Tag Archives: Recovery

Amends

22 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by in Native, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Recovery, Slavery

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You feel good, yesterday a gem of service
instead of a face-down rumble into rum
and the glass,

All is possible looking down at a schedule
for one day, with God at the top, sleep
at the bottom,

Recovery the dream of getting back what
you never really had, so hallelujah!!  It’s
back to youth,

the dream of all that could be and the action
to “move the chains” toward it, as footballers
might try to say,

In love with life, just for today.

***

You feel good, no more running away,
acceptance the key before changing
what we do and what we say.

But before all that, truth must shine,
we must admit our faults to God,
ourselves and another human being

this is a basic AA thing, 12 steps
to freedom and growth, to
God only knows—sunshine and rain

producing a golden rainbow to block
out and record the pain.  Write a book,
or just plan this day, God laughing with you

as we climb the trail toward the
Great Mother’s sinewy sinew, a waterfall
worth a thousand pictures, a stream

trying to win back Los Angeles and
become her river once more.
Concrete from rock, we break down

our modern thoughts.  We seek
a Native voice, but must study and go
back to see the facts for proper choice.

God be with us, to turn our good
into better, to rise in our sobriety
to remember the native and slave

in chains.  To make amends for the
pain that stains, the rain that reigns,
the peace that shames because it

was not justice for all but for only
the white, privileged kings. God
grant us more than shiny new things,

but the wisdom to see what the
Chiefs saw and were: the Gold of the
land in its true love.  Gratitude.

The lost art of standing.  Sitting.  Laying
down in the midst of greatness when
the buffalo spirit returns, dirt to the shirt,

Take off our ties, go back to England
and tell the Crown at Last!!!!

“We found the gold, Ma’am. Yes,
it was the native people.  Their wisdom.
Their love of land and connection to it.”

Sound the pipes, rattle the skins,
scrape the strings, the Celtic song
revives to the native revival, a sign

from all the gods that to call yourself
a child of God, be grateful for what you
have, forgive the wrongs done you,

help another find shelter, if you are
blessed to have it, and join the alcoholic
as he or she marches backwards to

right the wrongs never more wrong
than now…

It feels good.

What It’s Like to be Suicidal

09 Monday Oct 2017

Posted by in Blog, Health, Mental Health

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Suicidal image1

-by Bill Watkins 10/9/2017

***

I was suicidal off and on from 1998 to 2002.

The first glitch I felt toward unhinged depression was around my 25th birthday in 1997.  Mom got me my first laptop, I liked hanging out with her, the computer was cool, but…

I was writing a very creative piece, attending many Al-Anon 12-step meetings, and more and more: I felt weird, a manic-depression settled into my life.

High in the throes of my creative projects, low afterward, with NO SCHEDULE FOR MY DAY, nor contentment at a day well-lived toward Sleep.

***

I was and am alcoholic.  I did not fully know that back then.

The suicidal bug, which came from the manic-depression bug, stemmed from my first drink of flammable alcohol on Dad’s lap when five years old.

I started drinking it with friends at age twelve, started blacking out off the substance at age thirteen.  Yes, Maradona was down in Mexico becoming a legend while I was awoken by my sister’s friends PEEING ON THEIR COUCH.  I was in a sleep-walking blackout after many beers consumed into my sub-five foot, sub-100 pound frame.

My drinking peaked at age sixteen, the false god alcohol fully worshipped in place of God, life, and being honest with the girl I loved.

None of that story went away when I started to curb back drinking Senior year of high school and into college.

I was a periodic partier, who drank and smoked pot on occasion, overdosed in the form of blackouts and pass-outs before officially overdosing on prescribed medicine in 1999 and 2000.

The OD’s came on the heels of a trip to the Bay Area from my native Southern California.  Up there I flagged down old friends, and considered jumping off the Golden State Bridge.

I stared down that jump all of one afternoon, for hours.  I finally “chickened out,” which made me more depressed, then saw an old school friend and his beautiful wife before hitting an AA meeting in town.

Within a week, I finally jumped—into the bathroom cabinet and its pills instead of into that San Francisco Bay water.

It seemed less illegal, but it hurt just the same.  My body stopped working during one of those first overdose cycles, and I called 911.

My stomach and diaphragm still don’t always work, eighteen years later, because of what I did.  I am now fifteen-plus years sober and off all medication, drugs, caffeine, soda—even sex.

I found parenting and help in God, the bible, Alcoholics Anonymous and wise friends who had recovered from insanity as well.

***

Being suicidal is scary, confusing, and groundless.

Some do mass murder before they commit suicide, some dream about it while suicidal—I myself had visions of glory’s blaze, stepping out into traffic, jumping off bridges, turning a fast-moving car into a center freeway divider.

Those are potentially homicidal acts, and so the reader should note that being suicidal has a homicidal quality—a lack of care for All life.

What kept me from a lot of those acts was a growing concept of Higher Power, a symbol of the quiet, peaceful Jesus within me.  I’d call on it when tempted, and here I am still alive, just for today!

2nd Adolescence of a 33-yr Old Virgin Alcoholic

30 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by in Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Recovery, Sex, Sexuality

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Whew!

It’s hard to make a comeback, especially
when there is nothing behind you—only now.

Drinking fire on Dad’s lap at five, I let
my first crush pass me by…

There were no feelings, nor a safe place
to explore or express them…

Until I got to Betty Ford at 22, and a black
social worker named Lee intervened on
my dishonesty.

In time for me to abandon the sickness of
telling lies, in time to join Al-Anon, overdose
twice, join AA, and finally have sex on my
third sobriety birthday.

