Letter to sponsee in Jail

I"m so sorry it has taken me so long to get back to you Jerry. I am happy to hear that your plans are moving along regarding you getting home.  I was sick for nearly three weeks with what I guess was the flu. I finally went to the doctor and got a steriod shot and an antibiotic otherwise I would still be sick.

You are doing such a great job on your step work. I can hear your heart beat in the words that you put on paper. You are also good at getting out the feeling stuff. We are only accountable for our recovery when we know better. I couldn't get clean before I knew I was an addict. We do better when we know better. We see when we see and hear when we hear. In other words you my friend a right on schedule.
When you get out and when you get to regular NA meetings, you will learn how to guard your recovery and your centered, recovery peace of mind . There is a life available to you, that you can't dream up on your own, that working a recovery program in NA will lead you to. No scheming or cleverness can get us where NA will take us. You will gain trust in yourself. It's indescrible to not worry about walking down an isle in Kroger than has beer on it, or go to the doctor without making up a story to get drugs. It's freedom YOu can risk to love someone whether or not they love you back. You know you are safe and fine.

You mention "I should or should have known better couple of of time in your step work. Do you think someone with brain cancer or breast cancer could beat themselves up because they should have seen the possibility? Addiction is a disease, it doesn't discrimate and almost none of us see it coming, EVEN IF we come from a family of addiciton. It's cunning dude. Navy Seal operations have nothing when compared to how addiction slides in on us.

YOu mentioned people saying "why don't you smile". I practiced a look that I thought made me look like I wasn't paying attention when people said mean things. I have seen pictures of that look on me and I look like I not only ride the short bus, but the TINY bus.  I tried to come off as stupid, like Jethro on the Beverly Hillbillies  Isn't that crazy. If people thought I had no motive by the look on my face I was hoping they would leave me alone, no fight here.
YOu mention "Despair and Isolation", Jerry when you use those words, I instantly know that we have been in the same dark pit of death. Those words are much like words the only survivors of the titanic could use and instantly they all know what is meant.
YOu questioning whether you have hit rock bottom, is interesting. I was willing and planning to go lower that God/HigherPower/Great Spirit would let me know. I was prepared for the darkest existence possible in human form. I kept getting rescued. So I to could possibly argue the fact i never hit rock bottom. I never died, completely demoralized. My emotional bottom is pretty sufficient though. I've walked the planet for to long with love for no one. I trusted that know one could love me and I saw everythign from behind a thick glass wall. My bottom is being separate from humanity, from family. Friendless, hopeless, loveless was my bottom. The rest is just geography.
It's funny that you mention working without gloves. There is a disconnect that tells us it doesn't matter if it hurts us or it won't hurt us if we don't care. I  do that with condoms now. It's hard for me to matter to myself.  It's is something I hope to get better at. I hope hope we both get better and really mattering to ourselves.
It's Ok, for your answers and your recovery to look like your own. Your answers or thoughts don't have to be like anyone else s  You are free , even though the facility thinks your not. I can imprison myself faster, deeper and more grim than any Texas facility can. I'm just not locked up and bound by hurt today I don't knock myself out of the game so I can avoid the pain of you doing it to me. There is a life, a state of mind, a place that you can't get to anyway but through the Steps, a high power and the people you choose to let get to know you. You are doing such a good job on your step work. I think your answers are way more on point than mine were.
I just wanted to get this to you and I will write you next week. I"m sorry it took me this long to get back to you.
Much love and so proud- Clinton

I've been trying something new and I think it's paying off.  I don't hate or mind the work out in the gym. It's not confusing or difficult but I found myself making myself really miserable with thinking about going to the gym. The thinking was worse than the doing. When I was a teenager, I didn't sleep well. I would wake up super angry and I spoke to my family like a monster. Then one day I decided , that speaking to someone you love harshly just because you don't feel good is not acceptable. I never took my mood out on my family in the mornings again. So last week, I thought about that, and what power I have and seldom use is change the way I think. "Change your thoughts, change your life"...Dr. Dyer.  I made a deal with myself. I only think about working out, walking or lifting weights at the gym, when I am actually there. I haven't tortured myself with thoughts of going and doing all day long because, it is such a waste of energy to dread. Once I'm there I am completely fine. I'm only thinking about exercise when I am there and can actually do it. Why give away my energy and thoughts to something that technically could never happen again, if I were to get hit by the death bus that we have all heard about since we were kids, "You could get hit by a bus tomorrow" i would have wasted some of my finite time here. There are many areas of my life that I approach this way, but it just dawned on me about not focusing on dread of gym trips til last week. "What do I have to do right now"? Dread causes anxiety, anxiety causes inflammation. Inflammation causes illness. Illness includes my diseased thinking and  ill responses which I often turn to food to reduce. The only way I will keep this weight off and new approach to eating is to stay completely present in my life, aware! I"m in the bold new world of monitoring my mood and thoughts as they are happening and I'm not turning to food, alcohol or anxiety medicine.  I am working with out a net so to speak well, I have a great support team though.  Am I really willing to give up with is old and comforting for the chance at real freedom? Today I absolutely am willing to say yes. I've tasted freedom in areas of my life and I believe whole heartedly that freedom from my slavery to food is not only possible is currently unfolding around me.

