Time and Time

Time and time again, I find that the age-old adage you can only keep what you have by freely giving it away applies to my life in recovery. Any of my long-time readers know that one of my favorite ways to stay sober, is by bringing meetings to places where people are fresh in from the cold, dark world of alcoholism and addiction. On even rarer occasions, I am asked to share my story. It had been a while since the last time I spoke to a group of people for more than a few minutes, and I wasn’t really sure how long I could go, but the God of my understanding spoke volumes through me to reach those in need of the message of hope.

Amanda had never seen me in my element. But last week (two weeks ago by the time this goes live) she and the girls came with me to an intensive outpatient treatment facility with sober living in Paynesville, MN where there was a crowd waiting for us. There is child care available for patients and families who come visit their loved ones during this process at the Recovery Center. The girls were just a couple rooms away playing with Barbie dolls and watching movies while I began to tell it like it was before I found the solution. I started at the beginning with my first drink at 13, and walked them through my life as a criminal and addict until my release from prison. Then I shared my hope with them. I told them that everybody has the same opportunity to achieve what I have, to gain the basic rights of life that I have attained, and to find love and be loved; a concept unfamiliar to many in suffering.

We were there on family night, and Amanda sat by my side as I shared mine, and even some of her story with the patients, and some of their loved ones. They asked questions, and engaged in conversation which is something I found unique for treatment. There is a happy vibe there that I cannot recall ever feeling in any of my stints in treatment. The director, with whom I have had many conversations in person and on the phone makes clear that compassion is key to finding the root of the problem which actually isn’t drugs or alcohol: those are just a mask.

What I can never get over is how I feel after I leave a meeting like this. I floated away and smiled the entire hour-long drive back home. I reflected on the smiles and the laughter, and remembered that I spoke about how important it is to have fun in recovery. It is possible! Life begins at day one of sobriety, and I know that the first laugh can bring out a flood of other emotions like I wrote about in the first few pages of the original posts., which we, of course, turned into an insert shameless link here. But, emotions are good. They are vital to finding contentment, and without sadness, devastation, and pain, we in recovery cannot truly know what it feels like to be happy.

Time and time again I find that the more of myself I give to others like me, the more I feel like myself, and the more useful I am to those around me in my everyday life. Recovery is not about sitting in smoky rooms with grumpy old people anymore. These days people are going out on adventures, attending conventions with tens of thousands of sober people, going to sporting events, and literally anything we used to do while we were using, just without chemicals. And we have a blast doing it because our laughter is real. It’s not motivated by fear or anxiety (well maybe sometimes awkward anxiety) or anger. Smiles are brighter. Amusement is louder. Agony is a memory.

I want to find a way to make this opportunity more frequent. I enjoy the work I do with food, and I make good money and have great benefits. But I don’t beam and feel elated when I leave work. And I know that I’m not being the most useful to society in my current role. Maybe one day I can share my hope every day. Maybe I can make a bigger difference.

I can.

Dissolved

After precisely a month of waiting, the judge in Amanda’s dissolution of marriage (divorce) case has issued her decree, judgement, and order. We received it in the mail yesterday, and I have read it several times.

The document is 15 pages in length, and details with precision the accounts of the day of the trial, and states the results of all of Amanda’s dedication and hard work in preparation for said trial. I wrote in a previous post the events of the trial at which I appeared as a witness, and Amanda bravely faced her now ex-husband and asked for full custody of the girls, and some money owed for a large daycare bill left in her name. The trial lasted four hours, and afterward, Amanda was exhausted yet relieved. She made it. Now, we had to wait up to ninety days for the judge to decide what was in the best interest of the girls.

Like I said, it only took her 31 days, and we are absolutely thrilled with the ruling.

First and notable, Amanda’s marriage is officially dissolved; I am finally dating a single woman. Second and foremost, she was granted sole-legal and physical custody of the girls. This is huge, and it represents the best interest of the girls. In fact, it is written in great length why the decision was made and includes all of the reasons many of us out there already know and understand. Their father is still in the throes of alcoholism, and until he comes to terms with that fact, he will not get to spend any time with them. According to some posts seen on Facebook, he may think he was going to get to have partial custody of them almost immediately, but this will not be the case.

