Present in My Life
No Longer Caught in the False Solace of Addiction
April 19, 2011
The thing that’s amazing about my addiction in hindsight is how much it took me away from the things I actually did want to do and achieve. I hadn’t the clarity of mind and spirit to see that the very thing I kept running to as a Band-Aid for dealing with big spiritual and psychic wounds was the very thing that was keeping the wounds open.
For example, I’m a writer. I’ve written about eight screenplays in twelve years and a couple other smaller projects. To me — and this isn’t being overly negative — but, that’s not that much. I have spent the last fifteen years straight working in and around Hollywood, in addition to starting a family and doing what work I could to supplement my career aspirations. I have friends all around me who have “made it.” But I haven’t had that big break. And that’s fine as I believe it takes the intersection of persistence, preparedness, and luck to launch a big project. But my preparedness was never what it could be before recovery, despite having a good amount of luck and a fair amount of helpful contacts in the movie business.
For every time fortune smiled on me, I’m almost positive it was my addiction which thwarted my very heartfelt efforts. I can recall days and days and days on end trying to focus and write, but being horribly distracted. Always. I have ADHD and OCD traits, too, and coupled with the addiction, or in the service of the addiction, I made myself miserable with these issues. I have read that my addiction isn’t just a “bad habit” or a “moral lack”; it is utter powerlessness and unmanageability. It’s a complete break from the reality that many other people can live through, day to day. Other people can date and fool around; other people can peruse a little porn and still be intimate; other people know when to turn off a computer and go to bed and care for themselves in normal, healthy ways. But that’s not me. As a result of a once-relied upon diversion morphing into a full-blown addiction, I can’t do the things that other people can.
As a result, I couldn’t really get my career going the way I’d have liked, despite my sincerest efforts. But guess what? It’s not the end of the world and I’m not going to do what I used to do and lose myself for months in the false solace of my addiction because things temporarily didn’t go as planned. I’m letting my life happen, rather than trying to force it to happen and rather than trying to self-sabotage by spending precious time and energy locked into an addiction that doesn’t care about me, my loved ones, my career, my health, or my art. That’s a big change from a few years ago. I am present in my life. And with God’s help, I can make healthier decisions for me and follow-through on them instead of watch another fifteen years go by.
