The way it is!!!

It's been a while since my last post like usual. I have been busy working on my health I have spent some time since the middle of June until now and continuing that has allowed me to lose 60 lbs. and gain some strength in my legs. For someone who spent a large part of her adulthood in a wheelchair that is amazing. I am up to walking 3 minutes on the treadmill each day though I DIDN'T MAKE THAT HAPPEN TODAY. The first day I didn't make that happen for myself since I got my treadmill for Christmas. I have been working on quitting smoking but my heart just isn't in it. If I can just maintain where I am at would be good. I am smoking less than ten cigarettes a day. around 4 or 5 a day. I am sure that I can get along through the winter on that level as I smoke outside and it is darn cold here in Michigan. Today it was a balmy 21 degrees. My nose hairs were freezing as I was smoking, lol. I know to much information. I digress, to get back to my main subject. I am still clean and sober and it has been 91days today since my relapse this last fall. I almost didn't make it back from this last fall from grace but I did make it back. Thanks to parents who care (sometimes to much) and a support team that is stable and loving. I go to NA and am an active member, I enjoy NA. I really like the meetings that I attend. I had to find handicap assessable meetings and that isn't easy to find in my area. I even had to travel to Canada as I live on the border to find handicap assessable meetings, but it is worth it and it keeps me clean from the drugs. I have so many regrets about this last go round that I have no other way to put than I feel guilty as hell for the things that I did and the people I hurt. Including myself. I watched a friend OD in the front seat of my car and if I hadn't taken him to the hospital when I did he would have died. Writing about this gets me all up in my head so I better shut up for now. But I will tell you more another time. Until then I hope everyone has a very peaceful and blessed existence. To all those hurting remember that you can give the hurt over to your higher power and let go of it and let him deal with it so that you can learn to live without the burden on your back. Take care all....Peace, Happiness, and Ice Cream....Alex

1-31-18 First thoughts

The time of my recovery is 14 months today. I am learning that it is just as hard to stay clean as it was to get clean. Relationships are hard. I have a best friend that I am not communicating with very well. She is going through some hard times. My best friend is a good woman, a strong woman. She is coming back from an accident. She often makes excuses though about why she becomes absent from my life for days at a time. She says she wants to sleep through the pain. She says she has doctors appointments. She has every excuse why she can't pick up or answer her phone (she leaves her ringer off so as not to be disturbed when sleeping but doesn't turn it back on when she is awake and misses many calls this way). I as an addict think it is all about me. This is a usual way for an addict to think. I want to believe that it isn't about me but my first thought is always I am being rejected and it gets me mad. In my infinite wisdom and addict brain I think well if she is going to reject me then I will reject her. When she does come around and finally call me I am snotty to her. I act hurt and I am mean back at her because I feel hurt. This is my addict brain even if inside I want to be nice accept her apology and hear her out, I act on my first thought. My sponsor says that I should know that my first thought is usually wrong. That is where that, one time won't hurt or I have it under control comes from, for me. I have been trying to wrap my head around all this so when I do talk to her I use my wisdom not my first thought and don't act impulsively or with aggression but confidently and wise. I guess I still have a lot to learn about living life but I am so glad I am still here to enjoy the journey since I was close to death when I finally got clean. Today I am all better for it. Till the next time...Peace, Happiness, and Ice Cream!

The past and the present

It's been a while since I put anything on the blog and that is because I have been busy working on my new book. It is a sequel to the first book that I wrote. It is about a woman named Madeline. The first book is about her journey through being diagnosed with a mental illness and her process of putting her life back together. The second book is about Madeline's journey through her relapse in substance abuse and her journey through sobriety relapse homelessness and turning points that come only a few times in your life. In the end which isn't quite written yet there is some yet to be determined surprises. I am hoping to have the book finished by the first of the year. It is coming up quickly and I am pressed to get it done. I have two photography projects and this book on my plate and when I get more than one thing on my plate I don't want to do any of it. That is why I am writing here tonight. I don't want to do anything else. I have been awaiting a call from a long time friend that lives out in California (my dad calls it the land of the fruits and nuts but he is prejudice). I haven't talked to her in a long time. I have a long assorted history with her and a past that I would rather leave in the past. I spent every waking minute with her from the time I was seventeen until I was thirty-two thinking about her or being in her presence. We were tied at the hip and fought like siblings. She loved me and I loved her and we fought a lot over what we each thought the others life should look like. My parents have never really liked her. They blame her for all kinds of things that were out of her control. I was the one who gained the weight. I was the one who used drugs. I was the one who cut myself. I was the one who gave her money without asking for it back. I was the one who did all the things that my parents blame her for but there are things that she did do. She dragged me along into every bad relationship she ever had. She put it in my face all the time that she had a guy. She would sleep with anything that moved then get mad at me for caring about it. I was concerned for her safety and she didn't seem to care but she was younger than me and young in her maturity. She eventually caught up in the maturity department but it wasn't until she met her husband. I just got off the phone with her and we had a very adult conversation. She has grown up a great deal. She is now pushing 40 and is trying to start a family with her husband but they are looking at adoption as well as fostering children. She is working in the inner city schools doing God's work with very troubled youth. I admire that. It was good to talk to her. I miss her as she is in California and I am here in Michigan but the distance actually was a good thing when she moved away it forced me to grow. I became more independent and grew some balls. I learned how to say no and gained a great deal of maturity when I no longer had her to lean on for my every whim. I am really a better person for knowing her and am happy to say our relationship has grown into one of mutual respect. I actually like talking to her these days. I have spent a great deal of time talking about this instead of working on finishing my book or working on my two photo jobs I need to get done. I should get back to work. Have a great day and take it anyway you can get till then...Peace, Happiness, and Ice Cream. Alex

