Beyond Addiction

On the last day I visited him at the nursing home, Paul Lawson — a World War II combat veteran, a former newspaper reporter and my mentor in recovery — sent me on my way with his standard adieu: "Go carefully. And remember, my friend, the best any of us have ever done is today."

Put another way, Paul wanted to remind me that yesterday is gone. Tomorrow isn't here. So all that really matters — especially for those of us with histories of regrets and overambitious future aspirations to do better — is to live in the moment by living in today.

He could say that with authority. When he died three days after our last visit, Paul was just a few months short of 45 years of continuous recovery from alcoholism. Even though he's been gone for almost four years now, his practical wisdom pulsates within me. Living in the day has helped to carry me through some of the toughest days and months and years of my own recovery, the past three especially.

Not long ago, a unique sunset gave color to Paul's words. After a tough few days at work, I was on an airplane flying home from Florida, where Hazelden is opening a new addiction treatment facility. With a window seat, I was eager to make myself unavailable to chatty passengers or helpful flight attendants and be free from earthbound technologies (no Internet on this Delta bird) long enough to steal a few hours of uninterrupted nap time. But then I discovered my seat was in the front row to the end of a day like no other I ever had witnessed.

As the Boeing 757 climbed into the steel-blue sky, the sun sank toward the horizon, yet for 20 minutes, the heavenly orb barely outraced the plane, until a harmonic moment when both hung in suspended animation, neither one winning or losing the race between gravity-defying technology and natural law.

"We have now leveled off and reached our cruising altitude of 36,000 feet, so now sit back and relax and enjoy the flight," the pilot announced. And with that, the sun resumed its relentless slide behind the edge of the earth before vanishing. On its way to start a new day on the other side of the world, it left behind a sky so rich — the color of a pumpkin mocha latte — I could have drunk it.

Instead, I soaked it all up. And Paul's words filled my consciousness like Venus, the twinkling bright pinpoint of light that suddenly appeared where the sun had just disappeared. "Go carefully. And remember, my friend, the best any of us have ever done is today."

On that day, my "best" earned me another day clean and sober and got me to a place where I could appreciate the gift of a front-row seat to a sunset like never before.

I am reminded, too, of Paul's favorite prayer, a Sanskrit proverb. It closes with this:

"For yesterday is but a dream, and tomorrow is only a vision.

"But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope.

"Look well, therefore, to this day."

William Moyers is the vice president of foundation relations for the Hazelden Foundation and the author of "Broken," his best-selling memoirs, and "A New Day, A New Life." Please send your questions to William Moyers at wmoyers@hazelden.org. To find out more about William Moyers and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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