For those of you who hate reading religious posts, then I would avoid this one. It’s all about it.
We’ll my sponsor said I have moved into the second step of the 12 steps. This step is all about believing in a Higher Power. That’s really a no brainer for me because I already do and have for some time. But just because I believe does not mean that there is not something that can be learned from this step. So I have allowed my brain to ramble a bit. This is not the best of ideas because I like taking on the bigger questions of life. So the question I pose and attempt to answer in this blog is… why my Higher Power doesn’t materialize and say Hi. Why is it that no one can see the Face of God. For some people, that would be all they need to believe forever.
To answer this question I pose 3 different people’s perspective of what their Higher Power looks like, if I asked to describe him or her to me.
1) One said that he would look like Charleston Heston in the movies. Long white beard, robes, old, big majestic voice.
2) One said the he is a she. In the movie Dogma, God is played by a perky young woman who is a bit crazy.
3) One said that God has no image. God is more like a beam of light.
Okay, armed with those three images, I then decided for them. God looks like a gigantic turtle that has the impression of downs syndrome and has 4 eyes and a tail. If this was true then what would be the outcome for these 3 people?
My first thought is that some of them would think that this could not be God at all because it does not follow the “created man in God’s own image” from Genesis. Who is to say that this passage is correct in the first place? Ahhh debate #1!
My second thought is how hard would it be for those three people to bow down to this image? The conflict would be great.
My third thought is how hard would be it be to establish a loving relationship with this image? My guess, probably pretty hard.
So in conclusion, I think the reason why God does not appear before us is that I think not everyone would be able to accept the look. What if one person in millions did not accept it? I think the loss still is too high for just one person. So this creates a real problem yet I know my Higher Power already solved it in a real smart way.
See I believe there is life on other planets and I believe it’s all from the one and only God. I think this is a problem on all worlds as well so I think God solved it sending down a few ambassadors to speak for him that would be acceptable to the masses. But the problem still persists with only sending down ONE right? I mean that still has a chance to lose some who don’t like the look of that one ambassador. So I think he chose trillions of ambassadors and every day sends more.
I believe that because we can choose a Higher Power of our choosing that is loving and caring and can free us of our addictions and problems, that WHATEVER we choose for ourselves, God can accept as an ambassador for him or her. Even more fun is the fact that this person can have faults and not be perfect. This person can lie and screw around like everyone else. The difference is that my Higher Power is within this person and at times speaks thru this person. If you have ever been to a NA meeting, you will see that some people speak in such a deep level that they surprise themselves.
Not knowing who this person is frees us to choose and allows us to change to another one at anytime. This allows us to actively seek our Higher Power at our own pace. It also means our Higher Power is always there for us, in real flesh and blood in an image we can accept and love and understand.
Some of us have lost loved ones. People who died early in life. Some to painful deaths. But what I have heard about dying is that in the final moments, there is a good feeling or peace. I think this is the Higher Power that either resides or once resided in us coming to the surface to rejoin God once more.
So even though you may think you are worthless, there is a great deal of worth to each of us. Inside us carries the spark of God and each of us can look for that in others.
I go to 2-3 meetings a week. I probably should go to more because to be honest, I get a lot out of them. For those of you who are just starting out with NA, I was advised to go to 90 meetings in my first 90 days. Looking back, I think that’s a pretty good idea. Besides the obvious (it takes that long for habits to form), it also helps you get a good start at the program and if you are like me, the first 60 days, your mind is coming out of a fog and you probably aren’t gonna remember anything other than what you hear over and over. It’s only NOW that I am starting to understand what I heard 117 days ago.
What really bites is that some addicts don’t know there is hope to live a normal life. I’m still trying to grasp that little hope myself. NA takes the approach that it doesn’t advertise so you kind of have to hear about it by chance. Anyway… I want to share with you why this is so important right now because of a meeting I go to on Mondays…
During the meeting they usually ask if anyone has any special annoucements. One very hot girl (guess the fact she is hot has no point here but she was so I thought I would say it cause it’s my blog and all) asked for another member to say a prayer because a friend of her’s overdosed this morning. A guy and I think she said something about it being her best friend. He died. She’s pretty young (as a lot of people in NA are) so I have to assume he is as well. She was crying. Then it hit me. Damn… people die from this problem. I lived so far.
