Guest post by Adrienne Carlson.

It’s worse than the fattiest of foods in making you fat, and it’s more lethal than most diseases in sending you to the hospital; in fact, stress is one of the most dangerous enemies of good health. All of us are subject to stress in some form or the other as we go about our lives, but only a few of us are skilled at managing this curse without letting it affect us physically and mentally. While a small amount of stress is necessary to get our adrenaline flowing and keep us on our toes, too much of this and we end up paying for it heavily. Because stress is a regular part of life, we need to know how to cope with it rather than try to avoid it. And to this end, here’s how you can do exactly that:

1. Don’t keep it bottled up inside: When something bad happens and you feel heavy inside, it’s best to let it out. Some people find that crying is therapeutic while others prefer to talk to someone they trust. Yet others feel better after they vent their feelings on someone or something – they scream or bang a door to reduce the stress they feel inside. Whatever works for you, find it and use it to deal with stress and get it out of your system.
2. Know how to relax: Learn to leave the office at the office and your personal life at home in order to prevent the stress associated with one from spilling over into the other area. You end up losing your peace of mind in the process. Practice mental techniques that help you compartmentalize your life and deal with each separately. Know what helps you relax and unwind after a stressful day or experience – you may find music soothing or prefer to read a book. Either way, the choice is yours, so find something that helps you clear your mind and sleep peacefully.
3. Learn to let go: If there are issues in your life that are not to your liking or problems that you cannot seem to solve, learn to let go. Sometimes, things have a way of clearing up by themselves. So if you know that you are helpless in solving a problem, don’t attempt to solve it at all. Forget about it so that it does not compound to your misery by keeping you stressed out all the time.
4. Reduce your expectations: There are times when high expectations lead to stress, especially when they involve relationships. When your expectations and desires are not met, you tend to feel stressed and tense, and this makes you irritable. Instead, lower your expectations and learn to be satisfied with what you have instead of wanting more and more.
5. Accept what you cannot change: There are some situations that you cannot change and some people who never will. So instead of grumbling and complaining all the time, accept them for what and who they are. This helps you avoid a whole lot of unnecessary stress.

It’s not easy dealing with stress, but when you condition your mind to do it, it becomes more of a habit than something that is difficult to achieve.

By-line:
This guest article was written by Adrienne Carlson, who regularly writes on the topic of physical therapy assistant schools. Adrienne welcomes your comments and questions at her email address: adrienne.carlson1@gmail.com.

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Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking. – Albert Einstein

This quote kind of seems to fly in the face of everything we’ve clung to for years, doesn’t it?  But before we write Albert Einstein off as a quack, let’s really think about the truth of this quote.  We all know how important creative thinking is for mental fitness.  When we stop thinking for ourselves and stop trying to figure things out creatively and on our own terms… we’re in serious trouble.

Never allow yourself to become so enthralled with reading (or, well, anything for that matter) that it’s your only source of “input”.  Never become so engorssed in your daily reading (newspapers, blogs, e-mails, magazines… even Dean Koontz) that you forget to think for yourself!  Make it a point, each and every day, to exercise the  creative corners of your own mind, don’t just rely on the fruits of other’s minds.

Begin keeping a journal or even start a blog!  If you already have a blog, post articles more often – even if it’s giving your opinion on a particular subject.  You’ll be getting in touch with your own thoughts and with your own creative side and I can’t tell you how much your brain will love you for it!  The brain thrives on new things.  When you read for hours upon hours, you may think you’re feeding your brain everything it needs when, in fact, you’re lulling it to sleep and boring it to death!

Is reading bad?  No way!  Not even close.  However, many people fall back on reading and “obtaining” information – they rely entirely on reading to strengthen their brain.  Big mistake.  We have to be interactive with mental fitness.  Below are a few ways to strengthen your brain and give your mind the workout it actually craves.

• Learn new things.  Push yourself to learn how to do something new.  Don’t just read about new things – experience new things.  Reading is wonderful and, by no means, should you cut it out of your daily activities.  However, for true mental fitness, you need to actively pursue new activities and physically DO and/or CREATE new things.
• Keep a journal.  Don’t just read what others write, get on the other side of the words.  It’s a wonderful way to exercise your creativity.
• Work jigsaw puzzles.
• Work Sudoku puzzles.
• Work crossword puzzles.
• Take up a new sport.
• Take different routes to/from work.
• Take up a new language.
• Learn to play an instrument.
• Take up cooking!  Watch the food network, buy some cookbooks, and get in the kitchen and amaze yourself.
• Go new places – don’t just read about them!

Also, an extra note about reading:  If the books you read are all fiction, you really aren’t doing your brain any favors.  I love a great novel – I’ve read just about every Agatha Christie book as well as most by Dean Koontz, Nicholas Sparks, and John Grisham – however, keep in mind that these books are more entertainment than they are educational.

To really give your mind a great workout, you have to be more interactive with life – not just read about it!

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This is pretty cool… you have to try this.  It takes just 2 seconds, but I promise you’ll get a kick out of it.

This particular brain game (or challenge?) It is from an orthopedic surgeon and it’ll boggle your mind.

1. Right now, while sitting at your desk in front of your computer, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles.
2. Now, while doing this, draw the number ‘6′ in the air with your right hand.
3. I’ll bet your foot changed directions without you telling it to!  I also bet that if you’re anything like me, you’ll try it again at least once before you leave this site.

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One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this:  To rise above the little things.  – John Burroughs

The quote above is a lesson in self improvement, self help, stress management, health, and happiness.  I think everyone should write this quote down on an index card and place it in the place they’ll see it the most often – on the refrigerator, by your desk, on your bathroom mirror… Small things (like the ones listed below) simply aren’t worth getting riled up over:

• A leaking faucet.
• Finding yourself low on gas.
• The cost of gas.
• A driver who pulls out in front of you.
• A barking dog.
• Having to run to the store for butter or milk.
• Your team losing a game.
• The server not bringing your refill as quickly as you’d like.
• A slow internet connection.
• And so on….

Think about it – these things are so trivial, they’re almost funny!  Yet how many times do people get hot and bothered over these very things… and often things even sillier.  Recently, my husband and I were eating at an Outback in Nashville, Tennessee (Amazing food!).  A group came in and were seated in a booth, by the window no less.  One of the women got ticked off because they didn’t get to choose their own booth.  There were only a handful available anyway!

If a person can get to the place where small things barely even register a response from them, they’ll be happier than they have ever been.  What’s more, they’ll experience stress so rarely that they’ll think they’ve been given a new lease on life. We spend a great deal of emotions needlessly on small things.  Then when then the larger problems arise – we don’t have much left in our tank.  The larger problems overwhelm us because we’re spent!

Start challenging yourself to handle life’s small disappointments and setbacks better.  Amaze everyone around you by smiling and even laughing when something cooky happens.  Several great things will happen: You’ll feel happier and more relaxed.  What’s more, anyone who sees you handling life’s little annoyances this way will think, “Wow. I want to be more like that!”  Before you know it, you and everyone you know will enjoy a much happier and calmer life.

