My greatest strength is a product of my father.

It comes from words which I despised hearing.

Words that would confuse me, trap me, make me do things I knew were wrong.

Don’t be a quitter he would say, and you have a lousy attitude!

My mind insisted I never give up. So afraid to give up. Fear unnoticed.

My attitude cost me so much in life. Never quitting kept me stuck.

Today, my attitude keeps me sober and alive, by choice.

Today, I never quit, never give up, by choice.

We recently did a reading at the Bookstock Book Festival in Woodstock, VT. Here's a video of the whole thing. Enjoy!

It is with great sadness that we just learned of the death of Henry Laszlo Ecker-Racz, who was a member of our Newport Writers for Recovery group. Just 27, Laszlo was an incredible athlete, an avid hunter and fisherman, and a voracious reader of all subjects who could invigorate any discussion with his intellect and good spirit. He was a wonderful writer as well. Please keep him and his family in your thoughts as you read his work "Here is Why I'm Not Giving Up."

Here is Why I’m Not Giving Up

by Laszlo Ecker-Racz

Before I ever encountered the blissful surrender of substances, I was confronted with the terrible weight of knowledge. The overthought effects of my actions, the sheer terror of the realities of this world, gross and imagined. The death, wars, starvation, abuse. I felt childlike; there is a universal solution that lies within each individual. There is a way to relinquish something, that assuages all the cascading effects of negativity, anger, selfishness.

Then came drugs. After the Zen-like release of exercise to oblivion, which always left something more in the tank. (I was dubbed the masochist by all my high school athletic teams as I would push until I couldn’t any longer then push more—often running 100-200 miles a week, not including calisthenics.) After the dreamy Sutric trance of sex, which always left an egotistical self-evaluation which was left wanton then came the drugs. The complete release of any desire to do better, to change anything. The understanding that all is as it is, and can be enjoyed, in oblivion with the complete surrender of self.

But there was never enough oblivion. The endless nothingness seemed never to last. Interesting the infinite expanses of suchness when time does not exist in human terms, goes by instantly. A forever within seconds.

And so I am confronted by another problem to which the solution lies within myself. It appears to be a perpetual pattern, geometric, physical, biological, from which I cannot escape by turning away. So I have to exceed it, embrace it, use it ‘til it runs out.

Now I am the proud father of two children who will soon be intellectually facing the same philosophical conundrum of growing up, living. It is now more than just within myself that I seek the solution. To see the light within myself and my children and all those around me. To change the perspective from self-loathing, deprecatory analysis to peaceful, graceful, loving acceptance, understanding. The answer is within each of us but the light lives for me lives within my children, and for them because they are I, and I will never give up. 

Sobriety is our greatest asset

It is of course a way of life that demands rigorous honesty

And to be honest with you using drugs or alcohol in any fashion

Is against everything that I choose to believe in

So if I want to be real about my new way of life

I have to say no to drugs.

Say no to the spirits.

And say yes to abstinence

And say yes to continue to live a new way of life.

Though this may be the first time you’ve heard your footsteps here, the path is not a new one.

The sights and smells, the new colours, are just one you’ve never seen before

Make no mistake, every inch of progress is yours to make.

Every quagmire is yours to cross, different in its own way for you …

            …But that trap, that tar pit, that river over there …

            that crocodile.

            They’ve all be here all along to ensnare anyone

            Anyone at all.

            Your sidestep is unique.

            Your cadence all your own.

            Your stripes put each of your footfalls into a footprint of any number of those who went before.

            Your machete clears a path for those following behind you in the jungle and when they reach out, when you reach back, you’re not showing them your path, any more than those who went before showed you yours.

Some advice for the newly

sober. Sobriety is not

a single victory, it’s a

war. An ongoing arm

wrestling match. However

if you love liberation

from the vices that drag

you into the muck more

than you love your fix,

then it’s a war you can

win. It’s about priorities,

willpower, and perspective.

Can you handle the pain

you’ve been hiding from

and subsequently become

stronger in so doing?

Or must you feel better

now in a way that’s

less empowering and more

generic? Are you willing

to cash out your

tomorrows for one

chemically altered today?

Or are your willing

to face reality soberly

and suffer now so that

you can save your future? 

