Remember the Pain...

Pain is like history. If we forget, we are doomed to repeat. So I remember the pain. Not out of some morbid fascination, but from understanding myself. You see,  if I forget how humiliating it is to be in jail and have a Sheriff's Deputy look up my butt with a flash-light, it'll happen again. If I forget how desolate I felt when my son sent me a letter asking me how could I choose drugs over him, I will be desolate again. To forget how alone and hopeless it is walking the streets with no where to go and no way to get there. To use all of my waking energy just to acquire a drug in order to achieve a high that no longer covered the hurt. If I forget the loss of careers, marriage melt-downs, prison riots, police-raids, fatherlessness, lack of being a father, the lying, stealing, betraying, abyss embracing activity, I will once again become a prisoner to the same circumstances and repeat the same insane things. I remember the pain because I have to.
I have to. The alternative from me not doing so would put me back in places I refuse to ever go again. I have so much to live for, so many people I love. There are things I want to do with the time I have left on this planet. And today pain is my friend. Why? Because it reminds me where I am, where I am going, and where I no longer want to be.