518 Clothman Emerges From Detox
There’s at least two ways to come off an addiction; cold turkey or gradually. My dad cold turkeyed cigarettes after 57 years of smoking. He just announced one day that he was done smoking and poof, he was done. As far as I know he had little or no symptoms of detox. Crazy!
My detox has been the gradual type as prescribed by my circumstances in life (see #517: Clothman In Detox). Frankly, I think that the gradual withdrawl is just about the same as cold turkey in those critic moments of intense desire. You really, really want something you can’t have – sounds like cold turkey to me.
So, with my drug of preference being taken away from me I daily had to force myself to not take idiotic steps to try to get it back. For example, I played with the idea of developing a local talk show or submitting columns to other local outlets so as to insure my public visibility. But even as I romanced these goofy ideas in my head, my heart was telling me to knock it off.
I knew I had to get through the detox phase of my recovery in order to truly move on to whatever God has in store for me. A talk show or finding new local outlets for my material would be for me a falling off the wagon and getting drunk or high. So I resisted, and resisted, and resisted...
Finally, I got to where I am right now. I’m not “there” but I’m getting much closer to “there.” “There” is a place of peace and contentment without the drug of public success and recognition. I’m starting to enjoy contentment even though I have few answers as to why some things happened, or may never recover a penny of my financial losses.
When I arrived at this place, a phrase that represents freedom from my addictions came to mind:
“I’m just a dude who loves his God, his family and his friends, and pays his bills.”
That’s it.
For so long I thought I was more than that. I thought I had to be more in order to have worth and value. I was wrong. That’s all I am. That’s all I need to be.
I’m going to attempt to simply walk through the doors that naturally open for me and not try to force others open like I used to. This may mean that you will see less of me for who knows how long. That’s probably no big deal for you, but it has been huge for me to get to a place where I can even say that with peace. Going from popularity to obscurity, from influence to invisibility is a terrible, wonderful journey. Yet, just when I think I’m loosing all that matters I find these amazing treasures that I already possessed.
I’m going to quietly complete some books that I’ve not written because my best energies were being devoted to feeding my addiction. I’ll probably still write a monthly column for The Missoulian because it seems that to not do so would be a statement of pouting like a baby. It is an opportunity to serve the community I love.
Then, I have to make some money to regain the enormous losses I incurred from that nightmarish legal battle I found myself trapped in. I’ll do that via real estate development and writing columns for publications which actually pay me for my materials – and I’ll still drive my afternoon school bus during the school year and fire buses in the summer. I’ll still do a limited amount of ministry such as counseling, weddings, funerals and selected speaking engagements. Finally, I think I’ll post blogs on my website on a fairly regular basis.
And there you have it, Clothman beginning to emerge out the other side of an ugly battle with detoxification. Jesus once said, “Unless you become like a little kid you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” After all these years, I think I'm finally starting to understand him. This humbling has resulted in me becoming more like a kid than I’ve been since I was a kid – and as a result I think I’m getting a glimpse of the Kingdom like I’ve never seen before.
I guess that starts to happen when you're just a dude who loves his God, family and friends and pays his bills.
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