Speak to me not down at me; I’m not trying to misbehave. Don’t yell speak softly I’m fragile, please try to understand. Don’t get mad if I can’t figure out quite what you mean. I’m trying my best despite how it seems. I’ll listen if you look at me and now down upon me and maybe if you weren’t raising your fist, I would wouldn’t worry you want to harm me. So please talk in a way I can listen. I’m not a bad person just misunderstood sitting in prison. 

If you were recently using and now you are sober

I gave some advice that you should think over

There’s more to this life than all the using

I know at first it can be confusing

To think you can have goals in the life

Like having a career or finding a wife

This life is your now that your addictions aren’t in it

You can do anything you imagine; the sky’s the limit

You must never forget the emptiness addiction brings

The happy parts you remember will haunt your dreams

You need to be stronger than when you were using

Don’t fall victim to the substances you were abusing

If you want to be satisfied in your ripe old age

You have to leave your past behind and turn the page 

This quite possibly will be the hardest thing you do, so pay attention. First thing you need to know is your life hangs in the balance. Second, you cannot do this alone. Reach out to someone in Recovery. Do something every day to replace your own habits with something else. You’ll find this puts your addiction at bay and makes life on life’s terms more tolerable. There’s gonna be hard days. Forgive yourself, and don’t give up.

The “Silent Butler” was an ornate 10”x12” highly polished silver box, resembling one of those antique bed warmers, but with a handle only ten or twelve inches in length, Rosewood, and delicate. I’m not even sure the correct name was “Silent Butler”, but that was what I polished to a brilliant shine, along with all the rest of the silver in the house, especially just prior to one of my Mothers’ Famous Cocktail Parties. Seriously. Famous. Society Pages. Mothers’ World was Blue Book, Social Register, Who’s Who… my Maternal Grandmother was a Zeigfield Girl, and Mother and my Aunt Margot were Debutantes… LA – DE – DA. My Fathers’ colleagues, Emmy, Tony, and Oscar winning Producers, Directors, Writers, Sound, Lighting and all the other Stage Technicians, Musicians,  Wardrobe, as well as all the Actors, Actresses, Dancers, you name it. My Father was in Television News, so it would not be unusual to find all the top folks from what my Father and I considered to be The Real World; although the News is often totally unbelievable. Truth is stranger than fiction, all right.

Once everything was prepared – perfectly – then it was time for my Sister and I to suit up – to put on our costumes. I usually had my Blue Blazer, Rep Tie, Loafers, Khaki Shorts – I wasn’t old enough for long pants yet. My Sister always looked like a miniature Jaqueline Kennedy. She didn’t have any specific duties besides meet and greet, curtsey, firm handshake, direct eye contact, remember everyone’s name, and generally be beautiful and charming and a direct reflection of my Parents Exquisite Parenting Skills. Trophy.

My job was different. I made a constant circuit through the events, maintaining all the same Social Graces – but – I would first tour with my trusty Silent Butler, emptying and wiping them out with a linen cloth. Then I would return with a silver tray and exchange everyone’s mostly finished cocktails with fresh ones, which I had mixed myself. I remembered everyone’s names, everyone’s drinks, and how to make them properly. I was really good at it. I was also nine. I wouldn’t be eligible for long pants until I was twelve. I was gifted with an incredible memory, and I was naturally articulate, and quite precocious. My Parents were sticklers – for Grammar, Diction, Enunciation, Pronunciation, Poise – all manners of Manners. I was a sensation. A Sideshow Freak.

I thrived on the attention because it allowed me to hide in plain sight. You see, all those mostly finished cocktails, I returned to the Kitchen table where I had a bar set up. I also had a pitcher, a strainer, a Tropicana Orange Juice Bottle, and a funnel. I strained all of those leftovers into the pitcher, and then poured it off into the bottle. I called it a Kamikaze, not knowing there was already a cocktail called a Kamikaze. I identified the very reason for all of the Adults’ reverie, the source, the premise for their gathering – in fact the motive – the inducement for these pageants of profligacy and excess… as the contents of those glasses. The effects of the consumption were obvious to me. From the very first time I gulped that elixir and felt the wave wash over me, I had arrived. Wherever I was going, I was there. The stuff in that glass made me feel funny, made my face numb, yet tickly-tingly, made my head a little whoopsied, but I did NOT want to get off this ride. I had one, or sometimes two of those bottles full of that special juice. Probably sixty percent or more melted ice, but I wasn’t even a teenager yet. I could only make a few laps with my tray before I was too unsteady to continue, andhad to relinquish my role to one of the members of my Parents’ inner circle.

