(Photo copyright 2002 Gary Miller)

I promise

To paint the tree.

And with each branch, an expression of hope, determination. With a meaning in every molecule--success, happiness, freedom, a point…

This is a promise, an oath, a vow made to that scared little girl, who barely says a word and thinks too much. She fantacizes, obsesses of a life resembling lysergic acid diethylamide. She’s standing in the cold, shaking in her boots, dreaming of so much more than hiding under the covers, with a flashlight and a Nancy Drew book and sneaking cigarettes in the garage. Stealing ginseng tablets, doing cartwheels in the hallway. Go little girl, buy real estate in Whoville, design a dress for Briar Rose, bury a time capsule on Penny Lane and land your feet on East 68th Street. You would rather read every line from the script of the Shadowboxer, but you won’t. Hold on tight.

For I won’t follow through with my promises for twenty more years.

A promise I made, and I promise I’ll keep.

I will finish painting someday.

Photo copyright 2015 Gary Miller

I promise I will not let you down, I promise things will get better, I promise this will be the last time, and I promise I will get help: all promises I have made and all I have broken. As an addict I have made and broken so many that the word is not only meaningless to the people I have made them to but to me as well. I can't count the amount of times I have made one knowing that as the words were coming off my lips I had no intention of keeping them. This is not the way I was taught to treat people, things were not always this way but things happen and people change. I know I was sick and that my illness had taken complete  control of everything in my life, but I knew that the only way to get better was to face it and I was not ready at the time. I hate to use the sayings, but it is true " we are only as sick as our secrets." It was not until I lost everything and was left with only my secrets that I truly found out how sick I was. 
 It was then that I made a promise to my self. I was going to stop the pain. No longer would I hide at the bottom a bottle, be it booze or pills I was done. I know the dangers of dark secrets mixed with sobriety, I had tried it before and failed. This time I will no longer let my past control my life. I found the help I needed but I was told what I already knew, this was not going to be easy. Sobriety would have to come first mixed with some tools to deal with the past. It was slow at first and looking like it was all going to fail again. I had seen a flyer for a writing class and mentioned it in a session and was asked if I thought I could write about what I could not talk about. I made a promise that day to go outside my comfort zone and write about my experiences. It was then that I found out that by giving away my story I released its hold over me.     
 

"Something tough that made me stronger" is how I described my electro-shock treatments to my doctor last summer. The first and second treatment barely made a dent on my depression. The third, however, is a different story. I later found out it was a new wave-length they were trying out. Though I was only under its spell for a minute or so I will never forget my dream.

I stood in the middle of a green meadow about the size of two football fields. There were magnificent oak trees on three side of the meadow. They had large limbs swooning down to the ground. Behind the trees was a dark forest. On the forth side of the meadow was a stretch of blue water that went on forever. I stood in the meadow and watched as the clouds slowly billowed into human forms. They represented reenactments of my past incriminations. Almost over-head was my mother and beyond her toward the trees was my ex-wife, past that my father, brother, and a whole family that I had known from my home town. All of them making me feel small and inept. The wind shifted and they were moving toward me. I moved toward the forest to get away but I could see something moving behind the trees, in the dark, something black; something heavy. It seemed to be waiting for me. I ran towards the water. As I walked through the muddy shore toward the water my foot prints quickly filled with something red-black, thick, and gooey. I bent down and looked at it more closely. I touched it. It felt and smelled like blood. Off in the distance I saw a man standing on the water. I was called to him. I was scared to be out in the open water because of what the clouds might do but there was something calming about the way he stood that gave me courage. I walked further out into the water knowing with each foot step I was stirring up blood. I began to swim. The water was warm and salty. I did the breast-stroke and kept my eyes on the man. At times he seemed close and then seemed further away. I tried to keep him still by locking onto him with my eyes. I didn’t want to think of the clouds. And then I was with him. He had sunk down into the water so we were just two heads about two yards apart bobbing in the water, slowing moving our feet and arms to keep afloat. His eyes were soft and loving. He looked like my father might have looked when he was young. He said, without speaking out loud; that I shouldn’t be afraid, that he and I were one of the many sons of God. We fell into one another’s eyes. He began to look like me. There was trust between us. He was not a man, he was something else, he was sometimes me, and sometimes not. I looked up at the clouds and they too felt kind and caring. I stopped moving my feet and arms and I did not sink. I began to move further away from shore, out into the horizon. I looked back and the shore was gone. He was gone. There was only horizon and clouds. The clouds and water and blood held me afloat. I was standing on water and I was not afraid. I heard a voice coming from within. I am one of the many sons of God, it clearly said. Just then I opened my eyes and my doctor was looking down on me.

