| “Have you ever thought about who you would be without the fame, the porn, the past? Would you still write? Maybe model with clothes on? Maybe be a UCLA student?” |
An incredible question from Bubbha the Texas Man, and an incredible prompt for the day and the end of summer. What would have happened had none of it happened?
There is something in questioning and then rewriting my own past that I find subtly damaging, as if I actually could have taken different turns and gone to a different place. What I’ve started to tell myself over the past three years, whether or not it is true, is that no matter what turns I’d made, I would have ended up in the same place.
I would have ended up at a bottom.
I would have ended up in recovery, with a different story and the same feelings.
I would have ended up writing about it in the blogosphere, but without the incredible readership that came built in with this one.
The story? Let’s play with the story.
If I had not turned to porn in my first year of college, I am positive that I would have become more deeply invested in the San Diego county-wide distribution of marijuana. My small, dorm-based operation would have eventually necessitated an entire warehouse, and after making a certain amount of money to drop into a larger investment, I would have followed in the deeply printed footsteps of my former mentors, the fine people running Oakland cannabis clubs. This is how I imagine every day would look in my twenties, after I dropped out of college to pursue a productive career in medicinal marijuana.
I would wake up and take bongloads, roll a blunt, and then get coffee. I’d smoke the blunt while driving the San Diego coast and heading Morena Blvd., where my warehouse full of marijuana would be planting it’s roots. I’d check in with the stony friends I’d enlisted to work in the pot warehouse, sample the product, and then make rounds to local pot clubs. I’d work with people from all over California, finding the best way to grow, the safest way to distribute, and the quickest way to make money.
Because everything good must come to an end, I would end up being busted by the Feds, roll on other distributers, and as a result of my court mandated sentence, be required to attend anonymous meetings and test clean for a probational period of three years or more. During those three years, which I believe would have occurred somewhere around 23-26, I would have discovered the joys of alcohol as a substitute for marijuana, and though I would test clean for marijuana, alcohol would have started to run my life. I would fail to show up for court mandated drug tests. I would have gotten actual DUIs (as opposed to my Lake Havasu, jetski, OUI). My family would have quit talking to me, because alcoholism in my family has a way of disintegrating relationships. I would have ended up in a drunk tank one too many times, and an old prostitute who’d been picked up for workin’ one too many corners, would have let me have it.
“You’re just a garden variety drunk,” She’d say, and laugh while picking at junk scabs on her arms. “You’re just a garden variety whore,” I’d retort thinking myself better than her, but she’d still laugh at me and walk away. Under her breath, she’d mutter, “At least I know I got a habit to feed. Denial is a bitch.”
Something in what she said would stick.
Because I’d be doing a 30+ day mandatory sentence, on account of the multiple DUIs, various anonymous programs would make their way into the system and I’d be exposed to many-a-story that were different than mine but contained feelings that were exactly the same. I’d get my first thirty days clean because I had no way to drink in jail, and I would think I was too classy to drink potato booze. Once I got out, I’d have started a blog, about learning to live without, instead of with. I don’t know if it would have been the success that BecomingJennie is, but someone would have seen it, something would have happened where I got in touch with an agent, and the book would be only slightly different in title and cover.
Instead, I started selling myself because it was easier to sell than pot. I wouldn’t have been a picture of health. I wouldn’t have been the kind of girl you hope your daughter admires. And I wouldn’t have made any better choices than I already made.
The thing about my past is that the situations, the people, the circumstances, all of those things are transient. Even in my memories, they are shifting, morph from face to face, a series of hair washes, of rinsing, of repeating. The only thing that is consistent in my past is me, my poor choices, my inability to connect intimately with you and my fellows. I could have made different choices, but I could not have made healthy ones.
It takes a healthy person to make healthy choices. Today I am grateful to be a healthy woman who can make healthy those choices.
Diana
August 20, 2012
It takes what it takes Jennie. Remember ‘we will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.’ It took every single moment of your life so far to get you to the place you are today, which is a good place. And thank you for the post, because all of the above is exactly what I needed to hear today!
chicostephenson
August 20, 2012
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I recently started writing about what would have happened to me if I had zigged instead of zagged. And the more I write and think about it, the more I realize that the one constant is me.
A elder man that I go to school with now once told me, “There’s no point in building a time machine to fix the past. You are still you. You’ll just find a different way to screw it up.”
I think everyone has to go through some type of hell. Unfortunately, few survive it and even less learn from it.
