway? I decided it was good to give the paltry change I had, regardless. I dropped it in and it clanged loudly. I was so embarrassed.
After church we stopped at a mom and pop store to pick up some food for lunch. When we got to the counter, my mom realized she had left her debit card at home. Normally I would have no trouble covering this, but having been out of work for months now, my thoughts went to the mere $25 I had left in my bank account. I am in that moment calculating in my head, seven at home, twenty-five in my account, that’s $32. The entirety of my wealth. I felt my stomach flip. I don’t like this feeling of helplessness. I swallowed it and told her I could cover it. Of course I could, it was only $8. I guess getting that close to the bottom of the barrel is unnerving.
When we got back to her house we ate lunch and then she gave me a $20 bill to cover the $8 I spent at the store. It wasn’t until late last night that I realized that after the $8 at the store and the change I put in the offering plate, I had profited right at $10. In fact, if I could go back and count the change I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to learn it was $10 down to the penny, just as in my dream.
We Christians live in a world of sin, like Vegas you might say. We are strangers in this place, temporary visitors. We have to live here for a time, but we don’t have to take part in the darkness to be successful, despite how the world suggests otherwise. We live by faith, we live by His word and we will always be provided for. We are cleaning out lint traps every day, some in the heart and some in head, caring for that which others disregard. We are the mess cleaners, the fire preventers, the silent observers and the grateful receivers of God’s blessings.
I wanted to share this with each of you, as it brought me great comfort in a time where I could easily be swept away with fear and doubt. Though I have not been able to provide for myself for three months, I have not gone without and will not go without, and neither will you. Wash yourself clean, be a light in a world of darkness and walk boldly in faith because there is no circumstance impossible enough, no situation dire enough that God cannot overcome to the benefit of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
Psalm 37:25
I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.
It represents just how close I came to crossing the rubicon. Not sort of close, not toes in the water close. This is a story of the time I leapt into the river and bounced back out.
Warning:
If you are easily disturbed by graphic depictions and bodily functions, do not read any further. This post is about addiction, which by nature is often gruesome and unpalatable. If this will bother you, I would suggest a different subject of interest altogether. But if you genuinely care about those struggling with addiction, please read on.
I once killed someone I love very much. Almost. Very, very close, I’d say. Close enough that I could smell my prison cell. He was as good as dead for a few minutes and those minutes felt like years. And those years felt like hell. And there is no greater hell than that which you designed yourself. I don’t tell this story much. It’s one of the few that I guard. In general I am happy to tell you the intimate details of my darkest moments, but this story is somehow different. It represents just how close I came to crossing the rubicon. Not sort of close, not toes in the water close. This is a story of the time I leapt into the river and bounced back out. The idea that my future hinged upon this one decision, it is too much. I had plenty of close calls, times where I pushed the boundaries of my freedom, sanity or my very existence on this planet, but none so close as this. For the sake of those who have yet to understand the risks, for the sake of those who are one decision from altering their course for all of eternity, I will tell you. If you are addicted to drugs right now and remain in the game, it is all but guaranteed that you will see someone die. You may even be complicit in someone’s death and eventually, in your own.
In this story, there are three primary characters, one of whom is now dead. Consider that as you read. Out of respect for the families of those involved, I will not use real names.
I had lost my children. I had lost my home. I had lost welcome with my family. I had a car I bought from a crackhead, a partner in crime and a league of associates as equally moribund as I. During this period, my partner Russ & I found refuge wherever we could. I took in at a shelter one night only to be humiliated by the house mother or whatever you might call her (monster). We slept in our car, on couches, in tool sheds and eventually landed in an abandoned trailer located behind the house owned by the mother of one of our cohorts.
If you’ve never lived in an abandoned trailer, well, you probably don’t know how to steal electricity (butter knives). Once the power was restored, which we had to do daily to avoid detection, we contended with the antiquated air conditioner. That old piece of junk would cover with ice almost hourly. We would turn it off, sweat it out for a few hours and then kick it back on. We slept on a rotting mattress that had no sheets and plenty of questionable stains. There was no plumbing, so guess where we used the bathroom. Not in a bathroom. Those poor neighbors, I still feel for them to this day. But, for all of its morbidity, to us, the trailer was a luxury. It offered four walls, a roof, occasional relief from the sweltering Southern sun and a place we could seek death without disruption.
We survived by selling dope. We bought, we used, we sold and we started over again. We drove to the closest city, three, four, six times a day to meet with cartel runners who seemed like the type you would more likely find schlepping lumber than stashing heroin in their cheeks. Like any business, you must maintain inventory. Most days, Russ & I split a single item from the McDonald’s menu. Food was at the very bottom of our priorities, unlike today where I will run down a granny for a ripe watermelon.
We stayed in the trailer with our friend, Cally. It was a symbiotic relationship, which often exist in the underground. She was able to get a constant supply of drugs through our connections and we had a place to stay. I actually liked her a lot, despite her inclination to manipulate and lie, which shouldn’t have been shocking in this lifestyle. Oddly, there is an unspoken code among many addicts that dictates your behavior with other addicts. You may have to lie, cheat and steal to fund your habit, but you don’t do those things to your companions. Or at least, you don’t until circumstances demand it.
