brother

El Día Perfecto

     "♪ I been goin' silly for the Westside (Westside) / You might catch me rollin' where the reps ride (real reps, real reps, real reps) / Ain't no opposition, I'm the best, right? (Yeah, yeah) / I might take my city on a test drive (test drive) / You don't wanna see me on a good day (oh no, oh no) / You don't wanna see me on a bad day (no, no, no, oh no) / I was just a nigga with some hoop dreams (hoop dreams) / Now, I'm in the league, bitch / Now, I'm in the lead, bitch ♪," your alarm goes. It's 10 a.m. You wake up in your two-story house where your room is decorated as the hippie oasis you've always dreamed of: colorful tapestries, giant amethyst crystals (for cleansing, protection, and inspiration, that is), a simple steel desk with a glass top where an Apple laptop sits, and your dog sleeping in his own bed on the floor because you finally mastered that trick. You're naked because fuck clothes, those smothering, colonial shits. You roll over and come face-to-face with the love of your life. They're open-mouthed snoring with their head titled up and you just smile in amazement that someone as important and unique could bless your presence like this. You go down on them for their alarm clock. And some more X-rated, freak shit continues from there, because you completely trust them and all your insecurities that have been socialized are stifled by low groans and whispers.

     Afterwards, you go in the kitchen where you see the most breathtaking sunrise of your life— that pink and orange and purple husky lighting hovering over the Colorado mountains. A lake rests at the bottom. You smile that coy smile and start cooking brunch for you and your lover. Probably pancakes (because they're your favorite and you project your likes onto others like a motherfucker), scrambled eggs with peppers & onion & spinach, and hash browns because carbs aren't really a concern to ya'll.  

    Then you go to your desk and finish the book you've been working on for, oh, 10 years. Your heart swells with pride and you get a little emotional because that's how your astrology sun sign works. From there, you and your shawty go on a hike not far from your place. Two miles in, two miles out. You bring your camera and take candid walking shots and fall trees and wiley squirrels. You share secrets and accomplishments and failures and laughs and joy.

     You go back to the house afterwards and shower. You have fancy reservations at a restaurant that serves the best fettuccine alfredo with shrimp on the planet. So you go outside to find a beautifully restored orange Volkswagen van. This is your transportation. Ya'll go out and have an amazing time. Conversations about aliens and hip hop and your pets and how happy you are that you both don't want kids because you understand that your own childhood wounds need to be healed before you bring delicate creatures into a world that's slowly deteriorating due to global warming, fascism, and an incorrigible wealth gap. 

     When you get home, you both immediately change into lounging clothes. You go to the balcony on the second floor. The stars are bright and alluring and mysterious. You snuggle on the wicker couch and in front of a fire. You pass a blunt back and forth, listening to a perfectly curated playlist on your iPod. You melt into your love and fall asleep on their chest.

For the love of Goddess

      Please... do not tell anyone I left the house...

iykyk

     The last few weeks I've been ruminating on what my three wishes would be if I encountered a genie. As a 26-year-old adult, that's kind of a fucking stupid and pointless conversation to have with yourself every night before you go to sleep, but I am just so desperate to pinpoint where my life went wrong. Went left. Veered off course.
     Fall of 2009 I was 15; I went to the doctor to get on antidepressants. How long before that was the Sadness manifesting in subtle ways before it started ripping at my seams? Thinking back, I never felt heard. People were always telling me to not be so loud and to stop talking so much. I never felt validated. Like when I used to write letters to my dad when I was 9 asking him why he never called to invite me over or came to any of my sporting events. The next time we had visitation his girlfriend asked me if someone was making me do it, as if I weren't in touch with my own feelings or lacked awareness. Psychologists say children that come from divorced families are automatically broken. Cracked from the jump. I can see it. My mom spent a decent amount of time talking shit about my dad. She told us he was a cheater, a liar, emotionally abusive, lazy, narcissistic. My dad would dog on her as well: how she thought she was Mother of the Year and how she brainwashed us into thinking he was the bad guy. Meanwhile, they were both contributing to molding fucked up humans.
     I wish I were mentally stable. I feel like that would truly have changed the course my life has taken. Maybe I wouldn't have been such a fucking bully in elementary/middle/high school. Maybe I wouldn't have been so angry. I feel bad for treating Justine the way I did. At the beginning of my sophomore year, I used to listen to "Beautiful" by Eminem and "It's Been A While" by Staind on repeat and cut my wrists in my living room late at night when my brothers and mom went to sleep, tears streaming down my face, obsessing over why I was never good enough. Everyone in Peetz thought my family was delinquent trailer trash. They weren't wrong. I started drinking heavy with Paige and smoking a lot of weed with J-Dog. I would party on the weekends, completely neglecting my schoolwork. My grades were low despite my high intellect. It used to piss my teachers off so bad. Originally, I partied because it was fun but after that horrible party in Sterling when I was 19, it stopped being a good time. (You know... the one where I had dropped out of LPN school because I wouldn't stop drinking & drugging, broken up with Traver, and choked Alissa out so Nicole found a country party miles outside of town where I drank a whole bottle of UV Blue, blacked out, took off my shirt, tried to fight Brooke and other boys there, got the cops called so everyone fled since they were underage but no one would give me a ride since I was the one starting shit ((Nicole was supposed to DD but ended up drinking too)) so we had to walk and I somehow ended up getting deep barbwire cuts on my arms and legs. We went to someone's brother's trailer and he called us a taxi. When Nicole went into the bathroom, I had smeared blood alllll over the walls and was sitting naked on the toilet just spitting on the ground.) That truly was the turning point where my hobby morphed into a coping mechanism.
     I clearly had a lot of issues before Lock killed himself but that fucked me up on a whole other level. He was the first person I knew who committed suicide. I'd seen it in movies but it was an abstract concept to me until then. Some people blame Morgan's death on Lock. I can see it. I have dreams about him frequently. Lately, I have the knowledge inside my dreams that he is gone and I try to explain to him that he is but seeing him again fills me with so much joy. Brains are strange. I think about these things MINIMUM once a week. Usually more though.

