Looking for Life
A Moment that Changed Me Forever
“I am a child in these hills
I am away, I am alone
I am a child in these hills
And looking for water
And looking for life”.
By Jackson Browne
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The Good Life?
40 years ago, I had a moment that would change me forever. Before this moment, I didn’t think I even needed to be changed. In my mind, I was doing alright with my life, all things considered. I was kind of an optimist by nature, so in order for me to see the need for a change, something profound needed to happen to me.
I was 25 years old and had a decent job as a warehouse manager for a printing firm in Croydon, Pa, in lower Bucks County, right near the Delaware River, about 20 miles north of Philadelphia. I was making pretty good coin, enough to support my lifestyle with plenty left over. I had been there for going on two years, having risen from forklift operator to warehouse manager the previous year. I’d applied solid organizational skills, which I’d acquired in the navy, to developing an inventory control system that was just then being computerized.
I had my own place, a nice spot in the Neshaminy Woods apartments, a first-floor corner unit with great windows, and a back patio deck that looked out on the woods near Neshaminy Creek. My friend Janet had helped me to find it. I had my first brand new car, a 1979 Toyota Corolla.
Exceptional Loneliness
Despite all of these good things, I was feeling exceptionally lonely. The only real friend I had made in the area was Janet, who I really liked a lot, but I had been unable to express to her how I truly felt about her. She had clearly liked me as well, but it never went anywhere beyond friendship. We made each other laugh, and just enjoyed each other’s company.
The previous summer, she had gotten knocked up by a married guy who worked for me, who then disappeared as soon as he found out she was carrying his baby. I was helping her out as best I could, as her friend, to deal with the frustrations of being a single mom-to-be in a good catholic family. I kept her cats in my apartment, as she couldn’t have them at home, where she lived with her parents and siblings. I wished I could ask her to move in with me too, but the pregnancy had really complicated that scenario. I knew I wasn’t ready to be a daddy. Plus, I’d never been able to tell her how I felt about her.
I was so lonely for a girlfriend, I was using a dating service, which seemed like the only way I was going to get one. The first girl I’d gotten matched with, while quite stunning in the looks department, had some serious emotional issues that I just wasn’t equipped to deal with, though I tried. She was hot! But, after a couple of dates, I realized it was a mistake, and didn’t use the service any more after that.
Endless Season
I was a workaholic, working 60–70 hours a week, then I’d come home and get high. I was playing an endless season of Strat-O-Matic Baseball, with myself. I was the commissioner, the managers, and all the players. My whole world, outside of work, existed inside that stupid game of baseball statistics, and that endless season.
I hadn’t had a drink in over 2 years at that point. I had fallen apart right after my discharge from the navy, so I’d stopped drinking and doing drugs then. I eventually became convinced the alcohol had been my problem. The V.A. diagnosed me manic-depressive and prescribed lithium. I’d discovered that marijuana balanced the lithium out nicely. I could enjoy wonderful highs while maintaining a good balance. That had worked for a while.
Eventually, someone convinced me that opium enhanced the pot highs nicely, so I’d progressed to that combination. A doctor had taken me off the lithium while battling a bad infection, and I discovered I liked “feeling” my emotions, again. I was growing more reckless, but didn’t seem to care. An out-of-body experience after eating a bunch of cocaine at a party had caused me to lose my fear of death. I was convinced that I had been dying during the experience, and I liked how that felt. So, I honestly didn’t care if I lived or if I died.
Life and Death
The fact that my best friend did die, five days after my own near-death experience, probably had something to do with that. He was part of my crew of friends, my “tribe”, up in Connecticut. They were my friends back home during my 4 year stint in the navy, my touchstone to sanity, especially Reed. Now 2 years out of the navy, I would drive up there from Pa once or twice a month. Those trips were my break from the overwhelming loneliness of my life. I’d seriously considered moving there, but my life was in Pennsylvania and South Jersey, where my parents and little sister lived.
What changed my life, as I sat there in my dining room playing strat-o-matic baseball with myself, getting high, contemplating life and death, was a moment where the loneliness simply overwhelmed me. I cried out, “Oh, God, I am alone!” It had come unbidden from the depths of my soul. Just then, I noticed the Alcoholics Anonymous “Big Book” sitting on my kitchen counter. I’d had it for 2 years, but never even bothered to open it up. It was like new, just sitting there.
The Desire to Live
I picked it up, and started reading. I couldn’t put that book down. Something in there just reached down into my troubled, lonely soul, and soothed it. It was an amazing feeling — almost as good as that out-of-body experience I’d had. After reading it for about 20 minute or so, I put it down, and thought, “I need to do something. I need to go back to those meetings.” I’d gone to AA off and on for those 2 years, and thought they’d helped me with not drinking. After Reed had died 7 months before, I’d stopped going to the meetings. Drinking no longer seemed to be a problem for me.
Now, after reading that book, I went back there, looking for more. The book had talked about recovery, about a spirituality those alcoholics had found, and I wanted some of that, if it could be had. I knew, then, that I was spiritually broken. Looking back from this vantage point, I believe I had discovered a desire to live again. I went looking for life.
