Beauty and the Morning After

Catching Up

2007-01-28T11:52:00.000-08:00

I know... it's been over a month, but it has been quite a month for me. I've been promoted to foreman at my job, I had a reality check at my house towards the size of my ego that made me realize that I'm not as saavy in this program as I thought I was and in turn gave me inspiration to move even more, I made my first trip back home to College Station and made amends, and I got a new sponsor since my old one left. There is more to tell, and there is more I will expand on, but really, the first thing that comes to my mind I have to share is an experience I had a couple of weeks ago when I went to a rehab here to do something called and an Hospital and Insititution's panel (an H and I for short).
What an H and I really is is where people that have time in the program (CA in this case [Cocaine Anonymous]) go to a rehab, jail, hospital or something (rehab in this case) and share a message of the twelve steps with the people that are currently patients in there. Each H and I have different formats. Some are topics from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, some are open topic, some are pure Q and A, and like the one I went to, some are tell your life story, and then leave time for Q and A.
So, at this particular H and I, I went with a couple of friends of mine. We each shared a 15 minute version of what we used to be like, how we got to what we were like now, and how we are like now. I was the last to speak, and if I do say so myself, I felt very inspired. I shared five minutes on my life, because I felt more important to share on how my life changed. I went off on finding God and doing service work. Of course, I talked about finding God, Higher Power, in tenents of CA and the Big Book, and I was very political about it not to throw anybody. I could see in people's eyes that they were responding to me- I even noticed this one girl that didn't listen to Robert and Tara and instead was painting the whole time they spoke, she had her eyes fixated on me. So, I thought I spoke well.
Anyway, when it came to Q and A, we answered questions as a group, and everything was going fine, until this question was asked: "How did you guys find your higher power and realize that you were powerless (a reference to steps 1 and 2 to those of you not in the program)?" I had to think about that question, so Tara and Robert spoke before me. My answer was somewhere around this: most people when they come into rehab think that they have hit rock bottom, but they haven't. They can always go lower and lower until they are dead or in jail. If you've ever relapsed, you really know what I'm talking about (I've relapsed many times). There is always more pain out there, and everytime you are in the middle of your addiction, you know that there is more pain out there and there is nothing you can do about it. But, when you reach that point of desperation when you are willing to so anything to stop, you will turn to God- you will realize that just like drugs were stronger than you, there is something stronger than drugs, and something is God and he will save you from going any lower. That's how I found God.
After I was done, someone raised their hand, and asked me this question: "Well, how about the people that are dead or in jail- are we just lucky or something or does God not care about them?" And that question fucked me because I didn't know how to answer that. Thank God for Robert because he gave some bullshit political answer that really didn't answer that man's question but went right around it but sounded good enough that no one said anything, but I could see that man looking at me with a pain and animosity that I did nothing to help him, and that really fucked me up. And even though people after the meeting came and thanked me for their help, and even some told me that they like my answer about not hitting a bottom, I couldn't get that man's eyes out of my head.
Right after that, we went straight to a meeting, but my mind was still on that question- what about the people in jail or those that are dead? It brought me down that I couldn't answer that, and I was shaken. Then, I heard something that cleared my path. This woman, someone who couldn't seem to stay sober longer than a few weeks was speaking, and she said: "You know, I don't get why this isn't working. I turn my will over to God, and I pray and I pray and pray and pray, and I still get fucked up. I don't get it. Why doesn't he hear my prayers?" And two things became clear to me. First, that when I turn my will over to the care of God, it doesn't only mean what God wants me to do in my life, but it also means that I have to pay attention to what God puts other people in my life for and what do they mean in my life and that my life should be dedicated to them. Other people are parts of God's will in my life. The