     Back to the future. 2020. I thought moving to Texas would be this beautiful new start. I've always visualized it as an Etch-A-Sketch: shaking that red square as the pixels of my past disappear before my eyes. I tried to do the same thing with Florida. Then with Fort Collins. Then with San Diego. Rene told me, "Wherever you go, there you are." He's not wrong. I've applied for jobs. They're interested in hiring me until they get my criminal background check. I don't know if it's the Refusal to Submit to a Breathalyzer from October 2018 or the Shoplifting (less than $500) I got a few weeks later that puts them off. "We've rescinded our offer." No chance of upward mobility at this time. Being a waitress at Red Lobster is not where I pictured myself when I was a child. I mean, sure I have an Associate of Arts from NJC I got in 2016 but you can't do a damn thing with that. I've been too poor to go to university. I've tried to do a nursing program on three separate occasions and fucked up those opportunities every single time. I am a criminal and I am a pauper and I am a drug addict.
     Sometimes I get on dating apps and match with plenty of men. I'm too emotionally unavailable and detached and strange to connect on a romantic level. And that's the whole point of living, isn't it? Spending time with people who you love and who love you back? Our animal brains only think about reproducing and carrying on our seeds. I know for a fact I am not cut out to be a parent. My miscarriage with Aaron was necessary & relieving for so many reasons. I know even harder I could never be a wife. Growing up, and maybe this is the Hollywood conditioning in me, all I wanted was to have a husband and a couple of children and a two-story house with a white picket fence. As time goes on, I see that I will never attain these things. A few months ago my mom told me there's eight dimensions of wellness: physical, intellectual, emotional, social, spiritual, vocational, financial, and environmental. I am unstable on every level and have been for a long time. I don't even see how they find this shell of a person appealing in the first place.
     I have friends. I love my friends. They know this. But, fuck, they have their own lives. And anyway, even when I do confess the depths my depression/bipolar disorder has drug me to, they never know what to say. In all honesty, I don't think there's anything in the world that could console me. It's all bleak. Kurz, Whitney, Kyli, Kassandra, Keith, Jenna, Holiday... Marcus & Olivia & Daniel & Izabela & Shalynn & Nina & Mallori... I love my people. I know I can be overwhelming when I send songs and memes and podcasts and articles and comedy. So I just stopped sending them. I considered them extensions of myself and when they were ignored, that childhood pain was brought back to life with a defibrillator's jolt. I'm sensitive, I know. Probably too much.
     I'm so incredibly drained. Tired of being sad. Tired of feeling useless... worthless. Tired of feeling like a bother. Tired of this existence where all I do is sleep my days away and wish I could start over. That I could have been like those preppy Sidney/Sterling girls I used to envy. The ones with self-discipline that took summer trips to Europe and went to homecoming with smart soccer players. I'm embarrassed of the pick-me ass bitch I was with Dillon and Jordan and Jared. I saw this quote on Instagram by Sarah Manguso that said, "The trouble with letting people see you at your worst isn't that they'll remember, it's that you'll remember." And, maaan, if that isn't the realest shit I've ever read.
     My love for my mom knows no bounds. I know that she would murder someone for me. But you can't live for others. Or die for them. That's peak co-dependency right there. All she wanted was a daughter and that turned out to be... me. Fuck, I feel sorry for her. She tried and gave and sacrificed and endured and persevered. She deserves the world, that lady...
     Brian would be upset. He says it's selfish. He says that Lock gave up and left how many people hurt and confused, meanwhile he's still showing up to PHS every fall, putting up with shitty sevies and apathetic seniors fighting the good fight. I agree with him. He's my angel.
     Kevin would be upset. No one I know has ever met Kevin. But he thinks giving up will just lead to your next life being even more miserable. On some karma shit. That you'll have to deal with this life's drama and trauma and issues on top of all your past lives' baggage. Maybe. I'm interested in seeing what's on the other side. And that idea alone leads me to believe I have driven myself truly and completely fucking crazy. Not like quirky Susanna Kaysen or intricate Sybil or silly Kevin Wendell Crumb... Neurotic, delusional, self-pitying Janessa Garvin insane.
     I used to come up with these scenarios... where, even though I'd only visited Lock's house after his death, I would serendipitously show up on Lock's front porch, moments before he shot himself. He would be surprised at the interruption of his plan. I would somehow talk him down and tell him I hurt as much as he did and that we could make it through. And then he would still be alive. I wish [they] would have reached out. Okay, but what if they have? Time and time again. Year after year after year after year. And your answer remains, "It'll get better." But then it doesn't. You still fixate on the fact that you let your mental health get in the way of your career at Broadcom where you called in all the time and put extra hours on your timecard and left work four hours early too often. Or you remember when girls would shower after basketball games and leave the locker room and you would steal money from their purses. You think about the time you told Austin you would watch 2010 A Nightmare on Elm Street and then canceled 30 minutes later and he texted you, "It's not like I went and got it already...." (He was mad. Sad? Why were you so aloof when all he wanted was for you to let him in?)
     I don't have answers. I don't. I wish I did. (This isn't one for the genie...) I desire to be whole and content and appreciative and happy. Not this insatiable, incorrigible ingrate. I've had a headache for days now and just want it to go away. The stress gets to me. I can't forgive myself but I hope you do.

“All I ever really want to know is how other people are making it through life—where do they put their body, hour by hour, and how do they cope inside of it.” ―Miranda July

 ⏷ 

Part 2:

     I guess this makes it seem like the whole 26 years have been unbearable. Untrue.

Off the top of my head, my favorite memory is dancing with Keith & Emily to Adventure Club in the rain at Red Rocks rolling on molly. Perfection. Beautiful. Oh my, was that amazing. Datsik at First Bank Center with Dustin, Keith, & Skyler was fantastic, too— I don't remember if that was just molly or acid as well. Shows were really special to me at one point. 

     Marcus has helped make my adulthood comfortable & easy. His funny ass personality and kindness is an experience all in itself. I love him big. When Olivia, Chantae, & I day-tripped at my dad's house and then his tenant came by & we had to pretend like we weren't balls deep in a rabbit hole. It rained and there was a psychedelic rainbow. ♡ 

     Sol being born. Obvs. What an angel. I visited Ocean Beach in San Diego on a sunny day and was exploring over these rocks and in the puddles were tiny snails, just minding their own business and inciting awe in me. Designing MySpace pages. Just today, on this 90 degree Texas summer day, "Gypsy" by Fleetwood Mac came on the radio and it almost moved me to tears. 

     One day my dad and I were listening to music and making up stupid dances, making each other laugh... I really liked that. Taking naps with my mom. Meeting Mac Miller. When Cassius was a puppy, he would make me laugh at his awkward, adorable puppy mishaps. Holiday telling me about his wild adventures in boot camp. Watching Dave Chappelle stand-up. Corissa and I tripping on acid and her laughing her ass off at me for unlocking a car door with my finger instead of the button. Staying up after a delicious dinner, drinking wine with Lorna as we binge-watched "Sex and the City". Brother Josh playing basketball at lunch in high school, his uncoordinated ass getting furious and struggling to make a basket even when he was only a foot from the rim. Daniel Ryan— everything about that angel child... he means everything to me. Roberta and I tripping on acid in Las Vegas watching "Pan's Labyrinth" and "Ready Player One". Kyli's hilarious jokes and her mellifluous laughter. Whitney Nicole and her radiance and strength. KURZ!! oh my... those 5 amazing years in his classroom and all our texts & conversations since. The books and work Maria assigned. My uncle Ricky's laugh and his gigantic heart. Watching "Wanted". Listening to J. Cole, Tech N9ne, Tyler the Creator, and Megan Thee Stallion albums front to back.

     Some of these may sound corny or boring or unfunny, but I promise, at the time, they were everything I could have ever dreamed of. 

solo

Cranes in the Sky by Solange

I tried to drink it away
I tried to put one in the air
I tried to dance it away
I tried to change it with my hair

I ran my credit card bill up
Thought a new dress would make it better
I tried to work it away
But that just made me even sadder
I tried to keep myself busy
I ran around circles
Think I made myself dizzy
I slept it away
I sexed it away
I read it away

Away, away, away, away, away, away
Away, away, away, away, away

Well it's like cranes in the sky
Sometimes I don't wanna feel those metal clouds
Yeah it's like cranes in the sky
Sometimes I don't wanna feel those metal clouds

I tried to run it away
Thought then my head be feeling clearer
I traveled 70 states
Thought moving 'round make me feel better

I tried to let go my lover
Thought if I was alone then maybe I could recover
To write it away or cry it away (don't you cry baby)

Away, away, away, away, away, away
Away, away, away, away, away

But it's like cranes in the sky
Sometimes I don't wanna feel those metal clouds
Yeah it's like cranes in the sky
Sometimes I don't wanna feel those metal clouds

Away, away, away, away, away, away

❁

morose (adj)

sullen and ill-tempered

the werk

Burt

      If I have a car that's broken down, and I ask a bunch of friends, "Who's a good mechanic?" And they all tell me to take it over to Ol' Joe on Some Street... I start to have faith that Ol' Joe knows what he's doing. They relate their experiences and Joe's fixed a bunch of cars and never had a problem. But until I take my car over there and actually turn it over to Joe, my car ain't gonna get fixed. And so, to me, that's kind of like it says: faith without works is dead. Well, faith without trust is also dead.

