Transcription of Life’s Design, #80
Speaker 1: You’re listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, recorded at the studios of Maine Magazine in Portland, Maine. Summaries of all our past shows can be found at doctorlisa.org. Become a subscriber of Dr. Lisa Belisle on iTunes. See the Dr. Lisa website or Facebook page for details.
Speaker 1: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors: Maine Magazine, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of Re/Max Heritage, Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedics Specialists, Booth Maine, Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial, Apothecary by Design and The Body Architect.
Dr. Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you’re listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast show number 80, Life’s Design. Airing for the first time on March 24th 2013. Few lives proceed as planned. When we lean into our shortcomings, accepting and celebrating what we have been given, we find riches where we might least expect them. Maine artist, David Cedrone and Alcoholics Anonymous Sponsor William Foley share their experiences with the blessings to be found in life’s detours.
Today I walked by the Royal River on a path through a tiny, private estuary. It is a path I have been on many times previously. The way was muddy and rutted, with footprints of dogs, humans and an occasional deer marking the late season’s snow. I kept my head down, paying attention to where my feet would land upon the soft earth.
Coming around a bend, I was surprised to see that the landscape had changed entirely from my last visit. A broad swath of trees had been cleared, and underbrush cut away. The river, once obscured, was now plainly in sight. Never having realized that it was so close, I hadn’t been aware that the view had been lacking. It is often the case that we don’t know what we cannot see, until things have been cleared away from our line of sight. We may not even realize that our line of sight is being infringed upon, even though we, ourselves, may have created the obstacles that block it.
Artist David Cedrone was a talented young Portlander who had found his life’s great love, when a sudden turn of events caused him to radically restructure his approach to living and creating art. William Foley, successful in the ways of the material world, felt himself getting pulled further and further into the abyss of addiction, before he woke up to the obvious spiritual lack in his life.
Both David and William experienced the unclouding of vision necessary to see what was plainly before them. Life re-designed itself before their eyes. Sometimes it takes big life events to clear the obstacles that impede us, and enable us to see the simple beauty inherent in our lives. Like an ever-present river, suddenly revealed. We may never know what we will encounter along the path. Just as we never realize that we may have been blind until we once again can see.
We invite you to join us in pondering the ways in which your own life may have been redesigned as you listen to our interviews with Artist David Cedrone and Alcoholics Anonymous Sponsor William Foley. Thank you for being on this journey with us.
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Having lived in Maine since 1977, I have been around the block a few times. One of those times around the block, I stumbled across some work by an artist that I found very fascinating. There were little men and women and creatures that didn’t look the way that I would normally think of them. Somehow they called to me and this work was to be found in Coffee by Design. In fact, it was to be found in the gallery that I visited.
This individual I’m sure doesn’t remember meeting me back when he had his gallery but this is my stumble upon and I remembered it all these years. To have this artist in the studio with me today, talking about his work is an enormous privilege. Both of us had been around the block now a few times so we’re going to talk about that. Thanks for coming in. We’re talking to David Cedrone.
David: Thank you, Lisa. It’s great to be here today. It’s an honor to be on your show.
Dr. Lisa: Your art, where did this come from? I love it because it’s very real and at the same time not.
David: The imagery came from different life experiences like dreams and events that have happened that I will go and revisit and try and make them a little bit more whimsical. The way my brain works, I have so many ideas. I work in a very cartoon lifestyle because I can produce my ideas faster than something more realistic or those paints taking renderings.
Dr. Lisa: This has become pretty well-known within the area. When I’ve said to people, “Where going to have this artist done.” I’ll say it’s David Cedrone. Some people will recognize your name. If I say Coffee by Design, almost everybody will say, “Oh yeah, I know this guy.” You become pretty well-known.
David: I’ve been pretty lucky within a year back in … I moved here in 1984. By 1985, I was able to turn my artwork into my livelihood, which was really exciting. Back in the 80s, every restaurant here was excited to have a show. Pretty much wherever you went, there was art everywhere. It was hard to keep anything in the studio. Things would numb. It’s called out well for myself and my peer who is really great.
