Anna David Learned from Her Mistakes...and We Can, Too

Anyone who knows me knows that I have an adult son who has struggled on and off with severe depression and addiction for more than a dozen years. I don't try to hide that from anybody. In fact, my son's issues inspired me to become a recovery and mental health advocate. Along the way, I've read just about every book on addiction and recovery I've been able to get my hands on, including countless memoirs and self-help books by people in recovery. And I have to say, How to Get Successful by F*cking Up Your Life: Essays on Addiction & Recovery by Anna David is one of the best I've read.

David is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Party Girl, a semi-autobiographical tale about a celebrity journalist who falls victim to a world of drugs, alcohol, and sex, which leads to her self-destruction before she finally finds sobriety. While Party Girl may have been classified as fiction, How to Get Successful by F*cking Up Your Life is 100 percent authentic.

In David's latest book, she shares essays that document her struggles with addiction and her journey to recovery. The essays, which are brutally honest and oftentimes laugh-out-loud hilarious, are grouped into three sections: What It Was Like [Pre-Sobriety]; What Happened [Early Sobriety]; and What It’s Like Now [Today]. This format allows the reader to ride along and witness first-hand the progress David made on her road to sobriety (potholes and all). And while the essays alone make this book highly entertaining and educational, David goes a step further and includes a value-added twist to the end of each one.

Personally, I think the "Lesson Learned" feature that appears after each essay is the absolute best part of How to Get Successful by F*cking Up Your Life. This is where David shines the brightest, taking the frequently negative experiences of her addiction/recovery journey and reframing them into a positive lesson that she, and others, can use to improve life going forward.

For example, in the essay entitled "What Addiction Sounded Like," David talks about how cocaine, the drug that once kept the party going all night long for her, had betrayed her. "It made me unable to do anything but sit in front of my computer and shake," she reveals. And while sitting in front of her computer, trying to write, the computer would emit an annoying "BEEP!" every 60 seconds. "I lived in fear of the beep," David confesses. "It somehow symbolized just how bad things were." At the end of the essay, David shares her lesson learned--“Remember the Bad Times (So You Don’t Repeat Them)”--and provides the reader with some insightful words of wisdom.

Anna David is a gifted, intelligent, funny writer, and this collection of essays shows us that a person can make mistakes in life--BIG mistakes--and still find success and contentment. As she says in the Introduction, David hasn't followed "the typical paths. But at this point in my life I can honestly say I feel successful on all levels…not just with what I’ve achieved but with how I feel about what I’ve achieved, not to mention how I feel about what I haven’t achieved." That’s not a bad place to be, and I'm guessing most people would be incredibly happy to feel the same way. Reading How to Get Successful by F*cking Up Your Life might just help them get there.

Anna David (photo from her Facebook page)

High: Everything You Want to Know About Drugs, Alcohol, and Addiction

I just posted a review of the monumental new book by David and Nic Sheff. It's called High: Everything You Want to Know About Drugs, Alcohol, and Addiction, and it's a book that every young person and their parents should read.

As you probably already know, David Sheff is the author of Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction, which was recently made into a movie (Beautiful Boy) starring Steve Carrell and Timothée Chalamet. And Nic Sheff told his side of his story of addiction in the book Tweak: Growing up on Methamphetamines. Now they've joined forces to write High, a fabulous, informative book that has been needed for many years.

If you'd like to read my review of High--and, hopefully, give it a "Helpful" vote over at Amazon (those are always appreciated)--click on this link:

Take me to Dean's review of High on Amazon.com

I think this book is going to be huge when it comes out on 1/8/19. Kudos to David and Nic Sheff for creating it. It's going to save a lot of lives.

Nic and David Sheff

"Unbroken Brain": A New, Forward-Thinking Book on Addiction

(Note: This book review also appears on The Huffington Post Books site under the same title.)