I was talking with another addict outside the meeting later when she said that she has been going to meetings for over 4 years and every year someone in the meetings dies from relapsing and overdosing. Okay, now that really sucks. Yes, I guess I should take the mentality that soliders on the battlefield should expect someone to die now and then but I thought that NA will save your ass somehow.
Now I know that NA is not going to save me but will only be a place for me to help ME save MYSELF. So the question is… and I worth saving? I know some people who would gladly love to put a bullet in my head and then piss in the wound. I also know some people that would be sad that it happened.
I don’t want to jinx anything here by saying that this would be weird if I was the one person to die this year and you are reading the words of a dead man. I’m not depressed today but then again I have not heard from my sister who tells me what a worthless peice of crap I am, so it’s early.
In closing, to those of you who comment on my blog and offer me words of encouragement… I just want you to know that when you did, you became a hero to me. It’s not very often one person can do something to save a life. You are just as powerful as any fireman who saves a child from a burning building. You see, I don’t read my comments immediately. I read them in my email notifications and it’s usually when I am about to start the process of caving in and then using. If I use again, I am pretty sure I will die. The last two comments on my last blog helped me throw out some pills I have been hiding in my drawer in my room. They we’re my emergency backup in case life got too intense. Yes, I am an addict and I’m am really trying to be a normal person for once in my life. I don’t want to be just “another addict who died”.
What does a person do with being clean and being alone? Right about now I would just get high. I mean it’s a sunny day out and because I am clean, I dont have any of my user friends to hang with. This means that when was doing Meth or Coke or even crack, I always had someone to hang with. Mind you, I was alone at times and even when I was alone, all I had to do is do some drugs and then I could relax in front of the TV or computer, completely zoned out. The drugs helped me deal with being by myself.
Being raped by my father for years, the non-stop beatings and additional abuse, had far more damage than just what was happening when it happened. It also meant that I did not excel at anything really in sports or school. It meant that I did not know how to be a normal kid. The end result was the time when I was not being abused, I was like this messed up kid. In those early years when all kids learn to grow up and play with other kids, I didn’t. My friends were kids who were messed up too… not as much as me… but not like the other kids.
My father found many interesting ways to torture me but the ones which hurt the most were the times he betrayed me and embarassed me. Yes, the sexual stuff was incredibly horrible and the beatings and destruction of things I loved was heartless, but the worse part were the things that went much deeper.
So you understand, I want to share with you one of them. I never really like sports so much because I did not understand them and was not physically able to do it. Because of this, I did things that took me away from feeling bad. One day my father was talking about a boxing match that was coming up. He never took me to anything ever. Since he spoke about it several times I thought that maybe, just maybe, he was going to take me. He even asked if I liked boxing and I said I am not sure because I only saw it once. It was violent and I had enough of it in my life. Against all logic and hopes that in some way he would show an act of compassion to me, I somehow got it in my head that he was going to take me.
I bragged about it to everyone I knew. This monster of a person may be taking me to something special. This was it. I knew it. It was the turning point for me and sure enough, I had thoughts that the abuse was over because now he was going to act like a father and not a horrible person. I had hope and for a day or so I started to think about what it would be like NOT to get raped, beaten or and abused.
The night of the boxing match I got home as fast as I could from school and told all my friends I could not go out with them because I was going to the big boxing match. They were jealous and I was proud of it. Finally something in my life was going to go good. I got home and he was there. He had the tickets in his hand. I made sure to be in the room so he could say, “come on let’s go”. Instead, he grabbed for the door and didn’t say anything. I just stood there for a moment. I asked where he was going… thinking he would say “let’s go” and he said he was going to the boxing match with Greg, the boy in the building next to us. He said, “he LIKES sports and wellll you wouldn’t like it… grow up!”.
My heart sank. The light went out in my soul. I watched from my upstairs bedroom window as Greg walked with my father to my fathers car. I watched as they drove away as a few tears rolled down my cheek. I knew then what it feels like to be alone. There is something worse then being alone… it’s knowing that other people DONT want you there with them.
As I got older I did everything I could to please people just so ONE PERSON would make me the first choice, not the last. When it was clear this was not going to happen, drugs made me okay.
Now I am alone again. I don’t know how to make friends. I lost faith in the fact that someone will want me first in their life. Now I’m just living to get thru the days. I wish there was someone out there for me. I’ll be patient. I just be staring out that window waiting. Hopefully one day someone will look up, see me and say, “come on, lets go”.
