Wow...I just found this old poem in my draft folder! Awesome!

Looking in,
A darkened window,
Shrouded in blood red velvety curtains
Darkened from both time
And corrosion.

Wow, I just found this in an old drafts folder.  This is super powerful!  I love it.  I write poetry stream of consciousness, and this is just how it flows out.  Sometimes, when I read back through it, it sucks.  Other times, it is amazing.  I love this one....

For so many years,
I kept that candle burning
But, it only helped to keep me in the dark,
Never, ever bringing light
And only driving that away
With the swells of sadness inside
The candle
Only caused me to dwell in the past...

And finally, finally...
I snuffed it out.
Damn, it took me some fucking time...
A lot of years clean
To even see the truth
A lot of years clean
To see it all for what it was really worth.
What under the bridge, you say?
I say we witnessed a fucking flood, baby.
We witnessed a catastrophic category 5
First hand.
And you think it was just a little water...

Some things can never be saved
And some things are lost forever.
And other things...are just better left alone.
For your shit was sucking me dry.

New Blogpost, New Blog.

Hey guys!  Hope everyone out there is doing well!  I have started a new blog, Cognizance of Addiction and Recovery.  I am actually hosting it on various platforms, in hopes to gain some more followers and readers for my work.  Please come follow my new blog!  The first post is already up! I will be posting about my addiction, as well as my recovery, several times a week.  Most of the artwork on the blog is mine, as well.  I have been working on design projects to go along with my writing, as well as some wonderful podcasting.

I am starting a new website, dedicated to opiate addiction and recovery, as well.  I will keep you all updated, but much of the material will be the same on both venues for the next few months during the launch of the new website, It's All Junk.

Check out my podcasting here. 

Follow Cognizance of Addiction and Recovery through Wordpress. 

Follow Cognizance of Addiction and Recovery through Blogger. 

See my latest post there now!  Look to hear more from me.  Oh, and you all can call me Eliza, rather than BMelonsLemonade!  Much Love...Eliza Player

My Memoir Is Available Through Amazon!!!

Finally, my book is available through Amazon, in a Kindle edition.  You can always download the Kindle software onto your computer or smartphone.  That is what I do, since I do not have a Kindle!  Check it out!  Click the link to see the book! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008RN322U....

Another Update

Hello, readers!

I have not posted here in so long!  But, I feel like an update is due.  I have been very, very busy lately!

I did not get into grad school, but I am still moving to Texas.  I am so excited to be leaving at the end of the month.  My parents are on board with my decision, which really means a lot to me.  I know that this is the best decision for both me and my precious little boy.  It seems I may finally be getting my fairytale ending.  I thought for a long time that I was just not a fairytale ending type of person, but I think my Higher Power had other plans for me all along...and I realize that the life I have built over the last years is actually quite the fairytale.  I once inhabited the dark and sinister world consumed by addiction and its disease, and my life now...is definitely a fairytale, of sorts.

When I first found out I did not get into grad school, I felt devastated.  Shocked.  Stunned.  But, now that I look back on it, I realize my Higher Power had something else in mind for me.  It is strange how things work out sometimes, and once you learn to look for the right signs to guide you...you realize, that it is always meant to be.  EVERYTHING happens for a reason.

Shortly before I got the first rejection from grad school, I was asked to do so a few guest blog pieces for RecoveryNowTV.  One woman who worked for them actually came across my writer's blog on Wordpress, and she contacted me, asking if I would be interested in guest blogging.  I gave her a few posts.  Later, she contacted me again, offering me a small blogging position.  Paid position.  I was ecstatic.  After a while, I began curating their news page, as well as blogging and doing social media.  I finally had a real job.  I work full-time, from home.  And I can do it anywhere- here, Texas, wherever.  So, I can still move and do my job.  Another reason my Higher Power is telling me that all this is meant to be in my life right now.  And more importantly, I do what I love.  I write.  I read and curate news, and even write a few articles myself.  And most importantly, the subject matter is so important to me.  I felt like this job was the perfect thing for me to be doing.  It combines my passion for writing, with my journalism background, and my experience with both addiction and recovery.  I do some podcasting, and I love using some of the really cool new media techniques I learned when I went back to college.  I also get to make a few graphics here and there!  Again, I can thank my education for giving me those tools and skills.

