Apr 2019 - Feb 2022 almost three years from the day of my accident I suffered in seclusion and slowly lost me…. Even if you could have helped, how could you? I was so buried in seclusion and isolation, depression, fear and losing absolutely everything but me…
I found a bottom in sobriety I never thought would be plausible. Sadly a head and heart full of recovery gave my disease the inside track on how to take me out. And I didn’t see it coming.
The very slim three or four that stuck and stayed through, what in hindsight was a level of crazy, neurosis, and self hatred I never thought was capable. No, it’s not embarrassing…. To the contrary I’m extremely proud. Not of that path or behavior; I’m proud I laid enough groundwork for those few to know to keep after it. They listened to me wail in the fetal position naked on my living room floor begging god to take me on the phone. Of course I was reduced to an almost animalistic level likened to when I arrived to get sober….
So yes, my apparently state and self preservation in the collective sense they stayed that arms length until the medicine took hold. When the medicine took hold, my regrowth although awkward and very confusing became exponential.
A boy with a drinking problem turned into a man with a drinking problem, then into a sober man. With each new jackpot his drinking lured him to, I would get the call. He’s sound ambitious until he didn’t and then until I didn’t hear at all. In Nov of 2021, this man sent a text and asked how I was….
I’m paraphrasing here…. I replied short answer I’m good. Because I really don’t have the energy to tell one more person my current truth and state, just to back away from me as if I had the plague and never hear from them again, left feeling worse, colder and deeper down the rabbit hole…I’d just as soon leave it at “I’m good” so you don’t run like everyone else I tell my truth too.
He immediately picked up his phone and he called. That was the moment the medicine kicked in… and forgive the pause… I’m in tears atm…. It hit me again, The kid I got sick of hearing excuses from about getting sober…. Just pulled the pin on the grenade that had finally allowed me to forgive myself, allowed me to shut the closet door clean of skeletons I know longer had to hide. This kid had just gotten a year sober, he finally listened and he paid attention to what he learned and put it into action….
I really had a whole different reason or agenda why I wanted to write about this. It came from a resentful place, it came from a place where I thought I had the power to make you double faced, hypocritical, self absorbed and self aggrandizing twats feel some kinda guilty way…. Why? Because you talk shit about honesty, open-mindedness and willingness and even with a Miriam Webster page opened to each definition you could not find the real honesty to portray any of the three…
But I was immediately shown by the “medicine” it was more about what did I learn. What did all that craziness, self hatred, naked in a fetal position on my floor…. What did I learn from all of that….
Look, it’s not easy to get sober. It’s hard to maintain that sobriety. So from experience, and with experience now; it’s a slow process getting used to a new way of thinking. A new way to live honestly without the secrets that haunted me. A new way of thinking about no longer dismissing the PTSD from some past issues in the Navy, the murder of my wife, childhood trauma.
This isn’t necessarily a new me. Our cores really can only be altered minimally, I still cuss entirely too much, I still have a disturbing sense of humor. Equally though, and something I would never acknowledge because of societal toxicity or my perception there of…my core is still that of well mannered, well raised, respectful reverent and appealing side is less hidden and it’s active appearance in my day to day life has allowed me to more quickly lose the hatefulness find my answer and keep away from that old way of living.
Look I had no idea this was gonna pour outta me. I’m not sure if any of this makes sense. An old phrase comes to mind as I try and summarize this godawful thesis…. “Speak as The Spirit Moves You”…. I heard this early on in sobriety in 1994. I guess I’m gonna summarize this way. I’m slightly new to this level of just honesty let alone vomiting it for all to see…
I have no more secrets, that’s part in partial why the medicine works. I have no fear of repercussions for my honesty, I’ve removed all the shit “YOU” can hurt me with…. It took this long to finally forgive myself and FINALLY start a path of not hating me more than YOU do…
So I have shit to say, if it’s not for you. That’s way cool, keep it moving. If it serves to help one soul not rest on their laurels as I had and experienced…. It serves as a beacon of hope and helps for anyone that be lost like I was… I don’t want that for you… please call me I’ll walk through your hell and bring you out…. That’s the real NO MATTER WHAT CLUB…
What this also serves is my humble glance at a power greater than me, that I walked away from for 20+ years because I blamed God for my wife’s murder…. My friend Jimmy Redding makes a statement often…. “I said those words that launched me through the gateway to freedom, GOD PLEASE HELP ME. Those four words changed my life”.
So yeah, when I finally surrendered in February and said those four words I swore I’d never say again…. GOD PLEASE HELP ME…. Let’s just say Jimmy Redding is not at all wrong. And that has been my “Medicine”…. And allowed me to learn what real Grace is all about. I have no longer a need or purpose to lash out at those that are that full of shit… Have at it…. I just chose to change the channel and keep it set on grace….
My 20 page summarization will conclude here… Pat Dunn is fella I hold in very high regard… He assertively instilled in me…. He said “Ray Polen it is absolutely incumbent upon you to remember that at any time and in any situation to remember your ideal state as an addict or alcoholic is one of goddamned humility…. Otherwise that one drop of ego and we all know what EGO stands for Ray; will be the mustard seed that takes you out”. Sometimes the lesson being taught takes a minute to graft over old useless information. Pat famously would remind me it is nearly impossible to graft ANY new idea or way of thinking onto a close mind….
So I am my own new idea and how I navigate this new way of living is based on my honesty with me. I’m enough, worrying myself about your bullshit skewed opinion of me became to tiresome.. with Grace comes humility and thus
Freedom…
And that… I want for us all.
Ciao
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