I love the 80s. I miss them. Things were going really well for quite a few years. Then I decided to open up my own little studio gallery that I had on High Street for about four years. That was really fun for a while. Then life got a little bit more complicated. I closed up shop and started working from home again.
Dr. Lisa: That’s one of the reasons that we wanted to have you on to talk about being an artist and also the complications of life. It’s interesting because Mary Allen Lindeman who was on one of our earlier shows, she suggested that you would be a good guest not just because you’re an artist. She knew that we also have artists on the show but she said, “This is the guy who’s had a really complex life but he’s figured out a way to keep working at it.”
David: It was if I waited my whole life to partner up and I finally met the person of my dreams at age 33. At that time, I had already had my gallery for a few years. We’ve been together for about a year, maybe a year and a half when he had a very severe heart attack which left him with an anoxic brain injury. At that point, after about four or five months of 24/7 in the hospital by his side, I realized that I really couldn’t reopen the gallery. I had to stay home and do a 24/7 homecare for him.
I just had to switch directions and work from home after I did whatever I could for him and just reopened it. I created a studio in the basement and work from there for years to come. It really changed things because what I used to do when I just had a whole bunch of pets and it was just myself. I used to try and get two eight hours shift in a day with my work because that’s all I ever really wanted to do.
Then after Matthew’s injury was so complex that it really cut my work time into maybe a third of what I was used to producing. That really changed how things went. Then a couple of years later, when I realized that Matt was going to come back and be … He was like a gentle giant and just learning how to compensate for his injury and be able to navigate through the day.
The doctor said that he wasn’t really going to change too much through the years. That was a really, really difficult thing to face. I’m like, “Okay. Here we are. We’re stuck at home. We both have really big hearts. Then what are we going to do?” I decide to go work with Casey Family Services and get my foster care to adopt license. Then we adopted this wonderful five-year-old. That changed our lives yet again.
We’ve had him for about 11 years now. He’s doing fantastic. He wants to be into musical theater, a wonderful kid. It fascinates me how you think you’re taking your life and you’re going in one direction and then big significant changes, good or bad come into your life. All of a sudden, you find yourself going in this other direction. It’s almost like working with a blank canvas, where you go in thinking that your piece is going to be one way and magically inspired, you come up with this whole new creation.
That’s what life is. That’s what life is like. I actually personally think that some of my favorite artists don’t even produce art. It’s how they live their life. It’s what they’ve got and handed and what they choose to do with their time and what they choose to do with their life. People are fascinating.
Dr. Lisa: You were 33 years old.
David: I was.
Dr. Lisa: That’s young and the older I get, the younger it seems. That’s young to be faced with this enormous decision, “Do I stay with this person or do I not?”
David: It was one of those situations where it wasn’t a choice. Deep, deep down inside had this person not made it and died. It was 10 minutes without oxygen, so he was basically dead for 10 minutes. If he didn’t come through that, I don’t know if I could have made it. I was so grateful to have whatever just the fact that he was still alive. It’s amazing the doctor said he’d come back as not much more than a vegetable.
Now he can function and navigate his day with really just a little bit of short-term memory loss but still has a great day every day. I think one of the most important things that ended up happening for us is that because I knew him so well, myself and close friends of ours that knew him really well and his family included, we all kept reminding him every single day of who he was, what was going on, family pictures and memories. It was every single day for years and years and years.
It took maybe three and a half years before he could even remember my name. Now, it feels like so long ago. I think that if he were isolated from his life as he knew it and put him to a home, he wouldn’t have recovered quite as well as he did. You said how could I stick with this person? It’s like I waited all my life for this person. It wasn’t like it was a choice.
Dr. Lisa: You loved him back to life as what I’m hearing, you and his family and your friends. I know it sounds a little woo-hoo but you loved him back to life.
