The 14th of January I'll celebrate 25 years of recovery. God willing.
This came up for me because I was reflecting about what I was doing during Christmas week 25 years ago.
At that time I was supporting an addiction to heroin and alcohol. And I wasn't doing it by working. Or from the proceeds of a trust fund.
Each miserable day I'd drive around in a Mustang I'd stolen a few weeks earlier. My first goal would be to find alcohol. Wine was fine. Beer would do. But anything with alcohol in it was okay. Whatever I could shoplift was what I drank.
The alcohol took the edge off, gave me courage. Once I had some false courage I'd move on to steal something larger. Something that would allow me to buy heroin - my drug of choice.
I didn't care what it was. As long as I thought I could get it in the car and find a place to sell it, I'd take it. New clothes. Tools. Televisions. Computers. Cigarettes. Generators. Cameras. I looked for anything I could sell right away.
But something happened to me around that time. I don't know if it was a moment of clarity. A spiritual awakening. Or what it was. Maybe I was just tired.
But I somehow came to the realization that if I kept doing what I was doing I would be back in prison. I wasn't having fun. I was demoralized and depressed. My life had no purpose or meaning. And that's a horrible place to be - living a life without meaning.
Within a few weeks I found my way to detox. Then after that to a halfway house that accepted me without money.
And that put me on the path to the blessings I have in my life today.
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