Chapter 1 · Afraid to let go

I am not going to lie, I was scared. I was full of fear and uncertainty the first time someone told me that I could get well. The first time it was brought to my attention that there was another way to live life. A new way of life full of things I was unfamiliar with. A new way, without drugs and alcohol.

As the years of my young adult life passed by, I developed a set of life skills that were very specific and very unlike those that would be necessary to deal with life on its own terms. I had a set of skills that allowed me to survive in the world of an addict, in the world of a drug dealer, and in the world of a criminal.

Now that I was considering getting well, the skills that I had developed over the years to survive were being called into question. I was being told that to get well, I would need to be willing to let go of them even though they had served me so well for so long, and be open to the idea of being re-educated on how to live life.

I was being told that I now needed to be willing to change and have faith, but I was scared. I was scared to let go of what I knew worked, because it was the devil I knew. I was terrified that once I got well, I would never be able to find relief. Until that point, I had not been able to find any relief other than using drugs and alcohol. I was afraid to be exposed without a way out.

Letting go is hard. Letting go of something that really doesn't work, but still makes you feel safe, is hard. Letting go of that which works for you for something you have never really experienced is hard. Letting go and having faith in a higher power, even though you don't really believe in one is hard. Letting go even though you don't know if you want to is hard.

…until you actually let go, then it starts to work. Once you let go, it gets clearer and it feels good to let go. Once you let go, a higher power seems more and more likely and faith becomes easier. Once you let go, anything can happen.

I will never forget being told early on in my last attempt to get well, "if you are the highest power you can imagine then you are screwed. If you cannot imagine that somewhere, somehow, there was a bigger plan for you, one that is not decided by you, one created by a higher power, then you are destined to live within this nightmare forever". This person was basically telling me, if I was as good as it gets, then there was no hope. My best efforts had me sitting there in the same place I had been countless times before, trying to stop myself from repeating the same mistakes. My best efforts had failed me once again. This person was right, I sucked at getting well on my own. I was going to need some help.

I had to let go. I had to let go of so much. I had to let go of the idea that I knew best what I needed to do. I had to let go of the idea that I could do this my own way without following the guidelines of a recovery process. I had to let go of the idea that I was special and unique, and that my recovery would somehow need to be tailored to fit my special and unique set of circumstances. I had to let go of the idea that I was in control of my life.

I had to let go of a lot. Nothing was as difficult as letting go of my adopted belief system. I had lived by a different moral code than the rest of the world for a long time. I had become a man while in state prison at age 19 and learned from other convicts about the rules of life. I had developed most of my life skills while lying, cheating, and manipulating my way through life.

I had become a taker

As an addict, I was taker and I viewed the world differently than most. I believed that I was owed something. I believed that if I could take it, then it should be taken. I will give you a simple example of how a "taker" thinks. Let's say that you were in front of me at a checkout line in a store, and as you reached for your wallet or your purse, a twenty-dollar bill fell to the floor. Being the taker that I was, I would drop something of mine and pick them both up. I would keep your money and pretend that you did not drop it. I would take the win, and feel just fine with it. Your loss = my gain, plain and simple.

I was always on the lookout for a way to get over on someone. In almost every interaction, I was constantly assessing what I would get out of it. Because of this, I lived a very strategic life. One where I tracked very closely what I owed people, and what they owed me. It was all about hustling to survive.

Early on, my hustle was my family. I was a beginner and my skills were still weak, but I was able to sharpen them against my parents and other family members. I began to get better at surviving. In fact, when I was "asked" to leave my mother's house by the Beverly police department around the age of seventeen, I was able to stay out on the street and find a way to survive without my family for years.

These skills that I had developed over the years helped me to survive. I was a taker. I stole whatever I could, I manipulated whomever I could, and I lied whenever it suited me. These were my skills, and this was my life. I needed these skills to survive and I was afraid to let them go.

I was afraid to let go of the person I had become and of the reputation I had built amongst my peers for fear that I would lose everyone and everything that I knew; everything that made me, me. I was afraid to let go.

"You only struggle because you are ready to grow, but aren't willing to let go." -Drew Gerald-