Neothink Clubhouses

  I was brought up in Oak Harbor, Ohio. My parents, sister and I lived there through my childhood.  My Father received an honorable discharge from the Army at the end of 1968, after serving much of his time, during more than one tour of duty, in Vietnam. My Mother and her family moved to Oak Harbor, Ohio, not long before my Father came home from service. After his return, they met, dated shortly, married, and I was born the last day of December, in 1969. My Sister was born on March 2nd, of 1971. My Sister and I were very close as children, playing together in the snow or leaves, and as we got a little older, we were in a couple of school plays together, and she and I were in a couple of different marching bands together, where I went from base drum to snare drum. I loved the 80’s! Looking back, there was so much about the 80’s that I liked; music, records, movies, brat pack, MTV, clothing, hairdoos, break-dancing, clubs, spray-on jeans, parachute pants, etc… And to name a few that were usually exclusive to you ladies like: leg warmers, tall hair, purple eye-shadow, etc… And 80’s lingo, such as: Like totally!, Like awesome!, Like oh ma’ god!, Like gag me with a spoon!, etc… So, anyway, I had a blast! Most of the time. However, after graduation, my plan was to take a year off from attending school; a break, you might say. Well, I graduated at 19. Then, I found myself working at Cedar Point at age 21, and still hadn’t gone back to school yet. Though, my new plan, prior to getting the job there, was to start school immediately after summer ended. That never happened. What was stopping me? I was hard on myself too. I felt as though I was powerless over my lack of motivation, laziness, undisciplined thinking, or whatever it was. I did not know. I wanted to be like all the others I knew that had a choice of big and small, near or far away Universities. Instead, I was left with rationalizing to myself, and then others, for not being one of the successful students. In March of 1999, I got into a car with a man that had been drinking and doing other drugs. As we were in route to the next bar a 21 year old birthday-girl, in a hurry and not looking, pulled out in front of our speeding car. (70 m.p.h. in a 35 m.p.h. This accident resulted in the driver dying, the girl fracturing her pelvic bone, among other injuries, and me paralyzed, due to shards of shattered discs protruding through my spinal cord, and closed head trauma, which causes a chemical imbalance. After 98% recovery through two surgeries and learning how to walk again during physical rehab., the insanity returned, and I found myself out drinking again. Clearly, I had issues from a young age, and mixed in with all this was the constant efforts to escape reality throughout my life. From Junior High, staring out the window/spacing out, ending my habitual escaping with alcohol and other drugs.  Alcohol, and other drugs, had become my favorite form of escape. Though I wasn’t conscious of this until after I recovered. The day before my 32nd Birthday, I began a journey of self discovery through taking inventories of myself, by way of a twelve step program. You see, just as the people in the 12 step program had said, I wasn’t going to recover until I did the 12 step work of the program. But, the lack of motivation, laziness, and undisciplined thinking that kept me from my school work and going to college was also keeping me from doing the work of the 12 step program too. Until I reached the extreme pain of loneliness that I did, I wasn’t willing to take an honest look at myself, which is an important part of the first step of recovery; honesty. During the first five years or so, of my recovery, I studied and added to the “God of my own understanding” or “Higher Power as I understood him”. The latter two years I consistently studied the metaphysics faith, when one day I was approached by letter in a way that grabbed my attention… More to come soon… GENE  Neothink Society of Northwest Ohio  Toledo and vicinities, OH