second part was the answer to the question that bothered me. Those people that are dead or in jail, they aren't unlucky, they had their chance and we very well could become those people at some point in the future if we don't practice God's will in our life. Those people in jail can go lower, and those people that are dead, it could've also just have been God's will. The thing is, we can't stand around idly hoping that God will scoop us up and save us, we have to take some action, and God will help us. We have to walk with God. It's like this: God has given us a car and we sit in the drivers seat and he's in the passenger seat. If we don't drive the car, then he can't guide us. We have to drive the car, once we do that, he will guide us, and once he tells us somewhere to go, we better damn well take that order too. We must walk hand in hand with him, praying isn't just enough- the power of prayer is amazing, but faith without works is dead. Those people that are dead or even lower than we are now aren't unlucky, they just didn't drive the car, they stayed idle, and they couldn't escape the storm. And I felt peace.
That was something I found to be of importance to me. The other thing that happened in this past month that really was important was that I went back to College Station for the first time since I left. The primary purpose of the trip was to make amends face to face. I already made amends in letters, but I felt it was time to make those amends face to face, and some others that I needed to make. I didn't waste anytime. The first thing I did when I arrived into town was go to my old job at the Holiday Inn and make my first amends. It was a very exhausting trip and I made a great deal of amends, including financial amends which has left me broke to this very day. But, I got to hang out with my friend Felix quite a bit which was great. I miss him a lot. It got me thinking about my friends, and what they mean to me. I almost didn't want to leave. I have these friends that through all the bullshit I did, still drove five hours to Center Point just to visit me in rehab to find out I was in San Antonio in a psych ward and drove there, and to find out they couldn't visit me so they left a letter, and they were okay. I don't know if they know how much that meant to me and how much I cried that day. I'm going to have six months sober soon, and it's hard to think that just six months ago I was sitting around drunk as a skunk and high not caring and taking these people for granted and now I pray for the next time I can see them just to show them my appreciating for not telling a professional liar and manipulator that he is forgiven and loved.
One interesting part about the trip was that I brought my roommate with me. For some reason, he started feeling really sad in the middle of the trip and he didn't really know why. We stayed up one night when I found him crying and talked long about why he was feeling sad and I suggested that maybe it was time that he went home and made his direct amends. I said that we see so many people talk the great talk but not many people but their money where their mouth is, and that's why we see them relapse and why the relapse rate is so great and that's why I've relapsed so many times before. I said that I don't care what people say about me, the one thing I am proud to say is that what I share in meetings, I can back up. And it's true, I am proud to say that I do a hell load of service work- chairing meetings, H and I's, sponsoring, etc. At the end of the conversation, he decided that he wanted to make his face to face amends, and that he also wanted to do more service work, which he is. For some reason, that makes me feel good.
I don't know what much more to say. I decided to finish my bachelors to go along with my LCDC. I start school this summer, hypothetically, and my LCDC course starts in January of 2008. It's funny for look to look at my life now and see how in a few short months the concepts of motivation and atonement are becoming more than privileges, but every day actions. People tell me that they are happy to see this Fernando or Sketch, and it's funny because I still feel essentially the same except for I am catching myself before I tell a lie, or I admit to the lie right I tell it, and I apologize for shit now, but I still feel the same. It's funny to see how my life has moved on for me because I think, at some point, I really resigned myself to believing that there was nowhere for me to go but nowhere. In the past I used to fear tomorrow because I had the feeling that I was going to be alone and scared. Now, I don't know where tomorrow is going to take me, but I can always count on my God being by my side and that's all I need.
There is peace. Serenity is not having everything calm around you- serenity is when everything is chaotic on the outside, and you are calm on the inside.