At this point it would be time for me to make my final rounds, a very showy goodnight to all, and I would wobble off to my room with an empty promise from my Mother of being tucked in shortly. That almost never happened.

A few other things never happened. I never threw up, I was never hung over, I never got caught – hell, I was never even suspected. I did get the bedspins a couple of times, but I had somethingsimilar happen a couple of times before I ever had my first drink – so I never really thought of those events as related.

I had always been somewhat detached, I looked at life as though from the outside – but I even looked at myself from the outside. I didn’t feel a part of things, ever, and there were enormous gaps. Not just between events, but between moments. Time would advance imperceptibly. Slowly, so slowly it hurt. Then it would move all at once, and it could be months, or even years later before I even seemed to notice. Either way, I didn’t care. About anything.

Thankfully, I was just a kid. I had a highly underdeveloped alcoholic inside of me. I did not yet have cravings. I was not in trouble yet. I had not yet driven drunk, but only because I could not yet reach the pedals. That is, of course, a metaphor, but it is also not. I hadn’t burned anything yet, or anyone. I hadn’t broken anything yet, or anyone. I hadn’t stolen anything yet, or lied yet, or ruined anything or scared anyone or put anyone in jeopardy. Yet. I’d get around to all that soon enough.

It wasn’t long before I was drinking all the time. All The Time. I wasn’t always drunk, but I was never not drinking. The behavior may have been learned, but I had developed my own techniques, and in my humble opinion, I was well on my way to perfecting them. Not every bad decision I made was because of alcohol, but the very worst ones were while brimming with alcohol.

So, Alcoholism is genetic. Okay. If you say so. There is some evidence to support that.

You have a CHOICE. Maybe I did, once upon a time. Eventually, I didn’t have any choice at all.                                                                                            Complete Physical Dependence.

Peer Pressure. Learned Behavior. Developed Habit. It’s a Disease. That’s at least a fact. Is that important? I mean, it’s relevant, but is it important? I don’t think so. I’m an Alcoholic. One of the many symptoms is the chronic, progressive nature of Alcoholism. As my consumption increased dramatically, the sheer volume of alcohol ingested, the danger had to be obvious. Should have been. Wished it was. I was introducing such toxic amounts into my system, I should have been poisoned. Actually, if I ever had to stop for any reason, I would experience all of the detoxifying withdrawals that would indicate poisoning. It was frightening, or it should have been. But just as my consumption increased to dangerously toxicquantities, my decisions grew increasingly dangerous. I used Cocaine and Heroin for twelve years – smoked a trainload of Crack – found myself in the worstparts of every city in the middle of the night with a pocketful of money – acquired surreptitiously – either to score or to be robbed or to be beaten and robbed; yet somehow even with my precarious decline in health I could not be discouraged. Miraculously, my employers intervened, saving my life. I spent the next four months in an intensive treatment program, which began in a Hospital – and, while I haven’t used drugs since November of 1989, I did not address my Alcoholism, convinced I was different, convinced I could handle it. I didn’t get drunk for eight years, but when I finally did, I found myself in a barfight and in jail again, wondering what happened. Then I was back to drinking too much, too much of the time. A couple of wrecked vehicles, a few more fights, a few more lost jobs and an eventual bankruptcy and I still hadn’t realized the source of all my troubles. Scratchin’ my head.  Mix in a geographical change and I had the recipe for a host of opportunities I could ruin. Dozens of opportunities, dozens of last chances, countless broken dreams - all culminating in one horrendous, reprehensible event. In December 2007, I committed a Horribly Violent Crime, and when I finished serving my sentence, I discovered upon my release that my Loved Ones had FLED. My Home had been abandoned years before, and now it was all gone. Twenty Four Years in Vermont, and there wasn’t a scrap of paper to show for it.