            The next week in his office my doctor and I discussed my progress. I told him I wouldn’t recommend electro-shock to anyone, but that I’d always be grateful for the experience I had. My depression had not lifted, but it had changed.

If I listen and pay attention the clouds will whisper back what I whisper to them. I am not afraid of the blood that came before me. It will hold me up if I let it. I am adrift in the sea of God, and there is nothing I can do about it. What is tough will make me stronger.

Spring is coming, and with it, we are pleased to announce a new series of four ten-week Writers for Recovery Workshops, which will take place at community recovery centers and correctional facilities in central and northern Vermont.

Gary will lead the first workshop, which kicks off on Tuesday, April 21, at the Turning Point Center in Barre Vermont. Starting in early May, he will also lead workshops at the Calendonia Community Work Camp in St. Johnsbury and the  Northern State Correctional Facility in Newport. Starting in June, Bess O'Brien will lead a 10-week workshop at the Kingdom Recovery Center in St. Johnsbury. 

Writers for Recovery Workshops are open to anyone age 18 or over who is in recovery or whose family has been affected by addiction. The workshops use writing to address issues of addiction and recovery, but no previous writing experience is necessary.

Funding for these new workshops has been generously provided by the Vermont Department of Corrections. Writers for Recovery would like to thank Brian McLaughlin of the Department of Corrections for making our presence in the correctional facilities possible, and for his support of our mission. We'd also like to thank Bob Purvis and Kristen LaFond of the Turning Point Center of Central Vermont and Nancy Bassett and Cindy Nutting of the Kingdom Recovery Center for providing space and logistical support.

Looking back I

can’t believe it took

me this long to change.

I was just a scared

lonely raw-nerved tumble

weed. Tangled in

resistance and resentments.

on day 365 of

sobriety, my true form

finally emerged. I

was let in on the secret.

Oh, how I’ve been

so blind. This is

What they were all

talking about, but

completely unable

to explain.

I know all this

pain, misery, and

suffering was the

cloak of someone’s

dark humor

I laugh with them—

now, as my spirit

soars over all the

pointless physical bodies

perfection is a void

blank space.

A proud canvas

exploding with

anticipation.

I hate you. I know hate is a strong word,

but I think I really hate you.

I hate the eway you look,

I hate the way you smell.

I hate the sound of your voice, and I

hate the words you say.

I see you walk in the room, and my

heart begins to race. It’s fight or flight,

and I always remove myself. I’m afraid

that I will hurt you one day if I don’t

tell you how I really feel.

I see you waiting to hurt someone. If they

have something good to say, you will

explain to them how they are wrong. If

someone is looking really good and confident,

you will show them something that’s wrong.

You will point out the negative in

any situation. It’s as if the world is

against you, and everyone should feel bad

for you. I have watched this for so

long that I actually have a physical

reaction as soon as I see you.

I have wondered why I get so upset

when I am around you. That there must be

something wrong with me. I mean, that’s

what you always told me my whole childhood,

That there was always something wrong with

me. I was too stupid, too ugly, too slow,

Too annoying, anything negative you could think

of, you said to me. Everyone else liked you,

or pretended to like you, because if they

didn’t then you would hurt them too.

All the abuse I took from you took a

toll on me. I watched you use drugs, and

didn’t understand, until I tried them.

They made me feel better, like I was

smarter, prettier, cooler, at least for a little

while. Then drugs just helped me not feel,

And I forgot how to live. I began to

hate everyone. If your life was good,

I would point our what was wrong.

