Fall Risk

Best Show I Ever Saw

noreply@blogger.com (mwilliams1220) — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 22:59:47 +0000

(orig published Wednesday, April 7, 2010)

My wife Adrienne is good at making plans. I am not. This has worked out well for both of us, mostly. I spent most of 1979 transitioning from 14 to 15 years old. While I was going everywhere on my bicycle and learning how to shave with a razor, she was creating her life plan: Have children when young, then go back to school and get advanced degrees, ending up teaching college as a tenured professor. By 2006, the children were living independent lives and she had her Master's Degree. It was time. After much searching, she was accepted into the new Gerontology PhD program at Miami University, my alma mater.

Now was the hard part. Miami University was nearly a thousand miles away from our home in Shoreham, Vermont. And Adrienne had certain conditions she wanted fulfilled before starting the last leg of her journey: to not have to work full-time while studying, to live near her school, not be a long-distance learner, and to have me with her. These were big, scary conditions but I had always had complete faith in her. When she told me she wanted me to come with her, I said, "Sure."

We sold our home, left our jobs, our friends, and New England behind to go west. After several days of driving, we arrived at our new home - a cute little house we had bought on Jacqueline Drive, in Oxford, just in time for the Fourth of July, 2006.

One of the things I wanted to find in southwest Ohio was my friend Steve, curious to see how the years had changed us both. His family had moved to Norwalk, settling in the house across the street from mine during our seventh grade year. Neighbors first, then freshman roommates at Miami. Originally from Cincinnati, he had always planned to return to the Queen City, and had done exactly that — settling into a beautiful suburban home with his lovely wife, two great kids, and around a dozen cats. Because I had lost touch, I didn't know any of this. When my parents told me that his mother had died, I took a chance and dialed their old number. His dad answered and, after offering my condolences, asked him for Steve's new contact information.

Getting together felt like no time had passed at all. We were older, married, respectable adults — and within ten minutes we were seventeen again, talking in the shorthand that only survives in friendships that go all the way back to bicycle riding and searching record bins.

To celebrate our return to Southwestern Ohio, Steve got us tickets to see The Blind Boys of Alabama at the Tall Stacks Festival on Cincinnati's riverfront. They were a long-standing gospel group that had been singing together since before World War II. They had performed all over the world with many gospel and secular artists like Ben Harper, Susan Tedeschi and Lou Reed. HBO used their version of Tom Waits’ song "Way Down in the Hole" as the theme song to The Wire for the first two seasons. Already a fan, I had no idea what was coming.

For men in their 80s, these guys rocked with fire and fury that belied their age. Their harsh, nails-on-a-chalkboard voices combined into ethereal, otherworldly harmonies peppered with moans and wails and shouts of joy that felt less like music and more like direct communication with whatever comes next. We were all on our feet, clapping and moving in our separate dances. During a fevered moment of the show, Jimmy Carter, 83 years old, ran into the audience (of course, led by his guides). Standing on a chair above the crushing throng, he praised God for bringing him to Cincinnati to spread the good news.

I heard him say, as if he were speaking directly to me:

Once God opens a door for you, nothing in the universe can stop you from going through it.

And there he was, proof that what many people would consider a disability was actually a tool for a greater purpose. It was a life changing moment.

Four years later, at the McCullough-Hyde Memorial Hospital in Oxford, I was preparing for my 7th IVIG treatment. My world had shrunk to the confines of a hospital bed in day surgery, my home for the next eight hours. While being wheeled into my room, I pleaded with the nurses to not send me home. Despite what I had been told, I knew I wasn't getting better.

A group of nurses entered my room and asked if they could pray with me. Surrounding my paralyzed body, holding my nerveless hands, they looked exactly like angels. Being paralyzed does weird things to your brain.

I thought of Jimmy Carter, standing on that chair out there in Cincinnati, fearlessly praising God, his blindness not a handicap or detriment but a visible symbol of the power of grace.

I was given a taste of grace that day. Candy, one of the nurses, reminded me that life is a journey with twists and turns and this was just a bump on my journey. It wouldn't last forever. That night, our pastor came to visit. As he left, he told us to remember the words, "Right Now." As in, "right now is a good moment," or maybe "I can't do this right now."

That phrase became a lifeline. Every call, every piece of scripture, every "I'm praying for you" was another version of the same gift: right now, I am not alone.

