Just when does "recovery" start? That, is a very good question.
For me, it started while standing at a sink at my in-laws house in 2008--ish, its hard to remember timelines on all this stuff-- I had my shirt off as usual because doing anything remotely physical makes you sweat like the proverbial pig when you are a 250lb bodybuilder (no, no not one of those guys wearing a sweater at the gym talking like Ronnie Colman imagining that it puts them in the same realm as...a real bodybuilder. Eat, sleep, train, sell juice on an international scale aspiring to the same ideals of the perfect physical condition called "huge and shredded" and compete at least once a year on the proceeds so you can see just what you accomplished during the last year: repeat.)
Yes, I do tend to get into over-explanation but I am finding that its entertaining to many that read my stuff and without a lot of explanation, many concepts are misunderstood by the reader or can be misconstrued due to the proliferation of internet warriors of all kinds proclaiming their god like knowledge of everything from muscle building to the mechanics of our not so physical universe. All from a quick google. And, funnily enough, Russell Brand has a very similar approach to his writing as I discovered yesterday while listening to his book "
Revolution" on Audible. Highly recommended to anyone struggling with adversity...
Ok, so there I was, shirtless, the light sweat from my chest was now producing a trickle over my always present abs and going down into the band of my underwear. Pants are always baggy when you have huge legs... and my fingers were actually starting to get wrinkled because I was doing something willingly that you could not have gotten me to do in the past even if you tried!
Beside the sink is a book. Its title is "the power of now" by Eckhart Tolle. I was reading it while doing the dishes.
At that time, TPON was still selling like hotcakes but I had not purchased it. It was either my father or my brother that had bought it for x-mas for me. I had begun to start to read such stuff for some reason that I could not remember. It sounded all peaceful, this "Consciousness" stuff.
So there I was, doing what I always did if I came across magical stuff like this. I would give it an honest go! Ok, wash dishes slowly. Take your time. If you do it properly as described, you will reach enlightenment. Well, I was really frustrated by the end of drying because my mind was going faster than when I started trying to figure out why it wasn't working!
FINE! I'll do the conscious walking thing instead! (people use the buzzword "mindfulness" now more than consciousness because if you add a "C" then you get into the whole God thing...but I digress).
SO, there I was, walking up the stairs, book in hand. Reading the description of how to do it...well, I got to the first little landing of the double up twisting short stairs to my wife's old room where we were staying while we looked for another place to stay as I had just quit a good job for the first time in my life without having another one to go to. (Nothing to do with drugs..those helped me motivate a rather large amount of people that I helped with physical transformations. One even started calling me "the north american Tony Little" due to my massive exuberance for life and always being fun and energetic. If you can't hear the sarcasm, go back and start again at "Nothing to do with".)
I reached as far up the railing as I could and using the action of both my legs, torso and that 20" arm to propel myself up the last 6 steps in one go. My usual. Get it done, fast. If you can't do it right, don't do it.
If you can do it right, be better at it than everyone else. Perfection; its a wonderful thing. I ambled into the room. Its all pink and white and frilly. Typical for a childhood dancers room. Cheerful. There is a bookshelf that sits with the bottom shelf directly on the floor. I toss the book on that bottom shelf. What a waste of time. Fucking Consciousness. Quick cap-O-"G" will do the trick better. Hit the stopwatch... 1.5 hrs to go before I can do it again!
I'm not depressed, sad or lonely. I have tons of friends that call me for help every day and ask advice about their own problems. People can tell when your onto something, even if you don't know it yourself.
If you ever worked or played with me up until 2009 if you weren't part of my "inner circle", you'd not have the foggiest idea that I had been 'round the clock dosing on
GHB, a potent mind altering substance that, when I started making it in the kitchen of the condo I was renting the sunroom of in downtown Toronto across from "the gardens" was my answer, nay, the HOLY GRAIL for not being able to sleep for more than a few fitful hours after coming home from working the front door at the Bohemian, a cozy, crazy little bar just outside the downtown core of Canada's unofficial capital city of Toronto for the last 10 years.
My usual routine between 1997 and 1999 was: Goto York U on the subway/bus in the morning, starting at 6:30am with 6 meals packed in my big blue cooler bag (yeah, I was that guy in the front bothering you with good food smells!), learn about all things physiology and biology, come back home, goto the gym til 7, try to catch a few hrs of sleep if I could manage to get around to it between dropping off some "gear" to a customer so I could pay the rent ...hmmm.
This is getting long. My little sister is probably thinking "why didn't he listen when I said your blog posts are too long??" haha. So I'll leave it at that. When you are a writer, you have to write. Off to work on that website now. . .its coming along great and I'll pick up where I left off.
Oh, O-N-E more thing before I go. Don't judge a book by its cover. Some of the most emotionally and psychologically damaged people hold positions in society that make them "healers" and "helpers" as they struggle internally with the
cognitive dissonance of doing one thing openly while passing off physical and emotional behavior usually associated with the truly openly mentally ill while they hide behind their outwardly "healthy and happy" exterior. This is where it starts. Recovery. When you hit the pain threshold. When it just hurts to much mentally inside to go outside without quenching your own "guilt, abandonment, shame, un-looked at-unrecognized-mental-anguish-with-a-quick-use-of "drug of choice/alcohol/medication here".
Mental Illness - Those are not a bad words. They are words of hope. Everyone is the same inside; once you get over yourself and whatever outward mask/suit of muscle armor, perfect fake breasts-ass-lips-etc. big car, fast times, joyride to your own personal hell you are on, you may realise that YOU are only prolonging the pain by doing whatever it is that is masking it.
Until next time- Have hope, let in joy, be at peace when you can, and above all, love yourself. Recovery..Its contagious.
Doing MY best, every day, in every way.
EM
*quick editing job..there may be some mistakes!
