amends

Remembering I am A Spiritual Being Inside Flesh

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Hi Everybody,

Here I am in the first eight days of this new year. This time I may be going a little deep and getting to the root in my spirit, first purposed by God creating me. This is based on my beliefs.

This is all part of my journey because I believe coming into this world with harsh realities and not always having the support and care needed, we become conditioned, destroy our spiritual side.

Now that cannot be my excuse for who I am today. I have learned to take responsibility for my own behaviors that become my self-defeat.

There came a point where I knew life had to be better but somehow could not grasp on to the positive and loving reinforcements of love, care, and nurturing.

I have run so far from me in the things I previously sought out to escape the pain, hurt, and terror.

I bought the bitterness, rage, hate, and destruction because as I believed, it was the only way to defeat the evil that came upon me. I did not always consciously understand that I was being just as damaging to other people, places, and things that came upon me.

I became the tornado in other people’s lives continuing in the vicious cycle of self-affliction, blind and oblivious to the harm and injury I caused. I even called it love, much of the time in believing it was and trying to get others to believe it.

That is not to say it was all blind, in fact, I even had a list of people in my head That deserved the judgment, sentencing, and execution of my wrath upon them. Vengeance was paramount as far as I was concerned.

I kept on drinking the poison hoping the evil people would die.

What I was not comprehending is that all my efforts were killing me. Those other people were going on free as I stayed trapped inside myself and at times taking other hostages with me. The hostages were often innocent bystanders and unintended targets of my wrath.

Oh, the remorse I felt when confronted by my behaviors but often in a state of denial, and outright lying. In most cases, I was only remorseful because it was a negative thing. I had no understanding of the impact of my acting out upon others.

The changes started happening when I realized I could follow directions if it meant saving my own life.

I was in a relationship to have because I did not want to be alone. That relationship was 8-10 years of me waking up every day full of hate and wanting to die. I was incapable of being honest with anyone but mostly lying to myself.

In that relationship it was saying I hate you; I love You; I hate you please do not leave me!

It was a circumstance of convenience, self-preservation, using, abusing, self-indulgent, moments of trying to make a show of love as it became, an act. Mostly it was not comprehending the negative impact I caused upon us both.

It has been years of living amends facing the fact I was a sick alcoholic, and addict desperately searching for love in various kinds of ways. However, I was incapable of loving myself.

Today we are friends, and we get to at least share celebrations and grieve over friends and others who passed away. Life has gone on for both of us. But absolutely cheer each other on.

After bouts of drinking, smoking marijuana, pill-popping, and withdrawal somehow, I am staying clean and sober a little over 17 years. It has been at a slow pace but trudging through with changes. The changes are both great and small. But life-changing.


Each day I decide to either keep or rid myself of behaviors that no longer serve me. Make no mistake, it is a choice even living passively making no choice. That is still a choice that has been hard to comprehend.

Challenges gave come and gone. There are challenges that are still present but becoming smaller.

There are tools to help me today and friends that do encourage and support the positive changes in me. The prayer attributed as The St Francois prayer seems to be the way I wish to live out.

The only thing left now is to make direct amends and continue my living amends.

I want to repair the damage I have done and keep sweeping my side of the street. I want to recognize and acknowledge each day. Your side of the street is none of my business.

I am seeking out that spiritual side that heals the human part of me. This makes it possible to repair part of the damage I have caused. There is damage that is irreversible.

There is still a better life waiting.

Thanks for reading!

This has been another blog post entry by Boxcar Mike, over and out!

God Bless Y’All Everybody!

Storms Never Last Picking Up The Wreckage

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Hi Everyone!

I really appreciate everyone who reads my blog and I do not say it enough, so thank you.

One of my favorite songs is “Storms Never Last” by Jessi Colter

The first line of that song is “Storms never last, do they baby”

I imagine saying this to my younger self a lot as I am often at war with in myself.

How many of us will recognize that the war is not with anyone else; the war is with ourselves?