How I am Blessed

2006-12-25T11:41:00.000-08:00

Here's a timeline for me- I moved out of my old house into a new house; I became foreman of my landscaping crew that I work for; and the consoliated holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years) are coming to a close. What has changed? Not much in particular? Still, there are people around me are relapsing, and I sometimes sit around and wondering what I am doing around here? Sometimes, I feel like I am playing a game of cards, but the deck is only half there.
I know this is self delusion or fear. The wonder of where my future lays, but a good deal of this comes from my past that every so often pops up and sticks it's head to remind me of who I am or what I was.
A week or two ago, I had some friends come visit me. I should start by saying I have two classifications of friends from back home, both of which I am sure care about me, just one was based around the party scene (drugs and alcohol) and the other group was based around who I was- I mean friends I made because we sat, talked, clicked, and got to know each other. Group one I got to know through drugs and then we got to know each other. Group two, doesn't do drugs, drinks like normal human beings, and we got to know each other normally. Both group have people I love in them, and both groups are full of great people in them, but both groups subsribe to a variety of lifestyles that at some point create an exclusivity that makes me wonder how I was able to maintain a friendship in such two different worlds. For instance, it's hard to imagine that my best friend in group one is a pot-head manager at McDonald's (he's a good guy, don't get the wrong impression), and my closest friend from the second group is a senior at Texas A & M, ex- Younglife leader. The irony is, I've known both cats since back in the day, but my relationship with them began around my second rehab about four years ago.
Anyway, two people from the first group came, Matt (my closest friend from that group and my ex- roommate) and Pake. But, let me backtrack a few days. I was sitting in the room where the CA (Cocaine Anonymous) meeting I was going to attend was to be held. I was waiting for it to start (I was thirty minutes early for some reason), writing in my journal, sitting in a chair, when my father called me. I answered the phone, and talked to him for a bit, made some plans for the weekend for when he was to visit me, and then right before we were going to hang up he said: "Oh, hey, by the way, I recieved an e-mail from a friend of yours- someone named Pake." As soon as he said the name, my stomach dropped a bit.
"He just wanted to know how're you're doing and so on."
"It's a she," was all I could think to reply. My mind colluded with thoughts trying to figure what exactly I should do about this situation(when I thought about it later, I lauged because I really just heard a named, panicked because there was no "situation" to do anything about in the first place) and how the hell did she get my father's e-mail (Texas A & M's web page).
"Well," he says. "Okay, she just wanted to know how you're doing, and she left a number. Do you want it?"
This was the critical moment and I didn't know what to do. I sent out many letters to make amends, and she was one of the letters I sent to make amends to, especially to the fact that I haven't seen her in a year because she left to Germany to study abroad, and when she came back, I was gone. I also knew at some point that I had to begin to make amends again face to face with the people that deserved it, but still, I felt like ice ran through me, and it wasn't because it was freezing outside (I was sitting in my car with my heater on at this point). Finally, resigning that it was God telling me that it's about time to get over my fear, I said yes, and my father gave me her phone number.
I call her up immediately, and of course, she was suprised to hear from me. She tells me that Matt was hurt with everything that went on. That he felt betrayed by me hiding my meth addiction, my relapse from all of them (they only smoked pot and drank, and little coke and ecstasy didn't hurt either, right?), but he was beggining to forgive me and wanted to see me, and that she felt hurt, but really wanted to see me, blah blah blah, and so forth.
Anyway, jump ahead, because the rest is just my life, but here are two things that worked out from this situation: one, I decided to make those face to face amends and I'm going to make my first trip back to College Station since I left in August on January 5th. I am taking my sponsee Eric with me, the one that I went with to Fort Worth with so he could make his amends, because he has an amend in Bryan, and we are staying the weekend. Two: Pake and Matt decided to come up that Friday after she talked to me on the phone to visit.
So, we are caught up in the story to where I want to be. That Friday, I get off work, relax, and take a shower, and almost immediately after my shower, Pake and Matt arrive at my house. There is the awkward, how are doing?- and so on, but in the end, we move on.The first thing we do is get a cup of coffee where I make my amends. I admit to every big lie I ever told, everything I stole, all the things I have done, even somethings I thought I wouldn't tell. Suprising myself when I broke down in tears, telling them how much of a coward I am, and how sorry I am, Matt tells me that, "Today, you are not a coward, but you are becoming a man." I just wanted to shake my head and respond, "There are cowardly men, Matt," but I smiled and said nothing.
Then, we went to dinner, talked about old times, and they caught me up with the new drama, which in the past would've interested me, but for some reason, I was dying of boredom for a new topic. I was skipping my meeting, and for some reason, I kept wondering what the topic was. Then, they left eagerly, because, it was obvious to me (especially when Matt ordered a beer at the restaurant, which didn't bother me, I have passed that point where it bothers me to be around alcohol and drugs, I just wondered why he couldn't just not drink for the day...?) that the sober life bores them.
The whole next day at work, I felt somewhat depressed and I didn't know why. My mind blank and dull, and I just worked like machine that needed maintenance. Then, a moment of clarity struck me. As I thought over all the moments of drama they told me about and the root of that drama struck me as the party scene that I removed myself from, I realized that I don't want to go back to that anymore- I realized that maybe, sadly that my friendship with these people will never be the same anymore. Their problems almost seemed childish to me. This guy is sleeping with a girl he doesn't like and this guy is in jail but now weed isn't getting stolen is so sophomoric compared my other friends that are talking to me about marriage, post graduation, careers, and relationships, or in my life, recovery and God put in the mix. I became sad because, I realized, at that moment, that I might have made amends to people so I could also wash my hands clean, and really CLEAN, of a group that no longer appeals to me, or no longer really connects with me spiritually or mentally or physically anymore. It's more than being on a different page, we were two different books on different bookshelves and there is only one person to read us.
It was a growing moment, which is seems of late, I'm having these huge momentsw of growths, and that's all I have. Moments of growth and clarity (which I am sure has to do with my mind clearing up and becoming more rational).
But, I talked with my friend Felix, who's from the second group, and then there's that feeling that we're in the same sentence- does that make sense? The realization that social classes and cliques and groups don't make you who are is great, but the realization also that those friends of yours make and break you, are critical to helping guide down your path of life, is somewhat euphoric and cathartic and mellowing at the same time.In the end, I became grateful for the friends that were there with me on the outside of the world drugs and stuck with through this sickness becuase while they'll never know the pain of the disease, they will always know the love of God, and for that they are blessed, and for that, I am blessed. For that, I am blessed.
For that, I am blessed.