What I did not anticipate about working for RecoveryNowTV is the personal reward that goes along with helping people...making a difference.  Recently, many people have contacted me, for advice, or with their personal stories.  My words have touched others, inspired them.  And others have felt comfortable enough with the work I do to share their story with me.  And their stories always inspire me.  The power of shared experience in recovery is awesome!  I have made so many inspiring personal contacts, too.  Through my writing, people have reached out and asked me join some other recovery groups through Facebook, mostly.  And on those pages, I have met some really inspiring and beautiful people.  (One on my mind right now is Liz, another Sober Hillbilly friend of mine.)  I have never felt so rewarded for what I have been doing before.  It really is an amazing feeling to know that I am helping people...that my words also touch people.

As far as the book, I have decided to make it available through Amazon Kindle.  I am actually beginning the process of the final edit, for now, anyway.  It has been edited a number of times, but I know that it is not quite perfect yet.  But, the editing at this point is rather minor.  Then, I have to put it in the right format to load onto Kindle correctly.  And finally, (the most exciting part to me right now!) is designing the cover.  I have really been getting into doing some computer design work lately, and I love it.  I have been designing a few graphics for my blog posts at RecoveryNowTV, and I am super excited about designing my own cover!  I have no idea what I am going to do with it...but I will see the signs, maybe one night in a dream, or a weird, visual flash like I sometimes have when I am writing.  I am also excited to put this project together.  And Liam, if you are out there, reading this...I really would like you to know about this.  I do not need consent, since the names and otherwise identifying details have already been changed, but I think in all fairness...you should be approached with the opportunity to read it before it goes onto Amazon.

So, I guess that is about it.  I am finally happy.  I am in love, and for the first time in my life...I know that I have a real future on this path I have chosen.  Things have definitely fallen in place for me, in so many ways I never dreamed of...and all those ways are so meant to be.  It all makes sense now.  All the things that never made sense to me, all the things that I was unable to understand, finally make sense.  I finally see what the plan was all along...and I realize that everything, each and every little thing happened for a reason.  And that reason put me on the yellow brick road, so to speak (in fairytale terms.)

And...recovery is amazing.

Here is the link to the news page that I run. RecoveryNowTV News   You can find all my personal writing under the "Voices in Recovery" tab at the top.  But, I also curate all the news, so all the news articles are my work, too...but I cannot take credit for writing the articles themselves, I simply curate them for our website.  It is a great resource for addiction and recovery news.  I know some of you out there would really enjoy having this addiction and recovery news all in one spot.  (I am thinking of VJ on this, in particular!) I post about six news stories a day, so it really keeps me up to date as to what is going on in the news in regards to addiction and recovery.  I curate a few recovery pieces, a few news pieces that generally center more around addiction, as well as some informative pieces, often based in research and statistics.  Each day, I try my hardest to put up a mix of the three.  Along with a personal blog piece, several times a week.  I would love it if some of you checked it out.  If you like RecoveryNowTV on Facebook, you will get each news article and blog piece in your Facebook feed.  All the comments are done through Facebook, rather than on the website, so Facebook has a lot of good interaction with others, lots of comments and debate, at times.  It really is a great job.  I love it.  And I know this is what I am meant to be doing right now.

