Nothing is Free

There is a quote by someone I heard or read somewhere that goes something like this:

"You pay for it all.  Every drink, every drug, every love.  Nothing is free"

I think it was a musician (or possibly an author, famous in the 60's because I remember referring to him as a "hippie-guy"), who was dying of some type of drug or alcohol or tobacco related Cancer...and I think it was on NPR....or possibly in Rolling Stone.  I searched for it once and found it and then lost it again so I apologize to whomever the guy was who said it.  You are probably long dead now....as you were really close then and I hope it was a peaceful transition.

It could be that I have the quote wrong by a word or two, but how I have written it above is how I have held onto it and it is in this form that it has become the foundation for the second half of my life.  It is what I thought about this morning when I got called to drug test for the third time in less than a week.  Well....it wasn't the first thing.  The first thought was in the form of the self-righteous, ego-ridden anger that has fueled me for so much of my life but that dissipated almost immediately and was replaced by that hippie-guy's quote and the humility that I am in fact due to be called as often as the universe sees fit.

It took me a long time to figure this out.  To figure out that my probation with the Board; the drug testing, blue cards, quarterly reports, etc. has little to do with the one DUI that I got five years ago and everything to do with all of the things that I never got caught for.  The Board probably doesn't  know that either. Nor do they likely care.  They have me on probation for their own reasons....liability, consumer protection, statistics. I don't have any illusion that they have me on probation because they give a fuck about me evolving. But my higher power does.  The Universe does. I do.

Here is the truth.  The honest stuff.  I did really bad shit for a lot of years for a long time.  I only got caught once.  And while I spent a lot of time fighting against what seemed like an unfair and never ending punishment at the hands of a Board that seemed to want to unjustly crucify me (poor little Megan), in my recovery I have come to recognize that in looking at it like this, I hadn't really learned a god damn thing.  I spent years as a meth-addict lying, stealing and breaking laws.  I never got caught.  When I got clean it was like some sort of fantasy.  My parents took me in....in their ocean front house in Oregon and took care of me like a child until I could care for myself.  I work with drug addicts now and trust me....treatment, if you can get it, is a bit more rough around the edges for most people.  Furthermore, I drank alcoholically for a long time and continued to drink even after I got the DUI.  I lied to people.  I minimized.  I did what addicts do when they are trying to live two versions of the same life and while I finally did have some consequences.....it could have been and probably should have been so much worse.

Your life choices find you.  They catch up to you in the weirdest ways sometimes.  When I look around at the shape that my life has taken it is always in awe of the influence the choices I made when I was younger have on me today.  Particularly around substances.  My body is older than it should be.....my kids are imaginary....the first person I call in the morning is an automated man who gets to determine my day. The choices that I have now, that will influence the rest of my life will be influenced by these past choices as well.  It never ends.  I am being held accountable.  But, finally I am evening my own score and grateful to have the opportunity to do it.  I am paying for it all.  Every drink.  Every drug.  Every love.  And trust me, nothing is nor should it be, Free.