Forgiveness and Other Bits of My Life

2006-12-10T11:41:00.000-08:00

I'm in Fort Worth right now, with one of my sponsees, as he goes around making his amends. As I watch him go through this process, with a certain amount of pride I might add, something builds inside of me. I am having a hard time verbalizing it, putting it into words, but the best I can do is speak from my own experience.
When I went through my own process of amends, I was worried. I was worried that for all of my sins, I was unforgivable. That even if the Lord could forgive me, I would be alone in a world alienated from my friends. Even so, shaky and worried, I made my amends to my father (step 9: made direct amends to those we had harmed unless to do so would injure them or otheres), and with eyes pleased, calm, and some what sympathetic, he says to me: "I just want you to be happy. I just want you to stay sober and be happy. That's your amends to me." He said nothing of forgiveness, and he didn't have to. I knew I was forgiven the moment he called me his son- again.
Then, there were my friends I thought I were going to lose. I asked for forgiveness and what I could to make things right, and like my friend Shaun said to me, "buddy, you were forgiven even before you asked." And here's the kicker. He says, "I love you, man. I just want you to be happy and sober."
And then, probably the closest friend I have in the world, Felix, comes up, drives to Kerrville, and visits me like nothing happens- like I never took advantage of our friendship of his trust. He tells me of his life and listens to my opinions like I deserve to give them, and he treats me like any other human being. He says, "I love you, bud. You look good and happy. I'm glad for you."
So, let's take a pause from the linearity of the post look at some scripture that comes to mind for me.
1) 2 Cor. 5:17- Therefore if anyone in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
2) Isiah 65:17-19- For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things will not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and regoice forever in what I create; For behold, I create Jerusalem for rejoicing and her people for gladness. I will also rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in My people; And there will no longer be heard in her the voice of weeping and the of crying.
3) Eph. 4: 11-16- Andhe gave some as aposles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of faith, and of the knowledge of faith, and of the knowledge of the son of God, to am mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a reslt, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in decietful schemind, but speaking truth in love, we are the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
As I look at all these scriptures, I derive theses conclusions:
1- I am a new creature. My sins have been forgiven truly by the Lord and I have been born again.
2- Like Shaun pointed out, I am supposed to be happy- we are all supposed to be happy. That is our purpose- to rejoice and to continue to rejoice in the Lord and all that the Lord has provided for us.
3- That Love is the ultimate. I could've written down, Love thy neighbor as you love thyself, but we all know that one. At that point, Love is crucial to glorify the Lord (we must build up his body).
4- We must share his our love, his love, all love, with everyone.
So, as I cruise around with my sponsee, and I see him make amends to all these people and places that he's harm, and see the suprise on his face as all the people that he at once felt he hurt so painfully, forgive him such ease. I see the Lord working in his life. I see the promises of the twelve step program in his life working. I feel the recovery working in his life.
I saw his grandmother cry as he asked for forgiveness, and she said the very thing Shaun said to me. And, as him and I left her house, she hugs me and thanks me from the bottom of her heart for helping her little Eric out. And I was touched. I wanted to cry. I wanted to reach out to that woman and tell her that everything will be alright. That it was a bad dream, that he's just diabetic or something. But the truth, his truth, my truth, glares so brightly in her eyes, in her tears, that I thank her and I say, "Eric has helped me more than you can understand, trust me."
And that's all I can say. I am moved.
I have been thinking lately, why I have so much sentimentality for College Station. It's because in recovery, people drop like flies. It's not like when I moved to college, and I moved into a dorm, and I felt home sick at first, but I made some friends, had some stable relationships, and finally settled in. No, not in Kerrville's sandbox of recovery. You just don't know when someone's going to drop. Just one day, you don't see them around, and then you hear that they pissed dirty, and you shake your head and that's another number deleted off of your cell phone.
At first, you feel for the people that relapse. You feel sorry. At least, I did. I wanted to help them so much. I wanted to find them immediately. Hug them, tell them it will be alright, and them try to get them to a meeting. Then, I realized something happened, and I don't know when. I became numb. They relapse, and I just don't care. It's not that I don't care for them. I love them. It's just that I now that there's nothing I could've done. When I see them again I will reach out my hand to them, and it's up to them to grab it- but I will not shed another tear for those who do not take my hand, just for those whose hands rests limply on the cold floor as a statistic ready to be tabulated.
I just realized that telling them it's going to be alright is bullshit. I'm passed that point. It's life and here people, and it's sometimes hard to see that. It's not going to be alrigt, everything is not going to go the way you always want it. Just stand up and take it as it comes. What we need are God, the steps, and serenity- and serenity is not when everything is calm around is, but when everything is chaotic around us, but we are calm on the inside. We are not body with souls, but souls with bodies.
So I became numb. Like a doctor that sees so much death, I became numb. And then, I came to Fort Worth, and my sponsee's grandmother hugged me and I had to fight tears. I don't know what I have really done. I just thought I was working a program, but instead, I forgot, I was in the program of saving lives. I think I lost sight of something so critical: behind the drug addict is a person, a son, a daughter, a brother, sister, mother, father, lover, painter, singer, lover, Christian, Buddhist, child of God. And with my tears came memories of better times that were washed away with the rain.
So today, I grew up a bit. And my ego was shrunken a bit.