It will take time, dedication to recovery, and proof. He will need to enter a treatment program, graduate it, and follow all aftercare recommendations and show her proof of all of these, before he can start a lengthy reintroduction plan set forth by the court. If—and I mean if—he gets to that point, it will take about four months before he is able to have any unsupervised visits outside of public places with them, and only as he is able to provide proof of effort in continued sobriety. After about a year with no relapses, and assuming he is contributing to their welfare through child support, he will be able to have joint custody, and the world will be a better place.

I’m writing vaguely about the step-up process because I want the respondent to have a chance to be honest with other people about this whole course, but this is all public information, and the people that matter, including members of his family, will all have access to this ruling, just to make sure there isn’t any confusion.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again; my hope is that this time he “gets it.” This time he will understand the error of his ways, and find a program of recovery that works for him, and sticks with it. I know hundreds of people that were just like him, and have found hope. Many of them have rekindled their relationships with family, former lovers, and of course, their children. All is possible with honesty, hard work, and self-sacrifice. The moment he decides to be dishonest with himself, and eventually to the girls, is the moment it all reverts back to supervised visits—this time scheduled and held at his expense at the local MN Visitation Exchange Center until further order of the court.

For right now and the foreseeable future, the girls are where they need to be: in a loving, safe home where all of their needs are met.

Me, I’m happy and grateful to be a father to these girls and doing all of the things he could be doing someday brings me great joy. I love signing school documents, helping the oldest with homework, wiping the boogers off the nose of the youngest, and going on family road trips to the children’s museum, and family events. Summer is coming, and that means more time outside playing in our huge yard, swimming in our local pool, and finding new things in our community.

I know what it’s like to think that I am more important than everything. I used to post pictures of myself at the gym, and tell people everything in my life was great. I used to lie about trivial things, and say whatever I could to get people to praise me. But none of that matters. I realized that the most important thing after my sobriety is the happiness of people around me. When I focus on doing things for others that makes me feel good. When everybody around me is laughing and content on a consistent basis, I thrive. When I am thriving, I have the best shot at helping others like me find the solution to the problem I had when I started killing myself so many years ago.

There is always a deeper bottom. There is always death.

But there is also always hope. Anybody can stop digging. Anybody can thrive.

Pulse

Every day is a little easier than the last. This is true for many sides of my life, but truer in parenting and sobriety. Each has their complications, and each have unique rewards, and for either I would go to any length to keep what I have.

Right now it is April 10^th, 2019. It’s springtime, and we are in the midst of a blizzard of immense proportions. The girls are in their rooms; one is pouting because she was scolded for making a mess in the other’s room. The other is squalling song of incomprehensible meaning, although I find myself humming it and realize that she’s actually singing I'm On My Way by Phil Collins, which I’ve also had on my mind as of late because Brother Bear has been the movie of choice for the last week in the van, and there are some good songs to sing along to.

The last movie in the van was Lion King 2, and it played for about a month. I should clarify that it only plays when the girls are with me/us, but when the movies play, we all sing along to the title tracks and montage segues. My favorite from the Lion King 2 was He Lives in You, by.. Who knows who? Not me. Anyway, it’s pretty awful, so it’s great.

Here’s something; I didn’t catch on that I was listening to a cartoon about jungle cats for about a week, because I can’t watch the movie while I’m driving, the van won’t let me. So, I had developed some fairly intricate characters in my head that were all human and was categorically shattered when I saw that my new friends were, in fact, animals. Where am I going with this? I have no idea.

It’s been a challenge coming up with recovery-based posts because my sobriety life has been rather uneventful for a while. I still attend my weekly meeting here in my hometown, and I still see my sponsor and whenever possible, we read out of the 12X12 which is what we call the book, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. It’s a look back at the step work laid out in the original big book. It goes into depth about the process of the steps, what works and doesn’t, and I like the perspective of somebody with more sobriety commenting on his earlier work. I like it, it would probably bore you.

