Читать книгу The Mindful Addict - Tom Catton - Страница 18

CHAPTER THREE THE GIFT

The next three years proved to be a true initiation leading me to my spiritual path. Following this course required a deep surrender of my life. I had to get out of my own way so grace could penetrate my deep-rooted walls of denial. This required committed spiritual practice, at times, through enormous upheavals in my life. Hitting bottom on drugs was my gift; this painful experience was what it took for me to begin the awakening of my spirit within.

When we find ourselves in deep pain or crisis situations, we can be led in a new direction. It’s like walking through a door and discovering that all we thought familiar has fallen away. Then the way we perceive life changes profoundly. Life and its many changes can be a movement toward the Divine.

After six months in that North Shore beach house, which became known has the “God house,” Flobird once again received direct guidance from her Higher Power during meditation. These messages often came in the form of “Prepare to leave this place,” sometimes even indicating where she should go. Other directives told her to “Pack up your stuff and walk out the door.” This time she was told, “Head for Maui.”

During those six months, I went to a lot of meetings and let go of much denial about my addiction, but I still couldn’t stop using drugs. I would stay clean for a few weeks, only to find myself picking up drugs again. Some of my fellow drug users came to the meetings, understood the message, and stopped using. I was baffled as to why I kept picking up. I was hearing this message of recovery with an open mind, but I began to feel I was too open, and the message would slip right through me. I would find myself loaded yet again.

Although I couldn’t stop using, living around Flobird and going to the meetings at her house was starting to enrich my inner feelings. Hope, something I wasn’t familiar with, started to bubble up within. After Flobird left, everything seemed empty again on the North Shore. So, after finding some friends to watch our house, Laura and I, along with our now nine-month-old daughter Celeste and our two German shepherds, boarded a plane headed for Maui to find Flobird. I had learned this much in my short time with Flobird: The spiritual search calls for willing seekers to take that crucial next step. We traveled with faith and trust pushing us onward.

We knew from her letters that she was living in the then-largely unpopulated area of Makena Beach. We started hitchhiking. The beauty of the area was breathtaking. There were many kiawe trees on this dry side of the island, and their huge green thorns appeared stunning against the blue sky and vast ocean. It took a while, but we eventually found Flobird living about five miles down a dirt road that ran along spectacular white sand beaches that seemed to stretch forever. Her home was a huge white house located right on the ocean, with only a few close neighbors. Ironically, several hundred feet away was a home occupied by Timothy Leary, who had played such a huge part in my early drug-using days. There I was with Flobird living in a house representing recovery, and Leary turning on and tuning out at a nearby house representing the ugly, addictive part of my life. The irony was remarkable, and I was mindful that it was like standing at one of the many crossroads of life.

Every morning I watched Flobird as she sat in front of her house, facing the ocean and meditating. Across the way, Leary also sat on his deck looking at the ocean, probably tripping on acid, since this was the path he presented to the world. As I watched, it almost looked like a standoff on the spiritual path.

Living in this house right on the ocean proved to be a time to deepen my understanding of the twelve-step programs. We were pretty isolated, being five miles down a dirt road, so I was able to stay clean the whole time. We had impromptu meetings most days, and I would never tire of listening to Flobird talk about the spiritual life. It seemed I didn’t have to even understand or grasp intellectually everything she talked about. It was as though her heart was talking to my heart. Something was deepening within me.

It was hot and sunny each day, and we would spend time on the beach swimming and playing. When dawn started to come upon us, I would find myself sitting on the front deck each morning. I was learning the discipline of being quiet. Doing a meditation before the day started was like greeting the day as it gave birth to the light. Each evening we would find ourselves on the deck again as the sun set behind a cloudless horizon. I would even find myself saying good-bye to the sun and thanking it for the beautiful day. This goodness within that I had felt the first time I met Flobird was starting to expand as each day passed.

After being on Maui for about a month, Laura and I returned to our North Shore house, but it began to feel uncomfortable, as if our time there had come to an end. So we started selling our things and gathering money to leave Hawaii and head back to California.

We found a nice little cottage to rent that was set behind a homeowner’s main house in Venice. The backyard was full of trees and plants, with an enormous pine tree right at the front entrance of our new house. It seemed almost like an isolated country home. It was a pleasant transition into the city from rural Hawaii. I got my hair cut and tried working a bit.

