It rains. It rains and I cannot work. I wait for the sun where I am promised a chance to earn money. I remember a time where I used to beg for any excuse not to work- now, I am grateful for any minute I have to work. But it rains, and I am grateful for a chance to relax.
I have been having these dreams lately. They are flashes, images of friends and times that have come to pass- some good, some bad. The other night, I stayed up into the dark night and stared up at my ceiling listening to the breathing of the my two roommates breathing as really thought of the ontology of my situation. Twenty- two. Away from home. Limited college education. Blue collar job. No real teleology. Living in a half-way house. I felt something powerful strike me at that moment. I think it was fear- a sweep of uncertainty.
For most of my life, for some reason or another, I have had a plan. College expectations, movements in work, social desires, etc. Even in my addiction, these parrallels into the routine of my life were formulated and kempt. The situation I am in now is as unique as any situation I have ever experienced in my life. Moving into the dorms in Ann Arbor, thousands of miles from Texas where my father lived still maintained a level of stability for me considering that I anticipated this moment since I entered high school. But, nothing in my life ever prepared me for this. D.A.R.E programs only peaked my interests in drugs, if you ask me.
So, that night, staring into my ceiling, feeling the sort of alienation one gets when they are young, alone, and wondering seriously in their life what the fuck they are doing with it, I began to think about my family and the few good friends I had left back in College Station. To be in the mind of a self-pitying drug addict is not a good place to be primarily because as any drug addict in recovery should know: self-pitying, self-centerdness, selfishness is the root of all our problems in the first place (don't worry, I didn't do anything stupid). In that dark room, I begged for a familiar voice, something to break through the deafining silence to remind that remind that I will be okay, that I will be alright.
And then, I remembered the passage reminded me to be still with the Lord (my own spiritual beliefs). So I got still. I got quiet. I let myself go. And I fell right to sleep. Calmly, like a child.
There's no real point to this post other than to point out a reality in my life: still on a daily basis to I have succumb to battling fear. While the obsession to drink and drug has been lifted, it doesn't mean I have nothing to do anymore. That's all.

There are certain moments that, for some reason or other, leave a lasting impression. Sometimes, when they are happening, you just know, this moment is going to change you forever. Other times, you aren't paying a second notice to the moment- but years down the line, you think back to that time with an odd quality and a smile and find a poignancy that eluded you before.
I was just thinking about, the other day, about the second rehab I went to in Bryan, Texas. This rehab was for homeless people, and was a lot smaller than the other one that I happened to go the other two times I went to rehab here in the Hill Country. I was in that rehab three years ago, when I was 19 years old from November 12th to January 8th. I spent Christmas and New Years in there. It was a small, non- profit rehab, on the fourth floor of a building in the outskirts of the poor district of Bryan, and because of the holidays, the staff decided to keep the group in there together until after New Years. In fact, I "graduated" that rehab with about half the people in there. So, everyone was in there for a quite a long time, and we got to be quite close, and needless to say, that rehab left quite a lasting impression on me.
Still, on my part, I was not really ready to recover (in fact, I wouldn't be ready to really recover until just recently- by that I mean actually talk about all of my problems instead of some of them). I was coming off of a quick, and intense relapse off of my first rehab where I hit a strong 2 month heroin binge, that sent me into a highly intense detox. I don't really remember much of my detox, actually- most of what I know is from what other people have relayed to me. What I do remember is medications, sleepless nights in agony, pain, hallucinations, shakes, shivers, cold sweats, and all the good stuff. I was in detox for about a month, and because of my mental disorder and suicidal tendencies, I was shipped off to a psych ward. It took a month for them to get me ready to go to a psych ward because they couldn't stablize my blood pressure, but I remember that day, waiting for my father to pick me up. I love my father to death, and to this day, the biggest guilt I feel is for all the pain I caused him. I am his only child, he is a divorcee, and we're from Brazil- the rest of our family lives there, this has not been easy for him, but our family is no exception. But I remember waiting for my father, brimming with excitment, on a sunny day, imagining him showing up, me smiling, going up to him, hugging him and showing how well I was doing. I imagined the conversation we would have on the ride. It was a good fiction. And then, he walked through the door of the detox, and as soon as I threw my arms around him, I broke down harder then I ever have in my life until that point.
By the time I came back from the psych ward (and, I think it is funny how similar my experience was when I as 19 was when I was 22 when I went to rehab this last time, it was just me who took it differently), I was broken down and vulnerable. Going through the holidays and so on took quite a toll on my emotions and so forth. Anyway, the event that really changed me took place in the middle of my time there. I just wanted to get my mindset described.
