Ghosts of Christmas Past

Hi everyone. Hope you are having a wonderful Christmas! Today we get to celebrate our Savior being brought into this world with his wonderful gift of redemption and grace. I am deeply grateful for this. It's amazing how God can turn lives around. Like mine, for instance.

I'm going to take a step back today. Most of you that read this diary now don't know me from before I found Jesus. You don't know me from when I was a using drug addict, not a recovering one. Today's going to be a little illustration of the power that God has to change lives around and give all of us second chances, even the most undeserving. Fortunately, Christ doesn't see any of us as undeserving.

I kept a blog when I was using. It's not pretty. Many times in the last couple of years I've thought of deleting it. Letting go of the past to move on to my future. I can't do it though. It's such a great reminder of where I came from and the kind of person that I was that I think it's an absolutely great testimony to the power of God to transform lives. A gritty, somewhat vulgar, testimony to be sure.

Without further ado, Here's my week of Christmas from 2004. It's not easy for me to read, I hope it's not too hard for you to look at. This WAS me, circa end of my active addiction.

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!

THIS IS RATED NC-17. BAD LANGUAGE, SEXUAL SITUATIONS, DRUG USE, AND GENERAL HORRIBLENESS FOLLOW THIS WARNING. IF YOU ARE EASILY OFFENDED DON'T READ ANY FURTHER. THANK YOU.

2004-12-18

Obligations

What am I doing? I feel pretty out of touch with the real world. It's not a terrible place for me to be at this time of year. Numb. I have succeeded in numbing myself for the holidays. All relationships seem fragile. Unimportant. That's good for me because I'm trying to insulate myself from caring. I am doing the minimum required to get by. I need a connection that I don't feel obligated to fuck when I score from her. I don't mind fucking her neccesarily, I don't like feeling obligated.

2004-12-21

Have a holly, jolly christmas

Hi diary. How I wish that it was not this time of year. When I could look forward to putting some lighthearted entry that makes everyone go "Oh, that bub!" However, I'm not lighthearted at present. I hung out with My Man James last night. That's about the best that I have felt in the last 2 weeks. The closest to "normal" that my life has felt. Christmas music playing. James dancing while I was holding him and singing to him. A beautiful christmas tree. Alabama sitting in the comfie chair watching us, smiling. Some wierd, surrealistic scene. Something along the lines of "Carrie" when the girl goes to visit Carrie's grave and the hand reaches up from the grave to pull her in. Nothing that dramatic happened, of course. The problem is when? When is it going to happen? When is she going to feel the time is right to fuck it all up again? I just tried to stay in the moment, singing to James about chesnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose. It was a good night. I can't get over that feeling of impending doom. I'm hanging in there. I really am. Five more days until the day after christmas. I can do it. I really can. I'm just staying in the present, no matter how much I dread the next couple of days or retreat back into the horrors of christmas past. God, I just think it's awful that I feel like this about what is supposed to be a wonderful holiday.

2004-12-22

Bub the red nosed addict.

Time for me to clean up for a couple of days. Have to go to Shelly's house on friday and they will know if I am all strung out. Should be a lot of sleep for me the next 72 hours. I need a good connection that I don't have to fuck in order to score. Actually, I don't have to fuck her. I just have to act like I want to fuck her. I would much rather just get it from her without all that fuss. I have been avoiding her the last week. I told Alabama about her. Alabama and me? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

2004-12-23

Cold Turkey

God, I hate feeling like this. It's been almost 2 days since I've did anything. I can barely keep my eyes open. I had a marvelous chat with a wonderful woman last night. Probably the highlight of the day. I'm thinking I should feel about 70% tomorrow. I'm only running at maybe 40% today. Yeah, it's that bad. It feels like my body is having like intermittent power outages. Like someone is turning the switch on and off. I could probably use a drink. Maybe I will break into the hard liquor to knock myself out. I should sleep like a rock tonight. I hope.

2004-12-24

Merry Christmas everyone

Christmas eve! getting ready to go shopping for the family. Kassie and Beckah aren't coming down. Got a note from their mom this morning. I saw groovebunny's christmas song post, so I decided to post my own. It's a song I wrote some 13 years ago. It's not a happy song so be warned. I hope everyone has a wonderful christmas! Please stay safe. I'm outta here until sunday morning I think. I'll stay safe too, ok? P.S. Sorry the playing is so horrid, first time I have picked up the guitar this month and a long time since I have played that particular song

Rachel

Rachel sits by the christmas tree
Wondering where her daddy's gone
Seems he's never around no more
Seems he's been gone too long

Chorus:

She don't know what's going on
Daddy don't live there anymore
She's too young to understand
He don't live there anymore

Rachel goes to the park to play
She climbs up on the swing
Ain't no one to push her
Least not the way daddy did

Chorus

Rachel goes to sleep at night
Her prayers go unanswered
Mom gives her a hug and a kiss
She don't know what to say

Chorus

And this was one of the good Christmases! Thank you God that I don't have to live like that anymore.

