Sunday Serenity: Don’t Give Up Yet!

I want you to think about the last time you thought about giving up on something. Maybe that's a relationship, a job, or perhaps more seriously, life in general. And I want to take you back and use a personal experience of mine to hopefully help you relate a little bit. My name is Jason Lennox, and I'm your resident recovery champion. I'm here to talk about everything, recovery, mental health, well being, and, you know, Sunday Serenity is my live series where I come to you and pull stories from my week and from the past and other people's stories to really, you know, bring you to a place of, as the topic mentions, serenity.

And again, I want you to think about the last time that you recall wanting to give up on something. And I'm going to give you an example of mine that was much more serious in nature. I've mentioned, and if you're new to this here, I'll tell you again that I went to treatment in 2010, the end of 2010, and I didn't go because I thought, hi. Good. Good evening. Speak wonder. It's good to see you here. I didn't go to treatment because I thought that I had a different way of life. Honestly, I didn't.

Luke, it's always great to have you, man. I went because the pain that I was experiencing, the jail cell was much more than I could bear. Again, I had come from the hospital and overdosed into the jail cell again, and I had no idea what my future held. Good evening, Dan. Lots of people chiming in. Thank you. Thank you. And so I went to treatment because I wanted less pain. And as I got to treatment again, I didn't have hope that there was a different kind of life. I thought, you know, my destiny was I would end up dead from this thing.

That's how my father's life ended. And I just knew that was my path. But as I got to treatment. Hey, good evening, Chris. As I got to treatment, I started to see other people around me and, you know, they talked about all the things, and I went to recovery meetings and they had all the phrases, and one of them was, don't quit before the miracle happens. And that didn't really. It wasn't something I could comprehend. What is this miracle? Because again, my life was destined to end. From drugs and alcohol, I knew that.

But I could see that these people had something behind what they were saying. So they said, don't quit before the miracle happens. Lo and behold, I make it six months of my first year. I spent six months in structured facilities, and then I spent months with a mentor, a family that I got really close with in recovery. And my first month out on my own, I was 24, almost 25 years old, was actually right about this time, twelve years ago, the end of October, when I moved into my first apartment. And I remember very vividly it was a Sunday evening, perhaps not far off from this time.

And I was sitting in the parking lot of a Walmart. And remember, this is the first time I had my own place, my own phone, my own bills. A lot of stressors were coming. I had just gotten back into school and quit a job, so I was relying on financial aid, and I was really struggling to understand how I was going to make ends meet. And I hadn't been able to completely rid myself of all the demons that came from my addiction. And so here I was in the Walmart parking lot, and again starting to think about using drugs, using alcohol again.

And that was a horrifying feeling for me. Before it even happened, I had so much shame, guilt, remorse for all the people who had tried to help me. And so I began to get really, really sick in my head again. And as I sat in the parking lot of that Walmart, it was a sunny day, I remember, inside this white Oldsmobile. And I was in so much pain from thinking about going back to drugs and alcohol, knowing that that would hurt even more. So I was in so much pain thinking about the addiction and going back, but also in so much pain and sobriety as well, and recovery.

So I really felt like there was no way out and again in my life then. It was at that moment that I started to think maybe suicide was the way, maybe that was the best way. And that was the best result for my life, because I could not imagine going back to the life I had, but I couldn't imagine continuing to live. And I was truly at that moment. This title, don't give up yet. I was at the give up moment. And it just so happened that I had dinner with a gentleman from recovery the night before. And I thought about him, and I remember watching him and hearing him, and I knew there was something real about this guy.

So I called him. I called him from that parking lot, and I was half hysterical and said, jay, here's the deal. I'm in a really bad spot, and I really need help. And he said, get over here now. And I drove over to that man's house, and we sat in his living room that night and talked and talked and talked. And he said, it's gonna be all right. We're gonna get to work. We're gonna do some of this recovery stuff, and you're going to be all right. And I don't know that I could believe that, but thank goodness that he was there.

And thank goodness I didn't give up. And within six weeks, six weeks of some very intense recovery work I'll never forget. It was the moment of my life. I was standing in a hallway, a building I used to live in, actually, where most of my struggles came from, in that building. It was my old landlord. I owed him a lot of money. I was trying to work off some debt. Another story for a different day. But I sat in the hallway. It was a Saturday afternoon, late Saturday afternoon, and it was dark out already.

I was staring down the hallway. The snow was coming down through the other side of the door on the back porch. And it hit me all in that moment. And I just remember the tears started falling. Because it was at that moment that I realized I wasn't fighting the drugs and the alcohol anymore. That for the first time in my life, at least that I could remember, I didn't have that thought of, am I going to go back there or not? And it was because I didn't give up. I reached out, I made the call. We did the work.

And that man stood there for me, and he did for me what I couldn't do for myself. I didn't give up. And again, had that experience that told me that it was going to be okay forever and ever. And I'm just so grateful that he was there. I'm so grateful that something in me picked up the phone and made the call. And if I could ask anyone to do anything in all these moments, little, big, everything in between. Pick up the phone, make the call. If it's to me, through the button, if it's to the others here on the Cadre app, if it's to anyone else.

There are a lot more people in this world that care about you, that care about me than you or I think. And again, I just beg you that when the moment comes and it feels like it's time to give up, just remember. Remember this story. Remember the other stories. We've all had the moments, but don't give up yet. I hope you all have gathered something here. I hope you all have amazing weeks. I hope you've had great weekends, and I hope you can remember that. Pick up the phone. Little things, big things, everything in between.

Just don't give up yet. Have an amazing week. m.. Be blessed.