I Want to Help!

I am a teacher working with children called "at risk." Today we can talk about addiction as a disease that puts everybody at risk. All my children have seen the mishaps of drunks and "crack whores." They seem to be everywhere.

It embarrasses me now to witness "high living". In the '70s and '80s disco craze, I idolized celebrities and tried to be a socialite. More than 15 years have passed since my last "acid" trip or pot high. I thank God! How easy it would have been for me to have remained insane, if not for a restlessness inside unquenched by any of the "fixes" I got, including liquor.

Never getting "fixed" made me feel so bad that feeling good was all that was left. Today I have moved in another direction to "feel good"—therapy. I don't try to get high, but I seek healing in everything I do.

Today I work at accepting life as it seems, as it is, as it could be, and as it has never been. I think that's where the happiness sneaks in. Today my happiness is found in helping others lower their risk of feeling as bad as I felt in my past.

J. Taylor
Atlanta, GA

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