We are one year old with this issue.
One year!
In the scheme of life?
Doesn’t sound like much, does it?
I am also two years clean & sober.
That doesn’t sound like much either, does it?
A magazine that’s made it for a year & a guy who hasn’t drank or drugged for two.
But they are.
Much.
So much.
Two years ago I stood in front of my bathroom mirror;
My eyes as big as saucers. My face pale.
White.
My lips are blistered from smoking so much crack; I'm not letting the pipe cool off.
I've put petroleum jelly on them so I can smoke some more.
Blood is running down my arm in a thin line from where I'd just shot up and didn’t bother to wipe it.
I'd just gotten sick from all the alcohol I'd been drinking.
As I reached for the bottle of pain killers that were in reach wherever I was in my house, I glanced at myself in the mirror and I saw,
Me.
Behind the mask I had on for everybody, including myself.
The mask of denial.
I finally see the pain.
The guilt.
The misery.
That I’d tried to deny for so long.
And I was afraid.
That moment was my moment of clarity.
My bottom.
I sold my house and checked myself into detox, and then rehab.
Afterwards, I got a sponsor and worked the steps.
And how I have grown since!
I didn’t’t believe in God, and hated Him if He was real.
I’ve since met God.
Nice guy.
That emptiness,
That was a knot inside of me,
Is gone,
Replaced by an inner peace I never dreamed possible.
When meeting someone now I think, “How can I help them?”
Instead of, “What can I get from them?”
My family is back in my life again,
Even my ex-wife calls to say hello!

One year ago I was at work;
That same detox I’d gone through 6 times in 8 years!
I was a night tech.
I’d bought a lap top from a fellow tech to play on-line poker while the clients slept.
While surfing the net I came across blogging.
I’d never heard of it.
But I had time; night shift hours go on forever,
So I decided to try blogging & write about this…this…
How do you describe recovery?
How do you describe finally walking through what you’ve avoided for so long?
About finally accepting that we are powerless over our addiction and the only thing that could possibly keep me clean & sober would have to be bigger than me; a “Higher Power.”
How do you describe meeting God?
And suddenly realizing that there is something more, something just outside of your normal vision; another dimension to life than just the 3 dimensional we see?

Yesterday I bought a new 27” HD TV for my bedroom.
The High Definition picture is so sharp! It seems to come out of the screen.
Before I got this HD TV I thought my old TV was great. But, I’ve never seen TV shows like they are on this new set. They have another dimension to them.
It’s like comparing rabbit ears to cable.
THAT’S what recovery is:
Life in High Definition!

IT’S ALL IN THE JOURNEY came about in the kitchen of that detox center,
In the middle of the night;
We started as a 28 page magazine, printing 10,000 copies every 2 months, and in only 7 issues we had grown to a 36 page magazine that’s prints 17,000 copies every month, and is distributed to every AA/NA clubhouse, treatment center and detox facility in Florida and California!

Some other places you can get It’s all in the JOURNEY?
Grauman’s Chinese Theatre (That’s a story I’m writing now!), TV’s Miami Ink’s South Beach shop, the world famous Hollywood Choppers, in The Hard Rock, and several S. Fla. Starbucks.
Oh yeah! Hazelden, one of the premiere treatment facilities in the world, has just made us a permanent part of their addictions library, so you can read us there, too!

Finally, we have started a new, free on-line community at JOURNEY’S website. Just go through the door at: www.itsallinthejourney.com!

It’s all in the JOURNEY.
Boy, is it!

Peace
Charlie G