But May had come. In many cultures, the first of May is celebrated as the end of the winter. For us, it meant my grandfather’s birthday, but it also marked the end of the coldest, most unforgiving winter of my life. I was feeling better and thinking about the future for the first time in a good while.
I truly believed I’d been set free, but that wasn’t completely true. Dr. Hitt had mentioned the need not just for physical recovery but mental renewal. Now I know there’s another component still—the spiritual component. And I still had no spiritual understanding of who I was or what my life should be. There was a deeper, even more serious addiction I still needed to break—a sin addiction—but at this point in my journey, I was deeply grateful just to be clean. I figured the worst was behind me.
Paula, my counselor, had helped me realize I had no idea who I was. I had spent my life trying to create an identity—trying different ones on like new clothes. But none of them had worked. I still needed to discover who I was.
Paula had one other strong recommendation: Get out of town. Start over somewhere else. Most addicts are tempted by one of three things: people, places, or things. I was tempted by all of them.
I wasn’t sure what to think about the idea of leaving town. Why was everybody always trying to make me leave New Orleans? Rodney and Paula, for very different reasons, believed I needed new places, new faces. I think Paula understood how much of a chameleon I was, changing my colors to match the environment. I’d lived with Christians and gotten into a Christian band. I’d hung out in bars and become a DJ. I needed to be in the proper environment for healing.
She said, “Your enablers are all there in New Orleans. It will be far too easy to fall back into old patterns. It’s like an alcoholic living upstairs from a bar.”
“Yeah, I know. They’re already calling me.”
“Robby, what does the side view mirror on your car say? Ever read that little warning?”
“I think it says, ‘Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.’”
“That’s the one. Good advice. You need to put some distance between you and what’s in your mirror. Because they’re going to follow you. That’s why you need to move. You can come back home in the future, but find a safe, quiet place for the present.”
The only place I could think of was Mobile, Alabama, where my sister was attending college. Who better to keep an eye on me? And Lori said, to me and to our parents, “There are no drugs in Mobile. I haven’t heard of anyone doing them. This place just doesn’t have a lot of crime. You can move in with me on campus, then find a job somewhere around town.”
I had no better ideas, so I packed the few things I needed and moved to Mobile for the summer of 2001. I slept on an air mattress on the floor of Lori’s one-bedroom dorm room, on the South Alabama campus.
Mobile is a nice town with a lot of charm. It’s on the Gulf, just like New Orleans, but the resemblance ends there. Nothing like Bourbon Street is to be found.
The first night I was in town, we unpacked my stuff and decided to go out and get a bite to eat. We walked into TGI Friday’s to watch the NBA playoffs and took a seat at the bar. I wasn’t about to order a drink; my instructions were to stay away from cigarettes and alcohol, because they were triggers for the old patterns I was leaving behind. Addicts often believe they can handle it, but stimulants like those provide a small spike to the nervous system, just enough to leave us wanting more. You don’t want to awaken the beast.
I focused on the game on TV and chatted with the bartender. He seemed like a nice guy. I told him I was new in the area and looking for work. Toward the end of our meal, the bartender leaned across the bar and said, “I’m about to be on break. I’m gonna go smoke a joint. Want to come?”
“Um, I’ll pass, but thanks.”
I looked over at Lori, whose eyes were as wide as the plate in front of her. I worried she might start screaming at the guy, but he had walked away.
When we got to the car, I kidded her. “So, like you said, no drugs in Mobile, huh?”
“I think you’re actually a magnet for drugs,” she said. “You must be. I’ve been here three years, and nothing like that has ever happened to me. Nothing like that.”
It was pretty strange. Was some invitation written on my forehead in ink visible only to other users, or what?
No, but later I learned that things are happening in the spiritual world, every moment of our lives. It’s all on a frequency our senses don’t pick up, but the Bible describes it clearly: spiritual warfare. As a nonbeliever, I had no clue about any of that. I did know that over the last few months, there had been times when I had somehow dodged disaster, against all odds. Other times, I’d been tugged toward the darkness by circumstances I dismissed as random. We all live on the front lines of a life-or-death conflict between good and evil. We’re soldiers at war, all the while believing we’re civilians. Some are cognizant of this battle. Most are not.
As we drove home, I talked with Lori about my future. I had to look for a job, and the pickings would be slim in Mobile. Most of my recent experiences were out of the question, including DJing in nightclubs—did this town even have any?
What Mobile did have was a few gyms, and it seemed it would be that, sell