By this point in my addiction, my body was already failing me. I had blown all of the veins in my arms, fingers, toes, behind my knees, around my ankles and even some in my breasts. I had experienced plenty of infections brought on by unsterile injections or missed veins. I had contracted MRSA in my finger, which I performed an unsuccessful home surgery on. I had even hit arteries a few times, causing half of my face to balloon, my hearing and vision to go out and my equilibrium to be completely thrown off. Sometimes it took days or even weeks to heal from my injuries. Still, I persisted. I became so acquainted with my body that I could find a blood supply anywhere. I had the skills of a phlebotomist working in the NICU, tapping into even the most inaccessible veins. Many IV drug addicts, given enough time, become highly skilled in this regard. Necessity is the mother of invention, or in this case, education. Unfortunately, these skills also cause an addict to feel that they are somehow in control of their fate. They feel informed enough to avoid catastrophe.
I had been injecting directly into my jugular vein, the largest vein in the neck, for sometime, which is significantly more dangerous than the typical method. By this point in time, I knew how to discern the difference between an artery and a vein — you know, higher education. Some other users envied this method because it had a faster delivery, but I did it out of sheer necessity. In fact, it was a miserable process. I would put a tie-off around my neck, maybe a shoe string or a belt. Then I would hold my breath and puff out my cheeks while sitting in front of the mirror, hoping I could locate my vein before I passed out. I am not painting a pretty picture, am I?
Occasionally another user would ask me to inject them this way, but I always declined. Not only was it more dangerous but it was also more difficult to inject someone other than yourself. I was very acquainted with my own body, but to be this precise on another person is an entirely different story. And then, of course, you are responsible for their fate as well.
I don’t know why, but on this day I relented. Myself, Cally and Russ were all in the trailer that day, prepping our syringes. Russ asked me to inject him in his neck and after much back and forth, I agreed. Standing in the kitchen, he tied off his neck with a belt. I inserted the syringe and pulled back blood. I remember vividly that the blood looked too bright. I felt myself clinched with doubt, feeling this was a mistake, but Russ began yelling for me to push the plunger. “Push it! Just push it!”. His urgency overrode my better judgment and I pushed for just a moment and then stopped. I instinctively knew I had just made a fatal mistake. I pulled the syringe out, having only delivered a quarter of its contents into his blood stream. As I was flooded with fear, Russ swiveled in place, awkwardly angling to remove the belt from his neck. Just as the belt slipped from his head, his feet lifted off the ground. As I remember it, his feet lifted about three feet from the floor, though that seems impossible. It appeared as if he had been sucker punched beneath his chin by some unseen force. He lifted violently and was thrown backwards, where the base of his skull met with the corner of a side table, before collapsing on the kitchen floor.
These are the moments where time stands still and speeds forward simultaneously. Thoughts are rapid fire. There is no time for fear, only action and prayer. There is no time for paralysis. Looking down upon Russ, his neck and face had already begun to swell. He couldn’t speak or move, but in his eyes was a world of information, ascertained within a fraction of a second. His eyes pleaded with me for help. I could hear his voice in my head, I knew every word, every thought he intended to express. I knew his fear, I knew his pain, I knew his regret. His throat swelled and his breathing stopped. I sat on the floor, cradled his head in my lap and prayed. There was no Narcan that could solve this. There was no time for an ambulance. CPR was of no use. He began to seize. I heard his last plea just as his eyes rolled into his skull and then he seized. His body shook violently and incessantly. Tears streamed from my eyes as I spoke to him of my love. I begged him to hang on as I caressed his face and prayed that God would have mercy on us both.
I can vividly recall looking up to see Cally standing above Russ’s body, tears flowing down her face. She was paralyzed with fear. She couldn’t speak, she couldn’t act. She was absolutely terrified and in that moment, I felt for her. She was, in that instant, woken up to the reality of drug addiction, which had eluded her to this point. I had witnessed many overdoses, performed CPR more than a few times. She, however, had gone to bed the night before playing checkers and woke up playing Russian roulette.
I didn’t think about prison, though that could have been my future. I didn’t think about anything but the delicate life that I cradled in my hands. In that moment, I would have accepted any personal consequence in exchange for his life. I prayed with more fervor and earnestness than ever before in my life. I, we, had never needed God more.
I can’t tell you how long Russ went without breathing. It felt like years, but quite possibly was three for four minutes. The swelling in his neck slowly receded, at first only enough to take in the most labored and shallow irregular breaths. I continued to hold him for the next half hour or so, and over that time he began to breath more easily. The only sound I could hear was my own internal thanks to God on repeat. The room was silent and serious. Cally had retreated to somewhere within her own mind and I was all alone with the mess I had created.
I didn’t know what type of long term damage I had done. I suppose I still don’t. When he regained consciousness, he was completely deranged. He tried repeatedly to step off the side of the building where there were no stairs. His speech was incoherent and his movements confounding. His behavior was similar to that of Frankenstein’s monster when he is first awoke. He was incredibly hot and had to sit in front of a fan for the next few hours. To this day, he has no memory of the event. For that, I’m grateful.
That day, I still went out and scored dope. THAT is how powerful addiction is. THAT is the fight we are in right now to save lives. We fight a monster that defies all reason and to win, we must be educated, vigilant and honest. There is no room to be paralyzed. There is no room for fear. There is no room to assume that someone will outgrow their habit. This is war.
A few months after I completed rehab, Cally overdosed on heroin. She died alone on her kitchen floor with a needle in her arm. Of all of the friends I have lost, this one hit me the hardest. I think of her often and I am flooded by questions I may never have answers to.
In this game, the players can’t know who will survive and who will die. Had I guessed between the three of us, I would have definitely thought I would have been the one to die. Never would I have thought that we would lose Cally, or that I would be here today to speak to you on this subject.
