Ten Years Clean
Five Months Nomadic and the Love Affair of the Soul
I must confess that 10 years ago, I was trying to end my life with drugs. I must confess that I am ashamed of what I did to my life, trying to snuff out the light in my eyes for no reason other than I loved being numb. I was dead inside and resigned to die using OxyContin, Xanax, and fentanyl.
For the dear readers who have been with me this last year, you may know the story, and for those who are new to my writing, welcome!
I can only offer the truth; my other skills include thinking, waiting, and sometimes some great prose and poems. I write to heal while I strive to become a better man today than I was yesterday. In return, I hope you find it helpful for you or someone you may know.
Today is a special day. It is 10 years since I checked myself into a drug treatment center, and a 3-day detox in a mental health facility soon followed. You may have heard the cliche “rock bottom”; I was truly mentally ill from drug dependence, and in retrospect, this terrifying experience was the catalyst to never pick up again.
Once stabilized, I was transferred to a 30-day inpatient program to start at ground zero after my life became less than zero. I had lost it all, and this was my last-ditch effort to save my life—or what was left of it—for I was a shell of a man who I could not recognize with little glimmer of hope from within.
In short, the story goes that the dim ember was fanned to flame by an ineffable force, perhaps God, or the Soul (psyche). I will never truly know, and I have resigned myself to say, “Knowing is not knowing.” I let it be, for I was saved. Now, instead of asking Why me?, I ask: What can I do with the gifts bestowed upon me?
Along the way, I have met many people. Some have become great friends; others died by drug use, which, in turn, taught me valuable lessons; and more helped guide me into the man I am today. “I must confess” is one of my greatest successes to date. The best definition of success is subjective, but it generally means achieving a desired aim or favorable outcome, often through effort.
“The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.”
— James A. Garfield
My story almost ended with the death of a man who did not know who he was in the morning of his life. Today, this man writes in the afternoon of his life to heal, and perhaps to help others who may be stuck in mourning, or in the morning of their own lives.
Thank you to all who have helped me along the way. The ones who challenged me, loved me, hated me, and supported my journey. I write for you, I write for me, I write for the voiceless and lost souls who do not yet have eyes to see or ears to hear.
“I am giving my blood for this art. Hear me now, and hear me when I am dead. I do not write for the herd or the healthy. I write for the void. I write for the sick and the suffering who have no voice. Writing into the void is the art of becoming nothing, so that the Truth can finally be something.”
The Paradox of Change
Can I change the world? Is this the ego or the Soul asking this question?
Having entered the pleasure garden in the years leading up to my addiction and in the 10 years clean, it always ends the same for me. I have told the truth, and I always end up in the same place. I am truly alone with time to burn with my remaining afternoon light. If not for the fire, would I still be here, or would I still be there?
Because I have loved and lost, I learned that lesson. Caring for my father taught me a lesson. Enmeshment with my mother taught me a lesson. Now there is this: I sit with my truth—my Soul and ego having a love affair. Akin to lovers who can love and hate each other at the same time, a paradox indeed. I wonder what I will learn from this?
“We must trust in the most difficult... that something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it. To love is good, too: love is difficult.” — Rilke
The Siddhartha Path
In reading Hermann Hesse’s novel Siddhartha, I see that although it was written in the early 1900s, the message resonates to this day. Each human being has their own path to choose. Only through suffering, pleasure, love, lust, riches, poverty, and loss does one find meaning.
“Go wider, go longer into the unknown if you dare—or stay where you are if that is what you are.”
I often ask the question: Why are the “shiny, happy people” those seemingly unconcerned with this inner work, not confused or sad but happy with their lives? Perhaps they are the outliers who found a secret to happiness?
I envy them; this work I do is not for the faint of heart. Easy not do it at all, and some days I relish the idea of going back to sleep. I then remember that I was one of those people in the morning of my life. Sadly, or fortuitously, a paradox indeed, I was called to rebuild through divine grace.
The Price of the Pleasure Garden
Because I was clean of drugs, my unhealthy behaviors did not change overnight. In fact, I substituted the craving. The deep, inky dark abyss of emotions left behind from the absence of numbing agents I loved so dear was filled with lust, oh, the lust! The greed of conforming to the world I still only knew in the egocentric way of my past morning.
Thankfully, over the last five years, a shift occurred. The pleasure became for naught, and the price became too high for me to pay. The suffering and pain from short-lived walks into the pleasure gardens taught me to listen to the re-engagement of that faint whisper that had first intervened a decade ago.
The Soul started to rise, a more soulcentric way forward, and the body kept the score, propelling me to abide by this new mystery. Now, the Soul and ego are having quite the love affair, just as two lovers do. Love and hate, passion and pain. A difficult remainder of two agonizing relationships, I was healthy enough to end in the last 5 years.
In truth, the Soul (psyche) needed to be fed. The people, places, and things were not nourishing to the new appetite, and this caused great pain, only to be satisfied by doing the thing that I feared most: being alone and leaving the pleasure garden.
“The confusion surrounds as the love astounds.”
I trust I will see and learn more as I descend into the depths of the Soul. I want to change the world. However, today, the world, the mystery of it all, is changing me in a way I never thought possible. The world does not need to be changed. Only I do, and while Soul and ego meld, perhaps I will become a true adult.
In closing, dear readers, in the morning of our lives, we all develop a “Loyal Soldier”—that part of our ego designed to protect us, help us survive, and navigate the world’s demands. But as we move into the afternoon, that soldier’s job is done, and it often becomes the very thing standing in the way of our Soul.
If you were to give your Loyal Soldier an honorable discharge today, what truth would finally have the space to speak?
About the Author: The Nomad Scribe
Stephen is currently navigating a sacred “in-between.” After a decade of rebuilding through divine grace, he has spent the last five months without a permanent home—a nomadic journey.
His writing serves as a field log for the “Descent of the Soul.” He documents the friction between the morning of life (the ego’s drive) and the afternoon of life (the soul’s calling). Through the lens of recovery, mythopoetic imagery, and the teachings of Bill Plotkin, Carl Jung, and Richard Rohr, Stephen tracks the “faint whisper” of the mystery that remains when the world is stripped away.
Beautiful and honest! congratulations my friend! and Sidharta is my favorite book!