Worth trying, right?!  The next time something starts to register on your stress scale, take a deep breath.  Then ask yourself, “What if this is the worst thing that happens to me this week?”   The diminutive nature of the problem will leave you amazed and probably even laughing!

Make each moment count double,
~ Joi

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Last night, I put a kettle of water on for a cup of hot green tea before heading off to bed. If you’re familiar with green tea, you know that it’s best to “catch” the water just before it actually starts to boil. So I stood by the stove, cup in hand – waiting for the water to reach its “green tea” temperature.

As the water slowly heated and brought itself to the proper stage, it reminded me of stress. Sometimes it’s the little things that add up to a boil, isn’t it? The misplaced keys in the morning, the rude server at lunch, the ridiculously slow internet connection, the check that didn’t come in the mail….. again!…. and so on. These small things heap themselves together and cause a slow boil.

We’ve all been there. Even the most laid-back, easy-going person in the world understands stress. Ironically, those of us who are ridiculously laid back may have it worst of all. We tend to allow things to build up until we can’t see in front of us.

The easiest, fastest, and most effective stress reliever in the world is…. drum roll, please…. laughter. That’s it. Laughter is, indeed, the best medicine! The benefits of having a really good laugh are wide-ranging and can even include protection from depression. Laughter can even improve the health of your heart.

Laughter and a sense of humor guard you against the negatives of life that could lead to depression. During the last years of his life, my dad endured horrendous medical procedures, illnesses, hospital visits, surgeries, and setbacks. His illness would have sent most people into the deepest, darkest depths of depression. Fortunately, this man had been born with one of the wickedest senses of humor in the entire history of the world. Somehow, he managed to see the humor in everything. He would have his nurses, doctors, and the rest of us in stitches – all while lying in a hospital bed hooked up to IVs and feeling completely miserable. Daddy went to a pain specialist once who told my mom that the sort of pain my dad had would leave most people in tears. Yet he never felt sorry for himself, never asked “Why me,” and never gave in to pity or depression.

I believed it then and I believe it now – laughter buffered my dad from the cruelty that life can sometimes throw our way. His sense of humor protected him. Had it not been for laughter, his illness would have taken more than just his body. As it was, he kept his joy for life and didn’t allow his sickness to take that away.

Laughter also helps those of us who aren’t fighting a physical battle. Having fun with life keeps your spirits up and helps you feel better about yourself and your life. When you keep your sense of humor, things that bother most people simply don’t faze you.

Laughter is also considered to be healthy for your heart. Research shows that when we laugh, there’s an increase in oxygen-rich blood flow in your body, possibly due to the release of endorphins. This creates a chemical rush that cancels out negative feelings and stress. Other activities that increase endorphins are working out and listening to music.

Adding More Laughter to Your Life
So, you agree with everything you’ve read and there’s only one problem… you don’t feel like laughing?!!? Don’t despair just yet. If what you’re up against (family problems, money worries, school problems, work trouble, sickness) has left you with anything but a smile on your face, I want you to focus on one thing right now: Getting it back. Think of your sense of humor and laughter as being important weapons you’ll need in your fight, because that’s exactly what they are.

Ways to bring laughter into your life:

• Read the comics.  Garfield, Dilbert, Rose is Rose, and Peanuts are always good for a smile.
• Turn on a funny sitcom.  Roseanne, I Love Lucy, Andy Griffith, Sanford and Son, Friends… whichever tickles your funny bone.
• Either go to a funny movie or rent one.   Ask around and see what movies other people recommend.  A few that have had me in stitches have been Knocked Up, Kung Fu Panda, Juno, Coming to America, Napoleon Dynamite, Liar Liar, Borat…
• Watch Dane Cook’s “Vicious Cycle” – preferably without food in your mouth. You’ll choke laughing.
• Hang out with someone who never fails to make you laugh.

I’d honestly go so far as to suggest watching a sitcom regularly.  Choose at least one and watch it religiously.  Bringing more laughter into your life helps you to look at the world on a lighter level and, therefore, puts a smile on your face and laughter in your throat more often.  That is always a good thing.

Make each laugh count double,
~ Joi

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For far too long, mental illness has been stigmatized and those stigmas have served as a barrier to innovation.  Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s “Rethinking Mental Health” competition offers an opportunity for new ideas outside the traditional structures to emerge.

What can you do to participate? Simply go to http://www.changemakers.com/en-us/mentalhealth to do any of the following:

1.  Comment on entries from others like you who are deeply concerned about this very important issue and want to get involved.
2. Enter the competition and share your own idea for improving mental health.
3. Nominate an inspired idea or project.
Please note that you will have to create an account on the Changemakers website, but it is free to do so and will only take a minute of your time. Entries and comments can be submitted until October 14th.  A panel of judges will then select 10 ideas that the Changemakers community will vote on to select the top three. The Changemakers collaborative competition winners-the three finalists that receive the most votes-will be announced on December 16, 2009 and will each receive a cash prize of USD $5,000. As important as the three winners, however, is the dialogue that occurs about mental health and that as many great minds as possible come to the table with fresh thinking and new solutions.

For more information, please visit http://www.changemakers.com/en-us/mentalhealth.

I hope you’ll get involved – for one thing this is an ingenious idea, one that could help countless people live better, more productive, happier lives.  For another, I’d love to see you win the money!  Hmmmm, in fact, I wouldn’t mind the money myself – I want a new treadmill pretty badly….

I’ll see you there!

Make each moment count double,

~ Joi

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What is Cognitive Decline? Cognitive Health refers to the health of our brain.  Cognitive decline, therefore refers to the decline, or worsening of  this health:  Forgetfulness, “senile moments…”

The most important thing you should remember today is this, forgetfulness is not a normal part of aging. If you or someone you love are in their 5os, 60s, or beyond – it’s a fact that  you  should remind yourself of regularly.  One in four older adults DO, unfortunately, experience Cognitive Decline but it is not a normal part of aging.

Think of it this way.  If you go into McDonald’s on a Saturday afternoon, 1 out of  every 4 kids may be overweight, but it isn’t just “part of being a kid.”  It’s the result of too much fast food and too little activity!  Ironically, the very things that contribute to an overweight child in McDonald’s can contribute to an adult experiencing Cognitive Decline.

I’ve recently read several articles pointing fingers at a typical fast food diet as being hideous for one’s brain (as well as their body).   Apparently fries are the main culprit – that’s nothing that any of us want to hear, is it?

When it comes to things we can all do to prevent experiencing cognitive decline, physical activity is always at the top of each expert’s list.  Simply become more active!

It doesnt’ matter if you’re 16 or 60, you should be more active than you currently are.  You’ll feel better, think better, look better, sleep better – live better.  Where’s the down side?  I’m very, very fortunate to live in an area where I can get out and walk or ride a bike each and every day – or night, for that matter.  I’m also lucky to have a built in walking and biking partner – my oldest daughter, Emily.  We serve to spur one another on  and I can honestly say I’d be up a creek without her.  It’s just not as fun to walk alone.

