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Rusty's Story
When I turned 30 in March 1989 I had a birthday party for myself. It ended around 8 in the morning. Nothing had changed, everybody had gone and I was still alone. There had to be something more to life! The night before a friend of mine gave me a check made out to Lifespring for $100. She said I had a year to use it if I chose to. She said Lifespring might be able to help me. I didn't know much about Lifespring and chose to party the rest of the summer on disability spending much of my time at Sea Isle City, NJ. When September rolled around I knew it was time to try something different.
I enrolled in Lifespring's Basic Training. Four days after the training I knew my life was going to take a radical shift. Prior to the Advanced Training in December 1989 I began my recovery from alcohol and drugs. I relapsed from March of 1990 until July 5, 1990. I knew too much about my pain to continue numbing and knew I had no choice but to move forward. Funny thing about awareness, it makes it unbearable to stay in denial. On July 5,1990 I read the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous and knew what I must do. In the weeks and months that passed I went to a number of meetings but was really never comfortable with any of them. I would leave the meeting more depressed than when I went in. However, it did supply me with some type of hope and structure while I was creating my own support network and alternative approaches. It will be 12 years July 5, 2002 since my last drink, so my alternative method has and is still working. My beliefs and experience with addictions is very different from the traditional and contemporary addictions fields.
In September 1990 about 3 months after I stopped drinking I developed Panic Disorder. At the time I did not know it was Panic Disorder as it manifested while I was driving the car. I would get shortness of breath, get cold and clammy, my joints would ache, I'd feel as though I was sinking and melting backwards in the seat, my heart would race, my legs would get numb so I could not feel the pedals, and sometimes things would appear to turn upside down. After trying several unsuccessful drug therapies and being misdiagnosed, I tried EEG Biofeedback. Essentially, I was training my brainwaves to come back to a balanced state of theta and alpha waves. After 7 weeks of EEG Biofeedback, I was cured. I have had no recurrences since I finished the program in the spring of 1991.
My life started to take a different direction when I came out of Lifespring. I quit my job in sales at the Yellow Pages and explored many different jobs in the coming months. I tried network marketing, health club management and sales, and eventually started my own athletic footwear business in 1991. I met my business partner at an Anthony Robbins Unlimited Power weekend at the Franklin Plaza Hotel in Center City Philadelphia. On Friday night we did the Fire Walk on 1200 degree hot coals, and no, I did not get burned. This was my first obvious lesson in thought follows form and our natural Newtonian laws of science and physics are limited by our own collective thoughts. I took the Essential Experience in November of 1991 then with my future wife Valerie. The Essential Experience is similar to Lifespring and was created and is facilitated by a former Lifespring facilitator David Crump. In the spring of 1991 I took Insight 1 which is also similar to Lifespring. 1989-1991 were intensive searching experiences for me. All of the seminars I participated in and books I read during this period were critical to my growth and development.
In September of 1992 I got married. The ironic part about getting married was that both Valerie and I knew we should not get married before we got married. I think with our earlier stages of growth we thought that marriage would make things better. However, we were both co-dependent and lived a rollercoaster of emotions during our 4 year marriage. I went into individual and group therapy with a psychologist in Newark, DE shortly after we got married. After a while I fired him because he kept falling asleep during our sessions. I did not like his style and philosophy with group therapy either. I switched therapists and began seeing a psychiatrist for depression. I had liquidated my sneaker business and was marketing in-patient drug and alcohol rehabilitation services. I was not happy with this job and was let go for the first time in my life right after Christmas 1993. I found out that the non-profit world is not much different from the for-profit world as the bottom line still is money. I was depressed and did not know what to do with my life.
1994 was a transition year for me as I was trying to figure out what to do with my life. I joined a men's group at Starting Point in NJ in January 1994. This was an excellent support and growth experience for me and continued for the next 7 years as an inner child group, a co-dependency group, a relationship group, a spirituality group, a breath group, and eventually to more advanced relationship groups integrating men with women. I also tried meditating for the first time in 1994, but found myself more anxious after meditating than when I started. I read many books. I sent out tons of resumes with few interviews and many part-time jobs. Any sales job that I applied for would only offer me straight commission. By the end of the summer I was looking at different graduate programs across the country as it became clear that an entire career shift was calling me. I found a program at Temple University, in the College of Education, Department of Psychological Studies in Education. The program, Psychoeducational Processes, piqued my interest since it concentrated on group dynamics and processes. I had been fascinated with the power of groups in promoting change with all the human potential trainings and workshops I had attended since 1989. I applied to the program and was accepted for enrollment in the January 1995 semester.