David: Yes, I would have to say that’s still the case.
Dr. Lisa: Do you think that he in a way or your life, do you think that your life together and your life with your son became your art?
David: It was years after I adopted my son. We became dads. Things started to get more difficult. All the events of what happened seemed to start catching up. It took years before I realize that I probably have traces of posttraumatic stress disorder from the incident, the injury. A lot of hoops to jump through after adopting the little boy.
It wasn’t until several years later before I feel like I had a mini breakdown just within my own spirit. I was still able to get everything that I was supposed to get done finished. Then I started leaning a bit more on drinks in the evening and taking mental breaks more often than I thought probably should have. It worked for a while. I didn’t really have any downtime. I didn’t have a break. I’ve always had taken care of things or taken care of somebody.
Few years went by and I realized that … I started feeling that I started getting sloppy and forgetting things and not as inspired to produce the work that I was wanting to produce, feeling like I was capable of an awful lot more and going to sleep way too early and not really getting a lot done. Then I had realized that it’s better to put that down and just start sharpening things back up again.
Dr. Lisa: We’ll return to our interview in a moment. We in the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast hope that our listeners enjoy their own work lives to the same extent we do and fully embrace everyday. As a physician and small business owner, I rely on Marci Booth from Booth, Maine to help me with my own business and to help me live my own life fully. Here are a few thoughts from Marci.
Marci: There comes a time in every entrepreneurs life when the question of which way to go rings out very loudly. Cash flow is tied every month and it seems as though getting ahead is out of reach. At those moments, you feel beaten down and could feel like you’re at a crossroad. It’s that critical time when you have to decide if you’re all in or out.
At one time or another, we all come to a roadblock in our lives and either go through it, around it or go back, pack it up and go home. Usually it’s just before something big is about to break. The big question is what is it that you really want to do. Why did you start this business in the first place? Is it truly about a dream and vision or was it just a matter of convenience?
These are the tough questions I know but they determine whether you can make the business continue to grow. You’re the leader and the visionary. Are you all in? If you’re truly are, then you need to take steps to build that vision. One step is to reassure your staff that you are all in. They feel it when you’re down and they need direction. Give them the confidence that you’ll do whatever it takes to turn that business around.
You don’t need to make them any promises but they do need to know that you can and will lead them. You need to articulate the vision and show your passion so they can share it and help build on your dream. Breathe life back into your vision and get excited again. Only you can make it happen. It takes perseverance and hard work. If you love what you do, you’ll never know it was work.
To discuss more, contact me at boothmaine.com.
Speaker 1: This segment of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is brought to you by the following generous sponsors: Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of Re/Max Heritage in Yarmouth, Maine. Honesty and integrity can take you home. With Re/Max Heritage, it’s your move. Learn more at rheritage.com.
Dr. Lisa: I guess what I’m wondering is I see this a lot in caregivers. The people who spent time with their creative energy going towards art, writing art, photography. They end up if they are taking care of small children or they’re taking care of their older parents or they’re taking care of people who are ill. The conduct creative energy ends up going towards that caretaking. That person or people in their lives becomes their art. They are actually spending their creative energy in that way.
David: Yes. It’s not just creative energy, it’s all your energy. Let’s say we all have eight hours a day of energy. If you’re used to spending six or so hours on your art and then an event like this takes place and then you only have maybe two hours on your art and four or six hours on family. It really takes a lot out of your creative time.
What’s happening now 14 years later is that overwhelming passion to produce and create is resurfacing. I can’t block in enough time to do my art. I’m stealing it from every corner of my day that I can. Like yesterday I was like, “Oh, I could get the laundry on.” I grab all our laundry and go to the Laundromat. I grabbed my sketch. It’s in my car. I turned the heat on. I haven’t already had to just draw whatever I want in complete silence.
