Sober and Shameless

The Truth

I have been asked many times how my husband died and for all these weeks I have been at a loss for words. As this year comes to close and the new year is slowly approaching, I want to be finished with that painful question. 
It is with a very heavy heart that I say, September 5 John committed suicide, after a battle with depression.
I did find him. It is a scene that will be with me until the day I die; the second I walked in the room, before I even saw him on the bed, I knew death was present. Death is quite and very still; it hangs in the air and freezes all movement and time. I knew he gone before I even found him. The angel of death is swift, certain and unforgiving.  
I have been left with great wondering. I wonder what he was feeling in the last minutes of his beautiful life. I wonder why he did not call me, or his family or his friends, or anyone. I wonder what he thought about when he loaded the gun, looked at the pictures of our sweet children, as he sat on the bed and texted each of us, ‘I love you’. I wonder what he felt in the final moments as he laid down and I wonder what his last thought was as he put the gun to his head. I wonder if he finally felt a sense of peace that his terrible pain would be over in a matter of seconds and I wonder if he heard the gunshot or if he felt any pain. I wonder many things. Sometimes, all fucking night long, I wonder.
I have had the private and spiritual privilege to witness incredible pain in the lives of others. I consider it, and always have, an honor to walk families and addicts through their darkest days. I have sat with a family as they told their 21-year-old son, as he came out of a coma, that while driving drunk in a black out, he killed a family of 5 and would be spending the majority his life in San Quentin. I have sat at the grave site of a 55 year mother who died in her sleep from drinking, while her sweet children slept in their rooms and finally I have sat with a father who lost 2 of his 3 kids to a drunk driver, as he sobbed and screamed beneath the crushing and insurmountable pain of the loss of his beloved children and I have watched each of these families, in time, know a new happiness and find meaning in their loss. I have found solace in the knowing that I cannot bare wittiness to the grace of god in the lives of others and not believe that same grace will be fall me and mine.  
It is said that pain is the touchstone to spiritual growth and I understand this now in new way. My heart has been broken, wide open, vulnerable, exposed, as if I am without skin. I am able to feel different, more and deeper. I am able love and laugh and cry in a way I could not before. I can see more clearly the pain in others and have a deeper understanding of the fear that can strangle slowly the life vibration out of a living being as they sit by helplessly and watch a loved one slip away into the dark. I have a new compassion for the helplessness and a new appreciation for the amount of love it takes to truly let someone go, knowing full well, you may never see them alive again. 
The pain of the last four months has, at times, left me with a feeling of wanting to retreat, as if he blew a huge hole right through the middle of my life, and all I have built is being sucked through the gaping wound. My faith was shaken, my legs weak and my heart broken but I as I caught my breath and my balance, I have emerged with a new and fierce motivation to rise above. I will not have John’s suicide define my children or me. I have worked each day for 18 years to heal, recover and to find the strength to face the world, chest forward, head up, and step into the life I was meant to live, with passion and purpose. I have a renewed inspiration to be of service and to fight and wage the war against addiction.  
In this new year, I recommit myself and my purpose to fighting, encouraging, inspiring and illuminating the way of the dark and into recovery, where a new life, a new hope and a new existence can be had by anyone who is broken and brave enough to simply surrender. 
I have been down the last many months but I am not out. I am back and I am ready for 2012. 
Thank you again for your unwavering support, thoughts, prayers and emails. You each have helped carry me through some of the most difficult days of my life. 
Sober and Shameless.

Surprise! We are not surprising you

I wrote an article on intervention for thefix.com.

Enjoy.

Sober and Shamless, Kw

http://www.thefix.com/content/surprise-were-not-surprising-you

I am often asked.....

I am asked often, ‘When are you going to write a book on weight loss?’ Let me be clear-I will not ever write a book on weight loss. I will not clog the literary world with yet another book on weight loss and sell false hope to the public.