As a recovery advocate and the father of someone in long-term recovery, I've read more books about addiction than I can count. When my son first started struggling with drugs, I made a vow to educate myself as much as I possibly could. Knowledge is power, and I wanted to know everything about addiction. I still do. So I read about it. A lot. And I can honestly say that Maia Szalavitz's Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction is one of the best books I've ever read on the subject.

Maia Szalavitz is a fabulous writer who has penned a wonderful, very forward-thinking book about addiction. She introduces us to some new theories about addiction, several of which may have people re-examining the way they've thought about one of the most prevalent and deadliest problems in America today.

Szalavitz sets out to show that addiction isn't a choice or moral failing. "But it's not a chronic, progressive brain disease like Alzheimer's, either," she notes. "Instead, addiction is a developmental disorder--a problem involving timing and learning, more similar to autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and dyslexia than it is to mumps or cancer." Yes, Szalavitz is blazing new trails here.

The author contends that "addiction doesn't just happen to people because they come across a particular chemical and begin taking it regularly. It is learned and has a history rooted in their individual, social, and cultural development." She adds that the addicted brain is not "broken," as many other researchers and writers have suggested. Instead, she says, the addicted brain has "simply undergone a different course of development....addiction is what you might call a wiring difference, not necessarily a destruction of tissue."

Looking at addiction as a learning disorder may seem strange to some, but Szalavitz states that doing so "allows us to answer many previously perplexing questions." And in Unbroken Brain, Szalavitz--who is 25+ years in recovery from cocaine and heroin addiction herself--tells us how learning is a part of every aspect of addiction, oftentimes drawing upon her personal experience to illustrate her points.

There are so many interesting and thought-provoking topics covered in this book. From the problems associated with waiting for someone to hit "rock bottom" to the myth of the addictive personality; and from the issues surrounding 12-step programs to why harm reduction isn't a bad thing. ("Harm reduction recognizes [the] social and learned components of addiction. It 'meets people where they're at,' and it teaches them how to improve their lives, whether or not they want to become abstinent." Amen to that.)

If you or someone you love has been touched by addiction, or if you're just interested in this fascinating subject, I cannot recommend Unbroken Brain highly enough. This book contains a wealth of information, but Maia Szalavitz presents it in an organized manner while writing in a clear and understandable voice. Trust me: You will not be bombarded with a bunch of scientific language that you don't understand. 

Szalavitz writes in the introduction, "Only by learning what addiction is--and is not--can we begin to find better ways of overcoming it. And only by understanding addicted people as individuals and treating them with compassion can we learn better and far more effective ways to reduce the harm associated with drugs." That is definitely the approach we should be taking with addiction. Hopefully, Maia Szalavitz's innovative new book will be the catalyst for some positive change.

Causes and Effect, 12/17/15: SLAM NYC

The seventeenth post of my month-long stint as writer of the Causes and Effect: My Year of Giving Daily blog can be found over at Tumblr. Here's the link to today's post:

SLAM: Working to Bring Recovery to NYC Teens

Today, SLAM NYC is the recipient of a $10.00 donation from my family. If you would like to make a contribution to SLAM NYC, you can do so here:

SLAM NYC's website

Seventeen down down, fourteen to go.

Peace.

An Interview with "The Bitter Taste of Dying" Author Jason Smith (Plus a Book Giveaway!)

(Note: A shortened version of this blog post also appears on The Huffington Post's blog site as "An Interview with Jason Smith, Author of 'The Bitter Taste of Dying.'")

When I reviewed Jason Smith's addiction memoir, The Bitter Taste of Dying, I called it "a gripping, no-holds-barred memoir," "a riveting story of addiction and recovery," and "a story of self-discovery and hope, too." Smith's book is all of those things, and more. From the first page of the Prologue, I was hooked. Smith's brutal honesty and transparency allowed me to enter into his hellish world; a world where being high--whatever the cost--was all that mattered to him for 16 years.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Smith and, just like in his book, he did not mince words. Read the conversation below, and at the end of the interview find out how you can win a free copy of The Bitter Taste of Dying.


