Reconstructing Rick

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”.