I didn’t drink any more, and life had really begun to improve. The normal ups and downs of life that regular people experience had become customary – even expected. I should never have become so complacent. Perhaps Karma is cumulative after all. All of my past sins, all of the things I did and did not get caught for, every transgression, I sit here paying for them now.  No matter what happens now, I know I won’t make anything any better if I’m drunk.

 Besides, my Brain was starting to get a bit squishy. 

Sick of being lied to.

I’d like to see what truth could do.

No longer will I be manipulated.

I hope to fix this mess that lies created.

I want to be a better man.

To help my children understand.

Right from wrong, wrong from right.

If you love something, for it you must fight.

Sometimes I wonder why life has been so cruel.

It’s like a cosmic joke about a sadistic never-ending school.

At 6 months old my mom and dad divorce.

I was too young so it was not my fault of course.

So we moved to Nana and Papa’s in Washington.

I guess that’s as far as my mom thought she could run.

With Papa and his camper I visited every state before I was 4.

I don’t remember much but it was fun that’s for sure.

Then Papa went on a trip alone. It was a heart attack they said.

I didn’t know what that was. I cried myself to sleep in my bed.

Mom went to Disneyland® alone. She was gone most of the time.

I can remember my Nana telling here it was a crime.

We should have been taken along.

But I didn’t know if it was right or wrong.

Nana was good. We often slipped and called her mom.

She always had that way to keep a young boy calm.

At 5 years old the molestation came.

I told Nana. She made me apologize in shame.

What a wicked lie for you to tell.

If I kept it up, I would surely go to hell.

The abuse went on for 11 painful years.

But I never told again. I held on to my tears.

A new stepdad came at around that time,

And his dislike for me had no reason or rhyme.

His mental and verbal abuse along with abuse untold

Went on and on and became so old.

My hate for him was a childish answer to an uncontrollable fate.

I was only 5 1/2, and by then it was too late.

Grade school was a sham and didoes were lame.

My life was a mess when Jr. High came.

I was small and again came the abuse.

It was already there it just added to the misuse.

Garbage cans for lunch, a swirly in the bathroom, and beatings in the hall.

And of course the teachers seemed to miss it all.

Then I found weed; A good friend indeed.

My usage became known; trouble at home.

My grades declined. But I was not alone;

More trouble at home.

Around 15 I found LSD and the world opened up to me.

It gave me insight, and I felt I had grown; more trouble at home.

Stepdad said I was stupid. I just liked being in trouble.

My life would always be a pile of rubble.

He called me Numb-nuts for a year.

I had no way to stop it so I just lived in fear.

At 16 I met the love of my life. She was 28. When I

Realized she’d left with my son, I knew pain was my fate.

Then at 18, there was trouble with the law; more trouble at home.

I got 5 years of probation and to Vermont I was thrown.

My real dad was there and I thought, “oh boy,”

A real father and maybe some joy.

But that abuse reared its ugly head again,

And I wondered if the misuse had just always been.

I moved out and thought “oh good a new start”.

But two divorces later and codeine was my heart.

I remember lying to doctors, searching and aching, and that feeling of finally it’s here.

Do some right now or it might disappear.

Oh, that feeling of numbness and no pain, that antidepressant euphoric state.

I hid there. I lived there. It had become my mate.

I hid if well. Nobody knew,

Except the dealers and the chosen few.

It lasted for 10 long, painful, and arduous years.

Finally I met someone who could dismiss my fears.

Someone who could ease my pain. Someone who

Could get through to my stoned addled brain.

I met my beautiful loving helpmate; my wife.

She was the sweet wonderful woman that saved my life.

It took her a year and then that was it.

There was no choice. She just said quit.

I had finally found something I loved more than my high.

She weaned me off slowly until the day I was dry.

We lived in bliss, nine children in the mix.

There were really good times and nothing to fix.

Then trouble with the law and it all came apart.

They even locked up my wife the other half of my heart.

Our lives had been a wonderful dream.

But things are not always as they seem.

I had learned from Buddhism to suffer in bliss.

Even with all the people I would miss.

Buddhism had become my light,

So I knew everything would be alright.

The good comes with the bad.

Some forget the good and just stay sad

They forget that nothing remains the same.