It was awesome. It’s kind of this analogy but then I also get up at 4:00 in the morning. I have a couple of hours before the boys get up to get my drawing or design time in. When there’s time and I want to spend time with Matt, I can be in the same room. I have projects in there that I can be working on. Over time I’ve learned how to infuse getting my artwork done and taking care of the family. It’s all about creating that balance. It’s all about creating that flow.
Dr. Lisa: When you are talking needing to take the edge off by the drinks at the end of the day and feeling like this was dulling you down, you’re going to sleep too early. That was something that you decided, “You know what, this doesn’t really fit in my life because now I have this artistic fervor. I want to move forward in my life. I need to get this thing out of my life or move it further away from my life so that I can engage in my art.”
David: True. I actually started getting really disappointed with myself. I feel mad at myself for it. It’s like I have time to clean the house, go grocery shopping, do all that stuff but I don’t have any time for my art. It’s got to do with my art. I have got to stop working. I felt like something really deep within inside me was dying. I wasn’t being true to myself.
It’s like, “Well, this totally isn’t working.” Just deciding to put that down and spending the time that I would ordinarily use, having a few cocktails and back into just doing artwork. I realize that I have five times more time to do artwork; just feeling a lot more balanced and happy.
Dr. Lisa: Talk to me about that happy feeling. You mentioned to me on the phone that you are now doing stained glass. Part of the reason that you had to go towards stained glass is because your art for a while got very dark.
David: With the images that I produced for years they had a whimsical, happy, buoyant, air to the images. Then after taking care of Matthew for years, I started feeling lost. It took years before it started to sink in. Then all of a sudden, the imagery that I was producing were years and years of pent up sadness or feelings of lost. It’s hard to talk about. It was almost like it all came out. I felt like I had been holding it in for years and years and years trying to stay strong and get things done.
Then all of a sudden I produced this huge body of work that was really, really dark and had a few shows with that body of work. The feedback I got was really negative. People thought the pieces were very powerful and they felt betrayed because I wasn’t doing happy, light, fun things. I was doing really daunting, dark, scary pieces. It was like my work did a complete 180. It’s not like I would always be doing that. It’s just that I did that and so many people were upset that I switch directions during that phase and that I wanted to hide.
What I did was I took a bit of a sabbatical from painting and started working, trying to teach myself how to do stained glass. I have a dear friend, Laura Fuller on Munjoy Hill who took me on as an apprentice and taught me how to refine my skill working in glass. I’ve been really fortunate to have had that experience.
What’s great about stained glass is you really can’t … it’s a way of using really bright and vibrant colors with the black bold line that I always use consistently with my paintings but the more abstract. Nobody could really see what was going on. There again, there’s like another resting space. It feels like a resting spot.
I did that for the last five and a half years. Within the last six months, I’ve resurrected the painting again. Now I’m trying to create a balance between the two and have the blast.
Dr. Lisa: Isn’t that always a bit of a challenge for artists is creating things that are true to themselves but also something that one could actually make a living with?
David: It is tricky. I think that the art that I’ve produced that was true to myself was so much stronger than the years that I was trying to imagine really high overhead and my work went really commercial. I was trying to please others. My sales volume increased but my love of painting increased when I was being true to my heart and painting what I felt and experience as supposed to what I thought might sell.
Dr. Lisa: You might be making more money with one but you’re actually costing yourself on the other hand.
David: Right. There is a balance there. It’s interesting because actually my experience is I’ve actually had more success when I paint what I want and when I paint what I feel and what’s true to my heart and it becomes much stronger. It’s important for me to remember that if I paint what I love, I’ll be able to keep producing as supposed to when I felt financial insecure and I was painting what I think people want. I usually get to keep those pieces.
It’s really important to stay true to yourself and to block in enough time for yourself to stay centered and balanced enough to produce what you love to make. It’s the best gift you could give yourself.