There was this man that showed up to the rehab about my third day back from the psych ward that I ended up becoming close too. He was this large man, and when I say large, I mean scary muscular large white man that scared the shit out of me at first. But, in all truth he was a nice guy... overall. He just got out of doing an eleven year stint in the pen, and was a crack head. This is the man in question.
So, in the middle of my tenure at this rehab, we did this exercise. We sat in this classroom, and we dimmed the lights until a bare minimum. Then, all of us sat in a circle around two chairs that faced each other. The point of the excercise was this: someone would sit in one of these chairs and face the other chair with no one in it. The person in the chair in the middle of the circle would then pretend that there was someone else in the chair in front of them and they would let loose their frustration and anger on them. For instance- I sat on that chair and let loose on my mother for back then what I thought were crimes she committed against me during my parents' divorce when I was 14 and the "Great Depression."
So, this large man sat in the chair, and he went off as usual against people in the pen, gangsters and so on, and then, he got to his father, and this man started bawling. "You never loved me!" he cried. "I just wanted you to hold me, but you never did. Why couldn't you hold me?" I sat there, not breathing, staring incredulously at this man, screaming at this chair, with tears rushing down his face, torn apart about his father not holding him as a child. I was shocked.
Why was I shocked? Maybe because I was suprised to find a humanity within this man. But let's pause right here for a moment and let's jump ahead for a little bit.
Recently, I just went through about a four day depression of a pretty managmous propensity. This curious to me because not did it hit me so immediately (I just woke up feeling depressed), but because I could not really pinpoint why I was so depressed. I have several theories. First, I thought my bipolar disorder had something to do with it. The intensity of my bipolar disorder has scared people so much before that sometimes it makes me laugh- but people at, for instance, at my last rehab put me on suicide watch the whole time I was in there. I am aware of the degree of my disorder, and I am aware that medication needs to be tweaked and so on and so forth, but my cognition told me that this wasn't the answer- but I didn't rule it out.
The other theory I had was that maybe I was having a hard time finding a job. The real, and direct relation to that, would really be that I was losing faith with my God.
This depression I went through, made me a vegetable. I locked myself up at my house, I stopped talking to people and working a program of recovery. I stopped trying to work with addicts in recovery, I stopped praying. And then, I heard something yesterday from a smart man named Robert Park. He said, "If I'm not helpless, then God is helpless." And all of a sudden, I became happy again. Because I realized something grand. I was doing everything wrong, and that's why I was feeling depressed. Sure, the disorder doesn't help, but the program of recovery teaches me a few things. I need to put faith in a higher power.
It is so easy to see God in a graduation, a wedding, or when I pick some girl up at a bar, but when I'm having a hard time in life, it's harder to see him there. But he is there. I've said that before- why can't I listen to what I say? If I give myself up to him, he will take care of me. What is his will? "There is no greater love than to lay down your life for another person." I know what my God is. I don't care who yours is, essentially- but whether it is Buddha, Allah, Vishnu, we can all agree that love is the ultimate mantra of God. So, by working with others, with unselfish motives, then I am doing God's will. I have to, on a daily basis, be a vessel in his service, and give my love to those that need it, because I can see God's love, and there are those that can't. And guess, yesterday, I gave myself to God, today I got a job. I don't believe that to be a coincidence. Someone once asked me, in my alcoholism, why I couldn't put down the bottle, and I told them that it wasn't that I couldn't put down the bottle, it was that I couldn't put up with myself. Now, I have in essence forgiven myself because I know God forgave me before I ever did, and I need to spread that news to the addict that suffers for me to continue to be clean. That is my life as an addict in recovery that does not want to use ever again.
So, I have to remember my friend that never had a father that held him and remember my father that came and picked me up and held me as I broke down in that detox room. I always have to remember, now and forever.

I used to think I was uniquely different. I used to think that everyone looked at me and immediately I was alienated- stigmatized and looked at with eyes with disdain. When I first tried to get clean, and I had to answer why I left Michigan, I had this embarressment that followed me around like shadow. The realization that my disease is essentially on par with diabetes took that sense of angry isolation away from me.
If you met me now, what you would see is a 22 year old male, probably with some stubble growing on his face, long side burns, a cocky grin, wearing a collared shirt and jeans and some Puma's trying to crack some joke at you. And essentially, the first idea you would get from me, I doubt, would be, "hey, this kid is an alcoholic." The irony of my "younger" days was that I would make assumptions that you would assume that I was an "evil" person because somehow you just knew I was a drug addict. It was just such teenage poetry. I think some part of me liked that conception back then, though, because back then, I had no real intention of really staying sober in the first place, and well, sad to say, I didn't stay sober after some period of time.
