Category: Grateful Heart Monday

Welcome to my Grateful Heart Monday series, where a slice of gratitude kicks every week off in my blogging, which for today is for Ameer and Tyrone, two individuals I’ve known for a number of months now at the correctional facility my sponsee Michael and I conduct a weekly addiction recovery meeting at.

For over a year now, Michael and I have been holding an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at the Toledo jail on Monday evenings for an hour. One thing we’ve noticed is how there’s always a new set of inmates at each of our meetings there, as the men’s floor we conduct them on isn’t normally a long-term holding unit. While many of the men there have shown interest in the path we’ve presented for recovery for their addictions, most have been honest in saying they weren’t ready to fully give their addictions up and only a few out of the hundreds we’ve met have actually contacted us after their release. Thankfully though, there has also been a handful of individuals who have been around for a while in this unit, who have continued to show up each and every week we’re there. Two such men are Ameer and Tyrone, both having attended our meetings since late October/early November of last year.

The enthusiasm these two have shown in our meetings has been overly exceptional. While many have struggled to pay attention or been outwardly negative about the 12 Step program, Ameer and Tyrone have not only practiced Step One diligently, but have also brought the three things needed to have a healthy recovery every week, that being honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness. They have consistently been excited for us to show up each week, shared from their hearts, and even helped others on the floor by starting a small recovery group themselves, essentially practicing Step Twelve in the process.

Sometimes those of us in recovery often wonder how much those we pass our experience, strength, and hope onto will actually get it and seek the recovery path themselves. With Ameer and Tyrone, I have no doubt they’ve gotten it and can only pray that they’ll continue doing the incredible job they’ve been doing with their sobriety from jail once they get released.

Something that should also be mentioned as well that’s brought me much gratitude with these two men is the blessing they gave Michael and I recently. They told us that our dedication to being there each week meant a lot to them, that we’ve made a very safe place for everyone to open up and talk about whatever they’ve needed to, including any addiction they’ve suffered from, and how thankful they’ve been for our compassion and unconditional love, as all of it had inspired them to become the recovering individuals they were rapidly becoming.

Honestly, it’s priceless gifts like this that keep me giving back to the 12 Step recovery world and why I love doing all the recovery work I do. I’m also thankful to God when I get strong reminders like this of the importance of this work in this world. Truly, I’d like to think that God orchestrated all this and is the very reason why Ameer and Tyrone have been in the unit we hold our meetings at for as long as they have. Because maybe God knew they not only were going to finally grasp a sober path in life through the work Michael and I were going to do with them, but also was going be precisely what led them onto the path of giving back themselves.

I pray I get to help more individuals like Ameer and Tyrone, two people who I’m definitely blessed to know, who most deservedly are worthy of today’s Grateful Heart Monday.

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

Hello and welcome to another chapter of Grateful Heart Monday, where gratitude is always the focus of my writing, which for today is for something I often forget to be grateful for, that being the ability to cut and style my own hair.

Growing up, I never liked the hairstyles my mother made me wear. My hair was either parted to the left and slicked back with a ton of hair spray or it was parted straight down the middle and slicked to both sides. I always looked so goofy and nerdy with those styles, but she liked me having long hair and so that lasted all the way up to my senior year of high school. It was then I spiked my hair around Halloween with some gel to abruptly try something different. She didn’t like that much, but I felt it was time to start looking the way I wanted. Once I realized how much I liked my hair spiked, I began having it cut differently. I was such the perfectionist back then that I’d even ask the hairdresser to borrow her scissors after she had finished where I’d snip a few hairs here and there.

After I left for college, which was more than six hours from home, I let my hair go for several months until I headed home for the holidays to get it cut again. That really bothered me because my hair became quite greasy the longer it got. Because of that, I asked an African-American friend of mine back at school during the winter to give me a haircut. He always did such nice fades on many of his friend’s heads and I wanted mine to look like theirs. Unfortunately, when he did, he screwed it up royally, causing me to have to shave my entire head down to nothing but a fuzz. It was at that very moment, in all my frustration, that I told myself I’d figure out how to cut my own hair from then on.

