“The mind will often drift away into daydreams, but patiently we turn our attention back to the truth and the reality of existence and experience, all as it is happening right now.”  – Grapevine Quote

oh how i used to stay in the daydream,

not knowing the truth, or knowing it,

and to terrified to face it.

i am so grateful, for today

i can look truth in the eyes

and, grasp it by the hand.

i can walk alongside truth.

me and truth:

we are friends now (on most days).

oh, but how I still love

to daydream.

the difference today:

i can separate the truth

and the daydreams,

and, enjoy them both.

and now, through faith

and giving up control,

by turning my will and my life over

to God

my daydreams

have become the truth.

(a poem by Louise Warren.)

Every moment of my 20 year drinking and using career I would daydream about how life COULD be: how it  could be better, more peaceful, relaxing, successful, free of guilt and shame, full of hope and love and self-confidence and understanding.  I lived in the daydreams, escaping from what my life was, who I thought I was (a monster, a mess, not worth good) and living in the daydreams of what it could become, what I could become.  As my life and my spirit whirled and spun into a tornado of hopelessness, moving further and further away from the grasp of these daydreams, my hope became buried in the wreckage of my addiction, and  I drank and used more and more. In doing so, the demon of addiction created an illusion that all of those daydreams were just around the corner:  just around the next drink, the next line, the next relationship. Sadly, those daydreams were just that: daydreams.

The beautiful freedom of sobriety and recovery is that all of those daydreams have and continue to come true.  You see, in the trenches of my addiction I tried so damn hard to direct every moment of my life, my feelings, the way others felt about me. Hell, I even tried to direct when the sun would rise and set.  I tried to create these daydreams in a very big way. In becoming sober, I have realized that I am a terrible director, just terrible.  Sobriety and the steps of this program and the beautiful and courageous stories of others just like me in the rooms, in the chairs, have taught me that upon giving up control of my life to my higher power, whom I call God, my life will beautifully fall into place.  By giving control and direction of my life to God and living in the moment (as much as I can) my life has and continues to fill up with moments of peace, self-confidence, love, real friendships, laughter, moments of silence and relaxation, understanding, and my guilt and shame has disappeared.

My life is not that of perfection,  it is a life of truth and recovery.

My life is a life.

My life is pretty.

And my daydreams have become and continue to come true.

Louise Warren 2.16.2014