The first place I'm starting is with the physical....

Excerpt from an email to a friend explaining the basic premise of the next month which really is preparation for the journey rather than part of the journey itself:

Of course you are correct about my journey. The first 30 days is primarily a physical cleansing. I have struggled with substance abuse issues since the age of 13 and I've developed a rather nasty meth addiction the past few years here in AZ but that's just what's around....if they make it I've abused it. I am being sent into residential treatment by my probation officer in lieu of spending the summer in tents out in the desert with Sheriff Joe....I have been unable to stop totally and have had a few "dirty" tests while on probation over the past year and my PO has violated my probation. She also caught me associating with known criminals. Most of my friends are known criminals so it's not hard to do. I found it odd that the typical punishment for this was incarceration with? Yup you guessed it..."criminals". They expect perfection instead of progress (must be Virgos).

Now not to rationalize my drug abuse as I know all of it is horrific abuse to my brain, body and soul but I HAVE cut way down and the amount I use in a month is what I used to use in one big night. Plus this will now be the 5th time I'll have been in a 30 day full rehab and I was a drug and alcohol counselor myself for a few years in the mid 90's so it won't be anything new to me really.

This program "IS" different in that it is in a very luxurious facility and I will have a personal trainer, dietitian, chef, masseuse, counselor, shrink and maid. It appears to be a more holistic approach to treating addiction however I look at it more as a nurturing environment for me to heal myself rather than to be healed externally. As they say in 12 Step programs, "It's an inside job"

I've climbed so many "steps" in my lifetime, beat drums, done sweat lodges, medical model, social model, cold turkey, rehab, detox, halfway houses and even a few psych wards and jails but I know that the answer lies from within.

I just completed another program in May called the Prometa program that consists of massive IV drips of brain chemicals and amino acids....I was high the whole time. Both are mostly just my way to avoid being tossed into general population as a 125lb white boy....not a healthy prospect.

The good part is that 9/16 is my 50th birthday and I am ready to stop abusing my body and am internally prepared to put down the drugs, booze, smokes and my favorite.....dirty, greasy, gratuitous sex with as many women as I can get into bed which is somewhat legendary in scope and proportion. The "number" is in excess of 5,000 women and I have yet to even come close to filling whatever void within myself is that I've been trying to feed by such acting out.

This has all been driven to a head by my care giving for my father these past 6 years and my duties are coming to an end as my sister is here now breaking down my folks household and taking them both back with her to upstate NY while I'm in treatment...LOL....I went to rehab and they moved away I will relish saying I think.