I was thirty-three in human years.

Thirty-three!!!  Seven short of a Steve Carell
comedy on the subject, and of a sad topic in
my Abnormal Psych class at UCSB.

I’ve been on a long second childhood and
adolescence post-Lee and Al-Anon, since
telling the truth and trying to “move on…”

It’s hard to be a child with a beard.

It’s hard learning to say “I love you” and
other truths for the first time in a man’s
body when they expect you to “Go to
Work.”

My mind without alcohol beating down on it
was “working.”  That work I did…

Work was Force multiplied by Distance, said
my Physics teacher, known to live a life of
Celibacy—how could he?

Easy.  Hard.  Difficult, but with a God or Higher
Plan about you, anything you want to do can be done,
even moving the canyon from there to there.

I have given up sex to honor my first crush, the
Wife of my Youth.  No one told me to do this,
but the idea came like a prayer to wrestle my
mind from confusion.

Honor.  Honor your parents, yes, keep the
Sabbath day holy, believe in God, don’t kill,
lie or steal, but also:

DO NOT COVET and DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY.

Do not pretend to be single, when you have failed
to keep your commitment to the Wife of Your
Youth…

I am married to God and her.  She lives not with me;
therefore sex is not possible for a moral man.

No one told me what to do with sex growing up,
No one told me about it, what it was for and
with who to have it…

My first life was a dishonest pass through love,
never admitting or expressing it.

A “childhood” of alcohol consumption, sports
and superficial relationships.

That “childhood” had to die; a new one started
in the middle of my body’s manhood—which made
many, including me, uncomfortable.

But it had to be done; I had to live the Truth, get to
here, pray to God—find my sexual and loving path,
reason and pray sex away in the current moment,
make an adult decision to Honor all that makes
us proper men and women.

“Be as a child” to enter heaven, and “rejoice
with the Wife of your youth…”

That is the plan, not handed to me by any
person, though spiritual friends have helped.

“Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.”

We can make our lives sublime, Longfellow
reminds, go big or go home.

“Be perfect as God is perfect,” strive to be the
best we can be, and attain John Wooden’s
famous peace of mind, if you merely strive
you surely get it.

Formerly Suicidal

24 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by in Poem, Poems, Poetry

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Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Longfellow a poetic life coach, spurring
me on by the side of a psych ward bed.

I had overdosed not once but twice,
had eyeballed “death” to find that there
is only life and our fight to live it.

Alcohol on Dad’s lap at five, no talks
of love or intimacy, no God, no Truth,
we were in the haze of the Wide path to Hell.

Alcohol as “drink,” C2H5OH ethyl a first
rocket fuel, flammable, volatile, toxic but
clear to go unnoticed to childlike eyes.

“I want that!” because Dad does it, and I
love Dad more than anyone or anything.
Dad and Mom—5th on God’s list of Commands.

I had skipped past “God,” worshipped a man,
then his drink, and when the Wife of my Youth
appeared in third grade: bedeviled, I failed.

I was a bedeviled liar by that time, unable
to speak my mind, my heart squeezed by
serpenty snakes, on the roof teetering, on

the back balcony faltering, on my way to
beer and pot and jacuzzi parties, sports abound
lying about who I was and what I wanted…

The wheels finally came off after college,
then skip a couple years, I turned twenty-five,
was barely alive, so when the Doc supplied

I took more than his dose, did what I had done
with vodka years before, took enough to feel it
in that moment, left me calling 911, 911, 911.

I never learned to live, I was half-dead, my mom
was in the other room when I was alcohol fed,
No one tried wrong, we just were on the Wide,

Wide path of destruction warned of by that
Rebellious rabbi some call “Christ,” Holy Moly
I’ve got truth at Al-Anon and AA, everywhere else:

Lies.  Guys, let’s be honest, “Alcohol as Drink” is
a lie, is the DEVIL, let’s decide!!!!

Be the hero in the strife, Longfellow spurring us
on past the finish line, stick your chest out like
Cristina Sanchez, proud of who we are, honest,

Fearless and True, we can cower at the bull, say
Boo hoo hoo, or stand up, get up again, brush
yourself off start a clothing line, live a dream become

the wind of hope, the outcropping of Good Orderly
Direction, make a schedule for TODAY only, planning
is fine, but God may laugh, Choose Life, a career, a path,

Giving up the Devil drugs and alcohol your first step
to heaven’s ascension, by the poem you write,
That’s the Lennon revolution, God bless us all,

I am suicidal no more.  But I was… And got out with
AA, love, truth, and courage enough to declare
Powerlessness, so that a great Power could come

in and clean up the mess.  One day at a time, is the
only way to live, and live we must, there is no death;
Thank you God for Now, today the only day in Life,

We write this dream together, and with Longfellow let’s
Say it again, one more time here, to let it sink in:

Be a hero in the Strife!!!  A hero in this life.  Steer into
your pain, stand tall like a Marine at his post, block
out your will, replace it with God’s, sacrifice and lean

in to your next promotion, it’s on the way—not because
it’s easy, just the reverse, because it’s difficult, Love,
Love, Love, and Love yourself.  Like my Uncle Les would

say: “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!” and it’s that easy.  Hard.  Soft,
Long.  Give yourself to today only, leave nothing left at
the end but contented sleep.  You cannot find a better

Drug.  Not yet…  Not ever, as God witnesses a never-
ending beginning, the moment we open eyes, take
advantage of our sober dream, make amends, be a friend

Do it all again… “This time with feeling!!!”

Formerly suicidal is dead.  Life begins.  Today… is

All.