Laura got pregnant again, and I tried living a somewhat normal type of life, although my drug using continued. I felt I had enough understanding of recovery to monitor and stay on top of the using, thinking I could run on the fumes of what I had gathered being around Flobird. We stayed in touch with Flobird, and I even went to some twelve-step meetings while in California. I now knew I had the disease of addiction, but just could not seem to find a way to surrender.

Flobird had received guidance to leave Hawaii and stayed in our area for a week or so before heading to the East Coast. It was great to see her again, and I even managed to get a little clean time going. My friend Ronnie, the surfing and drug-using buddy who previously lived next door to me, came over and met Flobird. Like nearly everyone she met, his heart was touched, and he eventually got clean. He now has nearly thirty years in recovery. We continued to receive letters from Flobird, who ended up staying in Virginia Beach for a couple of months before heading back to Hawaii.

Later that year, another good friend, Tom M., had just been released from Atascadero Mental Institution for the Criminally Insane. We had used drugs together since the early 1960s, and I had always judged his addiction as much worse than mine. I used him as a dark measure of my own using and life, and tried to convince myself that I would never get that bad or go that far. He came over and we began smoking pot and getting high. He said he wanted to go to Hawaii, so I told him about the islands and Flobird (who was now living back in Hawaii), and the twelve-step programs she had introduced me to. In a sense, I was carrying the message of recovery to Tom. Since I was getting high with him, I don’t think I was very coherent, but nevertheless, it was my first “twelve-step call.”

At the time, Tom could barely talk. He stuttered terribly, and the behavior that resulted from his drug use almost made him seem less than human. I wanted to help him, so I told him, “The North Shore of Oahu is the place to go because all the young people are out there.” I also showed him a photo of Flobird and described her as an “alcoholic and addict,” which was strange because I certainly never used those words before my introduction to twelve-step meetings. In the hopeless circles I ran in, those words were never part of our vocabulary. Tom later told me that he interpreted my murky message as “There’s this weird woman, and if you get hard up you could shack up with an old alkie.”

Within a few weeks, Tom was off to Hawaii. He landed at the airport in Honolulu around 10 p.m. and began hitchhiking out to the North Shore, which is about forty-five miles away. He soon realized that Hawaii wasn’t a small island that you could ride your bicycle around. There were no grass shacks to sleep in. No beautiful Hawaiian ladies in grass skirts were welcoming him. He was greeted with the indifference of an empty moonlit highway.

Tom was dropped off at Sunset Beach, one of the many big-wave surfing spots, at about 1 a.m. He wandered down to the beach and fell asleep under the thick bushes and palm trees. When Tom awakened in the morning, reality set in. He had traveled to Hawaii, where he knew no one and had no money to buy dope. He realized he had made a huge mistake. He had found himself alone, broke, and strung out in paradise.

Sitting alone on the beach, Tom felt totally desperate and confused. Flobird, who was living in a house about a half-mile up the beach, was practicing her daily two-hour routine of early-morning meditation, writing in her journal, and waiting for specific guidance about how she was to live the rest of her day. She later told us that all of a sudden, she received this message: “Go to Sunset Beach NOW!”

Coming out of her bedroom, Flobird woke up several recovering addicts who were then living with her, the same guys I had hung out with when I first met her.

“Get the car started, I have to get to the beach,” she told them.

“Can’t you just walk across the street to the beach?” they asked.

“No,” said Flobird, her voice filled with urgency. “I have to get to Sunset Beach right now!”

Flobird drove a short distance down the highway and pulled up to Sunset Beach. She got out of her car, walked down to the ocean’s edge, and put her hands on her hips.

“Okay, God. Here I am. What’s up?”

Tom was what was up, crawling out from under the bushes in a state of extreme confusion. He looked up and saw the lady in the photo I had shown to him in California. He staggered toward her and began mumbling. She could not understand him, but said, “You are why I’m here. Put your stuff in my car.” It was December 17, 1968; Tom has been in recovery since that day.

I have since learned there are no coincidences in life. But there are miracles we can all experience and connect with when we are fully awake, mindful of life in the moment, and unafraid to follow our hearts. They only ask of us our presence, an acknowledgment, and our attention paid in full. Love merely generates more of itself, with little or no notice.

I soon began getting letters from Tom. I couldn’t believe it. Even in his letters, the miracle in his life was apparent. There had obviously been a colossal change, because he was no longer the same confused person I last saw in California. He had come fully alive. His spirit was awakening. It could be felt on the pages of the letter.

