Blake

So yeah, it’s been so long since I posted here that I almost forgot of this blog’s existence till another former JL’er hit me up through another avenue on these internets….

Anyway, if anyone is still out there, my life is a beautiful thing these days. I wake up with a smile on my face most mornings. I am currently living and working in manhattan at one of the city’s few nyt 4 star/ 3 michellin star restaurants. It has been a tough but very fulfilling job that is sadly coming to an end in a couple of weeks (have to go back to school and finish up my degree). I am still clean and if I make it 10 more days I’ll have 3 full years completely free of any form of dope. I feel like a completely different person than I was when I started blogging here….the only thing constant in life is change…this fact used to scare me, scare me so much that I was content to live the same junk fulled day over and over into oblivion rather than face it, nothing changes when your master is junk, you wake up and get straight then you spend the rest of the day finding and doing as much dope as you can…it never changes.

My life is all about change, last year at this time I was living in louisiana selling insurance, now I’m in manhattan learning the finer aspects of haute pastry, if you would have told me this 4 years ago I would have told you that you were fucking crazy (and probably then I’d steal your wallet) if you told me today that in 2 years I’ll be living in switzerland making toy clocks with hand carved horses, I’d consider it quite possible….who the fuck knows where or what any of us will be in 2 years, and does it really matter? Do I have any regrets? Not a single one! Every thing I have done in my life has come together to make me the Blake I am today and I love that person and learn more about him everyday.

Dope doesn’t define my life anymore. The greatest testament to this is that people have a hard time believing me when (and if, since it happens less and less often nowadays) I tell them I used to be a junky. My roommate flat out denied it for a solid week till I showed her some of my old pictures I had in storage…my coworkers think that I’m a closet mormon since I don’t drink or do any drugs even though I’ve told them time and time again in very loose language that it’s because “I partied to much as a kid”, they just cant see it….which I take as a huge compliment since back in the day, people would cross the street rather than pass a dirty junky like me if I was out and about.

I haven’t been to an NA meeting in about 6 months. I have nothing against NA and my hiatus is not a permanent one (I don’t think) but the goal of recovery is to “live and enjoy life without the use of drugs” which is what I’m doing on a daily basis. NA taught me many valuable things, things that have allowed me the ability to choose not to get loaded for some time now. NA taught me the importance of living in the now, the power of choice, the fact that I have a set of personal values that I have a duty to uphold at the consequence of self loathing, and most importantly NA showed me proof that an addict, ANY ADDICT, can stop using, lose the desire to use and find a new way to live…I count myself in that number. There was a time when I needed to go to a meeting everyday so that I wouldn’t use and on those days NA was there for me. I’ve made life long bonds with people in NA that I stay in close contact with, not because I need to to stay clean, but because I love them and care about them and trust them, they are the true friends I always longed for. NA will allways be close to my heart (especially since I have it tattooed there) but I don’t need the meetings to stay clean anymore.

This blog has played a role in my recovery also, sometimes it felt as if I could be more open and honest here than anywhere else in the whole world, and for that I am greatful, especially to bi11i for creating this place and dealing with the egomaniacs that all drug addicts (and I suspect most humans in general) are on the inside. I think I am pretty much done here though, I don’t consider myself a junky anymore and I don’t define myself as living a junkylife. I thank everyone that has followed me through my journey and sent me all the emails and posted all the comments over the years, you all have played a part in who I am and I will look fondly on my time spent as a JL blogger.

If you are out there and you are using and want to stop, it is possible…..it’s fucking hard, but very possible and so so worth it.

Peace and chicken grease,
Blake

Pimpassed Dolce & Gabbana glasses at that!

Anyway, I’m about to start my last week of “b-block” classes on monday and I have a ton of shit to do. It’s very managable but it’s gonna be a lot of work. School is going great though, if I pull off this last week I can easily walk away with straight A’s…fucking amazing, huh?