It’s always a trick deck
I have spent much time pondering why I survived when others, far nicer, far more talented or with more to contribute, were lost. I have wondered why I am not in a prison cell, why Russ is alive. I haven’t found an answer. I only know that you can’t lose if you don’t play. If you are already in the game, get out. Lay down your cards and start living. Survive the withdrawals, suffer the consequences, put in the work and live. Live for yourself, live for your children, live for your family, live for all of those who can’t. Live because it’s a gift that can be rescinded at anytime. Live because you are wanted and needed. Live because you can and when you do, give back, because somewhere there is someone just like you used to be.
Footnote: I didn’t know until after I had written most of this that today (August 31st) was International Overdose Awareness Day. I feel sure that God has plans for this piece. Please share this post so that those in need may be inspired to seek help. Your support is greatly needed and appreciated.
There are not ‘good people’ and ‘bad people’. We are all changing, always. A few years ago I did mostly bad things, today I do mostly good things. Which one am I?
Some people can’t fathom another way of life. Many people, in fact. The sheer idea of living without substances is enough to make them run out and get high. If you can’t understand this way of thinking, you are blessed.
There is a common misconception that drug addicts enjoy being a addicted to drugs. The enjoyment for a drug abuser is a fleeting experience, when they are still using recreationally. Most ‘normal’ people put addicts in this very neatly defined category where they can be dismissed. They are defined as all that is evil, vile, reprehensible, beyond rehabilitation, unworthy of consideration, devoid of all value. But these are people. These are real flesh and blood people who are labeled similar to that of a serial killer or a supernatural manifestation of evil. I suppose that in most cases, people characterize addicts in this manner because they lack any type of personal experience with the subject and if that’s the case they should get educated or mind their own business.
I love watching documentary style television shows. In fact, those shows are just about the only reason I still have cable. Intervention, Nazi Fugitives, Live PD, Unsolved Mysteries, The First 48, etc., There are so many to choose from! I am glued to the human condition. I want to know what drives a person to become reckless, dangerous and destructive. I want to know the exact day their course was altered, the influence others had on their life, the thoughts and emotions that they felt powerless against, I want to know it all. I want to know what happens after the cameras stop rolling and public interest has waned. One thing always surprises me when I watch these shows. I find that I am far more interested in the culprit, the villain, than I am the victim. The portrait of a victim is the perfect depiction of innocence. It lacks depth. It lacks realism. In these stories, the victim is almost universally good and the offender, well he or she is Satan in the flesh. But in reality, nothing is that simple.
There are not ‘good people’ and ‘bad people’. We are all changing, always. A few years ago I did mostly bad things, today I do mostly good things. Which one am I? If I counted all of the good and bad deeds and charted them, which would win out? Do some deeds weigh more than others? Is there a way to calculate a person’s level of goodness? If so, what is the criteria and who decided it? Is there a bad thing I could do that would be so bad that it could never outweigh any future good? Is there a good thing I could do that would outweigh any future bad? There is no simple answer, so I think of the villain.
People act out their pain in a variety of ways. Drug addiction is just one manifestation of human suffering, and it is suffering. Your average junkie hates themselves. They hate being dependent upon a substance, they hate the way they have treated others. They feel unwelcome, unloved and incapable of changing the course of their life. In my years of addiction, I never once met a person who enjoyed stealing, lying, cheating, sticking needles in their arms, losing their children, watching their friends die, overdosing, going to prison, having no money, being homeless, losing their looks, or any of the other benefits of drug abuse. Given the choice, they’d all prefer to be a wall street banker (yikes!) to a street junkie. They just don’t see the choice, and this is the illusion of the disease.
It is incredibly difficult to convince an experienced addict that they could ever live without substances. Imagine someone telling you that you can live without arms and legs. It’s almost unfathomable. Yes, you know intellectually that people do it, but not you. You need your arms to drive and cook dinner. You need your legs to do yoga and walk the dog. All of your friends have arms and legs and you wouldn’t fit in. Your whole life would be turned upside down. If you didn’t have arms and legs, you would feel helpless and hopeless. That’s exactly what an addict hears at the mention of sobriety. They have lived so long being dependent upon substances that sobriety represents the removal of their most utilized tools. Without addiction, they don’t know who they are or how they will survive—-and they don’t trust you to know for them.
If you were an integral part of someone’s life when they fell into addiction and you didn’t stop it, why would they believe you could help them to come out of it? I’m not saying that you should or could have stopped it, I’m merely saying there is a lack of trust. For most addicts, the world is a messy place full of disappointment. They are looking for a simple answer to a very complex problem, but they, like most people, can’t see the forest for the trees. They are too busy focusing on any given day, any given screw up, any given immediate need that they can’t bother with tomorrow, much less a year from now. And similarly, most families and friends of these individuals are focusing on whatever crisis just happened, or if there is no crisis they are basking in the calm and hoping it is a sign of progress. Rarely is anyone developing a strategy to cure the disease, thus it becomes symptom management.
Managing addiction is about as possible as teaching a two year old how to drink alcohol responsibly. No, that doesn’t even make sense, does it? As a society we try all types of management methods and none of them work. Sorry, drug counselors, I disagree with you on this one. Methadone, Suboxone and all of their friends in the management business, they are a waste of time, money and hope. You can’t treat a chemical dependency with a chemical dependency and I think this is one of the tenets of recovery that most professionals agree on, yet many don’t treat patients with this in mind. We as a society have agreed to manage a problem that often began with a prescription, with a prescription. How daft are we?