Ever since that day, I’ve been cutting my own hair on the average about once a week. I calculated I’ve saved close to $27,000 over the past three decades because of it! Beyond the incredible gratitude I have over that statistic, the mere fact I learned how to do my own flattop decades ago, where my hair stood about 8 inches high was a feat in itself, as was learning how to do my own fades. I messed up a lot, until I didn’t. Practice ultimately did make perfect. As the years went on, and my styles changed, I became proficient with both clippers, their attachments, and scissors. I taught myself how to style my hair shorter and shorter, until eventually I settled on somewhat of a marine cut, which I’ve kept for quite a long time now. Sometimes I make slight changes, but for the most part cutting and styling my hair feels more like a weekly chore now, and one that I can do on auto-pilot.

Honestly, it feels pretty good to be able to cut my hair as proficiently and as easily as I do. It typically takes me no more than 15 minutes to do and while I know it may seem like being able to cut and style my own hair is kind of a silly thing to be grateful for, I consider it rather empowering. The fact that I taught myself how to do it eons ago, and saved thousands and thousands of dollars over the years in the process is pretty damn awesome.

Cutting hair is like any other ability. It takes time and practice, but it can be learned like anything else. All you really need is a steady hand and the tools, and of course the willingness to screw up until you don’t. I’m grateful I still have this skillset and am thankful for that long-ago friend from college for having messed up my hair as bad as he did. Because it was that very mishap that motivated me to learn how to do it myself, something I’ve come to find great happiness in, and something I felt warranted a Grateful Heart Monday entry.

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

Hello and welcome to another chapter of Grateful Heart Monday, where gratitude is always the theme at the beginning of my week in writing, which for today is for “Best Hybrid Batteries”, a company who helped to extend the life of my 2007 Toyota Camry Hybrid.

How “Best Hybrid Batteries” entered my life all began a few weeks ago as I was leaving an evening meeting when suddenly all the lights on my car’s dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree. A message immediately displayed itself in front of me indicating to “Check Hybrid System”. Ironically, I really didn’t have to, as I was pretty sure I knew what the problem was. You see, most cars who use hybrid batteries have a 10-year/100,000 miles guarantee on the battery itself, yet I’ve owned mine for over 13 years now and gone 258,000 miles! So, it was a pretty safe bet that all my car’s abrupt issues were related to that. Sure enough, my gut feeling was validated the next morning when my car received service at the local repair shop I’ve taken it to for a number of years now. The hybrid battery had indeed died.

I had always said that if and when my hybrid battery died it might be time to purchase a new vehicle, mostly because I was always told that a hybrid battery isn’t cheap. When I got the quotes from this repair shop, as well as from Toyota, that hunch got confirmed, as the estimates were between $3900 and $5800. I knew there was no way I could justify any of them, given the age and mileage of my car. It would be of much better interest to just trade it in and use any amount I’d spend on a repair as a down payment instead. But, before making that decision, I opted to do a quick google search, just to see if there might be any other options available to me and that’s when I discovered the company “Best Hybrid Batteries” who are located near Chicago, Illinois. They went into business back in 2010 for this very reason, to compete against the high cost repair shops and car dealers who tend to charge far higher than what’s needed for hybrid battery replacements. I spoke to the company owner who handles all the phone calls himself, and has been doing so since he began operations. He was quite friendly and spent a considerable amount of time on the phone with me, answering anything I asked him, reassuring me that this indeed would be a cost-effective option for me. He said the price to replace my hybrid battery, including sending one of his installers to my driveway where the work would be done, would only be $1948! That was a far cry from all the estimates I received everywhere else I called. Even better they were going to give me a 3-year warranty, which was two more than any of the local places were willing to give.

In light of that, I opted to have “Best Hybrid Batteries” do the install, and two days later, his employee arrived quite promptly from the Chicago area. It took the employee about 30 minutes to do the entire repair, which I found somewhat interesting given all the local repair shops had told me it would take between 2.5 and 3.6 hours to do and were going to charge me for all of those hours, even if it took much less time. Even better, the installer went out for a 20-minute drive with me, just to make sure everything was back to normal, which thankfully it appeared so. He then charged my credit card the $1948 and headed back onto the highway towards home, a mere one hour from the time he arrived.

Such a painless process, and one that I was made to believe by car dealers and repair shops alike that when a hybrid battery goes, so will the car or your wallet. I’m thankful that wasn’t the case and that the life of my car has been extended. While $1948 is still a considerable amount of money, I’m truly grateful that “Best Hybrid Batteries” gave me renewed life on my old vehicle and am praying now that this will extend the life of my car for a few more years!

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