      Since I've been sober, I've gone through loss of a parent and looked at life in the pen, bankruptcy, and a lotta things that a lot of people go through in these rooms. And I can tell ya, for me, what I did was exactly what they suggested: I stayed in the literature, I worked the steps, I actually know who my sponsor is and talk to my sponsor regularly, they know who I am, and I work with other alcoholics and drug addicts just like myself; both that're still active in their addiction and also in recovery. And I pray and meditate a lot.

      And those things work to keep me sober every 24 hours. So if something stressful happens, the first thing I do is call my sponsor. And I will go to more meetings. I will pray more. I'll meditate more. It took me a long time to get to the point that I could talk to anyone else because I knew it all and I didn't trust anybody and I didn't think this program would work. By repeatedly taking these actions as suggested, what happened for me is: it didn't matter how I felt, I kept taking the actions. And then I started becoming comfortable with those actions and actually looking forward to them. Believe it or not. It changed the way I thought and the way I felt inside. So it's replacing that old habit and those old patterns that I religiously followed with new ones that're constructive and that changed my life. Now I have peace and joy and I am so grateful for that.

      It always helps me to remember that when Bill W. started writing The Big Book, he was less than three years sober and when it was published, he was less than four years sober. So the quality, I believe, of sobriety is as equally important as the length.

Brienna

      At over two years I still call my sponsor about stuff. "Hey, somebody mentioned this" or "I'm thinking about this". And she'll give me her two cents on it. It's really nice to have somebody who's been there. I have a sponsor who has a sponsor who has a sponsor who has a sponsor. Talking with these women, I know they still work Steps. They're 10 and 12 and 18 and 26 years into it and they're still working Steps. They still go to meetings. I don't know. I'm just really grateful for sponsorship.

      Because sometimes I don't know what the next right thing is. Sometimes I don't know what the action is or if action is needed. So I have to check in with her. I haven't been two years sober since I was 15 years old. Emotionally, and sometimes mentally, I'm still 15 years old. And my best thinking got me here. It's definitely a program of action. Like Burt mentioned and like it says on page 88: faith without works is dead. My god will do for me what I can't do for myself but he won't do for me what I can. If that means all that I'm responsible for right now is to suit up and show up, that's all I have to do. I have no control over the results. I don't have any idea, usually, how my day is going to shake out. When I wake up, I do my Third Step Prayer. I run through Steps 1, 2, and 3, and everything else... I just give it over to God.

      I'm very fortunate. I'm what they call a High-Bottom Drunk. I didn't lose everything. But I lost everything spiritually and I lost everything emotionally and for me, being spiritually bankrupt meant suicide. And that's where I was three years ago. This kind of faith is in The Steps. I have to be looking at different aspects, different facets of my life. It's broken down so beautifully and I have to work them in the order they're written; I can't skip around. When I first came into these rooms, I was like, "Alright, I'll do that one. Not doing a Step 5. I'm not doing any of them that have 'god' in them. I'm not doing that." You know? I was really angry coming into these rooms. I wasn't like You People. I was just suicidal and depressed. I didn't have a problem. After being in treatment for a couple months, that pride and ego slowly started fading. I've learned a lot of phrases like, "How free do you want to be?" How willing am I to be honest? How willing am I to do things that my sponsor suggests that, in the beginning, I was like, "That's not gonna help me stay sober."

      My very first day out of treatment I was helping my first sponsor move and she said, "Alright, well, me and my husband have to go run some errands and everything so we're going to leave you in the house alone." She had 24 years of sobriety at that time. She said, "I want you to pull all of the nails out of the walls and fill them with this putty." And I was like, "Are you serious?" She just let me move in here 'cause she needed slave labor, you know what I mean? I'm not down with this! And she said, "Do you want to stay sober? Are you willing to do anything to stay sober?" And I was like, "Maaaan... I guess so..." I was crazy and my brain went all sorts of directions: I could leave the house. I could find something. I could probably find somebody that I worked with that could get me some weed. I could probably run across the street to the CVS and buy some... whatever. My brain went a million different directions. And just asked me, "Can you follow directions?"

"Sure."

"Okay. Pull these nails out of the wall, fill them with putty, sand them down."

"You got it, sis."

      So I did that. And all-of-a-sudden, four/five hours later, they come back and I'm still sober. And I didn't think that that was gonna happen. It's the weirdest things. My sponsor gives me the weirdest assignments and somehow, if I'm willing to do it and I take the action, God blesses the effort. And I stayed sober. And I was amazed at that... that that could work like that. So now, I've seen it over and over and over in my short time of sobriety: if I put in the work, God will bless the effort. Even when I don't like the way that it's going, even if it's not going the way I think it should, that's the whole deal on surrendering it to God. He knows his plan way better than I do. I'll burn the bridge I'm standing on so you know I'm serious about my crazy. I don't play. And I'm really grateful I don't have to live like that anymore. I'm grateful my god brought me to A.A. and A.A. brought me back to my god.

      I've seen some people in here that've gone through some things that I can't ever imagine. My grandsponsor lost her mother earlier this year and that's one of my biggest fears. I don't know if I could stay sober if I lose my mom. And I see people do it. Ya'll show me. And that gives me hope that maybe, just maybe, if I stick with this deal long enough, I'll be able to weather those seasons. And I'll be able to weather those storms with a god that I don't understand. I'm really grateful for that today.

Two Steppin'

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Patrick
      I think Step 2, for me, was the first actual confrontation with fear that I found in The Program. I feared not being in control. I feared having to believe in this god that I didn't have a relationship with. Came in and I was like... trying to find God in a bar. Or trying to escape God, I should say, in bars. In dope houses. And everywhere. Coming to A.A. thinking, "Okay, I'm going to escape God in A.A. meetings." And sure enough: everyone talking about God when I get here. And I was like, "Damn it! I can't get away!" I can't escape 'em. But I really think that that was the main thing of why I was so hesitant on Step 2, because I feared a Power greater than myself.
      And I just kept coming back and kept coming back and started to work the steps and understood what was going on as far as... yeah, I was insane. Yeah. Oh, there's no doubt. No doubt. My record shows that and there's two little boys that can bear witness to alla that and two old viejitos in San Angelo that'll say, "That motherfucker was insane." That was all really, really evident.
      The God thing, man, I didn't understand, but I saw it in You. The whole miracle thing was what got to me. Because I came in and I was happy, joyous, and free, and I was like, "Yay! A.A. this!" and "A.A. that!" and "Gonna get my Bill W. tattoos!" and all that stuff. I was gung-ho, man! And ol' boy was like, "Man, you got some peace and serenity going on there."
And I was like, "Yeah, I do!"
And he said, "You do or God did?"
And then boom! it kind of hit me.
He goes, "Because I saw you when you came in. I know what you looked like when you came in. And that ain't you."
And I was like, "Holy shit, he's right..." You know? Something did this. I didn't do this. Because of me, the evidence is on the wall. Is in the manila folders. It had to be God... it had to be.
      And that's when I came to believe in a Power greater than myself. That's when I started to realize that God did this. God had removed this obsession. I think the whole time I was walking through the forest, God was trapped in that plexiglass container that I had him in. He was just beatin' on the wall, "Hey! I'm over here! I'm over here! Wake up, motherfucker! Wake up!" And I never did. I never did until I came in here.

