Tag Archives: recovery

My daydreams became truth…

16 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by in addiction, alchoholism, daydreams, hope, recovery, sobriety

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thoughts

“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

Addiction is not a party…

08 Saturday Feb 2014

Posted by in addiction, recovery, sobriety

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philip-seymour-hoffman
addiction has stolen
another brilliant mind
another valuable life:
one full of beauty
& worth.
addiction has thrown another
dreamer, lover
brother, father,
son, friend
into the depths
& darkness
of despair
& loneliness
& desperation
snatching with its claws,
talons in deep
and thrusting
another being
full of beauty
into the well
of death.
– a poem by Louise Warren (2.2.14)
Philip Seymour Hoffman did not die at a party, laughing &  smiling & having fun with his friends & family. He died alone, on his bathroom floor, in his underwear with 23 years of sobriety behind him & a needle in his arm.
Addiction is not a party.
It is a lonely cold bathroom floor.
It is hell.
It is death.
The life of an actively using addict is void of hope & of colour. It is void of music & …of dancing. I know, for I was there for 20 years. Addiction is a demon that breeds loneliness and isolation. Addiction cultivates death.
This has really hit me, the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman. It has saddened me to the core. My heart is heavy. Not because he was a celebrity, but because he was a human being & a fellow addict who was suffocated by his own demons, the demons of addiction. A beautiful, brilliant human being who seemingly had it all. One who, like millions of others that Sunday morning, did not have to die alone, die at all.
This is a tragic and glaring reminder that none of us are safe from addiction. Addiction does not care if we are famous, rich, pretty, popular… addiction likes everyone.
We are all one drink, one drug, one blink, one breath away from death.
We must act.
We must choose to live.
We must choose recovery.
We must choose  sobriety.
We must fight for our lives no matter what, whatever it takes.
There is a solution. There is hope. There are chairs waiting…
Louise Warren (2.3.14)
#achairiswaiting #sobrietyrocks #butforthegraceofGodtheregoi