My heavy drinking started at age fourteen with my brother Kenny and went on until age twenty-seven, when I entered the rooms of AA.
In the program, I learned, along with other AA members, that when our addiction starts, it stunts our emotional growth and/or stops it altogether.
I really believe that, as I had to experience it for myself, firsthand. Therefore, I felt like a fourteen-year-old boy in my thirty-year old body.
This also was a good explanation of why I had such bad, dysfunctional relationships throughout my active alcoholic life, sighted and blind.
Now, in my new apartment, this is my first time alone, with no other people, directly controlling my choices, without active alcoholism.
By this time in my book, any reader should realize that I am trying my best to turn my will and my life over to the care of God, as I understand him.
Now I at least felt as though I was going in the right direction, but I had some growing up to do.
In the AA fellowship, and recovery from alcoholism, we learned that we may experience our own personal growth levels. I did not know, at the time, that this meant emotional growth also.
We come to find out, through experience, that it is not always comfortable. It is not all peaches and cream.
I can testify from personal experience that it can really be painful. That is what this chapter is all about.
I was enjoying all the new friends that were entering my life, and I was just as excited, as an adolescent boy might be, as he gets what he wants.
I was so busy with interaction with my newfound friends: my calendar was filling up much of my time.
The enjoyment of my new friends was outstanding, some closer than others, and we did many things together, but confiding in one female friend, that I was attracted to, had unintentionally gotten deeper than I had planned.
As far as I knew, our relationship was fine, but my love feelings for her grew incredibly strong.
Nevertheless, I was not concerned about it at all, because she was a married woman.
Suddenly, everything changed in our relationship, when she informed me that she had the same deep feelings for me as I had for her.
Emotionally, a “Whole new world”, had opened up for me, and I thought that a dream had come true, especially, with my status as a blind man.
With less than a week without any contact, we both had time to think about our situation, and for myself, my feelings were intense for her.
She called me on the phone five days later, to end our friendship abruptly. She absolutely did the right thing, in order not to threaten, or break up what she already had at home.
I now admire her for that, and I see integrity, in the action she took, because, with my emotional state I was in at the time, I would not have been able to do what she did.
This event was the “first time,” most painful shock to my system that I had ever felt emotionally. It hurt so badly that I could hardly bear it. The feelings of love were so intense that I was debating whether to go on with my life or not.
The adolescent, fourteen-year-old boy in me had taken over my emotions, as I had felt so powerless and alone.
I thank God that my friend Bob answered the phone that day when I called. Bob just happened to stop in his house, at the time of my phone call, to get something that he had forgotten, as he answered the phone that day. This was his home phone, long before we had cell phones. He had the entire day planned away from his home.
This is one of the reasons that I believe that there are no coincidences.
Bob could tell from my voice that I needed him, desperately. He dropped his plans and spent the rest of the day with me.
We talked it out, as we took a ride in his truck, and God used him in my life that day. He is yet, another angel that God sent my way.
I believe that God had also allowed me to go through this, and survive, to start growing up and dealing with my teenage years, in my middle thirties.
I look back on this event, to see the power in it, to help me make the shift I needed to change my way of life, but the change surely did not happen overnight.
It took me a long time to get over these feelings, and it was not easy. This incident was not the only one, for I had much more growing up to do.
Then I had a remarkable awakening about myself through these events when I crashed and burned with the feelings of love.
Obviously, I was restricted, when I wanted to bring out the love I had inside of me, and to be able to give it to others.
I now believe that sharing love, intimately, is one of the reasons God made us, but only in a higher, moral way that this teenage boy inside of me, did not understand at the time.
With Ann, my ex-wife, I did want to love her, but I could not get through to her emotionally, due to her feelings of being married to a blind man.
I physically felt chest pains when I could not give her the love that I had inside of me.
Then, after Ann, I started experiencing similar chest pains again, when the intense love that wanted to get out, suddenly halted, like a train wreck. I thank God that he had saved me from my feelings, as he was trying to point me towards his direction, all along, in his plan.
For God had given me a fellowship of people, for my personal growth and support, which proved his way of unconditional love and acceptance towards me that I needed, at critical times in my life.
Over time, I realized that I was going to be all right and I decided that continuing in recovery was the best thing for me to do.
The remarkable revelation that came to me is what I wanted to express in this chapter. I realized that where the pain was originating, was coming from inside of me in the first place.
I found that the love inside of me, that was unable to be expressed to others, was causing me this intense, emotional pain, and the problem was not them, but me.
Obviously, there needed to be a receiver for this love, in a more proper way, which was trying to emanate out of me.
Now I realized that, clearly, I was blind in a separate way.
According to my feelings, any of my morals, or rules for a proper relationship, did not matter at all this time.
They were insignificant, according to my emotions. Therefore, I look back and think to myself, apparently, I needed this shock to my system to start the change in the first place.
If I am going to grow in spirituality, I might better learn what the guidelines are in the first place.
I needed to take a good look at the love I had inside, and suddenly, I realized that love came from our God in the first place. Was he then trying to tell me something?
When God was allowing me to share this love with others, within his guidelines, can be a wonderful gift to me.
The only thing is; to put it simply, I was going about it the wrong way.
I now understand that, as a man, it can just be a physical attraction, and for anyone, male or female, it can be an emotional attraction. I never had the opportunity to think about the spiritual attraction that can include love, as an action, at its core.
Obviously, it was not them, as they had continued with their lives without me.
Therefore, I had nowhere else to go this time, other than God, as I did feel that he was guiding me, and protecting me in all my life experiences.
How could I feel otherwise, after saving me from my own destruction and his guidance thus far?
Now I was trying to place spirituality first in my life, and I wanted to view love in a spiritual way.
I learned that love is not just a feeling, but it is an act of my will.
When I was reading the Bible, I read the “Love chapter,” #13, in the book of First Corinthians.
As I was viewing these from my self-centered way of life, these scriptures seemed different to me, in my heart, in a spiritual way.
“4 Love is never tired of waiting; love is kind; love has no envy; love has no high opinion of itself, love has no pride.
5 Love's ways are ever fair, it takes no thought for itself. It is not quickly made angry; it takes no account of evil.
6 It takes no pleasure in wrongdoing but has joy in what is true.
7 Love has the power of undergoing all things, having faith in all things, and hoping all things.”
To me, it was a beautiful expression of love to others, through God. If I already had love inside of me, what was I missing?
I immediately knew that this was not me, and how I treated other people, especially in the past.
I needed to learn these guidelines, and put them into practice in my life, as I belonged to the AA program that had members treating me this way already.
Therefore, I decided to take on this way of life for myself, and what a spiritual blessing it was for me. To get out of myself, and help someone else out? What a concept!
When I discovered this principle, and experienced the following feelings, it changed everything in my life, and my outlook towards others.
The relationships I had with people in my life, blossomed, in a more proper and healthy way.
I feel, as I have surrendered to God’s guidance, and living by his principals, he has truly placed me on a better, healthier path.
Below is the poem that I wrote, for the above event, just to express my feelings of what I went through, with my emotional loss, at the time.