by Kody Christiansen

Sometimes I feel like a muddy dog. Or should I say, I felt like a muddy dog. Waking up on a sidewalk, covered in dirt with no clue how I got there. Digging through a Wall Street trash can to find a half-eaten bagel to call my lunch. Lapping up free drinks offered by older strangers at a bar, being their “good-boy” to feed my addictions. Sometimes the mud on this dog was real, sometimes it was a blackness that covered my spirit and my heart.
     Three-and-a-half years have passed since my life changed. It didn’t change overnight but in a way it sort of did. One unseasonably chilly night in June, sitting on my twin-size bed amongst the static white walls of a homeless shelter in Queens, surrounded by gang members, ex-cons, and the mentally ill—who I called floor mates—I made a decision that would alter my life. I decided to quit drinking and using drugs cold-turkey. No meetings, no sponsor, just sheer will, because I realized that my last chance had finally arrived, and the situation felt so much more dire this time.
     I had attempted to quit multiple times in the past, but I always fell short of sticking to it because, perhaps, I always imagined myself as that muddy dog who didn’t deserve to be cleaned up. I didn’t feel like I was worthy enough to be spared from the inevitable walk down the shelter hall to the room where the veterinarian performed the last rights and put the other creatures to sleep.
     I was already at my fourth homeless shelter, having been kicked out of the first three for being drunk, or causing too much trouble, when I had my moment of real clarity. It was like my soul had become that person in the room who talks too loudly—it was time for it to be heard. “You are not worthless!” it screamed at me. And for once, I finally sat down and listened.
     The days that followed were almost unbearable. I writhed in pain and sweated agony as the drugs and alcohol seeped through my pores. The electronic waves of craving shocked my body as they traveled from my brain through my veins. Have you ever tried to ignore the roaring cries of your body when it wants something so badly? Your mind becomes filled with the constant barking of a hungry dog, begging for drugs and alcohol. “Give me booze, give me drugs, give me booze, give me drugs…” It takes every ounce of might to heel the animal within, just hoping that when it calms, so might your life.
     Recovery is a battle that few can win; it is a battle that rages on every day. Sure, the war gets easier as time goes by; you think about booze and drugs less—but the enemy is always lurking in a trench nearby devising schemes to bring you to relapse. I feel blessed to have found the strength to fight that fight one last time.
     Dry days turned into sober months, and sober months turned into clear-headed purpose-driven years, and now my life is like a wish that came true. Yes, I still have down days—people you love get sick, or a beautiful plan falls through—and those feelings of sadness we all face inevitably spring up. Yes, when those down days appear, I still hear a little voice in my head occasionally saying, “You should have a drink, it will make you feel better.” And yes, while my present is so beautiful and bright, I make sure to never forget the dark and dingy past that brought me to where I am today. I live every day in gratitude.
     So, yes, I still feel like that muddy dog sometimes. But now I know I am stronger than the liquid in a bottle, or the rock at the end of a pipe.
     I am free. I am blessed. I am clean.

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