With others I must recognize, I did not create it, I did not cause it, and I sure cannot cure it.

However, when it comes to myself, I can usually see where I did create it, I did cause it and most of the problem goes away if I stop doing the things that landed me in such insanity. The other part comes in the form of making amends and swing who I have harmed along the way.

In the past I have just been a tornado in people’s lives. Its so good to have a tribe with me today. Even if we are not talking just sharing bits and pieces of ourselves on social media. I feel warmth of others today and need to reciprocate that back.

When I got to recovery, they told me pain was inevitable, but suffering was optional. I do not have to suffer today. I do not have to keep hurting myself either. That is insanity to keeping hurting yourself in recovery. I think it is clicking some.

My prayers are for God to heal me. But sometimes I think God gives us the tools to heal ourselves. I think my mind has always slammed shut against an idea like that.

Today I am getting the fact that younger me does not get to run the show if I want recovery. Younger me is full of anger and rage still. My job is My job is to love me and do the necessary things to stay in recovery as challenging as it may be. I am horrible at checking in but doing the best I can to improve on that and it is still a little wobbly.

I want to live better and stay the course. To falter is to die and lose everything all over again. I need to keep my recovery and build on it. I deserve to try and win if I stay the course. I do not care about the toys. I want the prize and the prize is life.

This is probably where one would say we cannot wallow in the wreckage we identify who was hurt, who we owe amends to, become willing to make amends and identify the amends owed to each person.

We cannot move freely and be okay if we are still picking up pieces of our wreckage. This is where hopefully; I will take responsibility for my actions.

Everything has its time and place. With the right direction and actions healing can come through.

Thankfully storms never last.

Thanks for reading!

This has been another blog post entry by Boxcar Mike, over and out!

God Bless Y’all Everybody!

You Must Follow Through No Checking Out

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Hi Everyone

I am back here attempting to write after failing to do any workshop or classes. Physically I could not do it. I spiraled down into deep depression my usual go-to.

However, I am climbing out again. The physical has been real.

I have checked out emotionally and have had several talks with myself about the need to do better and do different. The follow through is always needed.

I just talked with someone as they see me doing better, I said I must have a follow through. Without the follow through its just empty words and continuing to check out.

I do not want to be that person. The graveyards are full of people who had no follow through. They just checked out emotionally letting depression and circumstances drive them into the ground.

The doctors say, I will most likely be on antibiotics the rest of my life. I do not want to accept that. I am not willing to accept death either. At least not right now.

Today is one of my best days. I got enough sleep. I feel alert and know what is going on around me instead of feeling dazed and depressed.

You see you get to appoint of thinking you are accepting everything when you are checking out instead and continue your journey. It is a hard way to live that way You get blind-sighted by everything.

Your family and friends wonder where you are, where you have gone to now. Some even say they have worried and prayed so much hoping you were not just alone, laying in your apartment dead. It is not fair to them.

You still talk to your therapist, thank God! He asks how he can help. You explode with some expletives while saying, if you knew that you would not be there. That is not true.

You are there because you realize your hope candle is about to burn out. You are there because to the rest of the world you have checked out. You are there because you do not want to die. You are there because you finally admit you want to be held and told it is all going to be okay.

Maybe not everything will be okay, but you will get through it if only you follow through.

Writing this is part of my follow-through. I owe so many apologies and one to myself after everyone else. Because part of my apology is doing the follow through.

Even doing the follow-through and living life to the fullest does not prevent death at some point. But no one is dying here in this place today.

This time of year, I am ready to be thankful and have written thankfulness in many ways, in the past. But today, I am grateful most of all for friends and family who have not checked out on me.

Let me preface what I am about to say I am not usually political. What I have to say is partially political but most to do with the heart and spiritual.

I am scared for this world. I fear losing all freedom. It has so much to do with checking out and becoming door mats. I am not asking anyone to agree with me or speak against anyone.