If you aren’t lucky enough to have a built in walking companion, here are a few suggestions.  When school starts back up and Emily is gone during much of the day, I’ll be resorting to these as well.

• If you live in a safe area, just lace them up and take off – even if you’re flying solo.  If  you’re used to walking with someone else, the quiet may be deafening for a few minutes.  Just fill the quiet with plenty of loud thinking… thinking’s almost always a good thing!
• When you go to the store, take several laps around the entire store before you actually grab what you need.  You can actually sneak in a 30 minute walk each time you visit your favorite department store.  During the winter, I always see “regulars” getting their walking in at our local Wal-Mart.
• Walk at the mall – countless people do, especially in the morning.
• If you live near a safe park with a walking trail, take full advantage of it.
• If you have several errands to run – park as far away from each stopping point as possible.  Every step counts, after all.
• And the number one tip I can  think of for getting more walking exercise?  Get a dog! (IF, of course, you are a dog lover and have every intention of giving her a great home.)  A dog will keep you honest!  You’ll find yourself making certain that she’s treated to her walk each and every day, whether it’s warm, cold, rainy or sunny.  In the process, of course, you’re treating yourself to the activity you need as well.

For your mind and body, make “Get Moving!” your new favorite phrase.

Make each step count double,
~ Joi

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This morning I went about my normal, blissful, much-beloved morning routine. I fed my inside cat, Alexa. I fed my outside cat Ming Li and tried to catch a site of Ming Li’s kittens and baby daddy. The daddy (Jet Li) was nowhere to be found, but the adorable babies were running amok.

Then I came back inside to pour myself and my husband some Heaven – also known as coffee. None of our daughters are ever awake at this point, and they look as cute sleeping now as they did when they were 4, 3, and 1.

My beautiful, picturesque morning came to an end when I remembered what was at the top of my “To Do” list for today. I glanced at the notebook I keep such lists in and could have sworn I heard thunder clap and demons shriek as I opened it up to today’s list. Sure enough, there at the top was the task that I was dreading. I won’t bore or frighten you with the details – besides, unless you’re a web publisher/designer you wouldn’t fully grasp the horror.

Suffice to say, the task that lies before me is one that summons up all of my attention, all of my mental resources, all of my courage… oh, it sucks a gravedigger’s big toe, okay? The left one.

It’s a particular task that I swore I’d never do again because it’s so tedious. It’s a completely different detour from the path my days normally take and, frankly, I love my normal path!

Alexa and I were both glaring at the list when I remembered a quote by Anais Nin: Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.

Oh. Okay.

Then as I was getting my mind around that quote, another one came to mind: Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow. – Ronald E. Osborn

That’s a good one, isn’t it?

The next time you’re up against something that’s intruding upon your blissful, happy, comfortable setting – thank it for its arrival. It bears good fruit.  Self Growth generally doesn’t happen when we’re comfortable.  It’s when we step out of our comfort zone that our potential to grow escalates.   So, I guess it should be something we welcome rather than try to dodge?

Make each moment count double,
~ Joi

More quotes about self growth can be found in Self Help Daily’s Inspirational Quote collection. But be careful, they’ll affect you in a powerful way!

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On Self Help Daily and TMFC, I have “Subject Request” forms because I don’t want to research and write about what interests ME – I want to write about what interests YOU.

A popular request is for information or tips on how to be  happy.  A recent request came from a lady who included the paragraph you’ll find below (I asked if I could use it because I know others will recognize themselves, in varying degrees, in her words.  I changed a few details – such as the states.)

It seems like I have forgotten how to be happy.  I should say first off that I am not in menopause and Idon’t have empty nest syndrome. I am happily married.  I am in my early 30s and have 2 sons ages 8 and 13.  They do well in school.  We have 2 cats that are my “girls” – they keep me company when all of my guys are away.  In fact, sometimes I prefer their company to the three loud boys!  My husband and I both work and we make a decent living.  Some have more money than us, but most probably have less. Money just isn’t an issue.   We get what we can, we do without what we can’t.

I don’t have family problems, health problems, or money problems.  Shouldn’t I be happy?  But I am not.  I cry a lot.  My husband wants to go places and I don’t want to go.  He wants to go to the movies each week, but I don’t want to.

Here is my problem. When I think of my dream life, this is not it.  I want to live back up north again.  I am from Minnesota and loved it there .  About 4 years ago, we moved to southern Texas because of my husband’s job and we have lived here ever since. And I just hate the heat.  I miss the snow and cold wind.  I miss my sweaters and coats.

I always picture all of us living in a cabin in northern Minnesota, on a lake.  I dream of sitting by a fireplace.  And I dream of being happy again.  I feel mad and cheated that I can’t be happy.  My sons and husband love it here because they get out and play baseball and soccer all the time. My husband coaches them.  I don’t even go to games because it’s so hot.  Then I get mad at them for going and for being happy.

I am tired of crying and tired of being b!tchy.  I have forgotten how to not be this way.  Please help me, I am miserable.   – Miserable in Texas

A lot of times, I’ll read article requests or e-mails from people that will seem so heartfelt and riddled with pain that they make ME want to cry.  This particular letter certainly got to me.  While reading the note, I was already feeling horrible, but when I got to the part where she says, “I have forgotten how to not be this way.  Please help me, I am miserable.” – my heart broke.

Miserable in Texas (not the actual state, by the way) is making the same mistake that a lot of people make:  Theyspend so much time looking at how they wish things were (their dream life) that they develop a grudge against the way things are (their reality).  Sadly, they often develop a grudge against the person they hold responsible – in this case, the husband.

In many situations, visualizing a certain thing can be helpful.  For example:

• When trying to lose weight, it’s a great idea to visualize how you’ll look when you lose the extra pounds.
• When painting, a lot of artists will visualize how the painting will look when it’s through.
• Many salespeople will visualize themselves making a sale before they even approach a potential client.

When you are physically working toward a goal or end result, thinking about your victory is a positive practice to get into.  However, when you are “stewing” over a particular situation – thinking about the way you wish things were is something different altogether:  It’s poisonous.

The only thing these poisonous thoughts do is set you up for a fall as soon as you snap back into reality.  And I have to tell you, sometimes it’s an absolutely beautiful reality that your thoughts are poisoning!  Such is the case with this particular lady.

If you are allowing your “dreams” to interfere with your reality, I urge you to recognize the thoughts for what they are.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with having dreams – we all have them.  I have a few that I know perfectly well will never come true.   Does that stop me from occasionally thinking about them?  No, of course not.  But I know not to dwell on them to the point that they lessen my life as it is now.  I love every inch of  my life – even the dusty little corners – and I would never allow anything to cast a cloud over my happy life.

“Miserable in Texas” also stated that moving back to Minnesota is completely out of the question.  She said that her husband’s job is extremely secure and that, especially in this economy, both of them leaving their job would be something they wouldn’t even think about.

If the situation were different, I might advise her to start looking for ways to get her overheated self back to her sweaters and fireplace – but, as it is, my advice is to learn to love the southern sunshine!  Besides, her family loves it – taking them away from a place they love could be considered selfish.

