The Puzzle of Life - Human Nature

A footnote to my recovery:

Personally speaking, this phenomenon called Human Nature continues to puzzle the hell out of me.

Especially when it's dealing with certain humans from the past. Humans who, except for Facebook, are no longer a part of my current life and now live many miles away.

My question to my self these days, is why do I continue to attempt to " make nice " to certain humans who do not believe that I have changed..or that I will ever change?


It also seems to me that some humans from my past seem to be happy that I am no longer around them or "their family."


So, it's a lesson that I have yet to learn.


I have to learn that doing the best I can for me and my recovery, and attempting to make amends to people from my past, isn't always going to go as planned. And that trying to be a nice guy on social media, but not in person, to a certain family of broken females, well meaning mothers and daughters that I have so-called "left behind" and continue to leave behind, is not always going to be accepted and appreciated.


Yet, it seems to me that some of their current pain is not mine to fix. And, there are some things I cannot fix. So, no matter how I see myself these days, some humans from my past will continue to see me as the guy who, for a very short time, came into their life and ruined everything.


The way I see it is certainly not the way they see it. To me, it seems I'm still an easy target for their current problems. If their life is not going well, it can still be easily blamed on someone from their past. A guy who let them down, "left them behind."


To them, I'm still a monster, or at least someone who once involuntarily hurt their feelings.

Forgiveness is out of their current reach. And they seem to enjoy that fact.

So, I guess sometimes I have to add these certain humans to my Facebook block list. And, don't get me wrong, it's not because I don't want to have contact with them, but only because they simply are not on the same page as me. And, also because I refuse to be an easy target for their current life-problems.

I guess some pieces of that old unfinished puzzle will never fit right..no longer slide easily into place. Maybe those broken and discarded pieces never did fit.


Maybe I wanted them to fit so badly, that I bent and twisted them and made them fit. And now, maybe they are so torn, damaged and twisted that they will never fit correctly?


And, if I choose to stand back and and take a good look, with clean and sober eyes, it's not a very pretty picture. Certainly not a complete picture. Not the complete family with the house and white picket fence.


Looking back, it's a puzzle made from pieces that just didn't fit.


No matter, even nearly 20 months into recovery from poisonous chemicals, I continue to fool my self by thinking that, If I just turn them a certain way, this time they will pop perfectly into place and the picture will come together beautifully.


That's my current problem.


I guess it's still my puzzle to figure out.


It's the puzzle of life...and human nature.


Thanks for reading.


~ GWM


1 / 23 / 2019

- 6:18 AM

" I'm not following your frame of mind
Complaining about this life all the time
Surely something good here as the world spins by
Could you please stop being so mean
This will never work out that's what you say
It's the end of the world again yesterday
When I see you coming at me I'm gonna walk away
You need to stop being so mean."


~ Mean - John Mellencamp

Religion is not True Freedom

Happy Holidays.

I am feeling blessed today—whatever that means, and grateful to be alive. 

However, I've never been able to pin myself down...or subscribe to any specific religion.

I hate Labels.

I don't even like the negative terminology used for people like me, Agnostic..or Atheist.

The reason being, that once I pin a religious label on my myself, metaphorically speaking, I then become a large human target.

At least that's how I would likely feel.

The Christians are at war with the Atheists, the Muslims are at war with the Christians..the Jews hate the Germans...and with good reason. 

Adolf Hitler wanted Jewish people eradicated from the earth.

I guess my point here, is that I have no desire to become a large human target for some other group to "cast the first stones" at.

Important here to note also, that I've been thoroughly schooled in religiousness by friends of Bill Wilson, (AA religiousness) and also by relatives who are fully immersed in Christianity. 

They all seem happy to glorify and dwell in the lord while ignoring the obvious divisiveness of the Baptist, Jehovah Witness, and Pentecostal churches. 

I was sent to Sunday school when I was a toddler. 

And, although I am interested in the wisdom and philosophy of all these ancient sects, it is my opinion that they all lead to heated arguments, further divisions and bad feelings..and, most of all, they all desire a large percentage of a man's hard earned wages. 

It's all about the money...it always is. 

We are all free to worship..you say?

A belief in God is not free nor is it true Freedom.

I feel that, as the great Krishnamurti once stated, "..'truth' is a pathless land and it cannot be reached by following any path."

That being said, I am following the path of Mother Nature.

