Category : Books-Non-Fiction

Sub Category : Biography

 Not Present Day, But a Few Years Later… 

           Life couldn’t be better. I have been clean, off drugs ever since Spirit Ranch. I am on all the correct meds Moira had insisted on me to take—Clonazepam, or Klonopin, everyday for anxiety, Cymbalta for depression and Lozartan for my blood pressure. However, the one drug that helped immensely was the Buprenorphine I would get a shot of in my rear, once a month. Being an opiate blocker, if I did any kind of opiate or opioid—heroin, Vicodin, OxyContin—I wouldn’t feel it, so it would be a complete waste to buy and take any drug I used to like. 
           I was also on Antabuse for a short while. This is a pill that makes you violently ill if you drink any kind of alcohol. I stopped it after a while because I felt I didn’t need it anymore. I barely drink anymore anyway. 
          I have a new job waiting tables back at Mimi’s Cafe again. A lady I had worked with before had become the general manager so when she asked if I would come back, I said, “Hell yeah.”
           I became a bartender in no time and started having the time of my life. I received an invite to play music with a metal group, so I jumped onto that bandwagon. Eventually, I found my Sangha, my community, in Refuge Recovery—a Buddhist path to recovering from addiction. 
           I had to quit bartending to practice my Buddhist lifestyle so I went back to waiting tables. I even got a new apartment for myself.
           I’m also in a band playing bass. It’s not the drums, but it’s good to be back in the music scene.  

           I’m not alone in this battle. I believe everyone has a hole they’re trying to fill. Everyone has a yearning to be loved and wanted. Everyone has their own addictions. Whether it be healthy or unhealthy, we all have a fix. Something we need to do everyday. We are all addicted to something that takes the pain away. 
           It was after an abolishment of my age-old addict self, I became more mindful. And solely in the progress of the patching process of myself did I discover my definite, devoted self. It’s a natural thing, like a lotus flower barefaced in a sodden swamp, a ray of light protruding through a dark cloud obscuring the shimmering sun. It means beautiful things can come from the dark, and I believe I am walking proof. 
           However, I lost a lot deep in my addiction. One important commodity that my addiction took from me that I can’t ever get back—besides Flash, Brianna, and the damage I’ve done to my body—is time. I’ve lost a lot of time. If not using drugs then, a lot of it was spent waiting and craving them. They say for every ten years an addict uses, he spends seven of those years waiting. And while you wait, you always crave. But my waiting is spent and my cravings are good and gone. 
           On the other hand, the battle is not over. If one gives up the driver’s seat to something higher, they had better still keep an eye on the road. While you’re practicing sobriety, living your life, it’s said that your addiction is over on the sidelines doing push-ups, waiting for its next chance to attack with vengeance. So, one must always be equipped with the right tools and right state of mind to guard against it.

           Just because I’ve been down a different path, doesn’t mean I’m lost. 
           I may be different than most people, but today, I’m content on continuing alone,
           Because I’ve chosen not to feel lonely. 
           I don’t let others control the way I feel. I’m happy with who I am and have accepted who I used to be. 
           Life is too short to feel the ways I’ve felt. 
           Life is too short to be a junky. 
           For, the world is filled with so much beauty,
as well as so much pain. 
           The pain is inevitable however, one can’t do anything about it,
           But one can make the decision not to suffer. 

           For if it takes pain to make beauty, 
           And if that is true—

          … I feel pretty damn beautiful. 



          Namaste.