Learning to accept things you may not necessarily love is one of the most reliable routes to happiness.   Being discontent and dissatisfied are stumbling blocks along the route – they’ll trip you up every single time. Being happy is as much a decision as being physically fit.  You have to truly want to be happy.  If you get “set” in the role of being unhappy (either as a punishment to someone you blame for your situation or simply as a habit), you will, in fact, nearly forget how to be happy.  Snap yourself out of your rut!  Life is too short to spend wearing a long face and driving everyone away.

First of all, look at your life and find all of the wonderful things you’ve been taking for granted.  They’ll knock your socks off!  If you have people you love around you, you should feel like the king or queen of the world. Smile every time you see them and never, ever take them for granted.  Truly, can you imagine life without them?!

Second of all, get out there and enjoy life.  Stop sitting on the sidelines thinking about how you wish this were different or how you’d be happy if only that were different…  You’re wasting time and energy and, well, you’re making a perfect donkey out of yourself!  If your spouse wants to go to a movie, go and buy the popcorn.  If your children are playing a baseball game, don’t you dare miss a single pitch.    If your beagle is chasing a squirrel, join in the fun (but, please, help the squirrel get away!)

Never get stuck in a rut of sitting around feeling sorry for yourself and thinking about how you wish things were.  You owe it to yourself and to those around you to get your nose out of your  fantasy world and to make the most out of your real world.  If you  aren’t happy and you’re making people around you unhappy, you aren’t making the most out of  anything.

I don’t care what the weather is where you live – get out and live your life out loud.   Walk in the rain, lay out in the sun, throw snowballs, wash your car, walk your dog, play with the water hose, and on and on.

Life is beautiful irregardless of where you live or what you’re wearing.  Dress yourself up or dress yourself down.  Layer on to stay warm or peel off to stay cool – but whatever you do….   suit up and enjoy the ride.  The key to happiness can’t be found looking at everything you don’t have – it can only be found when you’re looking at (and loving) what you do have.

Always remember, when you hug life, it hugs you back.  Every single time.

One final thought:  You will always, always, always be happier if you put the happiness of other people ahead of your own.  If you spend time going out of your way to bring happiness and joy to people around you, you’ll be far happier than you ever thought possible.

Make each moment count double,
~ Joi

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3. Defining Success and Happiness – On Your Own Terms The following is a guest post I’m happy to publish...

Click the link below for an excerpt from what should be a wonderfully written memoir. It’s from the new book What’s Left of Us by Richard Farrell. The book will be available on Amazon June 30.

Personal accounts such as this make for the most informative, helpful, and touching reading. After all, the author has lived the life he or she is writing about. It doesn’t get any more passionate than that. Click through and enjoy the first chapter and watch for What’s Left of Us on Amazon in just a little over a week.

WHAT’S LEFT OF US
By Richard Farrell

Chapter One: Breath of God

The Acre wasn’t pretty. You’d never see it on the postcards sold at the corner drugstores in downtown Lowell, Massachusetts. The Acre wasn’t big. Nobody had grass in their front yards–just black tar that formed the alleys separating the houses. The Acre wasn’t rich. Most families had only one set of good clothes set aside for Sunday’s Catholic mass. The Acre was entirely segregated from the rest of my birth city. But it was still the best section of Lowell to grow up in if you were Irish.

The Acre was nothing more than a two-mile triangle of Irish who had formed a wall of self-protection. The homes were mostly triple-deckers–cold-water flats. Irish families had settled in Lowell years before to work in mills or build canals. All of them had escaped the horror of starvation on the streets of Ireland and found their way to Massachusetts. Compared to the Irish Famine, Lowell offered a promise of prosperity.

Smack dab in the middle of the Acre stood St. Patrick’s Church where my uncle Joe Farrell had hoisted the steeple during the Roaring Twenties. It was the same St. Patrick’s Church that my grandfather, Richard Farrell, checked the doors of every evening at midnight as he walked his beat as a Lowell police officer, the same St. Patrick’s Church where my father and mother brought me and my brother every Sunday as kids, where I’d received the blessed sacraments of baptism, confession, first communion, and holy confirmation.

St. Patrick’s School was directly opposite the church’s parking lot. Two generations of the Acre’s children had been educated there, from poor to poorest. It didn’t matter how much money you had. There were only two prerequisites–you had to be Irish and Catholic. It was staffed by Notre Dame nuns who were known for their propensity to ask questions after they’d already used the ruler on your knuckles. The principal, St. Claire Joseph, expelled me in the seventh grade for entering after hours because my friends and I had to use the bathroom.

Adam Street cut a line down the center of the Acre and separated the school from the North Common. The North Common was the place where my father forced me to practice walking heel to toe so I wouldn’t be a cripple. For the Irish elders who’d sit for hours on a warm summer night talking about the old days, it was more than a giant park. It was their St. Steven’s Green in Dublin. In the early days, the North Common hosted football games on Sundays in the fall. Two to three hundred people would show up to watch the Irish kids play the Greek kids who had settled in the lower Acre. It was always a bloodbath. There was no football, just full-contact tackle with an old, gray sweat sock stuffed full of leaves.

But by March 1987, the Acre that I remember was no more. The Irish moved out in the seventies. Some became educated and wanted more for their families. The majority was swallowed up by “white flight.” They moved their families to predominantly white suburbs not more than a few miles from the Acre. Then Puerto Rico began importing their criminals to Lowell. The Acre was poor, old, and close to downtown–the perfect place for drug trafficking and prostitution.

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I am a heroin addict. My life is limited to three concerns. The first thing I gotta figure out every morning is how to get a bag of heroin into my arm no more than ten minutes after I wake-up. If I fail, I’m dope sick. The cramps inside my lower stomach go on a full-scale attack. I can’t stand. I can’t walk. The diarrhea squirts out like a water hose. But I’m damn good at getting high now. I hardly ever stay dope-sick long.

The second issue is drawing a “hot shot” or a “beat-bag.” The majority of heroin in Lowell originates from New York City. Puerto Rican gangs bring it here by the kilo. The drug dealers on Adam Street who package the heroin from one pound bricks into grams and half-gram are no Einsteins. They cut the heroin or add fake shit to stretch quantity for profit. Some dealers cut it in half and double their money. Most use quinine, which gives the bitter taste, and an Italian baby laxative called Manatol because its fine white granules have almost the identical weight of pure heroin.

So picture this, four of five Puerto Rican males in a poorly-lit room with the combined education of maybe the 8th grade, whacked on heroin or cocaine, drunk on port wine, with about fifty or sixty small piles of white powder lined out on a old door top propped on two twenty-gallon plastic paint containers being used as a cutting table. You don’t have to be a fuckin’ rocket scientist to figure out they ain’t gonna be able to get the proper distribution of cut to heroin every time. Too much pure heroin in a half-gram package equals a “hot shot.” You’re history, because five minutes after the rush your heat stops. Too little or no heroin in a half-gram package gets you dope-sick.

