Dreamer’s Disease

Oct 25 

Written By Shane O’Dwyer

It took leaving Worcester, Massachusetts and flying to Los Angeles, and into Agoura hills for me to get sober, and taking that flight was the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. Being a kid with dreamers disease my whole life all I have ever wanted was to make a life out of what I love and am most passionate most over, and that is music. Music is everything to me, and I can confidently say it takes up most of the space in my wandering thoughts I have throughout each day. Ever since I can remember that has been the case. Music means everything to me, and I believe in my music, but I most certainly want to believe in myself. There’s no music without myself, which is where sobriety came in. How can I do my best if I’m not giving my best? A part of me living the best life I can is by doing what I dream of doing which is indeed making music I believe in, and I can’t fulfill those goals without filling the shoes of sobriety, and when that hit me I knew what I had to do. If I went anywhere else I would have left within the first month, or even worse the first week. Graceland got me sober, sure, but it taught me things you can’t be taught independently. Yes, you can show up to a meeting, and call a sponsor, but for me I needed more – it took a supportive community. Graceland has giving me a family of beautiful people whom are working with each other to fight off a disease that seems to always battling against you, but in order to win, I had to lose, and come to terms that I can and will navigate through loss – the loss of my life I once had surrounded by drug & alcohol abuse. Now these days after being over six months clean, I have my life back, and with no doubt in my mind do I know that life was rekindled with the guidance, fellowship, and love Graceland has given me.

““We had nothing to lose, nothing to gain, nothing we desired anymore

Except to make our lives into a work of art.””

— Lana Del Rey