We have created a society where chemicals are the answer to everything that ails you. And if the chemical itself ails you, there’s a chemical for that as well. When patients turn to street pharmaceuticals, oh well suddenly there is a problem. The patient has become a criminal and society has washed their hands of them. Are you following how illogical this is?
It is hard to distinguish the victim from the villain. In this story the addict can be the villain, or their family can be the villain, or the pharmaceutical industry, or the medical community, or the legislators who have waged war on drugs but take money from the industries that are catalysts for drug abuse. Guess which of these is the most helpless to defend themselves? Guess which is suffering? Which is profiting? Whose face will you see in the jail blotter? And when you do, recall that there are no villains. Recall that there are only people, some in impossibly difficult circumstances, often beyond your greatest nightmares. Then get on your knees and pray.
How many times have I told a parent to completely cut their child off financially? Almost as many times as I’ve seen a parent secretly wish to kill me, steal my skin and use it to hide their child from the consequences of life.
If you are reading this, there is a very good chance that you either know someone who is addicted to opioids or you yourself are addicted. I’m not just guessing. The numbers are on my side. Warning: Boring statistics ahead.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates there were more than 12.5 million Americans abusing prescription opioids in 2015. That figure doesn’t include the estimated 828,000 heroin users in our country. Since that time, opioid abuse has risen dramatically. In 2017, an average of 90 Americans have died each day from opioid abuse, and the numbers don’t appear to be lessening. I dare you to go compare deaths by guns with deaths by drug abuse. I won’t do all of the work for you.
I’m not a fan of statistics. They make stories dry and dull, but in this case I need them to prove a point. You aren’t alone. And if it isn’t opioids, it’s methamphetamine. And if it isn’t meth, it’s alcohol. And if it isn’t alcohol, well, you can fill in the blank. I am pretty sure I even saw someone overdose on God once.
I’ve met countless parents who have recounted their stories of having children addicted to drugs, incapable of making sound decisions. These stories always consist of theft, jail, poor health, small children caught in the mix and often they end in prison or death. In support circles, the saying is “Prison, death and institutions.” Those are the three inevitable ends for someone who doesn’t recover from drug addiction. Just imagine those choices. Which would you pick? A person addicted to substances knows, at some point in their journey, that one of those three choices is guaranteed for them, but the disease is so strong that it overcomes all logic. A person addicted to substances cannot be expected to suddenly wake up and make healthy choices. This is why it is incumbent upon their family and friends to get honest, get serious and get severe. Is that what most families choose to do? Hell no.
How many times have I told a parent to completely cut their child off financially? Almost as many times as I’ve seen a parent secretly wish to kill me, steal my skin and use it to hide their child from the consequences of life. That would be a very poor decision, for any of you who might try. Life’s consequences are particularly fond of my scent. I get it. I don’t want my children to hurt anymore than other parents, despite what they tell you. But it is surprisingly hard to get people to understand that by perpetually protecting someone from the consequences of their actions, you have set them up for a tremendous fall.
Stop enabling people to self destruct. If someone is exhibiting clearly destructive behavior and your attempts to rationalize with them or provide help have been fruitless, STOP RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE.
The fact is, some things are beyond us. Some things must play themselves out to their inevitable conclusion. If a train is baring down on your child, jumping in front of the train will in no way help anyone. It won’t stop the train and both of you will perish. If you are lucky enough to shove your child out of the way of danger, they are now even more confident that they can stand in the way of a train and not die. Continue this cycle and their confidence in their immunity to consequences will increase. When a train is baring down on your child, let them feel the fear of impending pain, because in this fear is hope. They SHOULD be scared. They should be scared, motivated and aware that their survival is dependent upon their own actions.
I didn’t stop until I could taste the tracks and sometimes this is what it takes. If you are in this position, I am glad for you. Crisis is an opportunity for healing! If you haven’t hit a crisis yet, step out of the way and it will come.
My recommendation, based on experience as both an enabler and a junkie, is to let people self destruct. Stop providing money, legal help, housing, medical care, transportation and employment to someone who is incapable of treating you and the assistance you’ve provided with respect and maturity. Stop abetting their illness by ignoring the symptoms and dismissing their decline. Don’t place blame for their situation on their employers, spouses, probation officers, lawyers, neighbors, etc., Don’t allow them into your home. Don’t allow manipulation, guilt or fear to making you a willing party in their disease. When you support a junkie’s lifestyle, even if out of love and loyalty, you support their death.
Loving an addict is hard. Addicts will take advantage of the people who love them most. They are capable of manipulating your genuine concern into a means to support their ‘habit’. It’s not a habit, by the way. It’s a monster and you don’t fight monsters with delicate pleading or passive agreement. You fight monsters with strategy, cunning and an end-goal that you never lose sight of.
The goal is and will always be, in these cases, to save a life. You cannot concern yourself with their job, home, school prospects, spouses, or diva demands. If they die, all of that is gone. Remind yourself of this constantly.
If you find yourself in the fortunate position to be of help to an addict in crisis, there are a few things you can do to lend to their success.
1. Be prepared for the swing. An addict who has just missed a fatal impact with a train is thrilled at the prospect of going to treatment. They will tell you how badly they want sobriety and how much they want to change their life. They will apologize for their treatment of you, of others. They will say everything that might give you hope that you have reached the promise land of recovery. Do not, for even one moment, let your guard down. I went to detox somewhere in the range of ten times and each time I was thrilled to be there. Guess how many times I went back to my dope fiend lifestyle? One less time, because a few people in my life did exactly as I am recommending to you now. If you take the right measures, you have a shot at helping them. It may take a few times as we junkies, by nature, are incredibly willful and arrogant.
