Amazon My swim with the sharks Category:  Biography Publisher: Publish America ISBN-10:  1413782698 Type: Non-Fiction Pages: 144 Copyright: May 26 2005 How a stroke miraculously changed my life for the better. A STROKE OF GENIUS Let us take a look inside a functioning alcoholics lifestyle. One would say at first, "Oh yuk! What a disgrace. What a burden to society." That is the outlook of the average citizen of the United States, and probably the world. But let's delve in a little deeper and look at one in particular. His name is Richard Lee Taylor. He grew up as a normal person, had the schooling and the life of what we would call normal. But in his early teens he found alcohol. He found that it made his world a whole lot cheerier, a whole lot easier to deal with that awful feeling he'd always had in the pit of his stomach. So whenever he got the chance, he drank. It made his life so much better. His perspective on his reality changed for the better when he did this. Then he found marijuana. This was in the '70's, when it was easy to get. Wow, he had found a whole new way of customizing his reality to fit him. Plus, you didn't have to hide the alcohol on your breath, and you weren't hung over the next morning. Perfect. What he didn't realize was that he suffered from depression. He thought that sick dreadful feeling he always had was just the way everybody felt. He hadn't a clue it was depression. So he continues on in his life making that feeling go away by smoking pot. Then he finds love. He's 17 and had never been in love before. Richard gets married at the tender age of 18, and as most 18 year olds are, thought he knew everything and had complete control of the world. But his new wife doesn't like him drinking or smoking pot, so now begins his life of deception. For ten years he secretly gets high at work. Smoking pot had become his only only way to survive the God-awful reality he had to deal with if he wasn't high. But it was hard and tricky to do. In the meantime, the couple gave birth to two boys and had a nice little family going for them. That's when his wife gives in to them partying by drinking beer on the weekends with their friends. Thus began Richards real taste of what alcoholism was really like. It never became prevalent before because he was smoking that funny stuff. But now, with the okay from his wife, alcohol took over. Slowly but surely it became his mainstay. He'd gotten a job at the Post Office working the night shift. And he had to work the weekend, so he couldn't party with his wife and friends. But oh, he'd so gotten used to the way it made him feel. He felt normal, he thought, like everyone else. So he began drinking at work. On the way to work he would stop at the liquor store, buy a pint of vodka, and chug half of it down before his shift began. That's when his life began to fall apart. Work noticed his performance and he was abusing his sick leave also. Thus commenced rehab #1 for him. But, as true alcoholics are, denial of the problem won out. He didn't believe had a problem. He didn't drink to get drunk, he did it to make his world fit. What was wrong with that. Then he got his first DUI. Then all the problems began to escalate and his wife could handle it no more. So a divorce after 12 years took care of her problem. But what about his? He started to realize he "did" have a problem with alcohol. He went into rehab again, as the first one didn't take. He'd lost his job at the Post Office and decided to try his hand at cooking while he was in rehab. They let you leave the rehab house to go to work, and breathalyzed you when you came back. Richard found he could do this. At the place that he cooked at he met wife #2. Pretty soon he moved in with her and, to his knowledge, she didn't know he was an alcoholic. But heck, Richard still didn't think he was an alcoholic. She had two boys that needed a father, so he stepped right in. They got married. But Richard found out his new wife liked to smoke pot. So much the better for him. Now he didn't have to drink to get rid of that sick feeling. He could smoke it away. Which he did for nine more years. Then one day while they were getting high she says to him, "I want a divorce". Richard asks her why, and she says, "I'm just not happy". Being the person Richard is, he can't see her being married to him if she's not happy, so he says "okay" and packs his stuff and moves out to an apartment. For the nine years they were married, Richard had gotten back into being a machinist and had a solid job at a place he had