Jody is a 35-year-old openly gay white male. He and his life partner adopted a little girl 4 years ago. She is the joy of their lives when they’re not drinking. He admits they both have been in and out of these rooms for the last 7 years. In These Rooms this morning, Jody shared that for the longest time family drama about his sexuality was at the core of his problems and his drinking. He stated “…I come from a very judgmental Christian family. Most of my life, I feel like I’ve just been playing the hand I was dealt. I didn’t feel like I had a lot of choices. I’ve been living what I guess you’d call A Thrown Life…” Jody didn’t define it as such but I call A Thrown Life a life limited to seeing ourselves thru the lens of powerlessness.
“…Yea, I hear you but my fucking characters don’t believe you…”
Hunter
‘…I can’t wait to get out of Kalamazoo, MI. Everything I want in life is away from here. Staying here, I will be living the life people around here expect of me. I will be living in the shadow of my family and parents. There are no good opportunities here and I want to be somebody and make something of myself. I don’t have a chance to do anything good or make a difference in life living here. I feel trapped living here. I am better than this, this place and these people. I’ll show them and everybody else. As soon as I graduate, I’m getting the hell outta here and do something fucking big with my life. I can’t wait. It can’t, it won’t happen here…”
Kirk
“…A Thrown Life is not being ride or die. It’s not being committed to getting mine by any fuckin’ means necessary. Anything less than this is A Thrown Life. A Thrown life is marching to the fuckin’ beat of somebody else’s drum. A Thrown Life is playin by other motherfuckers’ rules. The world and y’all can keep that thrown life shit. I ain’t no fuckin pawn in the chess-game of life. I am the King’s Kid and I’m gonna be treated that way or there gonna be goddamn repercussions and consequences. That thrown life shit is wack and about somebody givin’ up on the grind that fuckin’ is life. Hell, if your ass ain’t cheatin, you must a fuckin’ gave up on tryin. Know this, if you see me goin’ down, I’m fuckin’ goin’ down swingin’. You can take that shit to the bank and I’ll meet you there. I’m fuckin’ headed there now…”
Fr. Esteban
“…I now realize a life lived in the pursuit of success instead of fulfillment is A Thrown Life. Achievement and success, this is the path I’ve been on; this is how I have defined life. Anything that took me off this course or path I saw as a distraction or an obstacle to be smashed. I thought I was living by judging life and my success by how effectively I could use money and resources to keep hardship and drama out of my life and out of my way. This is how I defined success and living Maan. But life has shown me something different and something better. Living isn’t the avoidance of hardship or difficulties. Life is overcoming the challenges to make a difference for myself and others. This is what the hell fulfillment is about. How do I use my life and all my stuff, including my challenges and difficult moments, as channels for growth and opportunities to make of this world a better place? When I stay on this path, I am living. I no longer have A Thrown Life. Now I am living Maan…”
Sean Anderson
Step 4 of the Big Book In These Rooms says “…we made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves…” Obviously, from Fr. Esteban’s comments above, some of us are better at this “…searching and fearless moral inventory…” shit than others. Some of us are so steeped in the dictums of everyday living that waking up and smelling the coffee on A Thrown Life seems like an exercise in futility at best or an anathema to our drive and desire to go along to get along and just fucking make it in this world. Been there. Done that shit and have the fucking mental, emotional and spiritual scars to prove it.
My answer to the rhetorical question “…how’s life working for you?” A Thrown Life, and not people, places or things, has been whoopin my ass.
My thrown life had me feeling powerless and not a powerful child of the Most High God. My thrown life had me believing in self and self alone instead of trusting in and turning my life over to my Higher Power. My thrown life had my life tore up from the floor up and thinking this shit was living. I wasn’t living; I was fucking existing. My thrown life had me afraid to deal with the man in the mirror so l blamed my miserable existence on people, places and things instead of finding the fucking courage to share my authentic lived truth, trust in God and get radically vulnerable about my life and who the fuck I am. My thrown life had me believing because of shame, fear, anger, remorse and regrets that there was something defective in me and about me. My thrown life had me believing the answers to my life challenges and hardships were out there somewhere and with other people instead learning to forgive and love myself at the core of my being. My thrown life even had me believing prayer and meditation weren’t an answer and wouldn’t do any fucking good.
“…Prayer is when I talk to God. Meditation is when I shut the fuck up and listen…”
Hunter
But my thrown life missed that God was walking with me and lovingly guiding me thru all this shit with a mighty purpose. My thrown life never conceived that by the love, mercy and grace of my Higher Power, and a spiritual awakening, I would be blessed to be a blessing to others because of A Thrown Life. It’s said In These Rooms “…no one enters these rooms on a winning streak…” That be me. Thanks be to God I was fucking brought In These Rooms because of A Thrown Life.
Read more about Kirk, Fr. Esteban and Sean Anderson and tell your story. Listen to Hunter’s Podcast. All on wreckedamerica.com. In Wrecked America, #AThrownLifeMatters
