Addicts in Wonderland

By John Shelton and Ron LaJeunesse

Addicts in Wonderland is a true story about cocaine addiction. It is framed around the classic tale Alice in Wonderland, with one significant difference. The people and events are real; there is no fiction. The story also fits no stereotype about addiction or addicts.

The reader will be shaken by the addictive supremacy of cocaine and helped to understand the destructiveness of fear, the addictive personality, the draw of life on the street, modern treatment strategies, why traditional God concepts fail so many and the power behind words and intention.

The account details how one mans struggle has led to strategies that can modernize and enhance the way in which the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) 12 Step philosophy is used in the addiction recovery world.

While the 12 Steps are based on some solid principles, for many they are not enough. Recovery gets stale or progress is hindered and the participants remain crippled by financial, relationship, emotional and spiritual issues - in spite of lengthy sobriety.

This reality has guided the development of a new set of quantum thought concepts, built on centuries old eastern philosophy and decades old western theory. In other words, new thinking from old wisdom.

With very specific detail, the book explains these quantum concepts, describes how they can be applied to the 12 Steps and then demonstrates how Twelve Steppers have enriched their recovery experience by becoming Next Steppers, allowing them to move well beyond recovery to a new world of discovery.

Quantum thought: A term derived from quantum physics where the universe is defined as a field where all parts have a relationship with other parts. This means that we can change a part by redefining our relationship with it. In other words, if something can be imagined in a quantum universe it can be real. Thoughts become things.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9781468501797

John Shelton

John lived an addict’s classic life of low self-esteem and early addiction, followed by recovery after a family intervention. Then the death of his father and the diagnosis of leukemia resulted in an entire new perception of self and his place in the universe. Ron lived a life of strong relationships and professional achievement. Then through his professional interest, associations, experiences and friendship with John, they discovered a new pathway to the knowledge needed to address the indescribable pain and opportunity associated with addiction in all its forms. John has three daughters and two grandsons, operates a landscaping company and lives in the State of Arizona. He is also now sponsoring Next Step seminars and programs in the Phoenix area. Ron is married, has four sons and five grandchildren, is retired from a career in health administration, education and justice and lives portions of the year in the State of Arizona and in the Province of Alberta.

Book preview

Contents

Chapter 1

Mad Hatter Insanity

Chapter 2

Jabberwocky Mind

Chapter 3

A Bottle Marked Poison

Chapter 4

The Race and the Tale

Chapter 5

The Caterpillar Adapts

Chapter 6

The Rabbit

Chapter 7

Dawns Evidence

Chapter 8

The Rabbits Evidence

Chapter 9

The King & Queen

Chapter 10

Down the Rocket Hole

Chapter 11

The Pool Of Tears

Chapter 12

Challenging Bill

Chapter 13

Insight with Bill

Chapter 15

Cheshire Change

Postscript

Waking to Reality

To my daughters Toby, Jacqueline and Alex, profound evidence that love is the very essence of life.

John Shelton

To Aleck Trawick, mentor, friend, soul-mate and protector. May you continue your work from the next dimension. Forever grateful.

Ron LaJeunesse

Addicts in Wonderland is a true story about cocaine addiction. It is framed around the classic tale Alice in Wonderland, with one significant difference. The people and events are real; there is no fiction. The story also fits no stereotype about addiction or addicts.

The reader will be shaken by the addictive supremacy of cocaine and helped to understand the destructiveness of fear, the addictive personality, the draw of life on the street, modern treatment strategies, why traditional God concepts fail so many and the power behind words and intention.

The account details how one man’s struggle has led to strategies that can modernize and enhance the way in which the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) 12 Step philosophy is used in the addiction recovery world.

While the 12 Steps are based on some solid principles, for many they are not enough. Recovery gets stale or progress is hindered and the participants remain crippled by financial, relationship, emotional and spiritual issues - in spite of lengthy sobriety.

This reality has guided the development of a new set of quantum thought concepts, built on centuries old eastern philosophy and decades old western theory. In other words, new thinking from old wisdom.

With very specific detail, the book explains these quantum concepts, describes how they can be applied to the 12 Steps and then demonstrates how Twelve Steppers have enriched their recovery experience by becoming "Next Steppers," allowing them to move well beyond recovery to a new world of discovery.

Quantum thought: A term derived from quantum physics where the universe is defined as a field where all parts have a relationship with other parts. This means that we can change a part by redefining our relationship with it. In other words, if something can be imagined in a quantum universe it can be real. Thoughts become things.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Roy Laing, whose real character wished to remain anonymous for reasons that will become apparent. It would be difficult to find another individual whose life experience so vividly demonstrates the concepts used by the authors to develop the model that could revolutionize the 12 Step movement.