Keep living and keep learning. It looks good on ya!
love you
becomingjennie
August 20, 2012
quality advice! Love it and you…
L
August 20, 2012
Nothing better than waking to a beautiful day and words that make you go “oh my”.
You were put on those journeys for this day.
becomingjennie
August 20, 2012
Love!
Botsal
August 20, 2012
The good thing about porn is that it was legal. Medical marijuanna wasn’t legal at that time.
becomingjennie
August 20, 2012
the clubs were slowly making their way south, they’d been legal in the bay area for years and I suspect I would have been on the forefront of the SD movement. Glad I wasn’t. Didn’t turn out well down there.
D
August 20, 2012
Jennie
Possibly a very astute observation. I’ve come to believe that what we are is the culmination of what we have done and the decisions we’ve made. I’m not particularly a believer in fate. I avoided going into a war zone – did someone die because I wasn’t there. That thought haunted me for a very long time and eventually drove me to therapy. It wasn’t the “reason” I went, but effected enough of my life to cause other problems which did.
Perhaps you would have had a beautiful life – maybe become a therapist – and helped a few folks. Maybe not. If I’ve learned anything I can comment on it is not to ruminate about the “what ifs” because it can truely drive you crazy.
You’ve lived life, made what were “bad choices” but they made you what you are today. You are a very strong and focused young woman. You have grabbed life by the shoulders and don’t appear to be letting go. You apparently have a good relationship (congrats to Mr Man) and are rebuilding broken relationships from the past. Focus on the present and live your life – plan for the future but don’t focus on it.
And thank you for sharing your life with us.
draya
August 20, 2012
I so agree. I think there are decision from are past we all wish we did not make and one we should have. But i agree that i think in the end no matter how long or what path we take we get to the place we where ment to be. Just a litle more banged up and tired.
bishoplong
August 20, 2012
Are you saying that you really have no control over your life, that something bigger has control over it? That the means are not as signififcant as the ends? I am not sure you would have written if you had choien another route. The means were set long before you were born.
Charlie Fuhro
August 20, 2012
I believe everything happens for a reason, Jennie. There are no accidents. One of the early analytical psychologists, Carl Jung, coined the term “synchronicity” which might be defined as coincidences that are just too coincidential to be simple coincidences. Jung believed that experiencnes of synchronicity occurred when God wanted to remain anonymous. You got into porn for a reason. Somewhere in your many life experiences is the story you were meant to share with all of us who follow you on this blog. Everything happened for a reason, and whether you know it or not, God has had His hand on you through it all. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not a real religious guy. But I do believe in God and I’ve been able to see how He’s worked in my life since I first got into recovery for my sexual addiction back in October of 1986.
Things happened a bit differently for me. I was watching the old Phil Donahue show, and there was a guy on there talking about a book he had just written. As I listened to what he had to say, I discovered he was talking about something he called “sexual addiction”. I’d never heard of this condition before, but I immediaitely knew that the term applied to me. This guy was Dr. Patrick J. Carnes, and the book was “Out of the Shadows: Understanding Sexual Addiction”. At the end of the program, they had a phone number you could call if you wanted more information. I called the number and was referred to a therapist in my area who worked with sex addicts. I saw this therapist several days later and was given the name and phone number of a guy in my area who was involved in sexual addiction recovery. I called the guy and went to the very next Twelve Step meeting for sex addicts. At the time, we only had Sexaholics Anonymous in my area, so that is where I cut my recovery teeth. Two years later, in November of 1988, I was fortunate enough to be able to go through Dr. Carnes’ in-patient treatment program for sexual addiction, and it changed my life just as Dr. Drew’s program changed things for you.
Each of us has our own story to tell. You’re able to reach others through this blog, while I give talks to various community groups and agencies which deal with various aspects of sexual addiction. I’ve addressed the folks with my state’s Division of Probation and Parole, and also the folks who investigate child sexual abuse who are part of the state Family Support Division. And just last month, I spoke with a state Senate Select Committee which was looking at new ways to deal with child molesters (and a fair number of molesters are, in fact, sexually addicted). So we all do our part, giving away the recovery gift we have each received. If you don’t give it away, you’ll lose it for sure.