Danielle
      My life's been a journey on this Higher Power thing. I was raised Catholic, you know, went to Catholic school and just figured everybody's going to Hell. I think that's all I ever heard in church was, "We're all going to Hell," so I believed that. Then when my parents got away from the church, we stopped going and I just stopped doing any kind of religion. Faith of any kind.
      So when I first got in The Program when I was 22 I was so lost... I mean, I was grateful. I was super open-minded and willing to believe what ya'll told me. I could have this God of my own understanding and I was like, "Yeah! I love it!" And I got real gung-ho for A.A. I got the A.A. tattoo. I was like, "Woo! This is so awesome!" you know? And that went on for a few years. And I was super involved. Then I got my life. My self-will kicked in.
      Slowly but surely, the change from relying on my god to being like, "Well he's there... I still believe in him. But I'm doing a really great job right now and don't really need his help." And then that's where my life fully shifted into self-sufficiency and self-will and what I wanted and what I was doing. And, you know, it worked for me for a period of time. It did. All these things happened; I just felt like God wasn't really part of it. Just look at what Danielle was doing.
      I like what the reading talks about because, like the first part of it says, the obsession to drink had been removed. I did not think about drinking. I went almost 11 years without taking a drink and it was gone. That wasn't how I lived my life anymore. But then, when it came down to it, when this cunning, baffling, powerful disease showed up, I didn't have any leg to stand on. There was nothing between me and that first drink. Because I turned away from God and I didn't need him anymore. Sure enough, when that moment came, I picked up the drink.
      So I know today that I will forget. I have to keep coming here. I have to keep doing this work. Because my mind wants to tell me that I'm good on my own. I've got this deal. If I don't keep being reminded, I will always default back to Self-Sufficient Danielle, here she goes running on self-will, let's just make some stuff happen. And I'll run myself into the ground. And I can't do that again. I barely made it back in here this time and I don't want to live like that, you know? My will doesn't work out and if I let things go, things are always better but like I said, my default mode is Danielle's will.
      I have a Higher Power in my life today but it's been a lot more challenging this time because I'm the one that tried the way of faith and lost it. It's been a struggle to really develop that relationship. I cannot deny that my god has worked in my life. I can't. And even the time I turned away from him, I can still look back and see how he was working the whole time. And I'm grateful for that because I wouldn't have the life I have today if it wasn't for that. And I believe my Higher Power led me here to this room and helped save my life.

David
      I wasn't raised around God or in church or anything. I really came to believe in a Higher Power of God in this Program. I've seen the evidence of it... working in my life and working in other people's lives. I see God on The Walton's and Little House on the Prairie and stuff like that when I was a kid and that's basically what I knew about God. Some preacher standing in the middle of the river talking about, "Everybody's going to Hell." I knew that part of it—the going-to-Hell part—I heard that enough just being a little bit older than a toddler trying to dig to Hell, you know? I'm gonna dig to Hell and find out where Hell was.
      But this Program says I need to have a Higher Power and pray to a Higher Power. You know, I did some praying in the penitentiary back in 2005 and they were just some basic prayers.
"Let this shit end."
"Let me go somewhere."
"Let me have a life."
"Let me really try."
"Let me do something."
      I got sent here to Abilene and I went to work. This place I started out at wanted me to go to Life Group church and parole wanted me to go to A.A. or N.A. and I'd always been good at manipulatin' shit so I got to the Life Group for church. I didn't have to go to N.A. or A.A. I did well for several years and then I thought I could ease back into my other easy comfort areas. And I remember them prayers, you know... them prayers stand out in my mind 'cause I never really prayed before. And them prayers all came true. Real quickly. And real out-of-the-blue. I got to start a life here. I got basically everything that I had prayed for.
      So when I came into The Program about seven years ago, I'd been sober for four years. I just did what everyone told me to do. They told me I needed to pray, told me I needed to do this. The incremental amounts of something that I do in this program or around this program or outside of this program today are things I didn't use to do. Just that evidence of me being free and not having the problems I used to have and all that gone away by this program and by praying, then I truly believe in God. And I get to see it in other people that come in and start their recovery and struggle through their recovery and come up. That's how I see it.

Maria
      When I first got sober, I'd read The Steps on the wall at my old home group, and I remember reading that "would restore us to sanity." So I would always think, "Well, was I really crazy? Did I do crazy stuff?" And I came to the conclusion that yes. 'Cause who goes and sells a car to a junkyard and then walks home? That's insane. That's crazy right there. So yeah... I was a bit crazy.
      At any rate, it tells me: surrender, hope, and willingness. I have to have willingness to do something. Something has to break if I want to change my life. You know I can't expect to walk in here and let you all change my life for me. There's work to be done. This is presented to us... God make that covenant with me when I got sober that day November 2006. He said, "If you get sober, I'm going to give you a life beyond your dreams." And he's given it to me. I can't say he hasn't.
      Because I was raised Catholic, too. I was raised, "You're going to  Hell. And you're gonna go to Hell. And everything you do is gonna take you to Hell." And I said, "Let's go. Let's go with guns blazing. 'Cause if I go down, I'ma go... go down or go home. What's it gonna be?" I always thought that.
      I came in with a conception of a god that I used to know. But, see, sometimes it's better to come in with a conception of no god. I already had that mold. I already had that profile of the god that I knew. So when I got here, I had to change that. 'Cause it was never God that let me down; it was me that let God down. See, that's where I look at the insanity part. I was so crazy all this time thinking that I was controlling my life and that I was keeping myself out of situations. No, God kept me out of situations. Because I should be in prison (real women's prison). God saved me from that insanity; he let me go to another insanity so that I could figure out that it was him that was in control. It took me a long time... took me three years in recovery to do that. 'Cause I didn't come in like, "Oh, I'm gonna surrender!" Fuck, I wasn't going to surrender everything. I'll give you something that I can't handle but I can take care of the rest. I don't need you for all that. No. I can't handle nothing.
      It's just the miracle of allowing yourself to let that go. And sometimes our pride and ego will not let that go, so we stay sick. Some of us sicker than others. Sometimes I can be real fuckin' sick. I like to keep my circus at home, though. I don't like to take it out on the road. I really don't like everybody seeing all my insanity. I'll call my sponsor for that! Or she calls me and says, "What's going on??"
      I love this program. A.A. is my first love. God and A.A. is my first love. I love my husband and I love my children but if I didn't love God and I didn't love The Program I wouldn't have a husband and children.

Josh
      As far as the god of my understanding part, that works for me because the concept I had of a god wasn't equalling up to what was being presented to me at the time... before I got to Alcoholics Anonymous. And understanding how Alcoholics Anonymous works for me in the rooms is being able to see eye-to-eye with a person that has the same issues that I have because it's been too many times that I've sat with a person that can go into a bar, sit down and have a drink, and then leave, and have a regular life afterwards. I don't understand how they can do that. They're like superhumans to me.
      From the same side, if you turn the fold in, they can't understand how you can be so addicted to a substance that it can ruin your life. "You're choosing this over me!??" They just don't understand. And having to get into a conflict with them, it just... it can tear your soul up. So coming into a room with individuals that know and get what's going on to where you can vent and feel 100% understood with what you're going through, it really plays a big part in feeding your soul and feeding your spirit.
So yeah...
These rooms really do work.

