Maybe this is just me rambling. Or maybe this is a rant.
Or maybe I’ve been inspired to get back to my hopes and dreams and perhaps this is a call for me to get back to the work I love.
I used to tell people that I have two jobs.
One job pays my bills.
The other job pays my heart.
I think I like that explanation.
I’ve always wanted to create my own position in the mental health industry.
Why not? I’m crazy too.
I don’t believe it’s an “awareness” thing, so much. Even a blind man can see the problems we face.
I mean, look around. Watch the news.
Listen to the stories that people talk about when they tell you of a friend or a loved one who gave in or lost their life to an addiction.
I‘ve heard people tell me that we have to raise awareness. I’ve heard people talk about the so-called “sick and suffering,” and yes, God bless them.
Bless us and our precious or pathetic souls and our crazy little lives.
God bless the so-called normal, or the ones who claim to be normal.
Bless the everyday civilians who never saw a day of battle, which is not about interpersonal warfare so much or weapons of mass destruction.
No, this battle is about our own personal warfare and our own weapons of self-destruction.
Yeah—the so-called addict or the so-called junkie or the drunk or the alcoholic, the pill heads or the dope fiends, the chippies who clam to dibby-dabby in a light habit, or the everyday housewife or husband or any other common person who lives on pain management.
Bless the pot or the kettle who point and accuse each other of being black.
Bless us all.
Bless everyone who lives or breathes or finds themselves with a personal struggle—and yes, damn the stigmas. Damn them all to hell. Damn the judgments and the opinions and damn the lab coat assholes or the supposedly trained therapists who look at you from the tops of their glasses while taking notes about you as you open yourself about your details and tell them secret factors of your life.
Meanwhile, they don’t have a fucking clue how to reach you.
Damn the hush factors and the denials and damn the shame-based society which perpetuates the five fingers of rejective thinking, which are blame, shame, guilt, fault and regret.
Damn the misunderstandings and the misperceptions of mental illness and damn the people who think they “know” everything, just because they took a college course on psychology 101.
Damn the textbook ideas of those who speak because they have degrees on their walls, yet I say damn them too because they never take the chance to speak from the heart. They follow protocol.
Damn the “heads in beds” rehabs who depend on the relapse rate as a means to keep their drug rehab business thriving.
It’s not awareness that we need.
We need education. We need enlightenment.
We need a relatable way to share our thoughts, ideas, feelings and emotions. We need to create a better ground of connectivity.
We need to remove the doubtful loneliness and the steadiness of doubt that recovery and wellness can be achieved. Damn the “stinkin-thinkin” which plagues the mind, leaving a person to believe that they are terminally unique and otherwise, permanently irredeemable. Therefore, they are unsavable, so, why bother trying?
We have become a nation that treats symptoms. Not the source.
Then again, symptoms are the money-makers in the mental health industry.
At least, this is how I see it.
Yes, we have to alleviate the stressors. We have to address the symptoms. But what if we hit the source and remove the problems with better life, understanding, coping and cognitive behavioral skills?
What if we created a better sense of understanding for someone who believes that they are unworthy or “constitutionally incapable” of improving their life?
What if we were able to provide a feeling of accomplishment?
What if we treated people according to their own DNA or their own life instead of using a one-size-fits-all method.
I have been told the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.
And me?
I’m not sure if I ever expected different results.
I’m not even sure what I expected . . .
No, I think I was always chasing an idea or a thought or a feeling and, with me, I was so focused on “the thing” or the euphoric result, on whichever form to make me feel better that I wasn’t thinking about the rational responses or the consequences of my actions.
No, I was thinking irrationally and focused on the need or my so-called vehicle of peace which I was hoping for. I was so focused on the high, which I’d have rather seen than see the world through an intellectual lens and realize that yes, I was going crazy.
Insanity—
doing the same thing over, and over again and expecting different results.
Yeah, I’m insane.
Of course, I am.
However, the mental health field has been treating mental illness the same (with some updates) for a long time while expecting different results. Meanwhile, all they get are higher numbers of people dying from suicide or some other preventable death.
The mental health world came up with this definition.
Yet, they call me insane?
If that’s not the pot calling the kettle black, then I don’t know what is.
The number of preventable deaths are still on the rise.
People die every day either by their own hand or through some other self-destructive pattern.
We are a crutch-driven society.
We need to find a way to safely remove the crutch so we can teach people how to walk on their own.