1995 was a transformational year for me. It was becoming more apparent that my marriage was not going to last. In early March 1995 I went in for my third rotator cuff shoulder surgery. At the time I was diagnosed with sleep apnea and was trying to get used to the c-pap machine while sleeping. Combine this with the medications my psychiatrist had me on, Paxil, Wellbutrin, Klonopin, Adivan, Ambian, and the Tylenol with Codeine my surgeon had me on for pain and I was a ticking time bomb. For two weeks following my surgery I was wondering whether I would ever return to normal. I did not want to leave the house. I was swinging from unbearable anxiety to deep depression within seconds. I just wanted it to stop and did not care how. I gained a great appreciation for why some people want to commit suicide. I went to see one of the most respected interns at the University of Pennsylvania and all he told me is that nothing was wrong with me and that I needed psychological help. I was infuriated. I asked for the best psychiatrists in Delaware. Evidently, I was already seeing who was supposed to be one of the best. I contacted the other highly regarded psychiatrist for an immediate emergency appointment. His advice was to wean off of all the drugs I was on. His belief was that I was on too many drugs and was having an adverse chemical reaction. Thus, it was not mental but physical. Within three weeks all of my symptoms had disappeared and I felt normal for the first time since I was first put on meds by my first psychiatrist in 1992. I have been fine ever since and will not use drugs unless absolutely necessary or life threatening.
As I regained my health in all areas of my life I excelled academically in my Doctoral program finishing in May 2000 with a 3.94 cumulative average. During the rest of 1994 and all through 1995 I was going through all sorts of personal growth holding 4 part-time jobs and going to school full-time. After trying couples counseling twice with two different therapists Valerie and I decided to get divorced and went our own ways in December 1996. After a period of several months Valerie and I became and still are the best of friends. We have even double dated a couple of times. Breakups do not have to be blaming hateful experiences. All of our relationships are gifts to us so we may see the unhealed issues inside ourselves and grow from them. Nobody can ever do anything to us. We attract and choose to do everything to ourselves to learn lessons. Until we learn these lessons we will continue to attract the same types of people, continue the same patterns of behavior, and keep repeating similar dynamics until the pain gets so bad we just cannot bear it any longer. The only way to truly be happy, peaceful, and forgive ourselves and others is to work on our own shit and karma. If we think the answer lies outside ourselves or in others we will remain in bondage, in our own hell. All answers lie inside ourselves.
These are the lessons I have learned in all of my relationships since my divorce in December 1996. Between 1997-2002 I have been in several relationships and realize that this is where the real growth and healing occurs. I have participated in about 13 Omega workshops among others during this time period, and will continue to grow the rest of my life. I have integrated A Course in Miracles, Taoism, Buddhism, Native American, the perennial philosophy, and quantum physics into my spiritual path. We are never done with our healing, it is a lifelong or lives long process. The reason I am being so candid with my story is because I am a big proponent in the authentic process in both therapy and education. My experience is that people heal most effectively without hierarchy and labels. People need to know that therapists, educators, and Ph.D.'s are the same as everybody else. We are still dealing with our shit just like everyone else. The important point is to be in the process of healing. Sharing what has worked and what has not worked is an important part of this process. Self-efficacy is also important so that clients know that change is possible. Nothing is a quick fix. Change is a slow process, and everybody's process is different. My change process is in its 13th year since I awoke from a long and painful sleep. The adventure and excitement is never over as I keep waking up over and over again to hidden pieces of myself. I now know through experience that I can be at peace if I choose. The beauty is I get to choose again and again. Today I choose forgiveness of myself through the gifts my brothers and sisters mirror to me, however painful they may look and feel. I experience the one mind we all share and the universal love which is God, Christ Consciousness, Great Spirit, Buddha, Higher Power, Mother Father, Source, Creation, Tao, or whatever other marker you choose to express this mystical source. I choose love over fear and forgiveness over condemnation. And through this one mind I am one with God for why would God create anything less than itself? Thus, I along with all my brothers and sisters are and always were sinless. Anything less would truly usurp the power and will of God.
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