Miracles Happen

The speaker at Sunday morning’s 12-step meeting is a living example of the miracles that happen when an addict or alcoholic decides to change.

His epiphany came when he awoke early one morning in a cheap Van Buren Street motel to find a noose dangling from the rafters.  As he cleared his head he recalled placing the rope there the night before.  He'd planned to kill himself because he was sick of where his addictions had taken him.

Instead of placing the rope around his neck he broke down in tears as he realized how far down he’d gone. He asked God for help and within a few hours found himself in a halfway house where he spent more than a year getting his life back on track.

Today he’s a respected manager at a company he’d worked for years ago, a job he'd left after threatening to kick his supervisor’s butt.

One of his close friends today is his former wife, who at one time had a restraining order against him. He also has a good relationship with his children and sees them on a regular basis.

His powerful message resonated with everyone at the meeting.

Loving Parents

Sometimes in this blog I gently beat up on doting parents who enable their children by providing support that isn’t helping them get clean and sober.

 While I’m not changing my attitude about enabler parents I must acknowledge that – even though they may be misguided – they almost always come from a place of caring and love.

And sometimes when I talk to these parents or write about what they’re all going through I emphasize the tough love part and perhaps don’t acknowledge how much they care.

Over the past 20 years I’ve talked to parents who have literally spent their retirement money trying to save their children from themselves – almost always without success.

The message I give them is that the sooner they quit supporting the addiction, the quicker their loved one will seek help.

But usually- misguided love gets in the way and sobriety doesn’t happen until a few more years down a bumpy road.

Secondary Victims

At TLC we regularly encounter primary victims of drugs – clients who’ve been streaming through our doors for 21 years. And while I see the impact on our clients and their families I seldom think of the effect drug use has others in the world.

But today, while on vacation in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, I talked with a housekeeper who’s a secondary victim of drugs – a woman who was forced to leave her hometown of Acapulco with her family because the drug battles there have left the town – in her words – “quebrado.” (broken)

She said that while there have been periods of tranquility in the resort city, the publicity about several gang shootouts over the past few years have scared tourists away. And it has been the death knell for a city that has subsisted for years on tourism. Subsequently, jobs for families like hers have disappeared.

Fortunately, she and her family were able to migrate to this peaceful area of Mexico and find new jobs in the tourist industry.

While there’s not much practical value in this kind of information, it brings an added perspective to the scope of what we’ve been dealing with the past 21 years.

Hurting Others

The grandmother was on the phone, bewildered and in pain. Once more her granddaughter had relapsed- after a few months of being clean.  But this time, instead of doing it in her hometown on the East Coast, she was 2000 miles across the country in Arizona.

Completely out of reach of the family. And because she picked up again, she’s out of reach of anyone’s help until her disease forces her to seek help again.

For over 20 years we've dealt with this scenario: loved ones calling, trying to make sense of a cruel disease that grants no mercy to those who don’t fight it with every tool at their disposal. And even then, once sober and clean, it lurks in the shadows waiting for a moment of weakness so it can strike again.

Sometimes they think we’re cruel or unfeeling because we suggest they don’t send money or support while their loved one is using.  But we say this because few of us changed until drinking and drugging took us to our knees.

Once we suffered enough we understood on a gut level that living sober was less painful than being broke, sick, in jail, homeless and on and on…

I pray that this grandmother one day has a clean and sober granddaughter in her life so her love for this child won’t be wasted.

We are Blessed

I had a gratitude check today here in Puerto Vallarta while driving back to the hotel when I had to pause for a man who was struggling to cross the street.

He was probably in his fifties and was traveling on a homemade cart that kind of resembled an oversized skate board. Most of the lower half of his body was missing. He was sweating as he pushed himself slowly along with two short sticks that he pushed into the ground to propel the cart forward.

It touches my heart when I see someone with his challenges struggling to do things most of us take for granted – like the simple act of crossing the street.

While I can’t recall being ungrateful for anything in years, seeing this man emphasized the many blessings I have in my life.

Though life is not a comparison game, I believe we can all look at our lives and find others who don't have near the blessings we have.

Family Values

While on vacation in Mexico I was talking to a man who'd returned to live in Puerto Vallarta a few years ago. Several years earlier he'd gone to the United States to work and finish high school. After high school he’d found a job that allowed him to send money home to his family.

But he said he'd returned after his large extended family decided the most important thing was not that the children live in the United States and send money. The important thing was to be connected, regardless of how little or how much money they had. So the family returned.

This man's story interested me because of a study I read last week that showed Mexico as one of the happiest countries in the world – actually number six. And where was the United States? It was somewhere around 23 or 24.  Hmmm....

As a person in recovery, who works as a substance abuse counselor, I have an interest in values and what brings happiness.  And when I read something about a culture that’s rated as one of the happiest on earth I become curious. Maybe there’s something here that I can impart to a client to help him or her look at their lives differently.

This happy man I met found that his wealth was his relationship with his family. What are your values?

Serendipity in Paradise

After being sober for over twenty years I normally live in a state of serenity – at least 90% of the time.

However, my serenity was threatened last Saturday when we arrived at the Mexican resort we normally stay at, only to find that the condo we’d reserved was unavailable.

I was disappointed at this unexpected turn of events because we’d booked this vacation a month earlier. However, I kind of took a deep breath, and then asked the receptionist if we should find another hotel.

But he said no, that the reason the rooms were unavailable in the ocean view wing we’d reserved was because they were being refurbished. He said in the meantime he could put us another section of the resort that had been recently refurbished. But it didn’t have an ocean view. Instead, the second story condo overlooked the marina at the rear of the property.

We didn’t have great expectations about the new location, but decided to not let anything interfere with us getting a much needed break. And he promised to move us to the unit we’d reserved when an opening became available.

When we got to the unit we were amazed. It was much bigger than the one we’d reserved. And it had a stunning second floor view of the marina, with yachts, sailboats, and fishing vessels passing on a regular basis.

A forty foot deck went around the front of the unit, and there was a postcard view from the floor to ceiling windows.  It even had a washer and dryer, something the other units never offered.

So, of course, we told them to forget the about the unit we’d reserved. We’re just fine where we’re at.