Friday Flash 55

Crawling Out of Fire


The way across the desert is not by holding hands with you.
I am my own salvation. Through fire, thirst, and wretchedness,
still my feet will carry me, my hands
will claw across that no-man’s-land
to a country where upon the moss and fallen trees
the cool mist of morning rests.

If you would like to tell a tale or a poem in exactly 55 words, post it and go tell the G-Man.

The back story of this poem is that even in the cups of my alcoholism, I knew it would take my own effort to crawl out of the fire my life had become. No man was going to help me. Every relationship I had entered had ended the same way; no matter how exhilarating the beginning, it eventually wound down due to my craziness and self-medication.

I had the sense to see even in my cups that it was going to take personal work, not a love relationship, to save myself. It would be another five years after this poem was written before I found my way into Alcoholics Anonymous, and discovered a way out of the desert.

Somewhere within me burned a spark of the divine hope that perhaps there was a solution to the mess of my life, and perhaps I had enough inner resources left to stumble into the rooms of recovery. I haven't had to crawl through a desert since.

It's appropriate for New Year's Day to reflect on the thirst, the fire, and the wretchedness that plagued me in all my addicted years. Drugs and alcohol had been part of my life from the time I was 13. I was 36 when I found Alcoholics Anonymous, thanks to a few people who told me the truth about my behavior.

I've been in the fellowship of AA for almost 20 years. When I followed the program and did what was the original key to recovery, I stayed sober for a very long time. Then I drifted away and got well, and within a year or two was drunk again.

I have struggled since 2006 to get real time again. It has been a wonderful journey back into recovery, with a new perspective and new devotion to the spiritual way of life. My experiences are a great help to a number of women who struggle in AA. Everything I have gone through will be someday a blessing to someone else.

I've never been so content in my whole life. I hope my blog encourages others who are casting about for hope, that they might also leave behind the desert of their old life. We do this with the help of one another and of a tireless, relentless Higher Power, who never gives up on His kids.

God bless the coming new year for all of us who struggle and overcome, who find the great joy in the road to happy destiny.

Photo credit: sand dunes at Dubai, courtesy staff at East Tenn State University