Change

It’s quiet, my house is empty, and I’m examining the remains—surveying the damage from a storm I never saw coming.

This storm started 23 years ago.

I am a man who has violated his core values, who has crossed his own line in the sand, and I’ve done it more than once. I have recklessly pursued what I wanted to the exclusion of all others, and it has only left me hollow and alone. I’ve cried out, “When do I get mine?” and I’ve nurtured that thought in my heart. I have left people with physical and emotional scars in the wake of my pursuit. I have finally, sincerely looked at the damage I have done.

The weight of my past has been almost more than I can bear.

On February 15, 2018, I physically pushed the woman I loved. I hurt her in ways I may never fully understand; stitches only tell part of the story. I violated her trust. I took away her sense of security and her God-given right to feel safe. I left a mark on her soul that I cannot make right.

I thought my life was over. I believed I would always be alone from that moment forward. How could anyone trust me? How could anyone love me? I hated myself, and I didn’t trust myself either.

Then you told me you felt safe around me—safe in my home, safe in my arms. I needed that more than you will ever know. That’s when I started to wake up. That’s when I started to see. That’s when I started to feel alive. That was the birth of my hope.

I have blamed my anger on many things over the years, and there is some validity to all of them. Tragic, horrible things that no one should ever see or experience have happened in my life—but they’ve happened in other people’s lives, too. I’ve never been overly skilled at sorting it all out.

As an adult, however, it started with a lie. It started with me.

In June of 1996, I met a girl whom everyone else already seemed to know. I didn’t understand the buzz around her, but one thing was clear: this girl was going to change things. By January of 1997, I knew I loved her, and I knew that nothing else mattered. We had met in Alcoholics Anonymous, which is a tighter, more close-knit social circle than I can explain to an outsider; it makes for complex social interactions that others never really face. I am an alcoholic and a drug addict; I have been since I was a pre-teen. The only way I’ve ever found to stay sober is in AA.

But Stacy meant more.

We started dating, and it required more lies than I was ever okay with—but I told them just the same. I lied to my sponsor, who warned me about the outcome. I lied to my friends. I lied to everyone because I knew it would cause a storm, but I could not escape the idea of her. I could not let her go.

“Storm” is a misnomer; this erupted like a volcano.

I could not deal with the judgment. I could not deal with my own guilt or the discomfort I felt in a place that had always been my home, my safe place. So, I left. I attended a few meetings at other groups, but my trust had been shattered and the guilt was more than I could take. I stopped going altogether. I kept praying, but even that became strained because I couldn’t understand why God would let me be treated this way.

A year passed. I moved out of state because I didn’t want to see anyone anymore. Twenty-seven days after my four-year sobriety anniversary, I drank.

I was so angry. I felt abandoned and betrayed. I dreamed for years about the friends who had turned on me, and I grew to hate the idea of the God I thought I knew. I told myself I would be okay, though—I had Stacy. It was just her and me against the world.

Then she died.

I hated you all, and I hated your God most of all.

A rage that I cannot articulate built in me over the next 14 years, and it ended in a jail cell on February 15, 2018.

In August of 2018, I met a girl—a girl everyone seemed to already know. I didn’t understand the buzz around her. But I knew an inescapable truth once again: this girl is going to change things…