God, thank you for another day clean and sober.

Help me stay clean and sober today.

Allow me to be honest, humble, and let me

Be willing to do your will not mine.

Please watch over everyone I love

and everyone I don’t.

I would like to say a special prayer

For all those with whom I have a resentment.

I wish for them all the things

I want for myself:

A working relationship with a Higher Power,

Inner peace and serenity,

The love of family and friends,

And freedom from financial insecurity.

New York City is like Disneyland. But not as clean. People everywhere: Standing in line, walking, riding, working, screaming, laughing, staring, spending, eating, running, pushing, waiting, talking. Probably the busiest place I’ve ever been, except Moscow, Russia.

The difference between Moscow and the Big Apple is the noise! Moscow was a quiet, crowded city. New York is never quiet, or even kinda quiet. Garbage trucks at five in the morning, horse carriages carrying drunks yelling at 2 a.m., horns blaring 24 hours a day.

Drivers in New York think that honking a horn will actually speed up something besides their own blood pressure. The average body temperature in New York City is 99.9! (Even in the winter.) But hey, stress burns calories.

In NYC, you have to be able to take a step back from reality, but just a step. Backing off too much turns you into one of those street people who talk to themselves … loudly!

At Low Volume,

Mark

A friend of mine reminded me recently about the difference between getting older and growing up. One is automatic; the other is an option.

All of a sudden I looked in the mirror and I thought I was 20, 30, then 40, and I thought each time, “Wow! I don’t really remember how I got here!”

But, as I’ve grown up (and that is a relative term depending upon the circumstance), I do realize how I learned that lesson or received this information. Pain is a great teacher; love is another one. I’ve had both.

The greatest lessons in my life are those where love and pain are joined together. I am so grateful to know what I know when I get to that painful, loving place where I finally, finally know … you know?

Always with love,

Mark

I graduated from High School in 1977. My 25-year Reunion was last month. I went with some trepidation because I had not been to one of these since 1987 . . . A year before I hit the streets as a low-bottom wino. In ’77, I drank at Graduation, but received a partial scholarship to San Jose State University for Academic Achievement. In ’87, I drank at the Reunion, snuck a few lines of coke, and managed to share a few dances with my soon-to-be ex-wife.

This year, I didn’t drink or snort or shoot or smoke anything. I went by myself and had a most enjoyable and satisfying evening. I saw “old” friends, all 42 or 43 years old, many of whom looked great and continued to be successful since they were 18. I stayed ‘til the very end . . . something I’m not good at. On the drive home, I thought about the twists and turns on the road(s) of life and how many I never noticed until it was too late. I contemplated the road I travel now: narrower but smoother, paved, but steep at times, always moving forward, occasionally an inch at a time. But like the change in years ‘77-‘02, much more satisfying with the passing of each mile marker along the way.

Keep on trudgin’,

Mark

I wonder sometimes whether or not I have lost the ability to feel. To some degree, I have less sympathy for people than I used to have as a younger man. My tolerance level for stupidity or arrogance or sloth or some other unacceptable characteristic is waning. Funny, since I have all of those same traits in me.

Patience is tougher to spread around these days. I glide through the day like Teflon, then something sticks to me that shouldn’t. My lack of balance, I’m sure, but just the same . . . It’s more difficult to be rational and objective with the world right now. I enjoy being alive. More than ever before. Please try to stay out of my way! It should make things easier for both of us.

Sorta Serious,

Mark L.

Summer gets shorter every year. The years seem to flow into one another. I’m 43 years old and I can’t remember who won the World Series two years ago. Yankees? Where are my car keys right now?

Time has become the tortoise to my existence as the hare. I tear through the days– shows, travel, phone calls, hotels, cab rides, naps, and more shows. Time is around every turn. Steady, never falling too far behind me. I can see that the time has gone by, but I don’t see it go by, you know? It’s like the hour hand on the clock. You don’t see it move, you just notice it has changed position.

The lines in my face, the hairline on my head, the semi-fatigue in my step, the aches I never used to experience. All of these are the hour hand on my clock. They are positioned differently in my life than they were the last time I stopped to look. The tortoise is gaining, but the race continues. So I run . . . See you at the finish line.