Hi There!

I've probably doomed myself by putting God in the title of my blog. Probably depends on what I'm looking to get out of this. "To thine own self be true." OK, God it is then. My problem is that I love Poker. And God. And a whole bunch of other things that I adore from time to time. I'm not the greatest player, not the greatest writer, and definitely not the greatest Christ follower around either. Obviously. I've got a lot of issues. Children, addiction, alcoholism and gambling (the non poker variety) just to name a few.

I'm hoping that with this blog maybe I can bring all these things together in some kind of cohesive, smooth running machine. Yeah, who am I trying to kid. It's more that I enjoy the act of writing and the meeting of new people and sometimes actually posting something halfway decent. I can always dream.

The poker part of me: I've been playing pretty consistently for the last 4 years. I started playing online in 2004 in play money games that my boss at the time turned me on to. I graduated to playing cash tournaments at Viejas. Unfortunately, it was probably my 5th tournament and I accidentally went ahead and won. I've been hooked ever since. I played (and play) in cash games at Viejas, The Lady Luck, sometimes Barona and Sycuan. I nickel and dime it online (especially since I can't figure a way to get money onto my Epassporte account). Overall, I'm definitely in the black for poker which continues to amaze me.

The God part of me: The only way to do this is to put it in black and white. Maybe I will add a link to my old blog so that you can see what a mess I was. I've been playing in bands since I was 19 years old. I've had 5 kids with 4 different women. I'd developed a nasty alcohol and drug habit not to mention smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day. I'd shrunk up to the point where I was fitting into size 28 jeans and they were loose. About 115 pounds soaking wet. Sores, speech problems, nervous tics, a general dark cloud over my head. I'd been messing with NA and AA since I was a teenager but it never stuck for more than a couple of years. In May 2005 I was at the end of my rope. I didn't want to live anymore. I was in a nightmare relationship that had me to the point where I was actually calling people's homes and threatening to kill them. I could barely work and I was living in the basement of my employer's house. (Thanks Gene, you were and are a life saver). I finally stopped everything on May 1st, 2005. My clean date. I started going to meetings with my guitar player and just didn't pick up. I did all the suggestions (except work the steps with a sponsor, oops) and haven't had the desire to pick up.

Oh yeah, where does God come into all of this? I started talking to this girl I met online in March of 2006. Craig's list to be exact. She was funny, I loved the way she talked, and attractive. Oh, and she was a Christian. Ugh. I believed that there was a divine presence in the universe but Jesus? Thank God she didn't make a big deal about it. She was much too clever for that. She kept inviting me to go to church with her but I would beg off with one excuse or another. Finally, one day I decided to keep an open mind (and to keep her happy) I went. I was scared. These aren't my kind of people. I felt like they could all see the evil that was in me. Finally the band started and my church experience turned into a rock concert. Huh? I was expecting either solemn hymns or folk rock john denver style of music. It was more like U2. That piqued my curiosity. Then the pastor gave his talk. A down to earth, normal talk based on the bible. It made sense. They got my guard down. Did I mention that while this was happening I was drinking a mocha in the service that I had bought when we were walking in? Good music, a nice talk, A Starbucks quality mocha? Did I mention very progressive church?

I enjoyed it. I still wasn't convinced about the Jesus as my personal savior but I kept going back. The message of the church stayed consistent. They weren't trying to force anything. They didn't want my money. They let me come to God on my own. Novel approach that worked. I don't remember the exact day that I turned my life over to Christ, I remember that it was at the end of the service and Pastor Ed asked if anyone wanted to turn their life over to Christ to please raise their hand so he could pray with us. I did and he did and that's where I am at today. I'm not a bible thumper. I'm not judgemental. I think it's God's job not mine. I have found some peace in my life that I've never experienced. Sometimes I believe that is just old age, most of the time I think it's God. I do have doubts. I do waver in my belief. I'm human. I have a hard time when people say that they don't. I try absolutely to remain humble and not be a hypocrite.

That's my story up to this point. This blog is probably not going to be G rated. I have lots of stories and I'm still not perfect although I have moved from a rated X live to maybe a PG. Thanks if you have read any of this and I hope to make a lot of new friends in the months to come.