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    Excuse Me, Your Life Is Waiting!: A Bridge from Addiction to Early Recovery
    Excuse Me, Your Life Is Waiting!: A Bridge from Addiction to Early Recovery
    Excuse Me, Your Life Is Waiting!: A Bridge from Addiction to Early Recovery
    Ebook161 pages5 hours

    Excuse Me, Your Life Is Waiting!: A Bridge from Addiction to Early Recovery

    By Robert Boich

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    About this ebook

    Reader Views Annual Literary Awards 2010

    The annual literary awards were established to honor writers who self-published or had their books published by a subsidy publisher, small press, University press, or independent book publisher geared for the North American reading audience.

    Excuse Me, Your Life Is Waiting! , written by Robert W. Boich, and published by iUniverse has been named the 2010 Great Lakes Regional Winner; as well as the 2010 Reviewers Choice Award for the Best Regional Book of the Year.

    Making a resolution to address an alcohol or substance abuse issue is only the beginning. The real work begins when the alcoholic or addict acknowledges that something has to be done. In Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting! author Robert Boich details his battle with substance abuse and his decision to lead a sober lifestyle. He realized if he didnt change his life, he would be incarcerated or die all alone.

    In this compelling, personal narrative, Boich shares his personal struggles and insights encountered during his first six months of recovery. A counselor once told him, An addict only has to change one thing: everything. Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting! describes the many changes Boich made in his life. More than just eliminating certain people and places from a daily routine, he illustrates how a successful recovery requires a brand-new approach in dealing with life.

    Blending personal thoughts with helpful information, Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting! discusses the ideas and tools used in an addicts early recovery. It shows that sobriety is much more than mere abstinence and that alcohol and drug use is a sign of deep personal problems that only true sobriety can address.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateMar 30, 2009
    ISBN9781440121067
    Excuse Me, Your Life Is Waiting!: A Bridge from Addiction to Early Recovery
    Author

    Robert Boich

    Robert Boich is a college and law school graduate. He now lives a sober lifestyle with his wife and children in Dublin, Ohio.

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    • 5/5
      I recently read this very interesting book written about the first stages of recovery from addiction, from the real life journey and journals of the author, Robert Boich. Boich is graduated with a law degree from Ohio Northern University and practices law in addition to raising his children in Dublin, Ohio. At the time the book was written the writer was experiencing his first 6 months of recovery from alcohol and cocaine addiction. He was in outpatient treatment and kept a journal that became the outline for this book. The title “Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting. A Bridge From Addiction to Early Recovery” is attention-grabbing and accurately makes and impression that the content lives up to.I think this book was very well written and I found it very interesting the way the author wrote his steps to sobriety into the book in present tense, giving validation and acceptance of where he was at the time of his many breakthroughs and then went on to elaborate on his progress in acknowledging the many different changes taking place in his life. I received this book because I (like most) have witnessed or experienced some form of addiction with myself and those in my life…I also want to study to be a drug/alcohol addiction counselor in the future. I’ve written about addiction many times in this blog and I have many seen how this illness affects so many aspects of our society that I feel it is so important that a book of this nature exists. I found it very easy to relate personally to the struggles of the author (though not in detail or literal terms) and to see others more clearly through the lens of this thorough examination of addiction recovery.There are several really important points made in this book that resonate strongly. The first being the difference between abstinence and sobriety. The author tells the story of of his first weeks of sobriety and all the changes he had to make to come to a new realization and reality with his illness. One of the second points made is that in order to change his life he had to change everything…namely his ways of dealing with and seeing life. He shows the many challenges and events that lead him to learning to change his view and approach to living.The author had what would be considered an unconventional idea of recovery… for most who have not dealt with addiction personally. He had the idea that he could do it on his own. To many addicts though, this is common, and the fact that he took action on his plan and tells the story of where it left him and the work he had to do after is a great story for those watching addicted loved ones, as well as those who are trying to plan their own way out and in the first stages of recovery. This book is great at showing that you cannot just will yourself to end an addiction, everyone needs proper support and a lifestyle change to stay sober.The author does an amazing job at detailing and sifting through the many possible steps towards a sober life that an addict may have to go through. This is also just a great story of transformation that anyone could be inspired by. The writer comes at us(the readers) from a place of humility, vulnerability, gratitude and warmth. This book is not cheesy, it is not self-indulgent, it is not judgmental, there is no bias here. The writer does not suggest that his answers or journey are “right” or the “only way”. He is instead very open-minded, giving open-ended questions while sharing what is currently working for him.Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting… is full of edgy, raw honesty, a great sense of humor and a detailed, no nonsense approach to the path of recovery and personal transformation through overcoming addiction. Real life stories, real life breakthroughs, real thoughts, real pain, and real love permeates and leaves you with a great sense of inspiration and understanding when reading this book. The author shares his family struggles as he and his wife go about recovery in different ways.Since there are so many addictions in our modern society I really feel this could be a great book for anyone to read, but it is certainly great for anyone interested in personal development and of course for people dealing with or effected by alcohol or drug addiction. This book is easy to read, a fast read, but very personal, information and full of great stories. For $14.95 you can purchase the book from the publisher’s website, IUniverse and when you’re done hopefully it will inspire you or you can pass it on to someone you’d like to inspire.