I wanted to close by congratulating you on all the hard work you’ve done, Jennie. And I want to remind you that the work of recovery never ends. I’ve been on this path for almost 26 years, and I still find it as exciting and mysterious as I did when I went to my first Twelve Step meeting. We not only have the addiction to deal with, but all of the “Adult Child” or “Inner Child” issues as well. These are the codependency issues which are at the heart of our addiction. You can’t be an addict of any kind without first being a codependent. And those codependency issues run very, very deep indeed, so there’s lots of work to do. And it’s amazing how this codependency stuff invades each and every aspect of our lives. Just when we think we’ve dealt with it in one area, it pops up somewhere else. So recovery is truly a lifetime process, and I for one find that kind of exciting. There’s always something more to learn, and more ways to become healthier. Take care, Jennie, and I’ll tallk with you later.
Charlie Fuhro
becomingjennie
August 20, 2012
What a wonderful share. Thank you Charlie, your story and hope inspires me. From the depths of my heart, thank you for this.
HT
August 20, 2012
Not that I had any doubts on reading your book (or other entries in your blog), but this entry really stands out as a really amazing piece of writing. What-ifs can be hard to imagine, but somehow the flow of your writing here captures the weird inexorable forces in our life that, perhaps, would put us in the same kind of place regardless of all the little contingencies. I suppose we only understand our lives retroactively, and only then if we’re lucky. But when we do it we do it through constructing narratives, either in our heads or on the page or screen. Another reason to write!
becomingjennie
August 20, 2012
So many reasons to write!!! Right?
Invisible Mikey
August 20, 2012
Though you’ve presented an imaginative alternative war story to the one you lived, I think it’s all a mystery. Maaybe you would have screwed up differently, maybe not. Cautionary tales are useful either way. It’s part of having a moral compass to keep us afloat.
There are elements of random fortune in every life, and gifts we have from birth. You were born with the capacity to feel and internalize what happens around you deeply, and you have an aptitude for putting it memorably and convincingly into words. That makes you a born storyteller. You get to choose how you’ll use the gift. You’re practicing using it to help people. That’s the part of you that inspires me to do the same with my own stories.
Kent
August 20, 2012
“It takes a healthy person to make healthy choices. Today I am grateful to be a healthy woman who can make healthy those choices.” ~ Love that quote.
It’s not the past that defines you, it’s the future you choose to make from the ashes of that past.
michael92105
August 20, 2012
Dear Jennie:
Seems like Bubbha the Texas Man’s last comment of “Maybe be a UCLA student?” could have been a little hurtful. Glad you decided to play with the notion rather than tell him to go fuck himself…Bubbha…hmmm…not sure we need too many more Bubbha’s in the world.
Don’t know if I’ll get to that point of no regrets. I sometimes think if I didn’t regret my past I might return to it. I can accept it now a little more but I still have regrets. Maybe someday I’ll get to that place.
I appreciated the sentence “It takes a healthy person to make healthy choices”. That’s a keeper. Thanks, it may find it’s way out there someday.
Lastly here’s today’s Hazeldon meditation for the day. A good one for me and maybe it fits in with today’s writing(?).
You should not dwell too much on the mistakes, faults, and failures of the past. Be done with shame and remorse and contempt for yourself. With God’s help, develop a new self-respect. Unless you respect yourself, others will not respect you. You ran a race, you stumbled and fell, you have risen again, and now you press on toward the goal of a better life. Do not stay to examine the spot where you fell, only feel sorry for the delay, the shortsightedness that prevented you from seeing the real goal sooner.
Thanks for all you do, your courage and honesty.
becomingjennie
August 20, 2012
Thanks Michael. Also, didn’t even see Bubbha’s comment as such! Just figured he was throwing out the most well known LA school (other than USC that is…) but perhaps it was meant to be hurtful. I’m going to move forward and assume it wasn’t.
willisbs
August 20, 2012
Or you could have married successfully and pursued an mildly successful art career, had children which would be your overall focus, and enjoyed the luxury that country, fate, and gender provided for you. You could have allowed the floodgates of happiness to overflow you and none of these thing would have seemed trivial. Damned egos… Given the space we’ll hold our seven deadly sins so close to the heart.
becomingjennie
August 20, 2012
those things would have never happened because I was incapable of participating in an intimate relationship. They can happen now, but they couldn’t have been the path.