Now, I look at my disease as a part of me. I treat it like I would treat the flu and move on. Of course, I don't walk up and introduce myself to people as "hey, I'm Fernando, and I'm an addict- nice to meet you," but at the same time, if it comes up, I can look you in the eyes.
Yet, of course, there are still the hurdles that we have to face of the stereotypes that do place upon us. For instance, the other day, I was at MHMR, trying to set up an appointment for a shrink, there was a woman behind me as I was explaining to the woman in the window my situation- "i have this and this disorder, i just was discharged out of this rehab..." and as soon as I said rehab, I see the shuffle of the feet, but I tell myself, I'm just seeing things. So, anyway, I finish what I have to say to the woman in the window and she tells me to take a seat. I take a seat in this semi- circle of couches they have in the middle of the foyer (the only place really to sit) and I happen to be next to these two kids that can't be older than nine years old or something playing game boy. Well, I'm not sitting more than five minutes when the woman behind me in the line rushes over to me and grabs both the little boys and grabs their hands, gives me a curt smile, and walks them over to the other side of the room where there are these little pamphlets and they start rifling through them. I just laughed at that. Maybe it had nothing to do with anything... maybe.
I don't blame the woman for what she did, though. This is a tenacious disease. These stereotypes didn't come out of nowhere, and in my own experience, I have lived some of them out myself. If I think about my past, and the things I've done, I wouldn't want those kids sitting next to me either. That's where the humility kicks in.
There's the other thing that makes me sad. There's the thing that's going on in my community, the thing that I've seen happen so many times: the relapse condition. Most of you don't know what I'm talking about, but let me explain, and then I'll get to the personal part of it. Objective to the subjective. Alcohlism/Addiction is a disease that there is no medicinal cure for, at least not one found yet. The only way we sober up (and by we, I mean those of us afflicted by the disease, which is a medical condition and diagnosed bu the DSM IV which makes it psychological) is by following a twelve step program because the twelve step program actually helps us face an internal condition that plagues us and that has been ruined by the medical disease of alcoholism. Essentially, since there is no medical cure for alcoholism, the only way we found to stay sober is to work with one another get out of ourselves because we know that by ourself, we cannot fight the urge to put down the bottle like everyone else. I'm not going to go any further in explaining the program any further because I'll probably ruin it for someone, but it does work.
Yet, the tenacity of the disease makes it very difficult for anything to work. While the twelve step program has been the thing proven to work the most out of anything ever tried to cure alcoholism, still a great deal of alocolics and addicts don't make it. In fact, 70% of addicts (or so they say) coming out of rehab relapse (relapse is a term for going back to using and drinking). The reason being usually is that most addicts and alcoholics though don't actually work a strong program. 100% of people that do work a good 12 step program do make it, but sadly a great majority don't do so.
In most cases, it takes multiple tries until one actually makes it. For me, I went to three rehabs and two psych wards and now I live in a half way house. But, I'm in the minority of my graduating group for rehab that's still clean, and almost everyday, I hear about another person relapsing- and I've already heard of two people going to the hospital, one of them dying for three minutes until he was revived.
So now it gets personal. I left College Station not on the notion that demography had anything to do with changing the compulsion to use, or else I would've never left Ann Arbor, but I left College Station to start a new life, and yet, there are the essences of the old life, actually more similar to the one in Ann Arbor here, that I feel. There is drama, and yet, I move along. Every day, I thank God for a roof over my head and food in my mouth. While not everything thing is going the way as I planned (I still am jobless), I am happy, in selfish way, that I so far, have not relapse, and I don't see one coming anytime soon.
Here it is: here is my epiphany- I have a lot of love this time around. I have love for those who relapse and those who don't. I have love for those who cry and those who laugh. I have love for those who hurt and those who are euphoric. I want to reach out to those that wonder why God has left them to die and remind them God that has kept them alive so they can have a second chance. I want give an arm to the people that scream at the world for taking everything they loved away from them and remind them that the world put those things in their life in first place. What the world sees you as is not who you are. "You must be the change you wish to see in the world" as Gandhi said.
Sometimes, we feel like God has deserted us, when we are marching through desperate and tired moments. It is easy to see God in the easy moments, like a high school graduation, or a marriage, but he is also there when you are crawling through the mud. It won't be easy, but once you are on the other side, it is easy to return to faith. Don't mix up faith with hope. Don't mix up hope with will. Even if your will power is gone, there is hope. Even if hope seems slim, have faith. Even if your faith is weakened, God is still there. Just keep your eyes open. No matter how crowded the room is, he can find you.

