Are you there God? It's me... whatsisface

The radio isn't broken.

In my drug counsellor’s old office, there was a poster of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. In case you’re not familiar with it, the pyramid-shaped chart was developed by American Psychologist Abraham Maslow. It’s supposed to summarize human needs in order of priority.

So at the bottom of this pyramid, you’ll find the basics: food shelter, security, and whatever else is needed to keep a human being alive. But as you move up the pyramid, the needs get a little more refined. There’s self esteem, confidence… and all the way up to the highest rung: Self actualization. That means reaching your full potential as the best possible version of yourself. And what a lofty human condition that would be.

Easy for Maslow to say.

Are you a self actualized human being? Probably not. And you’re normal. I imagine most of us addicts hover around the lower chambers of the pyramid. Give us food, water, a good night’s sleep and, if we’re very lucky, a dollop of dignity.

As a recovering addict, even the middle regions of this pyramid seem out of reach to me. And the top? Well, that might as well be Nirvana.

Maybe it’s time to renovate this pyramid, if not bulldoze it entirely. At least, for the sake of addicts who prefer their goals within reach of the average human lifespan.

With that in mind, I humbly propose De Quincy’s Rectangle of Addicts’ Needs.

At the bottom, we’ll start with The Body. Try to make it whole again. That means lots of exercise, of course. Swimming, in my humble opinion, is best.

Try to eat well too. Look for a steady score of nutritious foods — not an easy task for many addicts. And sleep, of course. If at all possible.

That will provide a sturdy plank on which to build the next tier: The Mind.

In early recovery, things looked bleak. My mother despaired that I’d never get it together. My sentences were a sputtering mess. Too many half-cooked ideas were running out of me too quickly — like rats from a sinking ship. Reading seemed to be just the mental treadmill I needed. So I tried jumping into a Dostoevsky book that I had read a very long time ago. I was stumped on the first page. They might as well have left it un-translated from its original Russian. Then I tried rolling it back to my favorite book, a children’s novel called ‘Watership Down.’ It was inscrutable.

How much further would I need to scale back my reading level, I wondered? Are we talking Dr. Seuss here?

Then I discovered podcasts. Perfect. And with the added value of being able to listen to them while at the gym. That’s two levels of my Rectangle of Addicts’ Needs in one go.

Finally, there’s the highest rung: The Spirit.

And that’s where I fall flat on my face. God who? But the first thing you’ll learn at any 12-step meeting is the importance of a higher power. In fact, for Alcoholics Anonymous, God features in steps two, three, five, six, eleven and twelve.

Lord, that’s a lot of Lord.

My personal favorite, of course, is the second step: ‘Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.’

The thing is God and I seemed to have quit on each other a long time ago. And, make no mistake, I was a true-believing 10-year-old. At that age, I had already read the children’s version of the bible. Every night, I kneeled at the side of my bed, offering the most heartfelt and all-original prayers you could imagine. None of those pre-packaged Lord’s Prayers and Hail Marys. I spent much of the dinner hour crafting just the right kind of prayer — not too self-serving, a dash of humility, and a heaping tablespoon of praise.

God was busy, no doubt. But my prayers were crafted to stand out from the rest. And what kind of deity ignores the pleas of a little kid who could really use a little help?

You would think God, or whomever was minding the shop, would have answered even one of them.

Recently, I was chatting with a neighbor — an older man with the kind of untamed beard that could tell a story or two. He was also a recovering addict. And a Christian.

He asked me if I was a believer.

I weaved and dodged and finally admitted I was of waning faith. It’s hard to keep that channel open when no one makes a peep at the other end of the radio.

“I mean, look at where I’m at in life,” I told my neighbor.

My friend scarcely paused. He fixed his shiny eyes on me and said, “Yes, look where you are today. And look what you’ve been through.

“Don’t you think there’s a reason why you’re here now?”

Honestly, I had no answer for him. It’s true. I’ve been through things. My heart even stopped beating once. But, somehow, it fired up again, seemingly all on its own.

But maybe someone else was playing that drum. And maybe those hands have been shaping this journey all along.

Sure, you might say, in the grand scheme of things, life is just death pending. But that’s what makes it so precious.

I haven’t reached the peak of De Quincy’s Rectangle of Addicts’ Needs yet. But I feel that if I’m ever going to reach that summit, it’s going to take a lot of self reflection. And an understanding of why exactly I’m here — why we’re both here — in this moment.

Then maybe I’ll understand that the radio has always been on. But somewhere along the way, I exchanged my faith for fuzz. Maybe too much time petitioning a higher power. Not enough time paying attention to the gifts I’ve been given.

Maybe it’s time to talk less, listen more — and be thankful for every moment of this big, bright life. One thing I know for sure is that there’s plenty of time to figure it out. And someone should be thanked for that.