firstverb
August 20, 2012
Miss Jennifer,
It’s sometimes fun playing in the what if machine, but then again what else would have changed. I can think back to crossroads that would have lead to different unimagined nows. If my step brother hadn’t been in a car accident and been put in ICU would I have met the beautiful lady that I’ve spent the last 22 years with? Collapsed lung, enlarged heart, headlight glass in the side of his head, ear canal cut in half, other things but you get it Horrible Accident. I wouldn’t have wished that accident on any enemy, let alone my then 15 year old step brother. But I also wouldn’t have spent 3 hours talking to my future bride in that ICU waiting room. I am sorry that you had to have gone through all the trials which you have. All the would haves, could haves, should haves, and what if’s and if onlys are negatives and aren’t good for anyone. We are who we are today because of those decisions. If I had done something different I might not have the four wonderful kids that I have or I could be married to someone that I don’t love. I am who I am because of my wrong turns and mistakes.
I wrote something on your blog 2 years ago.
“Destiny is sort of a fuzzy thing to me. Are you predestined to be a specific person with a specific life with everything mapped out for you without any free will or is everyone’s life and everything they are and do just in a continuous flux without a direction or meaning just a spec of dust flittering about? I would like to think it is both. But I don’t know. I know looking back on your life there are points where you wish you could have told yourself, your younger self. If you do this or do that this will happen, and then that will happen, and because of that, this other thing will happen. I can’t imagine a plan where this 12 or 13 year old girl has to follow this path for 13 or 14 years to build the exact person that you became. I don’t know. I know I have two little girls. I pray that they don’t go down that road. However if they do start and don’t or won’t listen to us the parents, I hope you or someone like you will be there, to be that voice, to tell them that if you do this or that, this other thing will happen. Where we the parents are just making noise, you will be able to reach and touch them and maybe turn them down a better road. So you will be able to change the paths or directions of 12 and 13 years old girls, so that they won’t have to follow that path that you were on. This is why I want you to be the Jennifer that you are striving to become.”
“Look not mournfully into the past, it comes not back again. Wisely improve the present, it is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future without fear and with a manly (or womanly) heart.” ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I hope you have an amazing week filled with wonderful people to share your smile with. Smiles and happiness dear lady
Jeffrey Zukowski
August 20, 2012
I have no words to describe how powerful this particular post is!! You never cease to amaze me with your growth and thought provoking words, Ms. Ketcham. Congratulations on successfully gaining the clarity that so many of my fellow High School classmates still have not. It is amazing to me how often people get bogged down with what could have been, what would have been if I’d only done this instead of that. I just love your honestly of soul.
Congratulations on the much deserved success of your book. I look forward to reading every hard earned word of it. Here’s to your continued sobriety and success!
Much Love and Happiness,
Jeffrey Zukowski
becomingjennie
August 20, 2012
Thanks brother… Much appreciated…
Eaeme
August 21, 2012
Dear Jennie,
I came upon you and your story a couple months ago, quite by accident. I had never heard of PF; I’m too old to find much interest in porn (I’m from the 8mm-men-with-their-socks-on generation with terminal ED). You fault your past career principally for the lack of intimate personal relationships, i.e., a form of loneliness. However look for a moment at its professional side, you were particularly successful. In any business this kind of success takes understanding the market, attention, detail, imagination, political savvy, good sense, ability to work with others, talent, industriousness, and being sharp. These are good qualities that can be applied to any career choice. Further you kicked some addictions on your own, understanding their threats. Your hypothetical alternative career story did not reflect your proven innate abilities. I believe you would have well succeeded in anything you chose to do, and the hypothetical story need not be so pessimistic. Look where you are. You made a difficult decision to change your life’s course to find a ‘real’ self. You, with the strength you have shown, would have come to face and love your real self at some time from any starting point.
An intimate relationship, being in love with another with full trust and lockstep agreement on enough of life’s important issues to sustain companionship, is a tenuous situation. I write from the perspective of a 50+ year marriage in which, for my part, I never really felt true intimacy; however “intimacy” may be defined. I became involved with and married an intelligent attractive woman as a practical arrangement because we wanted to have a family. I express ‘love’ to my wife because she wishes to hear it, but it is a code word for my meaning that I will continue to responsibly support and care for our relationship and the family we have fostered. This arrangement has its strong points; it fully achieved the planned purpose. You with your core honesty have by example brought me to understand my unfulfilled intimacy need, the need to have an uncompromising friend/partner for any and all eventualities. It’s too late, as a pragmatist I’ll continue on as is. Thanks for the lesson. I have the greatest respect and admiration for what you have accomplished. I wish you the best. Keep it up.
