HELLow

I have no particular order for writing these things that I am writing but am addressing topics as they come to my mind and as I continue to live through more life experiences.

To my Brethren:

            I wish for you to know that you are not alone. There are others who have treaded this very path that you are on. Some have made it and realistically some have not. Even more truthfully there may be more that have not made than those that have made it. My purpose in stating these things is found in my post title HELLow.

            As I continue to struggle through recovery do the things that I thought were helping me recover I heard many people comment about hitting a “low”. I even had my sponsor use the term as well as other addicts and support persons (bishop and counselors). I began to wonder, what is my low? Have I hit my low? How will I know when I have that low? What have been other people’s experiences with their lows and how do they know that the particular experience they had was a low? Etc. honestly I could go on forever with the questions!

            My low did not come on a single day or in the form of a single event. My occurred from a Friday (possibly even sooner if you want to get real nitty gritty, like Tuesday) and lasted all the way through the weekend and finally had its pinnacle and culmination on a Wednesday morning/afternoon. The finale to my HELL, which was also my low(hence the title HELLow – clever, I knowJ) ended with my KEYS TO RECOVERY (I will share these on a later date and other experiences with such).

            I knew that I had hit my low for several different reasons:

1.    I wanted to die.

a.     This is not a normal or common everyday thought for most people. This does not mean that you are bad for having this thought but rather there is something that is wrong in your mind that needs some attention and trouble shooting.

2.    I was becoming willing to change.

3.    I was accepting responsibility for my actions and the consequences of them(totally cut off from my wife and children – no seeing or talking to them until my wife and I could meet with a counselor together)

4.    I was feeling my pain

5.    I was seeking for more, better, deeper solutions.

a.     I was finally hearing what things were being shared by other recovered addicts instead of just going to the meetings and saying “oh, okay! That’s a great idea maybe I’ll try that sometime!” then just forget about it and move on. Or I also found myself trying things but never really believing that they’d work for me.

6.     I am not unique in my addictions.

a.     Nor do I have the corner on the market for worst or most challenging life ever (I believe that most challenging life goes to my man Job). Think your life sucks and couldn’t get any worse, then do a little brushing up and read the book of Job in the bible.

I have a little more to write about this but will post this for now in hopes of it reaching anyone that may need it until I can get more down about this HELLow.

Why Mr. Laces?

Why am I Mr. Laces?

I am a sex addict that has just recently begun my recovery. I am also new to the blogging world but look forward to contributing back to the many people that are in need of further support and love. I have also never been one to do a lot of writing but have found that since I have been in recovery I have a lot that I want to do and say. So here’s my beginning and start of my road to recovery and reaching out to others. Others who have been where I have been and want to be where I am going to be!

Now, back to the topic at hand. Why I chose the name Mr. Laces. I have always loved to look at shoes and am very particular about my own. There have been very few styles that I have loved and enjoyed (of shoes). I loved the super stars shoes by Addidas for a very long time and had three to maybe even four or five pairs of them! However, I have lately found another type of shoe that I have come to love as my styles and tastes have changed(as I'm getting older I'm becoming much more sophisticated ;)). It is a longer toed dress shoe that has no laces, but there’s a problem with that for me, there are no laces! 

I was recently going through my addiction recovery steps and had a time where I was briefly(I'll address road in a layer post) studying the atonement. For whatever reason it came to my mind that "My life is like a shoe that is meant to have laces, but it doesn’t!" Can you picture an Olympic racer today trying to run a race with shoes but he forgot to put in the laces? I can’t believe that he would be very successful and I would imagine that he would even refuse to run the race because he knows that there would be no way to compete! This is why my name is Mr. Laces, it is a reminder to myself every day that myself and my life are like a shoe. If I don’t have something to keep them from falling apart(the atonement) then there is no way that I can compete. 

Yes, I am comparing the atonement in this case to shoe laces. There's not much more humble than a shoe, the very thing that hundreds of thousands and millions of people tread upon every day without even giving it a second thought. However,  I want to change this. I want people every day to remember that without shoe laces their shoes would not stay on their feet(of course this doesn’t include slip on shoes). Rather, they would just be irritated all day that they couldn’t do what they wanted to,  as fast as they wanted to. This is where my life has been for so long! I have wanted to run and have some control in my life while wearing shoes without laces! I have wanted to live my life without really surrendering my life and will to God. I have wanted to be perfect without the power of the atonement.

I have always wanted to do these things, but remember THE PROBLEM – I have grown to love shoes without laces!! Oh no, what is an addict to do!! Actually I have begun to wear shoes with laces more often and as I do I am remembering that just as I need those laces to stay tied, I also need the savior and atonement in each and every day of my life to reach that full recovery and stay there every day. I never want to look back. I know that I am not yet recovered but my goal is to go from being an addict to an angel and to do so with nothing less than the ultimate power and humility of using shoe laces every day to remember that the atonement is the key to holding my life together. Those laces are the key to my not only competing in the race against life, but to winning that celestial glory that my soul so earnestly yearns for!