2. After a couple of days, they will convince you that they are doing great. They will convince you that they are doing SO great that there is absolutely no need for them to remain in detox or proceed to a rehabilitation center. You will be so excited to see in them the person that you once knew, the person who wasn’t a manipulative pariah, that you can easily be swayed by this act. Don’t be. Don’t fall prey to the game.
3a. Negotiations. This is by far my favorite part of the ‘junkie writes the rules’ act. An addict is keenly aware of your desire to help them, to see them recover and thrive. They also know that you would love nothing more than to welcome them back into your life and your home. They will capitalize on this. They will make a very persuasive argument about how they can become healthy at home—-your home usually. Usually these moments consist of statements like “All I need is to get a job and..” or “This time is different. I promise I’m going to do A, B & C as soon as I get home.” When you hear these statements from someone with less time in recovery than it takes a pancake to cool, ignore everything they are saying. Smile, nod and tell them that you aren’t playing their games anymore.
3b. When their amiable act doesn’t work, they may resort to three year old tactics. Prepare for fits, tantrums, anger, vile accusations and unreasonable demands. Some people even become violent. An alternative to the angry approach is the sad, fearful approach where they break you with their tears. Either way, become a stone. Stand up and walk out, or if you are on the phone, hang up. End their reign as the puppeteer of your emotions.
3c. Demands are a last ditch effort for addicts to regain control. This most usually manifests in threats of suicide. If that happens, you must remember that they were ALREADY committing suicide, albeit slowly. Most addicts and alcoholics do not actually wish to die. They are far more committed to removing pain than to exiting life. Frankly, it is irrelevant. This is one of those things that is beyond your control and submitting to the demands of their disease will not guarantee you more time with them. It may actually do the opposite, hastening their death.
4. If you make it past #3, you are truly experiencing a miracle. This is not the time to offer financial support, though. If you survive to this point, offer emotional support. Assist them in finding a good rehabilitation program. Remind them that you are willing to restore your relationship with them. This is the best support you can give. The rest is between them and God.
I highly, highly recommend an inpatient program that is at least six months long, preferably longer. Detoxification can take months to complete and many symptoms caused by years of poor nutrition and drug use can even remain for years. Sadly, most detox facilities allow a patient to stay 5-7 days, which is often a very crucial period where someone may easily slip back into drug abuse. Many rehabilitation facilities are as short as 30 days. At 30 days, I was just remembering how it felt to have awareness of my limbs. That is not even close to an exaggeration. I was far from capable of returning to society as a productive member.
There is no exact science to recovery. If physicians, counselors and politicians had the answer, we wouldn’t be plagued by drug abuse. I don’t pretend to have every answer either and there is no guarantee that your best efforts will bring a positive outcome —but it’s worth a shot.
There is love in resistance. There is love in the word ‘no’. There is love in stepping back and allowing God to take over. There is love in admitting your limitations. There is love in saying the things that hurt the most. There is love in the truth.
This is a very painful place to be for anyone, most especially a parent. Your fears and your worries are legitimate and you most assuredly aren’t alone. Millions of other people are feeling exactly as you do right now, holding it all inside and praying that God will provide a way out. Millions of people are staying awake at night in fear that this will be the night that they receive that dreaded call. Millions of people are sinking into a depression and feel helpless to fight against it. Do not lose hope, above all else. I am a living miracle, a person who beat all odds. I am the success story you never hear of. I am the person that broke a needle off in her neck and considered suicide her only way out. I am the person that destroyed every relationship, ruined every opportunity, lost her children, her joy, her faith and all hope of recovery. But it is because of people like you, people who loved me despite my disease, that I am able to write this for you today.
If any of you need someone to speak to, please reach out to me. I am happy to share my experience and advice or just listen, without judgment or condemnation. Send a message through the contact form on the website.
Kumbaya until your vocal cords bleed and that belief will still be horse shit. The world is a competitive place where injustice exists, has always existed and will always exist.
I’m convinced that somewhere along the way, likely in college, most people traded in their brain for a bag of feelings. They all lined up one by one at some very depressing window and systematically relinquished the rights to their mental faculties over to a spiritually starved and shrill intellectual. From that point forward, each morning they have heaved this stinking sack of emotions over their backs, having been left with no other resources. For any given scenario, they must reach into this bag and whip out something completely irrelevant. They might as well fight fires with foam fingers, which is almost exactly how I envision it when a person addresses logic with feeling.
There are monsters in the world telling people that their feelings matter. Monsters! They disguise themselves as parents, professors and politicians, but they are monsters. Every one of them should be defanged. Forget what they told you. Your feelings don’t matter to anyone but you and moderately to those who love you. The rest of the world is exempt from making decisions based around your feelings, and how could they be expected to? In a world dominated by feelings, everyone must be ultimately self serving. How many feelings can you possibly bow to simultaneously? You can’t serve your own emotion and serve the emotions of others unless your emotional needs require that you find acceptance through subservience, which makes you a slave. I’m asking you to think for a minute, so put down your sack of grievances for now and borrow a brain.
And what about little Nemo’s feelings?