Tick-tock,

Mark

For a second or two, I wonder if I got ‘em or not — that brief instant backstage before the audience applauds and lets me know what the show was like for them that night. Suddenly, the deck hand waves me back out onto the stage, after hearing the stage manager’s voice through his headset. “Send Mark back out.” It went well. They liked it.

Oddly enough, this is the most self-conscious I am all day. I have to walk out onto a stage that I just worked for two hours by myself — laughing, crying, yelling, sharing — my total energy focused on the script I have written, refined and rehearsed . . . but lived, first. This is more than a show for me. It is a transformation every time I do it. Now the audience, standing and cheering, or wiping their eyes and smiling, lets me know that the time we spent together this evening mattered to them too. I move to center stage, within arm’s reach of the first row, and I take a small, short bow. This is theater, after all, and I have been told by the director that it would be rude not to re-enter and do so. OK with me, but I don’t stay out there long. Too much pressure. All I can think about is how I have survived my own sabotage earlier in life and lived to tell someone about it . . . every night I go to work. The audience applauds, but I am the grateful one.

Thank you Denver!

Feeling a mile high,

Mark L.

Several times a year I speak to grammar school children about drugs, alcohol, crime, violence . . . all related on some level. Some of the things I won’t tell them:

Drugs are bad for you.

Alcohol is wrong.

Crime doesn’t pay.

Violence won’t solve anything.

These are the lies of the 21st century. Think about each of these statements. Can’t you remember an exception to the truth? Do you think children don’t look for the opposite of what is taught to them? This is their nature. ‘Fraid not?

When it comes to drugs and alcohol, I tell young people that these things feel wonderful, that is their purpose. Chemicals change your mood, OK? Why do/did you try something for the first, second or last time? Because a change takes place inside you.

Legality of any chemical substance does not detour most abusers anymore. It’s the rush or the rush towards the rush that fuels and fools us.

What I do tell these impressionable minds about drinking and dope is that if and when they decide to sample a substance . . . there will always be a price to pay . . . always. Then I give them some severe examples of the costs to themselves, their families, and the community at large. Prices include, of course, crime and violence.

I was doing time before I got here

Locked down behind bars of internal fear

An inmate of self-hatred and horrible doubt

I ran where I wanted but couldn’t get out

Floating somewhere between dying and dead

I couldn’t get past these walls in my head

Unable to love or be loved was I

Fearful of friendship without knowing why

Uncaring and angry, afraid to take part

I couldn’t get past these walls in my heart

Frustrated and faithless, full of deceit

Torn apart by the sins I chose to repeat

All the time knowing I’d never be whole

I couldn’t get past these walls in my soul

Lost and lonesome, I spent years on my own

Looking for something shapeless, unknown

Focused on the future, but falling behind

I couldn’t get past these walls in my mind

. . . Today I know what it takes to get out

No longer a prisoner of powerless doubt

I am the one who unlocks every door

To live with the living, to love myself more

There is no limit to what I can be

Once I get past these walls inside me!

Written for my brothers at the Drug Farm

September 1996, Mark L.

Recovery People tend to think that this time of year is tougher on us than it is on “Normies”. Not so. The Holiday Season is difficult because it is so anti-human nature. Humans feel . . . Period. We all have a tremendous range of emotional makeup. Christmas, Thanksgiving, and New Years seem to highlight the more pleasant feelings. Society seems to think that emotions like anger and fear are always negative. They are two of the most productive forces a person can utilize for the common good. Properly focused, anger can combat racism, child abuse and crime. Properly focused, fear can dissuade someone from self-abuse or hurtful behavior.

How many times have you heard someone say, “I shouldn’t be mad, but . . .” or, “I know I shouldn’t be afraid of . . .” All emotions are God-given. In balance, they allow each of us to be productive, creative, reflective, and make it possible to heal, help, and be happy . . . Isn’t that what a Holiday is? Whatever you “feel” is how it is . . . If it’s bad, it’ll pass. If it’s good, it’ll pass. If it’s in-between, it’s human.