Weird, Wild and Wonderful (Blind Boys of Alabama Transition) - final version?

noreply@blogger.com (mwilliams1220) — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 18:46:35 +0000

Weird, Wild and Wonderful

(Blind Boys of Alabama Transition)

Weird, wild and wonderful – that was my supplication to a God I thought was listening and would answer my prayer as I stood on the hot football field at Norwalk Junior High School in 1983, waiting for my high school graduation ceremony to begin. Sweating under my graduation gown beneath the bright sun, I repeated my plea inside my over heated head, "Please God, I don't know what is going to happen next but let it be weird, wild and wonderful.”

That was my blueprint for the future. Not the most carefully laid out plan, but one that seemed doable. The last hurdles were laid in front of me - spending the summer working on the county road crews, then going off to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. I had spent the first 18 years of my life in the same, safe house on Main Street where I knew every nook and cranny, from the slap-dashed painted garage in the back to all the unique noises the joists and floorboards made throughout the night. I was not so much bored but more like anxious to see what else was out there (whatever there turned out to be).

Five years later, I just barely graduated MU with a degree in English Education. I say just barely because the next time I checked, twenty years later when I returned to Oxford, my low GPA would have prevented me from graduating. Not like that diploma ever did anything other than serve as a receipt for 5 years of tuition. And like my last graduation, the one in 1983, my goal was simple: watch my previous home recede in the rear view mirror before leaping feet-first into the deep end of life. This time, moving to Vermont to "see what happens.” I would never admit the ugly truth — ugly because it barely hid my shame — to my family, the friends I had left, or even myself. Once my short-term job in the Green Mountains ended, I wasn't going back. I had no intention of returning to Ohio to teach middle school English like I had promised my parents.

Proof that the best laid plan of mice and men often go awry. In 2006, I returned to Ohio, with Adrienne, my wife, two dogs and two cats, so she could finish her education by earning a PhD from Miami University.

Not only were we moving to Ohio, but we were going to live in Oxford, Ohio, a place I had never left so much as escaped.

I never was much of a planner. To paraphrase a line from an old Vincent Price movie I barely remember watching early one morning late at night, “Man is like water, open a passage to the East and he flows east, open a passage to the West, he flows west.” That was me alright, restlessly waiting for the world to open a channel for me to pour through.

Vincent Price, Confessions of an Opium Addict

Good Things about Being Home #1

noreply@blogger.com (mwilliams1220) — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 10:50:00 +0000

Good Things about Being Home #1

(originally published March 24, 2010)

The pets were glad to see me. Olivia, the maddest cat in southwest Ohio, has not let me leave her sight since I got home from The Jewish Hospital on Tuesday night. Eloise, the monster dog, dashed around the yard in a paroxysm of joy, pausing to drop her big head in my lap for pets every few circuits. Frannie, our blind cocker spaniel — if God created anything cuter than cocker spaniels, he kept it for himself; tracked me by sound and scent wherever I laboriously moved around the house, her collar tags jangling, her funny little snuffle announcing her arrival. Of course Thor, the Fat Bastard in feline form, just gave me his half-lidded "Oh, were you gone?" look and went about his business.

At night, I would be lulled back to sleep listening to Frannie snuffle and wheeze in her bed next to mine. After four nights in the noisy hospital without my canine white noise machine, it was reassuring to hear her again. I had been in the hospital for five days being tested, diagnosed, and treated for what the neurologists thought was Guillain-Barré Syndrome, an autoimmune illness that leaves its victims paralyzed — sometimes to the point where they can no longer breathe unaided.

Since the summer of 2009, I had been praying for God to make me a better man, to show me how to help others instead of serving myself. God had always given me what I had prayed for; the problem was I prayed for petty and selfish things like a black leather jacket, a fancy European car, or to meet a pretty girl who would get me high. Despite receiving all those dubious gifts, I was still, at heart, miserable. Maybe I was looking at the problem from the wrong end of the telescope. One morning, as I prayed in the parking lot of the JCC, I decided to ask God, as I understood God at that time, which was not very well, to free me from the bondage of self so I could better do God’s will. I had no idea what was coming.

