Prayer for Dummies!

Praying for Dummies! Start with Hello!

I would like to welcome China and Turkey to my blog family. Keep the faith. It's been a few days since my last blog. Obviously my daughter has been the center of my attention, as it should be. I am scheduled to do comedy at a great venue in the city tonight and I'm not feeling very funny. I still haven't found full time employment and my acting career is pretty much on hold.

The title of the blog is a play on all those "Dummies" books they sell. It is not intended to hurt anyone. I won't say that I am a prayer expert but I have a lot of experience. In a Facebook statement I said that "BELIEF is knowing that there's someone to catch you when you fall. FAITH is knowing the guy who catches you." I believe in prayer. My friend Maria says she has 82 people or groups praying for my daughter. There is strength in numbers.

I believe that God made us all different because he wanted different relationships with each of us. I also believe that set rituals and prayers are a great start but a simple "Hello" or "Help" is a sufficient introduction to a direct connection to the almighty. He doesn't make prayer rules or require that we spin 3 times and click our heels together to get His attention. I pray often and when I am getting into a funk, I know I need to pray more. So here it goes:

Hello, Father Almighty. Thanks for another day of life and sobriety. Thank you for all the blessings you have bestowed upon me and my family. I am really grateful. Thanks for being with me right now when I am feeling so alone. Thank you for sending your son to die so that I may live. Please continue to look after Sunny, Squeaky, my family and the kids. Please bless those I remember in my heart and the ones I forget. Thank you for the gifts you have given me. Help guide me into using them the way you see fit. Help me to be a better person today. Allow me to be a messenger of your love. I know I'll snap out of this. I feel good knowing you're there. As I make mistakes and sin, forgive me and help me to grow. Please let me add something positive to your world today. May thy will be done. With your strength I know anything is possible. In your name I will always pray...amen

An Apology from the Author...I'm Still Me!

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to vent and whine about my blog and if I should continue it or not. I was basing my decision to stop or go based on the amount of readers that I had and commented that readers had fallen from 100 a day to 100 a week. That is the worst thing that I have ever said in this blog and I apologize for it. When I started the blog I made it clear that if I helped one person my years of alcoholism were not spent in vain. Maybe one of those hundred people who checked in to my blog this week got a little shot of hope. My rant violated the basic tenets of recovery assistance. My motives were selfish, not pure.

In alcohol recovery we say the alcohol is removed but the "ism" is always there. I have heard this as an acronym of "I'm Still Me." I am in recovery but the character flaws that drove my addiction are still in me. The drunk in me is always going to live in me. I just have the upper hand and have arrested its' development. These flaws get better, or less powerful in my personality, but it will be a lifetime of repair. There are terms that are taken from recovery literature that fit me to the letter. I am an "Ego-maniac with low self esteem." I suffer from "terminal uniqueness." I also still seek approval and want everyone to love me. It is okay for me not to love or approve of everyone, but I want everyone to think I am the swellest guy. What a great guy!

There are pure and selfish motives. Until a few days ago my blog was written with pure motives. My request to vote on the blog was an attempt to seek approval for my work. It was a selfish motive. My dear friend Linda got me to reassess my motives in writing the blog. I have shared the messy details of my life and from the comments and emails I know my work is useful to some. That's all that is important. It is also important to me to review and repair the wrongs I have done to society, friends and loved ones. Ultimately I am baring my soul to rid myself of the baggage I have carried for so long.

I have written about how addiction is an equal opportunity killer. I have droned on about how the disease doesn't care about money,class or race. When we found out about our daughter's struggles I felt like I failed her, my wife and myself. At the root of addiction is low self esteem or self-criticism. In a drunken rage or high an addict verbalizes and criticizes those around them. It's nothing like the number we do on ourselves. The thought that I did not see the "signs" of addiction in my daughter made me question a lot of things about myself. I reached out to you to pat me on the back and lighten my load of feeling like a failure.

It's easy for me to share the pain that I have endured and relate how I alienated my wife and family. When the subject turned to my daughter I had to see her from the view of a daddy and an addict. Both crushed me. Seeing my wife endure another possible addiction roller coaster was my first chance to see the look in her eyes that I created hundreds of times. I felt it to the depth of my soul. It was a moment of clarity in seeing the years of pain I put her through. As a blackout drinker I don't remember most of the horrible things I said to her and others. She remembers every mean, cutting remark I made. In the last few days I am on the other side of the addiction coin. I feel her pain. It is not only the pain and uncertainty of our daughter's situation but a sobering reminder of my past. Now I feel her pain.

At this point our baby is doing all the right things. I am an optimist cloaked in a realist. I know that I am powerless over other people's actions. That's the bitch of the matter! I have redoubled my recovery maintenance and am going to be starting on a new road with my life. I have blogged about the loved ones of addicts and now I am one. There are many recovery groups for the family members of addicts or the children of addict parents. My wife and I will now be attending these meetings together. She is also going to venture out on her own and work on her own recovery. Since addiction is a family disease it is also a family recovery.

I don't know why addiction picked our family. It doesn't really matter. Asking why, how come or where did I go wrong is of no value. The answer is in solutions, not reviewing the problems. It doesn't matter why. It is what it is. Obviously I won't be sharing intimate details of my daughter's recovery. That's for the family only. However I will share my feelings and experiences on the new journey we are taking with her as a part of family recovery. God works in strange ways. I have stopped questioning him. I stand by my premise that there are no coincidences.

If you are suffering with an addict or are enabling or co-dependent there is help out there. If God wanted us to handle life alone He would have stopped at Adam. There is strength in numbers. Sharing our experience, strength, hope, good and bad is how healing begins. It's also the reason recovery groups continue to exist and grow. My intentions are pure. My motives are right. I want to thank you for letting me share my life, my soul, darkness and light with you. I will continue on with my blog until God has another assignment for me.