November 2023 3rd Street Beat

3rd Street Beat

#42

The 3rd Street Beat Mission Statement

The Third Street Beat is a newsletter written by and created for people with substance use disorder. Our mission is to validate that experience so people know that they are not alone, and to emphasize the many unique roads that we take to recovery. This is an opportunity to share our experiences to creatively support each other. We are non-political, non-denominational, multi-racial, and gender neutral. Our mission is one of recovery and harm reduction, and all experiences are welcome. All the viewpoints herein are personal in nature and related specifically to our contributors’ recovery.

The 3rd Street Beat Editorial Team

The 3rd

Beat is produced byThe Recovery Center community with assistance from the occupational therapy team.

"Thereisthat lawoflife,so cruelandsojust, thatonemust groworpay morefor remainingthe same."

---NormanMailer, Author,1977

Cacophony,

Out of a unity.

A unified body that's dismembered Itself.

The integrity of the plane is still there.

It is still identifiably an individual.

Yet each piece of it seems of its own world.

Her eyes seem missing.

Off on their own?

Her feet are gone, as well.

Walked off on their own?

All there, yet apart.

"Femme au Cheval" (Woman with Horse) by Jean Metzinger from 1912

-John Michael Koroly

Lion in the Desert

Like a lion in the jungle I sit and wait

Seeing my chance, I decided not to take the bait

Relaxing amid the sunset is most rewarding this day

-Raymond Bird III

“La Dernière Image” by Walton Ford (2018)

Sobriety With Benefits

By John Michael Koroly

All of us who are in this recovery effort for ourselves are well familiar with its demands if it is to be successful. A great emphasis is put on doing the work it takes to maintain a sober life. The work is arduous, as is most valuable homework. I, myself, once paraphrased Grover Cleveland that its price is “eternal vigilance.” That’s a lot of heavy lifting.

In my judgment, the emphases are necessary, but too often neglect to also stress the positive, life-affirming, and desirable benefits of the work. Yes, we all should have a clear-eyed view of what’s demanded of us to walk straight and away from our respective addictions. However, that leaves out all the fine, enjoyable things that new lifestyle brings us. If it’s all sticks and no carrots, that certainly won’t attract people to the effort.

A quick anecdote might help clear up what I mean here. The late Pete Hamill was a legend in NYC journalism; Editor-In-Chief of the NY Daily News, columnist for the Village Voice, New York magazine, and the New York Review of Books. He also had a hideous alcohol addiction for half his life.

In his memoir of overcoming it, “A Drinking Life” published in 1997, he wrote that he had his last drink on New Year’s Eve, 1972. The very first thing he immediately noticed upon quitting was how much more TIME there seemed to be in a day for him. How many more opportunities he had to enjoy what was around him, to pursue goals, to cherish relationships.

Speaking for myself, I know precisely what he meant. Intoxication feels euphoric, but it also shrinks your sense of time. When you aren’t intoxicated, you’re thinking about how to get that way instead of enjoying what’s already around you.

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To make this even more personal, I can tell you that when I sit in my living room and look around at all the books I have to read, CD’s to listen to, DVD’s to watch, or boot up my computer to correspond with so many valued friends (or just chat on the telephone with them), it’s a stronger incentive to NOT get drunk than any stern warning about the consequences of it.

Have you ever heard the “joke” where someone says “I had such a great time last night that I can’t remember any of it!” Well, that sounds like a wasted evening to me. Remembering your good (sober) times can propel you to want more of them. One potential tool for this is to keep a written list of things for which you feel grateful. Things you so enjoyed by maintaining a clear head while doing them. Again, for myself, I started keeping a daily log of these things once the COVID lockdown started in 2019. Throughout each day, I’d write down things I’d enjoyed doing or consuming or experiencing that far outweighed any ephemeral “high” from getting drunk; a drunk I couldn’t remember and would be yet another wasted day. This was everything from the homemade chili I’d cooked to a great old movie I’d discovered on free streaming systems.

If you think in terms of all you did today was “NOT get drunk or stoned,” that isn’t very much to cherish or revel in.

Also, I’d jot down things I’d look forward to doing in the coming week. FaceBook and telephone exchanges with old and new friends across the country, for instance, were always a positive thing to anticipate. (Again, and not to beat this to death, engaging in them while sober and being able to remember and cherish that time together with them is so much more fulfilling than “drunk dialing” to mouth off, then not even recall what you said the next day.)

Ultimately, one should never forget how much effort and constant alertness it takes, and brace oneself for it.Though, relishing all the things now open to enjoyment is every bit as essential in reaping the rewards of a sober lifestyle.

Gratitude Journal Prompts

1. Write about a time when you laughed uncontrollably.

2. Appreciate a friend who lives far away but is dear to you.

3. What is the best gift that you have ever received?

4. Write about a movie that touched your heart, and why.

5. Write about someone that you really admire.

6. Appreciate a refreshing walk that you had in nature.

7. What do you like most about yourself?

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The heart of majestic

The key hidden in the heart of the ocean.To see the sea, treasures, gifts, a horizon sky, a waterfall fruitful taste. Blossoming a ripe flower, the root.Take place on the foundation, under the surface of those plants.Atornado swim, carrying a loot irony, rainbow emotions, Cloverfield contance, fearless volcano, erupting from a mudslide day, connecting my mismatched coordination guidelines. Visionary creativity, or magical enlightenment, to softly breeze across the landscapes of emotions. Keys that addressed the right doors. Opening the heart gradually, purposefully, persevering, insistently freeing.The dialogue clogged beneath the iceberg. Deep into the mines, pitch dark unclear patterns, colors of undiscovered pearls and elements, that shines out that bountiful waterfall, rivers of diamonds. Streaming through after that fall, the rainbow at the end of that combus. No wonder the conditions were unconditional, balanced feelings, wholeness in our divine cooperation, operational new material, to dive back into a plantation, relation. Our shipwreck, our clash, instant spark clashed. The click, fire, seconds too early, this present, presence. We create a love, reborn from the heart. Aheartfelt story, the heart of mystery.

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