They live sadness and their badge is pain.

It may sound cliché or lame.

But as for me, I’ll keep my joy.

There may be reasons to complain.

As for me I’ll retain that innocent little boy.

The following information is very personal. I offer it to the public freely. I do so in an effort to convey to readers just how easily life can be derailed after substance abuse. I want to begin by saying this. Not learning is a pitfall. I once believed I was wise for my age. What an embarrassingly boastful view of myself. I could not see that I traded the fullness of feeling my life in for numbness. Certainly the pain I experienced from my past was intense. But all the vodka and benzodiazepines did was increase my wounds while masking the pain. I didn’t know I was in trouble. I was blissfully bleeding out. That kept on until my substance abuse, which I thought I was in control of, affected others. And then ultimately a life was lost. A regret of mine which haunts me daily.

I was arrested, defeated, and staring down twenty five to life. I wouldn’t eat. I just laid there in administrative segregation at the St Johnsbury Vermont correctional facility waiting to die. All was lost. I couldn’t even remember much of my past or who I was as an individual as opposed to just another statistic. Then without any choice, I withdrew from alcohol, benzodiazepines, and caffeine all at once. The medication they gave me to assist with my withdrawal didn’t seem to help at all. 

I began suffering from nightmarish hallucinations and delusions. I can remember them to this very day. At one point I believed that an African American inmate was killed during a riot which my unwelcomed presence incited. And then as a result, An African American militant group called Puma had openly placed a high price on my head, which criminals, civilians and law enforcement alike were clamoring to collect on.

During another delusion complete with audible and visual hallucinations, I believed that the Vermont Department of Corrections handed me over to the mob for execution. I believed and even saw the mob set up a casino in an execution room and offer me a chance to gamble for a less gory, or if I lost, more gory execution. I can remember I won two shots to the lungs and one shot to the head. The whole ordeal was pure torment; hell on earth. That is when I attempted suicide by ingesting copious amounts of solid and liquid soap in an effort to avoid a horrible death. I was hoping the poison would enter my blood stream through my stomach and then the lights would go out. Instead I vomited up lather and blood so hard that I lost my voice. That earned me time in a dry cell and suicide prevention smock.

Looking back I realized that the hate from others that I perceived originated from my own mind, which hated myself. It took time but I came to the conclusion that if I lived, I could begin to attempt to pay back an enormous debt that I owed to God. If there is one absolute truth that I understand; it’s that there is still so much that I do not understand, and so much I do not know. I have learned that the family of the deceased want my statement. And given the chance, I will make my statement. Though I’m sure they would settle for a bullet to my brain. It is my responsibility to live with that. In closing I want all who read this to know that one harmless day of binge drinking can lead to two thousand days of binge drinking. And you’ll never see the black ice on the road of your life until you are upside down with a steering wheel in your mouth. It is that fatal. It is that tragic.

This is what keeps him awake at night, his painful scars, skin deep, his darker memories, should he keep? They torment him like evil deities, corrupting his mind. He reaches for something to numb his pain, the sort of freedom long lost to him. Stupid boy, they shout with words only he can hear while laughing. Evil says he is worthless, striking him with fear.

Well when I came to prison I was real messed up, I was hiding behind the mask. My behavior and thinking led me down the wrong path. My sneaky behavior got the best of me, laying in bed thinking “Why did I do it and why didn’t I listen to the truth people was pointing out to me?” I lost my family, wife, kids, the respect that people had for me, the money I spent on my addiction and not being there for my kids and wife. I had the power, control, and I was entitled to my freedom as anybody. I could go out, and my lie, drinking and drugs, was my friend. I never knew what I had until I lost everything.

But I found the faith to keep going on was my Higher power, a positive friend.

We are all equal under god

We are not all equal on earth

Worst mass shooting in U.S. history

But the mass was not held in a church

Nor a school

Nor a mall

Nor a mosque

Nor a temple

It was a gay nightclub

I feel the asterisk in people’s minds

God has stricken

An abomination

That

Is

An abomination

That separation of life’s value

If it

And the life it is

Is of no value

That though is alive

I could hear it

That indiscriminant discrimination

I am

That

I am

What I am

There is that

Nothing more

Nothing less

I am

She found the photograph under the seat of the car. She thought she had lost it, didn't know where it had gone, yet she knew what it was as soon as her fingers touched the glossy Polaroid surface. She didn't need to see the picture to see it-- his lopsided smile, one eye tilted out of the sun, in shadow, a belt of freckles spanned in frozen rotation across his young-boy face. Frozen, that's what he was; frozen in an object from the past, in a present which would not let him grow.