I have listened to people talk about the number of people who died from an overdose.
Yes, this is tragic.
I have listened to the number of alcohol related deaths yet as high as those numbers are as individual causes of death, even if you add them both together, they still don’t add high enough to match the number of people who die from obesity related deaths.
And we haven’t even talk about smoking.
This kills everyone, yet everyone knows this is deadly and people still smoke their cigarettes —don’t they?
Is this an awareness thing?
Or is this just a symptom-based way of thinking?
What if we got down to the bottom and started to understand our thinking and behaviors?
What if we learned and actually understood our own worth and value?
Would we understand that we are worth more than the high which comes with the sting of a pinprick?
What if we learned how to strengthen ourselves from within?
What if we learned to help ourselves internally instead of using an external quick fix that comes with diminishing returns?
What if we created a better level of understanding and addressed the way we think or the way we act? What of we found a way to free people who are otherwise imprisoned in their own mind?
I used to sit in hour-long meetings and listen to people who read the books and the literature, and I would listen to them recite what they read, as if to try and show their impressiveness because they knew what it said on page 58 in “The Big Book,” or about the St. Francis prayer on page 99 in the “Twelve and Twelve” book.
I’m glad that people read. I’m glad that what they read left an impression on them. So much so that they could quote this, verbatim, and that they could tell anything about the book and they could quote passages and tell you what page they found the quote on.
I’m glad that people can quote a book and tell me what the book says.
Know what I say?
I say, “I think it’s great that you can tell me what the book says.
Now, tell me what you have to say.”
This is what’s going to save your life.
I don’t want to hear about someone else’s words.
I want to hear about your words.
I want to know about your life and your world.
I want to hear about your thoughts and feelings because if you are “out there” as they say and if you are still out there, and stuck, and still caught in the grind, dope-sick, or going through the “D.T’s” or if you’re experiencing the shakes and the sickness or the madness has you spinning out of control and death is eminent, it doesn’t matter what pages from the book are the ones that impressed or motivated you—there’s a mismatch in your head that caused a muted sense of understanding and led you astray.
I want to know what you say because no one is ever really the same. We all have our own culture. We all have our own upbringing. We all have our own crosses to bear and we all have our own challenges. One thing is for certain, you can bet your ass on the fact that EVERYONE is recovering from something!
I say we talk about that. I say we look within and talk about the source rather than the symptom.
I say we create a level of mental understanding so that we can retain the information we learn because this can and will save us.
You have to save your own life.
Every day . . .
I wish there were no casualties in this war.
But there are, and the numbers are going higher.
Not lower.
Maybe it’s not the awareness . . .
Maybe we need to remove stigma.
Maybe we need to figure out a way to talk and listen and strengthen each other from within.
Maybe we need to create a better way of communication and create a better sense of connectivity so that we can give someone their own brand of wellness and recovery.
Maybe this will help more than saying “go here” or “do this,” or “take one of these pills every morning, and let’s see how you feel in a month.”
Everyone has their own way, their own path, and their own light.
I would rather help people find their way or their path because I don’t want to see another light go down or have to explain to another little girl why Daddy is never coming home again.
Yes, I’ve had to do this.
More than once.
Maybe we should stop treating the symptoms and perhaps we should work on the problems or the “thing” behind the “thing,” so that people can understand their own pathway of recovery.
We need to kill the five fingers of rejective thinking— which are blame, shame, fault, guilt and regret because each finger closes to make the fist which we use to beat ourselves up with.
I promise you . . .
Stop the thought machine for someone . . .
and you will have saved a life of a person who never believed that they could ever be saved.
This is how I learned . . .
By the way –
Hey, Father Mike
You never gave up on me. You never turned your back on me and even when no one else wanted to help me or talk to me, you still put your hand on my shoulder.
I’m not sure if you ever knew this, but that saved my life.
I know you’ve been busy since your departure.
I remember when I was told how they got you on 9/11.
I just made it home and Ronnie called.
He told me and then I turned around to see the firemen carrying your limp body from ground zero.
More than 3,000 souls died on that day.
You were casualty #0001.
Of course you were.
More than 3,000 souls needed you to show them the way home.
Smile down on me my old friend.
You are loved and missed and to me, you were always a saint in my book.
I didn’t need the church to tell me this.
Those of us who know you, already knew you were a saint anyways.
Your humble friend,
B—
The Written Addiction 