Weird. I was talking with my therapist yesterday about how my perception of my physical self is messed up. I thought I was fat all the way through high school  until my senior year. I was doing a project that had me going through the annuals for the four years I was in school. I was kind of shocked because I was not fat at all in high school and I was even thinner my senior year when I stuck with my FIRST hideously dangerous starvation diet plan.  This weekend when I went for jeans and ended up two sizes smaller than what I grabbed , I realized I have no idea physically how much space I take up. I've been taking a lot of photos lately mostly so i can study myself in them and get a more accurate self image. I tried a side by side comparison wearing the same shirt in the same spot a couple days ago. Fat definitely fills the wrinkles in and I look now like a game show host a bit, but I am trying to develop or redevelop that imagine of self in my head and try to be fair, but accurate- less distorted. IN the photo I am a grown man, a 45 year old man and it flies in the face the idea that I am in in Kindergarten and just waiting for my mommy to pick me up. lol Funny thing about step work and living a life based on self discovery and behavior modification, it forces you to strip away the lies and misunderstands and makes you look at the truth about yourself. Am I suffering because I am in some delusion or allusion that can be exposed as fantasy or am judging reality with sound thinking and clear vision? Time will tell. I know for a fact this stuff doesn't heal or fix itself, so I have some fucking work to do to.

I realize that I have had the benefit of thousands of self ideas, scores of friends who share intimate details of the stories of relationships and countless 12 step meetings , but I heard in a meeting in 1992, "Damaged People Damage OTHER people, Dammit" and I believed it. I believed the second it landed in my ears and hit my brain. I don't have specials or amulets that will protect if I decide to befriend (or more) seriously fucked people. It's universal truth of spirit. It's either ego or stupidity the women fall in love with the bad boy, or men who think that "do something with" a gal. If you leave the glove box open in your, and the tiny light comes, it will burn and burn and finally even though it is a tiny light, it will drain every bit of the juice out of your battery and then the whole car won't start. I"m kind to most everyone but the people I choose or feel led by spirit to get close to are people who have an independent source of light for themselves they come pre-lit. The most they need from me is a spark for the pilot light if it has gone out. I had a job around a treatment center and I let all the clients into my center, in the name of service work and misguided kindness, I was swallowed up by fearful, desperate people and suddenly, I realized , I had left my glove box open,WEEKS Ago. lol All my life I was told "Clinton, you just have to find every thing out for yourself, the hard way". I didn't know any better than to believe them. I lived long enough to find out that, that is not true at all. I hear story and I believe your experience and know if this is how it played out for you, I see know reason my experience would be different. I am FUCKING TEACHABLE today and from the center of the core of my being, I am so thankful. "If a man hits you once, he will hit you again." "Some people are hooked the moment they do coke for the first time" "It's easier to tell the truth the first time". and "Damaged people damage other people, dammit". The only ass I am capable of saving is my own, and that requires me to stay in reality and out of the world of fantasy that my recovery is so grand I can save someone who doesn't want to be save. It is not uncommon for drowning people to drown their rescuers.

One of my favorite quotes is "

There is really nothing you must be and there is nothing you must do. There is really nothing you must have and there is nothing you must know. There is really nothing you must become. However, it helps to understand that fire burns, and when it rains, the earth gets wet.
-Zen saying

Today I am certain the water is wet and fire burns. I have learned how to learn from the tale that the others tell. End of story. ( PUFF PUFF) as my friend Alfred would type

I don't think I"ve grasp that the fact that my choices of food and exercise have change my physical being. I took  my dog on a long walk that was my exercise walk until I joined the gym.   In one leg of of it is three city blogs straight up hill  I would make my self walk without stopping and  months ago but my thighs would burn like fire and when I would reach the top I always had to stop for a second.  Yesterday i walked the hill without burning thighs without breathing heavy and I didn't stop.  This surprises me. ON paper I know  I get that we get stronger but to experience it as real is sort of confusing. None of my clothes fit , In fact I am donating some polo shirts the the mission tomorrow. I went to buy a pair of jeans that fit and that  I wasn't in constant fear of them dropping to the ground like clown pants. I had got some 40 waist 8 weeks ago and was planning on trying on 38 waist knowing they would be tight.  I ended up in a 36. I was so stunned at my waist size i went and got other cuts from Levi's and Wrangler and I wear a 36 in all of them. It was really really shocking. My goal was to be 40 waist so  could buy clothes in regular stores. I have not  been  36 in the waist  since before I was 30 I think. Amazing how terribly out of sync I am with my psychical self. When I gathered the strength and hope to try this again,  I knew I couldn't hate the weight off. I couldn't use disgust as fuel to deny food like my history has been. It's been pretty constant that when I eat something it is with concern for myself. I'm not a breakfast eater but almost everyday I eat something to get the metabolism started and because I know I need fuel, I eat, whether I want to or not. I had a run of 5 days where I punished myself by not eating well or enough. It was as if I could lose enough that somehow I was more valuable as a human. Lucky for me, I talk to friends in recovery and to my long suffering Psychologist and the reminded me that hate or disgust aren't valid forms of motivation.   I sort of feel like I woke up today and I was put in a new body while I slept. Which sounds absurd, but I really have just come out of being absent in my own awareness. This sort of snuck up on me even though I was doing the work. One other thing about the 3 block hill i will mention. I could only look at my feet when I used to walk it because I was afraid if I saw how far I had to go, I would quit or it would hurt more. Yesterday with my dog, I never looked down even once. I only looked ahead and straight forward.