I hope that all of you out there in my Blogger community are doing well!  I still read your posts, and keep up with your stories and your lives.  And I hope some of you continue to enjoy my work through RecoveryNowTV.  Much love to all.  I may still post here occasionally, so this is not good-bye or anything like that...just a change of venue, I guess!  This blog is what got me started writing again, and I think that through this blog I began to grow as a writer, a blogger, and a member of the recovery community.  I began to realize the power being the world wide web recovery community, and this blog has catapulted me to a whole new level, as a writer and as a person.  I did so much since I started this blog, like finishing school and writing a book.  I think when I first started Hashish Dreams and Heroin Nightmares, I did not have the confidence to go out there and do things like that.  But when I started telling my story, things began to change.  I want to thank all of you because your words of encouragement were one of the first signs that I was on the right path.  The friendships I gained through this blog, and the advice, and words of encouragement gave me the confidence I needed to take the leap of faith into writing, telling my story.  And this blog became a stepping stone to a whole new world for me.  A whole new career.  A whole new life. Thank you all.

Addiction and Jail - A Rude Awakening

Check out my new blog spot. I will be posting here daily.

Addiction and Jail - A Rude Awakening

Just an Update

It has been a while since I have posted anything.  I have actually had some pretty amazing things going on my life, but it was just way to intimate and unknown to really talk about here.  Some things are just better kept to ourselves, at times...at least that is how it is with me.

But, I have figured it all out...and now I guess it is time for an update.  I am not really even sure where to start, and to be honest...I am really not sure where the beginning of the story is.  I guess it all started about twenty years ago.  Twenty years ago...that is a really long time.  And in the last twenty years, so much has changed drastically for me.

Twenty years ago, I fell in love for the first time.  I met this boy from Louisiana, and he swept me off my feet in a whirlwind of ecstatic proportions.  I remember looking at him at an Allman Brothers concert, seeing him with stars in my eyes.  My head spun, and my eyes flickered, and the whole world swelled like the waves in the ocean.  I remember laying on the floor in his house that night after the concert, talking, touching.  I remember the taste of his lips, and the feel of his skin, and the pounding in my heart. I remember falling in love for the first time that night.

And we both fell hard.  It was wonderful, in every way.  Physically, we fit together like two pieces of a puzzle.  And emotionally, our hearts pounded in unison.  We stayed up all night, so often...talking and then making love.  The pure feelings of first love, and the connection that was so strong.  We poured our hearts out, filling each other's glasses with all of ourselves.  Drinking from the glass, we became drunk with love and spinning in complete ecstasy.

We were both so young, and life's twists and turns began to dance as we both tried to forage our way in the world of young adults.  Several years after that Allman Brothers concert, my first love's life began to follow a path that I did not understand, and a path that I was afraid of...a path that I did not like.  He started doing cocaine a lot.  Or maybe, I started realizing he did it a lot.  I cannot really remember all the details so many years later, but I ended up breaking up with him because he did too much cocaine.  The break up was rocky and ridden with lots of getting back together and then breaking up all over again...but eventually it ended, and it ended badly...at least that is the way I saw it.

Sometimes now, I am astonished to think that I broke up with someone for doing too much cocaine.  Some years later, I would be shooting dope into my veins.

My first love also followed a path of addiction.  Our paths were not the same, and our drug of choice was different, but the story is quite the same.  We both took our addictions to their extremities, and we both lost a lot along the way.  And we both got clean in the wake of a traumatic, life changing event.  Mine being the Hurricane, and my first love had a stroke.

I heard of his stroke years after it happened when I was pregnant with my son.  It took a while for the news to sink in, as I pictured him, sick and scared.  Something inside me told me that I needed to try to contact him.  I was not exactly sure why, and I was not exactly sure what I wanted to say...but I knew I needed to contact him, just to let him know that I was thinking about him.  Maybe to let him know I was here for him.  I had also heard that he had been clean for quite some time, and I realized that we probably had a lot in common.

I looked him up on My Space, and I may have even created my account then, just to send him a message.  I sent him a message, giving him a short history of the crazy turns my life had taken since I last saw him.  He did not know anything about the heroin, the Hurricane, and certainly not of my pregnancy.  We messaged back and forth several times.  That was about four years ago.

