Walking In the Light
Walking In the Light
We are addicts of different ages, races and sizes, gay and straight, survivors of slavery to many different drugs and combinations of drugs, including alcohol, among the most lethal and demoralizing of them all. What we have in common, in our millions, is the experience of living in spiritual darkness, of feeling separate from and unworthy of our families, from the entire human race and from the Higher Power that created us, too.
I was brought up by middle-class people who didn't drink or even smoke tobacco. I had grandmothers but no grandfathers. It wasn't until I was an adult that I was?told that both my grandfathers had been abusive?alcohol addicts that beat my grandmothers and terrorized my parents as children. It's no wonder that when I first discovered the "liquid drug," at age 9, my parents did not yell, they cried.
That first intoxication led me, over the years,?to every other drug I could put my hands on. My father passed away without knowing that I went to the depths of IV drug use, with cocaine, heroin and, especially, methamphetamine.
My mother lived to see me get clean, with the help of an anonymous?12-step fellowship, and I was able to care for her for the last 12 years of her life. I was at her side, along with my son and my daughter, when she passed last summer, and I know that the best gift I ever gave her was my recovery.
Because I have found my way back into the Light,?I have stopped being self-destructive and destructive in general. The God that I serve has given me a chance to live the life of a decent man and help others. I have?cowered in the darkness, a deep, black hole where I was spiritually dead and physically killing myself. Today, I choose to walk in the Light. It was other addicts, motivated by the same God, that showed me the way. I will always be grateful to the men and women who cared enough to tell me that I was worthy of life.
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