Month: September 2019

Today I was thinking about the lives I’ve lived. Intentional plural there, folks.

It’s crazy to look at where I’ve been and where I am in the same moment. It offers an aggressive clarity about why I’m choosing to live sober and moreover it offers strength to stay consistent in the tightest of moments. I really can’t imagine returning to the life I lived before. It’s almost as if it was a past life that I have the ability to glance at in a moment and transport back to reality. I’m basically a time traveler, you guys.

So today I remembered how I would bop down to the 3900 block of Wabash Ave at around 12am and post up with a crew of dope boys a couple nights a week. They befriended me probably because I didn’t care about life and would risk possible physical injury, possible arrest and my life in order to stay high. There were blocks of apartments where we would stand in the staircase and serve people coke and dope all night. They would “let” me run out and hand off the product and would give me drugs throughout the night. It was a great arrangement I thought. To think what could’ve happened to me is horrifying today, but then…in my previous life, it was nothing. It was easy. It was actually sought after. It was exciting. I felt like I was getting over on them.

I also remembered shooting dope up in the McDonald’s bathroom on Coldspring Lane, falling out on the floor and waking up to the paramedics standing over me and me basically just running out of the restaurant just to do it again.

There was a house on Park Heights known on the street as “Momma’s House.” You could go there and buy needles, heroin (even though it was stepped on) and crack. It was heated by the oven, which was sometimes my only source of warmth in the winter months. It was where I first used a needle. I was like 24 years old.

I was damn near a local in that part of town, the only one of my kind I thought. I would expect that 90% or more of the residents of that part of town wish they lived somewhere else, but I chose to be there. I embraced it.

It had everything I needed.

Or rather, it had both of the two things I needed. Cocaine & heroin.

It didn’t have my mother or father. It didn’t have my child. It didn’t have my brother or my uncles. It didn’t have my grandparents when they were alive and it didn’t have their memory after they died. It didn’t have my bills. It didn’t have any of my responsibilities. It didn’t have my regret and my shame. It didn’t have my warrants (it did, but I don’t think anyone cared about them) and it didn’t have hope. It was an empty existence and it is part of me. It’s in me as a constant reminder and lesson about the choices I make.

Today I was appalled by it. I was confused by it. I know people today who choose to live that life. You know them too. It is so sad to watch. People who have been exposed to a way out, and are trapped in a delusion that the solution that was placed at their feet was either too cumbersome to pick up or was never truly there in the first place. They look at their time in “recovery” as a waste of time and a disappointment. They believe that there is an easier or better way. They are convinced that there are human powers that are a sufficient substitute for God Reliance.

I wish them well. Maybe they’re right. Maybe I’m the one who has been tricked. Who knows? What I do know is that the life I live today offers freedom. It offers true happiness. It offers challenges, let downs, sadness, tough moments and it offers real pain. But it offers a Solution as well. A Solution that doesn’t wear off in 3 hours. A Solution that allows me to be present for my family even in the thick of it. A Solution that keeps me out of dangerous situations. A Solution that prevents me from waking up on a McDonalds bathroom floor with a belt around my bicep.

From my very first attempt at writing on this blog, I’ve always tried to make a point to be positive. I am vulnerable and candid. I have tried to detail my struggles and self imposed hardships. I highlighted what God has provided me, the freedom, the happiness….the gifts and the blessings. I have been graphic at times and I have been soft to the point of potential embarrassment. I have without a doubt, “put myself out there.”

Some of you have read what I’ve written and verbalized how it touched you. Some of you have read what I’ve written and intentionally kept your comments to yourself. You have shared it with others and some of you pretended like you have never clicked on the link that brings you here in the first place.

All of it is ok. Your love, hate, jealousy, disgust, pity, admiration, hope, gossip, character assassination…all of it is ok with me.

I write this blog for me. This has always been for me to one day look back on and recap my journey. I am very glad I started this writing almost 10 years ago. If it helps you, that is beautiful and I am grateful.

This evening I felt touched by God. I was overwhelmed with His Spirit. It happened in a way I would never have guessed.

My wife went to a birthday party and I was home with the dogs and the children. I was going to paint the nursery for our daughter coming in a couple months. This week has been abnormally difficult, at points…it was unbearably stressful. I won’t detail why, but for me to feel like I did this week, just trust shit was pretty wild in my life.

