Professor of Pain

This book is not about rocket science but simple teachings that can help you navigate through the maze of life. Professor of Pain expands upon a simple formula: embrace the suffering knowing the grieving you experience is about having something you desperately want and lost or having something you never possessed and earnestly desire. That lack you experience is the reality of life. Until you hug the Professor of Pain and accept life as it is – not as you want it to be, discontentment will be your constant companion.

My writings are not meant to persuade but to offer opportunities for different thinking, challenging your views of addiction, recovery, and spirituality. The respective addictions of my children provided the reason for me to change and begin a recovery program; that horrific experience caused me to write many poems attempting to find life's simple truths that had so long eluded me. You may not be wiser after this than you were before, but I think you may be inspired and changed.

Within these pages are four seemingly disparate topics:
Terror of Addiction; Choose to Change, Choose to Heal; and Choose to Believe. Although some readers are recovering from drug addiction, compulsive gambling, or alcoholism, we all have some unhealed hurt. Perhaps a better description of recovery is healing; we all have areas of tenderness and need the warm glow of healing. Included in these topics, you will witness the pain of my personal experience coupled with the simple understandings I learned. My misery has now turned into healing.

This book is unique, not just because I wrote it and you are reading it, but because of the combination of poetry and prose composed into various snapshots of my life. Here, I tell the story of what I was experiencing, what I learned and the feelings associated with the many events captured on these pages. Share my adventures as you read Professor of Pain; it promises to make you cry, get mad, and laugh.

You may call Professor of Pain a poetry book that includes a self-help guide or maybe a life-lesson book punctuated by poetry; you will have to decide.