Dr. Lisa: It’s a great metaphor when you talk about working in stained glass that you actually had to let the light in. That you had to go to this dark place, you had to grieve what’s so important to you dealing with all these things that you couldn’t have dealt with while you were trying to take care of your partner and your son. Then you had to let the light in. There had to be a balance.
David: That’s interesting. I never put the stained glass and the light in analogy together.
Dr. Lisa: It’s still a process. It’s still a process. When I talked to you on the phone, you said, “Wait, your show is about health and wellness. I’m not sure I have the answer. I’m not sure that I’m the best example of health and wellness.” What I said is, “I’m looking for people who are trying to live the question. I’m not looking for people who already have the answers.” You’re the perfect example of that.
David: When you explained it like that, I got really excited about being on your show. Years and years and years ago, someone said it really wasn’t like … all my life I always wanted to be successful. I don’t really know what that was going to look like. I had this big goal in my head. I was racing toward that goal. Really what’s being successful at this stage of the game is the journey as to how you get there. It’s everything that happens between here and that goal which makes your life rich. It’s a pretty big life.
Dr. Lisa: That’s really wellness. It’s really the willingness to show up whatever it is that your life gives you …
David: … and do what’s in front of you.
Dr. Lisa: … and do what’s in front of you and participate. Even this little detour that you’ve taken where you realize that maybe a few cocktails at the end of the day, that wasn’t really helping you very much. Even that is helping you understand. You still need to keep showing up. You still need to do what’s in front of you and that’s wellness. That’s the art of it too.
David: Just coming to that decision from within and making that stand and taking that extra time and producing as it feels like it’s giving me 15 years back like almost right away, very excited about that.
Dr. Lisa: Going back and really setting some boundaries and saying these are of mine is important to me. It’s important to me to live. That’s been crucial for you.
David: It has and it’s really, really important that I make sure that I make the time for it.
Dr. Lisa: That will be the best way for us to finish this interview is to do suggest to people who are listening if there’s an artist within them and I think there’s an artist within all of us to some extent, that they take the time to bring that artist to the table and let them do what they love to do.
David: It’s being true to yourself if you’re able to allow yourself that time to produce.
Dr. Lisa: How do people find out about your art, David?
David: I think the best way would be my website which is www.davidcedrone.com. or friend me on Facebook.
Dr. Lisa: … or go into Coffee by Design and look on the walls.
David: They do have some pretty substantial pieces there.
Dr. Lisa: You have an incredibly rich and complex life and for us to even sneak a few moments out of that life to spend time together today, I’m so grateful for that. I appreciate your coming in, David.
David: Thank you for having me.
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Dr. Lisa: There are people in the community who offer, I’ll just call it a ministry for lack of a better term in a way that sometimes unexpected. I met this individual in I don’t even know how many years ago it was. It was in the bulk food isle at Wild Oats here in Portland. There was some special something about this guy. I couldn’t figure out exactly what it was but I knew I was going through an interesting time in my life. Somehow he seemed to know that and we stopped and we talked about things.
Over time, we’ve developed this relationship where he always has exactly the right thing that I need at exactly the right time for some reason. I think we all have people like this in our lives. I know that William Foley is this individual for many people in the Greater Portland community through his work as not only an AA Sponsor but also with one of the local natural food and supplement stores here in the Portland area.
Thank you so much for coming in and spending time with me today.
William: It’s a privilege to be here. Thank you very much for inviting me.
Dr. Lisa: William, your life took a pretty unexpected turn, I think not so far back.
William: That’s exactly what happened. It’s my experience, I was the last to know that my life wasn’t what I thought it was. I was caught up in an experience of pranks that satisfy the world wearing a mask. Because I wasn’t living an authentic experience of myself, it was painful.
I found myself seemingly celebrating my arrival in the world. I was financially stable as far as the world was concerned. I was doing really well to have nice cars, had a nice house. The out wood of parents was perfect. Inside, I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t even know. I didn’t even know who I was.