I just came home from an NA meeting and felt like writing. I am working on my second book. My first book is called Madeline and is available on Barnes and Nobles.com and Amazon.com. My second book is a sequel of my first book. In the first book I take Madeline's life from the depths of hell to recovery from mental illness. In this second book I am showing how far down Drug addiction can take you and how hard it is to get clean once you are in the grips of an addiction. I feel this story because I have lived this story. This story is a fictional adaptation of my life. I have lived my whole life fighting one addiction after another. It all started with food that was my first addiction. From there my addiction went to cutting myself, alcohol and marijuana. I found heroin at the age of 17 and used heroin until I was 24. From there I went on to be a hardcore crack addict. I spent from 24 to 42 as a crackhead. I spent many nights alone in my bathroom smoking crack until I was on the verge of repertory failure. I ended up on oxygen and confined to a wheelchair. I had gained weight due to my binge eating. I was 515 lbs. when I finally got weight loss surgery. I lost weight down to 276 lbs. at my lowest weight. I gained weight due to my binge eating back to 409 lbs. and have lost back down to 350 lbs. recently. I have 90 days clean now and it feels good not waking up depressed from using. I feel great being clean. I feel that I have a grasp on this recovery thing for the moment but know that I am one drugged night away from being right back where I started and I don't know if I have another recovery in me. This isn't my first time trying to get clean just my most recent time and my most successful time getting clean. I have a sponsor now and I am working the 12 steps of Narcotics Anonymous. I am already on step 5. Step one is admitting that you have an addiction and because of it your life is unmanageable. Step to is coming to believe in a power greater than yourself. Many people believe in the program and make the meetings their higher power the tables and groups of Narcotics Anonymous (NA). Step three is turning your will and your life over to the care of your higher power. I call my higher power God. NA is a spiritual not religious program. Step four is a big step it is where you make a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself. You write about your past and about your present and your future. You look at your character defects and your assets. You write about your fears. You write about your goals in life your dreams. You look for patterns. Step five is where you share with God yourself and another human being the exact nature of yourself. This is the step I am on. I have gone through part of my fourth step with my sponsor. My sponsor is an asset to my life she has been there since day one. She has helped me on many occasions to overcome cravings and desires to use. It is so important to have a sponsor because they are a trusted person in your life. I am happy today. I am grateful today and I am all the better for having bought a ticket on this journey of recovery. Thanks for listening. 

By Alex Renewing the Pledge

It's been a long time since I have ben on here. I had every intention of creating and keeping up with this blog but I had no idea the kind of work that it would be. I am ready to start beginning after a long bit of research to begin writing on here articles about writing and photography. I have been a photographer since 1993. I went to Interlochen Arts Academy for high school which is where my photography career was born. I went on to Central Michigan University and got my Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography in 2002. I owned and ran my own portrait studio for 6 years. I closed the studio due to the economy tanking and some health issues that came up in 2009. Since then I have freelanced and continued to do portraiture work here and there when it is asked of me. I have learned a lot about the photo market and am beginning to learn a lot about the writing market and what it takes to self publish a book and market the book. I wrote a novel called Madeline. I published it through Exlibris Publishing recently and am beginning the long task of making it known that it is out there. I am currently writing the sequel to Madeline and it isn't going to be out until December. However, I hope to make the two books successful through marketing. I am doing a lot of research about marketing and I am learning about marketing this blog as well. My first article will be coming soon it is going to be about studio lighting and using a minimal setup to achieve a good natural lighting feel. I hope you all come back to read more about photography and my life as it were. I will also be writing about sobriety in my blog as I am a recovering addict. I have spent most of my life in a drugged haze and have had some periods of sobriety along the way. I was still in my active addiction during many of my successful times. I now am clean and am hoping to make some more successful times and be even more successful than before. Well, I am going to sign off for the night. Till then...Peace, Happiness, and Ice Cream.

Here are some examples of my work!

By Alex Introduction

So how do you start a blog about writing other than to start writing. I have been a casual writer for over 25 years but recently spent a year working on and self publishing my first fictional adaptation of my own story. It is about a woman with a mental illness and her journey to recovery. The character is loosely based off what I would have dreamed of for myself and some of my own life experiences. I plan on sharing current and past writing here. I may even give some ideas on how after all that time just journaling and writing for myself how I finally made a book. I'll give you one hint about writing that book right now it took determination. This will be a weekly blog so don't look for posts more than once a week. I spend so much time writing current work that getting to a blog everyday seems daunting. Well, that is about all I have to say for my introduction. Hope to get a first post up within a few days so that I can set a weekly timeframe for you to all count on from me. Til then...Peace, Happiness, and Ice Cream...By Alex....