Thoughts On My Journey Through Sobriety
By Gary Walden
As of this writing, I have 212 days clean and sober. I wake each day and thank my Higher Power for another chance to help a fellow inmate who may be struggling with a drug or alcohol addiction. This may not sound like a lot of ‘clean time’ to some who may be reading this, but to me each day is a new journey into uncharted territory.
Someone once observed that to gauge how well you are doing in controlling your own life, pay attention to how many ‘managers’ you have: Wardens or lawyers, probation officers and police, health professionals and counselors. If you have an abundance of unsolicited ‘managers’ in your life, perhaps it’s time to do some critical analysis of where your life is heading.
I recently performed a ‘searching and fearless’ inventory and realized what the last three years of drug and alcohol abuse cost me financially, personally, and spiritually.
Included in this inventory were my dream house, 401k and pension funds, a professional engineering position, a thirty-three year marriage, a twenty plus year career in the Air Force, and being invited to not come back to my church of twenty-eight years.
Along with those expenses, I made sure to personally purchase a lot of expensive ‘bling’ for the local crack dealer, and made sure several liquor stores ended up making a profit. This certainly was not a fair trade.