The title of your book, The Bitter Taste of Dying, comes from the taste you first encountered while trying to perform CPR on your Uncle Mark after he overdosed on heroin when you were 14. You later experienced that same taste after overdosing yourself. I take it that taste had quite an impact on you?

Yeah, it's not really something that can be untasted. Or unremembered, for that matter. Or Unlearned. The day I found my uncle dying was so chaotic on so many levels, both internally and externally. That taste attached itself to that memory, making everything one. My memory and that taste--it's all one blur. Same with my own overdose in France. Pure chaos. Looking back, there’s some really dark comedy woven in there somewhere, the image of this 6'-2" American stumbling through the streets of Nice, parents gripping their children nice and tight as I passed, on my way to collapsing on the patio of some romantic cafe. But at the time it was a chaotic scene. It really was the point at which everything came full circle. Both experiences--despite being in different countries, on different continents--unified by the taste of the body dying.

You describe so many lows in your book. Your mother telling you that you were "dead" to her, you sucking on Fentanyl patches that were supposed to be stuck on your arm, etc. Looking back on everything that happened to you, which one incident comes closest to being your definitive "rock bottom"?

I've come to my own personal conclusion that there are two types of bottoms: a physical one and a spiritual one. And when I say "spiritual," I mean spirit as in the Human Spirit, that thing inside of us that tells us to keep fighting when we're losing, that id, fight or flight spirit. I'd been to a lot of physical bottoms. Jail in Tijuana, living outside of a French train station. Those were by far the darkest physical places I went to. But the funny thing is, throughout both of those, I still had fight inside of me. Life. That same voice that told me I could keep using and just control it better was the same voice that kept me alive at times. But when I tried to end it all that night in my little bathroom after my Thanksgiving overdose, that voice was gone. It was dead. That voice that used to tell me to just keep pushing a little more, that I could get a handle on this situation, I could run from the courts, the judges, the police, the addiction--that voice was gone. And to me, that was the deepest bottom for me because it was as if my human spirit had simply vacated my body, leaving just a shell of a human being behind. It was dark. Really, really dark.

One of the most powerful lines in your book is: "It took me losing everything to appreciate anything." What role does gratitude play in your life now?

Gratitude is key because it allows me to truly appreciate things I would have taken for granted before. I cherish my time with my family, holding my kids, because I've had my child removed because I was incompetent--as both a parent and a human being--of raising him. That shit stings. That's a reality check if ever there was one. To lose that right, only to gain it back slowly, has made me truly grateful for the opportunity to be a parent. I didn't have that before. Before I was a self-entitled little child, the perpetual victim. I'm grateful that I don't live or feel like that anymore. I’m grateful for the type of shit that normal people don't even realize they have. I'm grateful to wake up without being dope sick. I'm grateful for having money in my bank, and it staying in the bank. I'm no longer putting my drug dealers' kids through college.

What is one the biggest struggles you face in your ongoing recovery, and how do you deal with it?

Writing can be tricky. Especially writing about addiction. I have to be 100% accountable for my past actions, my decisions, and have to deal with those consequences without blaming everybody around me. It wasn't the doctors that got me hooked, or the pharmacists, or the dealers, or the system. It was me. I could’ve walked away at any time, and I chose not to. That's how I have to view things for my own recovery, for my own sanity. As long as I'm accountable, then I can work on it. As long as it's your fault, I can’t do shit with it. I just can't. Having said that, as a writer, I have to step back from just my own experience and look at things from afar, at the big picture. And when I do that, I see a system that is totally and utterly fucked. Seriously. A system where pharmaceutical companies sponsor their own safety studies, lie to doctors about the dangers of certain drugs, admit to lying in court, pay a fine, and then go on with life while society is left picking up the pieces. It's crazy. I feel like I have an opportunity and a platform to talk about these things, but I have to do it in a way that isn't blaming them for my own situation. Sometimes those two things bleed dangerously close together. I have to always keep those two things separate, and that’s probably the most difficult thing for me at this point.