So when I look at you, I was looking

at me, and I didn’t like that I hated

It so much that I had to get away

from the world. But, I got clean and

sober, and I now know that I am not

a bad person. I have learned to forgive myself,

So now I can forgive you. I just hope

that one day you will find what I

found, because I now know that I

love you.

Christ, I don't know. Maybe I'm not living with my mom. 

I have an incredibly difficult time hoping for positive things.

Problem is I seem to perversely enjoy having this "martyr, I'm so, like misunderstood" and stuff that I keep orchestrating failures while raising the stakes each time.

That way I can say "look, everybody, see how this whole life and, like, doing shit is not for me?"

A promise I made and a promise I kept, is how I explained what became of me to my therapist. It started when I was five or so. After watching Peter Pan on TV I awoke with the distinct feeling that I could fly. I stood up blurry-eyed on my bed and put my arms out as Peter would do, fully expecting to lift right up off the ground. When it didn’t happen I didn’t tell anyone, I felt silly, it was silly. I kept the disappointment to myself.

All though my teens I continued to dream of flying. In the early years I would fly to the tops of trees but later my flying became more nuanced, more realistic, you might say. I would only fly about shoulder high or head high. My legs would lift off the ground tilting my body with my stomach and chest pointing downward. I regulated the distance from the floor to my stomach and chest with a pressure that came from calm quick breaths, the calmer I became the higher I could go, but never so high that the pressure would become too thin from my body to the ground.

Now that I’ve retired and all my wives are gone I find myself, living the dream, as my youngest son is prone to say. I get up early and have a light breakfast then I walk the block and a half to the sandy shores of St. Petersburg where I grew up. The silence of the long stretch of sandy beach is interrupted only by the soothing sounds of rolling waves and the occasional caw from seagulls fighting over washed up scraps of food. I leave my sandals, shirt, and towel folded nice and neat on the shore and put on lots of sun screen and a beat up pair of sun glasses with an attached nose guard that I found on a bench one day and then I swim far enough out that I won’t be bothered by the troubled world of the shore. And my legs lift up and my body tilts, but instead of flying I float, my stomach and chest pointing upward toward the sky and just as when I was young I regulate myself by calm quick breaths keeping pressure in my stomach and chest. I don’t have to move a finger or a foot. I am free. My ears are underwater and I watch the clouds and feel the pull both downward and upward. I float in my breaths and float in the current and float in the sky. I can do this for hours, both in the morning and again at sunset. Just over head the pelicans and I are one as they float home to roost.  

I tell my therapist I’m happy but she seems to think I’m depressed. I’ve come full circle. It’s a promise I made and a promise I kept. There’s something about flying and floating and dreaming that makes me whole. I suppose it’s because there is nothing rational about it that makes me love it so.

Writing this is like floating, like flying, like dreaming. I row around in my head and time disappears. I am absorbed. Anything can happen. I go backward in time, forward in time. Sometimes I’m just right here, right now. I can regulate my words by my breathing. I feel myself beginning to float. My legs lift off the ground. I am chest high, body facing downward. The pressure in my chest, in my stomach, in my writing, keeps me afloat.  

Otis was sitting there,

stooped over his

clasped bony hands,

looking absolutely

exhausted and bewildered.

He was an old old

old black man born and

raised in Louisiana.

His long white beard

was brightly lit,

almost neon against

his coal skin tone.

It was obvious

he had see a lot

in his day, but

What he just confessed

seemed to toss up and

toss around that

crawfish soul like

confetti.

Now it was on me.

My responsibility

to explain he was

wrong. Thank God.