Good Things About Being Home #1 (Transition piece)

noreply@blogger.com (mwilliams1220) — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 10:48:00 +0000

Good Things About Being Home #1

(Transition piece)

When we first arrived in Ohio in 2006, I had no job and no plan — which will surprise no one who has been paying attention. To support myself, I was a substitute teacher for several school districts, so I spent most days driving from Oxford to Cincinnati, Eaton, and even west into Indiana. As a traveling sub, the work took me to urban schools and rural ones, wealthy districts and poor ones — a cross-section of southwestern Ohio I never would have seen otherwise.

On the days I wasn’t subbing, I was visiting job services, looking for regular employment. As the first school year ended, I found work for a real estate business that prepared titles for transfers. What a shitty job that was – an hour-long, stressful commute through rush hour traffic to go to a stressful job I probably was not very good at followed by another hour in the same traffic going home. One day I said to a coworker, “Ever wish they would fire you so you don’t have to work here any longer?” And what do you know, that afternoon right before time to punch out, the temp agency called and told me not to come in tomorrow. I was grateful and as I left, I thanked the boss for giving me a chance and felt bad that it hadn’t worked out.

In a curious twist, as I was driving home, before I had begun to worry, my phone rang with a sub job for the next day. The school year had started and once again, I was gainfully employed. I subbed again through the fall and into the following spring. Out of nowhere, I got a call about an application I didn’t even remember submitting, for a job teaching basic computer skills to senior adults at the Mayerson Jewish Community Center in Cincinnati.

I worked at the Mayerson JCC from 2008 until I was hospitalized in 2010. While the job environment could be stressful, again with a punishing commute, I found teaching adults how to check their email, surf the web and open attachments much more satisfying than researching titles. I was also encouraged to develop my own programs, so I created basic classes, intermediate classes, a photography club, and helped create a “check-in” phone service, where seniors called other seniors just to make sure they were okay. Because my program was funded by grants, there was a constant threat of the grant being pulled if the organization that supplied the funds was displeased, so there was always that layer of tension in the air. Nonetheless, I think I did pretty well.

Working at the Mayerson provided a level of professional fulfillment I had never experienced before. One of the things I was most proud of was the program I created where we paired Jewish high school students with Holocaust survivors to use Google Earth to chart their experiences during the Holocaust. Many JCC members had been relocated to Cincinnati after surviving Nazi concentration camps, Russian imprisonment, and life in the ghettos of Germany and Poland. One woman, who was still a high school student, smuggled in food and medicine because she was assigned to a work detail that allowed her to briefly exit the heavily fortified ghetto walls. Another woman left Europe with her mother and went to Palestine, before it became Israel. She met her husband while fighting in the violent battles over Israeli statehood. She brought pictures of her husband to the JCC and showed us the bald spot on his head from a Molotov cocktail that had dripped fire on him while he was throwing it. In doing this project, I learned a lot about not just history but what surviving impossible times actually looks like.

But that season was not meant to last. Shortly after Christmas in 2009, I began to notice a persistent numbness and tingling in my legs. This was the onset of an illness that would divert the flow of my life into a dark channel. What follows is the first blog post I wrote after my initial hospital stay.

Introduction to a book I will never write - Warm Bodies (2013)

noreply@blogger.com (mwilliams1220) — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 15:54:00 +0000

Introduction

Early spring of 2013, I was sitting in a movie theater and as the lights came up, tears began running down my face. I didn’t know why, but the film we just watched had reached into a place I didn’t know needed touching.

Warm Bodies, a 2013 zombie romance, set in a post-apocalyptic America, was part of the zombie renaissance inspired by AMC’s long running Walking Dead series. That gritty show, where survival was the ultimate crucible of humanity’s ability to thrive, posited that other humans were a greater threat than the cannibalistic revenants themselves. While humans fighting legions of the undead among the ruins of society as social criticism was far from a new thing (George Romero’s 1978 Dawn of the Dead is kind of the king of that scenario), the Walking Dead pushed living dead themed entertainment from niche audiences to much wider cultural acceptance.

Since the show’s inception in 2010, a wide variety of genres found themselves crossing over into zombie-survival mode. Movies like Warm Bodies, One Cut of the Dead, Life After Beth, Anna and the Apocalypse, and Maggie salted emotional dramas with the same flesh-hungry, undead ghouls and social commentary that Romero introduced to viewers. The living dead were essentially a MacGuffin, a plot point to prop up the real, personal story behind the gory mayhem. Sometimes humorously, sometimes painfully anguished, all these movies told relatable stories of grief, dysfunctional family dynamics, and teen angst.

