In 2004, after my mom had passed away and I was detoxing from all opiates, I read the book “A Million Little Pieces” by James Frey. What a colossal piece of shit. What a shame for the publishing industry, that they not only published such garbage, but then, after being called out and discovered to be untruthful, simply slap a few sentences in the beginning of the book, stating something to the effect “A million little pieces is a collection of James Frey’s personal and fictional experiences, blah blah,” instead of having the decency and integrity to take the lying trash they’d already made millions on down, apologize profusely, and walk away with at least an ounce of respect. But they didn’t do that. They continue, to this day to publish this collection of exaggerated, self glorifying, egotistical, atheist view of recovery, in which honesty is not mentioned one time in the entire book, let alone the word humility. I was coming down off a year of opiates, hellish withdrawals, and trying to read that book for hope, and only finding that I couldn’t relate to it at all. Because it was lies. Tom Catton’s book rings true from the very beginning, through out the entire book. Maybe James Frey’s book wouldn’t have bothered me so much, if HONESTY weren’t the VERY FIRST principle of the VERY FIRST step, but it is. Also, I was so blessed to have people in my life who had multiple years of recovery, and the thing that rang true for all those people, as does while reading Tom Catton’s book, is they were ALL very very humble, grateful to be alive, and thus their stories sounded honest to me. Shame on the publishing industry for falling for such easily spotted vanity writing. So it is with a skeptical eye and wary mind that I read any book or memoir on recovery, and this one, I could tell from beginning to end was one of the most humble honest stories of sobriety, life and spirituality in general that I’ve ever read.
For me too, personally, the book held a lot of meaning in synchronicity. His sobriety date was a day or two off my birthday, I haven’t traveled to a ton of places, but the north shore of Oahu is one place I spent about two weeks when I was married, so I recognized a lot of the setting, or I thought I did at least. I was enthralled the entire ride through. Walking in faith, truly LIVING IN THE MOMENT, this book encapsulates the way, my Higher Power, Jesus Christ, asked us to really live, and there in lies another sweet irony, Tom writes as a Buddhist, haha, and yet, written eloquently, spiritual truths, NEVER contradict other spiritual truths, and though when I began reading I had a preconceived notion I might not jive with everything he’d written, I never once found myself offended, or even skeptical or in disbelief. If anything, I only coveted some of those spiritual experiences he writes about that bring tears of joys to his eyes, hoping that I may one day be as blessed as to reach those states in simple meditation. I do believe it’s possible, I just have never been there before. But there again, he’s 30+ years sober and I’m only 4 years or so. He is truly a sage spiritual guide and anybody, Christian, Buddhist or whatever flavor ice cream you prefer can benefit from the mindful pages in this book.
It really was just a very well written, humble, honest story of recovery, and I recommend everyone pick up a copy. We are blessed to have Tom as an outlet for the Universe’s energy, and I’m truly a better man for having read the book, keeping an open mind, and reading through his wisdom when it comes to our 12 steps, and especially his emphasis on the 11th step. This is something I need to put more work into and it’s funny, because almost every meeting I went to this week talked about the 11th step and then the book I’m reading takes me to his summary of the 12 steps and his writing on it, being mindful, and being in the NOW, was really like God smacking me across the face with the Captain Obvious backhand. As always I hear what I need to hear when I really listen.
If you haven’t already, look up Tom Catton on facebook and go get and read his book, for any level of recovery, it is worth the read.
-Jared Bryan Smith
JB Smiths Blog - Author @ books4free.com 