Local voices chime in on a variety of topics.
The world is filled with folks who are very smart, but who accomplish little, people who are very strong, yet move little, and humans who are very charismatic, but change little. I honestly believe, and believe it with every fiber of my being, that attitude accomplishes more than ability.
As I was writing the above, sitting at a table at the front of Hope, the place where members congregate for cards or chess or conversation, a woman I’ll call Carol sat down next to me. I greeted her with some sort of jackassery, and Carol looked into my face, hers slowly melting. On the verge of tears, she told me she hurt. Clearly, this wasn’t a headache or an ingrown toenail. I asked her if she wanted to walk down to my office so we could talk in private. She nodded.
I needed peers, not professionals. I needed to be surrounded by folks who knew and understood me almost instantly—and who still seemed to like me. I did not need a DSM diagnosis of Alcohol Use Disorder. I did not need to explain myself to someone who’d never been within a thousand psychic miles of me. I needed recovery, and recovery was all around me.
Distance is the major disruptor of relationships. It can be either a tearing experience or a liberating one. It offers an opportunity to remake yourself. To start from scratch and associate with those whose views and personalities are new and different. The result, however, is that it makes it easier to leave behind what and whom you have, indeed, left behind.
Two days ago, I lost a friend to overdose. That’s a sentence I could have written dozens times over my time at Hope Recovery. I could also write of the thousand or so people I’ve met here who are still in recovery. They go to meetings, work a program of some kind and stay away from drugs and alcohol. Still, the losses mount and my heart gets broken.
A recent (August 18, 2023) U.S. District Court ruling denied a request to copyright a piece of digital art because it had been created without human input. The Copyright Office was ruled to have acted properly because the work was created without any human involvement.
One thing I know about addiction, or at least my addiction, is that it’s nearly impossible for the addicted to learn from the past. Or the present. Or even the almost-certain future. For example, the following four data points demonstrate that drug and alcohol use have a negative impact on my ability to hold a job. Before I left home at 17 to go to basic training, I’d been fired a number of times, including each of the following data points.Â
Every life has seasons and everyone experiences change. Some change is for the better, and some change is difficult and may result in setbacks. But one thing is for sure…change is inevitable.
If you haven’t thought about the primary, please take time to do so.
Recovery has taught me a lot of things, beginning with how to live life without chemical assistance. When I was using and drinking, chemicals—whether powdered, pilled, herbal or liquid—solved all kinds of otherwise overwhelming problems. These solutions, of course, came with their own problems, but those challenges could be handled with more and different substances.