Charles Lutwige Dodgson, the English author who wrote under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll and whose1865 work provided a framework for this book. Through his classic novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland referred to in modern times as simply Alice in Wonderland, Carroll - perhaps inadvertently - describes a typical addictive experience. A bored young lady falls into a hole and encounters a world of fantasy populated by peculiar creatures. The woman drinks a strange potion that causes unusual changes, leading to grief and a pool of tears. She then works at getting dry, running a race and telling stories, however she scares the other creatures with her tales. One concerned creature sends Bill to help her, but she rejects him. (Is it curious that 70 years later, Bill W. (Wilson) became the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous?)

Won.der.land (n): A fantasy world where the occupants do not want to be what they think they are, as they search for who they truly are.

Ad.dic.tion (n): A recurring compulsion to use a substance or engage in an activity despite harmful consequences to health and social life. A behavior one cannot stop.

INTRODUCTION

My story may appear strange to many. I am over 60 years of age, in a long term loving relationship and I am blessed with happy, thriving adult children. I am well educated and professionally successful. I am involved in my community and I have served as an elected official. I have good friends and plenty of money. I am also a lying, deceitful, thieving, adulterous crack-head.

I am telling my story so that others might see how cocaine addiction, like enlightenment, provides the addict with a glimpse of what it is like to live in heaven, paradise or nirvana. However, unlike the practice of the enlightened, the addictive high is always false and short lived. It is then followed by chaos, emotional turmoil and dysfunction. The addictive experience seems to empower us and then when we fail to realize our dreams, it sedates us until we no longer care.

The authors have attempted to capture my explorations, strengths, limitations, efforts, despair and hope as I sought recovery. I tried addiction counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, hypnotists, nutritionists and psychics. I attended rehabilitation out-patient and in-patient programs. I tried courses that claimed addiction was a choice and those that viewed addiction as a physical malady. I tried Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and Cocaine Anonymous. I tried religions of every stripe. I tried reading and I tried self-help. I tried drugs, diet and Deity. Nothing worked.

Then I met a landscaper with a grade 12 education. A man with a troubled and addicted youth. A man with leukemia. A man that was the most conscious individual I had ever met. Self educated in Eastern philosophy and Western ‘new thought,’ John Shelton worked with me and his long time friend Ron LaJeunesse who had a professional background in mental health and addictions. Ron also had a budding interest in "quantum thought," and a history as a published author. The experience with them opened me to a world I never thought possible.

Through the telling of my story, John, Ron and I developed – to the best of our knowledge – the first ever summary of quantum thought concepts. We then applied those ideas to the AA 12 Step philosophy and John used this new knowledge to assist me in recovery. John later became motivated by his observations that many people avoided AA, left prematurely or simply didn’t relate to the philosophy, while others related to the philosophy and achieved long term sobriety yet remained crippled by financial situations, relationships and emotional and spiritual issues.

By applying quantum thought concepts to the AA philosophy, John has aided dozens of people move into a new world of thought. They have found personal answers to questions that many of us have never before even considered.

Is our world a living organism, interconnecting everything in it?

Are all things made of energy and does like attract like?

If we accept each moment as it is, will the universe help guide us?

Do all things begin with thought?

Does well-being come from harmony between conscious and unconscious thoughts?

Does what we believe determine our reality?

How do we learn to deal with the false stories we tell ourselves?

Are emotions the minds truthful reaction to thought?

Are relationships essential to happiness?

How can we overcome psychological fear?

Is there a cycle of impermanence to everything?

Are love and a connection to Spirit central to a new consciousness?

I believe that books are rarely life changing. In most cases the motivation for change comes from the passion born of tragedy, or if we are fortunate, from personal vulnerability in an environment of love and acceptance. Nonetheless, it is my hope that the ideas within the following pages will awaken the reader to new thinking that will supplement their life experiences with a fresh approach to both recovery and discovery. In other words, change your thinking and change your life.

Chapter 1

Mad Hatter Insanity

How do you know I’m mad? You must be or you wouldn’t have come here.

Alice in Wonderland

In spite of my active addiction I believed I could help other people get well. I don’t know if I thought that by helping others I could learn to help myself, or if it was that I wanted to be superior to other addicts by helping, or if I could be a good guy while really being a bad guy. Or maybe I was simply attracted to some of the people who lived in the chaos that went with addiction. I believed of course that I was as yet immune to the disasters that I knew followed long term use of drugs.

The most likely scenario was that it helped me identify with the person I believed myself to be and not the person that my wife Mary described when she was angry.

The infamous Roy Laing, a sixty something drug user hiding out on the fringes of society pretending to be better than everyone else.