I feel that following mother nature is the way to True Freedom. 

Some say that is the true God.

And that Nature is the road that leads to a full and fulfilling life.

Even if it is only "simple living."

Even if it is living toward an old age and then wilting away like an old growth pine.

At least it's a natural process.

Nature leads all living things back to dust.

And that, to me, is God.

And that, to me, is True Freedom. 

 GWM/12/27/18

Quotes from Krishnamurti: 

Quotes

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

We all want to be famous people, and the moment we want to be something we are no longer free.

I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect.

Clean and Sober - Living Guilt Free

Even though we live hundreds of miles apart—and the times that I've seen her in her short 13 years of life have been precious and few—I want my daughter to know that I love her unconditionally and instinctively.


I cannot regain any of the lost moments and special occasions that I've squandered, nor can I buy my way back into any of my children's lives through money, lawyers and family court decisions.


That would be an exercise in futility at this point.


And I also think it would do more harm than good.


However, thanks to Facebook I can maintain some second-hand contact and honestly tell them that I'm truly sorry.


AA taught me that 'Making Amends' is about being truly sober and having an honest willingness that includes ridding myself of the past—and being free of guilt.


I have lots of guilt.


The two boys are in their twenties now. And the one female is in her early teen years. So there's nearly 30 years of guilt built up.


To all three mothers, I owe you all an apology and a gesture of love and gratitude. And some also to my own mother.


I have been drug and alcohol free, clean and sober since June of 2017. My brain is taking a long time to thoroughly heal.


The pills did a real number on my mental health also..but at least my typing and writing skills have returned. (Smiles)


I still have my dream of one day writing and publishing a real book. Not just internet blogging, but something I can actually touch and feel. A hard copy. No idea yet what it will be about.


I will have Seventeen months of non-stop clean-living on Dec. 8.


At first, it was hell...sick and tired..withdrawal, guilt, remorse, self hatred...and wanting to commit suicide.


Now though, I've stopped poisoning myself with government controlled chemicals. And time does heal all things.


Sometimes I think, this feels too good to last. Usually, I've relapsed by now—but sobriety is starting to feel so good I want to stay this way.


Thanks to everyone on Facebook from Dartmouth, my former hometown, who is still following my progress on here.


I left AA, and today I am sober by finding an inner power; through mother nature, silence, looking within,and simply breathing in and out.


I will keep breathing.


Love you all.


Thanks for my life.


Garth William Macintosh.


November 27/2018 - 9:55 PM

Ramblings of an Alcoholic

I am an artist of self-destruction, suicidal sometimes, yet I am also a lover of life.

A student of  my life.

One who has learned from 50 + years of experiences, that, in the end, as in the beginning, win or lose, we are all cut from the same perishable cloth, and likewise, all destined to have the same meager possessions when we leave this world.

We all get a shiny slab of polished granite carefully placed above a manicured six foot hole in the ground. 

This is the extent of what I know for certain, the rest is like an unread novel. One that I will read once and then pass along.

So, that being said, why do so many of us focus our entire day on goals and financial gain?

As the greatest writer who ever lived, William Shakespeare, once stated so eloquently, and I will paraphrase, what comes between the date of our birth and the hour of our demise is known to no-one. At least not until it has been played out upon the stage of life. 

We think we have hope, but hope is a mistake, an illusion. Too smart for our own good, we go on kidding ourselves that we are living the good life, when in fact, we spend most days dreaming of an unattainable future.

I am a skeptic and a pessimist who dreams of one day writing pages and pages of terrific tales of war and peace, like Tolstoy, just not that famous.

In truth, I am an alcoholic and drug addict of the lowest form.

I have hurt hundreds of people with my words and my actions, and if I could indeed kill myself, I would do it in an instant. 

Unfortunately however, at age 56, I am alive and well, and sentenced to live out the rest of my life on a tiny peninsula located on the Southern tip of an eastern Canadian province. A final breath of fresh-salt-air in what has been nothing more than a life of depression and despair . 

I'm hoping that when the end does finally come, it will be swift and painless. Perhaps, in his famous ballad called 'The Gambler' the folk singer Kenny Rogers was right. The best that we can hope for is to die in our sleep.

Thanks for reading my weekly dark thoughts, My writing skills that were apparent to some, ten years ago, seem to be returning quickly. I may have once again found a voice and a desire to be real—and if my uneventful life is all I can muster to jot down at this moment, then so be it.

