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        “Everyone gets a new life on this island. Maybe it’s time you start yours.”                     John Locke                                                                                                                         

Angry, disillusioned, disenchanted…alone. My life was one of isolation. Fear and isolation. I’d look in the mirror—swear to God I would—and ask “How did this happen to a nice Jewish boy like me?”

That was 5,000 days ago. Today.

No one enters recovery on a winning streak. For fifteen years I’d had the answers. Skated through college, stormed through the 70’s.…All the answers. Until I didn’t—until in a world where I’d done no wrong, suddenly I could do no right. For fifteen years. It was a slow slide–to be sure– ignited when my Dad died, jump-started as the marriage fell…but, make no mistake about it, one day I looked up and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again.

My father, you see, taught me everything I needed to know about life except how to live without him. As such, when I stumbled a bit, I was clueless. It didn’t take long, (what with my Dad not there to prop me up), but I’d lost my mojo. Spiraling down, no one patting me on the back, reassuring, I lost too that belief— that resolve that if I just did my best the hits would fall. Somewhere along the road I traded faith for fear and pride for resentment.

So there I was in ’97 with my sponsor Preston. For the first time since the fall of Albert I was hearing NOT the things I wanted to hear, but the things I needed to hear. And for some reason I was listening.

Cocky, sixteen years my junior, he looked me dead in the eye:

“Victims don’t stay sober,” he told me. “And get rid of your resentments. You hold on to them and the only one who suffers is you.”

“Yeah, but—“I started.
“Anything after ‘but’ doesn’t count” he harped. “This ain’t a dress rehearsal. You’ve used up your ‘buts’.”

“Do you believe in God?” he asked me.
“Sure.”
“Do you have FAITH in God?”
I hesitated (‘til he broke the silence).

“Well FIND it. My guess is your God wouldn’t bring you this far just to drop you on your ass right now.”

“God can move mountains,” he told me, “But once in a while you have to pick up a shovel.”

Something clicked that night. In me. It was a light bulb turning on, a shining moment not felt in years. There, in a coffeehouse long since closed, I found a mustard seed of hope and a sense of renewal.

My life turned around that evening and thirteen-plus years later I haven’t looked back. (Nor, for that matter, have I put down the shovel).

Sun Kwon: I don’t think I’ve ever seen you angry.
Locke: [chuckles] Oh, I used to get angry – all the time, frustrated, too.
Sun Kwon: You’re not frustrated any more?
Locke: I’m not lost any more.
Sun Kwon: How did you do that?
Locke: The same way anything lost gets found – I stopped looking.

                                                                  From “Lost”

This entry was posted on Friday, June 24th, 2011 at 2:53 am and is filed under Up From Dysfunction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.