Ockham's Razor is a blazingly candid memoir and recovery guide within a spiritual context. It is a deeply moving, intensely caring, intimate portrayal of a gay man's journey through abysmal depression, manic episodes, extreme indulgence, and sexual addiction. He eventually discovered the power of the simple solution and enjoys enduring sobriety. Unlike many self-help books, it speaks from the heart of one who's been there and back too many times. It offers a simple, doable plan that can lead to a safe harbor for addicts and people on the brink of disaster. It is a valuable source of information and inspiration for manic depressives, addicts, their supporters, co-dependents, and professionals in the field, gift-wrapped in a literate and fascinating read. Twenty-six years of practicing, studying, rising above, and sinking to the depths; recommitment, regret, disillusionment with incompetent professionals, twelve-step commitments, and lapses, confirms the author as an expert on the subject with a workable solution. Ockham's Razor Revisited A Simple Solution To Freedom From All Addictions By David Clarke Balboa Press Copyright © 2014 David Clarke All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4525-9835-2 Contents Foreword, ix, Prologue, xvii, My Secret Shame, 1, The Journey to Sanity, 16, From the Closet to the Open Door, 30, Reaching for Recovery, 51, My Program and Happy Memories, 73, Insanity and Laughter, 87, More Laughter, 100, Affirmations as a Key to Wholeness, 116, Responsibility, Awareness, and Abundance, 128, The Heart of My Being, 144, Epilogue, 161, Biography Of David Clarke, 165, CHAPTER 1 My Secret Shame What does it mean to do unto others as you would have them do unto you? That has been referred to as the Golden Rule in the Bible. The Wiccans say to do no harm. I say always be gentle and come from a place of love. It really is just that simple. And all you have to do is to take it one day at a time. Let me share a little bit of my story. It is a story mixed with mental illness, alcohol abuse, and sexual addiction. It is a life of sorrow, trauma, joy, triumph, redemption and transformation. I am a gay man. It took me a long time to admit that! There had been so much shame involved. Here is my story about how I found the key to open the closet door. Eventually I walked through it; but, for many years, I was locked in the closet. It was a closet of shame. It all began with sex. I have shared a host of addictions in my past. These would include alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual addiction, codependent relationships, love addiction, tobacco addiction, compulsive shopping, workaholism, caffeine addiction, sugar addiction. The list could probably go on. Gratefully, many of these addictions such as alcohol, drug abuse and sexual addiction are no longer issues within my life. From cigarette addiction, I am still seeking recovery. I may never recover from this and that's okay. Fortunately it is not truly life-threatening in my belief system. We get what we believe. I keep my focus on recovery from the greater of "the evils." What I've come to learn is that I could not work on all of my addictions at once. That's what the perfectionist who lurks within my brain would like me to do. It's also a recipe for failure. I'm like everyone else. I'm not perfect; I'm only human. I've heard it said that to be human is to be addicted. I believe this to be true. It seems that it's the human condition to expect something or someone to make us happy rather than to look for happiness within ourselves. That only works for awhile until we feel the aching longing within ourselves once again. As for me, and as you may discover, only spirit can fill that gaping hole of need. It seems to me that so much of our unfulfilled needs come from the materially-driven society in which we live. What happened to me in my past was that I became consumed by my wants instead of focused upon my needs. I certainly have had a tendency to try to fill myself up with things outside of myself in order to feel better. That's only worked for the time I had been engaged in those addictions, attachments, or compulsive behaviors. After the thrills wore off, I was just as lonely and needy as before. My first and primary addiction fueled something even more toxic. That was my secret shame which would ultimately lead me back into this addiction following more shame, emptiness, apathy, or despair. For many years I fooled myself by justifying my sexual behaviors. So many gay men were leading promiscuous lives in the 1970's and 80's. For many that ended with the fear of illness and death connected to AIDS. For many of those who survived, AIDS had become the wake up call for them to have made changes in their sexual behavior. Unfortunately that didn't work for me. I was addicted to unsafe sex. I had no need to put any chemicals into my body to get high. I would experience "a high" during sexual acting out that was more potent th