My drug and alcohol soaked brain is seeming to be finally repairing itself day by day. 

I will write more soon. The choice to read this depressing garbage is entirely yours.

~ Garth MacIntosh

Suicidal Thinking

Just sharing this: I felt terribly depressed yesterday for no apparent reason..except the recent bout of heat and humidity and my asthma condition, which—even here, close to the ocean, sometimes makes breathing a struggle.

I begin to romanticize. Thinking that my life has been a waste of everybody's time..including mine. Funny, but not funny. Because when the human brain doesn't get enough oxygen, or too much oxygen, it can play tricks..and cause suicidal thoughts.

Especially now, early in my sobriety, as I have written here in previous posts, without drugs or booze to calm me, sober 14 months in August, these thoughts are a common thing—but not bad enough to cause me to go back to the hell I came out of.

So, if I don't focus on my breathing, and slow my mind down..I can quickly get anxiety attacks, make the wrong decisions, and into trouble mentally.

From that point, from my past history of relapse, it's tough to say what could happen.

I might just say, to myself, fuck it ! the movie is over, and  now I must leave this cold and empty theater of life through the nearest door I can find. Perhaps the first one I see with a lighted Exit sign flashing above it.

That's exactly what irrational and suicidal thinking is like for me.

It comes in waves, and nearly drowns me with it's sudden presence and furious anger.

And when it leaves, like the falling of a full moon tide, it leaves me on the cold dry sandy beach, alone and afraid.

We addicts have been told by Jiddu Krishnamurti, Eckhart Tolle and other Meditation experts, in their books and videos, that deep breathing and crazy thinking cannot happen simultaneously..the brain can't do both at once.

So, when I focus on my breathing it brings me back to the reality of the present moment, and out of the fantasy of killing my useless self.

Escaping from stupid thoughts is sometimes a struggle, but writing these little blog posts is very cathartic. And it helps me tremendously.

So thanks for reading. I hope I have explained the process that my mind takes in it's constant struggle to stay alive, sane, and most of all clean and sober.
~
"Everything is eventual. Change happens every second. Change for the better can happen as fast as change for the worse. It's just a matter of holding on until it passes."

 ~ Garth MacIntosh - Outlaw_mann on Twitter / July 27 / 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rOiW_xY-kc

Conspiracy Theories

Wolves are one of my favorite animals.

They remind me of humans...only much more authentic.

Wolves are the real deal.

Like other predators, including mankind, they're best approached and observed, at least at first, from a very safe distance.

Do they even know that they're beautiful, these wolves who scare the hell out of anything they encounter?

Wolves are social-pack-animals that only kill in order to eat and survive another day.

And—what about those fairy tales ?

The ones we were told in those bedtime childhood myths?

Tall tales that we were force-fed and conditioned to believe.

Like the one about the little girl with the Red Hood?

Or the three little innocent piggies who were eaten by the big bad wolf?

Is any of that stuff true?

Certainly not.

It's more likely that our sick parents, who were once traumatized by their parents, decided to repeat the offence on us. 

Which, by the way, didn't help us a bit in understanding nature's wonderful complexities or the beautiful-creatures which dwell on the hidden surfaces of this planet. 

Wolves are just like all of us other earthlings who are trying to find something good to eat so we can live another day and they are not intentionally trying to cause problems for humans. We are as much trespassers in their world, as they are in ours. 

For me, it's very simple to see the world in a holistic way. One that tells me we are obviously all, including wolves and other mythical beasts from childhood, a part of a greater whole..sadly most people do not.

I believe that, due to being told myths and fairy tales at such an impressionable age and so early in our brain's development, most people, either consciously or unconsciously, fear anything that has sharp teeth and lives in forested areas or oceans.

I realize that it's not a good practice to place blame on something. But as an Atheist, I also blame religion, Christianity mostly—which I feel goes polar opposite and contrary to mother nature in almost every aspect.

After all, what is the Bible if not a book of middle eastern fairy tales for adults?

What ever your beliefs are, real or fictional, conspiracy or otherwise, I want to tell you that I do have the utmost of respect for you and your personal beliefs.

Although I hope you do not pass along or project your belifs upon your children. They are born, as we all are, with a built in bullshit detector. And let's not mess with that.