Dave
August 21, 2012
What a beautiful post this was, and just what I needed to read. Amazing how that works huh? Hm, I often tell myself the same thing… only healthy choices can be made with a healthy soul, and so often I and so many others beat ourselves up because of our past. I know in my experience I see friends I’ve grown up with accomplishing so much, and looking so beautiful and radiant. All the while it hurts me further to see the darker, more un-healthy path I’ve taken… but the choices I’ve made, you’ve made, ALL of us, were made because in that moment it’s the ONLY thing we could have done. Whatever any of us do is done out of love for ourselves, even if it seems like we’re causing nothing but pain. No one wants to suffer, ever, and so we do all we can to avoid it. In that I feel like is where we can find love and compassion for ourselves… and that’s certainly what you’ve done here. Beautiful
Dave
August 21, 2012
And ya know… why bother with the past anyway? I feel if we shut the door on just this general notion of time (past and future) then it will just put us where we are now, which is all there is anyway. Without the past to :”define” us, and the future to bring up thoughts of the past and what we’ll do differently in some future situation, maybe we’ll just know what to do intuitively. Maybe then we can just BE ourselves? Just a thought
michael92105
August 21, 2012
Dear Jennie: Great attitude (not assuming anything and moving forward). Thanks. My over sensitivity leaks out occasionally. I just know that not everyone embraces recovery and words, including mine, can be very powerful especially if misdirected.
Anyway to get a signed sticker without tweeting…not sure how that works—technology resistant—maybe send you (“pm”) my address?
Thanks Jennie.
myles
August 21, 2012
Your so funny. That alt life your talking about is so detailed and maybe you would never have been busted and set up legit or made enough to open a circus retirement animal farm. seriously though always enjoy your blog and book
and I was a wondering whether your new success parallels your old one, I mean wouldnt there be a whole new range of pitfalls or maybe the same, anyways
keep well
from australia
KB
August 21, 2012
Brilliant and chilling response. Thank you.
Stewart Forgie
August 21, 2012
Would you have still written? Jennie, you were born to write, and this entry is among your best so far. I look forward to going where you take us in the future.
foofoo5
August 22, 2012
I was driving home last night & listening to an NPR interview show from Toronto, where the guest was Buddy Guy, one of my favorite blues guitarists. He was talking about the influence of blues masters on his life and career, and he, of course, spoke about Robert Johnson & the song “Crossroads” (“I went down to the crossroads, got down on my knees, asked the Lord for mercy, save Mr. Johnson, if you please.”) The story is that Johnson actually met the devil at the crossroads, and sold his soul to be the best guitarist ever. Crossroads – decisions. So, it was ironic to get home and see your post.
I was a waste of a human being and my life was unmanageable, but I can’t deny that, along the way, I didn’t have some moments of incredible insight and lucidity – crossroads – where, had I made a different choice, the story could have been entirely different. There was a time, for example, when I was feeling especially defeated, walked into a clinic to talk to someone, and would have gone into treatment immediately. Problem: no bed for 2 days. “Can you hang in there? We’ll get you in.” “Oh yeah, sure. I have to do this.” Fear kicks in, shame… I flake, unplug the phone. [junkie dialog]: (the rooms say) “Well, you weren’t ready…” (I say) Bullshit! I was ready. “You” weren’t ready for me!” Addicts hit crossroads all the time, and a crossroad can be a “surrogate endpoint” – a statistical concept (ahahaha) meaning “approximation” – for the “real bottom.” Imagine that, not having to wait until everything is “really” gone, it just “feels” like it.
Crossroads never end and they somehow never end being bêtte noir – a misery of existence. But who the fuck would believe that after all those years, just like they promised, it actually gets better? “I went down to the crossroads, I looked east & I looked west.” I actually looked around. Who knows “why now?” I have no explanation. But my conclusion: junkies are powerless, but not helpless. You can choose.
My thoughts for Bubbha the Texas Man: she could have president of Harvard University yesterday, but it’s past; she could be fucked up tomorrow, but we’ll cross that bridge if need be; but if she’s pushing air for the next 24, she’s sober, alive, and there is nothing but limitless possibilities. You believe in miracles, partner?
travelingb
August 22, 2012
We make choices that we have skills for at that time. No matter the circumstance (normally) similar choices would be made. That is the process of learning. Too much time spent on wondering what if (should’a, could’a, would’ a….), can have us getting back on the shame train. The important aspect of this whole experience is to move past, be present, and be better than before…..
anonymous
August 22, 2012
“But if I could step outside myself,
and contemplate the person that I am,
I should know at last what envy is.”