I place much blame at the feet of parents, who have largely taught their children that the world will love and accept them. This is the single easiest way to set your children up for failure. Kumbaya until your vocal cords bleed and that belief will still be horse shit. The world is a competitive place where injustice exists, has always existed and will always exist. Hard work doesn’t always equate to success, merit doesn’t always get recognized and truth is often obscured. Smart people fail, idiots overcome and there is no guarantee that people will like you. Yes, I am cynical and you should be taking notes. Cynicism is your friend. Cynicism keeps you from falling into a pit of feelings and choking to death on a ‘why me?’. Cynicism prompts you to work harder than you might ‘feel’ you should have to. Cynicism prepares you for failure and makes successes that much more rewarding. Cynicism keeps entitlement at bay.
Around my house, we like to say, “The only thing I’ve gotta do is stay white and die.” That’s also the only thing any of us are guaranteed; who we are and our inevitable demise—and I would add, a relationship with God, if we so desire. Entitlement is a myth that belongs in a book right next to Thetan beings. None of us are promised opportunity, prosperity or even the most basic of needs. We aren’t promised good health, nutritious food, safe housing, a loving family, financial security, nor should we expect that any of it be provided. That’s a harsh reality for many of you and if your gut just did a flip, I get it. The truth isn’t always beautiful. Sometimes it’s a downright travesty.
Being aware of reality doesn’t mean you enjoy its implications. I wish that everyone could enjoy security and love in the fullest. I also wish I could play the banjo with my toes. I’d settle for my fingers and a lower BMI. Logical deduction is now equated with a lack of compassion, or worse, absolute bigotry. If you acknowledge that it isn’t possible for all people to enjoy the same opportunities, you are labeled a racist, bigot, elitist or whatever other dismissive term is trendy this week. It is a fact of nature and evidenced in history that there will always be people who have more than others. The type of people who will have more or less has made radical shifts over time. Up has become down and will become up once again. Mention that to a person with a sack of feelings and you will be addressed like a gold-foiled roasted baby smuggler. Denial will in no way alter reality, sack draggers.
When I was six, I thought I deserved to play softball games without ever attending a practice. Then I turned seven and I didn’t want to suck at softball anymore, so I went to practice. A lot of adults want to reap rewards they have no desire to earn and no one, not their professors, not their family, not their spouses, employers, police officers or politicians are making them turn seven. You can’t have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat! You can’t be good at softball if you don’t practice. You can’t demand healthcare if you don’t contribute. You can’t expect a promotion if you don’t earn it. You can’t effectively reach people if you behave irrationally. It shouldn’t even be necessary to state it, but that’s where we are as a society.
Personal responsibility is the key to success, to feeling less and achieving more. I alone am responsible for my own life and if I am fortunate enough to find help in my family, friends or government, I can accept it as a blessing. There isn’t a single thing lacking that I am owed. I require no endorsements, and neither do you.
Happy birthday, sack draggers. I now pronounce you seven.
If you accept the notion that white supremacists are rampant in our community based on a few in the news, you must also accept that there is a rising movement of politicians sending penis photos to young girls.
It has come to my attention that I’m a privileged white woman. Someone please tell this to my life because it is clearly confused. I could have sworn when I woke up this morning that I was poor, unemployed, living in an impoverished and largely minority neighborhood, have a felony background, a history of drug abuse, an 18 year old car, no means of getting a higher education and absolutely no trust funds, stocks, bonds or gold coins. Oh, I do have a good credit score! Damn, I’m privileged. I can buy milk and pay interest.
When liberals dislike something they’ve read, their first inclination is to levy a personal attack on the author. I would be ignorant to expect anything better, as this is perfectly in line with the left’s M.O. when approaching anything remotely colored outside of their comfort zone. Identity politics rule, emotionally charged demands must be submitted to, feelings suppress facts, and appearance reigns over substance. If I say something they find objectionable it can be dismissed because I’m clearly an out of touch asshole. A privileged, out of touch asshole, whether that’s true or not. They work to suppress any opinion that isn’t perfectly in line with their own and any tactics, no matter how repugnant, may be used to do so. After all, they are our gods and must destroy us for our benefit. This is the very definition of an abusive relationship.
I’ve never claimed that racism doesn’t exist, though people have a habit of reading towards their own preconceived notions. I know racism exists because I’ve experienced it. I’ve been white at DSS. I dare you to try it. I’ve had Mexican men stalk me through Walmart, black people call me derogatory names when I walked down the street, stepped from my car and when I walked into my own home. I’ve been called white bitch more times than I can count. I’ve been dismissed as privileged and wealthy, threatened, passed in line, shoved, ignored by customer service, blatantly refused by customers, given the eye roll of death and sexually harassed. And guess what? My experiences don’t negate yours. They can exist together without conflict. Injustice exists, but it doesn’t own us. These events represent a small portion of life. They do not reflect most people or experiences. Surely, I’ve just broken some rule by saying that. But I wasn’t born guilty and I’m no social eunuch. If my experiences don’t fit with the accepted narrative, the narrative is flawed.
I’ve also been targeted outside of my race by police based on where I live, the car I drove or the clothes I wore. I was pulled over, harassed and accused of having committed breaking and entering, felony eluding and possession of narcotics simply because I drove down a particular street! Do I doubt for one minute this happens to other people, other races? Of course not. Racism and profiling will exist as long as people exist. Is this even up for debate? That said, I do not for one minute accept that there is a substantial population who seeks to destroy based on race—-not today, not in this country. To conflate the existence of racism with a racially motivated movement is derelict and dangerous. If you accept the notion that white supremacists are rampant in our community based on a few in the news, you must also accept that there is a rising movement of politicians sending penis photos to young girls. How about millions of men readying to murder their wives? Or clowns? There are untold number of creepy stalker clowns secretly determined to take control of our country by way of machetes and the lure of a balloon animal. Or what about BLM and Antifa, both equally dangerous? Are they also sweeping our communities? I’m sorry if you think so, that’s a terrible way to live.