 And as the famous quote, which has been falsely attributed to the great philosopher, Voltaire once stated: " Even though I may not agree with what you say, I will defend  to the death your right to say it."

Thanks for reading.

Check out this interesting video below from one of the greatest thinkers of all time.

What is Religion?

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULaiDcHPlJg

He Who Fights Monsters

All Churches will hopefully someday be abandoned.


They are much more beautiful looking like relics of some lost and forgotten age.


An age when small innocent children were indoctrinated into a cult-like following and then molested with impunity by Priests who hid behind the cross for protection.


They called them Alter Boys, Choir Boys, but they were actually easy prey for the corrupt Catholic Church.


An age when Honest People were brainwashed into believing that, depending on how much of their salary they gave, they would be exalted into the sky after death and land in some sort of afterlife paradise called Heaven.


The sad part is that most churches are not abandoned, and forms of asinine religious beliefs still rule the United States Government, and their pathetic voting process.


A process where the end result has recently seen a dictator, an oppressor, a glorified Real Estate agent being thrust into power by ignorant humans. - Garth MacIntosh


"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." ~ Nietzsche

Grand Canyon Prison Blues

In the late fall of the year 2000, while Autumn leaves were falling, I was separated from my wife.

Also, I was constantly drunk, popping Hillbilly Heroin or (Oxycodone) and hanging-out in the filthiest places, namely, Country Music Bars called "Whisky's" and " Little Nashville."

Late one chilly-night, drunk out of my skull, I got picked up staggering along in the middle of a street called Wyse Road in Dartmouth. Locked away for being intoxicated in a public place.

I guess I put up quite a fight before being battered and beaten by the city cops and thrown in the Drunk Tank. 

The next morning I woke up in a freezing-cold Halifax Jail cell and was told that I was not going anywhere except to the local court house.

I was charged with assaulting two police officers, and resisting arrest to which I pleaded guilty and was subsequently sentenced to one year at the old (torn down now) Sackville Correctional Center, located, or "tucked away" I should say, behind a forested area in the suburbs called Cobequid Road. 

I was friends with a beautiful young lady at the time, and when I called her from the Jail to tell her what had happened, and to ask if she would be there for me when I got out, she started singing a song that I'd never heard before, called "There is no Arizona."

And then she Laughs hysterically, and informs me to turn on the country music station, listen to the words of the song and I would have the answer to all my questions. 

Needless to say, but I will say it anyway, my beautiful mystery lady wouldn't accept anymore phone calls from me while I was locked-up.

And when I was released, she had moved. 

I haven't seen her since. 

Maybe she lives in Arizona. However, that place does not exist for me. I will never go there. 

No Painted Desert, no Sedona, no Grand Canyon, and certainly no Arizona.

Thanks for reading.

~ Outlaw Mann

Jamie O'neal- There is no Arizona. This song is for you know who you ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_vJcr3al48

The Freedom of Kanye

The term "Free Thinking" has been in the news of late.

My Personal Philosophy is that "Free Thought" is the ability to not play "follow the leader" for adults. Not being led around by the nose by a group of so-called Peers.

Free thinking is just that. It is mine and mine alone. Free of any and all outside influences; such as religious conditioning, or 12 step programming.

If I am following your lead, then it suggests to me that my way of thinking is somehow severely flawed. Or else why would I need to follow your way of thinking? I was born with my own brain, I have no real use or application with someone else's.

To tell you about the Author here, I am a recovering alcoholic. One who attended, with very little success, for the past 25 years, the program of AA. As a result, I saw and I learned many opposing views from most of the other members I came into contact with.

I was eventually ostracized. And, because I questioned their Big Book, I was told I was "mentally incapable of grasping the Program of AA."  A slogan, which, by the way, is the exact wording in their AA Big Book.

It is now my opinion, that these People who have been conditioned and "programmed" by AA, may in fact be sober and happy, but they are in no way mentally free. They remain locked up inside their individual Mental Prisons.

Least of all are they free thinkers who are practicing their own free thought. Instead, they peruse and skim over the Big Book, adding their own interpretations where needed. Mostly to fit their Guru agenda. Next, they get programmed; and in the 12th and final step, they are told to go on a mission or missionary quest to bring other drunks and addicts into the fold. 