A cool, but kinda sad thing happened last week. I went to the cafe they have on campus for dinner and I ran into some dudes from class there. They were all drinking and offered me some beer; when I said no, one of them joking around asked what step I was on and without hesitation I said “4″…he kinda chuckled and said that he was just kidding but that that was cool and how the 4th step was his favorite step when he used to be clean…which kinda took me by supprise. Come to find out he had 2 years clean at one time and another dude there had 4 and a half…kinda ironic, kinda sad…both of the guys are cool as shit, but they are severly slacking in class…especilly the dude that had 4. He missed or left early out of like 5 classes last week. I was smoking one day with him and he went on about how this other dude in our class has a severe problem with getting loaded and how the dude needs to go to a meeting and how sure he was doing just as much coke as that guy but he could “handle it”…I just knda went along with what he was saying and told him that if the dude wanted to hit a meeting, I’d take him….it’s sad, but I see a train wreck comming and I hope that he makes it through and doesn’t flunk out or anything, he’s a good guy…just losing control.

On a happy note, I went home a couple weeks ago and got to visit with my family and friends. A bunch of us went out to this awesome restaurant in NOLA called Jacques-Imo’s b/c I had a homework assignment to do a restaurant review (cool homework, huh?). I got to stay with my grandmother all weekend and even though she is in horrible shape, I got to be there for her to let her know that it’s okay to feel shitty and that it’s okay to cry and miss pawpaw….things I learned in NA….and that this too shall pass.

BTW, I forgot to post this b/c I was in the middle of moving, but on 2/10/07 I made 2 years clean….CRAZY SHIT for someone that didn’t think it was possible to make 2 weeks at one point…if I can do it, so can you….

off to do some homework….

later,

blake

So last week sucked gigantic monkey balls. First my grandfather died and on the day of his funneral I got food poisoning (or as I have learned in my food safety class, a “food borne illness”) or a stomach virus or something. I was up from 10PM on thursday till noon on friday just throwing up about every 30 minutes. I missed class friday and spent most of saturday in my bed. When I did get up saturday afternoon I went over to a dude I met up here in NA’s house and I made a pot of gumbo for him and a few other addicts…It deffinately wasn’t my best pot of gumbo and if I had made it back home I would have probably thrown it away (I made the roux way way too light) but to these yankees, it was devine!

Anyway, this week has been going a lot better. No one has died and I am not throwing up. I have aced the few tests I have taken so far and I am current with all my homework and reading. I even had to take a make up quiz from one of the classes I missed friday that was essay form instead of the multiple choice eveyone else got and I smoked it 19/20. School is tough, but very doable. I have 5 classes this “block” which lasts 6 weeks, they are: Writing, Food Safety, Intro to Gastronomy, Product Knowledge and Culinary Math. That would be a pretty heavy schedule at any college, 15 hours in a semester is a good number, but here we only have 6 weeks to finish them which means lots of homework, reading and tests in a short short period of time…I’m keeping up so far though…

A couple of cool things going on this week are firstly, I’m getting my whites thursday and also on thursday Duff Goldman from the tv show “Ace of Cakes” is gonna be on campus doing a Q&A session. He was a graduate from here in 98 and is back to give the commencement address at the graduation this friday. I’m pretty stoked about it, he is doing exactly what I want to do once I graduate (minus the TV thing) and I’m gonna try to see if he takes on externs since I have to find a place by october. Also this is a 3 day weekend comming up so I am flying home saturday morning and comming back monday afternoon…so I’ll get to see my grandmaw and all my friends.

As low as I was feeling last week, I knew there was allways hope. Thats one of the greatest gifts NA has given me, the abillity to hold on to hope, no matter what is going on around me…it’s a great thing.

Thanks for all the kind words and emails, I appreciate it.

My grandfather died last night and it sucks pretty bad right now. I knew it was comming but the actual shock of it happening is pretty fucking rough. He died at 12:30 central time and the wierd thing is that for no good reason I woke up out of a dead sleep at 1:30 last night…I practically jumped out of bed….

The wake is tomorrow night and the funeral is thursday…in louisiana…and I am in new york…….the school I am at doesn’t excuse absences at all for any reason including hospitalization and death in the family….I don’t really care about that, I’d leave if it were possible, but a flight out of jfk on such short notice is like 600 bucks that I don’t have b/c my house doesn’t close till friday……..Now would be a time that I would get fucked up to the point of unconsiousness in the past, but I choose not to do that today. I don’t get loaded no matter what happens in my life. Even if I’m stuck in NY and have to miss my favorite grandfathers funeral….