I know they were certainly tested over the years, but how are your relationships with your family members now?

Surprisingly well, actually. Time heals all wounds, which isn't something you want to hear when you're first getting clean. But it's true. As an addict, I was so used to instant gratification. When I was after a certain sensation, I got it immediately through some substance. So when I got clean, I wanted everybody just to forgive me. Just move on, like none of that shit just happened. But it doesn’t work that way. The first two Christmases after I got clean, my family was skeptical, all wondering "Is Jason going to make it? Is he going to get high?" Because that was my thing. Holidays, I'd just get tore up. There really is no way to make them stop fearing that other than getting a few Christmases under your belt clean. Let them see it. So far, by doing that, my family relationships have been mended. Even with my son's mom. Today she and I have a great relationship, she and my wife get along great, we're able to co-parent. But that took a few years, and still takes work. Unfortunately, the only thing that mends these relationships is time. There is no quick fix, at least not in my experience.

What aspect of your life are you most proud of today?

Being a father. I’m fairly involved in a 12-step program, and one of the running themes you see, regardless of your location, is the effect of dads not being around. It's sad, and it has profound effects on kids. I almost made my own son one of those statistics, a boy growing up without a dad. I’m so thankful that I got my shit together before he was old enough to know what was going on. Today I'm a father to him and his sister, and I love that. I love being a dad. I love letting the kids climb on me, teaching them to swim or ride a bike. All of it. I’m that guy. Dad bod and all. And I'm good with that.

What's one important truth you've learned through the recovery process?

There's a right way to live and a wrong way. And we always have the choice of which one we decide to go with.

Friedrich Nietzsche said, "That which does not kill us, makes us stronger." How are you stronger because of your addiction?

I like what [Bob] Dylan said, when he sang "He not busy being born is busy dying." It's the same concept as Nietzsche, in a sense, but in reverse. I kind of look at my life today--and I try to do it daily, although I have a far from perfect track record--and ask whether I'm busy being born, or if I'm dying. For whatever reason, the simplicity of the two options resonates with me. And it works.

Based on your experiences, how do you think we could improve treatment for people suffering from substance abuse?

I think we're seeing the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg when it comes to substance abuse in this country. The prescription drug epidemic changed the game. We have such a large segment of society addicted to prescription drugs, which is funneling a decent percentage of addicts into street drugs. We're giving children amphetamines for fuck's sake, and then we act like we're surprised when meth use explodes. We choose not to see the connection. We've gotten an entire generation hooked on opiates via doctors, and now we've decided to just cut them off, with treatment only available to those who can afford it. And we wonder why heroin has spiked the way it has. At some point, we're going to have to start answering some very uncomfortable questions in this country.

We’re something like 4% of the planet's population and we consume 90% of the planet's opiates. This is a uniquely American problem. I don't mean that America is the only country with drug problems. I'm saying our approach to living life. It's unique compared to any of the countries I've visited. At some point, Americans decided we didn't want to feel anything that was even slightly uncomfortable. We didn't want to feel pain or hurt or discomfort, on either a physical or emotional level.

Ironically, the most difficult time I ever had scoring prescription drugs was in Amsterdam. I went into the hospital at like 4:00 in the morning after a night of cold sweats and shaking from running through two month's worth of drugs in two weeks, and I waited to see a doctor. Pills and patches were my thing, and those were like the only two types of drugs you couldn't find on the streets of Amsterdam. So I lifted my shirt for the doctor, showed him my scars, and to my surprise he seemed unimpressed. I made up some shit about how it hurt when I lifted my arms over my head, and demonstrated the appropriate amount of faux pain--but this guy wasn't buying it. "It hurts when I do this," I told him. He just looked at me deadpan serious without even blinking. "Den don’t do dat." It was so simple, yet so foreign. The idea that discomfort could be lived with, that pain was a way of your body communicating with you. The concept that pain is sometimes a very necessary and beneficial part of life. Today in America I think we've lost touch with this.

