Excerpts:
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There was once an addict that was stuck in a deep hole. A doctor came along. The addict explained his situation to the doctor and the doctor wrote out a prescription, threw it down to the addict then walked away. Shortly thereafter, a priest walked by. When the addict asked the priest for help, the priest wrote out a prayer, threw it down to the addict and walked away. A recovering addict soon came along and after hearing of the addict’s plight, the recovering addict jumped into the hole with the addict. The addict said, “What are you doing? Now we’re both stuck. We’ll never get out of here alive.” The recovering addict then said, “It’s OK. I’ve been down here before and I know the way out. Follow me.” I wrote “The Dopeless Hope Fiend” for the purpose of sharing my experience, strength, faith and hope so that another addict may find the way out of the deep hole of addiction in which we dwell. My story is no different from the story of any other addict that’s been down in that hole. We tried tunneling out, climbing out, some of us even tried to fly out of the hole, but we found that the walls were too dense to tunnel; they were too slippery to climb and no matter how hard we flapped our arms we failed to rise after hitting bottom. Friends and family members tried to ‘fix” us and many of us stopped drinking and doping for a time. We followed their prescriptions as we attempted to answer their prayers. But before long we realized that they were not familiar enough with the ailment to write the proper prescription and only GOD can answer prayers. Most of us became way too comfortable sitting in that hole and we made the hole our home. We decorated the hole with artwork, furniture and even obtained cable TV for the hole until we discovered that the longer we stayed in the hole, the deeper became our bottom. Out of desperation we asked for help and God sent angels that jumped into the hole with us. Angels that showed us the way out of the hole. The angels showed us the path to recovery. Some of us thought that the path was straight and narrow but we were wrong. We were confident that we could bear the winding turns on this path. And because we ignored the road map, we fell into one of the other holes that exist along this path. We were rescued yet again. Though this time we used the road map so to avoid becoming stuck in one of the other holes that litter this path. Among the greatest of the gifts that we were given is the gift of hope. Hope is the reason that we get out of bed in the morning. It gives us the motivation to face any task with confidence and vigor. Faith cannot exist without hope. Faith allows us to walk this path without the fear of falling into another hole. Just for today. We see things very differently now. The hole offered a very narrow view of the world outside of it. Now that we are out, we can see to the horizon in all directions. As the days passed and we became more and more familiar with the path, we see other addicts that are stuck in the same deep holes that we were in. We jump in and show them the way out and they are grateful. Soon, they are jumping in the holes in order to guide their fellows and this wonderful chain continues. We find it important to be patient with ourselves. We didn’t become addicts in one day, one week, or one month. It took many years of practice and training to perfect the art of being a dope fiend. If you think that you may be an addict and that you are ready to get unstuck and find your way out of that hole, I invite you to walk along this path with me. If you need to talk, call me. I’m ready to jump in. Mike G (510)860-7736 As I passed and looked into a small mirror in the hall, I was startled by the image of another person in my room with me .I frantically looked behind me to see who the unauthorized person in my room was but there was no one there. I again looked in the small antique mirror and saw no-one but myself. It was then that I realized that there was no other person in the room. The drugs that I so routinely placed in my body had such a devastating affect on my appearance that I recognized the person staring back at me in the mirror not.”
“There are different ways to gauge your appearance on the street. If I were to walk up to a drug dealer that I did not know and he flat out refused to sell me dope and ask me if I were a cop, I would know that I didn’t look bad at all. If, on the other hand, the stranger looks me up and down before reluctantly selling the drug to me, I would be aware of the fact that my appearance was on the decline. But if the unknown dealer were to spot me walking in his direction from a block away and yells, “Hey, I got it right here” I’d know that I’m one sucked up dope fiend.”
“I have a disease that is triggered by my own thinking. Just as a person that tries to avoid the flu has to distance himself from people that cough and sneeze, an addict has to distance himself from toxic thoughts. By the same token, a person with an interest in avoiding HIV shuns unsafe sex, an addict must also at all cost shun unsafe thinking