On another note, I’ve been to a few meetings up here and the people are really cool and caring….I need a meeting pretty bad right now and can’t wait till tomorrow night…it’ll feel good to get to a safe place where people understand just how hard it is for an ddict like me to lose someone and not go get loaded over it…..till then I have all my NA family from back home calling me and checking in on me about every 30 minutes and it feels good to be loved like that.

So pawpaw, where ever you are, I and very sorry I’m stuck up here but I think you know that and I love you very much….now at least the pain has stopped for you…and I’ll see you again one day…..

I’m tired now…sorry for the shitty, disjointed post….I just had to write something….

Thanks for all the words of encouragement yall left me on my last post.

So I’m getting all prepared for the big move. I had a garage sale last weekend and I sold pretty much everything except a few articles of clothing which I am bringing to goodwill tomorrow. I even sold my big screen TV for 2 grand….I didn’t think I had a snowball’s chance in hell of selling that before I moved. With the money I brought in on it, I bought a brand new, kick ass MacBook! I am typing on it right now, it is taking some getting used to as I have been a windows person all my life…but I am really digging it, it’s alot more intuitive and less complicated.

Also at the garage sale, one of my old roommates stopped by with his new wife. I kicked him out when I got clean and he trashed my house before he left, so I had a pretty big resentment against the dude. Anyway, shortly after I kicked him out he decided he had had enough with the dope life and joined the millitary to get clean. (Definately wouldn’t be my choice of how to do it) He went to boot camp and kicked. He was on active service for 15 months and in that time he met a girl and got married and had a kid. He’s still clean and when he stopped by he thanked me for kicking him out. He told me he was in the market for a house since he had moved back to the area and loved mine so much that he wanted to make an offer on it………after some haggleing we made a deal and he is buying my house!!!!!!! I had to come off 10 grand from my asking price, but monday I found out that I owed 8 grand less than I thought I did and I also talked the realtor into dropping the commision 2% so in the long run I’m gonna make even more than I thought I was going to.

Life is going well…everything seems like it is lining up in a row for my move and it feels so right. I am getting a little nervous, especially tonight after a friend came and picked up the couches I gave her which were the last peice of furniture in my house. I sat on the floor in my living room and just took it all in, staring at the emptiness of my house made it feel more real than it has so far….nervous and excited and scared and faithful….

I also got a new tattoo about a week and a half ago. I got it done best tattoo artist in Louisiana, possibly the whole south, Randy Muller at Eye Candy in New Orleans. I told him that I wanted a tattoo that screamed “I’m from Louisiana bitches!!!!!” since I was moving to yankee country….and this is what he came up with:

Pretty awesome, huh? It’s a fleur de lis with some mardi gras beads and a king cake baby….I really love the baby, it looks exactally like the one he got out of his king cake. He even put shadows from the beads falling on the fleur de lis…..The dude is fucking amazing!!!!!!

I have really really been slacking on this blog, sorry. My life has been quite hectic with preperations for my quickly approching move date.

I move on Feb. 9th… 2 years to the day from the last time I did any dope. It’s funny how it worked out like that…completely changing my life 2 years from the last time I completely changed my life. I’m a bundle of nerves and have somewhat mixed emotions about it all. On one hand I am giving up the American dream, 3br 2 bath house with a 2 car garage, safe office job with tons of security and a promising future, a network of friends that would walk with me through hell if I asked them to, a family that finally loves, trusts and respects me, a sense of comfort and peace and tranquility. On the other hand I am gaining an opprotunity to follow a dream, a chance to make it on my own, a sense of self accomplishment, a new career with a clean slate, a chance to make right all my wasted chances and false starts, the wonderful and scary unkown.

I am scared and excited. I could move up there and find my true calling in life, I could move up there and realize I hate it, I could move up there and not be able to cut it, I could move up there and graduate first in my class, I could move up there and fuck up and end up strung out on the streets of NYC. So many possibilities, it feels like I’m standing at a crossroads, the biggest one I have yet come to and it’s all on me now. It’s all up to what I decide to do. There are no musts, there is no outside pressure, there is no safety net, I control my destiny and for the first time in my life, I feel completely and totally free…and that is better than any drug I have ever done.