I’m learning that if I need help that I need to ask for it, not just wait and assume that others “know” that I need help. Even though ESP is an interesting concept, I’ve never actually met someone who has it. Also, keep it simple. I tend to talk too much and get totally sidetracked, frequently forgetting what the hell I was asking in the first place. Ask someone who hopefully has experience with a solution to your problem, and if they don’t, maybe they know someone who does. I also pray for guidance, seeing my higher power has never let me down. I can ask my higher power to move a mountain, but I will frequently be handed a shovel, and don’t know where to find the shovel unless I ask someone, or several, someones, where it is. When someone asks me for help and I am able to share a solution that works for me, I am very grateful, for it reminds me that overcoming the problem not only helped me, but others as well. So when I need help, I ask for it, hopefully. Until I let go of my ego and realize that asking for help is the easier, right thing to do, then I will suffer, and suffering is not how I want to live my life today.

I was shaking, he was smiling
My tears, my fears
Entertaining to His image
He left me in the parking lot
With no shoes, without my glasses
And those broken bottles,
I couldn't catch them
And obviously, I stepped on them, 
But truthfully, 
The blood dripping from my toes
Led the next poor, pathetic girl
All the way home

The fact was that all that warm weather and sunshine was making her feel just awful. Lounging by Bongos, her voluptuous figure fit with a simply clad bikini. Sipping fancy drinks with stupid names and even dumber displays teetering off the glass rim.

Sally had just scored a big sale at her fresh new job. The height of luxury, most thought. Then why was she still such a fucking wreck inside?

This was supposed to be it, she thought as she glanced at her novel new wedding ring—the one with the ridiculously large stone. But maybe this wasn’t it at all.

The fact was that all that warm weather and sunshine was making her feel just awful. She used to love being in the sunshine, feeling its warmth, smelling the grass, hearing the birds. Sitting on the porch, waving to the neighbors, reading the paper without a care in the world.

Then she went to the doctor’s, unsure of what to think. The freckle had gotten bigger, no longer round, color darkening. She tried to ignore it, but it only got worse. After a simple biopsy, her fears became reality. No amount of sunblock or shade could make her feel safe. Who would have thought that a simple freckle could destroy her entire world?

The sun was like a demon, waiting to burn her at first touch, the birds laughing and all the grass stinking its putrid smell. Back into the house she goes, draws the shades, gets back into bed, pillow over her head, as to not hear a sound.

In fall, 2014, Bess O'Brien and her crew from Kingdom County Productions shot footage in our workshop and our reading at the ECHO Center in Burlington. This morning, Bess sent me a link to the result, which we are pleased to share with the world. Thanks, Bess, for everything you do to make Writers for Recovery possible, from fundraising and setting up readings to this wonderful tribute to our writers and their work!

(Click on image to advance through slide show.) Last Friday night, Writers for Recovery shared their work as part of The Turning Point Center of Chittenden County's Authors on Addiction Series. The main event of the night was a presentation by novelist and former CNN editor John DeDakis, who shared stories about his days at CNN, his interview with Alfred Hitchcock, his Lark Chadwick mystery series, and how writing played a role in grieving the loss of his sister, who died by suicide, and his son, who died of a heroin overdose. 

Writers for Recovery opened the evening with a half-hour reading, which ranged from stark meditations on the nature of addiction to stories of recovery and works of fiction. I can't tell you how proud I am of these folks, who are setting the bar for recovery writing in Vermont and showing the community an example of how writing can help people overcome addiction and the family trauma that goes with it. Most important, we had fun together. Thanks to John DeDakis for visiting Burlington, to Gary DeCarolis of the Turning Point, and to those who came to listen.

What a dance

Full of romance

Into a trance

Thrilling

Chilling

My guts spilling

Killing

Me

Dark

                                                I am broken

                                                Completely alone

                                                Why

                                                God’s grace

                                                Acceptance

                                                Re-emergence

                                                Light

Alone

Together

Together alone

Alone together

Together

Alone

                                                Fear

                                                Love

                                                Love Fear

                                                Fear Love

                                                Love

                                                Fear

When this winter is finally over I’ll paint the house robin-egg blue. The paint was on sale at Sears and I’ve already bought it. The color was my mother’s idea.

