Have you ever watched a feel good movie and felt better about yourself and your life afterwards? I did just tonight. I watched a movie called "Fishbowl California", a movie I knew absolutely nothing about, and it lifted my spirits and gave me some peace of mind. The story is seemingly ordinary about the life of a man battling cheating girlfriend, unemployment, homelessness, and plain old bad luck. I felt like I could relate to the main character and have experienced much of the same issues that he was. He met an older woman that challenged him, and in the long run changed his life. As I said it was a feel good movie, with everyday challenges and life issues, but throughout the comedy/drama you began to feel something for the characters and were pulled into the story along with the pain that each one was feeling. It isn't every day that a film comes along and makes me feel the way this one did.
In the story the main character suffered from being homeless, aimless, and having no thoughts other than himself, yet along the way he runs into a tough older woman, with a gruff exterior and tender interior that she hides from everyone including herself and her daughter. You find out that she is sick and possibly dying, in mourning for her husband who has passed and has finally given up on living and is just existing day by day. She is a drunk and has a tough exterior, she takes no bull from anyone yet has a kind heart. Our main character is caught stealing from her and she puts him to work, fixing up the house and cleaning up the yard. Pressure from her daughter to take better care of herself and to get some help. In an attempt to do that she lets the guy stay with her, but he starts to understand that her drinking is a form of avoidance from life and her illness. The daughter appeals to the young man to help her make sure that the mother starts taking her medication daily. This causes a rift in the household and the old lady throws the young man out.
She starts regretting how she treated the young man and begins taking care of herself and stops drinking totally. Within a couple weeks go by and the young man comes by the house to see how the lady is doing only to find that a memorial service is going on. Thinking that the lady has passed away he starts talking about how the woman helped him find himself and took a chance on him when no one else would. This turns out to be a joke and he passes out. When he wakes up he finds that she had decided to give her old self a funeral. She had decided to put her house up for sale and move to Hawaii, apparently the ocean air will be good for her health. As such she decided to give something to the young man who had inadvertently helped her give up drinking and changed her life for the better.
This story reminds me so much of something I wrote a lot about in earlier blog posts about not knowing where a casual conversation will lead you, or how your interactions with someone might benefit them in some way that you couldn't have foreseen. Life is like that in so many ways, we don't know who is looking at us or why. Others might find hope or inspiration in how you are living your life, or could be gaining strength from your struggles. I would like to remind each of us to live as an example for others to follow. Believe in yourself, and know that everyone out there is going through something. You are not struggling alone, and there are people out there who see you. You may not even know them. Others might find inspiration in your life, your story and your struggles. You might be helping people without even being aware of it. Everything you do has far reaching effects on those around you and the environment in which you life.
Take the time to talk to strangers, introduce yourself too them, tell them your story. You might be just the thing that they need to help them get to the next step or progress past an issue that is heavy for them. You never know but each of us has come through so much, done things that others have been afraid to do and we have grown from our efforts. Others, can benefit from you in small or even big ways if you just take the time to express yourself to them. I have often been accused of never meeting a stranger and that is partly true. Every opportunity I get I talk to others about the things that I have been through, my illnesses, my victories and even my defeats. I talk to them about my struggles with addiction and depression and I try to help others by writing my story in my blog. I want people around me to see hope, to gain inspiration and joy from getting to know me. I hope to be someone that helps others around me and teach them how to be the same for those that look to them.
My dad has told me that I can't save everyone, that I have to be smart about how I go about helping other people, and that I shouldn't let them take advantage of me. Sometimes, I get to involved and wrapped up in myself that I don't even notice when someone is using me or trying to take advantage, so I have started distancing myself. But I have begun to see how many people look at my life and they are trying to better themselves by using my examples to help themselves around the issues that plague them. This is a form of helping and is a by product of merely just living my life the best way that I know how.
For many years I led people into the drug world and at times that I thought I was helping them, I was actually enabling them to continue in their abuse and addiction. Only by walking away from the scene myself and encouraging others to do so have I truly been a help. I may have provided a safe warm place that they could indulge themselves, but I wasn't really helping like I thought I was. I have taken so many people off of the streets, and thought I was giving them a chance to better themselves and help them get off of drugs, but what was really happening was I was allowing them to continue in their habit without recourse or consequence to their actions. The weren't on the streets anymore I was providing them with housing, food, and often times more drugs. In effect I was keeping myself surrounded by similar types of people so I didn't feel so guilty about what I was doing, and I convinced myself that I was actually helping others. Some I may have, others maybe not so much, but in the end I learned more about myself and what I really wanted out of life.
Drug addiction is not a game, and it really takes work to remain sober, each day is a constant battle of the soul versus the mind and it never gets easier. If you truly want to help someone get out of that situation the only way to really do is it is to have a zero drug tolerance policy and enforce it. Otherwise you are just fostering an addiction and enabling the person to keep using. Recovery is not something that can be undertaken lightly and must be committed too from the very start. No ifs, ands, or excuses about it. I know that the methods that I used to employ were not effective for treating an illness, they were a way for me to surround myself by like minded people and feel better about myself and what I was doing. Even though I had their best interest at heart my methods were suspect and the help that I gave wasn't effective. I have since changed my thoughts on this and I still try to help those around me who need helping but I have different ideas now about how to go about it and what I am willing to accept in my life and what I am willing to do to help them.
I won't be buying the drugs, will not allow them to be used in my home and I will not let someone manipulate me into falling for the "Just one more time routine". Enough is enough too many of my friends have died or gotten so sick from drugs that it really isn't worth it. Life is the most precious gift we are given and to squander that and to through it away is not something I want to help with anymore. I am so proud of my friends who have started down the road of recovery and are celebrating their sobriety. I wished I would have learned this to help more people earlier. But I am with you in this battle now and I am not giving up and neither should you.
As always you are in my hopes and dreams,
Uncle B
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