As I was sitting on the back porch this morning drinking my coffee with French vanilla cream, I started thinking about what an absolute blessing it is to wake up early, sit outside and listen to the birds singing. I could hear a rooster crowing in the distance, and of course, I was sipping on my favorite coffee.

I started wondering, why I didn’t enjoy these simplest of things in life for the 17 years prior to abstaining from using. The truth is I honestly don’t have any answers to that question, save one! Yes I was using drugs, but not every minute. I did have short lived moments of staying clean. So why didn’t I know that the simplest things like hearing birds sing their song, or hearing a rooster crow as the morning came to life were such extreme blessings. It wasn’t just hearing those things it was actually listening to what I had heard. I believe it has to be because I have turned my life and will over to Christ and His will for my life. There are honestly no other justifiable reasons for what I see and feel today.

Around lunch today my mind started racing with what felt like a thousand thoughts and images of what I had put those around me through over the years. Some of the thoughts were how could I have hurt so many, especially those I truly loved? How could I not have seen all my mother, children and estranged wife had suffered? In my heart I know I would have never intentionally hurt any of them, yet that is exactly what I was doing. Why didn’t I realize all the tears my loved ones had shed due to my selfish drug use? Here’s another good one – why didn’t I open my eyes and actually see all the pain my loved ones were going through because of me?

I want to tell you about a couple of the images that were running through my mind. This image is an image from many years ago. I was using Crystal Meth and already deep into my addiction. I was working, trying to get all my trucks loaded for the week so that the 15 people I employed would have the supplies they needed to travel our five state region to complete their weekly assignments. I remember loading one of the cargo trailers for the trucks and I needed it moved.

I had to be extremely high because I took a furniture dolly, put it under the loaded trailer jack so I could lift it and roll it out of the way. WOW!!! What an idiot right? I think so too. Anyway, I did lift the trailer, but when I went to roll it I slipped, fell and landed my foot right under the jack. The trailer fell, crushing my ankle, causing a severe injury to my leg. I still have several plates and screws down my leg and into my left ankle. That alone should have been more than enough for me to quit using drugs right then, but I was just getting started.

Here’s another image racing through my mind earlier today. About 12 years ago I was living in a log cabin I had built. It was one of the many times my drug use and actions had caused my wife and I to separate. I had gotten so bad on Methadone, Percocet and Xanax that I started imagining things that did not exist to be very, very real. I had gotten to the point that my wife would come down to check on me, and then my mother would come.

At one point they decided it wasn’t safe for me to be left alone any longer. I hadn’t eaten in several days. My mother had brought me a cup of hot soup, thinking if she could get me to drink it then I would at least have something on my stomach. I turned it up and drank it as fast as if it were a cool glass of tea on a hot summer day. I remember getting on my hands and knees in the gravel drive way to look for the Xanax pills I thought I had dropped. I ended up putting several tiny rocks into my mouth, thinking they were those pills.

I think of things like this that I had put others through and it actually gives me a sick feeling of disgust. Yes, I hurt those who loved me in every way during the actively using phase of addiction. It had to make them feel miserable to see someone they loved in these pathetic ways. Even worse, they had to feel horrible because they knew this person in which they loved dearly, needed help, yet they felt completely helpless. I was surrounded by great people and I was hurting them all.

If you are an addict, I hope your addiction hasn’t lead you down the extreme roads it led me. I hope you are not blind to the hurt you are putting your loved ones through.

Almost all of you have great people who love you passionately. Most of you have loved ones who would walk through Hell to take your addiction away. Many good people have likely already tried going through great adversities in hopes that when this test is over you will be fine.

If you are as I was in my using stage, I hope and pray that you will start seeing all that you are doing to those who love you. If you have never used, please dedicate you heart and soul to never trying it. You will hurt those who love you. For me, it is helping tremendously that I turned my soul over to Jesus Christ.

An addict, a child of God, a Christian,

Phillip Lee