Although never reaching the elevated horror status of films like Train to Busan or The Girl with All the Gifts, Warm Bodies, directed by Jonathan Levine, is an imperfect film — vacillating between lukewarm and tepid — that nonetheless touched me deeply. The arc of living-dead R (Nicholas Hoult) regaining his humanity, leaving his monstrous, flesh-eating self behind, moves quickly. While there is no shortage of action, attachment to the characters is hard to come by. As the zombies chase humans and fight amongst themselves and the skeletal, scary über-zombies fight everyone, the main relationship between the polar opposite love interests R and Julie (Teresa Palmer) lacks cohesion. Other than inheriting the memories of Julie’s ex, Perry (Dave Franco), by eating his brains, there is little attraction or chemistry between the lovers for the viewer to latch on to, making R seem more like a frightening stalker and Julie his too willing victim than two star-crossed lovers.

So, why did this mediocre horror-comedy have such a powerful effect on me? The short answer: at that point in my life, I was R. I didn’t realize it until the house lights came up, but I had been watching a reflection of my own return to the living. Between a chronic, debilitating illness that left me paralyzed and in pain, the unfathomable grief of losing my daughter, and the searing, soul-searching agony of recovering from suicidal drug abuse, the person I thought I was had been derailed. Life had hollowed me out. It had brought me to a threshold where I had to either succumb to the void or, like R, begin the ugly, awkward pursuit of something better.

I got asked to make a video

noreply@blogger.com (mwilliams1220) — Mon, 21 Sep 2020 21:34:00 +0000

Freedom Through Recovery, a local sobriety community asked me to make a video about What Recovery Means to Me.

Five Year Update - The Words of My Mouth

noreply@blogger.com (mwilliams1220) — Mon, 27 Jan 2020 12:50:00 +0000

Well, heck, it has been a while. I am fine. Really, things are good. We moved to Georgia, I got sober, went back to school and now work in IT for the local school district.

God has been good.

Recently we have been attending the local Unitarian Universalist Church. Last Sunday's service was devoted to discussion about Christianity and I spoke. Being able to address the congregation was a wonderful experience, but what was truly amazing was the process of putting into words things that I had never said before. Here is what I said:

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Psalm 19:14

Faith is not a destination, it is a journey that changes me as I travel. I grew up in a church-going, Methodist family that prayed before meals, “God is great, God is good and we thank Him for our food. By his Hands we all are fed and we thank the Lord for our daily bread.” As a child, I learned that being a Christian means being grateful for God’s abundant bounty.

Today, it is more important is to honor what Jesus said in Matthew 22:35-40. He said that the greatest commandments were to, one “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…(and the second is) You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” He wasn’t saying these are two separate commandments. The second one, to love your neighbor, is the expression of the first, to love God. Because just like me, all of us belong to God.

Looking back at the blessings I gave thanks for as a child, I have come to believe they were not rewards given so that I may have a comfortable life. In the Parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus explained all humanity is one big neighborhood and we are responsible for helping each other. The blessings I receive now are tools, loaned to me, based on my spiritual fitness, with the condition that they be used to love my neighbors so that they will know God loves them.

The Simple Prayer for Peace, often referred to as The Prayer of Saint Francis, offers excellent instructions for me:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me bring love.
Where there is offense, let me bring pardon.
Where there is discord, let me bring union.
Where there is error, let me bring truth.
Where there is doubt, let me bring faith.
Where there is despair, let me bring hope.
Where there is darkness, let me bring your light.
Where there is sadness, let me bring joy.
O Master, let me not seek as much
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love,
for it is in giving that one receives,
it is in self-forgetting that one finds,
it is in pardoning that one is pardoned,
it is in dying that one is raised to eternal life.

As a child, Christianity was about receiving. As an adult, my faith is about passing on the precious gift that I have received both as gratitude to the ones that gave to me and as service to the ones that need it.

Five Years Ago today (March 19th, 2010)

noreply@blogger.com (mwilliams1220) — Thu, 19 Mar 2015 13:27:00 +0000

I didn't know what I had until it was gone.

