AN ENVIABLY LIFE

By all conventional measures I lived a very successful, popular, well received, enviable life. All the while hopelessly and helplessly addicted to prescription opiates.

I really thought I had it all figured out.

I was never unemployed. Never was I homeless and I have always had my family.

It was, however, all on the brink of unraveling. But I didn’t fit the stereotype.

RECOVERY ON THE WAY UP

We don’t do anyone a favor when we focus only on the worst parts of the disease.

When we talk only about the “bottom”. I got recovery on the way up.

For me it was a process. Not at my bottom.C

But I was clueless as how to do life without a party or an escapee So I got help.

A FUNDAMENTALIST

I got support. I will be forever grateful for those guys.

Early on I became a real recovery fundamentalist. My group knew best.

It was “Our Way or the Highway”. I was 100% sure my view was right and I made sure to tell everyone.

There was only one way to do it. And that was “Our Way”.

CHANGED PERCEPTION

Then I woke up. I looked around.

My professional work was the first place I learned about the reality of recovery. Many pathways.

That became my experience. Many people were getting better in many different ways.

My “ONE WAY ONLY” worldview, well that just wasn’t true.

LESSONS

I did the same thing with politics. I picked my side.

Listening mostly to people who agreed with me. We told each other how right we were.

Our worldview was righteous. Then I woke up.

That too, was not true.

I did the same thing with my career. Get a graduate degree. Follow the cookie-cutter path.

Work your way to be a “Director”.

Be a good soldier and accept that things are not perfect. But we are helping people and there is nothing we can do about it, right?

The saying “it is what it is” became our mantra.

Do this work for someone else or some treatment center until you can retire. Fit into the corporate structure!

AGAIN NOT TRUE

I thought this was the only way to make a living in this field. Then I woke up. It wasn’t true.

Life is open for the taking. Why do it halfway?

My learned advice is to pave your own path and invent your own reality.

Leave a mark on the world and make sure people know you were here.

I didn’t change my life so that I could do normal shit.

ALL THE WAY IN!

When I made that decision to put the drugs down I also made a decision to go all the way.

No more escape.

No more numbness.

If I wanted to stay numb — I would have stayed high.

Be bold and take your recovery and life to the fullest!

That would be a real and true enviable life.

P.S EXTRA NOTE – In this blogs photo above is me and my son Issac when he was 4 years old and I was 12 years in recovery. That is when we pulled up all our roots. We took a 50% pay-cut and moved to Greenville SC for a job that really didn’t even exist. Thanks!

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