Month: May 2017

The Gift Of Desperation For Two Heroin Addicts I Love Dearly

In the past year, two people I love dearly, who were both extremely instrumental in helping me to develop a strong recovery program and a greater faith in God, have both relapsed back into their heroin addictions, which is something I thought would never happen to either. And sadly, given the number of years both had sober from that deadly drug, I’m struggling to hold on to any hope that either will ever find sobriety again.

Some may think this is me being overly pessimistic, but truly it’s not. The harsh reality with heroin is that less than 20 percent of users who relapse will ever find recovery again. Even worse, the longer a user remained sober prior to that relapse, the less likely they will even fall into that 20th percentile.

Because I’m not one who always believes in the statistics I read on the Web, I decided to do my own poll around the rooms of sobriety only to find out that no one there knew of anyone either who came back to a life of recovery after as long of time sober as my friends had. One of them had around 13 years, while the other had just over 10 years. And while I have known a number of heroin users who relapsed in their first couple of years of sobriety to eventually return to a life of recovery, I don’t have a single instance of anyone who reached 10+ years of sobriety from heroin ever finding recovery again after a relapse. Honestly, I wish I did, but unfortunately, I don’t.

That’s not the case though in the alcohol recovery realm, as there I’ve known plenty of people who had even 20+ years of sobriety relapse and eventually return to the rooms of recovery again. But not so with heroin, as it seems as if the ego gets too deep of a grip on one who succumbs to this deadly drug again after a long period of sobriety to ever allow them to recover again. Tragically, most end up dying from their addiction because of it.

And that’s precisely what I fear right now as I type these words, that one day soon I’m going to receive a phone call where I’m told that one or both of these two friends who were so instrumental in my spiritual growth and recovery from my own addictions, have overdosed and died. The fact is, I’m actually finding it really hard to even write about this because I’ve already lost too many people I loved in the past bunch of years to heroin.

So, as my two friends, who at this very moment, remain active in their addiction to heroin, my prayers go out to them. And all I can hope for is a miracle from God, one that will overcome those terrible statistics and harsh realities that too many of us know about in the rooms of recovery with heroin.

That’s why I leave this up to You God and pray that You save my friends, two people I love dearly that truly helped me to develop a closer connection to You. Please God bless them with the gift of desperation to return to recovery again, a gift that I know will not only save their lives and souls from this deadly drug, but one that I also know can ultimately only come from You…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

Thought For The Day

“Everything we are currently experiencing in our lives comes about in order to assist us in evolving to a higher level of consciousness. Even what we now perceive as bad, sad, negative, or upsetting is here to assist us in seeing life in a more peaceful, forgiving, and loving way.” (James Blanchard Cisneros)

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

“The Gift Of The Obstacle In The Road”

Today’s inspirational story is titled “The Gift Of The Obstacle In The Road” and is one that speaks quite a bit to how many of us often choose to avoid overcoming the obstacles that come across our paths in life, instead looking for ways around them, which in turn only cause us to miss out on the gifts that tend to arise when we actually conquer them.

There once was a very wealthy and curious king. This king had a huge boulder placed in the middle of a road. Then he hid nearby to see if anyone would try to remove the gigantic rock from the road. The first people to pass by were some of the king’s wealthiest merchants and courtiers. Rather than moving it, they simply walked around it. Then many others began passing by, loudly blaming the King for not maintaining the roads, not one of them attempting to move the boulder either. Finally, a peasant came along. His arms were full of vegetables. When he got near the boulder, rather than simply walking around it as all the others had, the peasant put down his load and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. It took a lot of effort but he finally succeeded. The peasant gathered up his load and was ready to go on his way when he saw a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The peasant then opened the purse, which was stuffed full of gold coins and a note from the king. It said the purse’s gold was the reward for moving the boulder from the road.

 I related very much to each of the characters in this story. For much of my life, I was one of those wealthy merchants and courtiers who flaunted the money I had and generally used it to surmount any obstacles that ever got in my way. Thus, walking around those obstacles became the norm for me, especially during my addiction-laden years.

During other periods of my life, I was like those other characters in the story, who simply just complained about things like the boulder being in the middle of the road. In fact, it was pretty common for me to point out all the things wrong in this Universe, rather than ever choosing to focus on ways I could help change any of that.

In both cases, I missed out on the many beautiful gifts that could have come from working through the obstacles that came across my path in life. Eventually though, through a lot of pain and hardship, mostly caused by avoiding those obstacles time and time again, I became that peasant and actually began working on moving one boulder after another from my spiritual path. The gold that has come from continuing to do this has been largely rewarding, in that my heart feels far more open in life, my friendships much closer, and my desire to serve the Lord way deeper than ever before.

And while I’m still working on overcoming the largest boulder I think I’ve ever faced on my path in life so far, that being the health issues I’ve had to deal with for some time now, I know that by continuing to place all my efforts in surmounting it and by holding onto my resilience, my fortitude, and my faith in God, that I will eventually reap a reward that will be far better than choosing to walk around it…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson