Today April 4th
How do we help others who refuse to help themselves? How do we support them during their most painful times, their darkest depressions, their damaging addictions? How do we arrive for them so that they let us in, and start to come back to being their good old selves?
They are capable of pulling it together, so we feel.
They could stop their damaging behavior if they really wanted to, so we think.
They could get back on track if they just tried a little harder, so we believe.
They refuse to try, they lie, manipulate, and steal. All outside help gets ignored, and instead they choose to suffer in silence. They are throwing their lives away, and wasting their God-given talents. It seems they hate us, maybe even they say so. They are destroying themselves, hurting everyone around them, and don’t seem to care.
None of this makes any sense, why are they doing this? For shit’s sake it doesn’t have to be this way! We grow pissed, and might even want to give up. They might be living in our house but enough already, this has gotten out of hand and think it’s time for them to go.
At days-end we try to breathe, and lighten up for a minute. If able, we find ourselves not so mad anymore, just sad. Crap, now this is hurting us, now this is affecting everyone…we feel we are part of the problem, because along the way we must have done something wrong. Resentment builds for them, and ourselves. A sinking feeling overcomes us, life feels heavy. We sulk, this shit is downright heartbreaking. A helplessness consumes us, and we begin to question everything.
TODAY, April 4th is my clean date. It was on this day April 4th in 1989 that I quit drugs after a vibrant 13-year addiction. While today should be joyous and reason to give thanks, it is also a mixed bag. On one hand I am celebrating the fact I am alive, meanwhile I do not forget from where I came.
Even surrounded by hundreds of people, we can still feel alone. Even snug in bed underroof we can still feel exposed. It may sound funny to hear, but so long ago…drugs saved my life. More recently, alcoholism kept me from driving my hotrod Camaro high-speed into Suicide Rock near Lone Rock Wisconsin.
Please let me explain.
Primordially, our number one human need is to feel safe. Nothing else works until we trust we are no longer exposed, at risk, or in danger. This is how I ended up leaving academia prematurely, because I was deathly afraid. First I feared ridicule, because I heard enough of that shit at home. At home I was told to put that down, don’t touch that, I was told all the things I was doing wrong. So I couldn’t bring myself to also hear it at school. Way back I was also an odd duck, perhaps like most of us were. I had long greasy hair, wore torn jeans out of necessity, visibly was a drug addict, meanwhile stuck in a state of awkward social embarrassment. Constantly I was on the lookout for my homeless schizophrenic mother who had already abducted my big sister Laura from school, but hold up- I don’t blame anyone, my fear was my own. I couldn’t blend in, I was too on edge, and instead I felt I stood out, which made me a target. As my truancy worsened through middle school, my overall negativity concerning life compounded.
Drugs afforded me an emotional escape. Then entering my teens, I began to find purpose and community among my drug-dealing crowd. I had a total of one friend in middle school, Marc Fraizer, but none in high school. So I grew less and less interested in school. Early into the 11th grade I dropped out.
It was then early December 2005 when I began drinking with conviction. At first it was tequila, and two years later I switched to red wine. The deep unsettledness I felt pushed me to end it all in Lone Rock, but the numbing effects of booze kept me close to home. I drank heavily for five years, until April 17th in 2011.
Even now 37 years to the day clean from drugs, and approaching 15 years past alcohol I recognize the plight of life. Clean and sober I know what being terrified feels like. Clean and sober I know what being marginalized, discarded, and put out on the curb feels like.
The second big need we have as humans after safety is feeling loved, or deeply cared for. This can be hard to come by though, as sometimes we hear these I-love-you type words but the accommodating actions are the opposite.
Today. Today I sit at home isolating somewhat, alongside my sick dog Maximus, but recognizing the value I bring to the world. I am far from perfect, and rather acknowledge my shortcomings right alongside my expertness on a plethora of other things. Last October 4th 2025 I wrote a blog article on my website titled, “Helping Others Navigate Their Substance Use and Mental Health” so I won’t repeat myself here. Often in recovery, we are still stuck thinking very little of ourselves, but can find purpose when we can utilize our lived experience to help others. Profoundly I am trying to help others in my new role as executive director of the nonprofit RecoveryFoundation.net. At the Recovery Foundation we pay for people with mental health and substance use disorders to enter recovery housing after rehab. Recovery housing is step-down after care not covered by insurance, so it’s one of the world’s problems we CAN do something about.
Today I am helping others who cannot effectively help themselves, thereby I am helping myself.