I needed to numb my experience day in and day out under the guise of the celebration. It was something I was worthy of that I worked hard. It’s no other time. Consequence was founded adding up mostly in the terrible things that I said to people that I loved. Occasional crumpled metal, car accidents, my physical health started to wane.
Over time, my life crumbled in front of me. In the end, what was left was just Bill. I didn’t have a relationship with Bill at all because of my demise. Now I look at my breakdown as my actual breakthrough because it was the beginning of a relationship that I started with myself. When I let go and stop trying so hard and stepped away from the doing my life and moved into the being. This all came very, very gradually.
I noticed my life started getting better and better and better. I developed the trust and the experience of so-called surrender to my life. The gratitude that I developed … In that trust, I eventually was just odd that my life was becoming better. I developed a deep sense of gratitude in that.
AA is the reason I basically found what I was looking for in myself. It gave me the structure. I’m not a person with structure. I’m really one who goes with the flow. I needed to start over and I didn’t know it was possible.
It’s funny we’re coming up on an anniversary of really the beginning of a huge change in my life. It was the Academy Awards. Reese Witherspoon was at the podium accepting her Academy Award. She sung out that she mattered. I matter. It’s all I ever wanted was to matter. I looked around this wall of my environment at that time. I looked up and I said, “Really? Really? This is my plan. This is what you have.”
I just wanted to matter. I wanted to have an impact. Sure everybody wants to contribute. The ego is healthy in that respect. It came from a place of … I was genuinely thought that I couldn’t believe this could happen to me. I felt like my had been given to me. What I realized through the program of AA is that it makes no difference whether you created it or it was given to you. You can start over if you’re sincere and humble and ask.
Through the process of taking on a power greater than myself and asking for another chance. I did a third step prayer. I’ve done two of them. I hope I never have to do one again. I turn my life and my will over to something greater than myself.
Surrender has the bad wrap because according to Webster’s dictionary it means to give up. In AA, it couldn’t be further from the truth. It really means to take on a partnership. I used to wake up every morning and think, “What am I going to do today?” I wake up now and think, “What are we going to do today? Who are you going to send me?” I’m still excited about who’s coming because I have no idea.
My job is just to arrive. The hardest part of my day so far is by getting here. I’m afraid to fail. I’m afraid that I won’t have anything to contribute. For a long, long time I just stayed in the dugout because if I didn’t step up to the plate, I couldn’t strike out. I couldn’t fail.
In recovery, I learned that you can do that. Guess what? The pitch is coming any way. Life’s happening. The blessing of my life is I get to participate as Dr. Brené Brown says, “It’s not about the winner or the loser. It’s about the participants.” You showed up, so what? You might not have won but I came. I don’t have to conquer but I do have to contribute my little bit. I’m really blessed to be here. Thank you.
Dr. Lisa: Talk to me a little bit about AA. It’s interesting because there was a very famous Bill that was involved in AA.
William: There was. AA is something of a combination between a religious group called the Oxford Group. There was a marriage between the penance of thoughts and this group of people that needed a mulligan in their lives so to speak. The religious component is you have to own your life. The miracle of the 12 steps is you ask for something greater than yourself to help you. Then that help that power that you’re relying on to save you makes some demands on you.
One of them is own yourself, own your past. What is that you’ve done? We do this thing called the life inventory. It’s daunting. Most of us are horrified by it. It seems to start off pretty easy where you make a list of all the people, things, ideas, institutions, anything that causes energy in you that you resent.
It seems to be an outward experience that these things are the cause of all your problems. Then there’s this turnaround where you have to ask yourself about these resentments. What was your role in them? In that, you’ll realize how you were selfish, self-speaking, dishonest and fearful. You learn the patterns that occur in your life that have caused you to stumble and want to escape your life.
To me, that is bringing your cross so to speak to your higher power and say, “This is me. This is what I’ve done. I’d like to try again.” Once you’ve done that, amazing things happen. I think this great gratitude from the creator that you finally owned not only your successes but your mistakes and your willingness to want to make things better.
