32 years

May 12th 1988. That was the last day that I snorted cocaine. I remember that day vividly. I was totally out of control. I couldn’t stop. I had a half a gram cocaine on the mirror and I was chopping it up to use and I was crying at the same time. My tears we’re hitting the mirror and dissolving the cocaine right before my eyes. I couldn’t snort it anymore so I just licked it off the mirror. Then I called my mom and she took me to the hospital where I spent four and a half days basically in isolation detoxing. That was a very difficult time in my life. I had to change everything about how I lived. I thought I was in control but I was totally out of control.

Now I had to learn how to live all over again without drugs without all my friends. ( I had to kick all my friends to the curb they weren’t my friends anyway.)

32 years later I feel like I’m out of control again. And my anger has taken over because of the virus. I’m sure it’s much deeper than that. Here’s what I know. I am not in control and I don’t like being told what to do.

How did I get here? I stopped seeing people the way God sees them. I stopped for the most part treating people the way God treats them. I found myself losing my compassion and having no empathy.

Yesterday I had a coaching session. It was amazing. This is the value of having a life coach. This is what was discovered yesterday during our coaching session.

I have to make changes. This morning I’m reading in Romans 12 out of the mirror version and it just spoke to where I’m at and where I am going moving forward.

Romans 12.

13 Purpose with resolve to treat strangers as Saints; pursue and embrace them with fondness as friends on equal terms of fellowship. Make yourself useful in the most practical way possible.

14 Continue to speak well even if someone wants to take advantage of you; bless and do not blame when you feel exploited.

15 Do not merely act the role in someone else’s gladness or grief; feel with them in genuine joy and compassion.

16 Esteem everyone with the same respect; no one is more important than the other. Associate yourself rather with the lowly than with the lofty. Do not distance yourself from others in your own mind. (“Take a real interest in ordinary people.”— JB Phillips)

17 Two wrongs do not make a right. Never retaliate; instead, cultivate the attitude to 1anticipate only beauty and value in every person you encounter.

18 You have within you what it takes to be everyone’s friend, regardless of how they treat you.

19 Do not bother yourselves to get even, dear ones. Do not let anger or irritation distract you; 1that which we have in common with one another (righteousness) must set the pace. Scripture confirms that the Lord himself is the 1revealer of Righteousness.

20 “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.” These acts of kindness will be like heaping coals of fire on his head and certainly rid him of the dross in his mind and win him as a friend.

21 Do not let evil be an excuse for you to feel defeated, rather seize the opportunity to turn the situation into a victory for good.