227 shotgun

Patrick on surrender

     The Marine Corp teaches never surrender, you know, til the last man. So I came into The Program and had that mindset of, "I can do this. I need to do this. I'm never giving up. I'm never surrendering." Along with being selfish and self-centered, I thought that I could do this my way. I could do this. The whole sitting and making meetings and fellowshipping and all of that— that's all fine and dandy and I could ride that for a good while. But when it comes down to it, I've got to get to the meat and potatoes of this program. Not necessarily about the group or the organization or anything else. The actual program is what's going to help me get better. I had come to the realization that everything and all the justifications and rationalizing of how I felt about this program or whatever was really, really slow-going. I mean, it was really slow-going. If I had just done The Program initially things would have gotten a lot better a lot quicker, I think, for me. But I could not surrender. 

     And I really think, I guess, the reason I didn't want to surrender was because I was afraid it was gonna work. I was afraid it was gonna work and that I was not going to have this Old Life that I... hated. Someone said they didn't know anything else. I didn't know anything else. And that was a big fear of mine. Coming to the realization that I had to surrender to The Program... I had to surrender to God, was a big, big step for me, man, because I really wasn't sure that I wanted to surrender to God. I would do all things that was required of me: coffee, sugar, water, or whatever. But when it came down to "there has to be a god in my life", I balked. And I was afraid of that, again, because I was afraid that it was gonna work. That was the only thing. I wasn't gonna be in control; God was gonna be in control. And low and behold, when I fuckin' finally surrendered to God as I understand God, good things started happening in my life. Amaaazing things started happening in my life. It was a process of amazing things happening in my life but, "Look at me. I did it." And then, "Ohhh! Shit..." Come to that screeching halt again. I always felt like when I got into The Program and things were going well, the actual record player was playing at the correct speed, you know, and that my life was hunky-dory and I was all happy, but then the moment there was a setback in my life, that record went "rrrrrrr". Then I had to slowly get myself back out of that. And it all began with the surrender.

     So if today I wake up and I surrender every morning, man, my life just gets so much better. It just gets so much better. And it's not the reward or the financial security. It's not the reward of material things. It's the reward of peace and serenity in my life. All that other stuff is just blessings. It's blessings on top of those gifts, and I'm very grateful for that.

Janessa on patience

     Patience... that one we're going to have to look up because I don't know what that is. I feel like that definitely carried into my addictions and stuff. I remember one time at Thanksgiving a couple years ago, I asked my uncle for some hard liquor so I could do shots and he was like, "You don't want a mixed drink?"

And I was like, "No, we're just trying to get There."

And he was like, "Oh, that's what young kids say."

But now I'm like, "No, that's what alcoholics say."

     Even like, weed used to be my drug of choice for seven years and then I started snorting cocaine and I was like, "Oh, we can There faster!" Always faster. Faster. But taking shortcuts has never worked out. For me. In my favor. At all. Even The Steps. I came in and was like, "Let's just jump to some, huh?" I wanted to do Four and Five right away.

I was like, "That's actual work. That's actually getting to the root of things and that's tackling trauma head-on." But if I didn't have my spirituality with Two and Three, if I did Four and Five without my spirituality I could never have done Seven and have Her remove my shortcomings. So I really appreciate the pace. Everything happens exactly when you need it to. Or at least that's my story.

     And the way I correlate that is like a staircase. I was trying to jump to the top of it without using these other ones that were so necessary. And even my 90 meetings in 90 days... I just want that to be over already. I'm trying to just chill after work. But the funny thing about that is: it's just a suggestion from my sponsor. She's not going to beat me up if I don't come to one. She comes every other week. She wouldn't even know if I didn't come to one. But I know today I have this rigorously honest program and I have ya'll here to hold me accountable.

     And I want to be a better person today. That's why I don't skip meetings. That's why I stay on the sidewalk and not do shortcuts. Slow my hasty ass down.

Harris on open-mindedness

     I think that being close-minded was something that definitely fueled my addiction to alcohol and to drugs. I had a certain way of how I thought things had to go and if it didn't go that way, then I felt like I had an excuse to use. I guess the first thing that comes to mind is I was married for nine years and I took my wife's adultery like a Do Drugs Free card. I had the right to be a drug addict and an alcoholic because things hadn't gone the way I thought they should go.

     I think this group has also helped me be open-minded spiritually. Like I was raised in a very hardcore Southern Baptist upbringing. That everything was exactly the way they saw it as and you were pretty much going to hell if you didn't agree with exactly what they thought. Not that I believe that, but it's actually helped me be open-minded towards my family. To not rebel so much. It's helped me be open-minded and to not be such a rebel. To accept things as they come. And to just accept that life is going to go where it goes and I need to be the best person I can be. That if life doesn't happen the way I want it to, that's not an excuse to go out and do drugs and drink.

     I think open-mindedness, to me, is key in keeping balanced, in keeping the right mindset that there are no excuses for This Disease.

Armando on Nine Step Promises

     I get so wrapped up in this newfound freedom and new happiness that I forget to stop and actually look at the little things. I was blessed to be able to go down to San Antonio last weekend to spend time with my family. It's been a while since I been down there so I got to celebrate Christmas and Valentine's and Best Sons Day and Just-Cause Day all-at-once so I got all these gifts. And I started going through them and was like, "Okay, that's nice. That's not going to fit me. I don't wear that size no more. Thanks for trying." During the whole receiving these gifts, I forgot to take the time and actually look at them.

     I got sick earlier in the week and I was just... out of it. I felt a lot better yesterday so I started cleaning up my room and started going through these gifts and trying to get stuff cleaned up and my house in order. Literally. I grabbed this gift that my mom had given me. And I saw what was on top. I didn't go through it. And inside was a card that she got for me that told me how I would always have a place in her heart, how she's proud of me. It made me stop and think: as I go through life so fast and life's happening, I forget to stop and look at the little things. Things that got me to these rooms, you know? I forget about the people that meant the most to me that I hurt the most.

     I got to go to one of my cousin's quinceañeras, which is a celebration of your 15th birthday, and I got to dance with my little sister. She wanted to dance and I was like, "Yeah." I forget what it was like. I forget to embrace those moments. Life is starting to happen. I have a new life now, so it's easy for me to forget what got me there. To the point I was at.

     I get so wrapped up in this new life and the gift of sobriety that I forget to stop and take a moment to actually look and see what God is doing for me what I could not do for myself. I want to be like, "Well, it's not the way I want it done. It's not happening now." Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, but I could give God a nudge if I put more action into it. If I work more hours and make more money, I'll have less financial fears. But I forget about the stress I put upon myself, the loss of sleep, being tired all the time, not being able to hang out with people who care about me. So I stop and I pause. I really have to put in priority of what's important in my life today. And what isn't important.

     The only two things in this world that I'm ever gonna own are my words and my actions. Everything else is gonna come and go. To this day, the only thing I still have from my past is my words and my actions. And I know this because people I run into will bring my past up. They bring up my actions. They bring up what I said. Today I have to stop and really think about what I'm saying and what I'm doing. Because that's going to follow me for the rest of my life. 

     It wasn't apparent to me until I went to one of my uncle's funerals. When they were talking about him, it wasn't what he had and the amazing life that he had, it was what kind of person he was. He was a loving, caring person. The action he took to broadcast to the world. To people around him. The things he would say. The jokes. That's what was apparent to me. 

