I am an addict. I have been addicted to drugs and alcohol for many years. Today, my girlfriend and I have 51 days clean and sober. Part of this struggle was the mundane, normality of life, which lacked the level of excitement (good and bad) that we had become used to. When you go from running with 10+ grand in your pocket and a gun strapped inside your leather coat, to a humble meditative lifestyle of writing, the change is a bit jarring. Other pressures included: having lost everything I had ever owned (more than once), the ensuing financial troubles and debt, emotional stressors, broken relationships, homelessness, social awkwardness, as well as many other things.
Although things can become difficult sometimes, through God and our love and support for one another, we have been doing it, But there is ONE more thing that really has helped me.
If you look back at my steem posts, there are not very many before my sobriety date. Even the posts that I had created before that time were sporadic and lacked any real direction. This was not just because I was new to steem. It was also because I was writing from the remnants of an old way; a dead way.
Today, I have discovered that I have a love of writing and my work ethic is finally paying off, a little. I want to thank all of the people who are following me and my generous and good-natured predecessors. I have many teachers here on steem and I learn new things every day. Something of a self-quote that I have said for a long time, but am just finally acting on it's wisdom:
- -To each man (or woman), another is a teacher, and that teacher to him, is also his student. We all walk different paths and glean different wisdom from those walks. No matter what appearance a man may take, he is a teacher of something, to someone, even you.
I realize that, though I have set aside the things of the old way of life, I AM NOW ADDICTED TO STEEM! Thank you, steem community, for helping me to replace my unhealthy fixations, with those that are helping me to develop into a much different, much better two-legged, four-fingered creature with oppose-able thumbs than I ever thought I would be.
Cheers to Steem!
-Article and image by Jonathan Caleb Williams @badseedalchemist