Bill & Sandy Fifield Artist - Authors - Speakers

A New World Opens: Our First Night In Brazil

Brasilia Terminal is open-air, a chaotic place; there is a little café and tables near our entry door into Brazil.   Over there are rows of ATM’s where everyone seems to getting or exchanging money. Banks of taxis and cars line the curb.  If it weren’t for Kelsie we would be hopelessly confused.  Abadiania is a one and one-half hour drive south and a little west of Brasilia.

First Sunrise--Abadiania

First Sunrise–Abadiania

Kelsie has a taxi all ready to go with Bolivar as our driver, he is the proud owner of a white and very clean, nearly new small SUV.  It’s still early and quite refreshingly cool with a wonderful dry breeze; much like a Colorado summer morning but it is the start of winter here and the dry season has just begun.  The traffic is heavy in Brasilia and the city seems to stretch out in all directions endlessly.  There is an area of large buildings to the left and a massive traffic jam going the opposite direction from us.  We are leaving the city while everyone else is going in to work.   It seems to go on for miles. Read More

“AWESOME SOBRIETY”

AWESOME SOBRIETY 2013

White knuckle sobriety doesn’t interest me at all.  Why would I ever want to just not drink or use mood altering substances?  I was always searching for a solution to my fear.  Alcohol and drugs were my solution to that pesky problem for a long time and to my mind—worked very well thank you. I definitely liked the effect because they took away the fear for a while.  No matter to me that it didn’t last—that feeling of ease and comfort that came at once with that first drink or hit.  The world was changed; fear did not exist for at least a couple of hours.  I remember saying to friends over and over that I was willing to pay the price for this; I thought the price was merely a hangover; I had no clue of the real price of my indulgence.

When I first discovered drugs and alcohol, it was a way to push the envelope of ordinary existence, to walk on the edge of the razor, to fly above the boobs I saw around me who were living (so I thought) unfulfilled lives by doing what society asked of them.   They said: “But we don’t like the taste”.   My thought at the time was: So what if you don’t like the taste—you’ve got to drink your way past that, I don’t like the taste of gin but two martinis later—it tasted great!  It was the effect I was after and I was willing to pay the price, whatever that might be.

I have come a long way since then, when alcohol and drugs were the solution to every problem. Read More

Why is recovery THE answer? Sandy Fifield’s guest post.

Why is recovery THE answer?

“While a friend and I discussed her fifteen-year-old daughter’s addiction problem, my immediate temptation was to think that this was unique and different, a special problem that needed to be dealt with in an extraordinary manner.  I thought–there must be some kind of therapy, magic medication or miracle action which could fix the problem once and for all.  Rescue and fix–that’s the answer.  These thoughts raced through my head and I’m sure through her parents’ minds as well.  How can we make the problem just go away?”

Read more here.

“The Big Lumps”–Sandy

“Then perhaps life, as it has a way of doing, suddenly hands us a great big lump that we can’t begin to swallow, let alone digest… What then?… Can we transform these calamities into assets, sources of growth and comfort to ourselves and those about us?”  The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 113

 Well, this last week has been the down and dirty of this process that started with the diagnosis of a brain tumor in Bill’s head over a month ago.  To watch the man you have loved for 47 years drained of strength, to see him lying there helpless, with no hair, radiation burns on his forehead, his heart racing at 166 bpm, short of breath; it becomes clear, too clear that this is serious and life threatening. 

The first go round with the discovery of the brain tumor and lung cancer was almost glamorous compared with this reality.  His whole being has been beaten down by twelve days of whole brain radiation, the withdrawal from the anti-seizure and steroid meds and recovery from brain surgery one month earlier.  What next?  How about a massive blood clot in his left leg?  How about  embolisms in both lungs?   These put him flat on his back in Critical Care for seven days, IV tubes in both arms, a heart monitor and oxygen tubes in his nose.

Read More

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