I don’t know. We have this term that, “God, take my character defects.” I think we’re all a unique recipe. If you do any baking at all, it’s not good to leave ingredients out. God just takes the things that are seemingly negative about you and uses them in a positive way.
I know my need to be happy, my desire to be happy came from a place that I least expect it to come from. It fills me up to give. That who knew that I would be so full by giving up myself. I never had that experience nor was I ever coached in that direction. My idea about life was how much of the pie do I get rather than how much can I give and I know I’ll be taken care of.
Dr. Lisa: We’ll return to our interview in a minute. First, let’s take some time to explore the connection between health and wealth, something that I firmly believe in and have tried to promote on this show. Joining us is my friend and personal financial adviser, Tom Shepard.
Tom: What do crisis and extreme opportunity have in common? After years of working with people on both ends of the economic spectrum, we have realized that they both experience the same state; a realization that things have to change. The primary difference is that most of us that are looking at opportunity have overcome a crisis or two.
The familiar feelings could give us comforts now that we have made it through this darkness before. The big challenge the second time is that we may feel we have more at risk. To protect our resources and our identity, we’ve built a heavy and conversant system around our money that makes it difficult to move ahead.
The person in crisis may have more access to money than the one that stands at the doorstep of opportunity. This is true of us individually and collectively. What’s left is a reward system that increasingly pays off for those that handle risk and capital differently than the vast majority.
If you want to move forward, then come and learn more about how the design of money and the design of life have evolved. Please send us an e-mail to [email protected].
Speaker 1: Securities offered to LPL Financial member FINRA SIPC. Investment advice offered through Flagship Harbor Advisors, a registered investment advisor. Flagship Harbor Advisors and Shepard Financial are separate entities from LPL Financial.
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Dr. Lisa: You help now people like yourself who have found themselves in a place of needing change. You’ve become an AA sponsor. What has that been like for you?
William: That’s become one of the biggest blessings of my life. My sponsor told me a long time ago when I was very grateful to him for saving my life. He reminded me that he didn’t save my life at all. What he did was show me how to save my own life. If I owed him anything at all, it was to go back into the woods that he helped me out of and find someone else and take that person out of the woods one person at a time.
It took me a long time to be comfortable with my own sobriety. I think I needed some time, some credibility in my own mind that I had something to offer. You can’t give what you don’t have. I spent a good five years working on myself, reading and trying to discover who I am. Then there comes a time when the reading needs to be seized and the demonstration of what you’ve learned needs to be acted upon.
My own experience and prayer, I asked to know when the time was right. That gentleman kept appearing in front of me. I kept telling him that he’d be okay. Months would go by and I’d see him again and he tells me, “You keep telling me I’m going to be okay and I’m not.” I said, “When you’re ready, you’ll decide.”
I’ve come to know that as much as were doers, first we’re deciders. Once you decide, the doing becomes easy. His life hadn’t become scary enough for him. He wasn’t desperate enough. Until one day, he stepped in front of me as I was leaving Whole Foods and he said, “My father is visiting from Utica, New York. We’re on our way to an AA meeting. My life is in complete disarray. Please sit with us.”
I sat with them for an hour and I gave them my story. The following night, we started page one, the cover of AA, the big book, how we have become recovered. I told him he doesn’t have to live a life of recovery. Who wants to be in a constant battle? He can be recovered. This is somewhat semantics but the disease is two-fold. It’s a physical disease but it’s also spiritual.
The idea that I don’t have to drink is what I can be recovered from. The physical ailment that when I take alcohol into my system, I trigger an allergy of more that instead most people get an allergy and they start doing what it was they were doing. If you’re allergic to peanuts and they make your tongue blow up, you stop eating peanuts.
Unfortunately with alcoholics, alcohol seems to be the missing link. It’s what completes us. We want more and more and more; that we live with for the rest of our lives. You either die with it or you die from it. I don’t have to live with this idea that I can drink in safety and my life is I can’t live without it. That was an experience I had.