So, here’s a story that won’t bore you.

I was travelling down highway 52 going north through Rochester. It was just before midnight, and like always, I was concealing a large quantity of methamphetamine. Out of nowhere, the blue and red lights of a highway patrol car indicated that I should pull to the side of the road. I slowly turned into the shoulder, and gradually eased up on the acceleration and started to brake. At the same time, without moving my shoulders, I guided my meth pipe in between the cushion and backrest to my side, and tucked my other small bag of crystals right under my butt. The truck came to a stop, and I switched on my hazards.

The night was quiet and I could hear the officer’s footsteps as he approached my borrowed vehicle. I wondered if he could smell my fear, or hear my elevated heartbeat. I had a thought that I knew I had no insurance, but troopers rarely ask if they have something else to distract them. He paused by the back bumper and shone his light all around and into the bed of the truck through the glass of the topper. I put my hands on the wheel, and waited for him to shine the condemning light into my intoxicated eyes.

When he finally came to the window he asked for my license. I told him I would have to reach into my back pocket like I always do, and he nodded. He then asked why I thought he pulled me over and I stated that I may have been going too fast. He said I was going the speed limit and thanked me. Then, my biggest fear occurred: he asked me to step out of the truck.

When you are confronted by an officer, you always comply. I’ve learned that when you are obedient, honest, and submissive, they tend to like you more. I said I would gladly step out, and he looked to his right to observe traffic, stepped back, and shone his light at the ground. It was during this precious moment that I used my fingers to grab the meth from under my butt and throw it on the floor on the passenger side. I then opened the door, stepped out, and looked for traffic. As I shut the door, his light found the crack and cascaded onto my driver’s seat, finding nothing incriminating.

He asked me to step to the back of the truck, where he showed me that all of my running lights were not working, and a wire harness that had been dragged for about 30 miles before he stopped me. Somebody had detached a trailer and forgotten to hook something back up, and this was how I found out.

I couldn’t figure out how to hook it up, but as I bent over, I felt the large bag of drugs in my inside pocket shift, and I swear he could have heard it in the quiet of the night. I could feel a lump in my throat, and I knew I started to sweat. I told him I was getting off at the next exit, and he said I could go as long as I agreed to park the car there until it was fixed, and I said I would. And he walked me back to the truck where I got in, and grabbed the key and began to turn.

And then he said he had one more question. Had I been drinking or using any mind-altering drugs? “Yes sir. For about 20 years.” Would have been the honest answer. But I lied, and said I had been sober since April 15^th, 2001, which was my first significant sobriety date. He didn’t believe me and asked if I would perform a simple test called a Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus. I shit in my pants a little then said that I would, having no idea what that meant at the time. He took a small penlight from his shirt pocket and asked me to look at his finger. I wanted him to look at mine, but I would save that gesture for when he threw me in the jail cell.  He moved the finger back and forth, and I moved on it like a bitch. Although I thought I felt my eyes shuttering and twitching, he didn’t see anything worth reporting and he told me he believed me, and congratulated me on my sobriety.

And then it was over. My heart was racing. My palms were sweating, and my ears were ringing. I was out on bail for a 1^st-degree narcotics charge, and I foolishly tried to catch another. It was one of four times I was pulled over in the six months I was out on bail. Somehow, even though I was carrying numerous felonies, I always managed to leave the scene of a crime without the officer knowing a thing.

Every day in that life of criminality was the worst. I think of those events often and wonder why I was so lucky. I wonder how I escaped to continue my run into the ground. I look back and I realize that I’m no longer that man in that truck and I no longer fear everyday life. I don’t have to hide things from officers, and I don’t have to worry about getting pulled over. I’m legit.

The Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus is a test that helps an officer tell if you are intoxicated. He picked the wrong test and that was my lucky break that night. I’m glad I don’t have to worry about these things anymore.