RECOVERY MAKES BLUE SKIES MORE ENJOYABLE

Just For Today

It's fascinating to me how certain things -- a sight, a sound, a smell --
can trigger a landslide of memories long forgotten.

I had one of those episodes Friday morning, when I awoke to dawn spreading
into clear skies, the grass wet and heavy from Thursday's rain. I sat
outside, on our deck, and smoked a cigarette. The air was cool, delicious
against my skin. And it took me back.

As a general rule, addicts lead pretty sorry, pathetic lives. When drugs
dictate everything you do -- when you eat, when you sleep, how much money
you're going to spend, what you're going to do to get that money or that
dope -- nothing else really matters.

You wake up craving and dope-sick, most mornings, seized the instant your
eyes open by the overwhelming, screaming, gnawing hunger in your brain. You
go wherever that hunger drives you -- usually to a lot of unsafe
neighborhoods, where you interact with a lot of shady characters. You drive
if you've got a car, catch a ride if someone else has one, or walk if
that's the only option.

It doesn't matter how much pain you're in, how sick you feel; it doesn't
matter if it's high noon in late July and the asphalt seems to bubble in
the heat or if there's a severe thunderstorm warning and sheets of rain are
coming at you sideways -- you go where you need to go to get what you need
to get.

Addiction is a lot of waiting -- watching the second-hand on the clock tick
slowly toward the time when your dealer turns his pager on, or you know for
sure he'll be at his usual spot. Sometimes you wait on the job, pretending
to be busy, screaming on the inside because it feels like your guts are
going to crawl up your throat. Sometimes, it's waiting in a hot car,
sweltering in the summer sun, staking out the parking lot or apartment
where your connection lives because you don't want to miss him leaving or
arriving.

Sometimes, though, you have one of those days where things aren't
rock-bottom horrible. They're not good, granted, but you don't pass out at
night praying to die in your sleep. And because any minor improvement to
your miserable life is better than its overall steady decline, it actually
seems like an OK day.

The weather in Friday morning reminded me of one of those days. It was a
day where I woke up feeling tired and queasy, but the withdrawal wasn't
excruciating. Most of the time, withdrawing from opiates made me feel like
I came in third in a hatchet fight, so on the days when you'd wake up
feeling not-so-bad, it was a pleasant surprise.

Friday's weather was the kind we prayed for in active addiction. It made
walking five miles or more to the 'hood feel like a stroll, and waiting on
the corner, while boring, not pleasant. Perhaps it's because the skies seem
so crystal-clear after weeks of muggy haze, but it was the kind of weather
that made me, as an addict, feel like maybe . just maybe ... I wasn't doomed.

That somewhere out there, some hope might be coming my way.

It took a while, but I have that hope today. It's a gift given through
recovery, the hope of never waking up dope-sick again, never having to
waste hours and days and weeks and months hunting a poison to inject into
my arm. It's the hope of feeling human after years of feeling less-than,
and the hope that, whatever the beautiful day brings, I don't have to get
high to cope.

In my active addiction, those OK days were a rarity. Today, every day is an
OK day; most are downright awesome days. Because my worst day clean is
better than my best day getting high -- and for that, I'm grateful.