You know who ever said life would be easy?..Through out a day we all face challenges trials and tribulations. Let’s face it life isint easy it’s a job..And my life has been far from easy, i struggle with a drug addiction..For years now herion has been the love of my life, i would do anything to keep our realionship going..currently in recovery in which ive been in and out for years because i know my purpose my destiny doesent involve a needle. Ive lived on the ugly side of this world..i like to think of it as hell on earth, a endless cycle of misery and pain. for those addicted may relate more than those who are not..and whats funny is ive lived through and seen things many may not. i like to look at my life as a story, and hopefully one day it will help someone, save them from going through the hell i did. You know i didnt have that bad of a childhood i wasent beat or malested..ive always had a smile on my face, a good person per say..but somewhere along the line i picked up a fear of not belonging, always tried to fit in, in which led my to “the bad crowd” where it all began. Now i can’t blame anyone but myself for what ive done..Sad to say but i choose this life, and it’s been a battle to be freed now i will never truely be freed i will always be a addict, it’s just something i suffer with. the disease of addiction..now this doesent mean i have to use drugs, because i don’t. i have a choice today in which i didn’t have before i found recovery. I was blessed enough to have my life spared to be saved..ive seen so much death all around me but it’s not my time. it wasent my destiny to die in active addiction..i’m 22 and have a whole life ahead of me. I live my life today very carefully, i need not forget who i am and what i’m capable of..or should i say what the demon inside me is capable of, but i stay grateful, i try and stay positive. My life today is a blessing it’s only through God’s grace that i’m still here to talk about it, everyday’s a birthday for me..Some may not understand addicts they may think were just criminals, bad people..but in all actuality were not, were sadly misunderstood people who just need help, were so hurt on the inside so all we know how to do is hurt, and are usually those closest to us..we can only give what we have, at some point in active addiction we loose hope we loose sight of who we really are. we chance with death as if we were playing craps..every roll of the dice might be are last..now do we care, to be honest no not really. do we care about the lives we would affect if we were to die?..no not really, the core of our disease is selfcenterdness. all we care about is ourselves our next hit..it’s very sad..but were sick people. and like i said before we need help. We can’t get clean on our own, it’s soooo hard to be programed to use drugs to run from feelings, hide from emotions, basically block all the hurt. to then just stop and were stuck with all these uprooting feelings, shit weve never delt with, it’s hard. we need to be babied back to life, because we were dead. spiritually, emotionally dead..a walking corpse, dead but still alive..So i just ask those who see people struggling through addictions to not be so quick to judge us and just give us the time of day because we all have a story with us, and sometimes just need to be listened to..So to sum this up a day in the life of a addict, recovering or using.. is difficult so when you have a bad day at work, or things arent going your way always be reminded that theres someone out there thats alot worse off than you..
A lady called my office yesterday & asked my secretary if she could get issues 1 & 2 of It’s all in the JOURNEY. I called her back the next day to explain that I’d be glad to send her issue #2, but I did not want to give out anymore of issue 1 because there are only about 75 left out of the original 10,000 and they were very special to me; a realization of a dream.
She asked who she was speaking to.
When I told her who I was, she got very excited and said, “Charlie G! It is such an honor to talk to you!”
It took me aback.
People tell me they love the magazine, the art work, the columns, even my writing,
And I like that.
Because then I know God is still with me;
(I could not even pretend that I do this stuff by myself).
But when she told me it was an honor to talk to me,
It made me…uncomfortable.
Did she not know who I was? Really?
I told her, “Lady, I am just an alcoholic & addict. I am nobody.”
She told me she worked for ******, (a company that has multiple treatment centers in multiple states), and that she was in recovery too. “I’ve gone back to school & gotten a bunch of letters to add after my name, but I know it’s one day at a time.”
She continues telling me how much she loved It’s all in the JOURNEY.
“The covers, Detox Diary, Prose Posse, they are just great!” She gushed.
“Detox Diary is my column.” I said, “It’s about me deciding to get clean, and fighting to stay clean, after losing my daughter.”
“Joy” She said simply, “Yes, I know. She was beautiful.”
I was taken aback, again.
I mention Joy a lot in the magazine; the magazine is dedicated to her & came to be to keep a promise I made to her to live a life she could be proud of, instead of the life I’d been living, And also?
So Joy would not be forgotten.
She sits in the O of JOURNEY on each cover, she is in the masthead & you will usually find her in my column or the Table of Contents.
But that this lady knew her name, & spoke it with such a casual intimacy – it touched me.
“I want to tell you something, Charlie. How funny God is. My husband & I have been trying to have a baby for years and we just found out a few months ago that it isn’t going to happen.
I didn’t know if I was going to be able to stay sober when I heard that, We’ve wanted a child so badly, for so long. But then I came across your magazine. I read all your stories about you & your daughter Joy, and something happened.” She said.
“Reading about you and Joy, and what happened to her, I realized that if you could go on the way you have, not just never having a child, but having one and then losing her, then I knew I could make it, too.”
I didn’t know what to say, except thank her, and then she told me something that completely humbled me, to the point of wanting to cry with either happiness or sadness – I didn’t know which.
I’m going to tell you something else, but I don’t want it to sound hokey.
I, and I’m sure it must be true for a lot of people who can’t have children or have lost a child, who read your magazine;
I feel like I have a child when I read the stories you write about you & Joy. I am right there with you, I feel your love, pain, happiness, pride and hurt for her in each story, and I wanted you to know that it helps me.
That’s why I wanted to get the first two issues, I haven’t read them yet.”
What do you say to that?
What can you say to that?
To know that someone else knows Joy,
Sees her; is right there with her in my stories,
That Joy is still alive in someone else’s head besides mine,
And that she is helping someone even now…
How do you put that feeling into words?
She humbled me.
That’s what I told her.
And that I’d send her the 1st and 2nd issues.
My words helped this lady.
This lady’s words help me.
So easy, to make it easier.
peace