It is vital that we look at these issues objectively. Often the perspectives provided to us by the media are wholly inaccurate or wildly over exaggerated. As I stated before, there are political players who use race to divide us. They organize and pay for protesters by contributing to third parties, use their bully pulpit to inflame underlying tensions and give a voice to extreme marginal groups to provoke an emotional response that is far greater than warranted. We are being manipulated so that those in power can remain in power. They need us to need them. They need us to feel victimized, marginalized and discarded so that they can be our saviors. Look at congress. They are the very last people I would ever want to save me. I wouldn’t trust them to boil macaroni, much less design my opinions.
Adolph Hitler’s name has been thrown around a lot in reference to the alt-right, President Trump, or frankly anything conservative. But if Hitler was a master of anything it was creating division between groups by placing blame at the feet of one, whilst inflaming the insecurities of another. While they hated each other, he ate desserts, took speed and killed millions of people. Who was the real danger? Our leaders and media use this same approach. When you were a child, did you play Mad Libs? You don’t like your ________. Well, _________ is to blame. You don’t like your life? Well, the Jews are to blame. You don’t like your community? White supremacists are to blame. You don’t like your campus? Antifa is to blame. You don’t like your police? BLM is to blame. You don’t like your job? Trump is to blame. Do you see how this works? While you fill in the blanks, the powerful line their pockets and set the stage for the next diversion. When you play the blame game, everyone loses but the one who designed it.
I shouldn’t have to justify my opinion. It’s my God given right to have one. I shouldn’t have to be a minority, know poverty intimately or live in a dangerous neighborhood to have a voice. Most of our leaders have experienced little of that, yet they get to decide policy every single day. If I was lily white, wealthy and had never stepped outside of my gated community, I should still be allowed to voice my opinion on any matter as I see fit without fear of retribution. Even if it was ignorant or cruel, it would still be my right. If people in our country really wanted to get to the truth, really wanted to learn about one another and where our values lie, they wouldn’t work so hard to suppress opinions. There are millions of people in this nation who have been shamed into silence by way of bullying. But me? I have nothing to lose. I have no social status, reputation or high profile job to protect. I can speak honestly, at least for today, and I will exercise that freedom so long as I have it. The climate has become so dangerous for the majority who lives outside of the accepted narrative that the only way to find the pulse is through an election. If you were surprised by the last election, look to silencing. Continue to suppress dialogue and you will continue to be surprised.
When I leave my home, I don’t feel that the world is conspiring against me. This isn’t because I’m white, this is because I do not live with the spirit of fear, but rather faith that for the most part, we are a loving and giving people, fashioned after our creator and capable of much good. I meet every person with the hope that they will return kindness and usually I am correct. My experiences with the left, racism and profiling are not representative of the whole. They don’t determine my choices, my judgement of others or the quality of my life. I keep the good, release the bad and look to myself when my life is lacking. I, above all others, bare responsibility for my life and there is no room for victimization. I am loved, as we all are, and no amount of media hype can ever convince me otherwise.
If you got all of the way through this piece, I commend your patience. Baking the perfect blog requires a variety of ingredients. I promise, my next post will have a dash less morose and a pound of melted bizarro.
Every day I failed, every night I grieved and by morning I begged God to be relieved of duty.
I’m sitting at the park, watching my kids swing with my left eye and giving wimpy parents the dress down with the right. I do love hating on other peoples parenting and for the first time in days, my children aren’t asking me stupid questions, so I should be enjoying this, but instead I’m distracted, and only partially due to the ant crawling on my cheek. Today I received three rejection letters.
Living by faith is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. It sounds easy in practice and I suspect many people think they do it, but with contingency plans, options and a history that lends to their odds. Me? I’m just floating down the river on my back hoping a fish takes pity on me and commits hara-kiri in my arms. I don’t have a plan or a pan. Nope, I have a felony and mediocre writing skills.
Nearly two months ago, I took a leap of faith and quit my job. I had been praying for over a year that God would release me from it, but every day I would wake with the same obligation to keep going. The position I was paid for was secondary to that which God had designed. My days there were filled with people in crisis, strangers who needed to know that miracles do happen, addicts dying a slow death, elderly people who just wanted a friend, war veterans plagued by their damaged minds, parents struggling to cope with the death of a child, scorned women, the homeless, the insane, the forgotten. Worst of all was the constant parade of family who had been dominated by the undertow of addiction for so long that they couldn’t distinguish up from down. Morality was muddied, mistakes compounded and love used as a weapon of self-destruction. I didn’t work in a crisis center, I worked in retail, but God knows where there is need.
My own history, replete with mental illness, drug addiction, enabling, homelessness and a rapid decline in morality, allowed me to see these things for what they were—but at what great cost. Though cliché, ignorance is bliss. Over time I started to sink into a depression. I felt completely ineffective. There I sat with so much experience, willing to share with anyone in need, yet I saw people make the same mistakes time and time again. My words didn’t penetrate, my experience had no resonance. I could chart the inevitable progression of the disease in my mind and then watch it play out as predicted while I sat impotent to help. Every day I failed, every night I grieved and by morning I begged God to be relieved of duty. Towards the end, I began to have physical reactions to the stress. My hair began falling out, I developed psoriasis, food allergies, fatigue, weight gain, anxiety attacks, muscle cramps, sleep loss, nightmares and fits of anger. I’m certainly not Jesus, my limits became obvious.