Akhmatova
Amanda
August 22, 2012
I love your writing.
Michel
August 22, 2012
Viva Jennie!!
John P Fitzgerald
August 24, 2012
Hi, Jennie,
I just stumbled across an interview of you tonight, and have been reading your blog.
I’ve been sober for 29 years; I know that sounds like a long time, but I remember every minute of it. You know the old saw about “your worst day sober is better than your best day drinking”? It’s true. Every bit of it.
I have no advice to offer you, because we don’t give advice in this program.
We do, however, talk about what works for us, so here are some thoughts about things that worked for me. I haven’t read your book yet, so pardon me if I’m a bit ignorant about your personal situation.
First, a lot of the folks I met in treatment and in the thousands of meetings that I’ve attended in the last three decades have real trouble with the concept of a Higher Power, and particularly with the 11th Step. Now, I don’t know if this is a problem for you, but I do want to tell you what worked for me.
I was always intrigued by the words, “Sought through prayer and meditation…” It seemed odd to me that while everyone talked about prayer, hardly anyone ever mentioned meditation.
So I tried it, but it just didn’t work for me. So I discarded the idea and kept on working my program. Suddenly, when I was fifteen years sober, the dearest person in my life, whom I’d known since I’d gotten sober, simply walked out of my life forever, without a forwarding address or a phone number or a word of explanation.
My life simply collapsed around me. I could think of nothing else. I was filled with anger, sadness, hatred, and everything else negative. I was in trouble and I knew it. One night after a meeting I stopped at a bookshop that had a good selection of recovery oriented books. But I found myself in the meditation section instead, and bought a book called “Buddhism Plain and Simple,” by Steve Hagen.
Suddenly, in my desperation, meditation worked for me, and I fell in love. Really in love, really, really hard. I quit smoking and coffee immediately, because they interfered with meditation, even though I had tried to quit both over and over in the fifteen years I’d been sober.
I joined a Zen Buddhist Sangha (congregation) and attended faithfully, and my life got better and my desperation lifted, and I discovered whole new dimensions in the 11th Step.
Now, this is the reason why I’m bringing all this up. Among the many, many books on Buddhism that I’d bought, one was “Writing Down The Bones” by Natalie Goldberg. If you go to Amazon, you’ll find that she has written quite a few books about writing, but this is the one I’m recommending to you.
I’m recommending it for two reasons: first, it worked for me, and second, it’s very clear that you’re a gifted writer. I’ve got the feeling that, like most gifted writers, writing is a way for you to organize your thoughts and work through your problems, and that’s what Natalie’s book is all about.
It worked for me.
Finally, Jenny, I’ll never meet you because not only am I old enough to be your grandfather, but I suffer from very severe heart disease as well. Even though we’ll never meet, please know that I love you with all my heart and soul just as I love everyone who’s beginning on our path. Please believe me when I tell you that although you’ll have heartbreaking days, they will be completely outnumbered by days filled with joy beyond any measure.
Much of that joy will come from passing on our message to our fellow sufferers, and I somehow know that’s what you’re fated to do, that’s what will be your life’s work.
You’ll be in my thoughts and prayers every day for the rest of my life. Good on you, Jenny. Keep on enjoying your new life and don’t forget to Pass It On.
In Peace, Love and Sobriety,
John
becomingjennie
August 26, 2012
Thank you John, for sharing your story, your hope and your life with me and other BecomingJennie members. I am honored to be on this path with you, and will be buying “Writing Down the Bones,” on my next amazon purchase. Love book recommendations. Especially on helpful Buddhist meditation books!
I am sorry to hear of your heart disease and will keep you in my morning prayers and am grateful to be reminded that my best day drinking is my worst day sober. So much truth in that statement. I don’t seem to have any bad sober days. Moments perhaps, but an entire day? Has yet to happen.
I recently joined a bi-weekly meditation group… it’s a 20 minute, 11th step meditation, and then 20 minutes of sharing followed by another few minutes of meditation. It begins at 7:30am and is the perfect way to start my day. I have a feeling, as my time goes on, it will be one of the most important meetings of my recovery practice.
Thank you John, and welcome to the site. xo
Khaled Ghorab
August 24, 2012
Jenny, I have a question for you: What do you long for from this space?