    Book preview

    Excuse Me, Your Life Is Waiting! - Robert Boich

    Introduction

    This story is about change. It’s about shedding old ideas and habits in exchange for a new way of thinking and a different approach to life. It’s personal in nature—at least it’s personal to me. It’s really the only story I’m qualified to tell. It’s my story, and I’m going to share it with you for a very simple reason. I want to help.

    I started writing a couple of months before the book idea came up. It really wasn’t a story at first. It was a journal, a combination of thoughts and feelings on my life and the world around me. I originally had no plans of sharing it with anyone. The idea for this project came from one of my counselors. He encouraged me to write this book.

    I’m not sure what prompted me to start keeping a written record in the first place. I tried it once before, at my first rehab. It was supposed to be part of the recovery process. I think I may have written a couple of pages. I probably didn’t stick with it, because at that point in my life, I had no real intention of getting clean. About the most I could muster at the time was the notion that it might be a good idea to cut back a little. I just wasn’t ready.

    My life was spiraling out of control. I had to do something. I wasn’t exactly sure what, but I was going to have to make some changes if I wanted to keep my family. My wife was going back to rehab. She was embroiled in a custody battle over her daughter, and things weren’t going well. Children’s services and the local police had recently made a surprise visit to our residence to check on our young son. On top of that, one of our friends had committed suicide the same day, after leaving our house. This was in addition to the usual, garden-variety, negative consequences that alcoholics and addicts are faced with on a daily basis: family problems, financial trouble, health issues, and legal predicaments.

    Given the state of my affairs, any rational person would realize that something was wrong. Not me; I couldn’t make the connection. I still entertained the idea that I would be able to control my drug and alcohol use. All I needed was a little time off. My plan was to go away for a while, get cleaned up, and approach things in a little more structured manner. Unlike my wife, I had no intentions of going back to rehab. What could they possibly tell me that I hadn’t heard at my first treatment facility? I was going to do it on my own. I thought I would still be able to drink and drug on occasion. I was just going to tone things down a bit. I decided to go to Europe when my wife went back into rehab. I just needed some time alone to sort things out. I could get away from everything and reflect—reflect and write. That’s how I began to keep a journal.

    As far as my recovery goes, I made a few discoveries while I was overseas. I began to realize how my behavior had been affecting my family: children, parents, siblings, and my wife. It was a difficult time. It allowed me to see enough of myself to realize that I had a problem, but it fell short of providing me with any answers that would help me with my sobriety. Still, it was a start.

    I had promised my wife that I would enroll in an outpatient program when I got back from Europe. I really didn’t want to, but I felt I had to. At the time, I thought abstinence and sobriety were synonymous. I was so messed up. I didn’t know where I was headed or what I was going to do. As you’ll see, this all changed shortly after I got back to the States. I started attending twelve-step meetings, and I got myself into a six-week outpatient program. All the while, I kept writing.

    I offer you this background to give you an idea of where I was and what my life was like. These are the events that got me to where I am today. Keep in mind, I’m not trying to tell anyone what to do. I can only share what has worked for me. There’s nothing original about my program of recovery. I am merely relaying what others have passed on to me. I take no credit for the actual tools involved. Many of them are concepts that have been around for quite some time.

    One of the first things I learned was that I was looking at things backwards: fix my substance abuse problems, and my life would fix itself. It seemed to make sense at the time. It goes back to the abstinence versus sobriety issue I mentioned earlier. It’s true, abstinence definitely improved my life. I could see a difference in myself after a couple of weeks. The problem with this approach is that I was still the same person. I had to look at the bigger picture. One of my new friends explained it to me like this: The man I was drank. The man I was will drink again. I have to change the man. That statement echoed the sentiments of one of my counselors, the same one who encouraged me to write this book. He told me that in order to stay sober, I had to change only one thing. Everything!

    Any illusions I might have had about finding a quick solution to my problems had disappeared. In the past, I would’ve just said, Screw it. I can fix this on my own. The problem was, I couldn’t. My way wasn’t working, and it hadn’t worked in a long time. I surrendered, at least temporarily. What could it hurt? I figured anything was worth a try. I could always go back to my old way of life. I threw myself into recovery: meetings and readings, new friends and new ideas. I asked a lot of questions, but more importantly, I listened to the answers. I spent several hours a day going to meetings and writing about the topics that were discussed. I applied the lessons I was learning to my everyday life and recorded my experiences in my journal. I also started writing essays on an assortment of topics. Most of these were related to recovery, while others were merely personal observations on life in general.

    The story you are about to read is a combination of these observations and my experiences during the first six months of sobriety. I’ve tried to present these materials in a manner that anyone fresh in recovery can easily understand. If you’ve come this far, I hope my experiences will convince you to keep going. There is a wonderful world out there in sobriety, a way of life far more rewarding than anything I’d ever known. It’s not easy, but it’s not nearly as difficult as I thought it would be, either. Believe me when I tell you, if I can do it, so can you. Just don’t try to do it by yourself. There’s a lot of help out there, people who have been where you are now and who are willing to help you find a better way. Good luck!

