Rise Above

BigV · Senior Member

Rise Above

Nikky · Senior Member

Beautiful.

When I was 6, my 14 year old brother....hero....died. That was 1972....WHERE was the therapeutic community back then? In its infancy.

When I turned 11 I got high for the first time....the only new thing I could cling to in my shitty reality. How I graduated high school I have no idea, but I made nearly straight As.

When 19, I was turned away from the state psychiatric hospital, not qualifying for intake by their standards. A few days later, my murder/suicide failed....I did not know how to cock the gun, so I commited suicide by cop and turned myself in.

12 complete strangers sentenced me to 60 years in prison. The DA made me look like Ted Bundy...I was never offered a plea bargain (I"d have gladly taken it; I'd have gladly taken the death sentence itself). the trial brutalized my family, not just me. I struggled to forgive that fucking DA...I could only couch it in terms that I probably was a winning case that enabled him to keep his job and send his kids to college.

"of sorrow, acquainted with grief"

In the valley I could only climb. HP came to me.

My sister accidentally overdosed two years ago.

It takes a lot of balls on my part to "forgive" and continue to reach out to complete strangers. But I keep on, I keep giving. By my own stripes I found healing...out of defeat, victory.

Is this the valley or the mountaintop? By myself I stop. Instead of getting high to rise above, I turn to .... the image of HP I see in a human face (instead of my own).

In prison, before budget cuts yanked it, we had substance abuse therapy...our facilitator had the group surround one person, gently lay them back, and we all picked them up and rocked them. I was blown away when this group of strangers rocked me. I want more of that. I seek out humanity. I close my eyes and trust.

Please, keep coming back. I need you so I can rise above....the pain "me" is sometimes.

dan h · Senior Member

Nikky thank you for sharing that. It takes great courage to open ourselves up and let others know who we really are and where we have been. One reason I love coming here is that when I get to thinking my life has been hard or IS hard, you all show me how blessed I am. Thank you, again. I am truly blessed and doubly so for having this family. Dan

BigV · Senior Member

No matter where our addiction has taken us its brought us here in a full circle of life this is a new begining.

I had to let go of the past from to get a fresh new start with life I refuse to hang onto that past and look to today.

Glad you made it here through all of that nikky I know institutions well myself, today we are free birds, I am truely greatful each day for my freedom.

Jails institutions and death the later is all that is left for some of us here and recovery is the option wink

Nikky · Senior Member

Rising above is SO important to our sustained recovery. we can do it. Prison was my training ground for it; I treasure my past in that regard.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn said, "Bless you, prison...for it was there I discovered that the meaning of earthly existence lies in the development of the soul."

Jails, institutions or death.....without recovery, unfortunately, today's practicing addicts will find one of the three.

Welcome to the Miracles In Progress Group of Narcotics Anonymous! This is not an official NA site, nor is it endorsed by the NA World Service Office.