Cameron Obremski is a vibrant musician and a recovering addict. Growing up, Cameron was, “an outcast in my soul” making fast friends with the kids who got into trouble. He started smoking cigarettes before double digits and was an active user before his twenties. He experienced homelessness and jail time. As an adult, Cameron used whoever and whatever he could. Whenever he was given another chance, Cameron took more than his share. He was in and out of rehabs and detoxes for years making the same bad decisions.
Then he started making different decisions.
“I was lucky that I survived,” he says. When he was accepted into the Salvation Army for the third time, he committed himself to sobriety. Rather than staying stuck, Cameron changed his tune. He found a sponsor, did the steps, distanced himself from friends, and reflected on himself. “It helped me see that If I let myself, I would continue to destroy my life.”
Doors opened to a new world for Cameron and it challenged him to keep changing.
He minded his urges and learned to say “no” to them, whether it was girls, drugs, or petty crimes. He says now, “Sometimes I get urges and I want to do the wrong thing. Those thoughts are there, you know what I mean? I just notice them and I don’t do those things anymore and that’s how it goes. It registers in my heart, it goes through my mind and it’s like, ‘You’re a weirdo. You don’t do those things anymore.’” He goes on to say, “I just change one thing, and I change another thing, and another thing, and my life flourishes.”
Cameron found himself holding onto anger and pride and harmful relationships even in recovery and began approaching them as someone new, someone kinder and softer. God began putting him in more healthy dynamics. He found friendships in sober living homes and sober coworkers.
He began writing music again. He got a cat. He fell in love.
Cameron had to learn how to let love in by looking in the mirror and making changes toward compassion and away from aggression. “I melted because of my cat,” he says, “I’ve seen new hope because of her.” When he would yell, his beloved cat Belle would run and hide from him on instinct. Cameron had to change, he didn’t want to chase love away. This demanded hard, constant work of learning who he was underneath it all and evolving into a more loving person.
His wife, Arielle, nurtured a lot of the good within Cameron. “In my ugliest moments, she loved me,” he says. “She made me notice that I didn’t have to be a bad person…She helped me become a new person. God just took me and was like, ‘You see this? Everyone around you is showing you that this is who you are. Why aren’t you being who I meant for you to be?”
After years of trying to protect himself by burning bridges and keeping people away, Cameron had to start letting all the love in and allow it to change him and grow a new life.
“I know I’m strong because I fight my emotions all the time.” Cameron says, “When I quit drugs, I knew I could do anything. I wish I could give that to people. I get emotional [about this] all the time. I love people so much…we’re supposed to live our whole lives and learn things. My whole message, everything I put out there, everything I do, the way I live, I want to encourage people to just try, just try.”
Cameron’s heart grows bigger by the day. He holds space for difference and difficulty and encourages everyone to get real with themselves, to look in the mirror with compassion, and discover their hang-ups and mistakes, as well as their light and dreams.
Everyone misses out when we miss out on ourselves. “I know I can be better.” He says, “If I could come from where I was to be where I am now, look at where I’m gonna be next year. And if I continuously evolve, I can’t even imagine.”
Cameron’s life now revolves around simple, organic living and maintaining the relationships in his life that keep him on his beautiful path. It’s easy for him to look around and love life, seeing it all as a gift but a gift he has worked hard to achieve and is consistently supporting himself to grow. Joyfully, he says, “I’m at the safest place I’ve ever been in my entire life. This [life] is the coolest, weirdest adventure that I’ve ever been on.”