It starts with a prayer. Calmly, I sit in front of this computer, in a strange place feeling familiar, listening to music whisp through my ears like the smoke from my cigarette as I think about what got me here. Around me, through the papers, the ashtrays, the stale cups of coffee, I am reminded of who am I am and how I got here- why I am here.
I am an addict. I am an alcoholic. I am the bottom of the barrel people that scares the world. Am I a bad person? I don't feel like I am, but some like to think I am. Have I done bad things- yes. The truth is, yes- through the disease of addiction, I have done terrible things, but it is a disease, not an excuse. All I can do now is try to remedy those actions. Sometimes, I do wonder why some people are able to put down the bottle, the pipe, the needle by themselves and I'm not, but other times, I'm just grateful to be alive. Sometimes, I wonder why I had to see the things I had to see, and other times, I am grateful for the experience to help others.
What has happened is as follows. When I was nineteen years old, I left the University of Michigan and returned to College Station, Texas in the peak of my heroin addiction to seek help. After two rehabs, I stayed clean for about a year, and thinking that I was too young to be an alcoholic, I started drinking. The truth to anybody who knows anything about the nature of this disease is that You cannot replace one addiction for another. If you are a heroin addict, you are an alcoholic. One beer led a bottle of whiskey very quickly which led to the shakes very quickly. In order to combat the shakes, very deceitfully to many friends of mine that cared for me, I quickly found meth, and began using again. For two years plus, I used until certain circumstances found me in rehab in Center Point, Texas.
Here's where my life changed. I have been to rehab twice before. In the previous two rehabs, externally, i was in a worse condition- my life was broken apart and there was nothing left for me, but I wasn't ready to quit drugs. My internal condition, in a sense, still had some space to be destroyed, which is odd because it took quite a beating in Ann Arbor and Detroit- a lot more than in did in College Station during the subsequent years, but God's plan has a funny way of working.
I arrived at the rehab weighing 114 pounds (I'm 5'10'') and since I weighed so little, the doctor said that I could only have detox meds for one day (Librium). So, for about six days or so, I was going through a living hell of the shakes, blood pressure problems, and overall just feeling like shit. One thing that started coming out also was an untreated Bipolar disorder of mine. On the eighth day in rehab, I broke down- I hit a state known as hypomania. I started hallucinating, hearing voices and in the end, I tried to hang myself. A counselor there saved my life and immediately diagnosed me himself with bipolar disorder (he himself had it- i've been diagnosed with it for a long time), and they sent me to a psych ward to be stabilized on meds. At that psych ward, not only was rediagnosed with Bipolar I disorder, but I was also diagnosed with Schizoaffective Disorder. There, at that hospital, I began to realize things were very wrong for me.
When I returned to the rehab, I was still in a depression, but I was desperate. I was a drowning, broken man. I was ready for anything. For the first week in the there though, something was not clicking in there with me. I just could not really seem to find the answer- I could not begin to heal, I was bleeding everywhere. I was a bundle of hurt. One night, I was laying on a bench under a tree. As i stared up through a clearing in the branches of this tree, where I could see where the clouds were illuminated opaquely orange by a streetlight, I started thinking about my life since I started doing drugs when I was twelve with a stunning clarity. I thought about every moment, good and bad, and I went through every range of emotion with a dynamic intensity that I elmost felt as if I went through a Euripidean purging. And, when it was done, I felt this sudden calm, this peace, serenity sweep over my body. I felt the hand of God touch me. I felt, in essence, the holy spirit. I felt something I haven't felt in so long. Then, i realized what I wasn't getting- it isn't that God took anything away from me in life, but he put all those things there in the first place that really mattered. From that moment on, I have felt peace like no other. I have been out of rehab for about two weeks, and I pray every day that it was my last one. But I can't guarantee tomorrow, but I can guarantee today.
I can't say I have been cured of my disease, because that is impossible. I will die with this disease, but i don't have do die from it. The second I pick up that first drink, or take that first hit, I'm done for until i seek treatment again. I am recovered though, as long as I keep working this program of recovery and I keep my faith in God. What this is here is my chronicle. It is life through my eyes. It is my metamorphosis. I am still a heroin addict. I am still a cocaine addict. I am still a meth addict. I still a pill head. I am still an alcoholic. I am still an addict/ alcoholic, but I am finding a life without the things that made my life for the last ten years. This is my story. And this is how it starts.