I had the power

Noah Levine
Author of Against the Stream (HarperOne)

When I was 17 years old, I realized, after waking up in a cell in a juvenile detention center—again—that I was the one who had gotten myself into the mess I was in. At that point, in 1988, I'd been drinking and getting high since I was 12, and there I was, looking at my third felony arrest, resigned to a life of incarceration.

It was after a failed suicide attempt that the moment of clarity, that spiritual experience happened: the breaking of denial and blaming everyone else for my problems. I couldn't blame this ignorant, oppressive world; it was how I was relating to this world. So much of the suffering I was experiencing was about the past and the future, but that moment brought me into the present and was the beginning of my spiritual practice: meditation, prayer, and addressing my addiction.

I was responsible. I was not a victim. I had created the situation and I had the power to get out of it. I had hope.