Whatever the reason, I did think I could mend these people and I went about trying. I told myself that I could still be a fixer because I was more resilient than others; less damaged. I was sure that I could continue to have the cocaine high without the ravages of addiction and that I could experience the excitement and chaos of addictive life without having to live in it. If I had really sat back and looked at what I was doing, I would have realized if anyone was wearing the Mad Hatters lethal lead filled hat, it was I.

Mad Roy thought he could influence anyone. One of those people was Alan, a thirty something former farm-boy from Idaho who moved to the city, became attracted to the excitement of the drug scene and after a few short months, left his job and abandoned his wife and child. Alan had a beautiful new girl-friend and a new career dealing drugs.

I couldn’t explain why, but when I first met Alan I was attracted to his energy. He was a friendly country boy with a big smile and a great sense of humor. He also had good dope, sold you a consistent and fair quantity and probably most importantly, was careful and on-time for appointments. Every other dealer I had known was precise with stating time - I’ll be there in 16 minutes - and about as punctual as my family doctor.

Initially Alan drove several different vehicles, always met in different locations, frequently in a building and he would give me last minute instructions as to the precise spot. As time went on, Alan seemed to become more complacent; less cautious. I received fewer last minute instructions and he would sometimes sell right from the removable panel in the bed of his pickup truck. I suspected this was a typical lessening of vigilance and perhaps the reason most street level dealers get busted in fairly short order.

It was a Friday morning and I arranged to meet Alan for a quick buy. He was staying in a local hotel and I was invited up to his room. I arrived to find Alan and his girlfriend Roxanne lying on their bed chatting and lighting up. Alan frequently offered me a freebie and this morning was no exception.

Want a blast? he asked.

Really good stuff this time! exclaimed Roxanne.

She seemed a bit more relaxed and receptive than usual. I wasn’t her favorite person because she knew I encouraged Alan to stop selling and to return to his wife and kid. I knew what was in store for him if he stayed in this lifestyle.

Although Alan’s product was pretty consistent, you never really knew what you were getting. Street cocaine was probably cut or bumped at every level of the distribution chain and buffered with a dozen different products from baking soda to amphetamine. I was told that the average street sale might contain 10% cocaine.

"Do you have a pipe? Alan asked.

Nope, I didn’t like to travel with paraphernalia.

Want to use mine?

He then replaced the end of a long plastic hose with a short tip that he apparently used for guests who shared his pipe without having to share a mouth piece. Alan liked to smoke from a four foot length of plastic tubing attached to a small brass bowl – all available from a plumbing shop. He broke off a piece of white rock about half the size of a corn kernel and placed it in the bowl.

Big enough? he asked.

Big enough.

In fact it was bigger than I normally did. He handed me the hose and asked if I had ever used one that long? I told him I hadn’t. He said that you got a much better blast with less dope – and it had a bonus use; it was easy to use while traveling. You just ran the tube up your clothing to your neck line and then lit the rock out of sight, or better yet, your passenger lit up below the dash, away from the curious eyes of passing drivers.

Alan then instructed me to exhale, place the tube in my mouth, draw slowly until the smoke was near my lips, plug the tube, exhale again, and then draw the smoke deep into my lungs. I watched Alan as he melted the little rock with his torch and then carefully flipped the brass bowl over so that the liquid cocaine would slide slowly toward the open flame.

Never touch the flame to the coke, he advised.

Just use heat or you waste too much. Flame is the enemy of cocaine.

I was surprised to hear that cocaine had any enemies in this room. I then watched in anticipation as the white puffy smoke curled around the coiled tube. As it neared my lips, I exhaled the displaced air from the tube and then drew long and slowly on the white rocket ride to Wonderland. The rush was indeed a blast as promised. My brain didn’t seem to know quite what had hit it; I felt high, very high - and dizzy, all at once. I exhaled a large amount of white smoke and I began to immediately drool uncontrollably. I wiped off my lips and tried to apologize to Roxanne, but I had trouble forming my words.

You ok? Alan asked. Even Roxanne seemed concerned.

I’m more than ok! I babbled. Wow."

I stumbled back to a chair and sat down slowly, afraid to interrupt the feeling. I could hear Roxanne in the background.

He’s fine; leave him with his high. My turn.

By the time I started to come down enough to concentrate, Roxanne was buzzing and I could see Alan beginning to light a rock the size of a peanut.

Christ I thought, how can he do that much?

I watched Alan as he carefully melted the crack and then as he inhaled the white smoke. And inhaled, and inhaled. It seemed like minutes. I couldn’t imagine lungs being able to absorb that much, yet when he started to exhale there was much less smoke than what I had blown.

Alan’s