The kicker is, we don’t always know when we’ve been effective and some seeds take time. It is easy to become discouraged by the failures. They are always louder than the successes. I try to remember that there are a lot of people who were integral in my success who will never know it. There are nurses, counselors, doctors, acquaintances, friends, strangers, bureaucrats, and junkies who will never know that they helped to save my life. And God’s plans are bigger than any of us can comprehend, more complex and creative than we could design.
This is me trying to understand God’s plan
It was a beautiful June day. I had been woken up to breakfast in bed, which is a rarity in my home. I went to work that day feeling confident and hopeful. You should always beware of these days. In my experience, this is the parade before the gallows. What followed was a series of ultimately meaningless events, with exception to one thing; my release. How do you know the voice of God? How do you identify his hand? For me it has come with time observing and practice listening, and that day it was unmistakeable. It took one look from one person and God’s intentions hit me with the force of a cat 5 hurricane. There were no words or exchanges that lent to it. When God speaks, he needs no corroboration. I was to leave, I was to leave then and I was to do it without fear.
I stepped out that day without a plan. The only assurance I had was that God provides for those who are obedient and faithful, and I’ve clung to that promise. It was so out of character for me that my employer assumed I had another job lined up and when I told him I didn’t, he laughed, as if I were lying. That is because the idea of truly acting on faith is foreign to most of us. The day that I quit, I went to my church and asked my preacher how to step out in faith. His response was, “I wish I could tell you, but I’m not very good at it.” I appreciated the honesty. Since that day, I have applied for nearly 400 jobs. I’ve had two interested parties, a handful of decline letters and a ton of disinterest. I have an empty bank account, bills that are due and two children that can’t be asked to understand the circumstances. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, but I try not to live in fear. I wake each day reassured that I made the best decision by following God’s lead. I try to hold on to the promises God has already fulfilled in my life as a reminder that he didn’t create any of us to suffer needlessly, nor did he save us only to let us fail. Paul wasn’t promised it would be easy, he was promised it would be possible and it would be worth it, as are we.
Lessons in faith are a lot like what we ask our children to do; trust without reason, do without understanding, try without guarantee. If my only accomplishment today is to be willing, as a child, I will have succeeded. There is a plan, it just isn’t mine. And just like children, we aren’t privy to all of the details, but we are loved, provisioned and considered in all things. After all, even the birds and flowers are provided for. And how much more loved are we?
Matthew 6:26
Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
There’s not an award ceremony for the people who agree with society. Everyone would win! It isn’t earth shattering, it’s annoying.
Give me your opinion on murder. Give me your opinion on rape. Give me your opinion on letting toddlers drop acid. Give me your opinion on hiring dogs as school bus drivers. Give me your opinion on teaching a comatose person water aerobics. Give me your opinion on eating glass. Give me your opinion on urinating in your milk.
The definition of obvious is itself obvious to anyone above the age of four, as are most social justice ‘issues’. Just like I loathe suffering the deranged repeating the same bad joke to me once a week for eight years, I loathe people professing opinions about things that were long ago agreed upon by the vast majority of society. We get it! Bad things are bad, good things are good, Brooke Shields’ voice makes babies cry and dead people can’t sing in the choir. What a waste of time to repeat it!
Ok, yes, I choose the dog.
My Twitter and Facebook feeds are littered with this junk. This week, at least half of my social media acquaintances are going to let met know how bad racism is, as if that were actually up for debate. What do they want? There’s not an award ceremony for the people who agree with society. Everyone would win! It isn’t earth shattering, it’s annoying. There aren’t millions of people who want a race war. It just doesn’t exist, no matter how bad you wish for it and clearly some do.
When you state the obvious, you have automatically reduced your audience to your adversary. You have the answer, they are ignorant and you deserve the biggest piece of chicken at dinner. You’ve made the assumption that there is a need for your wisdom, which there isn’t. Your audience thinks just like you do and we are having salad for dinner anyway.
The media plays up the existence of extreme factions for ratings and by God, I would hope everyone would understand that by now, but I ask for too much. Political players amplify these same factions, in some cases even funding them, to promote their own agendas, win voters, maintain division within the community and with it control of the population. Often they completely manufacture division and hope their targets in the community will fall in line behind it. Your outrage is purchased and controlled and professing it makes you unoriginal, redundant and unnecessary to anyone but your puppeteers.
When you feel it is necessary to state what should be plainly obvious, take note that you’ve been put on the defensive by merely existing. Don’t entertain such nonsense. You aren’t guilty until posted compassionate. When you engage in this kind of apologetic appeasement for something which you took no part in, you are complicit in a culture of blame and shame. That’s bullying, not to mention presumptuous and condescending.
Tell me why cats love tea parties, tell me why children should grow on trees. Tell me extruder guns confound you or all of the reasons why Tom Cruise isn’t an alien. Tell me you hate my writing, disagree with my opinions or why you refuse to look up the words you don’t know. Tell me the water is poisoned, the TV is spying on you and your stuffed rabbit knows where the bodies are buried. I love it all. Just don’t preach to me about what isn’t in disagreement!
Tell me you can form an opinion with depth and deliberation by forming an opinion with depth and deliberation and if we disagree, so be it because now you know, there’s no chicken at stake anyway.
re than others? Is there a way to calculate a person’s level of goodness? If so, what is the criteria and who decided it? Is there a bad thing I could do that would be so bad that it could never outweigh any future good? Is there a good thing I could do that would outweigh any future bad? There is no simple answer, so I think of the villain.
The Reprobate's Guide to Pancakes 