Diets do not work. I am always amazed that there is yet another book on the next new diet, the new weight loss plan, the latest and greatest fad, the next named weight loss guru, or whatever else comes along. There is not a secret to weight loss. You must move more and eat less. This is a, tried and true, for as long as man has been on the planet-Successful equation- Eat less, move more.

Now addiction, to sugar is a whole another story.

There is an entitlement in our culture to being comfortable. There is an entitlement to quick fixes. We as a culture do not handle discomfort, well, whether it is, emotional or physical discomfort, we do not handle it well. We want to be at ‘ease’ as quickly as possible. We have gotten farther and farther away from hard earned change. If there is a book that will help us lose 20 pounds in four weeks, Americans will buy, If grapefruits are the next weight loss secret food, Americans will buy them by the truck loads, and if there is a pill that will help our ‘restless’ legs and our muffin tops, Americans will swallow them, without question.

The reason weight loss is difficult is because it must be earned, one day at a time. The reason sobriety is so difficult is because it too, must be earned, one day at a time. The reason so many diets fail, is because we are looking at sugar addiction. Substance addiction recovery will never be about control but about abstinence. In other words, you can remove sugar from your diet for a certain amount of time but then as it is slowly reintroduced to the diet, the relapse begins. With sugar addiction, a person will never be able to control the sugar intake for any true length of time. It is the same with alcohol. Alcoholics cannot control the alcohol intake once it is in the body; it creates what is referred to as a ‘phenomenon of craving’, and it is exactly the same with sugar. Once in the system, of a person who is addicted to sugar, they will over a course of time, lose control of the intake and will, either quickly or slowly, be right back where they began. One cookie, will lead to two and then to ten, it is not a matter of will but a matter of bio chemistry and frankly, bio chemistry will win every time. This is the highly unpopular truth of addiction and diets; sugar need to be eliminated not controlled. It the lack of control the addicts die from and the very reason to eat sugar for a sugar addict, is to head back down the path to being overweight and despair.

Without sugar, addicts will lose weight; add sugar, try to control sugar and in time the weight will return. Every time: This is a guarantee.

To all addictions there is a psychological foundation or a certain temperament and way of seeing the world that will propel compulsive and self-soothing behaviors. To be abstinent from all mind and mood altering substances, including sugar, the person will need to look at their way of being in the world, heal what is wounded and learn how to self-regulate their feelings from the inside out, not the  outside in. To maintain a life without sugar or substance is a return to hard earned physical and mental health.

This is the unpopular truth and why if I wrote a book on weight loss, it would not sell very well. We as a culture need to get back to the concept of delayed gratification and understand that the work I put in today to change and heal myself will pay off in six months from now. Healing takes time; you cannot rush it. Weight loss, even if you hate to hear this, takes time; you cannot rush it, if you want it to last. Addiction is a chronic issue, and cannot be treated with an acute model. Addiction is with us for a life time, and will not be gone in 17 days, or 40 pounds from now, and once you get into a size 6 jean.

I believe we as a culture need to have paramount shift thinking, from finding the next quick fix to accepting that lasting change comes slowly, and through a new way of living, not a strict food plan. Eat better food, whole foods, heal what wounds you carry, eliminate sugar, and move your body more. Weight loss will come, and better yet a deep love of self and a firm understanding that your life has purpose will fill you from the inside out.

We need to move from giving our power away to scales and clothes sizes and change our idea of beautiful. Imagine what it would feel like to love your body? To really love your body not for how it looks but how it feels and how it moves and what it does for you each and every day. I believe that true success is- to have an appreciation for the strength and power that our bodies innately have within. Change how you love yourself and your body will change too.

For me, I believe true success and health is, when at the end of the day, after the work is done, the children are asleep and lights are out, and it is just me on the couch that I honestly can say, I like the company that I keep.

Sober and Shameless, Kw

Gayle King Radio Interview

Thank you Gayle for the opportunity to share my thoughts with you and your viewers.

