The Icing on the Cake

The original writing on this little piece of cyber real estate was published on October 3, 2016. It came to life when I was seven months sober, so it has been parked on WordPress for nearly five years—and it has served as the second mini-chapter of the tale of my recovery—a story that was titled “Unteach Me.”

Some time ago, I made the decision to pull the story off of the web (ever so slowly) and recycle or reuse the existing pages with updates to the pieces—or totally new content. That was just shy of a year ago, and I’m finally getting around to Chapter TWO. Now you know what I meant by “ever so slowly.”

In its original state, Rewriting Your Story was part of an introduction to my narrative, and it provided a brief synopsis of the “when, how, and whys” of my journey into the bottle. In short, things went haywire during my adolescence, which is very common. Drinking helped me drown out my fears, awkwardness, and the teenage angst that had invaded my psyche—or my inner life.

I was in the midst of an existential crisis. I wanted to feel normal again, and I wanted to have fun, and drinking helped me accomplish both of these things simultaneously.

Stories like mine are important to specific people—mainly those who are finally admitting or coming to terms with the fact that they have some kind of problem. They may stumble upon my pages because they have started putting their feelers out; looking for some kind of comfort, help, direction… or hope.

That being said, it’s important for me to acknowledge the fact that no matter where these rewrites take me… God and recovery are at the heart of my blog. And my life. They are my anchor and my chain.

Everything else is just icing on the cake.

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About the Image

My illustration is a bit of a copy of the original photograph that I used as my featured image for this chapter. First of all, I just love old VW Vans. But the real reason that it seemed so appropriate was the fact that our lives, our spiritual journeys here on earth, are like adventurous, wild, and unexpected road trips.

We encounter highs and lows, require regular fill ups and countless repairs and overhauls, and we have to endure some dull long ass drives through the desert. Or Texas. Anyone who’s ever driven through Texas knows what I’m talking about. It takes FOREVER to get to the other side!

Anyway, that’s how I see rewriting our stories. We take a break from our travels and we look at where we’ve been and where we want to go. We map out some new roads and we plan our next adventure. If we’re doing it right… each time we loop around it should get easier. And better. And if not, we can scrap it all and start over. Edit. Cut. Rewrite. How cool is that?

That’s about all for now. I hope you enjoyed my new chapter!

Stay tuned for the next rewrite, The Author of My Life…

Coming soon!

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READ MORE POSTS IN THIS SERIES
In The Beginning
Rewriting Your Story