Thank you, dear Creator, my Higher Power, God, Lord and Savior for giving me back my life.

Dear CIDP, a letter to my illness

noreply@blogger.com (mwilliams1220) — Thu, 28 Aug 2014 16:40:00 +0000

Dear CIDP, Usually, when I think about what I would say to you if you were a person, it usually involves some anger-fueled profanity. But today, it is with gratitude that I think of you.

"you probably think that I hold resentment for you
But uh uh, oh no, you're wrong
'Cause if it wasn't for all that you tried to do,
I wouldn't know Just how capable I am to pull through
So I wanna say thank you
'Cause it:
Makes me that much stronger
Makes me work a little bit harder
It makes me that much wiser
So thanks for making me a fighter
Made me learn a little bit faster
Made my skin a little bit thicker
Makes me that much smarter
So thanks for making me a fighter"
(Yes, I know this is Christina Aguilera, but we have lots of stuff in common.)

March 19, 2014

noreply@blogger.com (mwilliams1220) — Wed, 19 Mar 2014 21:31:00 +0000

To celebrate the four years that have passed since I got sick and went into the hospital I

-practiced standing unassisted on rocking boat in the ocean

-rented a bike and pedaled around the island of Key West.

-thanked God for doing for me what I couldn't do for myself.

-thanked Him again for the people who held me up and for the ones that loved me when I couldn't.

Six Months

noreply@blogger.com (mwilliams1220) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:20:00 +0000

I got my six month chip today. To celebrate, I am doing a Cut and Paste Blog:

Famous Beer Quotes!

Beer and the quotes it has helped create over the years...
I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the
morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day.
-Frank Sinatra
The problem with some people is that when they aren't drunk, they're sober.
-William Butler Yeats
An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.
-Ernest Hemingway
Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.
-Ernest Hemingway
You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.
-Dean Martin
Drunk is feeling sophisticated when you can't say it.
-Anonymous
No animal ever invented anything as bad as drunkenness - or as good as drink.
-G.K. Chesterton
Time is never wasted when you're wasted all the time.
-Catherine Zandonella
Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
-Ambrose more...

source: http://www.jokebuddha.com/Sober#ixzz2ROjom9y7

Sunday Gratitude

noreply@blogger.com (mwilliams1220) — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 15:48:00 +0000

In the last week I washed the car, mowed the lawn, trimmed the edges, moved a bunch of dirt, built another garden box and moved it, dusted the house and swept the floors.

I've been so busy trying to get this stuff done that I forgot it wasn't that long ago I couldn't do them.

The bill for this physical activity has been coming at night, when the cramps and spasms. Poor Adrienne, the other night she woke up to me pleading, "Help me!"

It is easy to think that being pain-free is a right, when it is really a privilege. Same for mowing the lawn and the other things I mentioned in the first paragraph. I love that I can do these things, including having a rough, painful night without narcotics.

I feel so good right now.

1097

noreply@blogger.com (mwilliams1220) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 13:22:00 +0000

...days since I last worked.

On the plus side, I am feeling much better now, thank you.

Three years ago (yesterday) was the last time I worked and the first time I was hospitalized with CIDP. I hardly think about those days any longer, other than to be grateful they are behind me.

I celebrated by buying some clothes online this morning. Because, evidently, it has been more than three years since I bought any new clothes.

Did I mention I have begun looking for work?

Can't sleep

noreply@blogger.com (mwilliams1220) — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 05:13:00 +0000

I just had the craziest dream. I was 13 years-old and in seventh grade, in English class with some friends of mine-a couple I know from the program. We were not liked by the teacher, she stuck us up in a corner behind some things to isolate us from the class. We tried our best to keep up with the class. I knew this stuff for some reason already.

The teacher forgot to give us the same worksheet that the rest of the class was working on. Since we didn't know her name, I went to the front of the class to ask her for copies of the work. As I walked forward, I started to grow up. By the time I was close enough to talk to her, I was ready to take over the class. Mainly because one thing I know how to do is keep a roomful of seventh graders quiet and in their seats.

Weird, huh?

Anyway, I have been even more lax in writing than usual lately. Here are some pertinent points:

Passed my 90 day mark. 90 days is significant because now we start counting months of sobriety, days no longer.