Sober and Shameless, Kw

http://gaylekingshow.com/b/Can-Charlie-Sheen-Really-Overcome-Addiction/583493765031731165.html

Twitter

Follow me on twitter....

http://twitter.com/kwaddicted

Helping others

I posted on FB back in June about helping a drunk women outside a meeting I attended. This is the post:  

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New York

The sounds of New York City bang my sleeping self awake. My head is aching and my eyes are hard to open, jet lag is wicked and the city garbage trucks don’t seem to care that I arrived late into JFK, checked in and collapsed into the hotel bed and fell fast to sleep, only four hours ago.

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Wounded or Wise

I spoke before a group of police officers in my home town. It was their holiday party, and they asked me to do a presentation on addiction and an inspirational talk on recovery. The group contained some of the same officers that ‘knew’ me during my years of addiction. I give speeches all the time in my work in front of audiences of ten people to many hundreds, and speaking is something that I enjoy and look forward to.  However, on this afternoon, I found myself very nervous. Nearly sick, really; in fact it has been many years since I have been that nervous. Standing in front of this group of men and women, badges shining, hair combed perfectly and uniforms pressed with sharp creases, brought back all the memories and emotions from a hard time in my life. Then, the police were always the enemy.

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Facing Fear

I have spent most of life this way, anticipating a monster around every corner and challenge in my life. I have walked through tremendous times in my sobriety. I knocked on 22 doors of homes I robbed -- knees shaking, stomach turning, dry mouthed -- and slowly acknowledged the harm and pain I inflicted on these innocent families.

I have walked into stores, too numerous to count, with no home, phone or personal references and asked for employment, only to be turned away, time after time. Having to dig deep and tap into my perseverance, finally I found a job and began to put my life back together.

I have stood behind the man who raped me, only to have my fear of him morph into an unexpected sense of compassion, leaving him in peace to find his own way in recovery. I have sat with my family and friends and listened with grace and dignity about the harm and effect I had on their lives. I have stood in front of family and friends and vowed my life to a man I love, given birth when I was sure I was unworthy of children, and I have stood in front 2,500 people, turned the microphone on and shed light on my darkest days. I have traveled the country working with families, and I have published my first book. And even after all this, I still get held up by fear.

I realize how great I am at surviving, but that I’m only just now learning how to live. I can survive hopeless drug addiction, rape, and the freezing, ruthless streets that nearly killed me, but do you know I cannot make banana nut bread? No matter how hard I try. I have tried recipes from Martha Stewart, Cooking light and Real Simple to name a few, and for the life of me I can get the middle to cook as quickly as the sides. All I want to do is make a %&*# loaf of bread to feed my kids as my mom did for me, but instead I end up with bread that is raw in the middle and two laughing little children who think it is funny that their mom doesn’t know how to cook.

Do you know that I am afraid to have people over for dinner? I am scared that somehow people might see through my pretty furniture and shiny floors and be able to tell how unsure of myself I truly am. It is amazing to me that I can put on a Calvin Klein suit and stare at myself in the mirror only to see the lost, drug addicted broken girl staring back me. I walk out the door to my presentation with a fear deep within, that when the lights go down and the spotlight finds my body, that all the audience will be able to see is the scared girl that is hiding in me. I feel fear as I navigate through the male-dominated addictions industry, struggling with the belief that my thoughts and feelings and ideas are valid and purposeful.

There is no greater captor than my own mind and the limitations I put on myself. I have done a good job facing my fears but as my life gets larger and healthier, I am still, at times, held back by fear. My greatest challenge is my deep fear of being seen. Maybe it is the bitter aftertaste of rape, maybe it is memory of my past -- that if I am truly seen, then the world will find out that beneath it all, I am scared and, sometimes, feel unworthy of all the respect and success I have created in my life.

I want to take my rightful place in this world, shrinking back for no one. I want to stand face forward, chest out, arms at my side and walk straight into my destiny. One day at a time, I want to live free of the bondage of fear and self-doubt. Today, I will live free. Fear will no longer be an excuse not to live my life to the fullest.

Lets Get Addicted

I was asked at my last speaking engagement by a woman, “Kristina Do you think that helping others is a new addiction for you?”

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