Freedom minus fear = FAITH
Mr. Bill,
When I had been nine years old my mother took me to the pediatrician.
‘Doctor, I think she has a drinking problem!’
Had been my mother’s cry for help.
I remember the day vaguely. I remember my youth in bits and spurts. And, I remember a family torn apart by a single substance.
I realize most persons turn off immediately…when they hear the words; alcoholism, addiction, recovery and worse of all, the Big Book!
I shut down, as well, when in the grips of something beyond a brown bottle in a brown bag surrounded by a brown spiritual tunnel.
I can only best describe my addiction with one story. One or two short sentences that could pretty much sum up the some of my life…that taints me still.
I had been driving home from a nightclub called, the Ramrod. And, yes, let’s just assume, it was a hardcore gay bar. Somehow or another…I found myself, along with two other budding drunks, unable to get out of a traffic circle in York Maine.
Literally, I had been so blitzed, so far gone…I had been driving a large piece of deadly machinery…in a dream…in a blackout.
‘Sometimes the lights all shining on me…
Other times I can barely see…’
Yeah, I had been a Dead Head and damn proud of it.
Eventually, the York P.D., saw of my dilemma and offered a free room for the night, that happened to come with it’s own bars!
So many other stories could follow. So many tales of…Whoa, it’s Me...So many times I could not lift stop the early morning shakes without lifting a shot of Vodka first!
Yet, I come to write this letter today…not in homage to Dr. Bob, Bill Wilson and/or Alcoholic’s Anonymous.
I write…today…which is something I had only hoped to do…in the midst of addiction.
Fourteen years ago, give or take, my own personal Groundhog came out and saw the Shadow. A gloomy chaperon that had been twenty years in the making. A dark lumbering presence that took hold of my soul which once had shone a myriad of colors and shook it out a damp, absorbent spiritual pitch black.
I do not preach A.A., from the rooftops of barren and antiquated churches. No, I tend to steer clear of lack of moderation soapbox lecterns.
I do, however, write the right, talk the talk and practice, daily, what is easier to understand…
Bill, I have found that I have faith. Silly, as it sounds, I believe in believing.
Even, you, Bill, a practicing Buddhist, would agree…
‘We live in an imperfect world. Both physically and spiritually! A simple world of mishaps designed for persons that over complicate it!’
Therefore, my sobriety is a gift…Yet, the biggest gift? A peace of mind. And, that is a behavior we can all impart on others.
Thirty five some odd years ago…when my mother grasped at the metaphysical broken straw of anticipation…the physician only had this to say:
‘Oh, she’s just going through a growing stage.’
I had been at the age where playing with G.I. Joe dolls were the par. Not breaking into the liquor cabinet and mixing Yukon Jack with grape juice!
This past week, I nearly lost my mother to her Higher Power. Yet, the difficulty came from another world. An unexplored realm that had placed itself uneasily in the attic of my horrid past.
I faced a demon…aptly named, my father and found the serenity to help him through the trauma of nearly loosing his one and only love of fifty years. Without overt detail. This man, this paternal figure and this blurred spot of anger, became my responsibility.
The shallow breathing and the hallowed feelings of displaced musing consumed my entire body. Everyday I traveled the twenty miles with a need aching from within. I rode with my passenger, hate, strapped in with pride.
Bill, what can I say? Who can I thank? Where did I go? And, how did I maintain?
I simply gave up. I simply gave in.
It had not been easy. I scratched and clawed at the bark of the trees set in serenity amongst the country roads. I walked and hiked with four legged friends into the woods. I strolled out with a sense of faith stronger than before.
My meditation had been easy enough
...help me to be a better persons today than I was yesterday…
And, please help to keep all creatures
great and small safe and far from harm
to the best of their ability…
Oddly enough, a larger than life, Snow Owl, had flow before me, quietly leading the way. My faith had found it’s wings. It had been found without my will. It, FAITH, had been placed there by someone greater than me.
Peace Out-
RandomwordbyRuth
Excerpt from As Bill Sees It-
The achievement of freedom from fear is a lifetime undertaking, one that can never be wholly completed. When under heavy attack, acute illness, or in other conditions of serious insecurity, we shall all react to this emotion- well or badly, as the case maybe. Only the self-deceived will claim perfect freedom from fear.
Bill W.
by special virtue alone every road leads back to another
Filed under: dysfunctional family, family ties, gay culture, mental health, randomwordbyruth, spirituality, substance abuse Tagged: addictions, Alcoholic Anonymous, alcoholism, As Bill Sees It, Bill W and Dr. Bob, Bill Wilson, Dead Head, faith, fear, gay clubs, gay culture, Groundhog Day, higher power, sobriety, spirituality, Vodka, Yukon Jack
