The Luck of the Irish be with you…

Really? The Irish have been at war or occupied by the British since anyone can recall. Not so lucky really. Due to my grandmothers claim to be black Irish I can say this. One might say they have bad luck to be arrested for a drug related charge or otherwise ‘caught’ when living in the disease. Others say they were not arrested but were rescued from a life where they had to use, were miserable and not able to stop on their own. Folk say that perspective is everything and any day one can look down at a toilet and NOT see green vomit is usually a better day then when they do. The Basic Text of Alcoholics Anonymous addresses such perspective in the chapter We Agnostics. There is a quote I now paraphrase that goes something like, “…to not believe and have faith in something is asserting that life originated out of a vacuum and aimlessly goes forth into nothing…” Admittedly this assertion is a little on the bleak side and really a generalization of what the text actually says.

Those who are both in and in need of recovery tend to be followers although we usually do not want to admit this due to an illusion of self reliance. We follow dope, money, power, lovers and various other compulsions and obsessions generally fail to lack the power to either satisfy us or fill the ‘hole in the soul that the wind blows through…’ that most in early recovery are all too familiar with. When confronted by a program of recovery one is asked to be open minded and ask oneself what terms and all other things related to a higher power mean to them. Then Basic Text of Narcotics Anonymous relates that the minimum requirement for a higher power be nothing more than loving, kind and greater than oneself.

The real question is do I want to trust my life, mind, freedom, quality of life and all that is in it to a blind force that regards me as another random thing in a mindless universe that goes nowhere and into nothing? A blade of grass seems to have more meaning and purpose than that. If that is true how much more valuable would you and I have to what ever made the grass in the first place and causes it to grow toward the light. Having come out of the shadows, we too have the opportunity to grow and bask in the light as well. Most important of all…if you do not drink green beer you will not have green vomit. If a train kills someone, the caboose is not cause of death. Do not take the first hit, fix, pill, drink or drug and you can stay in the game.

R Dole, LCSW BES Group and Associates Pasadena location.