     Because of sobriety, I get to realize that. I get to realize that God is doing for me what I could not do for myself and that I intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle me. That's where the Nine Step Promises are at for me today. That's amazing for me to actually be able to see that. And care about that more than a car or a raise or any of that stuff. When it's my time, it's my time. If it's not meant to be, it's not meant to be. Who am I to play God?

mellowlist

◉ All About Our Love — Sade

◉ Back in the Day — Erykah Badu

◉ Bag Lady — Erykah Badu
◉ The Barrel — Aldous Harding
◉ Best — Borgore
◉ Blackbird — The Beatles
◉ Break of Dawn — Michael Jackson

◉ Broken Clocks — SZA
◉ Butterflies — Michael Jackson
◉ Bulletproof Soul — Sade

◉ Candy Bling — Mariah Carey

◉ Candy Rain — Soul for  Real

◉ Certainly — Erykah Badu

◉ Closer — Goapele
◉ Code Blue — The-Dream

◉ Consideration — Rihanna featuring SZA

◉ Cranes in the Sky — Solange
◉ Do Me, Baby — Prince

◉ Don't Touch My Hair — Solange
◉ Easy — The Commodores

◉ FEEL. — Kendrick Lamar

◉ Female Energy — Willow Smith
◉ Garden Shed — Tyler the Creator
◉ Grown & Sexy — Damian Marley

◉ Honey — Erykah Badu
◉ Human Nature — Michael Jackson

◉ I Don't Wanna Take You To No Club — S A S H A
◉ It Gets Better (With Time) — The Internet

◉ Lavender and Velvet — Alina Baraz
◉ Lingerie — Lizzo

◉ Loungin (Who Do Ya Luv) — LL Cool J

◉ Lost In Love — I-15

◉ LOVE. — Kendrick Lamar

◉ Loveeeeeee Song — Rihanna

◉ LOYALTY. — Kendrick Lamar
◉ Me — Summer Walker
◉ Maybe — Alina Baraz
◉ Needed Me — Rihanna
◉ No Ordinary Love — Sade

◉ On Melancholy Hill — The Gorillaz

◉ One and  Only — Mariah Carey
◉ Phone Down — Erykah Badu
◉ Precious Possession — Anna  Wise

◉ Running — Nicotine

◉ Slip — Elliot Moss
◉ Smile — Isaiah Rashad

◉ Smile/Petty — Anderson .Paak

◉ Soldier of Love — Sade
◉ Something — The Beatles
◉ Special Affair — The Internet