But my major concern on Adam Street is “cotton fever.” I’d rather be dope-sick all day than get what the Puerto Rican junkies down here call “cotton shot rush.” It’s when a dirty piece of cotton fiber used to filter the heroin makes it into your bloodstream. The sweats and shakes that ransack your body are nothin’ compared to the fire under your skin. I’ve watched junkies do everything imaginable, cry hysterically, beg to die, boot two additional bags of heroin and overdose just to kill the sickness. A doctor in the emergency room once told me it comes from bacteria or fungus on the cotton, and not the cotton itself. To me the argument is pointless, you get “cotton shot rush” –it doesn’t matter from

where it came from.

Heroin is not a cold-shake like cocaine. The impurities used to cut heroin need to be cooked off in boiling water before you shoot it intravenously. Down here we all do it the same, bite the heroin package open carefully, taste it, gag or dry heave on the bitterness, empty the heroin into a cooker, (either a spoon or the bottom of a tonic can), draw 50cc of water into the syringe, fill the cooker until the heroin drowns, and light a match.

After you see tiny bubbles dancing in the cooker you place a small sliver of cotton or a piece of a cigarette’s filter into the liquid. With one hand firmly steadying the cooker, the tip of the needle is guided into the cotton or filter with the other hand. The plunger is moved upward slowly by biting firmly on to the tip and moving the head upwards. If all goes well the syringe fills with about 20cc of heroin. The task of hitting a good vein is next. And nobody down here takes the time to wrap a belt around their arm and whack the skin over a vein. That’s fuckin’ Hollywood. If you make it to where I am– you’re an expert at veins. After contact, you watch your blood snake into the syringe, you pull the trigger, hot liquid moves quickly up your arm, your heart tingles, and you feel an immediate rush of adrenaline guzzle your brain in one swift sip.

From there it’s a crapshoot. Most addicts don’t carry sterile cotton balls or Q-tips in their back pocket. If you’re lucky you have access to a clean filtered cigarette. But most of the time you have to find a cigarette butt on the ground, in an ashtray, or a garbage barrel. “Cotton shot rush” is perfect example of life as a heroin addict. You live for the moment. If it happens, it happens. But there is no mistaking it when it hits. Ten to twenty minutes after you pull the trigger it whacks you like you’re in the third day of the flu virus. The ears give it away: if they start to ring you’re fucked. Pressure begins to mount on each side of your temple like a vise squeezing slowly together. Sweat pours off your brow but at first there is no temperature associated with it. The shakes progress quickly to trembles. Chills hit immediately after and the body’s temperature spikes to over 102. Sometimes the brain fogs and things appear that aren’t there. I’m not sure why some cases are more extreme than others. On occasion it can last only an hour, most times it resolves itself within 12 or 24 hours. But if the bacteria takes up residency in your heart and you don’t seek medical attention, you’re dead. I roll the dice about a dozen times a day.

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Each morning I do what all the other runners down here on Adam Street do: I lurk in the doorways, dodge the police, jones, and wait for addicts to drive up and buy their morning dose. Now Adam Street isn’t safe. And only one rule counts–the strong survive. The drug trafficking goes on all night long without a break. There’s routine police surveillance, nothing big though. Every shift the cruiser drives by just to let us know they know. But for the most part the drug trade is in your face twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

I wasn’t always a homeless, jobless, low-life heroin addict. Once I was a good kid, an altar boy for Farther Muldoon right here at St. Patrick’s. I went to the YMCA as a young boy and played basketball, baseball, and football. And I was a pretty fair student–but school bored me. I think it had something to do with the fact both my parents were teachers.

When I was thirteen, my family moved out of the Acre into the wealthiest section of Lowell: Belvedere. Dad wanted the best for his kids and the Irish no longer owned the Acre. All the old Irish families had moved to the suburbs or better sections of Lowell. The Farrells had become engulfed by “white flight.” My dad said the Puerto Ricans would eventually overrun all of the good old Irish neighborhoods.

Our house was very modest compared to the houses on the hill behind us. The view from the back porch of our brand-new home was a sixty-room castle belonging to a billionaire, Mr. Lions. He lived with his wife, a chauffeur, two maids, a cook, and a groundskeeper. To the right of the castle was a forty-room-plus mansion owned by Dick Donahue, a former legal counsel to President Kennedy. He lived inside with a beautiful wife and eleven children. Every morning, I’d look out the bathroom window as I peed. No, we weren’t in the Acre any more.

My brother Sean and I had it all–friends, a giant yard in which to play tackle football, and five-speed bicycles. Sean was ten-and-a-half months older than me. We were Irish twins, born in the same year. I was born with cerebral palsy. Or that was what my parents had been led to believe.

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Back in 1956, Doctor Griffin, a specialist at Children’s Hospital in Boston told Dad I’d never be able to walk normally. I’d been a breech birth; my feet came through the birth canal first. The doctors told my father and mother that several minutes without oxygen had caused permanent damage. They said the muscles in my right arm and right leg would atrophy unless I exercised them daily. They said I had cerebral palsy. Dad couldn’t accept any kid of his being a “cripple.” He forced me to run everyday. And five days a week, I’d exercise with free weights in my basement–just to be “normal.” By the time I got to high school the sport headlines of the Lowell Sun read, “Crippled at Birth: Farrell Now Grid Star.”

My parents were both teachers. Mom taught sixth grade at Edith Rodgers Junior High School in Lowell and doubled as a waitress, carrying trays in the evening at Valley’s Steak House in Andover. Dad taught Honors English at Lowell High School, and every Tuesday and Thursday he taught English to the Puerto Ricans who had come here for a better life.

They both worked two jobs so Sean and I would have more than they’d had in the Acre. Sixty hours a week for each of them so we could live in a white split-level home with a brick front and two-car garage–Dad’s side had an automatic door opener–all sitting on a quarter-acre of land in the best area of Lowell.

I cannot pinpoint any one incident that brought me back to Adam Street. I’m not entirely sure how I went from being a well-off Belvedere kid to a homeless addict. All my dad ever wanted out of me was to play football for the Fighting Irish at the University of Notre Dame. It was his dream that drove me from my early teens into my last year of high school. I became a football star for my Dad. But an illegal chop-block one Saturday afternoon in late fall ended that dream. My team was about to defeat the state champions. There was just under 2 minutes left on the clock. They had possession of the ball. My coach signaled me to blitz the quarterback, not allow him to set up and complete a long pass down field. I anticipated the snap of the ball, shot the gap, and was in their backfield untouched. But three things happened at the exact split-second: my left hand reached for the quarterbacks shoulder, my right foot planted firmly on the turf, and the helmet of the fullback trying to block my clear path cut out my right knee from the blind-side. Pop, like a giant overstretched elastic, the insides of my knee exploded.

After that day, I had seven knee operations to remove torn or floating cartilage, one operation after another, in an attempt to correct complications from the previous one. Those surgeries introduced me to prescribed pain medication. I fell in love with what those little pills accomplished inside my head. All my pain, emotional and physical, disappeared.