On the eve of my ninetieth day I was on the floor of the emergency room bathroom throwing up from the pain of a kidney stone. At around 10 I got to see the doctor and explained to him that I was an addict in recovery, so no narcotics for me. They gave me this stuff called Toredal, a “super” anti-inflamatory.

It didn't work.

The effect was like setting fire to a book of matches then trying to put it out with spit..

Even though the pain was horrible, I was worried about compromising my sobriety. I have a problem with narcotics and was afraid to go back into that room. By 3 am, after five hours of struggling with the pain, I was exhausted. I could also feel I was starting to panic: it was getting harder to breath and I could feel my heart beating wildly in my chest. “Fuck it,” I thought, “They make white chips (to start or restart your sobriety) everyday.”

So I literally begged the ER doctor for something stronger. They gave me a shot of Dilaudid and admitted me.

While in the hospital I turned in a job application for an assistant librarian position here in town (my dream job). But yes, I think I am ready to find some work.

BTW I called my sponsor first thing the next morning. He was very reassuring as long as I am under a doctor's care, I did not break my sobriety.

Pretty good vacation

noreply@blogger.com (mwilliams1220) — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 14:08:00 +0000

I am doing this in the back of a moving car, on my phone so it is not going to be pretty.

We are taking Matt and Mercedes to the airport for their trip back to Vermont. Their 10 day visit was really good and all concerned are sad to see it end.

Last night Matt told us that he is seriously considering accepting our offer to move in with us. That would be awesome. I am sure part of that is because he wants to use the amazing workshop he created in the garage.

Picture to follow of that.

We spent the Christmas Eve and Day hunkered down in our grinch cave, wishing that time would pass faster. Gratefully, there were meetings for us to attend.

But when Matt and Mercedes showed up, it really felt like Christmas. That feeling continued throughout their visit because everyday we got to open a present.

60 Days

noreply@blogger.com (mwilliams1220) — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 14:44:00 +0000

There has been much that I have learned in the last 60 days, but I am still having trouble organizing my thoughts.

I guess the biggest thing I have learned is that "My worst day clean and sober is better than my best day using" is not such a cliche after all. I had a shit ton of great times being high and doing cool stuff. But, even at the very best of those times, I knew my search for the BBB would begin again.

BBB stands for Bigger, Better Buzz. Even my best times, what ever they were, I was worrying about the good feeling ending and what I could do to prolong it, recreate it or make it better.

I am glad to be free of that. It is freeing to be here, now and not thinking about what I need to put into my body to improve this moment or make future ones better.

The other day I found a picture of Eloise as a puppy. Her ears are sticking up and she has this really goofy grin on her face..At the bottom, I wrote "Right this moment, I am happy."

Eloise is my personal clown-dog

Sobriety doesn't always make me happy, but it does give me what I need when I need it, which is only in this moment.

30 Days

noreply@blogger.com (mwilliams1220) — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 15:15:00 +0000

30 days since my last drug. Woo Hoo!

The 5,6,7,8s were probably one of the best rock and roll bands EVER

I had been trying for days to remember what we did for Thanksgiving last year (or Christmas, but maybe it will come to me). I didn't know if we stayed here, were someplace else or what.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving and I was grateful to be sober.This is not the life I saw for myself.

The Best is Yet to Come

noreply@blogger.com (mwilliams1220) — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 13:37:00 +0000

I got this in my inbox today:

" Shame and guilt left unaddressed can paralyze us, preventing us from moving forward in our lives. Some of the most meaningful amends we can make for the mistakes of our past are made simply by acting differently today. We strive for improvement and measure our success by comparing who we used to be with who we are now.
Being human, we will continue making mistakes; however, we need not make the same ones over and over again. By looking over our past and realizing that we have changed and grown, we’ll find hope for the future. The best is yet to come."

The less I try to make things fit into my preconceptions, the more they make sense.

noreply@blogger.com (mwilliams1220) — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 20:49:00 +0000

Two things that people often tell me are that I have low self esteem and that I make things too hard for myself. So, when I saw that the next group was going to be on shame and guilt, I prepared myself for a grim and fruitless struggle with my guilty conscience knowing I would never be free from the bondage of my shame.