I had a friend who broke up with his girlfriend and he was all bummed out and sad. His doctor put him on anti-depressants! Huh? You’re supposed to be sad. You just lost a partner with whom you'd built a life and now it's over. Be sad! It’s okay! Feel that shit. Feel it, own it, grow from it, and move on. You're supposed to be sad, that's part of the grieving process of any breakup. But today, it’s like, "Nah, just give me a pill to make it stop." And I think we do that in many areas of life. You have acute back pain? Maybe you need to change the way you sit, or stand, or walk. Numbing the pain doesn't really help the actual problem. You're treating symptoms, chasing your own tail. We've turned to pharmaceuticals to perform normal human functions. Pills to wake up, pills to sleep, pills to feel happy, pills to bring us down. And I think it’s this mentality, more than the actual drugs themselves, that we're going to have to face up to if we really want to start the process of treating drug addiction. We have to get out of that mindset that pain or discomfort is the enemy. Sometimes it’s a very necessary part of life.

I just realized I didn't come close to answering your actual question. Sorry. I rant sometimes.

As a father, what do you think are some of the best ways to educate kids about the dangers of drugs and addiction?

I think being completely honest about it. Don’t hide things or sugarcoat things, but don't go the "Scared Straight" route either. I'm completely aware that one day my kids will read my book, and that's a little strange. But I don't think I glorified my drug use. Nor did I demonize it. I just shared my experience. I think sharing our own experiences, in the tone of "Look, I’m not telling you not to do drugs. I'm telling you that if you do them, this might happen to you, because it's what happened to me." Enough with the "Just Say No" or DARE or "Scared Straight" or "This Is Your Brain on Drugs" approaches. None of them worked. We need something different. A whole new approach.

Knowing what you know today, if you could go back in time and give your teenage self some words of advice, what would you say?

Buckle up, man. It’s gonna be wild.

Hypothetical: The Bitter Taste of Dying ends up being made into a major motion picture. Who’s playing Jason Smith?

You realize there's no good answer to this question, right? If I answer it, I come off as a bit pompous and self-absorbed. If I don't answer it, I look like I'm trying to project faux modesty. I'll say this: You know who I really enjoy watching act now? Colin Farrell. I don't know much about his background, but he looks like he's seen some shit. Been through some shit. He has that presence about him. He's much better looking than me, but Hollywood's taken greater liberties than that before. I have a hunch that if he had to dig deep down to find the bottoms expressed in the book, he could do it. But it's just a hunch.

(You can find Jason Smith on the Web, on Twitter, and on Facebook.)

**************

Would you like to win a copy of The Bitter Taste of Dying? Here's your chance! Jason Smith has been kind enough to provide three copies of his book to give away to readers of this blog. To be eligible for the random drawing, just send me an email via the "Contact Form" that appears in the column on the right-hand side of the Web version of my blog (under the "Most Popular Posts" section). Just tell me that you want to be in the drawing. At 6:00 PM EDT on Saturday, August 1st, I will put the names of all the people who have entered into a hat and choose three winners at random. Note: I understand that some of you may be reluctant to share your name and email address with me, but it's the only way I can get in touch with you to let you know if you've won. I assure you that your information will be safe. (Of course, that's what Target told you, too, right?)

Free Richard Wershe Jr.: An Open Letter to Michigan Governor Rick Snyder

(Note: This blog post also appears on The Huffington Post's blog site as "An Open Letter to Michigan Governor Rick Wershe: Free Richard Wershe Jr.")


Rick Snyder

P.O. Box 30013

Lansing, Michigan 48909

Re: Richard Wershe Jr.

Dear Governor Snyder,

As the father of someone who struggled with addiction for seven years before getting clean, I think people who distribute and sell illegal drugs like heroin and cocaine are the scum of the earth. Making your living by ruining people's lives--and destroying entire families--is about as low as you can get.