I had let my Dad down. I had let myself down. But it didn’t matter while I was high on pain medication. My mornings began with pain pills and my days ended with them. I was physically and mentally addicted.

From there, my life aimlessly bounced around until I fell into an exploding real estate market of the early 80s. In no time at all, I was worth half-a-million dollars by the time I was twenty-one–owned a two-family rental unit, a two-family owner-occupied in Belvedere, and an eight-acre farmhouse in Pelham. It seemed I had everything, and no excuses. But the injuries from football got me addicted to drugs, and the night I watched my father die, and everything else that happened, sent me on a path to heroin.

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“Yo, yo! Heroin, cocaine. Dimes and nickels.”

Ten or twelve Puerto Ricans surround an oversized, sparkling-green, new pick-up truck. I just sit, too dope-sick to fight through the crowd. At this point I know my addiction is overtaking me. No longer can I get by on shooting two or three bags a day. Now I need a bag of heroin every two to three hours just to keep my muscles from cramping into a thousand small knots. Everybody’s pushing and shoving to be the first to sell a bag. The competition is cutthroat. You see, the dealers sitting comfortably upstairs in the houses give us a free bag of heroin for every five bags we sell. A bundle of heroin, ten bags, cost the dealers $100 bucks. The runners sell it on the streets for $30 a bag. I once saw a guy stabbed smack-dab in the middle of his eye in a pushing match to sell a $30 bag.

“Richie Farrell? I’m looking for Richie Farrell!” A little round squash of a head pops out the window of the truck. A white guy.

“Richie, man, the man axen for youse,” one of the junkies yells.

I stand up in the doorway, a little shaky. My eyes don’t want to focus.

“Beaver?” My eyes adjust slowly to the light. “You crazy bastard. What you coming down here for?”

Robert Billson is his real name. He’s maybe fifty-five, a skinny, bald, tough little prick with pointy buckteeth. He played hockey at Boston University and then some professional in Canada. He and my dad taught together at Lowell High; that’s how I know him.

I know why he’s come and I’m kind of glad to see him. But I have to act for the boys. I have to pretend I’m angry. This is my turf, my life, and Beaver’s new truck and white skin threaten my survival.

Beaver is a born-again Christian, but not really. I mean he believes in Jesus Christ and all, but swears like a Hell’s Angel. He’s the complete opposite of what you think a born-again Christian would be. Beaver is more like a guy you’d meet on the corner barstool of a local bar complaining about everything that’s wrong in the world. His wife, Inga, is Norwegian and the sweetest person I know besides my mom.

He has two grown sons. I’m convinced that after my dad died two years ago, Beaver took me on as some kind of penance for the sins he committed raising them. He and my Dad were a lot alike really, cut from the same cloth. Both of them could explode in an instant. One second you’d see a saint; blink your eyes and there’d be Lucifer.

“Richie, I’m going to a meeting and wanted to bring you!”

“A meeting,” I say. “What kinda meeting?”

“Meeting!” Somebody in the crowd begins to taunt.

“Well, it’s just a bunch of people sitting around talking.”

Beaver looks a little nervous. I have to figure a way to get us out of here without him getting robbed and still be cool.

“No, no thanks. No meeting, but you can buy me some food and a beer.”

I wink at Beaver and walk swiftly to the passenger door. It’s cool to go with somebody for food. The Spanish churches in the area always come by with their vans, pick up a group of us, take us back to their churches, and preach the gospel while their women feed us. I can’t understand a lick of Spanish, but the rice and beans are good.

“Drive.”

Somebody kicks the side panel of the truck and an almost-empty beer can bounces on the seat of the cab behind us. Beaver’s face tenses; he shoots glances from one side to the other.

“Drive,” I say in a careful but determined voice.

“Those fuckin’ scumbags. Who the fuck do those no-good scum-sucking cowards think they are?” Beaver says driving away.

I want to tell him, Beaver, one of them killed two men in Puerto Rico, the other raped a twelve-year-old girl, and another cut out a white guy’s tongue for calling him an asshole. But I don’t. It’s just not good for your health to talk about these things to anybody.

“Beaver, you gotta be careful down here,” I say. “These ain’t nice people. Where we going?”

“Church, man,” Beaver’s eyes begin to smile. “Praise the Lord!”

“Sure, Beaver, Alleluia.”

“Shit.”

Beaver reaches for a tape on the seat next to him and jams it into the deck, some holy music. It makes me sick. My head starts to pound, like a balloon inside is expanding and contracting.

“We are a new generation, the chosen people.” Beaver sings off-key, making it twice as hard to listen.

The church is in Littleton, a suburb southeast of Lowell, a half hour drive away. Am I glad when we pull into the parking lot. I’m so car sick, the nausea is starting to overtake me. The moment the door opens I puke my most recent beer all over the side of Beaver’s new radial tires.

Beaver lets me use his handkerchief, and then I follow him to the door, down the back stairs, and into the basement. Shit, more singing. Only this time there are twenty or thirty white people who look just like Beaver. Fine-looking people who just have something in their eyes, something that says, “I’m not all there.”

“Sit down up front, Richie,” Beaver says.

No, no, I can’t sit up front. But I do anyway–right next to Beaver. This lady, about seventy, with jet-black hair stands right in front of me banging and shaking a tambourine. Inside my head, it sounds like whips snapping against my eardrums. Every couple of minutes, between songs, she wipes away a line of black sweat dripping down her forehead. I can’t tell whether she uses shoe polish for hair dye or whether her face is just dirty. My eyes can’t focus on the others. I try, but I just want to crawl up inside my ass and die.

Finally, it stops and Beaver walks up to the front and stands silently while he reads his Bible. Nobody speaks. I think about running for the door. But I’m too sick, so I pray to the God I had learned about at St. Patrick’s School.

“Please God. Get me the fuck out of here,” I say quietly.

“Praise the Lord,” Beaver yells.

“Praise the Lord,” the people yell back.

The bells in my head start to ring again. Somehow I know God isn’t going to answer my prayer.

“Alleluia! Alleluia!” they volley back and forth for what seems like ten minutes. Every once in a while I hear an, “Alleluia, Jesus!” And then they start another round of “Praise the Lord.” The old lady starts jumping up and down, and a round guy with a short-cropped, gray crew cut strums on an old wooden guitar. His horned-rimmed glasses are too small for his head and sit halfway down his earlobes.

“Stand up, brother,” somebody says.

But by this time, I can’t see a thing and I’m bent over in a fetal position. I don’t know who grabs my arm and pulls me to my feet. It just comes, the moment I stand up. Projectile vomit.

“Praise the Lord!” the old lady shouts.

Beaver comes to my aid with a towel somebody has thrown him. I open my eyes long enough to see the guitar player trying desperately to wipe my puke from his strings.

“Please, please,” I try to speak.

“Come on, brothers and sisters,” Beaver says. “Extend your right hand to this young man. Let’s come against those demons, in the name of the Lord.”