I am telling you what I fear most. Make no mistake it is a reality!

I am grateful for today, being able to write, and just be real.

Thanks for reading!

This has been another blog post entry by Boxcar Mike, over and out!

God Bless Y’all Everybody!

Remembering Family And Lamenting Over How It Was

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Hi Family and Friends!

I never know what its truly going to be about here in this blog entry until I start typing or pecking away as the case may be.

I mourn a lot about how things once were and how much I have taken for granted over the years.

I have talked about wanting a life plan and trying to take responsibility for my life today.

There is much more to write about why that is important to me today. I grieve over the past with my family and wishing I had treated them warmer and held them more closely than I did.

Nothing has driven the point home more clearly about how I have treated people than living through this pandemic and knowing I cannot be close to family and certain others.

A lot of that is due to how I have treated them and, in some cases, acted as if they did not exist. I really thought that at the time it was about me just hiding inside myself afraid to be present because I did not want to get knocked down

Like it or not, we did that a lot in our family with plain sarcasm or snide remarks. I played in that part. I wish to God I could take it all back and would have been more loving or only plain showed up!

I am lamenting some here over my family and what was and is no longer.

Its priceless when I get to text with my brother and mom. I love them both and their new lives.  I miss my brother’s family and I wish I could give my nephew that hug and share with him about the great things about our family.

The great things are we were all hard workers we grew a garden together. We never hired anyone to fix things we could do ourselves. Some things we just learned as we went.

We did family celebrations. We went to church together. Some where in there was love and I ran away from it many times. I wish I could take back the day when my sister tried to comfort me as we made the choice to let my dad just go peacefully.

I pushed her hand away not because I was rejecting her but because I was trying to ask a question. She never knew that. I never explained it.

I love them all more than anything, but I am not sure we could spend more than a day together at a time.

Just a quick note my dad was going to die no matter what and, in the end, he died on his own terms. I choose to see it that way.

I am writing and confessing this because, there are others out there and you want your family to take all the blame. At one time, before I made peace with my parents, I wanted them to take all the blame.

I will say this because of grace, humility, love, forgiveness, and peace that passes all understanding; I got to love my dad, and my dad got to love me before he died.

Because of this, I also get to love my mom and mom loves me today.

We have a big family there fore I will always have a long way to go in making those lifelong amends.

The other side of the coin for me is I did not know how to be family and I still do not know how. It is just one day at a time. For everything there is a season.

I was told long ago one day you are going to miss this and never get it back. I did not believe them. I wish I had.

I will close with this verse which is appropriate from the Holy Scriptures:

Ecclesiastes 3 English Standard Version (ESV)

A Time for Everything

3 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

2 a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
3 a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7 a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

Thanks for reading!

This has been another blog post entry by Boxcar Mike, over and out!

God Bless Y’all Everybody!

What Will I Do Until The End

/ boxcarmike / Leave a comment

train on railroad tracks against sky

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Hi Everyone,

I am glad to be on my second day of writing.  I am hoping to make some sense and to grow into a human being that isn’t just sucking life’s air.  I have been in some type of recovery, for what feels like my whole life. I just want to do my best today and maybe have a plan with reasonable goals.

This journey as I have said before, is messy at best. I do some how keep getting up and pushing forward. I figure my life span is somewhere between 7 and 20 years left. I hope I will have left a legacy somehow, even without having children of my own.

I don’t want the end of my life to be just a few words and then finished. Otherwise then it would seem it was just a prison sentence, right?

A book is not quite enough either. I think it must be real changes and hard work.

The challenges before me are difficult. Its physical, emotional, and spiritual. It’s more than any song. It’s more than weeping bitter-sweet.

It’s about taking my thoughts captive and taming my tongue and flesh. Its trusting in God and allowing Him to take control when I am strong or weak.

