Category: Words To Live By

The main reason why I ever consumed alcohol, drugs, sex, nicotine, caffeine, and many other things were for the ease and comfort each would give me. By using any one of them, I was always able to temporarily mask the waves of loneliness, insecurity, and self-pity that plagued me each and every day of my life. It wasn’t until I stopped seeking all those external things that gave me this temporary ease and comfort did I begin to truly love and accept myself unconditionally.

Some would probably be embarrassed to admit this, but the first thing I ever got ease and comfort from in my life was actually masturbation. For years I lived in a fantasy world with it like most adolescents usually do, except I enjoyed the feeling so much so that I eventually became totally consumed with it. For any of the moments I was engaged in the act, I wasn’t dwelling on any of the sickness in my dysfunctional family nor was I thinking about my lack of friends in life.

When I finally discovered alcohol and drugs, I was able to have that ease and comfort last far longer from them than any amount I ever received from masturbation. For over five years, I pursued alcohol and drugs to avoid looking within at the emptiness that existed there. I also discovered during those years that smoking menthol cigarettes and using chewing tobacco enhanced that ease and comfort even more. Eventually though, the alcohol, drugs, and nicotine began causing me more pain than providing me any ease and comfort, so I got sober from each of them. Unfortunately, as soon as their effects wore off and the detox process was over, I became extremely uncomfortable in my own skin.

The 12 Steps of recovery could have helped me back then to work through that uncomfortableness, but I was too afraid to look at myself. I definitely didn’t love my life or accept myself on any level, so I ran headfirst into using my sexuality as a tool for seeking more ease and comfort outside of myself. Over the course of the next 12 years, I had countless sexual escapades, too many moments of watching porn, and falling into relationships that were solely based on lust and nothing more. But all of it served its purpose, as it gave me enough ease and comfort to avoid looking within. Along the way, I found other things as well that were able to enhance that ease and comfort such as gambling, shopping, and caffeine. But just like before, the pain those things began to cause eventually became greater than the ease and comfort I was receiving from any of them. It’s then that I finally began to pursue those 12 Steps of recovery.

For a while, I still tried to seek some of that external ease and comfort while I worked the steps, but I ultimately discovered they were incompatible with each other, especially if I wanted to ever fully love and accept myself unconditionally. It took me getting extremely uncomfortable and remaining that way without any of those external things active in my life before I started to feel any of that love for myself. But the more I kept each of them out of my life, the more I began to really love the person I had abandoned all those years ago in my adolescent days.

Today, I don’t seek that ease and comfort from anything externally, as I know now that will only ever provide me a false sense of relief. In the long run, each of those external things did nothing more for me than take me away from dealing with my loneliness, insecurity, and self-pity that originated in my childhood. Thankfully, I’m not feeling that way inside anymore and it’s not because of seeking any external ease and comfort either. It’s solely because my Higher Power and the 12 Steps have helped me to create it within, and now I’m able to truly love and accept myself unconditionally because of it.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Robin Williams was such a wonderful actor, but sadly his life ended on August 11^th, 2014 when he committed suicide. Unfortunately, for those like him who have ever wrestled with addictions or various mental disorders, suicide often appears as the only solution. I should know as I watched a father end his life in this way and at one point, I too even attempted it. Thankfully though, my Higher Power has helped me to see that it’s not the answer and that getting to the root of my pain and healing it, is.

My father was never able to learn this lesson. I remember watching him over the years, battle his own addictions and a bi-polar disorder. He was always “up” in moods and behaviors for various lengths of time, and then he would crash and be “down” for many months afterwards. In his last few weeks before his death, he grew completely weary of this repetitive cycle he had gone through already for most of his adult life. In a note he left behind for me, he was convinced that God was calling him home and that suicide was the answer to end all of his pain.

Nowadays I honestly can’t believe that any Higher Power who would ever want someone to kill themselves. But depression is a mental disease that’s frequently enhanced when engaging in any addiction and my father never fully grasped this. His only solution was to always take those drugs he was prescribed that were supposed to balance his moods out. But that never fixed his inner pain that kept driving him into his addictions and mental imbalances in the first place. It didn’t heal the fact he was abused and neglected on many levels growing up. It didn’t erase all the years he never received the unconditional love he deserved as a kid. Instead, addictions and prescriptions became his solution to numbing himself from it and his mental state continued to suffer throughout his entire life because of that.

In regards to Robin Williams, I don’t know if he had any of his own unhealed past wounds or traumas that had driven him into his addictions and mental imbalances. What I do know though is that anyone I have ever met who has battled their own addictions or mental imbalances has always had untreated past demons of their own. I definitely speak from experience about this, not just because of what my father went through, but because I went through it as well.

I endured a lot of conditional based loved and mental and emotional abuse growing up in my dysfunctional family. I was also sexually abused as a teenager and bullied more than I can count during most of my grade school years. When I discovered alcohol and drugs, they were the best elixir to hide from all that pain and trauma inside and it worked wonderfully for years, until I began battling with severe depression and anxiety.

Once I found sobriety from substance abuse, I chose to live in other addictions for several more decades instead of getting into those core wounds within me that I had never allowed to heal. All that did was continue this perpetual cycle of me taking medications to deal with all my mental imbalances. Psychiatrists labeled me as bi-polar just like my father and told me my only solution was to take medications for the rest of my life. But those medications were really no different than taking alcohol or drugs, as they only numbed me from feeling those wounds that were causing me to seek addictions and become imbalanced.

