My last episode with hard and heavy drug use was my final episode, I hope. Sure, I’d like to think I am forever finished with drugs, but who really knows? As for me, I’ve got today, so far, and that my friends, is good enough for me. I may not even exist on this earth tomorrow, so why try working on staying clean tomorrow. For me, as an addict, it takes so much energy just trying to manage my thoughts and actions so I can continue to recover today.

Standing where I stand today, as a born again Christian, I see blessings and wonder in so much of life. I see it in others as well as myself. Those of you who have been an addict and have fought this fight know what I’m talking about. I hear folks say; “It’s a nice morning this morning” or “It’s a wonderful day.” Yes, to many folks it might be a wonderful day or a nice morning.

Now, to the addict who has grown in their own recovery, each morning brings new challenges. Each day brings new victories. That goes for the newly recovering addict as well as the seasoned veterans. And we know just how great each day is. We feel as though it’s actually miraculous that we wake each morning to see and experience such wonderful days.

Like me, there are so many of us who honestly know that if it wasn’t for the great grace of Christ himself, there is no possible way we should be here to witness these days.

I say my last episode was hopefully my final episode with drug use. And whether it is, or it isn’t, it was definitely my worst. My last experience in drug use resulted in causing harm to someone whom I never thought I would harm, and to this day, I cannot see myself ever intentionally harming her or anyone else in any kind of physical way. Apparently, however, that is exactly what I did.

The last time I used drugs I had gotten in to an argument with my now estranged wife and had pushed her, causing her to fall. As she fell, she landed on her arm and broke it. I have no memory of this and for the life of me, I can not see where I would harm someone who is not in great health in the first place, much less a woman who I had loved for more than 20 years. Today, as hard as it is to understand all of this with no memory at all, I do accept responsibility for it. Memory or not, it was my choice to use drugs in the first place.

My first and last memories of the days during all of this are as follows. I remember a conversation with a fellow which I am now told by that person that the conversation had taken place about a week before I was incarcerated for causing all of this.

My very next memory is, I was getting my blood pressure checked by a nurse at the facility I had been incarcerated in and I ask her how long I had been there? She told me I had been in that facility for eight days. She told me that I was transferred from the original place I had been placed in after two days there. So that’s around seventeen days that I will likely never remember. I do remember being on my knees and crying out to God to please stop my drug use because I couldn’t myself. I had done that frequently for months before this all happened. I’d rather have been dead than live like I was. I’d rather be dead now than to ever go back to that life.

Now in my own personal opinion, I believe it was God’s way of sitting me down and answering my many prayers. No, I didn’t actually take and break my wife’s arm, but my actions both then and before were directly responsible for it all.

So you see? With things like this going on when it comes to drug use and its consequences, each morning is a brand new day of fresh air. Each day is a miracle in itself. I use these and other experiences to try and help those who may wonder or not understand what can occur when you make the wrong choices in life when it comes to drug use. Because I hope and pray that there will not be another fall to addiction.

An addict, a child of God, a Christian,

Phillip Lee