Читать книгу The Mindful Addict - Tom Catton - Страница 8

FOREWORD

The Mindful Addict isn’t the typical recovery memoir. Where most such stories start to fizzle out after the hero emerges from the drama and horror of addiction, Tom’s just gets going. Sure, his years of drug addiction are compelling to read about, but it’s in his recovery that the story takes off. When he got clean as the sixties turned to the seventies, drugs and charismatic hucksters pervaded the spiritual scene, and his guide into recovery, Flobird, reads more like one of those trippy cult leaders than any twelve-step sponsor I’ve ever heard of—but she is in recovery, and that makes all the difference.

Tom is a kind of spiritual everyman, seeking out Mother Teresa and Ram Dass, taking on celibacy and poverty, hanging out at Edgar Cayce’s library and Yogananda’s ashram. Like a character in some eighteenth-century picaresque novel, Tom takes us from one illuminating moment to another, guided only by his longing to serve, to grow, and to experience spiritual bliss and connection. Along the way, his outward innocence hides an inner wisdom. Never claiming to be a guru, Tom nonetheless teaches us through his experiences and through the broad-ranging insights that develop over a lifetime of recovery and spiritual practice. And just when you think his story is ready to fizzle, aging and illness bring more lessons.

His determination is remarkable, a testament to the twelve-step principle of “showing up” that he embodies. When I first met Tom, he told me he wanted to write the story of his life. When he sent me his early attempts, I was skeptical. Here was a guy with a high school education who was recovering from brain surgery—how much could you expect from him? But with true humility, he set out to learn what it would take to create a great book. He showed tenacity and a willingness to be a beginner that most people—especially those with decades of clean time—could never muster. And even though I followed the process and knew how committed he was, I was still amazed by the quality of the end result. The Mindful Addict is a book that is going to touch a lot of people, ultimately not because of the glamour of Tom’s life, but because of the authenticity of his love and the power of his message. As Tom says, he’s “out living and loving life to the fullest in the present moment,” and after reading this book, that’s what you’re going to want to do too.

–Kevin Griffin

Author of One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve Steps and A Burning Desire: Dharma God & the Path of Recovery