There Seems To Be This Alternative...

I’m 17 years old today, for the second time. The first time I turned 17, I was probably a little bit stoned. Or anticipating the moment I would be so later that day. Today is my “clean-time birthday,” which is November 24, 1997. In 1997, November 24^th fell on Thanksgiving Day. The day before Thanksgiving that year was the last time I used. That automatically makes Thanksgiving a very special day for me, a day when I might have just a bit more gratitude than most. I am alive and I probably shouldn’t be. I certainly did a lot of things that could have (and should have) killed me. Plenty of others who did the very things I did have died. I’ve known quite a few. I’ve been to more funerals than I care to count.

A beautiful young woman, Krista , died three days ago. I sat in meetings with her for the past year or so. She had this! She was making it. And then she wasn’t. She left a nine-year old little girl to navigate life without her. She left so many, many people behind, people who loved her and embraced her and supported her. So many broken hearts in Athens-area recovery circles right now.

Two and a half years ago, my friend, Posey, decided he couldn’t try any longer. He shot himself in the chest. I miss him terribly. He was a beautiful soul who tried as long as he could, until he couldn’t any longer. He was so persistent in his struggle to get this thing, to make it. I hate, hate, hate that he gave up. I wish he would have called me. I might not have been able to say anything to change his mind, but I still wish he would have called me – or someone, anyone. He called me so many times before that, when he was on that brink, but not that last time. I’ll always miss him.

Twelve years ago, in 2002, another good friend, someone I got clean with, someone who meant so much to my recovery, someone else I miss still today, Jeff, also took his own life. My heart still hurts remembering him. He was so talented (musician), so kind, so spiritual, so connected, so real. He touched my life and left his mark, forever. Not even death can take that away, fortunately.

There have been others. Angie. I hate this disease. Bo. It doesn’t discriminate. Jane. It waits patiently, always in the background. Christine. So many others, too many others…

None of these people died so that I could live, so that I would “get it,” to keep me from returning to what I once thought was the only way I would ever get through life. None of them died in order for me to stay clean, in order for me to go on. But, because they died as they did, because I saw them in both the throes of active addiction and in the light of recovery, I will honor their memory and continue to carry the message of recovery to those still-suffering addicts who truly believe there is no other way.

Today, as I have been for most of the past 6209 days, I am grateful to be alive.

I’m Maze. I’m an addict.

HOW THE LIGHT GETS IN

“There is a crack, a crack in everything… that’s how the light gets in, that’s how the light gets in.”                – Leonard Cohen

                                                                            Statue by Paige Bradley, "Expansion"

Why is it so hard allow others to know when I’m struggling? I don’t think it is a conscious decision to hide my pain or my anger or my despondency from other people, but it is something I’m very good at, and therefore, this leads me to conclude that I’ve had a lot of practice hiding my truth. Early in recovery, I had no problem walking into a roomful of friends and strangers and laying it all out there.  I didn’t sugarcoat what I was feeling or thinking, where I was emotionally, mentally, spiritually. I shared the raw truth, unconcerned about what others thought of it, of me, knowing that in doing this I was going to have a fighting chance to make it one more day – one more day clean, one more day hopeful, one more day living.

But something changed and I don’t know when that happened. It was a subtle change. The more time I stayed clean, the further I got away from the unmanageable emotions of early recovery, and the less authentic I became when I shared in meetings. I began saving much of what I once shared freely in meetings to share privately with my closest friends or my sponsor. Eventually, I stopped doing even that and just kept the raw thoughts and feelings to myself.  Rather than share my truths in meetings, I shared what I thought I was supposed to be sharing.

What does that even mean? “What I’m supposed to be sharing?” There is no such thing as supposed to in the therapeutic value of one addict helping another. The whole concept of that therapeutic value is based in honesty and in identification. If I am not sharing my truth, how can another addict, a struggling addict, identify with me? And without that identification, the therapeutic value of one addict helping another completely breaks down. There is no value in me being less than brutally honest about where I came from, what I did, how I got here, how I felt, how I feel, what I need, what I fear, what I lack, what I’ve gained, how I got through, how I struggle to get through, how I barely manage to hang on sometimes, still, no matter how many clean days in a row I’ve managed to string together. There is no value in reciting clichés and sharing only what I’ve read or heard in the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous. That is sharing someone else’s truth, not my own.

One cliché I’ve heard so many times is, “share the solution, not the problem.” But what if I don’t have the solution, what if I don’t know what the solution is to whatever it is I’m experiencing? Talking about what is real, what is going on in my head and in my life, is what has allowed me to develop coping skills. If I don’t put it out there, I will never hear how others got through this – whatever this is at any given moment – I will never hear the experience, strength and hope of someone who made it through this without getting high. Before I started this recovery journey, I didn’t have many natural coping skills. Mine were chemical coping skills. Whatever situation came up in life, I knew of some chemical or herbal remedy that would get me through. Stripped of my chemical coping skills, I was an emotional and spiritual wreck. By being authentic and honest in what I share with others, and then listening to their experience,  I am then able to learn all those coping skills I should have learned in my formative years, when instead, I was getting high. Learning how to cope with the big stuff and the day-to-day stuff is impossible if I don’t talk about that stuff.