Day after boring Day they manage to stay sober while they memorize the ancient 1939 text and repeat after Bill Wilson; rinse and repeat. In my opinion, certain members are merely practicing a Christian religion of sorts. Or else repeating a mantra and thus programming themselves to think like Christians.

For example: They demand in a not-so-subtle way, that one should eventually acquire a belief in something outside of their own flawed selves.."a higher power." This will, I am told, save me from going to jail again. 

It might also, if I happen to be a Mother, help me get my kids back and maybe just maybe keep me from getting high or drunk again. A higher power, or a belief in a higher power, they tell me, can do all that and more. Ah, but here's the catch. I need to follow someone first, a "Sponsor."

I also need to constantly go to meetings and hear the same nonsense repeated day after day...and I dare not complain either, or I am told I am without Gratitude. A Sin, in their eyes.

If I do all that, well it's then, and only then, that I "GET" the program; or something.

Who knows? Just like the Christian concept of a reward in Heaven opposed to the Hell of getting Drunk, AA has a list of 12 promises—which is also found in the Big Book.

As for their humble opinion of me?


Well, "Garth doesn't get the program."


Q: How often did I hear that?


A: Too damned many times to count.


Well you're damn right I don't get whatever it is I'm supposed to get. Or maybe I do get it. And I am appalled and repelled by the lack of inner strength that some (not all) of these mental weaklings seem to have.

I feel I can judge them now, because I was one of those Mental Weaklings.

What's absent there, in AA, is a Nietzschean philosophy; one that's pretty obvious to me. The "Will to Power." Or having one's own mind and having the power to free your mind from the societal conditioning that it has been trapped in since birth and early youth.

My thinking was once so corrupted that I was told that I needed other AA members to do my thinking for me.

That may have been true at first..but some of us do get physically and mentally better. And when I got well, I took a look around and saw others stuck in the victim mode.

Following the guru's latest suggestions, no matter how asinine and ludicrous, seemed like an avenue toward another disastrous relapse for me..and it was. And I did, time after time.

So, I thought that one thing is for sure here; If I don't want to get a watered down form of Christianity programmed into my brain, I had better start questioning this new environment.

Thanks to a few AA members, who were on the same page as me in life, I opened my eyes, or should I say, they helped me open my own eyes. And you might already know what I am about to say.

Yes, I'm on the same page as the great Kanye West. And if he is saying what I think he's saying, then he's right. It isn't a racial thing. It has no color. It isn't white or black slavery. It's a "Mental" form of slavery, and the truth is that it is only acceptable when one is asleep.

Kanye talked about the little girl who was having loads of fun jumping and playing on the coffee table until her Auntie, who she didn't like, came and yelled at her to stop and pointed out that it was a table she was jumping on.

The childhood undeveloped brain will interpret this episode later in life as: " I am bad and I should not be having fun." The conditioning and programming for this little girl may have started right then and there.

I can guarantee you she will remember the episode until death..especially any time she is carefree. The memory will come back and hit her like a brick. Adult humans are the only animals who form loving relationships and physical attachments to material things. Kids just have fun.

Also, this thing where we always want the greener grass in the neighbor's yard instead of our own well trimmed lawn, which is exactly the same color. After we become awakened, we see how crazy our thinking is. And we change it. Now it's no longer acceptable to try and be clones of someone else. Or to continue to play, "I hate me, so now I wanna be you."

We all have our own persona; it's the one we were programmed into when we were toddlers. And most times it is not our own. It is the hand me down mental programming from generations long gone.

The conditioning and programming of our youth is best administered into us when we are too young to know better. It can be called childhood mental slavery. And some children get programmed more than others.

These unfortunate children get broken mentally beyond repair. They grow up and learn to hate any type of authority. School becomes a trigger for their pain. And, if they choose to pull that trigger, as a result, some become mass murderers.

If then, we choose to stay in that mental state, it is, as Mr. West so eloquently said, very much a "choice."

My buddy, Mister D, once said it best, " We either Stay asleep, or wake the f**k up. But we can't do both."

So I choose to "Stay Woke."

Thank you for reading this.

GWM

My Opioid Overdose Diary

"He who is not busy being born is busy Dying" ~ Bob Dylan.



Last June, nearly a year ago, at age 55, I was given up for dead.

I  was at the Dartmouth General—tubes down my throat, intravenous, interstitial, etc. etc...my heart had stopped and subsequently had been jump-started again by the staff physicians.  My family were called.