worked at during those nine years of his second time around. Now this is where our funtioning alcoholics life really takes a twist. He had good friends at work that he really cared about. One of them must have felt sorry for him going through a divorce, so he invites him into his section of the shop they worked at and turns him on to a hit of crack cocaine. All at once it dawns on Richard as to why his coworkers had been missing so much work lately, and a few of them had even quit. They were hooked on crack. After his whole life of addiction, Richard knew this was no way for his friends to go. He goes home that evening and contacts the DEA and the Sheriffs Narcotics department. He begins a quest of what he thought was going to stop his friends from going down the same road he had already been on. He gets involved to the point that he quits his job and even moves a crack dealer into his place to enable him to collect much information on the main source of where this devastating drug is coming from. He becomes addicted to this drug so he can "look" like one of them. To his chagrin, both of the agencies use him to make busts, but they do it at his place, which ruins his credability with the dealers of that drug world. He has been used and hung out to dry and still addicted to this powerful drug. He was told by the narcotics department that they would help him with rehab, but after they made the bust, they just dropped him. So Richard is at a loss now as to what to do. He finds himself doing unsavory things to get his drug, so he comes up with a plan to get himself off of the streets of which he is doing these bad deeds. The details are just too enormous to go into here, but I will tell you what he did. He came up with a plan of committing a crime so that he would be in jail and off of the streets. He commits the crime of theft by deception. That is taking something that is not yours and pawning it. He did this several times to make sure it was a big enough crime for them to take him off the streets. You see, he had already tried one time by turning himself in for a warrant they had out for him, and they just released him on his own recognisance. He wanted off the streets. So he did this theft by deception thing quiet a few times, and then turned himself in. Needless to say, he was so successful that they put him in prison. The point I'm tring to make here is, who cares? Although Richard didn't just wake up one day and decide he wanted to be an alcoholic for the rest of his life, that alcoholsm is a disease, who cares? That all of these diseased peole are costing society money? That they're a strain on us? But hey! What if it was YOU!!! Oh, thats okay. You're just another person. Who cares? We have lots of them. But what if it was you. Wouldn't you want some help? Some understanding? You would? Where would you find that in todays world? So let us finish the story of our, yuk, alcoholic. So after Richard gets out of prison and his life really sucks now, forget the fact that he was trying to help his friends and others, he returns to drinking. He can't smoke pot now, which he would really rather do, because he's on parole and has to do UA's for his parole officer. He drinks because it doesn't show up on them. He's right back where he started with the drinking. His life is miserable. He wished he were dead. But instead, something miraculous happens to him. He has a stroke. His parole officer comes and see's him and takes him off their papers being as he's not a menace to society anymore. Of coarse he never was. And then one night in the stroke ward of the hospital, he has a visitor. An Angel comes to him out of nowhere. She heals him of not only his stroke, but his alcoholism as well. So now as we end our story, we find out that Richard has written a book about his amazing experiences. He calls it "My Swim With The Sharks" for that is what he did, only the sharks are us, people. Then he has gone on to write another book he calls "The Evolving Belief". Richard went on to do much research into quantum physics, the universe, our reality, and the nature of God, whom he refers to as "The All",in which he hopes to convey a message. One that I believe will open everybodies eye's as to why we're here and who we are. For you see, I am that person. Let me introduce myself to you. My name is Richard Lee Taylor. Now the question is, DO YOU CARE? Visit my website at www.r-rainbow.com and see some of the realizations I have made. They will astound you for they are the truth. Sincerely: Richard. 1 Excerpt