Two years ago, just before her heart gave out, Mother and I sat at the dining room table drinking one of her expensive Russian teas; the kind that Mother claimed always gave her inspiration. Holding a dainty cup with her little finger properly pointing out, she slowly waved her other arm to direct my attention through the picture window toward the yard and pronounced in a grandiose and magical tone, as though she were waving a wand; I’m going to paint the house robin-egg blue and plant huge yellow hibiscus all along the drive.

With me, her forty-year old deadbeat son, as her only audience and housemate, the unsaid implication was that I would be doing the planting and painting. After all we didn’t have much money and we haven’t heard from my father since the divorce some thirty-five years ago.

I smiled back at Mother and pretended to be inspired, too. “Mother that sounds gorgeous,” I said, cheering her on. Though deep down we both knew this would be yet one more item to add to the list of how I’ve let her down.  

I calmly watched Mother’s expression as she sat with one old thin leg crossed over the other and let the pain of this ugly accumulation of facts wash through her. She wore an attractive floral dress even though it was only us, always, only us. I don’t know why she had so many nice dresses, it’s not like she ever went anywhere. Sure, she would have liked to go out to dinner or spend a weekend at the shore but she’d want me to go with her and with my anxiety condition going out of the house was always excruciating. So we sat in the dining room while Mother’s unsaid exasperation dissipated and the subject soon changed to something more pleasant.

But now that she is gone I find myself dining here alone and all I can think about is how much I regret not doing more for her while she was here. She was such a lovely person and asked so little of me. I miss her terribly. My regrets are immense.

Last week I dug through the pile of brochures she had hopelessly discarded in the kitchen drawer. I chose a modest bed and breakfast just off the beach and stayed there two full nervous nights. I might as well admit I calmed myself by wearing her summer dress under my clothes when I checked in. Not only did it feel as though we were holding hands but more to the point I was finally taking her to the shore. I have become consumed with righting my wrongs with her. We go out to eat; we walk through shops just as I knew she would. It’s worked out well that we are the same size. I’ve taken to wearing her jewelry, too. Finally she is showing off her nice clothes. I know it pleases her.  

When this winter’s finally over she’ll watch me paint the house robin-egg blue. 

Isolation…

Silence…

Nothing but my own thoughts to occupy me.

Everyone is gone;

I am just left here,

Forgotten…

The voices come and go,

Telling me my anxieties

Then leaving me alone.

“Why did you even bother to get up today?”

“Don’t speak,

You know no one wants to hear you!”

“I wonder what would happen

If we walked into traffic…

Looks fun!”

“Blood is the only release you will get;

So pick,

Scratch,

Go ahead and bring a knife to the party!”

“Time to go to bed

Hopefully you won’t wake up again…”

Dear Addiction:

I just wanted to say thank you. I understand this may sound strange to you, but thank you anyways. I have always believed everything happens for a reason and although at the time I could not see the reasons for our relationship. I do now. I used you as an excuse for a lot of things in my life, some justifiable in my own mind and some as just an excuse.

But I do know without you in my life, I would not be where I am today. I do not know how my life would have turned out if we had never met. Would I ever have had a chance run-in with Kathleen? Would I have gone to school and ended up in Vermont? Would I have met all the people that have come in and out of my life? I don’t think so.

Not everything worked out the way I had hoped, and I blamed you for that, even knowing in the end that everything was my choice. I believe there is a reason I’m in these rooms and church basements on a daily basis, and I thank you for leading me here. I would never wish the road we have walked down on anyone. But I do know it is the one I had to take. 

The first thing I want you to know about Vermont is it is very beautiful—the countryside, its big lake, its brooks and streams, its changing seasons. And these things are all free, to whomever wants to look up and look at and drink them in. The winter is very cold, with temperatures well below zero, and it can be very windy. But it is a wonderful time for woodstoves and cozy blankets and you loved ones nestled close.

The fall is incredibly colorful, with oranges, reds, and gold rustling in the breeze. And spring, ah spring, welcomed with open arms, blossoms and mud and full of promise. Vermonters cherish where we live—the good and the not so good. We are a friendly bunch, often waving to people we do not know, smiling that knowing smile. We Vermonters know something no one else knows.