Hi everyone, as most of you know, I started building the MIP website in the late 1990's.  Back then it was because I could not get to face to face meetings due to 2 herniated disk in my back, and riding in a car was way too painful.  I had surgery in 1999 and haven't experienced so much as discomfort in it since then.    Then in 2000 it was followed by lung surgery, because during the back's pre-surgical examine they found a mass, 2 inches in diameter in the upper lobe of my left lung!  They took the upper lobe out and sent it to two independent labs and the state medical lab.  Only to discover that it was the residue of my smoking crack cocaine for almost 10 years, using ashes as a flteration system on a coke can... that had accumulated on some flam in my lung and recystalized!  Then in 2001 I had 4 inches of blood vessel blow out in my brain!  They determined the cause of it was because inhaling and holding pot smoke in my lungs repeatedly for over 20 years, as well as my 10 year crack run caused my brains blood vessels to expand and contract so much that it stretched the lining of the blood vessels in my brain until they were thinned out to the point of blowing out! Keep in mind that I got sober in 1989, and had 10+ years sobriety when the ramifications of my drinking and using for all those years started to really kick my ass physically

I am a alcoholic.  And the only thing I will say at this point is ...Alcoholics should not do dope! We take everthing to the wall!  Trust me when I say my partying days were over and the fun gone, long before I found the rooms of AA.  I was drinking and using, not because it was fun any more, not because it increased my social skills or made me a better dancer, but because... to not medicate myself with whatever substance I could get my lil' hands on, made me a very sick person.  The withdrawals were unbearable.  Usually I would try to detox myself with good intentions and I was saturated with enough alcohol and drugs that it seemed I would get through it the first day or two without a problem.  But when the levels in my body got reduced to a current point, usually around day 3, it started yelling.."where's the shit!" The vomiting, delusions, temors, halucinations, all the goodies that come as a result of being a real alcoholic would send me out the door to go get a bottle of alcohol, and shortly after, coupled with some form of narcotic... and I'd be "okay" again.  My thinking and emotional center would feel a ton of shame, guilt, failure and inadequcy... but my body would be saying.."whew, that was a close call, glad that boy got his shit together enough to go get something to drink"!  And the party was on again...

My party consisted of spending time locked in a bathroom, or in a walk in closet, (heck, I was homeless before I was ever "homeless"!) closed curtains, phone unplugged, tv off, not communicating with the world, family, friends or complete strangers, being unemployable, unable to keep a drivers license, trips to jail and nut houses, being in so much debt that free online credit reporting agencies wouldn't even risk giving me a FREE credit report!   I started coming to AA in 1984, from time to time, usually to get some form of heat off my back, or to use as a rescue mission where I could get a free cup of coffee and bum a cigarett from someone, because my disease had left me desitute and homeless, again.

Then one day, in late December, 1989 I was sitting on a curve, with a bottle of beer.  (I wasn't a beer drinker, I drank hard liquor but I had been reduced to cheap beer to meet my financial status) Not wanting to take another drink.  Tears rolling down my face.. as I took another drink.  My mind started in on me, nagging the crap out of me.  "Why don't you give AA a real chance"?  "Give it one more try and be honest this time!" "You know thats the only hope you really have left!" "You can't do it for the wife, she's gone, you can't do it for the job, ya ain't got one, you can't do it to keep your home, you already lost it, you can't do it to keep your drivers license its permanently revoked!" "Do it for yourself!, go do it because sitting on a curb, in the cold is no way to live and this is not how you want to die!"

I made it to a noon meeting at the YMCA that day, and haven't had a drink or drug since.

But... I had this feeling inside me last year, like I did that day I was sitting on that curb, in the cold.  Sitting in the background.  Isolated, shut down from the world around me.

When my ex-wife of 3 years cheated on me in 2010 and I brought us to an immediate end, with my grand zero tolerance ideaologies and code of unforgiving moral ethics... it crushed ME.  It hurt in ways I cannot truly define in words.  I feel like my spirit was broke and I went into this very dark abass.  A hole so deep that light couldn't be pumped into it.  So, what does a good alcoholic do? Well, he runs out there to find another woman as fast as he can!   I was like a damn preditor on online dating sites! Seeing who else he could put on his menu!  Trying to validate myself, my manhood, my worthiness, my lovability..etc. And no woman in the world could fill that God shaped hole inside of me! After repeated failed attempts to use another human being to make me feel whole again, ending up having severe anxiety attacks and depression that I won't bother trying to describe, and of course aligning myself with some of the worlds sickest woman, (yep, they were an easy target for my sickness), and reducing my communications with my sponsor or most any one else that could be considered "relatively healthy", and then embedding myself around newcomers that come and go from the Miracles In Progress recovery homes I opened here locally, I finally crashed and burned.  I couldn't go any further. The party was over again, and I felt like I was sitting on that curb in Dec again.

This was a year ago.  I haven't taken a drink or drug in 23 years, but that does not mean I have been SOBER for 23 years.  I believe that for a year, I was sicker than I was the day I entered AA in 1989.

I have spent a year now, sitting in the background of this site.  Sitting in the background of pretty much any social activity, sitting in the background of the dating scene, sitting in the background at meetings, not really sharing, not sponsoring.  I also let my control of the recovery homes go to a great extent.  Meaning I backed out of being involved in every decision, who is accepted into them, who is terminated from them, basic policy and procedures and turned most of it over to the house managers and let them resolve things in house, instead of having to run everything they do by me.

What I haven't sat in the background of for a year is step 11.  Daily, I have sought through prayer and mediation to improve my conscious contact with God, seeking only knowledge of His will for me, and the power to carry it out.

That God shaped hole inside of me is getting smaller and smaller.  He is starting to again fill it up.  Of course, He has his work still cut out for Him.  I know I am not the finished product yet. I surely hope not, for if I am... I'm screwed!  LOL

Today is a day of graditude.  Most, who blow out blood vessels in their brain like I did are dead before their body hits the floor.  He pulled me through that to the degree that unless I tell you about it, you'd never know it.  I am breathing, without any assistance from any medical device or even an inhaler.  My back is strong and without any discomfort.  My broken heartedness has not resulted in suicide or homicide, everyone is still alive!  My heart still beats strong and consistently, my blood pressure great... and there is a smile on my face again... that isn't just a facial feature, created by muscles around my lips, but that comes from so deep inside that you can cover my mouth and still see it... in my eyes.

The light is coming back on...

I called my sponsor this morning.  He was happy to hear from me.  I told him that my days of sitting on the curb, in the cold were over finally.  That I was going to start coming out to play nice again.  Work this program as though my life absolutely depends on it, because it does.  Reach out to both the newcomer and oldtimers, and be available where I can to help someone besides myself.  He reminded me of a few things I have said many times...

"If you feel like your good for nothing, change it by finding someone else to do some good for nothing for."

and then told me to practice the three M's every day for another year...

Meetings, mediation...and masterbation!

Now that might sound a bit crude and blunt, but hey, right now, I know he is right.  I need to embed myself solidly in this program, continue developing my relatiionship with God, and continue leaving the woman in this world the heck alone.  I should have enough mercy for woman to not inflict myself upon another, for at least... another year.

Then I might, just maybe be taking a whole man to the table again.

I love ya'll bunches, and yes, I have been reading your post here, sitting in the backgound... not posting or replying to post.  I won't be sitting in the background so much.  I am ready to come out and play nice again.

John