Reader views


My Swim with the Sharks
Richard Taylor
PublishAmerica (2005)
ISBN 1413782698
Reviewed by Paige Lovitt for Reader Views (12/06)

Reader Views welcomes Richard Lee Taylor, author of the spiritual memoir “My Swim with the Sharks.” Richard is being interviewed by Juanita Watson, Assistant Editor of Reader Views.

Juanita: Thanks for talking with us today Richard. We are excited to hear more about your unique and inspirational memoir “My Swim with the Sharks.” Would you start by telling us about the life journey you tell in your book?

Richard: Thanks for having me Juanita. My book tells the story of what a mess I had made of my life as a functioning alcoholic/addict until something wonderful happens to me. I have a stroke. The normal phrase is "suffer" a stroke, but I don't recall any suffering.

Juanita: What inspired you to turn your life story into a book?

Richard: Well Juanita, after all the various experiences I've been through in my life I felt inspired to write about them, and hopefully help all the others who are in the same boat I was. I want to let them know there is hope. But I couldn't have done it without my soulmate. Our meeting was literally a match made in heaven. She is left handed as am I, and her middle name is the same as mine, Lee. Now this was no accident or coincidence. They don't really exist. There is a plan and a purpose for everything that happens to your life. Some lesson to be learned.

Juanita: When did you become an alcoholic/addict yourself, and what effect did your addictions have on your life? What was your mindset/lifestyle?

Richard: It was when I was about twenty five. At least that’s when I really started having fall-out from it. I was married at the age of eighteen. For the first eight years of my twelve year incarceration, oh I'm sorry, I meant marriage, I was able to make my reality survivable by smoking pot. I say survivable now because I have learned that back then I suffered from depression, and I did what I did to survive. But that was tricky because my wife of then didn't like it. When I stop and reflect on it, I now see she had a control thing going on with her. Anyway, we had moved to a neighborhood with weekend partiers. She seemed okay with drinking, so drink I did. That's when my life turned into a living hell. Four years later came divorce #1. A few DUI's and a rehab later, I meet my second wife. For the nine years of that one I stayed pleasingly numb on pot. That's when I started thinking I wasn't really an alcoholic. I started back up with just a few beers, but that soon changed and I'd picked up right where I had left off. That turned into divorce #2. I move out into an apartment. Now this is when my life really takes a spin.

Juanita: Why did you decide to try to help your friends from the grips of their addictions, and how did that lead to your imprisonment?

Richard: Juanita, I had discovered that my friends were smoking crack right there in the shop at work. One of them turned me on to a hit of it and that's when things became clear of what was happening to my friends and co-workers. I had spent a good part of my life with addiction and knew it was not a road worth traveling. I couldn't let them go down that path. I had to do something. I went home that night and contacted the DEA and Sheriffs narcotics department. You have to read the book to find out all the details, but essentially they used me to make a bust. They had promised me rehab for the info I was able to get for them, but after the bust they just hung me out to dry. I had lost everything by trying to help them. My job included. You have just got to read the book. It explains everything. So here I am out on the streets addicted to cocaine now and I can't believe the things I do to get the drug. My dad gets me to move in with a woman friend of his thinking she can help me. She helps me into being her toy-boy is what she did. I'm at a loss. The only thing I could think of to do was to commit a crime so the authorities would have to take me off the streets. So what I did was to take some of this lady's jewelry and pawn it. Then I went and turned myself in. I was given one of their public "pretenders" and he managed to get me a ninety day stay in prison for them to decide if I was a criminal or not. Juanita, all this started from me trying to help my friends and at the same time help society get at the source of this drug. What was I thinking?

Juanita: How do you feel today about the justice system, and the tactics that were used against you?

Richard: Good question Juanita. I've learned that these agencies aren't really concerned with getting to the source and stopping it there. There's money in drugs, whether it be for the dealers or the agencies. If the agencies stopped it at the source then there wouldn't be any more need for the agency. I believe that's their line of thinking. By making all of these smaller busts they get to confiscate the money, which can be of a huge proportionate amount. I've also come to understand the real meaning of the word justice. Justice is societies word for the word revenge. When somebody does something bad and are caught we inflict some kind of punishment on them, such as the death penalty, and call that justice when it's not. It's revenge. But Juanita, there's one thing I've learned and I always catch some flak for this because people just find it too hard to believe. We don't die. Jesus came back and showed us that. People say He died for our sins. I don't think so. He showed us there is no death. We shed this physical body we have been using for the experience of life, and then incarnate again to have another experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. People say "well why don't we remember previous lifetimes?" That's because if we remembered them we wouldn't have the full impact of the "experience". That's one of "The All's" great gifts to us. Forgetfulness. Through all of my experiences I have learned the greatest gift there is. That's the miracle of forgiveness. Read "A course in miracles" and you'll understand. Thanks for asking that question Juanita.

Juanita: You eventually were released from prison. What was the prison experience like for you, and what life changing event happened after your release?

Richard: Well, lets put it this way. If they really put a stop to all the drugs out there, 90% of the population would be gone from the prison. I think the government should put the death penalty for anyone caught dealing drugs, because after all, they are taking that persons life away by getting them hooked on their drug. Most everybody I met out there was in for drugs. They commit crimes to get their drugs. Make the drugs disappear and you put an end to most of the crime taking place today. So after two ninety day evaluations they decide I'm not that bad of a criminal. They let me out on probation. I have to check in with my probation officer once a week. So here I am back in the throes of my depression and my life really sucks. I can't smoke pot to alleviate it because my P.O. ua's me every week. The one thing I "can" do is drink. And drink I do. I manage to get a job and a place to live, but drinking is all I can do to survive. And then it happens. Somebody up there must have seen how bad my life was. So I had a stroke. It was in the plan.

