From There To Here

Thou canst not travel on the path before thou hast become that Path itself.
- Helena Blavatsky

Several years ago, during an especially unmanageable part of my addiction history, I had a dream that I was driving. I was desperately trying to get somewhere and I seemed to have the wrong directions. I was talking to my mom on my cell phone asking for directions and she was describing to me where to turn. I could tell from her description that I was in the place that I was supposed to be, but the road she kept telling me to turn on did not exist. There was only a steep grassy hillside. I tried to find another avenue but there were none. All of the paths only looped me back to the place I started from; the place I was supposed to turn onto a road that was not there.

December 14, 2006, I had reached the end of my looking for the road that was not there. Everything in my life had come to nothing. I’m a stubborn boy. I do not yield easily. Every time I had a negative consequence because of my addiction I quickly pushed it aside in favor of a new strategy that would enable me to keep using. I was “not able to bring into mind with sufficient force the humiliation and suffering” of my present moment. I had prayed for a long time, and that night I prayed in earnest for God to let my life end. I have found that most people in recovery had a similar, profound pain.

People say to be careful what we pray for. I don’t know what they are talking about. I prayed that God would end my life and He did. Just not the way I hoped for. You see, I had hoped that I would simply not wake up one morning, or perhaps I’d get hit by a bus. I hoped that it wouldn’t be to painful. I would have done the job myself but I didn’t have the courage.

Prayers are heard and prayers are answered. I prayed for my life to end and it ended. One year ago, today, I woke up to a new life in a universe that makes sense; a life free of drugs and alcohol. Every morning and every evening for 365 days I have gotten up and gone to bed at night sober. That’s a miracle in my life.

There is no road that gets one from where I was to where I am. No worldly power is sufficient. No treatment program, not doctor, no family member or great love, no willpower, no consequence, no threat of jails or institutions or death was powerful enough to get me sober and keep me that way. It is only the grace of a loving Creator who intends for me a purpose, a meaning, and a destiny to grow, day by day, toward His own likeness and image.

I am only one, but I am one. I can’t do everything, but I can do something. The something I ought to do, I can do. And by the grace of God, I will.
- Edward Everett Hale

Photo credit: Texaco Detail, originally uploaded by aliyan824.

Note: This photograph is a detail of an oversized map of the state of New York made up of 567 mosaic terrazzo panels weighing about 400 lbs. each, covering the floor of Philip Johnson & Richard Foster’s New York State Pavilion at the the 1964 World’s Fair in New York (Queens). The map, now in ruins, once displayed the locations of all Texaco gas stations in the state of New York.