Most Positive Experience--"Changed My Life"

This post is not about Real Estate---and yet it is.

This post is not about love and family and friendship---and yet it is.

This post is not cute and pretty and filled with wonderful photos.

This post is about how a very ugly part of my life changed me to become the man I am today.

The "Most Positive Experience" in my life culminated in 1984 in the back of a tour bus where I overdosed from heroin/cocaine and vodka. I was pronounced DOA and then brought back to life on the way to a hospital. When I "came to" a few days later there were two shapes hovering over me and one of those shapes said : "you use again you die, for good!" And I believed him.....

For many years I lived " The Rock and Roll Life ". I looked good, got along with everyone I met, was very successful in business, had a home on the water, boat out in front, Mercedes in the garage, etc., etc....and lost it all due to my addiction to drugs and alcohol. 12 Step Programs and a few caring men helped me start my life over completely.

My Most Positive Experience occurred 22 months in recovery. For several months I took a meeting into several different drug rehab centers in Long Beach, Ca. where a couple of us would talk about our life experiences to people who were living zombies, one or two breaths away from death. It was a way of "giving back what had been freely given to me". Many months later, I was making coffee at a meeting when this beautiful young woman came up to me and said "hi; you don't remember me, do you?" I said "no, I think I would remember you".( She looked like a young Sophia Loren). She then said, "I heard you speak last year at ________, and you changed my life!" " Today I have one year clean...thank you for being there".

I was overwhelmed with joy and utterly speechless.

I will soon have 24 years clean and sober. All this means is that I live, work, and treat people I meet with the respect and care necessary to be the best man I can be on a daily basis. This "one positive moment" put me into a journey of service, faith, care and responsibility, that works for me each living day I spend on this beautiful planet. I have been thru stuff in my life that would make a nun "blush".

But some of that might be another post.....And so it goes.....