So anyway, I was in the soon to be nursery prepping walls. I was fixing nail holes, sanding, cutting in, putting drop cloth over our new carpet, wiping down the ceiling and walls, all the things you do to paint.

I was thinking about my life.

I took a quick break and read a message on facebook about a friend that needed help and I did my best to help him. I’m not saying that for the “look at me, I’m super helpful” piece. I am saying it because I almost immediately changed my perspective by doing it. I was no longer thinking about myself or my struggles.

Once I did what I could for this man, I went back to painting. I was listening to music and singing. The sun just started to go down and I was looking out the window at the kids playing up and down the street. I continued rolling on the paint.

The way the bright, orange light streamed into the room and hit the wall I was painting made me smile.

In that moment, I felt completely consumed by the awareness that God is protecting me. That my struggles aren’t that big. That my focus is on others. That everything I do is for something bigger than me. I looked hard at the color I was using and thought about my daughter on the way. It actually made my eyes tear up.

A daughter.

I will be responsible for a little girl.

It was crazy and beautiful at the same time. It felt amazing. To think that God sees me fit to look after another one of His kids was soul warming…and a little girl at that.

“I painted a pink wall for you, daughter. I will raise you in this room and I will encourage you to be the most amazing girl you can be. I will read to you. I will sing to you. I will paint pictures with you and I will play with dolls with you. I will laugh with you and I will dress you up in all the things you like. I will brush your hair. I will protect you like God protects me. I will never leave you. I will be as tough as I need to be and I will be as soft as this shade of pink. I will always love you.”

Breathing cold air can make me feel more alive. I’m talking about the coldest of air though, not that bullshit fifty degree air. The 32 degree or lower air that when you inhale, you’re forced to take notice of it. Air so cold that everything else stops for a second and you are only focusing on how it hits your lungs. I have a very vivid memory of it being about 2:30am, I was on the streets of Baltimore on foot and no one was out. It was just me and that air.

I was wearing sweatpants, jeans, two hoodies, boots that had the bottom blown out on one foot, a knit hat, gloves and a winter coat. I ended up sitting on bench, breathing in that cold air. I can almost feel how it hit my lungs. It slowed everything down in my life for about 10 minutes.

I sat on that bench in the middle of the night and thought about where I steered my life to. What my decision making had earned me. I thought about how even when I was abstinent from drugs and alcohol, I never felt free. I was always trapped. Weighted down. Locked up. I could clearly see that this was bigger than a heroin addiction. It was more than injecting cocaine. It was definitely bigger than drinking. I had a problem that was getting lost in the shuffle of life. It was caught up in the cycle. I lost sight of the real issue and turned the smallest bullshit issues into unmanageable problems.

Man it’s fucking cold.

If you put your gloved hands up to your mouth to breath into them to try and warm them up, they get wet from your hot breath. My breath was passing by teeth that haven’t been brushed in weeks probably. My gloves, beat up, yarn woven gloves smelled just like my hot breath. Smelled just like my lost dreams.

It’s getting old to talk about, I know. But in those moments, all I can think about is my son. Can’t believe I walked away from him. Can’t believe I turned into the man I told myself I’d never be. I wanted to always be there for my child and I convinced myself time after time that I could get high (well) for one more day and then I’d get my shit together.

You know when it’s the middle of winter and you’re breathing the coldest of air? Well, your eyes water when the wind hits em.

I may be naive, or delusional, or just flat out reaching here, but I think the events of nights like that were Orchestrated. I feel like the story was being written in such a way that I breathed air that slowed things down for me so I could step out of the everyday hustle of getting high for just long enough to think semi-clearly. To think about in the very least, why I was breathing in the first place.

To not think about myself for the first time in a long time. To think about my son and think about my reason for living. I needed to think about my choices and where they landed me.

It’s fucking freezing when that bus blows passed you, OMG.

So when I’m away from my family, like i am right now, it’s like the air I’m breathing is different. I believe my purpose is to be with them. My 2 boys and my wife. That’s where I belong. Being alone and away from them, breathing this air, even though it’s not cold has me realizing things like I did on that bench. My imperfections. My short-comings. Areas where I could simply be a better husband and a better father. I want to always be better.

I’m getting off this fucking bench.