Juanita: Richard, you talk about an angel coming to visit and a subsequent physical/mental/spiritual healing. Would you elaborate on what happened?

Richard: Yes. After being in the stroke ward of the hospital for about a month not knowing who or where I was, I have a visitor that brings me out of my stroke induced neurosis. People ask me what she looked like, but right at that time I didn't even know who "I" was, let alone anybody else. And I'm not going to embellish the story and say she had wings and floated around. But I do remember a visitor that came at night, and the hospital doesn't let people visit at night. It was after I left the hospital miraculously healed and walking and talking that I finally realized what had really happened. The hospital kept calling me to come and get my boombox. I had never had a boombox. That made me remember my visitor. I put two and two together. How could I walk and talk as if nothing had happened to me. Plus, and this is the real kicker, I was no longer alcoholic. I didn't need anything to survive my reality. The only explanation is that she was an angel.

Juanita: What happened in your life after your cathartic spiritual experience?

Richard: Many, many miracles occurred. There's not enough space for me to list them all. The biggest one is that I found my soulmate who is now my wife of 5 years. Or she found me. Actually, neither one of us were looking. I have been touched by more than one angel. It's wonderful. That and the fact that I'm not an alcoholic anymore. I've been cured. And they say there is no cure. I'm walking proof that there is.

Juanita: Your life transformation has been significant. What are your thoughts/beliefs on change and miracles?

Richard: Well Juanita, this experience led me on to research the universe, quantum physics, our reality, and the nature of God, whom I refer to as "The All". I have just published another book called "The Evolving Belief" which tells the story of how things are and how they can be. It's really rather dynamic. It gives us an understanding of just how powerful our beliefs can be when done collectively.

Juanita: Would you say that all of the pain, chaos and trauma that you went through was to take you to this point of spiritual understanding?

Richard: Oh heavens yes Juanita. I have come to understand that each and everyone of us knew beforehand what we were coming here to experience and learn from it. You know what Jesus really meant when he said "turn the other cheek"? He meant that the person that just slapped you came here to give you the experience. That would be the experience of forgiveness. It's hard to grasp at first, but it helps to know this. I have become grateful for the experiences it has given me. Now I know what it's like to have the shoe on the other foot.

Juanita: How has your biological family life changed before and after your transformation?

Richard:It's brought my mother and my sisters back into my life. Since my parents divorce when I was ten, my father constantly told me bad stories about them and had me believing it. Thank "The All" for the miracle of my stroke. It reunited us after many years of cruel deception.

Juanita: What did you learn from being an addict?

Richard: That it's very misunderstood by society. All my life I was shunned for having a disease. I was sick, with nobody to understand. I just didn't wake up one day and decide I wanted to be addicted to something for the rest of my life. These people need help, but instead we lock them up. Do you ever think about how much of your tax dollar goes to running prisons. Last time I heard it was something like 285 dollers per day per inmate. Now isn't that crazy?

Juanita: Richard, you have survived through incredible hardships, and now claim to have “found your rainbow.” What does this mean?

Richard: Donna, my wife, said that she knew she would find me. She kept getting hints of rainbows either in songs or movies or pictures, and yes, even real rainbows. This is our time to shine and wake everybody up to the "real reality". I've written an article that covers this and posted it on my website.

Juanita: What is the message of “My Swim with the Sharks”?

Richard: That no matter how bad things are there's always a bright side. To never give up hope. There are people in our lives that play the role of the shark. But not to worry. They're only here to teach us a lesson of one sort or another. It's all a part of the wonderful game called life. It's all a part of the grand illusion.

Juanita: Richard, how can readers find out more about you and your endeavors?

Richard: They can go to www.r-rainbow.com and read my article. It's an eye-opener and one that sorely needs to be realized. In fact that's the name of it - The Ultimate Realization. There are also links on where to find my books and how to contact me.

Juanita: Thanks for taking the time to talk with us today Richard. Your journey will serve as great inspiration to readers.

Richard: Thank you so much Juanita, for letting me express myself. I guess my main goal is that if this helps somebody, then my mission has been served, although I would love it to help a multitude of people. We'll have to do this again sometime. Cheers.