One more time they chant. The room starts to spin and the whole joint smells like regurgitated beer. I fight not to vomit, gulping and dry heaving. They pray so hard they don’t hear me scream, “Shut the fuck up.” The old lady just keeps smiling and wiping away the rivulets of black running down her face. All I remember is losing everything, feeling like my guts are coming out of my mouth, and then I hit the floor. God has answered my prayers–everything goes black.

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I wake up three feet from the ceiling in somebody’s top bunk. I could swear my Aunt Phyllis has just left the room; it’s weird, like when you aren’t sure whether you’re in a dream or reality. Aunt Phyllis was blood. She gave me my first blowjob when I was twelve. She’s dead now, but I often dream of her lips.

“Good morning.” It’s Beaver’s wife, Inga. I guess I’ve been dreaming. I have no idea how long Inga has been in the bedroom watching me sleep.

“Where’s Beaver?” I ask.

“He’s in the prayer closet, Richie. He’s been praying for you all night. You’ve been quite sick. You’ve slept almost an entire day.”

“The prayer closet? Where’s that?” I ask, climbing out of bed and jumping to the floor.

Inga is tall and stately looking with a jaw that reminds me of Kirk Douglas’s. She’s in her early fifties. The gray in her hair has turned it a different shade of blonde. And even after twenty years in this country, she still has a Norwegian accent. I start to get dizzy as the blood rushes from my head. Inga grabs me and holds me close. I see real motherly compassion in her eyes. But she’s also extremely good-looking. I’m thirty and right now twenty years isn’t so far apart.

“Are you okay, brother?” Beaver says, dashing into the room.

I move away from Inga quickly, a little embarrassed, void of any thoughts or feelings. Beaver just takes my arm, helps me down the corridor, and sits me comfortably at the kitchen table, where coffee, juice, and pastries are already waiting for me.

“Come on, Richie, eat. You’ll feel better,” he says.

I want to but can’t. My body beginning to jones again. My gut wants a nice rainbow bag of heroin, not cheese Danish, cranberry nut bread, or croissants. I sip the coffee and the orange juice, which hurts the back of my throat.

“Can I call your wife, Richie?” Beaver asks. “Let her know you’re okay? Where you are?”

“Na, na,” I say anxiously. “She don’t give a fuck. Oops, sorry.”

Inga snickers and tries to say something, but Beaver cuts her off. I swear she’s going to make a joke about Beaver’s foul mouth. He is the only one allowed to use that language in the sanctity of his house. Everybody else who cusses is a sinner.

“Richie,” Beaver says seriously, “your wife loves you. She is just very, very hurt by your actions.”

“Fuck her.” I grunt. “Oh, shit.”

I’ve done it again, slipped up. I don’t even think about it. Inga bursts into laughter and has to leave the kitchen. Beaver’s squash turns pink and his lips pucker.

“Come on, now. Don’t be an asshole,” he says in a coaching way.

“Beaver, do me a favor. You’re a great guy. I appreciate everything you’re trying to do for me. But leave her out of it.”

I can feel myself getting hot. The muscles in my calves begin to spasm, and if they could talk they’d be crying for heroin. I have to make a plan, otherwise I’ll soon be dope sick and nobody will be safe.

When I get dope sick, I turn violent. And I’m scared where that violence could drive me. First a cold sweat turns the hair on the back of my neck into a dripping mop. Then I get cramps in my stomach, aching mad, screaming for somebody to help. A knot twists my calf muscles into a gnarly ball on each step. Tighter, tighter–holding, squeezing my sphincter muscles so I don’t shit all over myself. And the whole time knowing that giving in will end the riveting, twisting, gnawing fire in my large intestine.

“Why, Richie? Why leave her out? She’s your wife, the mother of your children.”

Beaver’s preaching now, getting defiant. Just like my Dad. I remember a Good Friday when I was eighteen. I’d just come home from a workout at the YMCA. Only moments before, Dad had woken from his daily afternoon nap. He was tired and grumpy–sitting at the kitchen table eating ginger snaps and chasing them down with Moxie, a tonic Dad always said you needed to acquire a taste for. But I never understood how anybody would want to learn how to drink something that was comparable to mixing molasses and kerosene. I opened the refrigerator door without speaking–nobody talked to Dad unless he talked first.

“You go to confession?” he grunted.

“No, I believe my sins are between me and God,” I responded, gulping from a gallon of Lipton iced tea.

I was stupid. I’d let my guard down. You never took Dad out of your peripheral vision. Seconds later he tackled me on the kitchen floor. We wrestled for a good five minutes. He wanted to murder me over Catholic ideology. Each time he swung the Moxie bottle at my head, it spilled suds all over my favorite Fighting Irish T-shirt.

Beaver’s ranting and raging forces me to remember who I really am. Now I have the excuse I need to inject a bag of heroin into my bloodstream–to kill the pain of remembering that I’ve let down my family. Each sip of coffee is just a reason to scan the room, looking for something, anything small I can slip into my pocket. Something I can pawn that’ll be worth thirty bucks.

“Please, Beaver,” I say. “I don’t want her knowing nothing. She’s outta my life.”

And the kids too?” he asks.

That hurts. I love my two boys and I hate my wife, Louise, even more because she can have them. I cry every morning and evening when I think of them and I’m not high enough to forget.

“Well?” I shrug. “Life sucks, right, coach?”

Right there in front of me, with Jesus hanging on the cross off the kitchen wall, Beaver goes ballistic. He throws a half-drunk coffee toward the sink, splashing coffee all over the red-checked wallpaper.

“You stupid motherfucker. You don’t get it, do you, son? You hate, son. You need the Lord Jesus Christ to fill your heart with love. Don’t you understand, asshole? He’s the only one who can free you of that bondage of hate and heroin. You must die and be born again!”

Beaver jumps up, runs to the sliding glass door, and almost separates the door from the runner. He pushes the screen out trying to open it and takes off, as if he knows he has to get out of there or he’ll kill me.

I guess the Holy Spirit has changed Beaver. My Dad would have punched me in the face. I don’t even look up. The guy might be out of control, but he’s the least of my worries. I’m jonesing big time and any minute now all the rules are going to change. Anything and everything is fair game.

The bathroom is the first place to visit. Every house has leftover pain medication. Nine times out of ten, somebody’s gotten hurt once and the doctor’s prescribed Percodan or even Tylenol with codeine. Sane people, most of them, follow the directions: take one every four hours for pain or as needed. In that case, there’s always some left over in the medicine cabinet. The pills are my only answer. They’ll calm the jones so I won’t do anything bad. They’ll save me, Beaver, and Inga until I get a bag of smack. I figure if Beaver is anything like my Dad, I have about twenty minutes before he turns back into a quiet, loving man again.

I hear the shower running when I’m halfway down the corridor to the bathroom. The door to the bathroom is open. I have to take the chance. Inga sings softly but loud enough to cover my footsteps. I’m in luck; she has the water scolding hot. The steam is so thick it forms a large cloud that seems to swallow the solid glass door. I’m safe. I cannot see her so I know Inga won’t be able to see me.

