Learning as i go.

The older I get the more I realize the damage that was caused by my life style. My belief system and the lack of real love for myself.

  I have never truly been able to fully understand why I feel the way I do about so many things. Like love and any other relationship that requires intimacy.  Was it all the abuse both physical and mental that I received at such a young age that sent me down this path of loneliness and abandonment, I think so? However I just don’t know how to correct it. It seems the more I the more I feel apart instead of included. I am a man that truly loves his family. But I often don’t feel that they love me. Granted I am not a easy person to love. I do come with a few flaws. Like an addiction to drugs and alcohol, a slight tempura and somewhat of a misguided god complex.

I have always needed to be a part of something. However I have never truly committed myself to any one thing. With the exception of my addiction to drugs and alcohol. I believe my addiction started at a very young age when my parents separated. When all the abuse started happing to me. I would watch the adults around me find happiness in drugs and alcohol. When they would have card parties, family get to gathers’. To me I couldn’t believe that these where the same people that would treat me the way they do with such anger and resentment. I would treat each other the same way. And here they were now enjoying each other’s company having drinks laughing with each other, arguing with each other, yet still seemed to be enjoying themselves. I would watch my cousins and other young members of the family sneak drinks. Take the remanence of the drugs and go do them themselves. Then I would watch how they to became joyful and playful. However I was still left to fend for myself.

     Here I was. Just too young to be included in anything, with the exception of being the whipping boy. The avenue that everyone around me with the exception of my brother and my father. My brother was my protector. However on occasion his anger and frustration with the things he was going through would overflow and my actions, mainly my need to be part ”of” would drive him jump on me to put me back in my place. Enough that he could deal with his own issues. I really didn’t understand that at the time. But as I got older I began to understand. Anyway needless to say after seeing everyone around me using the drugs and the alcohol to relieve there stresses. I learned to do the same. And because no one really paid much attention to me it was easy for me to drink and smoke both cigarettes and weed with no one ever saying a word.  I would drink until l passed out. I can truly say my addiction was off to the races after that. Now there were plenty opportunities along the way for me to get off the tracks before the train came, however now I was becoming somebody in my neighborhood, an all-star athlete, a young black man with a car and an addiction that would find new life with the introduction of crack cocaine to the neighborhood.

     With the insertion of cocaine to the mix I now found myself not as popular as I once was. So I did what any lost and ungrounded young man would do with access to money and drugs. I started using. I was still a star athlete however I was no showing up to games high and drunk. Even though I never got into any trouble for it. Not from the coaches or my parents. My life was now officially out of control. Because of my love that was now raising its head for the streets and all the excitement that it was providing. I was now putting myself in a place to lose my scholarships. Which I would eventually lose because my life was now spinning out. Because of my stealing from my father. Mainly his cars. He put me out. And would have nothing to do with me. I found myself homeless. Sleeping under trees, stealing out the grocery stores for food. My bother came back into my life. I don’t know how he found me. But he did. I was at the Salvation Army when my brother found me. We he decided when I finished the program that we would go into the military. Which also turned out not to be a place for me. Now here I am. 21 years old no family that really wanted anything to do with me. A child on the way. Lonely and in a place I didn’t really want to be. I have never really been a person that fit well in structured environments. But here I find myself in one of the most structured environments the United States has to offer. The United States Armed Forces. Damn, this is not where I thought I would be.

To make a long story short, this too would present another opportunity for me to get my life on track. But leave it to the alcohol and my addiction to destroy this opportunity as well.  Long story short. Got kicked out the Army, however the lord saw fit for me to get out with an honorable discharge. Anyway after several years I found myself staying with my bother in Texas. He was stationed there. So I stayed with him for a while. Until the unthinkable would happen. My bother whom I love dearly, got shot. Him and two of his friends while waiting on me to buy some drugs.

      This would turn out to be a pivotal part in my life. And not for the good. After taking care of the situation and making sure my brother was ok. I left Texas and headed home, back to Colorado. Now truly screwed in the head. There has been so many highs and lows along the way it will have to wait for the book to come out. But make no mistake. My life has been out of control for a really long time. So with all that being said I have truly decided to really give my recovery a chance. By doing the work this time. Getting involved service work. Doing the steps and taking some suggestions from my sponsor and those in the program that have put in the work and are willing to help.  I believe that God has a plan for me. I’m not sure where God will have me go. But I do know that My God does not want me to go back from where he has brought me from.