So after all the health issues, beating Hep C, dealing with Post Interferon and almost 5 years later starting to finally feel a bit more like myself, I decided to take on the lingering wreckage of my past, including filing my tax returns for the 1st time in over 10 years. Surely they were going to lock me up, my fears told me. But I can’t move on until I settled up, can’t buy a house, can’t lay to rest this final fear that had been haunting me since clear back to the year 2000. After 9/11 and a heavy cocaine addiction I was certain the world wouldn’t make it this long, and perhaps if it did, it wouldn’t make it with me in it, so I simply stopped filing.
I always expected to be audited, or hauled away, but nothing ever happened, it was like I was a ghost, the IRS simply never sent me anything or called or even cared, it was as if I was dead. So I finally manned up and found an accountant, and got to work. I spent several weekends entering in receipts and tallying up old business expenses and awaited our harrowing fate.
Upon the 1st phone call the divided my burden in half. Within 10 minutes after holding on the phone, the IRS agent told me they only needed back to 2006. Ok. I don’t know if some guardian angel was doing my taxes for me or perhaps some scam artist lied and got a return, but whatever, I’d rather be lucky than good and doing them from 2011 to 2006 sure as hell beat going all the way back to 2001. So I began going through boxes scrounging around for old receipts and entering them in. A few months later, we submitted everything and I mean to tell you, I was expecting a 100k tax burden and perhaps some prison time. Fear has an awful imagination.
In the end, 6 years sober, I come to find out that I only owed 8k in total. I called them to find out when they would begin sentencing me, or garnishing my wages or perhaps removing my entrails, only to find out that you can set up a payment plan as low as $100 a month indefinitely as long as you stay on the plan and make your payments, no further action is taken. Aint that something.
This fear had been a part of me for over 10 years. It was as simple as facing it, and it wasn’t even close to the torture I’d imagined. The mind makes a heaven of hell, a hell out of heaven.
I am 6 years sober, and within a couple of months of being not only 100% debt free, and caught up on my taxes, but also the proud owner of my first home in sobriety, having lost the last one in a ball of cocaine induced insanity. Well I didn’t lose it, I know where it is, I gave it away in favor of getting high and drunk, and behaving like a spoiled child.
I’m so glad I’ve grown up since then. I don’t regret the past but I will learn from it, and God willing, continue to stay sober a day at a time.
On a sidenote I’ve decided to also begin the editing of the book again. After a lot of thought, it is definitely in a rough draft state still, and once i get moved into the new place, fixing the book will be the first major goal. Got to keep moving in the right direction!
Jared Bryan Smith
JB Smiths Blog - Author @ books4free.com 
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