And now, 11 months later, I feel reborn, clean and sober and willing to tell everyone who will listen, what works and what doesn't work.

The heart beat that nearly stopped for ever, goes on and on once more. I have also once again found my voice.

You see, it seems I had once again purposely overdosed by swallowing a handful of Opioids. The brand name doesn't matter, the content is all the same. Pain Killers, the illegal kind, in pill form. If that wasn't enough, I had quickly washed them down with 2 large bottles of Listerine Gold.

I then proceeded to calmly walk out of my apartment at 203, 3, Farthington Place.

I remember taking a long cool breath of crisp Dartmouth air before turning left onto Brule Street, and suddenly everything went Dark. Someone from a nearby Transition House saw me collapse and quickly called the Ambulance who were followed by Police.

I woke up in the most uncomfortable position, flat on my back, strapped to a rock-hard hospital bed. My father, Charles Sr., was sitting in a chair to my left. The 78 year old guy told me there and then that I was finished and he was finished. The bell had sounded. The 12th round was over and the self-hatred fight within me was now over for good. He politely said that 27 years of beating myself to a pulp in the twin Cities of Halifax and Dartmouth was long enough. I was going back to the place of my birth, located on the southern tip of the province of Nova Scotia,Canada.

This old man, my father, who had once contributed to some of my long ago pain, was now my savior. He gathered up what was left of me, placed me in the passenger seat of his Dodge Pick-up, and brought me back here—back to the tiny fishing Village of Lockeport.

I was busy dying back then, now I'm busy Living. It's early in my awakening—that I do realize. But my eyes are fully open. And even though I am not in that moment, there doesn't seem to be any mountains to climb in this one. So I will stay in this rather than that. I hope you understand my meaning here. It's important not to allow my thoughts to roam into a future that hasn't yet arrived.

I'm Grateful for what I've learned from the 27 years of creating my own private "Heaven and Hell." One which included Jails, Institutions, and AA meetings. Yet, I no longer want any part of that life..because even the life of being an AA member has its drawbacks, if one allows it.

For example, Love and Tolerance, although it is always preached in the rooms of AA, is seldom practiced. They also preached, but seldom practiced, that if one should trudge along on some invisible but omnipotent and powerful path, and listen closely to the token "Guru of the Month" who just happens to have years of questionable sobriety, and even more questionable credibility, you may, just may, stay sober.

In my case, I was too old and too tired and damaged to listen to anyone. Especially a load of Bill Wilson disciples (although they won't admit that) whose literature hadn't been updated in 80 years.

I knew that I somehow had to find "Me"..and then, and only then, I would find the illusive so-called "god of my understanding." I found out later, that the search was from the inside outward, not the other way around, as they had tried but failed to instill in me.

I already had all the built in tools for finding out who I was and what made me tick, I didn't need their 12 step programming. I had been programmed my entire life. I needed to be deprogrammed.

All I needed was 12 months of fresh air and meditation..soul searching in the solitude of nature.

I went walking along the local beach—strolling along on the smooth white sand—while the roar of the rugged North Atlantic played a natural symphony for me and my shaky footsteps in the background.

Then, in late Autumn, I went Deer hunting with bow and arrow. With no plans to hunt, only to find a quiet place to sit and reflect on the how and why of it all. To make a new friend to this so called "Self." This material body and psychological mind.

I meditated inwardly about the totality of brain and brawn. The Alcohol and foreign chemicals that I had poisoned myself with for years, were suddenly were no match my new and healthy thoughts and freshly oxygenated brain. And the human philosophy that makes us want to name-tag everything disappeared. Nothing had a man-given or god given name-tag. It simply"Was." And I was part of it. A being not a doing.

The name given to me by my mother at birth no longer held any significance. 

The Ego that was continuously whispering for me to get drunk or high was no-longer there. 

Garth and MacIntosh were just two words assigned to me without my choosing. 

In hindsight I could have been called "Outlaw" and it would have been much more fitting.

I'm suppose to refer to myself as an alcoholic and an addict. But is that who or what I really am? 

Does that truly define me?  We are those humans who hated ourselves at one time, and had no voice, and no one who would truly listen without prejudice. We are now ready to shout to the rafters about the importance of staying chemical free. Of free thinking, and freedom of thought, which, in my opinion, is true freedom.

" I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect." - Jimmu Krishnamurti