Overcoming a Mountain

2006-11-23T23:06:00.000-08:00

Holidays are a strange time of year, if you ask me. As I walked down the San Antonio River Walk with my father and his girlfriend, fighting the urge to piss, streaming past the bars, recollecting on the notion that no longer are those places ever going to hold the same appeal to me anymore, I recognize how sad I almost feel. I don't really know why is that I feel sad? Is it because lately I fight the urge to drink? That's not it, I'm an alcoholic in early sobriety, that's what I do. I call my sponsor, work with people, and pray- I'll be okay. The problem with that for me is that I'm so young, it's hard to imagine sixty plus more years without taking a drink while my alcoholic peers that are in the elder years are getting clean it almost doesn't seem fair, but then, in reality, I've got it good- I get to nip my problem in the bud, early and save my life and give me a chance to really live. I have it lucky.
But, I'm going on a tangent.
Why do I feel sad, then, on Thanksgiving, then?- the day where I should be grateful for all that God gave me? Maybe it is because all I can think about is all the things I took away from the people that loved me. The hurt and pain and anguish that I cause. And yes, there is those moments of self pity washed with abysmal need for sympathy and a cry for a dash of humanity but in the end it's a lackluster sense of melancholy. I watch under the darkened lights of the once festive river walk, closed for the holiday, glittered with the occasional bar and restaurant serving patrons drinking monstrous margaritas and eating chips and smoking cigarettes and we, us three, we walk. I listen to my father and his girlfriend talk, and they are as content to be free and lively as the lights of the place could be, but me, and I sink in the dark bottom of the river.
Why? I have no idea. Maybe it is the medication. Maybe. And then, I get to thinking about my life recently. I just got a raise. I just got my car. My relationship with friends that I thought I would lose back home is only getting stronger, and my realtionship with my parents is better than ever. I am still sober. And besides Michigan losing to Ohio State, life can't seem to get much better for me. So as my father reminds that we forgot to make the salad for dinner tonight, I smile to myself. I realize why I was sad for Thanksgiving. I was sad for all the Thanksgivings before when I was falsely happy. I had to pay tribute the murdered holidays. And now, I sit back, and give myself the pleasure of moving on. Of looking around and being older and wiser and sober and happier. And what's greater, believing that I deserve this happiness.
There's so much time we have believing we don't deserve happiness for all the pain we created, when in reality, most of the hurt we caused those we love and that loved us was because we were hurting ourselves. I think the common element of all of the amends I have made is that everyone just wants me to stay sober and be happy. For that, I am grateful. For that, I smile. For that, I can close my eyes gently and sleep kindly and dream about a future where I live in a mid-western dream with snowy winters and colorful autumn's and the smell of the fireplace in the brisk air. I have found peace of mind in the words of Robert Frost: "My gentle house upon the hill where I stand so still but fly at will."