But there I was, still using. It seemed to me that all the addicts who ran into Flobird were getting clean and staying that way. What was going on with me? Why was I immune to this magic? Had I somehow left the room during the big initiation? Since the day I met Flobird, had gone to my first meeting, and found out I had this disease, I wanted to stop. But I was caught in the insanity, the compulsion to use, and nothing seemed to relieve this for any real length of time. As I look back, I can see it was not time for me to answer my invitation to walk through the door of grace. I was not done—not ready within.

Our son, Joshua Bird, was born on September 4, 1969, and we headed back to the Sunset Beach area of Hawaii right after Christmas. We stayed with friends until we found a house across the street from a beach called Sharks Cove. I began going to meetings once again and staying clean for short periods. When Flobird was in town, we had meetings at my house, but after everyone left, I got loaded. It seemed like my resolve was strong when I was safely encircled with other clean addicts, but that determination would leave with them when we said our good-byes. I truly didn’t want to use, but I was powerless over the obsession to use drugs. During 1970 I actually stayed clean twice, for more than three months each time.

Flobird and a bunch of her followers lived in tents across the street in the grassy park overlooking Sharks Cove. By now there were several people who had met Flobird, started going to meetings, and weren’t using drugs or alcohol anymore. They were a bunch of spiritual nomads, helping one another stay clean as they tried to help others who were ready to surrender. She was like a shepherd with a willing flock of misfits, all of them miracles, all of them clean. Then one morning she awoke at an early hour and was given this message: “Go to Egypt by boat.” After she announced this to us, preparations began for the adventure. Since I was married and had two kids, I certainly wasn’t going to join them, and neither was the other Tom. Flobird and her group left for their new journey.

One evening toward the end of the year, I smoked a joint and drank two beers in a friend’s tent. At the time, I had over three months clean. I went into convulsions on the tent floor, and after coming out of it, I said, “Wow, I’m allergic to this stuff.” I didn’t get loaded for a few days, but even after drugs and alcohol had demonstrated monstrous effects on me physically, I still began using again. We flew to California for Christmas in 1970, and once again, I began using more heavily.

I had heard in meetings how the disease can progress even when we aren’t using. Now I was experiencing it in my life, and I was quickly spiraling to my bottom. When we returned to Hawaii, the needles came out and I became strung out again. For the next ten months, I shot dope constantly. It almost killed me.

I was shooting coke and heroin every day. My arms became tattooed with bruises, track marks, and lesions. It got to the point that when I went to score drugs, the dealers didn’t want me to use there. “Just get the drugs and leave,” they said. I had become so hopeless that other addicts didn’t want me around. They ran me off, fearing I might contaminate their scene. I wandered around the North Shore in my swim trunks, carrying a syringe in an envelope in my shorts. I used garden hoses from private homes to get water to dissolve the dope, and shot up in the bushes. I would be missing for days at a time and then wander into my house. Naturally, my wife was fed up with this behavior.

When I couldn’t score dope, I shot caffeine or wine into my veins, causing an instant hangover. I was once more guided by desperation, traveling again in terror. I frequently woke up on the beach under a palm tree with my face planted in the sand. There was no difference between me and a homeless person on skid row. I had arrived at that place where skid row was within, and it didn’t matter if I was sleeping in a dumpster, in some dark alley, or on a beautiful beach. Skid row was the constant feelings of hopelessness and despair in my heart. Skid row is in the mind of the hopeless. These feelings were, perhaps, magnified because I had been introduced to a different way of life by Flobird, but I still couldn’t get it. What she taught seemed just out of my grasp, so like a good dope fiend, I reached for the painfully familiar. I had resigned myself to a downhill ride.

Laura finally had an “enlightened experience” and decided to leave me. As I look back, I wonder why it took her so long. Then, something unexplainable happened. We talked about her leaving, and I begged her to leave Josh, now nearly two years old, with me. She would take Celeste back to California with her. Seeing my grief and desperation, with compassion as her guide she agreed to leave Josh in my care, and somehow knew on a deep level he would be cared for. In hindsight, I see that it was all part of a divine plan. I really believe Josh was what kept me alive. I now can identify with the single mom burdened with addiction.

I’m not proud about what happened over the next couple of months. Even now, it’s difficult to write about this period without crying. I never had a clean and sober moment from the time Laura left in early August. I stayed stoned all that time, hitchhiking around the area with Josh to score dope. I went to parties on the beach, left him in someone’s parked car, and proceeded to get stoned.