It’s been 834 days since I walked into the courtroom, strung
out on meth, knowing that my life would forever change. 834 days that I’ve been
under the care, custody, and supervision of the Minnesota Department of
Corrections, some of which assuredly seemed longer than others. 834 days of
learning, making mistakes, fixing a lot of those mistakes, and moving on.
Today is my last of 395 days of house arrest on I.S.R.
Tonight is my last curfew, and tomorrow (provided I get the phone call
authorizing me to do so) I will be free from these severe restrictions.
Some slices of life seem to go by fast. And as you look
back, you wonder where the time went. This last year and a month has not been
one of those pieces of pie. I’m not going to take up this post reflecting on
what I’ve already written and done, that would be redundant. I’m going to
attempt to predict the future with knowledge that I already have.
I used to think that I could control squirrels with my mind.
As it turns out, me and squirrels just have the same sort of idea of what
squirrels should be doing most of the
time. One thing I have become keenly aware of is the fact that I cannot control
my obsession over alcohol and drugs using only my mind. It’s kind of like the
squirrel theory; every now and then the squirrel zigs when I think it should
have zagged, and although it’s not what I wanted, and it leaves me slightly
confused, it still makes sense to a part of my brain.
Last week at my new job, the head chef was standing in front
of a mixing bowl filled with flour, and beside the bowl were four bottles of
Summit Pale Ale. I approached and asked him what he was making and he replied, “beer
bread.” Very quickly my mind took the scene to another dimension by fantasizing
about him offering me a drink off of one of the bottles, and at that very
moment, my brain said that if he offered, I would be so inclined. Of course, he
didn’t offer, and in a split second the sudden urge was gone. But what if a
split second had been different? What if he handed me a beer during that one
little zig?
It’s these little urges that have been my downfall more than
a handful of times throughout my life, and these are very specifically what I
need to be able to cope with if I am to have any measure of success in life.
By continuing to routinely attend meetings, and work with my
sponsor (ok maybe more than I have been lately) I put myself at an advantage
over my powerlessness. It’s never full-on domination--the Twins beat the
Yankees every now and then—but the more work I do to fight the Devil inside my
head, the better my chances for long-term success become.
This is all really boring, and I feel as if I’ve written
that paragraph so many times in so many different forms that you, the reader,
might just fast-forward through it or not let the true message sink in, but it’s
very important that I be repetitive in my efforts to combat this dysfunction of
my brain. I hope I still keep you interested in my life in recovery. I know
that the bad stuff is always more entertaining, but I just don’t want to go
back out there and experience any more of it. I’m done. Well, for today,
anyhow.
So, I’m not out of the system completely, yet. I’m still on
parole for another two years, but it will be far less restrictive, including
the right to leave the state, and to stay out past 10:30pm if I so desire. I
will still have to take random drug tests, and meet bi-weekly with my parole
agent, but I won’t live in constant fear of being sent back to prison for being
late or missing a phone call. I can still go back if I repeatedly break rules,
or start drinking or doing drugs again. They can revoke my parole if I choose
to commit a new crime, but that’s really about it. And those things are what I
believe I really have a handle on.
It’s 10:41am and I need to start getting ready for a long
day at the Xcel Center. The Wild are playing tonight so I have about ten hours
on my feet ahead of me. I am so grateful to be able to say that, along with a handful
of other things I couldn’t say about myself 834 days ago. Things are lookin’
good.
