Nothing easy is ever good!

What I Wanted

The beginning of my worst bad habits:

I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be, But by the grace of God I am not what I was.

                                                                Rev. John Newton 

Somewhere around my 15th year of life I began smoking, and no, I am not talking about cigarettes. I began smoking marijuana first, soon thereafter I began smoking cigarettes, next came the alcohol and finally it was speed. Now that does not mean that my experimentation stopped there, by no means, I also tried acid and crank (the predecessor to meth) just to keep going. This was the easy part, had I known what the struggles were that lay ahead, I would never have started.

Fortunately I never really got attached to either acid or crank, the speed worked to keep me going. So my main four addictions were weed, cigarettes, alcohol and speed. These four were my constant companions for pretty much the next five or six years. I managed to do without the weed while I was on active duty, the speed was available, both stateside and overseas when I went to Korea. I just had to have my girlfriend buy it for me. Which was really not a problem, as long as I shared. Keep in mind that this was way back in 1979, so there wasn't really any drug testing.

Once I left active duty and went into the reserves/national guard to play weekend warrior all the old habits were once again in full effect. It didn't help that the girl I was dating was just as much into the same substances as I was, and in many ways we enabled each other. Looking back, I guess this wasn't the best decision I made before the age of 22, and there were more bad decisions to come.

I tried several times to quit everything all at once, but it never really lasted. Each time all it got me was re-engaged and worse than I was before. Needless to say I couldn't keep a job and I was having trouble making ends meet. This led me into a very short life as a thief, and by  short I mean just one robbery was all it took. I got caught and arrested. Again looking back, this was probably one of the best things to happen; if only I had listened to my conscience before hand!

I blame nobody but myself for the situation I was in, at 23 I found myself in the county jail awaiting trial. Thankfully my parents did me a huge favor, and no they didn't bail me out! They left my butt right there through the entire time. Something I thanked them for on their first visit. The hardest thing about this was that I was there all through the holiday season. My career as a thief ended December 13. I was assigned a public defender, and had a judge who understood that I was truly sorry for my misdeeds. As a result I received a five month sentence, which was a huge relief considering I was looking down the barrel of a 15 year sentence.

I ended up serving my sentence in the county jail on the minimum security floor. The particular module I was assigned to was for minor offenders, another gift. My parents came and visited me every week, putting money on my books so I could buy tobacco and other necessities. During this time I was gifted a Bible which sat on the shelf In my cell for about a week for me to stare at, until at long last I picked it up and determined that I was going to read it from cover to cover. Not because I had nothing else to do, honestly it was because I truly wanted to. 

My grandparents on my mother's side of the family were religious, and I thought of how disappointed they would be. I was already dealing with having heard the disappointment in my father's voice when I called him from the city jail after I was arrested, and I certainly didn't want to hear their disappointment. The more of it I read the more I wanted to truly turn my life around. The problem I ran into here was that I had no idea how to do such a thing.

I was still playing cards, dominoes and working out, both in the module and the gym during our recreation periods, along with reading the Bible. I would on occasion watch the television out in the module, and one particular day, 28 January 1986, to be exact, I watched as the space shuttle Challenger launched for another mission. It was then that I fully understood that no matter how much you prepared and checked and examined, things could still go horribly wrong. This would play a huge part in a later decision on an offer made to me.

About halfway through my sentence I was offered the opportunity to enter the work release program. Imagine the look on the face of the guard when I turned that offer down. His first question was why not? My honest answer was I was afraid of what might happen if I got that small taste of freedom. The thing I feared the most was losing the sobriety I had gained over the three months I had already served. Second was the idea that I would walk out the door and forget to return. I knew that I wanted to be clean and sober and stay that way once I was released from jail at the end of my sentence in mid April. Again the question arose, how? Enough said!

I served my time and was released in mid April. I was picked up by my sister and her husband and I moved to Kansas with my pregnant girlfriend who would soon become my wife in a ceremony at the same courthouse that I was sentenced in. That should have been my first clue that the marriage was not going to last. Soon after my release my drinking and using started again. It didn't matter how badly I wanted to stay clean, it just wasn't meant to be at that time. No surprise there!

My wife gave birth to our daughter who suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome. I had no idea that she was still partying daily while I was locked up, but if I am honest about it, I wasn't surprised. We moved to southeast Kansas about 6 months later and shortly thereafter we lost custody of our daughter. I came home one night from work and was greeted at the door by what was then called SRS , I don't remember what the letters stood for but it is called DCF today, they informed me that they had received a report of child neglect, and they were there to take our child out of our custody for placement in a foster home.

We went to visitation once a week, trying to work things out between us and blindly hoping that we would get custody back. It soon became apparent that this was not going to happen and for obvious reasons. We couldn't get along and there was no way I was going to stay in an unhappy home. 

I called my parents and asked if I could come stay with them while I got back on my feet, and tried to turn my life around. I was truly afraid the answer would be no. Surprise, I was welcomed home under the condition that I found a job and cleaned my act up. One problem, I still didn't know how I was going to do a thorough job of cleaning up my life. I had made a total wreck out of that.

I found a job and got off the drugs, but I was still smoking cigarettes and drinking, so in my mind I was halfway there. In 1988 mom had a minor stroke, something I blamed myself for for a very long time. Two years later in 1990 dad had a heart attack which left him in a coma for 30 days. Mom and dad were both smokers and dad would have beer once in a great while. I had changed jobs, I was driving for the cab company in Independence and was making fairly good money, things were finally starting to look up for me. I came home from work one day and mom threw an almost full pack and half a carton of cigarettes across the table at me and announced that she quit, and that when dad got home there would be no more smoking in the house.

More to come. Peace

Afterthought:

Dad did make it out of the hospital, thanks to God for the doctors who oversaw his case. Mom was true to her word and there was no smoking inside the house. And there were still more changes coming for the family. All of them for the better for us all. Stay tuned.