    Personal Itinerary

    Who we are is a manifestation of where we’ve been and what we’ve done. It’s these life travels and experiences that make up our person. On its face, this may appear to be a simple concept, one about which most people would probably say, Sure, makes sense—experience, there’s no substitute for it. But it becomes more difficult for some individuals to grasp and accept this concept when negative or destructive actions and consequences are thrown into the mix.

    We struggle with our past, instead of accepting the things we’ve done. How many times have we said to ourselves, I wish I had done that differently, or Wouldn’t my life be different if only that hadn’t happened to me? Yes, things would be different. Our lives would be changed. We wouldn’t be the same people we are at this very moment. For better or for worse, our personal makeup would be altered. Would we approach life differently? Maybe we would have avoided certain unpleasant situations and events. If so, we would also have missed out on the experience from those situations, the lessons learned from our inappropriate decisions, and the pains life can bring.

    We are who we are because of where we’ve been. This is neither good nor bad; it’s just one of those things we can’t change. We can learn from our experiences. In fact, we had better learn, or else we will keep committing the same errors in judgment time and again. Sometimes it seems we have to make the same mistakes over and over, but why that is, I don’t know. Maybe the consequences weren’t strong enough the first few times—the first hundred times, for that matter. Whatever the reason, at times it seems we have to repeat improper or damaging behavior before we can finally learn from our actions—before we can grow from our experiences. We just have to hit bottom, or at least get close enough to see the bottom, in order to decide to take action to fix things. As to what constitutes bottom, that’s up to the individual. I’ve heard it said that we hit bottom when we stop digging. That makes sense to me. Finally, when we’ve had enough, we can begin to alter our behavior.

    Regardless, whether we’ve had a good or a bad experience, the most important thing is what we take from our experiences. In my opinion, this is especially important with the not-so-pleasant ones. When we can learn from our past and become better individuals, then we can grow. If we take nothing from the past, then what have we accomplished? Just a good memory or a bad memory. For me, I would hope to develop knowledge that allows me to repeat the good experiences and shelve the bad experiences.

    Life is really amazing. Sometimes it has a way of seeming so effortless, so easy, as though nothing can go wrong. Other times it’s tougher than Chinese arithmetic, or Rubik’s cube, or Chinese arithmetic multiplied by Rubik’s cube. It can get pretty damned complicated. It’s these difficult times that have the opportunity to present us with life’s greatest lessons.

    What can we do? What other course is there? There are no nonstop flights from who and where we were at birth to who and where we’ve become at present. We’re a compilation of all the stops and experiences along the way, all the layovers and all the delays, the change of planes and the lost luggage, every one of the consequences of our actions and inactions. Maybe our experiences build character or make us stronger; maybe we withdraw or become weaker. Whatever the case, they most certainly affect us—most likely not neutrally.

    When a waiter brings us a hot plate, saying, Watch out, hot plate! what do we almost always instinctively do? We touch the plate to see how hot it is; we have to find out for ourselves. Hopefully we have learned not to grab it with both hands, or to stick our tongues on it, but we have to test it nonetheless. Such is the case with many situations in life.

    Then there are the bigger, more serious things we may have struggled with in life, like jail, drug abuse, alcoholism, gambling, or overspending. At one point we thought such things as, I probably shouldn’t have driven while drunk, or robbed that store, or hit that guy, and then I wouldn’t be in jail. Well, we did it. It’s over; it’s in the past. All that can be done is to pay the consequences and hopefully learn from the experience, and then move on. A lot of times, committing the action is easy; owning up to it is the hard part. We all make mistakes. It’s what we do with them that will determine what kind of person we will be.

    We are works in progress. What we do today will shape who we are tomorrow. Therefore, we mustn’t run or try to hide from what we’ve done in the past. First of all, we can’t change it; it’s done. It’s history. The best we can do is try to learn from our experiences. Then and only then may it be possible to put them to rest. Embrace them, regardless of how distasteful that thought may be, and then move on. Our past is all part of our present. If we try to do the best we possibly can, it will lead us to a better, more positive tomorrow. Alternatively, if we try to ignore the unpleasant experiences, if we fail to face them, we may miss the opportunity to learn from them and grow from them.

    I wrote the above piece, Personal Itinerary, after a phone conversation with my mom. I hadn’t been in recovery for very long, but I was making good progress. I was implementing many changes in myself and in my life. This evolution is ongoing, and if I do things right it will never end. There were a lot of outward changes in me, ones obvious to my family and close friends. My mom kept going on about how great I was doing and how happy she was for me. She was also exhibiting a case of the but ifs—but if this hadn’t happened, but if you hadn’t have done that, everything would be great. She couldn’t see what was plainly obvious to me. The simple fact of the matter was that if I hadn’t gotten myself into the situations I had, if I hadn’t put myself through the pain and suffering I endured, I would never have

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