HIt my goal weight, now living and keeping it off

I'm down to about 245. I thought I wanted to go to 230 but I'm afraid if I lose any more weight, my face will look old and I get even more drapie crepe skin . I can't believe I got here from where I started and that once I starting going to the gym it doubled how much I was losing. I was really shocked by that. 77 pounds gone and I feel human again. 77 pounds of self medication and inactivity removed. GRATEFUL and intrigued.

Another year of my human expeirence has come and gone.

Well, we have reached the final day of the year 2012. Some day, young people will look back on this year the way I do 1976 or 1982. The hairstyles and the clothes will make them cringe when they stumble upon old photos. I still think I totally rocked the mullet when it was new and THE new style. A generation comes of age and another becomes obsolete. It's been happening since man began the upright walk. I just noticed it this time in my life of living presently. Happy 2013, and may the lessons we learned from 2012, serve us all well in the future. Every day that I wake up is the most important day of my life because the sun rises and illuminates the chance, the chance to do things different and to start all over again. As I transition into `13, I hope I remember that love is the answer, all I can do is all I can do and that my trip on earth is no more or no less important than yours . Surround your self with people who expect more of you , and not the folks that demand so little of you. When we temporarily forget who we are, what we believe and what we stand for it, is our friends, our comrades or our brothers and sisters of humanity that have the power to wake us from lie of self. Much Love, Clinton

Well, we have reached the final day of the year 2012. Some day, young people will look back on this year the way I do 1976 or 1982. The hairstyles and the clothes will make them cringe when they stumble upon old photos. I still think I totally rocked the mullet when it was new and THE new style. A generation comes of age and another becomes obsolete. It's been happening since man began the upright walk.  I just noticed it this time in my life of living presently. Happy 2013, and may the lessons we learned from 2012, serve us all well in the future. Every day that I wake up is the most important day of my life because the sun rises and illuminates the chance, the chance to do things different and to start all over again. As I transition into `13, I hope I remember that love is the answer, all I can do is all I can do and that my trip on earth is no more or no less important than yours . Surround your self with people who expect more of you , and not the folks that demand so little of you. When we temporarily  forget who we are, what we believe and what we stand for it,  is our friends, our comrades or our brothers and sisters of humanity  that have the power to wake us from lie of self.

My name is Clinton, I'm and addict and In 2013, I'm going places.

  My year long meditation last year was "Freedom in The 12, and I got a lot of freedom I never had. I had more days this year in freedom of medicating with food, and really standing up for myself or others when it was necessary. For 2013 my meditation is "I"M GOING  PLACES".  I have know idea where I'm going but I'm not staying here, in this mind space, in this space of uncertainty or doubt. I'm just gonna keep showing up and saying yes and we will see where life is on 2014. I'm releasing all those ideas that try to convenience me that I'm suppose to stay small.

Life has a magical why of making what you believe in your head become reality. Consider carefully what ideas you cling to. The world is either a place of lack and withholding or there is more than enough for you. You experience is based on what you believe. I feel so badly for the folks locked in fear and addicted to bad news of Fox and even the local news They feed there fear with 500 channels of a never ending broadcast feed of gloom, suspicion and soul poison. In a very real way we determine our experience based on the phenomenon of manifestation. You see what you look for, you live what you believe. Many people I love have never experienced freedom from the misinformation and memes inflicted upon them as kids. They have spent their whole life being small because they don't know they have a choice in the matter. It's hard to begin to monitor just what thoughts are present in your head but practice makes it easier. The only time I have the ability to choose to do something different is in the present moment. There are thousands of ways of getting to THE MOMENT but it's imperative that we find a way to get ourselves there because its the only time and place that change can happen. Living mindfully allows me the ability to do SOMETHING DIFFERENT.

7.5 months later i am looking like myself again and feeling like my self again. Food is a drug and I want freedom from medicating with food in the same way I am free of drugs. 77 pounds down and 8