That said, I also believe in second chances, especially when it comes to young people making mistakes. And I believe in fair and just punishment for young people who commit crimes, especially when those crimes are non-violent.

This is why the case of Richard Wershe Jr. troubles me so much.

As a lifelong Detroiter, I remember hearing about the "notorious" drug dealer with the nickname "White Boy Rick" back in the 1980s. In the spring of 1987, at the age of 17, Wershe was arrested and charged with possession with intent to deliver almost 18 pounds of cocaine.

Wershe was convicted, and in 1988 he was sentenced to life in prison without parole under one of the harshest drug laws ever: Michigan’s "650 Lifer Law." Signed into law in 1978 by Michigan Governor William G. Milliken, the law mandated life-without-parole sentences for anyone convicted of possession of 650 grams or more of cocaine or heroin.

Twenty years later, in 1998, Governor Milliken called the signing of that law the greatest mistake of his career, describing the law as “inhumane.” That same year, Governor John Engler signed modifications of the "650 Lifer Law" that eliminated life without parole, and provided parole eligibility to over 200 people serving sentences under the law.

It has been 17 years since the repeal of the "650 Lifer Law." Yet out of all the people sentenced under the guidelines of the old law, there is only one person still incarcerated today for a crime they committed as a juvenile. That person is Richard Wershe Jr.

As if that wasn’t alarming enough, consider that the United States Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that juveniles could not be sentenced to life in prison without parole for any crime short of homicide. Why? Because it’s unconstitutional. Nevertheless, Richard Wershe Jr. still sits in prison 27 years after his conviction; 17 years after the repeal of the law that put him in prison for life; and 5 years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled his sentence unconstitutional.

Of course, there is more to Richard Wershe Jr.’s story, which has led to speculation about why he might still be in prison.

In a nutshell, Wershe’s late father was a paid FBI informant, and law enforcement sought out Richard Jr. to be an informant, too--at the ripe old age of 14. Police used Richard Wershe Jr. to put a lot of criminals behind bars, and in the process turned an innocent teenager into a drug dealer. When law enforcement was done with Wershe--the 17-year-old product of a dysfunctional family--he tried to survive doing the only thing he knew how to do: selling drugs. And he got caught.

But why is Wershe still in prison? Even Robert Aguirre, a former Michigan Parole Board member has said there’s "no reason in this world that he should still be there. What the powers are behind it, I can’t speak to."

Respected investigative reporter Vince Wade has a theory, though. In his "InformantAmerica" blog, dedicated to the curious case of Richard Wershe Jr., Wade writes:

"He’s doing life because he ratted on the wrong people--a politically-connected drug dealer and cops who were on the take from drug pushers, including one cop who was a local celebrity because he had been in a movie with Eddie Murphy. The Detroit political and criminal justice establishment has vowed to keep Rick Wershe in prison until he dies for telling the FBI the truth about some of their own."

Whatever the reason is that Wershe’s still in prison, the fact of the matter is he doesn’t belong there.

Governor Snyder, you have the power to right this wrong that has gone on for decades. You have the power to set Richard Wershe Jr. free from his life sentence. I beg and plead that you find it within yourself to do the right thing in the name of justice. Richard Wershe Jr. was 17-years-old when he was arrested for a non-violent crime. He was 18 when he was convicted. He is now 45. He has paid his debt to society many times over. But keeping him in prison is costing Michigan taxpayers approximately $44,000.00 a year.

To date, President Barack Obama has commuted the sentences of 89 drug offenders. Several of those offenders were serving life in prison, and several more were in prison for possession or distribution of cocaine. But President Obama can’t help Richard Wershe Jr., because Wershe was charged and sentenced under state law, not federal law. So it’s up to you, Governor Snyder, to have some mercy on Richard Wershe Jr.

