Main Track to Sidetrack and Back Again

When trains are traveling on the “main track,” from opposite ends of the line at the same time, they are going to meet somewhere, leading to either “frozen traffic” (Dylan “Absolutely Sweet Marie”  Jason and the Scorchers light up “Marie” too) or a train wreck (Dead, G. ”Casey Jones”). Since it would cut traffic and revenue in half to wait until one train crossed the state, before another train could leave in the other direction, a work-around had to be found. The solution was to provide a place to temporarily park one of the trains off to the side of the mainline. By creating “sidetracks” in a few places, they were able to provide parking spots for this purpose, but getting a train off the main track poses a problem.

Unlike cars, the engineer driving the train can’t just turn a steering wheel and “pull off” the main track. To ease the transition, rails were laid such that a train could transition from the main track to the sidetrack. To control whether a train continued on the main track or moved over to the sidetrack, a switch is installed that moves the sidetrack rails over to pick up the locomotive’s wheels and change its direction.

The process may be automated now, but originally a switchman was employed to “throw” the switch when a train needed to be sidetracked.

At the age of 17, I was rolling down the main track, headed for college and a career. After my high school sweetheart callously dumped me, “you’ll be in college and I want to enjoy my high school prom and activities…” I turned for solace to the alcohol I had just begun experimenting with.

When it comes to a natural talent for throwing a life-switch, alcohol and other drugs have no peers. After 25 years and a lot of hard miles, on a wild ride that never got off the sidetrack, I went to treatment. There I finally threw the switch at the other end of the sidetrack and a quarter century of stasis was broken. Life on the main track beckoned.

I wanted to power-on and blast-off, but trains and lives don’t work that way. When a stopped train starts to move forward, its massive inertia has to be overcome before it can even start moving. The locomotive wheels will spin at first, as it struggles to gain traction on the slick rails. At first, there is no forward motion, then it haltingly, slowly, begins to move ahead again.

A life is much the same. Discarded values needed to be reinstated. Goals needed to be established. Forward, but where to?

For more on how this process worked in my own life, I am going to play the “switchman” and move the reader over to the “The Hockey Stick” post. For now, I’ll just say my progress was slow at first, but suddenly picked up speed. Picture a graph that looks like a hockey stick.

A year-and-a-half from the day I entered treatment, I walked onto the campus of the college I’d finally graduate from, determined to make it work this time. Even though your own life won’t take off like a nitromethane-powered dragster, tires smoking, screaming off the starting line, this is not the time to give up.

Your life is not a lost cause. Whether your immediate goals are regaining your health or the trust of your family or employer, patience is your friend. Keep on doing “the next right thing,” whatever needs to be done today and don’t let yourself get overwhelmed by the work ahead. You have to cross the Valley of Death, but keep your eyes on the “green pastures” waiting on the other side.

We were “accomplishment addicts” before we ever used any drugs and the addictive behavior took a free ride on that characteristic. It is time to get back to reality-based accomplishments. Remaining abstinent and staying true to a useful (comprehensive) Program of Recovery needs to be the first goal.

Even if that is all you do the first year of recovery, you will have accomplished a lot. And things will be coming together in ways you aren’t even aware of at the time, although others will often be able to see the positive changes occurring.

Once your life-train leaves the sidetrack and starts picking up speed, don’t just sit back and admire the passing scenery. Keep yourself alert for signals that a switch has been thrown that could lead you off the main track again or a signal that you need to avoid an oncoming freight train, like old “playmates, playgrounds and play things.”

Don't forget that the main track still has switches ahead of you today and freight trains coming your way. Be alert for the signals and make sure the switch is sending the freight train to the sidetrack and isn't shunting you off the main track, the track where you want to spend your new life.