An Unexpected Visitor

2006-11-09T07:40:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, after closing in on the days work and preparing to go home, my phone rings. The dispay shows me an unfamiliar number and with the same reluctant curiousity, I answer it, curious as to whom it could be. It turns out, an old friend of mine that I have known over ten years that came into the program about over a year ago and relapsed has come up here to Kerrville, has about a week and a half sober and is thinking about moving up here.
I got to hang out with him last night for a good deal of time when I didn't think I was going to be able to because my meeting was cancelled, and arguably had the best day I have had for a very long time. We talked some in a comical manner of our combined past times to our mutual friends in Kerrville of our high school moments in College Station together, played guitar, and spoke little of the true tragedies that brought us together here in Kerrville together. While he looked jovial in outside, I saw a wrecked shit floating in his eyes, and as he drove me home later that night, we spoke of the gravity and reality of our lives.
A weird sensation swept over me at that moment. I saw a dichotomy of my past and my present. I've known my friend in his alcoholism and through that, I could see myself. I saw who I was and who I am now, and I realized through all the thick and thin the necessity to never forget that who I was and who I am are exactly the same person just looking at the world through a different shade of glasses.
I asked my friend to move up to Kerrville. I told him there was an opening in my house, and I'd help him get set up, which I really could, but I don't know if he's ready for it. Let's wait an see.

The Remembering Sunset

2006-11-02T18:16:00.000-08:00

I am lazy as I rest my cheek against the cold window of this truck. Shifting uncomfortably, I try to find a spot to cause the smallest wake everytime we hit a bump, but in the end, I stick my hand in between my face and the glass. Gritty with dirt, my fingers tangle with my new beard and I feel my muscles relax as my body finally begins to become aware that my ten hour work day is over. My mind is numb to the music, my friend talking on the phone to some girl right next to me, the cars passing us by, the large rolling hills of the Texas Hill Country, and the deco-noir houses with their southern rustic panache- the only thing that intrigues me is the setting sun hiding behind the lifted trees and the azure rays mixed with echos of violent orange and purple and red. At every turn of the road and crest of a hill there is a new shade and new arrangement of clouds and lights to endure my ever so short fused fascinated mind with indiginatly small ethereal aspects of transcedental life that speaks ever so anthropomorphically to me, "Keep it simple, Sketch." So instead, I think about how beautiful it is, and smoke a cigarette and watch the wisps shatter and dance as the light refracts through the crack in the window.
And I think back to just a few months ago to a moment very similar to this but back in College Station. I think of my life just a short while ago with nostalgia. I think of the people I had a history with and the things we did and the songs we sang along to and the good times we had and promises we made that they would never end. And I look over to my friend, who stares galiantly at the road ahead of him, his task apparent and somatic. Do you ever miss it? I ask him.
Miss what? he responds casually without changing his gaze.
The past. Your friends you used to have.
Without missing a beat, he says to me: yeah- I miss the good times. And everytime I miss the good times, I have to stop and think about what put me here. And then when I think about that, I get depressed, and then I think about what keeps me here, and everything just falls into place.
And that's that?
That's that.
Okay.
What's keeping you here, Sketch? he asks me.
I look out the window. In the reflection, I see my eyes. I don't see the bad moments, I still see the good moments of my past and the beautiful sunset. Maybe, I say to him, I want to have good times again. Maybe, I'm tired of looking at sunsets and just looking at them waiting for it to become night so another day could end.
My friend doesn't say anything. He just keeps driving. We go down a few more bends, take a right, first left, five house on the left, the big blue trailer- that's my place, and I'm off, and as I'm waving him good-bye, something strikes me as to why my friend never responds- I'm still here. I already noticed that sunset.
I sat outside and watched that sun set with all of its glory. I watched it cast its shadows and silhouttes of trees and cars and rays of light and life beamed with life, careening off of mountain tops, and when it was over, when night came, I went inside, and another day ended.

Rain to Wash the Fear

2006-10-25T10:07:00.000-07:00

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.

God, Father, Abba

2006-10-16T12:48:00.000-07:00

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.

Eyes in a Crowded Room

2006-10-12T10:11:00.000-07:00

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.

How It Starts

2006-10-06T10:28:00.000-07:00

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.