Premium cable drama aficionados will recognize the title as a quote from Rustin "Rust" Cohle; the brilliantly raw, broken, nearly burned out, yet amazing effective homicide investigator played with iconic quirkiness by Mathew McConaughey in the inaugural season of HBO's groundbreaking police procedural, True Detective.
Wow there's a lot going on in that opening sentence. I just had to read it again slowly so as to give all the descriptive adjectives their proper weight. I'm tempted to simplify but that would feel wrong some how so I'm gonna leave it as is... but I digress...
I really enjoyed the character, Rust Cohle in True Decective. He's broken but has a moral center. He uses his brokenness to do good in the world. Broken people make better murder police. "Maybe the job made me this way or maybe being this way made me right for the job" -Rust
Recovery from addiction is another of those rare occupations in which you can use your brokenness for good. You can take the things that you're most ashamed of, your worst moments and once you've survived them, you put them in a box and save them gor later. Then once in a while you get to take one of them out and use it to help someone, to ease someone's suffering.
Let me tell you the story of how that happened for me.
Tuesday July 3rd 2000 my brother in law, an unrepentant alcoholic, shot and killed himself...in front of me and my sister, his soon to be ex.
Here's the thing; I was clean and sober about 6 months when this happened. I was doing great. Good job, great set up in a new town. My sister was moving to my town, leaving her drunk husband, bringing her 2 young sons to my town so I could help raise them. I was the golden boy, the family hero. I was over the moon with joy and I was filled with schadenfreude for my drunk brother in-law.
I loved that my nephews' father was a drunk. I had been the family fuck-up for so long. His uselessness was a constant reminder of my new found super awesomeness. I reveled in his illness. I offered him only token assistance. I never reached out. I wanted him sick. It served my needs.
Even his death made me look good. It played to my strengths. I was the family rock. Took care of my sister. Even my father couldn't handle it. I was happy the brother in-law was dead, happy that he shot himself. Fuck him! Loser piece of shit. I was glad of it all. For a few days...then the adrenaline wore off. My reverse shock. Then it hit...the thought...did I help kill him?
Here's the thing; I was clean and sober about 6 months when this happened. I was doing great. Good job, great set up in a new town. My sister was moving to my town, leaving her drunk husband, bringing her 2 young sons to my town so I could help raise them. I was the golden boy, the family hero. I was over the moon with joy and I was filled with schadenfreude for my drunk brother in-law.
I loved that my nephews' father was a drunk. I had been the family fuck-up for so long. His uselessness was a constant reminder of my new found super awesomeness. I reveled in his illness. I offered him only token assistance. I never reached out. I wanted him sick. It served my needs.
Even his death made me look good. It played to my strengths. I was the family rock. Took care of my sister. Even my father couldn't handle it. I was happy the brother in-law was dead, happy that he shot himself. Fuck him! Loser piece of shit. I was glad of it all. For a few days...then the adrenaline wore off. My reverse shock. Then it hit...the thought...did I help kill him?
I know I didn't kill him but... did I contribute?
Certainly a little bit. I was not part of the solution. I did nothing to help, even worse I rooted for his failure.
It was a hard soul-searching weekend. The following Tuesday I was at my home group NA meeting and by then I was a mess. I was wracked with guilt. I had made my nephews orphans. I was the worst ever. This was the kind of thing that might make me want to get loaded.
I opened up at the meeting I shared my pain I spilled my guts and the group thanked me for sharing as they always do.
Then one of the old-timers a man I greatly respected who had very serious recovery pulled me aside and told me a story.
He said he was married a long time ago and his girst wife was blowing guys for money at a massage parlor place. she didn't want to wait for her money that day so he picked her up brought her home and then went back to get her money and then he would take her money and go buy heroin for the two of them.
He did that and when he got home he found out she'd held out on him. She had dope she didn't want to share with him. But she'd done too much and she overdosed and had died while he was picking up her blowjob money and scoring for the two of them.
At the time they were living in her parents basement she was cold, beyond saving... he was pretty sure she was dead... but before he could call the paramedics he had some business to take care of. So he sat down on the bed next to her cold dead body fixed his dope and shot up and then called the ambulance.
I love and respect this man. He is a good man in every sense of the word. That story helped me so much that day.
Certainly a little bit. I was not part of the solution. I did nothing to help, even worse I rooted for his failure.
It was a hard soul-searching weekend. The following Tuesday I was at my home group NA meeting and by then I was a mess. I was wracked with guilt. I had made my nephews orphans. I was the worst ever. This was the kind of thing that might make me want to get loaded.
I opened up at the meeting I shared my pain I spilled my guts and the group thanked me for sharing as they always do.
Then one of the old-timers a man I greatly respected who had very serious recovery pulled me aside and told me a story.
He said he was married a long time ago and his girst wife was blowing guys for money at a massage parlor place. she didn't want to wait for her money that day so he picked her up brought her home and then went back to get her money and then he would take her money and go buy heroin for the two of them.
He did that and when he got home he found out she'd held out on him. She had dope she didn't want to share with him. But she'd done too much and she overdosed and had died while he was picking up her blowjob money and scoring for the two of them.
At the time they were living in her parents basement she was cold, beyond saving... he was pretty sure she was dead... but before he could call the paramedics he had some business to take care of. So he sat down on the bed next to her cold dead body fixed his dope and shot up and then called the ambulance.
I love and respect this man. He is a good man in every sense of the word. That story helped me so much that day.
I was thinking I was this terrible horrible unredeemable human being. And my friend who is a wonderful human being shared with me that he had done something worse arguably.
But he lived through it, recovered from it, and now today is a respected member of society and a man that I, and many others love. That's powerful, that's recovery.
He shared with me what would to the outside world be a truly dark secret. But in the rooms of recovery it was just Tuesday.
I was not responsible for my brother-in-law's sobriety I'm only responsible for my own.
I could have done more and I have done more since. I have done what's referred to as 12-step work with a vengeance between then and now because of that incident in fact his death is directly responsible for the 16 year sobriety of at least one person... and that person has helped dozens of other people.
When that wonderful thoughtful man told me the story of finding his wife dead and his response to it...when he shared with me that personal Dark Secret... it lightened my load, it eased my path.
He didn't have to have experienced the exact same thing I did... he just had to be willing to share with me something that was painful that he later came to terms with and from which he eventually got better.
A sponsor once told me the purpose of life is to become of Maximum use to God and your fellow man.
I believe we make ourselves of Maximum use when we are broken in exactly the right ways so it's to fit perfectly into the hole created in the soul of another.
Our scars and jagged edges give us standing with one another. I can believe I can find shelter with someone who shows the signs of having weathered the storm themselves.
As I prepare to begin a searching and fearless moral inventory I am heartened by the knowledge that whatever is there... no matter how awful it seems to me now.... my inventory will not serve to bolster the resume of a bad person.
But rather everything both good and bad will serve to strengthen my armor and uniquely equip me for the road ahead.
My story makes me perfect to help others in a way only I can.
Without the scars without the broken pieces without the jagged edges that come from a life misspent and recovered from I'm just a blow hard telling someone what they should do.
And really can you trust someone with no scars? Somebody has never done anything wrong? Somebody with no regrets?
It's okay to be scarred, broken and battle-weary. We're stronger in the places where we mend.