When I think about my shame and guilt, it is through a lens of what (I think) a healthy, normal person would have done, not someone with the disease of addiction. That is how sneaky it is; we addicts are more comfortable seeing ourselves as mean spirited, lying, manipulating, stealing, evil minded selfish monsters than admitting we are sick people. People who, if we were in our right minds, would never have done the messed up stuff we did while in our addiction's sway.

And it was our loved ones that got the worst of it; their love and trust was a great resource for helping feed our addictions. But that addiction is an illness. Instead of attacking on a cellular level like other illnesses, addiction clouds our judgement and makes us susceptible to making bad choices.

Emotions like guilt and shame are useful only because they warn us that other people can have real consequences of our behavior. In order to stop me from hurting other people, I built a jail and lined the walls with my shame and guilt.

Our facilitator asked if, since we got clean, were we still doing shameful things? I can honestly say that in the last 24 days, I have not. I did those shameful things because I am sick, not because I am a bad person. I am a pretty decent fellow, capable of loving and being loved, respecting of others and worthy of their respect.

Alcoholics and addicts in recovery strive to change their behavior first, then their thinking. Next, we are urged to "clean house" by examining our old bvehavior, especially those behaviors that affected others and making amends to them.

I have been sick for a long time, not just the last few years. My drinking and drug use has always been irresponsible since I was 19 (the drinking age in Ohio in 1983). One of the things that has motivated me these last 3 weeks is that I have 20 years of amends to make.

In movides and TV,when ever some goes into recovery from addiction, they immediately begin to make a series of awkward and insincere amends. They are apologies are for their benefit only, "I don't want you to be angry at me any longer." or their amends are simply thinly disguised resentments.

Right now, I am working to get better. Until then, I won't be able to process and appreciate my responsibility in my actions. Only then, will I feel worthy of asking you for forgiveness.

Until then, every day that I don't use, I get stronger and my disease gets weaker.

Lost

noreply@blogger.com (mwilliams1220) — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 11:40:00 +0000

"No one's ever lost forever

When they die they go away

But they will visit you occasionally

Do not be afraid

No one's ever lost forever

They are caught inside your heart

If you garden them and water them

They make you what you are"

from the song "Lost" by Amanda Palmer and the Grand THeft ORchestra from the album Theater is Evil

Baby Punching

noreply@blogger.com (mwilliams1220) — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 00:10:00 +0000

After the election, I saw that America had made a definite step towards legalizing marijuana . Personally, I have always thought that our laws about marijuana were archaic, expensive and had nothing to do with protecting us from ourselves. It was kind of cool to think aobut an America where dope was legal (and, what the hell, taxed) until I realised that I probably would not be joining in the celebration.

Then I was mad. Here it was, two weeks after I stopped using, and my dreams of legal highs were taken away. For my facebook status, I posted that I was angry enough to punch a baby.

I remember when people used to tell me that they never knew what I would say next. But I had been so busy trying to people please, hide my addiction and everything else, that saying outrageous things where no longer a part of my life. It was good to see a glimpse of the old me.

I said, "Yes! Yes! Yes!"

noreply@blogger.com (mwilliams1220) — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 19:32:00 +0000

There were no beds for me at the local detox place, so I ended up doing it from the "comfort" of home. Mark Renton, the heroin addict protagonist of Irvine Welsh's novel Trainspotting, describes the relationship between opioids and ourselves as floating on a beautiful sea:

"This internal sea. The problem is that this beautiful ocean carries with it loads ay poisonous flotsam and jetsam... that poison is diluted by the sea, but once the ocean rolls out, it leaves the shite behind, inside ma body. It takes as well as gives..."

I consider myself fortunate that my withdrawal only lasted about 72 hours, 60 of them on the toilet. But when I woke up on the fourth day, the second thing that popped in my head (the first was a realisation that I didn't have to run to the bathroom) was "Oh no, I have to be sober all day!"

That was a week ago Monday. I spent the day dashing form metting to meeting, talking to everyone at the meetings I could, making phone calls, etc. Their responses were unanimous: Go to rehab.

I miss Amy Winehouse

Actually, what they told me was that getting into a program was an invaluable asset to their lives. I don't think that "You need to do this!" or "You need to do that!" statements are much a part of AA and NA thinking.

It took another assessment and a doctor visit, but I started yesterday. I am required to go to 12 hours of groups per week, work one on one with a therapist there, be seen by the big kahuna every Monday and Friday, submit to random drug screens and have my sheet signed at AA and NA meetings.

