Miracles Happen When We Let Go of Drugs and Alcohol

A miracle is an organic thing. It has to be allowed to evolve, much like a seed. In my experience, it also requires that one hits the pause button frequently. As alcoholics and addicts, we are prone to being reactionary- like puppets. Something happens and it jerks our strings, and then we are flailing into some course of action that has not been thought through. Often we lack deliberateness in our lives, and constantly run from one fire to another. Its good to pause, to breath, and allow ourselves to calm down and come from a neutral place before acting. Once we let go of drugs and alcohol, the pause mechanism is critical to maintaining sobriety.

 In learning to do this, I learned to listen. In March of 2009, when I was laid off from my job, I was doing pretty good at not freaking out and going into panic mode. I was trusting the process, but it wasn’t easy. At one point in that space of pausing, I recall walking from my kitchen to my bedroom and hearing a little lie that my head likes to tell me- “I always have money and no time, or time and no money.” I would go around saying that to people, and there it was embedded in my head. And I lived it like it was true. Right at that moment, I chose to banish that thought. I didn’t want that to be my truth, so I had to come up with a new truth to live by to replace it.

Almost immediately after that, I had the idea for a patent. I won’t go into what that was, but it was rather brilliant and simple. A good friend introduced me to a patent consultant, who walked me through the process of getting a patent, which I did. I had visions of lots of money AND lots of time. That patent consultant became a very dear friend. Life happened, and I didn’t do anything with it. Fast forward to a year later, when I was able to connect that friend, the patent consultant, with another dear friend. This became very lucrative for me, and for the first time in my life, I experienced what it was like to not be in survival mode.

The point of the story is that, by hearing that little lie I was living my life by, and choosing to let it go, an idea was able to come to the fore of my mind. Because I was quiet in my mind, even as my life was falling apart. It wasn’t that idea that brought in the financial relief, but then again, it was- without that idea, I wouldn’t have met my friend, and wouldn’t have connected him to a very big Fortune 100 company, his first client for his new business.

Here is what I could have done instead- I could have panicked at the lack of income  when I was laid off, and gone to a local strip club to make immediate money. My old way of thinking always kept that in my back pocket, in times of desperation, there is always that option. If I had done that, I can tell you now that I wouldn’t have been able to do it sober.  I would have lost everything.

I didn’t know the life beyond my wildest dreams was taking shape;  I didn’t see it coming. In between that idea and the fruition of the other deal was the hardest year of my life. I was only able to find odd jobs; thank God for food stamps. My cat died in my arms, a friend passed away as I held her hand, my house caught on fire, I was constantly in court as the father of my children stopped paying child support. This is just the tip of the iceberg, but believe me, I didn’t know a miracle was coming. But its true what they say, its always darkest before the dawn. Trusting in the process as your life is falling apart is having an understanding that sometimes parts of one’s life have to be burned down to the ground before the new life can be built in its place- otherwise the old foundation remains. To be willing to do everything different means to be willing to give up old, negative belief systems. We tend to have a hard time doing that- we don’t let go of things easily, especially our own shit. But magical things happen when we simply become willing to LET IT ALL GO. All of it, if necessary. Life gets shorter every day. Letting go of drugs and alcohol was just the first step in a miraculous life- not just a sober life, but an epic one.