With love,
Khaled
becomingjennie
August 26, 2012
I think the community is what I have wanted from this space, the safe, honest and accountable nature of community. And a place to grow as a writer and a woman in recovery.
A fantastic question that I didn’t respond to for a few days now because it’s left me thinking. Thank you Khaled.
Khaled Ghorab
August 26, 2012
You’re most welcome Jennie
The community that you ask for is alive and we’re very proud of you. I support you morally even though I live in a totally different part of the world; the middle east. And I applaud you in every single blog post for showing up so authentically. The shift you’ve gone through is SO BIG!
You are courageous, loving, caring, daring, passionate, powerful, truthful, authentic, hopeful, and a force for greatness for many people here who read your posts or even meet you.
With love,
Khaled
Holli
August 24, 2012
I identify with this completely. 100%.
“The thing about my past is that the situations, the people, the circumstances, all of those things are transient. Even in my memories, they are shifting, morph from face to face, a series of hair washes, of rinsing, of repeating. The only thing that is consistent in my past is me, my poor choices, my inability to connect intimately with you and my fellows. I could have made different choices, but I could not have made healthy ones.”
Charlie Fuhro
August 26, 2012
I wanted to leave a brief comment concerning John Fitzgerald’s earlier posting that dealt with Buddhism and meditation. When I first got into recovery, I tried the prayer and meditation. The prayer part worked fine, but I had trouble with the meditation since my mind tended to wander, which is fairly common when you meditate. I needed something more focused, and I found that in a program that worked with “Contemplative Prayer” or “Centering Prayer”. Although this practice is many centuries old, it has come back into common usage again because of the writings of the late Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk.
Basically, contemplative prayer is fairly similar to normal meditation except that you keep your attention focused on a particular quote, verse, or principle. If you catch your mind wandering, you gently bring it back to the subject of your meditation. A lot of folks use something to help them focus their attention. I usually focus on a candle flame. The program that has sprung up around this practice is called Contemplative Outreach (www.contemplativeoutreach.org/), which is a Roman Catholic organization. However, the program is very ecumenical, and lots of folks in various Twelve Step groups use the program’s principles to work their Eleventh Step. These principles can be very easily adopted to work with Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Confucian, Buddhist, etc. values, principles, and teachings. The program has really worked for me, so I though I’d pass it on to you and your readers, in case you’d like to check it out.
becomingjennie
August 26, 2012
Thanks Charlie! I’ll make sure to check it out.
David F
August 27, 2012
I often let the “What if I made a different choice how would my life be now?” questions haunt me. I got lucky coming by this blog entry because just yesterday I let this question plague me enough to barely get any sleep last night and reading this blog actually put the question in my mind at least for today at ease. Like you, I most likely would have made the same choices just is a different form and worrying about something I cannot change and thinking of a different life had it not happened is pointless and in my case self destructive. Thank you for once again being my peace of mind in the day with this blog. I have to stop thinking of the past and the “What if’s” and start living in the now and thinking of better choices in the future.
Thomas More
August 27, 2012
Hi Jennie! I’m visited this site a few times before, but I felt compelled to comment today. I really liked this post, since it suggests that although life is a journey, there are several routes to the same destination. As you yourself say, if you hadn’t gotten into porn, you would have ended up in the same place, but by a different route. I believe where we end up in life is a combination of our choices and the work of Providence. We may choose one path or the other, but somehow we end up where we’re supposed to be. “Man proposes, God disposes” and all that. There’s something comforting in that.
Thomas More
August 27, 2012
oops that should have been, “I’ve visited this site.” Sorry about that!
Hoosier
September 6, 2012
Well-written, as usual. For some reason, it also brings to mind for me “It’s A Wonderful Life”, with its speculation of what life would have been like, not if you’d never been born, but had you made other choices….
Jim Dirkes
December 8, 2012
I’ve always thought that writing was like a drug, only that it makes you feel frustrated, angry, and makes you question why you’re doing it when you’re actually doing it. You know it’s going to drive you insane, but you just can’t not do it. Then, just when you can’t take it anymore you put together that one perfect sentence or paragraph or fix what was wrong with that story you couldn’t wrap your head around, and you feel like a GOD! I’ve always described it as either the most painful joy, or the most joyful pain you can imagine. It’s funny how writing finds you. It’s like a force that knows who it can catch.
I’m really glad that it found you and that you are willing to share. Keep it up, lady.