The idea of driving by a liquor store without going in wasn’t something I couldn’t fab about. Now I don’t have to go that path. The joy of working with someone who is desperate and seeing them get well, telling them that you’re three-year-old and you’re five-year-old. They never have to know. They’ll never have a memory of their father being this way and to slowly, slowly have this person go through the steps.
They all want to know what’s next, what’s next, what’s next. I tell them, “The second that doesn’t exist. There’s only the first step. You take the first step, the second step reveals itself. Then the next step will reveal itself.
Years later this gentleman, he’s a joy in my life. He’s such a beautiful man. He shows up for his children. He shows up for his ex-wife. Maybe things could have been different for them but everything happens exactly as it’s supposed to. I think they are both happier than they’ve ever been.
It’s amazing that I could help one person. I only wanted to help one person. The problem is I don’t know who that one person is though. I help whoever comes to me.
Dr. Lisa: A lot of people do go to you. You work in a store that a lot of people in the Portland area frequent. You are right on the frontlines of suggesting things that people might do for their health. Do you find that sometimes people are asking for a pill or a potion or a supplement to help them and help their health and in the back of your mind, you’re thinking that’s probably not what you really need.
William: That happens because thought is creative. If you think you need something then again now you do. If I think I’m anxious, I’m going to have the experience of being anxious. I am in the business of helping people find wellness. I am in the business of selling product. I try to stick to that. I do remind people often that perhaps what you’re looking for is within yourself.
I learned very early on in recovery that I am this very powerful state. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t try to drive my experience in a direction of joy. I’m constantly in a place of I am well. I am joyful or at least I try to be. We’re having a human experience. I’ve signed up for all of it. You can’t always be happy. It is something I’ve been confronted with in my job more and more that it’s not my place to tell people, “This is not what you’re looking for.” I refrain from doing that.
The people I work with outside of my job particularly those in AA, most all of them do fish oils, anti-inflammatories. We’ve done a lot of destruction to our brains and bodies. It’s a wonderful healing. It helps the body heal itself.
Dr. Lisa: There are things that people can do on top of being spiritual well become physically well. That all works together.
William: Absolutely. I spell supplements and pills and powder but I’m really a foodie. I am big into produce. I stay in the perimeter of a supermarket. That’s where all the real food is. If you have to count ingredients and read ingredients, you’re probably in something that isn’t necessarily the best for you.
Years ago, a loaf of bread, the ingredients to a loaf of bread was four or five ingredients. Now it’s 20. Fortunately, the establishment I work with they sell some really good food.
Dr. Lisa: William, I am so grateful to you for taking the time out of your very busy and multilayered life to come and talk to us today about your experience. Again, what I would say as a ministry putting out there the possibility of hope and people whose lives really need that. I thank you. William Foley, AA Sponsor and minister of hope.
William: Minister of hope. I matter. That’s wonderful. It’s all I ever wanted. Thank you so much for inviting me. I am honored to be on your program.
Dr. Lisa: You have been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast show number 80, Life’s Design. Our guests have included David Cedrone and William Foley. For more information on these guests, visit doctorlisa.org.
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This is Dr. Lisa Belisle hoping that you have enjoyed our Life’s Design show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.
Speaker 1: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors: Maine Magazine, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of Re/Max Heritage, Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedics Specialists, Booth Maine, Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial, Apothecary by Design and The Body Architect.
The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is recorded at the studios of Maine Magazine at 75 Market Street in Portland, Maine. Our Executive Producers are Kevin Thomas and Dr. Lisa Belisle. Audio Production and original music by John C. McCain. Our assistant producer is Courtney Thebarge. Summaries of all our past shows can be found at doctorlisa.org. Become a subscriber of Dr. Lisa Belisle on iTunes. See the Dr. Lisa website or Facebook page for details.