◉ Stay — Rihanna
◉ Stay the Night — The Internet

◉ Tyrone — Erykah Badu
◉ Wat's Wrong — Isaiah Rashad

◉ Weary — Solange

◉ Yeah, I Said It — Rihanna

◉ 9 — Willow Smith

Testimony

     I don't know if this is some of ya'll's first time trying to get clean, or second or third or fourth or whatever. It doesn't make any difference. But I just wanted to go back to that form of life. So every time I got out of prison I'd say, "Well... if I just don't do this... If I just don't stick needles in my arm. If I just don't do methamphetamines. If I just don't smoke crack. If I just don't drink and drive. If I just..." And it was always "if I just". All those things were my Ideas. And I'm sure ya'll got a head full of 'em, because I know I did for many many many MANY years. They were always my ideas.
     There's a saying in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and you'll hear it in the readings... It says something about, "These things were nil until we let go absolutely." And I had to let go absolutely. I had to let another man control my life. And that's who I call my sponsor. That's what I had to do. I had to turn something over to somebody because my decision- making skills weren't any good. And just because I get clean and sober don't mean that I start making good decisions. I'm 17 years sober and I still call my sponsor and ask him. Still. Because I'm still an Alcoholic-Addict. I'm still that person, you know? And so I need to make sure before I make decisions to run it by somebody before I make decisions.
     Anyway, October 11, 2002, I stepped out of the penitentiary for the last time and everything. They were sending me to a halfway house in Abilene, Texas. And some of ya'll may know where it is. It's called the 180 House. They sent me to Abilene. I never been to Abilene before in my life. It was going to be just like any other halfway house. I did not get out of prison in 2002 going, "I'm gonna clean myself up." I had no plans of getting clean and sober. I had no plans of what happened to me. It was going to be the typical: get out of prison, go to the halfway house, find My People (it'll take about 2 or 3 days), and get the hell out of here. That was my plan. You know? I wasn't scared to go back. I can say that through all those years of addiction and alcoholism and living in all the places I lived in, I lived better in prison than I did on the streets. I did. And that's sad. That's very sad.
     So I had no plan of cleaning up or anything else like that when I got here. It was going to be my typical: okay, let's go to this place, let's find my guy, let's find my girl, whoever it needs to be, and let's get out of here. And I'm going to go back to prison. Okay. I've done this deal for twenty plus years. Let's keep doing it.
     So I got to the 180 House. I had to pay 'em just a little money, what the penitentiary gave me so I could stay there a week, and I started looking for My People. I wasn't one to just go up and ask you. I could tell. I knew who My People were. And so that took all of about three days and I found my guy. And I just started watching him and just kind of watching what was going on around me. That he could be The One to help me get out of here. So I been there three days. And I pull the gentleman to the side. His name was Michael  Ian. He's still a friend of mine today. I asked Michael, I said, "Hey..." I said, "Do you know where I can get any guns? Credit cards? Stolen checks? Or anything like that so I can get out of here?"
He said, "Dude, didn't you just get out of prison??" I'd been there three days. We're going to these damn meetings. They make you go to these damn meetings.
And I said, "Yeah."
He said, "You're gonna go back."
And I said, "I don't care. I just need to get away from here."
And he says, "Are you serious?"
And I says, "I'm serious."
He says, "Well, come on." And he tricked me. Because we walk down to his room, there at the 180 House, and the Texas-OU game is playing. That's the first time I can tell you, looking back, as a person not believing in God, that God did for me what I could not do for myself. I like Texas-OU games.
He goes, "You like Texas-OU?"
I said, "Yeah!"
He goes, "Let's watch it!" And we did. We watched the game. And we got into the evening. And he took me down to Taco Bell. He bought me something to eat. And it got later that night, and he says, "Hey. Don't go nowhere tonight, man. I'll holler at you in the morning."
I said, "Alright."
     The next morning, he did. He came and knocked on my door bright and early in the morning. Probably 6 o'clock, 6:30 in the morning. It was a Sunday morning. And, uhh, he had an armful of clothes.
And he goes, "Hey. You realize you ain't change clothes since you been here?"
I said, "Yeah. These are the clothes the prison gave me. Why?"
He said, "Why don't you change your clothes, man?" And that's who I was. I could go weeks... days without changing clothes. I could go days or weeks without showering sometimes. I'm not going to sit here and tell you I was the cleanest freak out there. I wasn't. I was nasty. Maybe all ya'll took showers everyday and put on clean clothes and brushed your teeth. Maybe ya'll got pedicures and manicures but that wasn't who I was. I was a stone-cold Alcoholic-Addict. That's who I was. And, um, anyway... so he gave me a change of clothes and I changed clothes and everything and we talked a little bit and he told me to give this thing a chance and and this and that.
And I said, "Well, I don't know, you know? I just need to get out of here." And I still had no desire to clean up. The only reason I was clean for those three or four days is because that place will kick you out if you use or drink and I'm having to go to these meetings and I'm hearing these stories in these meetings and I hear ya'll talking about some kind of 12 Steps and I hear ya'll talking about "get a sponsor". I hear ya'll talking about all that, but it's going in one ear and out the other because I have Ideas.
     Monday morning rolls around and everybody went to work. And I realized that I was going to have to have some money here real quick to pay another week's worth of rent. And I had to look for a job. I hadn't done any of that stuff since I'd been there. I had no desire to look for a job or anything like that.
     I did know one person here in Abilene, and it was the wife of a fellow convict that I met down there. He was an eleven-time loser. And he had been with his wife for a long long time. And I was supposed to parole to their house but that did not work out, because Greg told me his wife had changed. That she was just like us— she was an Alcoholic-Addict for many many years and that she had changed and that she had changed into a Cheezus Freak. And so she wasn't gonna allow me to parole there. So I did have her number. She's the one that picked me up from the bus station and took me to the 180 House. And the first thing she wanted to talk about was Cheezusand I didn't want to hear nothin' about no damn Cheezus. And how much he loved me. And  I didn't want to hear all that.
     So I thought I'd call Mary and ask her if she knew anybody that might need some help, because Mary lived in Abilene her whole life. And so I called Mary up on the payphone at the 180 House and asked her if she knew anybody that might be looking for help or might need some help or something like this, and of course, immediately, Mary wanted to start talking about Cheezus. And wanted to know if I'd prayed to Cheezus. And ask Cheezus.
And I said, "Mary, I don't believe in Cheezus. I don't believe in God. That's not who I am."
And she said, "Rick, you have to. Cheezus loves you. He;s gonna help you."
And I said, "Mary, I just need a damn job."
And she says, "I understand."
And she says, "Well... if you don't believe in Cheezus, Rick, I do. I believe in him. And I believe God is going to help you."
And I said, "Okay... I mean... how's he going to do that?"
And she goes, "Well, can you say what I say?"
And I said, "What do you mean?"
And she says, "I'm going to pray and I want you to say what I say." I will do anything this woman tells me to do as long as she'll get me a job. Okay? I'm just gonna use her. Just like I've used everybody in my life. And so she said something about, "Cheezus, help me find a job."
And I said, "Cheezus help me find a job."
"God forgive me of my sins."
"God forgive me of my sins." I don't remember what she said but it was along those lines. But, you know, I was praying to something I don't believe in. And I was talking to something I hadn't talked to in a long long long long long time. And she got through saying what she said and I got through repeating what she said and she goes, "Well alright! Good luck!" And she hung up. That's what happened.
     I can tell you I walked from the payphone and sat on the couch. Right there at the 180 House and watched some tv. I sat on the couch and a guy came through the door and he walked right up to me and he said, "Hey, you lookin' for any work?"
I said, "Yeah. I am."
He says, "What do you do?" I didn't work my whole life, but I do know today that we all have gifts. And I was given a gift. We all have them. And I have a gift that God gave me. I don't have any experience in construction. I didn't work construction jobs. I didn't paint houses. I didn't frame houses. I didn't roof houses. I didn't do none of that shit, okay? But I know how to do it. I knew how to do it that day. It's a gift. It's something I can do.
I said, "I do construction."
He said, "What kind of construction?"
I said, "I can do anything."
He said, "Really? Well that's what I do. I remodel and flip houses. And that's what I'm needing. I need someone to help us out. What kind of money are you looking for?" I ain't got no tools. Don't have no vehicle. I ain't got no drivers license. I deserve at least fifteen dollars an hour. Typical Alcoholic-Addict. That's who we are.
He said, "Son, I've got guys that been working for me for 30 years that don't make that kind of money. I'll give you seven dollars an hour." This was 17 years ago, which is not a long ago. I knew I needed something and so I said, "Okay."
He said, "I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll come pick you up every day, I'll drop you off every day, and I'll buy you lunch every day."
I said, "Okay." And I went to work.
     You probably heard the promises they read in the A.A. meetings. There's promises after every step and after the ninth step it says: "Sometimes they happen quickly. Sometimes they happen slowly." I'm not going to apologize to anybody and never have because they happened to me so very very quickly. They came on and they kept coming and coming and coming. I mean, my life started changing dramatically.
     So I got the job. I went to work. I'd go to these meetings. I'm starting to think, Maybe I'll stick around here... I've been around here a week, a week and a half, I'm laughing, I'm having conversations with strangers (which is strange), I'm getting along with the guys... I'm trying to find me a girlfriend (I mean, I just got out of prison. Somebody's got to be available). And I'm feeling pretty good. Just in a week and a half, I'm feeling pretty good. So  I'm thinking, Why not stick around for a little bit? And let's just see what this thing's gonna do. And so I heard about this sponsorship thing. And somewhere in those first few weeks, I can't tell you exactly when it was, this is what I heard, and this is my story. Ya'll told me to find a sponsor that has something I want. That's what I heard in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. They told me to get a sponsor that had something I want. They did not say, "You need to find a sponsor that has been to prison. You need a sponsor that shot dope like you shot dope. You need to find a sponsor that stole cars like you stole cars." I didn't hear none of that. I heard: find a sponsor that has something you want. This is my story. This is how I chose my sponsor. There was an old cowboy that sat back in the back. I heard him talk about his ranches. I heard him talk about his cattle. I heard him talk about some oil. I heard him talk about some land. He had some dually pickups. He had lots of cattle; he'd be hauling cattle in these big ol' long cattle things. He'd be going to his other ranch. And I heard him talk about this and I thought, Huh...... Find somebody that has something you want? This guy's got some money and I want some of that. I did not think, That guy sounds like he'd be a good sponsor. He might have his shit together.
     So I asked Kurtis to be my sponsor. He handed me a card and said, "Here's my number. You call me every day for 90 days and we'll see how it goes.You miss a day, find a new sponsor."
I said, "Okay. I can do that." And I did. I called Kurtis every day for two years. And I still talk to him three, four times a week. I'm not scared to pick up that phone. A lot of people go, "Why is the phone so heavy??" But I've been around long enough now that I've heard 'em all.
     "Well I didn't have time. I worked late." Bullshit.
     "Oh, man, we got busy! My girlfriend—" Bullshit.
     "Oh, my kid was in the—" Bullshit. You got time to pick the phone up and call your sponsor. It's all bullshit stories. If you don't want to call your sponsor, just say, "I didn't want to call you today." Let's just be honest, you know? Because you always have time to pick the phone up and call somebody.
     Anyway, I'd only been there a couple weeks at that time. The guy I was working for did tell me that if I wanted to get a raise— because soon I didn't work for him but a week and I thought I deserved a raise already— he told me if I got a truck he'd give me a two dollar raise. I'll make this story real quick: old man knocked on my door one evening, asked me if I was R— and I said, "Yeah."
And he says, "You lookin' for a truck?"
And I said, "Yeah but I ain't got no money."
He said, "I didn't ask if you had any money. I heard you might be looking for a vehicle." We went over on North 10th to this barn. There was a '93 Nissan pick-up. It had about 35,000 miles on it that looked like it had about 735,000 miles on it. They used it on this guy's farm to throw fire wood in the back of it. Sometimes they hit the truck, sometimes they didn't. Sometimes they made it, sometimes it went through the window. This truck was a nice 35,000-mile truck. And he asked me if I'd give him fifteen hundred bucks for it and I said, "I told you I didn't have any money."
He said, "You think you could give me fifty bucks a week?"
I said, "Sure. I could give you fifty bucks a week because I know if I get this truck, I'll get a two-dollar raise." That's eighty bucks more a week. I could afford fifty bucks, you know? I'm thinking about insurance, too. He whipped the title out, he signed the title, said, "Sign here." He signed it and said, "Go on about your way."
     I don't know what would have went through ya'll's mind when he signed the title, but what went through my mind is: "I'm never paying you a dime." I mean, I wasn't well in two weeks... three weeks. I wasn't trying to just live a good life. I was just trying to get on my feet. When I left that barn that night, I had no intentions of ever giving that guy anything. He signed the title over to me.
     I got to work. I got a two-dollar-an-hour raise. I told him I had a truck. I could not drive that truck that first day because someone told me I needed to talk to the program director of the halfway house. I went up to him and said, "I got a truck. Somebody said I needed to come talk to you before I drove it. I didn't drive it to work today. What's up?"
He said, "You got a driver's license?"
I said, "No."
He said, "You got insurance?"
I said, "No."
He said, "If you drive that truck, you get kicked out of here. You get you a driver's license and some insurance first. If I hear you're driving that truck, I'll kick you out."
     And I'll tell you, that really was one of the best things that ever happened to me. There was a couple of years ago that I was driving down the road, minding my own business, and my life kind of flashed in front of me. The last fourteen/fifteen years. And that was one of the best things he ever did for me. Not allowing me to drive that truck without a driver's license and insurance. And what that taught me is: shortcuts. I'm trying to shortcut everything. I'm trying to rush everything. I'm trying to rush the process.
     So I got a license. I got insurance. All this happened within about three weeks. I'm driving this vehicle. I got a two-dollar-an-hour raise. I've got a sponsor. Honestly, I wasn't really working the steps but my sponsor was giving me suggestions; telling me to read this, read that. I was lying to him, "Yeah, I'm reading that, and I'll let you know what I read and..." Bullshit. I was lying to him. You know? I really was.
     I thought now that I had a vehicle, I had a license, I had a insurance, I had a job, I'd be there about three and a half weeks, I was looking for a girlfriend. It's pretty easy to find a girlfriend in a halfway house if you got a job, a vehicle, and a driver's license. Then it became a little easier. They see you driving, now they want a ride. "Hey, this guy's got a car! He's got a job!" And so I did... I found me a little sicko. I did. I had to go for an easy real sick, sick one. I'd go to A.A. meetings and listen to them talk. I knew she'd been to treatment, like, eleven times. I was like, "That's my girl! That's my girl! Right there. That's her. She just became  The One™."
     Things were going really good at about four weeks. In such a short period of time. I can tell you when my life changed. It was on the 35th day of recovery, is when my life changed. And when my mind changed, my attitude changed, everything changed. I come home from work on my 35th day of recovery. I had been clean and sober for 35 days, since the day I got out of prison. I didn't count my prison time. Some people do. I started mine when I got out. I came home and I heard the director hollering, "Rick!"
I go, "What!?"
"You got a letter!"
I said, "A letter...?" I haven't spoken to my family in 20 years. I don't know if they're alive... or dead. Nobody knows where I'm at. What do you mean I got a letter? That's kind of what went through my mind. A letter? From who?
     And so I went in there and got the letter and immediately I recognized it. It was the letter that I had written the 180 House with the parole papers asking if I could stay there. They were supposed to fill out the forms and send it to the parole board and I'd be going to the halfway house. That's what the letter was. It had come back in the same envelope but a different letter and returned to me. And by the time the letter had gotten back to me, I'd already paroled there. So it had come back and found me.
     So I went to my room, and I went to go take me a shower because I just got off work. I needed a shower because I was getting with my little girlfriend I'd got and we'd go out and get a bite to eat or something. Anyway, I took a shower and I got back to my room and that letter kept looking at me from the bed and I was like, "Damn, what is that letter?" That's weird. I'd never had that happen to me. All these years I'd been going to halfway houses, that ain't never happened. I had never had a letter come back to the halfway house. So I opened up the letter and it was the parole application. And I know today that it was the owner's wife, of the 180 House, she's the one that answered my letter. And on my parole paper, asking if I could stay there, there's about a six-inch, red stamp— and I still have it; it's in my drawer right beside my bed— and it says:  DENIED.
     I don't know how many of ya'll been to prison but they don't let you go anywhere in prison unless you have somewhere to go. How I ended up there is only by the grace of god. And I knew right then and there, when I seen that, I said, "Denied?" I know because of all of my expertise and everything in the prison system I knew something happened... and it was something from another world. In just a few seconds, I started crying. I started bawling. I could not stand on my own two feet. I fell to my knees. And I was crying. Tears was just rolling down my face. And I couldn't stand on my knees. I ended up on my belly. Flat on my belly. On the floor. In my room. Just crying. I don't know if I was there for 10 seconds or 10 minutes. I can't tell you how long I was there. But when I was able to stand up, and able to stop crying and sobbing, because now I know there's a god. And I stood up inside the room, me, myself, and God, and I raised my hands up and I said, "God, if you can do this much for me in 35 days, you can have it. What do you want me to do?" And I didn't know what he wanted me to do. But he could have it.
     'Cause let me tell you: at 35 days sober, all those things that happened to me in 35 days, I have not lived this good in twenty-five years. I mean, I had a job, I had a check coming in every week, I had a car that belonged to me, and I drove A LOT of cars. A lot of cars. But none of 'em belonged to me. That was one thing I was known for when I was out there. Slick Rick gon' be driving something sharp, okay? 'Cause I stole some nice cars. I had a job. I had a vehicle. I had a drivers license. I had insurance. I had a girlfriend. I had a little money in my pocket. I had a place to lay my head down. Things were going good. I was showering every night. I was actually using deodorant. I was brushing my teeth. I mean, I was living like a KING. In a frickin' halfway house, I was living like a king.
     I immediately called my sponsor after I kind of stopped sobbing. I called Kurtis. I said, "Kurtis, this is what happened." I told him the same story.
He goes, "You know what it sounds like to me? It sounds like you just worked the second and third step. You turned your life over and you told God he could have it. Rick, I've never done this before, usually we do this in person and get together, but it sounds like you just did it."
I said, "Is that what I did?"
He was like, "That's what you did."
He says, "Now we need to go on to your fourth step."

✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

dogmatic musing #222

       My whole life can be summed up by a metaphor: a seedling is a young plant that's usually grown just to be transplanted. Get it? I'm the seedling; and my purpose here on Planet Earth is to absorb other people's negativity, wring it out, and move on to the next wild venture that coincidentally falls into my life. Only plot twist: there is no such thing as coincidence. Not that I believe in the white, male, Christian God, because I don't. I used to, but that's a story within a story.

       Pantheism is the doctrine that God is the transcendent reality between the material universe and the fact that human beings are only manifestations. It denies "God's" personality and chooses to identify god with nature instead, which I think makes perfect sense. When we die, we decompose and become a type of fertilizer for Planet Earth that plants use to thrive. From there, the plants put off oxygen for humans to breathe with. The law of conservation of energy live in action!

       If Pantheism explains how life works, Buddhism is the philosophy that should guide how we live. He wanted us to extract all the material bullshit from our lives and to truly find peace within. That hate and anger and sadness we project on other people doesn't make us feel whole. If we truly know ourselves and can learn to control how we react to situations, we can attain the closest glimpse of happiness human beings will ever be close to finding.

       I don't I know how the Universe was created, by any fucking means. If I had to go with anything, I would say the Big Bang Theory, which was this cataclysmic event that caused the whole solar system as we know it to appear and expand. I see pictures and quotes on the Internet all the time mocking Atheists. 

       "Atheism: the belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason whatsoever into self-replication bits which then turned into dinosaurs. Makes perfect sense.

       Okay, Smart-Ass McGee, when you put it that way, it sounds silly. Though the geniuses behind the theory of evolution, Big Bang Theory, and theory of relativity were probably closer to the truth than that book that claims an omnipotent being created the Universe, gave human beings free will, punished human beings for said free will, sent his son (who's also the man himself) to Earth to forgive human beings for things they do with their free will, and chooses whether you go up to spend your eternal afterlife in a Utopian oasis with all your family friends or whether you go down to spend your eternal afterlife in a fiery pit of misery and pain. Oh, and he is supposed to all of this out of love. In reality, it makes me people act out of this unhealthy fear and blindly accept claims that are clearly irrational. The Bible mentions unicorns, talking snakes, a man separating a whole sea in two halves, a voice coming from a burning bush, and a man turning water into wine. Makes perfect sense.