It is not as arduous as it sounds. In fact, the hardest task is remaining open minded and honest. I went to a men's group today and when the therapist announced that pain was going to be today's subject, there was a deafening "Guk" sound as we all tried to swallow our emotions. But it was a safe place and we all listened and shared supportively.

There is a lot more that I want to write about, but I am getting very tired now, that ole' CIDP is still asking for its sleep tax.

Update

noreply@blogger.com (mwilliams1220) — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 09:53:00 +0000

It has been five days since my last narcotic. I just finished my first night good night's sleep in nearly a week. When I say good, I mean pain free (without drugs).

Now what am I supposed to do?

The bed at a detox never appeared, but I got it on medical advice that I was pretty well through it. Detoxing is a physical process where the body begins to readjust to live without massive chemical influx it has been deluged with for X amount of time. It is different from treatment or rehab (I learned).

Detoxing is relatively brief compared to the longer hospital stays for treatment. I have heard some people share about being in their second year of treatment. I realized I was unclear about that in my last post (as I was in my own head).

Which brings the fact that there is a lot about this process (I guess I can call it recovery?) that I do not know.

I found this yesterday, seems apropos:

N.A. 3rd Step Prayer

Take my will & my life,

Guide me in my recovery,

Show me how to live.

Decisions Decisions

noreply@blogger.com (mwilliams1220) — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 14:08:00 +0000

I ran into Ella's favorite groomer yesterday. She greeted me with a smile and told me she had a dream about me recently. I said that women always tell me that (leaving out that it is usually in nightmares).

She had something very serious on her mind that she wanted to share about a big decision she had made. With the support of her fiance, she was quitting her job. She had faith that this was the right thing to do, but it was scary because she did not know what the next step would be. "It might be the worst decision I ever made," she said.

I don't usually talk about program adages with non-fellowship people, but recently I had asked in an Al-anon meeting about making difficult situations, so I had an answer at the ready: we make decisions all the time and if it turns out we made a bad one, we can make a new one. She thanked me by saying that was just what she needed to hear! Imagine my joy!

See, I have been feeling really low (and agitated, and anxious and depressed with insomnia...) lately. Right now I am waiting on an open bed at a detox facility here in Statesboro. I made that choice after spending several days going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings (and saying those famous words, "My name is Michael and I am a drug addict and alcoholic.") EVERYONE I talked to says the same thing (this includes drug and alcohol counselors, doctors, nurses, and plenty of people who have been where I am now): for my safety, I should go in-patient to a medically supervised detox facility.

How I got to that point is not important and I am tired of telling it to everyone anyway. Suffice it to say that my dependence on my prescribed, narcotic painkillers has gotten far enough out of hand to scare me. My drug addiction not only was affecting me physically and mentally, but my loved ones.

I had started the process of trying to control their use months ago when I went to the pain specialist. It did not help and all my other attempts to control them. All these had one thing in common (besides failure): Me, acting alone.

Time to call in reinforcements. Once again, I am powerless and need help, not just for my health, but also to repair my life and mend the damage I made in other's lives.

The Moon is Beautiful

noreply@blogger.com (mwilliams1220) — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 09:10:00 +0000

4:30 in the morning. It is nice and cool outside, I can see the quarter moon from my back porch over Georgia Highway 67.

A year after Natasha died, I decided I didn't want to be crazy any longer. Coincidentally, it was also at 4:30 am that I had this epiphany.

I started going back to Alanon meetings. At last night's meeting the topic was acceptance. Halfway through the meeting, I shared that, so far, we had been talking about acceptance in terms of alcohol and the alcoholics in our lives, straight from the first step. But I was thinking about the Serenity prayer. In the first third of it, we say God grant me the serenity to accept the things we cannot change.

Acceptance is a gift. And it is a gift that we constantly have to ask God for. I quit asking after Natasha's death. It was too painful to revisit that everyday, sometimes many times in one day. I felt I would be better off just struggling through. It was not that I thought I could do it better on my own, I just didn't think I could do it at all.

That was kind of like turning up the radio, rolling down the windows, flooring the gas pedal and taking my hands off the steering wheel. As much fun as it is to do that, it never ends well.