Robin Meade and G.M.A.

  Generally, I don't get upset when celebrities die from drug overdoses or car crashes. Except for Harry Chapin in the early 70s and John Lennon in 1980, I doubt I've ever more than given a passing notice when these things happen. What upset me most about John Lennon's death was the fact that he had finally found peace in his life as a stay at home dad and it was evident in his music. In one moment that all changed.It was a tragedy and a waste when he was shot outside his apartment in N.Y.C. thru no fault of his own.

       When Phillip Seymour Hoffman was found dead from a heroin overdose inside his apartment, I barely registered it. One more rich, spoiled celebrity messing their lives up, like Lindsay Lohan or Amanda Bynes. Self centered and stupid...

         Usually, in real life, I have a much deeper reaction to overdoses and suicides. A part of my soul aches when I hear of these situations. They become very personal to me. As a reformed drunk and druggie, I know the pains that they have felt and i have walked the same roads that led them to their final destination.

        This morning began like most of my day-off mornings, flipping channels between Robin Meade and  "Good Morning America". Somewhere between them was an interview with Hoffman, speaking about being a dad and how having children changes everything. How it changes things for the better.

   On another channel was a report on how he had started using drugs at a young age and began recovery in his early twenties. They spoke more about his having twenty three years clean and sober before relapsing a year or so ago. He had been with the woman that he loved for fourteen years, until recently. His children were five, seven and eleven years old...

           It became eerie. It became very eerie, very fast, for me..

              I started using booze and drugs very early on and began recovery in my early twenties.

  I have a woman that i love and recently we celebrated our twelfth year wedding anniversary, last September. Our children are eight, ten and eleven. I celebrated twenty five years clean and sober last March...

                             It suddenly became more personal and a little bit scary.

                     What makes someone choose to pick up again after such a long time? Why does someone do something that they know deep down in their soul will destroy them and devastate all the people who love them?

                            Why does this disease have such a long and tenacious shelf life?

                                              Are we ever really "Safe" ?

                            I know the answers to all these questions. I have been around this rodeo long enough to have faced them all countless times...

                     We are never "safe". Period. At best, it is a daily reprieve from addiction hell based mostly on our spiritual condition. I say "mostly" because many times God will keep us clean in spite of our own self powered craziness. He will Grace us at our weakest and guide us as we lean on him, until we finally realize what we think is our own strength keeping us sober has nothing to do with us. It is all Him. It is all His...

               The diseases strength is as tenacious and timeless as our own self centeredness and self will.

                                Now to the hardest one of all these questions..

              Why would anyone choose to go back into a lifestyle that will destroy all they love?

                                         

                                                      Because they do...

    

                        I never said it was a good answer. It is a true one, though..

                We will never know the " Why's" of this. Only God does and He's not talking.

                    My sponsor always warned me to beware the insanity that precedes the first drink. That is the closest I have ever been to the whole "why" of it, really. 

                 So, why am I still clean and sober while others aren't ? 

                       The Grace of God.

                 I don't know the "why" of that one, either.....

                            I know I am grateful. I know that I am blessed and I know that tommorow is never guaranteed...

           So today I pray for all those children who will never hear their daddy say "I love you" one more time.

I pray for the moms who will never be able to answer these questions well enough for her children because no answers can ever be good enough.

     I pray a prayer of thanks that this day I was able to live free of the misery that full blown addiction brings and I quietly ask The Lord please that it will be in His plan that I am sober tommorow.

  I pray this for all of us with the same affliction.

                                                                   Amen.