As I was contemplating whether or not to use the above photo as a billboard for The Happy Hour, I was intrigued by the ideas behind the action we must all take on the road to recovery. The metaphor of the new road we must travel away from the point where we stop the lifestyle of active addiction is an apt one for most of us.
If you're like me, we've traveled a rocky road to recovery. There were many twists and turns, many dead ends, and many potholes in the road of the life I was leading before recovery began in 1987. Up to that point, I thought I was on the super highway toward success. From the point when I graduated from college and had my first job secured, I thought I was going to race to the finish line well ahead of others and in fine shape. I could see no end to the road, no barriers in my way, and no detours...No, I was on a straight shot to becoming a success at anything I tried. And, it worked that way for a while. I had a good job and soon got another that was even better. I was a star in the workplace and bosses loved me. Surely, there was nothing to divert me from my goals.
But, there were signs early on that all was not going to be the way I pictured it. And, these signs came in the form of drinking alcohol to excess and smoking marijuana through my 20's, signs that I did not see as they whizzed by me as I sped along this road. In fact, it soon became apparent that I wanted to drink and smoke more than I wanted to work hard to deal with my problems. There were blocks in the road, but, until I was about 30, I had managed to swerve around them and continue at the fast pace I had set out for myself. Surely, I said during this decade between when I started using alcohol and drugs until it sank in that I had a problem, no one could manage to go from being a small town publicist to working in the White House press office without their being some kind of powerful engine propelling me forward. What I didn't realize was that, in the form of a true tragedy, there was something inside me that was so flawed that it spelled doom for me almost from the start. And, that doom did not show up until I was in my 30's when things were much rockier on that road with bumps and stumps and roadblocks that eventually made my road unusable.
It's no coincidence that I managed to get clean and sober through the efforts at people in a clubhouse for recovering people in Delray Beach FL called, The Crossroads. My life had truly come to a crossroads and I needed to get off the backroads of my using life and onto the super highway of recovery. When I decided to make the turn, things had become pretty difficult for me along that old road. I had lost some things, but I was about to lose even more right after I got clean because of the continuation of the problems even after I took the turn for the recovery road. It was just like this: Speeding down the highway of my life with the back seat full of baggage, I suddenly came to a stop with my using to avoid a deadly collision. But, the baggage just kept going forward at the same speed. Before you knew it, I had all the baggage of my life in the front seat of my existence, and I couldn't negotiate any more or see the alternatives. It wasn't until I unpacked that baggage in treatment and put it back into its proper place through using the 12 Steps that I could resume a sane journey.
That's what my life was for me when I stopped using alcohol and drugs: I had made the turn at the crossroads onto the road of recovery, but I had to deal with all the effects of my using over the years. Fortunately, coming to a stop like I did - with the help of people in Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous and my family - I was able to clear away the baggage in front of me and resume my journey down the road of recovery. While there are been occasional rough going on this trip, there has never been anything close to blocking my path...it's been as clear a way as that shown in the photo above.
There is a passage in the Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text that summarizes this road trip for recovery well..."Just for today, so long as I follow that way, I have nothing to fear."
All the best, Roger W.
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