The questions I now must answer are:

  1. What are my goals?
  2. What makes me happy?
  3. Where is God at in my life?
  4. Is God evident to others in how I am living?
  5. What is my responsibility today?
  6. Can I or have I truly let go of past hurts and wounds?
  7. What can I do in helping others mend?
  8. Have I stopped hurting and wounding others?

I must find these answers inside myself. We do have to ask ourselves the hard questions to be totally open and honest. Otherwise, there is no solid foundation.

Some days I feel like I am adrift much the way in the movie, Castaway with Tom Hanks and Wilson.  I don’t want my life to end just barely keeping my head above water.

I know there’s life out there. I want to show I have lived and left something good behind. I used to think I knew what that something is.

I am not so sure I know anymore. I am going to have to dig and see what I can come up with. I hope you continue to see me on my journey.

10 Things I am Thankful For:

  1. I am thankful for my life and the ability change.
  2. I am thankful for everyone who is and has been a part of my life.
  3. I am thankful for the time to write.
  4. I am thankful for honesty from others and that I get to be honest with myself today.
  5. I am thankful for medical transporters, EMT’s, home health aides, doctors, nurses, custodians, truckers, teachers, fast food workers, store associates, policemen, firemen, correction officers, therapists, and all of whom are taking risks to be of service.
  6. I am thankful for solitude verses loneliness.
  7. I am thankful for the ability to contemplate what the rest of my life might look like.
  8. I am thankful for siblings.
  9. I am thankful for my mom and her husband.
  10. I am thankful for mercy and grace.

Thanks for reading!

This has been another blog post entry by Boxcar Mike, over and out.

God Bless Y’all Everybody!

 

 

 

Night Time Prayer and Changes and Pauses

/ boxcarmike / Leave a comment

We continually take our inventory and try to step back immediately when something is amiss.   

I am still working on my fourth step and dragging my feet a bit. 

However tonight at a meeting we went over making sure our ground is safe and how to ask for help.  

I just also admit that at times when things are going rough, I still do want a drink. But I think it through today, just like I have the past 15 years. Nothing is worth my sobriety today. 

Tonight, we studied on the way we ask for help. The prayer above shows how we might end our day but we begin each day with asking God to direct our thinking. 

There’s no need to keep on adding to the wreckage along our journey. We have clear it each time we cause it. We get better as we do it. 

One clear idea is that we grow and change or we die. I want to be better each day and some days I do accomplish that. Some days are where Iam busy making amends along the way. No one is perfect and we want progress for sure. 

Our secrets only kill us. It’s to our benefit to be open with another human being. We can also get help in discovering our motives and hopefully rid ourselves of contempt and hate for others. 

We learn to look at our foes as sick people and ask God how we may be of help to them with right motives. 

We make apologies and admit where we are wrong. Sorry is not an apology!  

It’s about learning to be sober and living quality lives. We clean our side of the street as we go and make use of what we learn along the way.  

When we stop growing and refuse to change, we begin to become ill and we are headed for death. For us to drink, is to die. 

The Prayer above is just one more way to be God-Conscious and to concede we are not alone, ever.  

We get the chance to live, learn, listen, and share. Our prayers do not go unheard.  

Change is not always easy. We may not always be willing. But we do concede when we are faced with calamity, that change must take place.  

Today I don’t want to stay stuck. I have a choice to get up and make changes or I die. It really is that simple for the alcoholic. 

I choose life. 

  • I am grateful for the gatherings. 
  • I am grateful we each get to share. 
  • I am grateful for the chance to be around others who want to grow and thrive even when we are tired. 
  • I am grateful to be God-Conscious today.  
  • I am grateful not every day is chaotic as it once was. 
  • I am grateful I get to give of myself today. 
  • I am grateful God hears my prayers. 
  • I am grateful to be losing interest in selfish things. 
  • I am grateful for therapy even when it too maybe too hard at times and I resist it. 
  • I am grateful for the honest feedback from others today. 

Thank you for reading! 

This has been another blog post entry by Boxcar Mike over and out! 

God Bless Y’all Everybody!