When she pulled the photograph out, she kept it face down, sliding the black backing, facing out, into the back pocket of her jeans.

It started with a small voice, sounding like my own, saying to me, “You need that and nothing will be right until you have it.”

What this looked like as a child was me crying in the grocery store, thinking fast of ways to convince my mother to buy it for me. “Mom, if you buy me the multi-pack, you won’t have to buy me another.”

As an adolescent, it was nice to “smoke the fucking cigarette or Cindy is gonna beat the shit out of you, and you’ll look like a big baby and they won’t let you hang out with them anymore.”

As a teenager, “Drink more she’ll/he’ll give you what you want -- for a price. It’s not so bad and sometimes feels pretty damned good.”

As an adult, “More, more, I’m starting to remember. I don’t want to feel that shit! More, please whatever it takes, I need more.”

As I attempt to open my eyes the fog set in fast. For a moment I didn’t know where I was. Then it dawned on me: you’re at home, knucklehead. Two moments have passed and the flashes of what I believe to be memories from the night before start flooding in.

·      People in my face yelling

·      A scuffle with someone I can’t remember

·      Swilling straight vodka out of a handle

·      Blue lights coming through the living room window.

—Back to reality, I looked at the clock. 9:59 am. My head us spinning, I feel like shit.

Ruff…Ruff…

It seems as though everyone is recovering from something. It may be substance abuse, other kinds of abuse, loss of a loved one, a tragedy, unlucky circumstance, or the pain we have caused by our own hands. I unfortunately am juggling with recovery from all of these things. But the most powerful struggle of my life is dealing with the pain of my own actions. I never wanted to know I could caused so much damage in so many lives including the life I accidentally but absent-mindedly took. I never wanted to believe I could be a monster or a heinous villain as the media has presented me to society both locally and globally. I always believed that in my core I was a good person with good intentions. Sadly the old cliché rings true in my case. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And to amplify the treachery of that road, it was also made slick with the woeful union of vodka and benzodiazepines. My crime has changed me. I can never be the same person who was free from guilt, shame, and persecution. A youthful part of me has died.

My religious belief tells me that I could never be worthy f the level and depths of the creator’s mercy and love that he offers. The a great sacrifice was made to pay in advance of the transgressions of mankind and the dark ripple effect caused by their actions. I am to believe that because I am repentant, truly seek to be forgiven and thereafter work towards helping my fellow human beings, which is all true; that the symbolic blood stains on my hands have been washed away. However I cannot seem to forgive myself as much as God is willing to forgive me. Self-forgiveness is a jagged and sharp horse pill to swallow.

I cannot envision a life where everything important to me isn’t touched by the death of Isaac. How can I enjoy anything I used to again? How can I just laugh and make other people laugh? Who do I think I am? How can I enjoy Christmas again, when the holiday focuses around the birth of a young, pure, and innocent life? How can I walk in faith that God is with me when a passage from the Bible states that it is better to wear a millstone around my neck and drown myself in the deepest ocean than to hurt one of God’s precious children?

I am told life will go on. That one day I will let myself off the hook. One day I will be out of prison. Christmases will come and go. Events in life will transpire. And I will do good works according to any kind of divine inspiration I may receive. I am told time heals all wounds. But I cannot see a day when the wound will cease to hurt. The wound caused by taking a young life will still bleed and ache. I am told that I should remember that it wasn’t malicious, that it was accidental. And that is true. It was not malicious. But that does not seem to soften the blow. After a year and half of deliberation I have decided that I will continue to live. Not because I deserve to. Rather because if I take my own life, then evil wins a double victory. While I may be worth little, God can still bring good things out of me. And honestly I believe I own that to him and will continue to owe that to God for the remainder of my days. I am not important, but the helping of others is.