Over the years, we watched each other's posts on facebook...I watched him get engaged and buy a house.  While he saw pictures of my son's young life as it unfolded. I watched him change his relationship status from engaged to single, and he watched the progression of my book as I began writing it.  We commented on things sometimes, and we messaged several times throughout those years.  All through the power of social media.

And really, I am not even sure how it all began.  He came to my hometown this summer for a concert, and we made plans to meet at the show.  But, Phish shows get hectic, especially for a single mom with a two year old in tow...and we did not find each other that night.  I had printed a copy of my book to give him, but I guess that story would have to wait a while.  He called me to see if I wanted to have lunch the day he left town, but I had to work that morning.  I tried my hardest to get out of it, but it just wasn't possible.

And several months after that, the facebook messages became a little more frequent.  We started chatting on facebook, and then those chats turned into phone calls and texts.  Before I knew it, I was buying a plane ticket to fly to Texas and see him.

I had never left my son overnight when I bought that ticket, but I had arranged for him to stay with my mother that weekend.  I had never had a single 24 hour period away from my son isince his birth almost two and a half years ago.  I had not been on an airplane in so long, and I was hardly prepared for the new security checks.  And I had not seen my first love in 15 years.

So, I flew to Texas, and had an incredible weekend.  We stayed up talking at night, catching up on lost years.  We laughed and laughed and laughed.  And we made love all weekend long.  And it was earth moving, and I was left trembling in ecstasy over and over again.  I told him all my deep, dark secrets...even the ones I have never really breathed a word of.  I felt so comfortable, like I was coming home.  I left Texas, knowing my life was changed forever while my heart jumped and danced in my chest and the smile could not be wiped from my face.

We are both in recovery, and that is really important.  I did not realize how important it was before I fell in love with my first love, all over again.  But recovery is not something I share with most people in my life.  There is an unique language that is only understood by those who have walked in the shoes of addiction and recovery.  To share this with my love, I realize that we understand each other more than ever.  And I realize how much I need that.

We had already made plans to meet in Louisiana for Thanksgiving, and this time I was bringing my son. Over the next few weeks, I discovered that my love wants to have a family.  And I also realized that our goals are the same...we both want to be able to provide a secure and happy life for ourselves and our family.  I realized that we were no longer the carefree kids we were when we first met, but we had both become mature and responsible adults.  So, incredibly different than we were twenty years ago!

Thanksgiving was one of the most wonderful weeks of my life.  My love was amazing with my son, astonishing me on several occasions with his insight and natural ability.  And I realized just how amazing this whole thing really is.  We met so long ago, and our lives lead us both down tumbling, destructive paths, but all that led us back to each other...and the bond is stronger than ever.  It is really unbelieveable, I think sometimes.  What are the chances of it all...that my first love and I would both follow a path of addiction seperately after we split up, that we would both be in recovery, and that the same love and connection was still there, flaming up more passionate and fiery than either of us imagined to be possible in our older, wiser, and more jaded state.  It is incredible.  And still a little unbelieveable at times.

I plan to move to Texas.  I plan to go to graduate school there, studying to get am MFA in Creative Writing.  I hope to be a college professor after I finish my degree.  I will be able to focus on my writing for three years, while going back to school.  And I think I can produce a really great work or two in those years.  Afterward, I will still be able to focus on my writing, as a college professor.  I will, of course, also have to focus on student's writing then, as well...but I will be able to focus on writing.  I will be able to teach something I love.  I spoke to a class at my university this past semester, talking to a small class about writing memoir.  And it went really well.  The professor that asked me to speak was blown away, and he said all the students were electrified.  They asked a lot of questions, and it was really a great experience.  I think I will like teaching.  And it will be good for my son, and good for my family.  Summers off is another really big perk, especially with kids.

So, I plan to move to Texas for graduate school.  And I plan to live the rest of my life with my love.  My first love.  My last love.  My only love.  And I feel like I am the luckiest girl alive.

Thoughts on Recovery

Thoughts on Recovery

I am guest blogging here. This is actually a piece from this blog.