The medicine closet over the sink doesn’t squeak. My eyes scan it quickly as Inga’s voice sounds like an angel’s behind me. If Beaver comes back, I’m dead. Shit, a hit. I slip a bottle of Percosets gingerly into my hand. I don’t bother risking shutting the door, just glide gracefully out into the corridor. There are six pills left out of twenty-four. Jackpot. I pour a glass of water at the kitchen sink, see Beaver heading out of the shed in his backyard, swallow all six, and hide the empty bottle behind a cookie jar on the counter.

“Richie!” Beaver begins fixing the screen back on the runners. “Still sitting in the kitchen?”

I swallow a few gulps of cold coffee and nod my head as I watch him trying to bend the bottom runner back so it will line up with the screen. Inga has returned in a pair of white tennis shorts and a T-shirt. Her hair is wrapped in a towel. She cleans the table, smiling and singing the same tune.

“Richie, I’ve been thinking and praying out there.” Beaver has finished the door and pulls a chair next to me at the table.

I nod, waiting both for him and the Percs to kick in.

“Richie, first I must apologize for my behavior. Okay?”

I know what’s coming. Standard script in lunatics. My dad was the best at it. He was an English teacher, brilliant at manipulating language to deflect the awfulness of violent deeds he’d committed against his family. Like the day he caught me thumbing a ride when I was fourteen. He used duct tape to tie me to a kitchen chair and cut me with Mom’s electric carving knife, because he “loved me.” Said there were a lot of bad people in the world. Wanted me to know what the “boogie man” would do to me if he picked me up thumbing.

“But God just spoke to me out in that garden shed,” Beaver says.

Inga stops the water to listen but doesn’t turn. Beaver has trained her well–just like my mom. When Dad spoke the Red Sea parted.

I wait, praying silently for bells to go off in my head, for that rush of adrenaline when the Percosets hit my heart.

“Richie, God told me that you need to know him. He said you need to ask Him into your heart and ask Him to set you free of the double H: heroin and hatred!”

Just then, at that precise moment, my prayers are answered. The Percs kick in. A direct hit to the heart. Alleluia! My fingers and toes tingle, adrenaline races up and down my spinal cord. My eyes seem to float inside my head and nothing else matters. The Percs do the job but they surely can’t match the heroin rush. Nothing can. Heroin is like licking the breath of God.

“Richie?” Beaver asks. “Would you like to ask Jesus Christ into your heart? Would you like to die and be born again?”

Inga turns and walks close to the table. At that moment, I don’t care how many times I’m born. She’s extremely sexy, I’m high, and I don’t have to feel anything. I think she knows I find her attractive.

“Sure, man. What do I gotta do?”

In a quick sick instant, I hope it has something to do with climbing back into the womb. Maybe I can go back and fix everything I’ve fucked up. Do it right. But it’s only a flash, and somehow I know that won’t work.

“Well, brother,” Beaver says, “just say a few words.”

I start thinking, Wow, magic words, man. That’s what I need–magic! But actually, nothing matters to me right now except how to keep this buzz going, how to stay like I am at this very second–without a feeling or care in the world.

“Sure, I’ll say the words.”

Inga spins around and reaches slowly for my shoulder. Her fingers are so warm and soothing to the touch. Beaver stands up and starts pacing around the table. I want to start laughing. I always smile or laugh when I’m nervous. But something makes me think of Dad and the night I killed him–his face,

the instant he died, his bluish-green glowing skin, and his crimson-red blood-filled eyes. I start to cry.

“Praise the Lord! Rejoice in His Name!” Beaver shouts.

“Oh, yes, Father God, thank you, Jesus,” Inga whispers with conviction.

“Are you ready, brother? Do you want to be set free?” Beaver asks.

“Yes,” I manage through the tears.

“All right, Richie,” Beaver says. “Just say what I say. That’s all you have to do.”

I can’t hold back the image of my Dad there on the kitchen floor, the single teardrop slowly forging its way down his cheek. The Percosets aren’t strong enough. I feel like my insides are leaching out through my tears.

“Jesus, I’m a sinner and I need you to run my life.”

“Jesus, I’m a sinner,” I repeat. “Please help me.”

“Alleluia, Jesus.” Inga begins to cry.

“Jesus, come into my life and fill me with your Holy Spirit,” Beaver continues.

“Jesus, I need your spirit,” I reply.

And that’s it. Something splashes across my face. A gust of country air bursts into the room and moves the wind chimes hanging on the wall ever so slightly. It feels like hot oil running across my chest, moving slowly down my stomach. It burns. In an instant, I feel straight. Shit scared. My eyes open wide. Beaver starts laughing, like he knows what’s going on. Inga says something, but I can’t hear her. I stand, thinking maybe I can outrun whatever is happening to me.

“Oshka belgh haver opsa shennna goosgkle jubler crumster domenisca,” I shout.

“Come Holy Spirit,” Beaver screams, hysterically.

Every cell in my body tingles. And then, somehow, I leave my body. Or I just can’t feel the weight of it. I know it’s there, but it’s as if all I have is a brain. Memories of my dad race across whatever space I’m in, as if they are happening at that instant: my childhood, my brother Sean, football, Dad’s funeral, all of it crashing through me in a split second. Then, the feelings come back in just my fingers. Somebody is choking me. I can’t swallow or breathe. Beaver continues smiling and Inga cries.

“Help me!” I beg.

“Keep going, brother,” Beaver says. “Don’t worry, it’s only the Holy Spirit.”

“Praise You, Jesus Christ. He’s been touched by Your Spirit,” Inga yells.

Somehow I pick myself up off the kitchen floor. My T-shirt is soaked through with a sweet-rancid body odor. I feel good, like every tear has wiped away years and years of bad memories. It’s like being locked up, released, and then running full-speed into an endless green field filled with bright, yellow daisies. There are so many new feelings, I don’t know which one to explore first. Something truly has happened to me, but have I been touched by the Holy Spirit or the Percosets? Maybe it was a combination of a Higher Power and an opiate derivative.

“You’re free, Richie!” Beaver speaks, interrupting my reverie.

“What happened?”

“The Holy Spirit set you free, Richie!” Inga says.

“Yeah, but what the hell was that language? What came out of my mouth?

“You spoke in tongues, Richie!” Beaver says, clapping his hands and dancing around the kitchen.

I don’t really care if they’re telling the truth. All I know is that something inside of me feels different, as if it’s a spring afternoon, the birds and flowers are singing praises to the end of winter and I’m standing under a waterfall. I feel cleansed. My mind stops spinning. I feel secure for the first time in years, but is it real? Will it last?

“Richie?” Beaver asks. “You want to go tell your wife?”

I don’t even have to think twice. What do I have to lose?

“Sure.”

Then, in the bathroom, while I’m splashing cold water on my face to clean up for my visit to Louise, I see Inga’s solid 14-karat gold charm bracelet with her children’s birthstones. And I have no choice really. I have to take it.

What’s Left of Us – A Memoir of Addiction by Richard Farrell is a post from: Mental Fitness Blog

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