One last thing: Our great and beautiful state of Michigan has been using its very successful "Pure Michigan" ad campaign for years. Those commercials feature the distinctive voice of actor, comedian, and Michigan native Tim Allen, who was born Timothy Allen Dick. According to Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), in a 2013 article entitled "HowMandatory Minimums Almost Killed Santa Claus":

"In October 1978, Timothy Allen Dick was arrested for possession of more than 650 grams of cocaine (actually it was a little more than a pound) at an airport in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He was charged under federal law--not Michigan law--and as a result served less than two and a half years…. If Allen had been charged under Michigan’s 650-Lifer law, the judge would have had no discretion over the sentence. Instead of serving 2.5 years in prison followed by a hugely successful acting career, Allen would have been given a sentence of life without parole."

Tim Allen served 2.5 years in prison because he was lucky enough to be charged under federal law. Richard Wershe Jr. has served 27 years and counting because he was charged under state law--a law that has since been repealed and found unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. What is wrong with this picture?

Governor Snyder, I have no sympathy for drug dealers. Drugs took one of my sons--and our entire family--on a roller coaster ride through hell for seven years. But I don’t think anyone should have to suffer the injustice that Richard Wershe Jr. has suffered. After 27 years, he deserves a second chance at freedom.

Please free Richard Wershe Jr.

(Note: If you agree that Richard Wershe Jr. deserves to be released, call Michigan Governor Rick Snyder's office at 517.335.7858 and make your voice heard. Or use this link to send an email message to Governor Snyder.)

Richard Wershe Jr. as a teen (L) and today (R).

"6/13/2011"

(Note: This blog post also appears on The Huffington Post's blog site as "Insight Into the Mind of Someone Suffering from Addiction.")

With our younger son off at college, my wife and I are empty-nesters again and we've been cleaning and purging so we don't end up being old people featured on the TV show Hoarders.

Early this morning I was cleaning in the basement and came across a spiral notebook that my older son had used during his attempt at community college a few years back. It was pretty tattered, so I decided to put it in the "recycle" pile. But I decided to flip through it first to see if contained anything of any significance.

Most of the pages were blank. A few pages had some random doodles on them. There were also a couple of pages that had daily schedules written on them from my son's earliest stays in sober living houses.

Some of the pages, though, were oozing with negative emotion and made me cry both tears of sadness--for the past they represented--and tears of gratitude--for where my son is today.

There were four pages that had the words "FUCK MY LIFE" scrawled in giant letters; letters so big they took up all 8-1/2" x 11" of the sheet of paper. But the thing that hit me the hardest--and I mean it hit me like a Mike Tyson uppercut--was a two-page note my son had written.

The note was dated 6/30/11, which was a little more than two months before my wife and I sent our son to Palm Springs for treatment at Michael's House. I will not share the entire letter here because it is much too dark and personal. But I will share this one small excerpt, only to give people an idea of what goes on inside a person's mind when they are suffering from addiction:

"I feel dead inside. It's like nothing can make me feel better, and only drugs can block out all the bullshit, take my mind off of it for any period of time."

Damn.

Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn.

That paints a pretty clear picture of how an addicted person feels inside, doesn't it? They don't want to be addicted. They just want to feel better and block out the negative emotions. They want to clear their mind of the things that make them hurt. And self-medication is the only way they know how to do it.

About 10 weeks after my son wrote that note, my wife and I created a boundary and stuck to it. Our son could either go to rehab or move out of our house. It took a few days, but he chose to go to rehab.

Thank God he did.

When my wife got up today I asked her, "Do you want to see something that will make you feel grateful today?" Then I showed her the note our son had written. She was overcome with emotion just like I was.

I thought about throwing the note away, but part of me said to keep it; not so I can dwell on the past,  but to serve as yet another reminder of how far we've come.

My son is 797 days clean and sober today. That's two years, two months, and five days. And I am grateful for every single one of them.

I love my boys with all my heart.

Peace.

"My mind is a neighborhood I try not to go into alone." --Anne Lamott