In the book, Living Clean, there is a section called, “Desperation to Passion” on page 16, and there it says, “It can feel wrong or embarrassing to be struggling to keep the light on in our own recovery when we think we are supposed to be carrying the message to others. The responsibility we feel to carry the message can serve as an excuse not to share the truth about our lives. But without the truth, we have no message at all. And when we are not open, it’s hard for the light to get in.”

And for me, that brings it back to what Leonard Cohen penned in his song, Anthem:  “There is a crack, a crack in everything… that’s how the light gets in, that’s how the light gets in.” Hiding my truth not only snuffs out the message of recovery that I can potentially help bring to another suffering addict, but covering up the cracks in my own interior world blocks the message of recovery from seeping in and shining its healing light on my own broken spirit. And truly, without that healing light, I have no message at all. 

I’m Maze. I’m an addict.

The Edge

The Edge is a rusty blade that rests against the gears within me.  Most of the time the blade stays in place, slowly churning with the movement of the gears.  Sometimes it jumps off the track of a gear momentarily, causing a nick here and there, or a grinding screech, but quickly settles back into place against the next gear.  Every once in a while, though, the blade jumps violently off its gear and swings erratically in front of or behind the gears, sometimes with such force that the blade crosses the boundary of the core, the center space where the blade must never penetrate.  There is no threat of this happening when the blade remains against the gear or just jumps slightly off track momentarily. There is pain, but it is bearable.  However, when the blade jumps completely off the gear track and swings freely within me, the pain is so great and the slicing so deep that I panic in desperation to slow it down to a speed that makes it possible to nudge it back onto the track of a gear. As it swings, it slices, which is painful enough in and of itself, but it is when the momentum of the swinging blade persistently and continuously crosses into the center of me, momentarily slicing and blocking and filling up the core that causes the most damage.  The boundary of the core needs air and light; it needs to remain open and free at all times.  That is why there are gears, to keep moving parts away from that center core.  Only that which is potentially eternal and necessary can claim space in the core, and such things are fragile and vulnerable and easily destroyed by the slices of the rusty blade.

The desperation to stop the swinging blade comes from the fear of losing those core pieces that are housed in the center, of losing the potentially eternal gains I’ve made in this life.  These things are extremely precious and hard to attain… yet easy to lose before becoming truly eternal and permanently embedded in my soul.  That which remains in the core when I leave this life is all I can take with me.  If the blade destroys even one of these things, it affects my journey, my fate, my path.   

Sometimes I think of the Edge as my depression, for this has the power to destroy the spiritual truths I have learned and am working to refine in this life so that they might become eternal. 

My depression is destructive because it causes me to forget that there is meaning and purpose in everything that happens in life.  It convinces me that there is more pain and heartache in life than joy and contentment, therefore it forces me ask myself why I bother to stick it out for however many years I have left.  It tries to convince me that it would be easier to start over, and fresh.  It injects boredom into everything I do, especially those things that I love and need.  It blocks out many of the hundreds and thousands of tiny moments of enlightenment that come over the course of a day, a week, a month, a year.  It makes me feel heavy and cold and hateful, irritable and impatient and cynical.  And once it has destroyed all the truths I once held within me, it convinces me that the work required to regain such truths is too much, too long, too painful. 

Sometimes I think of the Edge as my addiction, because this is the most vulnerable part of who I am.  It feels as if my addiction has this same power to wipe out the spiritual truths within my soul or my core because my addiction is the fastest route to depression.

My addiction is cunning and subtle and, unlike depression itself, extremely attractive.  The feeling of momentary escape, the thought of being high is never something I abhor or don’t long for, even when my active addiction is dormant.  When my recovery is strong, when my bank is full, when my tools are arranged and visible, when I can clearly see what is beyond that initial satisfaction of the longing, when my center is overflowing with potential eternal truths ready for refinement, the longing to get high is further in the background, but still there, always there. 

When the Edge blade is methodically turning on the gears, the deep longing is manageable and distant.  When the blade jumps its track and quickly finds it again, these are the times I draw on what it within that core to fight back the longing.  But it is when the blade has jumped the track and swung so far out of alignment that the gears cannot recapture it – it is at these times that the damage to the spiritual truths in the core is extensive.  It is at these times that the deep longing to alter my mind, my brain, my very self, is nearly impossible to resist. 

And this is the Edge.  This is the cause of the desperation.  This is what I am unsure how to fight.  This is the answer I seek, always: What do I do to put the blade back onto the gears before the destruction is extensive… or total?  

I’m Maze. I’m an addict.