In 2011, all of this finally took its tool on me one day when I received a major rejection from someone I was addicted to. In that moment, the pain I felt inside from it somehow resurfaced every single one of my past wounds so much so that my brain said I should just take my life and that it would end all my suffering. So that’s when I went to my storage unit where one of my cars was being stored. It’s when I closed the door to that unit, when I started my car, and when I sat there in it without any hesitation to what I was about to do. I truly wanted to die and any thoughts of loved ones or people that cared for me didn’t matter. I just wanted my pain to end and that was it.

For whatever the reason, as I started to become drowsy in that storage unit after some time passed, something moved within me enough to reach out and call someone for help. I obviously didn’t die that day and as I write this, I realize how grateful I am now that I didn’t. Between that day and now though, I have had to do an incredible amount of work to heal from all those past wounds. Because of that work, my past doesn’t haunt me anymore nor do I have the desire to engage in any addictions. I also haven’t suffered from severe depression and anxiety in quite some time. Sometimes I find it hard to believe now that I truly wanted to die that day in my old storage unit. Thank God I didn’t but I’m very sad that Robin Williams did die in a similar way.

The fact is, there are too many people out there who end up feeling suicide is their only answer, and engaging in any addiction or having a mental disorder will only increase their chances of feeling that way. But with hard work and help from a Higher Power, I believe everyone can get to the root of their inner pain and receive enough healing to prevent this from ever happening. So far this has worked for me and hopefully in writing these words, it may somehow end up helping another one day. Regardless, I know Robin Williams will definitely be missed and my only prayer is that he is now at peace and with You God.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Greed and selfishness are two traits many of us frequently tend to believe we are void of. While that may be true when life isn’t throwing us any curve balls, the true test of that comes when things are suddenly taken away that are regularly relied upon. I got a chance to see this first hand recently when the Toledo area went through a huge scare where the drinking water became toxic for all of us.

This all began the morning of August 2^nd when my cell phone rang. My partner quickly informed me to not use the water in any way, shape, or form. Algae blooms, he said, had entered the city’s local water supply and created a toxic level that was too dangerous to consume or even bathe in. I was half asleep during the call and a little irritated about being woken up given that I had just gone to bed a few hours earlier. So I really didn’t take what he said too seriously and decided to go back to bed hoping whatever problem existed would be gone by the time I got back up. Upon waking a few hours later, it wasn’t and I quickly learned the situation was more extreme than I first believed. The warnings were all over the local news informing everyone not to use their water for consumption, preparation or even bathing.

My mind immediately went into a slight place of fear once I understood just how serious this water problem really was. Even though I didn’t need to take a shower that morning because I had just taken one six or so hours earlier, I wondered how long it would be before I could take one again. I then went into the kitchen deep in thought about this and suddenly realized I couldn’t have my morning glass of water from the tap either. Upon opening the fridge, I took a quick inventory and saw that I hadn’t one single bottle of water on hand. My first taste of this new reality came shortly thereafter when I had to brush my teeth with club soda because that’s all I had in my fridge. It wasn’t a very pleasant experience, but I was grateful nonetheless for having at least something to use that was mostly water based.

By the time I finally left the house I was feeling exceptionally thirsty. I started wondering if I was only feeling that way because I didn’t have a resource in abundance like I normally would. Regardless, I decided to stop at a local Rite Aid to pick up a few bottles of water on my way. I soon discovered there, as well as everywhere else I subsequently stopped at, that they were completely cleaned out of every type of bottled water. Thankfully I finally found a few bottles left at one of the local gas stations I stopped in, and for an instant I truly thought I had discovered gold.

Throughout the rest of the day I began to hear of reports all over the city of the insanity, greed, and selfishness that was taking place because of this water crisis. One person had bought so much water their car became unable to move due to its weight. Another person bought all 36 cases of water remaining at a local Costco. Some businesses had jacked up the price of a single bottle of water up to $15, while various individuals were trying to make some money by selling the many cases they cleared from store shelves on media sites such as Facebook. I even heard that one person had pulled out a gun on another just to fight over the one case of water remaining in some store they were both at.

As I continued to hear these horror stories from various friends and news reports, all of it gave me a sobering thought. Water is something we all take for granted each and every day of our lives. It’s used to prepare our foods at home or at the restaurants we dine at. It’s used to make the drinks we get at coffee shops. It’s used to clean us in the shower or our hands in the sink. And it’s used to replenish our bodies, as all of our drinks are mostly water based. To think that there are places in this world where people go through this type of water crisis every single day of their lives was sobering indeed, especially knowing many of them struggle to have even a single glass of water in a whole day. Yet, we take things like this for granted every day of our lives, until it’s taken away from us when something tragic like this happens.

So many went to a deep dark place of fear here in Toledo when this water scare began, and sadly it seems the idea of having good morals and positive spiritual behaviors did as well. The greed and selfishness of others was very apparent and I shudder to think of what would happen one day if the whole world went through a water crisis like this all at once. I pray to God that never happens but if by some chance it ever does, I know there’s only thing I can do. I must practice the same patience, love, and tolerance like I did in this recent water crisis, and trust in my Higher Power to get me safely through it.

Regardless of whether this ever happens again or not, I definitely have a much greater appreciation now for a resource in life that none of us should take for granted, as every drop of clean water is truly a blessing from our Higher Power.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson