• Love at First Toke

    The single most life changing event that I experienced happened May 15, 2007. That day was the first day of my last treatment center, and the first day of a new life. I never knew life could be so good. It was that day that I started to grow up and be a man. I learned how to deal with life on life’s terms without getting drunk or stoned. Before then I always dealt with my problems by escaping with chemicals, and when the drugs wore off, the problem was still there and usually had gotten worse. This is how I handled things for most of my life, and it was the only way I knew. Nobody had ever told me different.
    My entire life was centered on getting high. It was the first thing I thought about when I woke up, and the last thing I thought about when I went to bed. It is just like the people in a certain 12-step program say. “I was living to use, and I was using to live.” Period!!
    I believe I have been an addict my whole life. While I wasn’t taking drugs until I was 18, I still had all the behaviors of an addict. The selfishness, self-centeredness, always self, self, self. And what’s really interesting is the fact that my own mother was my biggest enabler.
    My mother was very strict with me while I was a child. I also have an older brother who was raised with me, and she let him get away with stuff that I would be whipped for. When I say whipped, I mean pants and underwear pulled down, laying across her bed, while she used my own belt to beat me. This was an everyday thing for me. I had to walk on eggshells so I wouldn’t make her mad and get a whipping. I remember one occasion when I went to my grandmother’s to stay the weekend, which I did quite a lot. On this occasion, I forgot to pack a pair of socks. She beat me for what seemed like forever because I didn’t pack some socks. She left me in that bedroom, sobbing, wondering why she would do this. I remember saying to myself how much I hated her, and wished she was dead. What I’m trying to say is that I was raised with fear not love or respect. A psychiatrist has told me that could very well have been what could have caused me to try to escape the sheer torment of the life I was forced to live.
    She contributed to my addiction in another way, too. Being a single mother, she had boyfriends, and they would come to the house sometimes. I was always glad when they were there, because she didn’t beat me in front of other people, so I knew I was safe for at least as long as they were there. For the most part these guys were pretty good to me and my brother, and they were more or less the only male influences in our lives, except for my grandfather, but we only saw him once a week or so.
    Anyway, when the boyfriends were there, they usually brought beer with them. I would take sips of their beers whenever I got a chance. I absolutely loved the taste of beer. So, one day, (and I remember this as clear as if it were yesterday), she decided she was going to teach me and my brother a lesson. (He was sneaking sips when he could, too). She sat both of us down on the end of the couch, gave each of us a 16 ounce Budweiser, and told us we had to drink it all, or we would be in real trouble. Well, I drank mine, and I finished my brother’s because he was getting sick from the beer. Needless to say, I was one drunk little six year old. Instead of teaching me that beer would make me sick, she showed me how beer could make me feel when I took more than a sip. I was in love. Now, while I didn’t drink regularly after that, I would drink when I could sneak some. That was the beginning of a lifelong love affair with alcohol, and a step in a direction that I never imagined I would go.
    I wasn’t really exposed to drugs at the time, but my mother always told us what they would do to me. I was so naïve, that one time, she was yelling at my brother because he was going to one of his friend’s house, and she said he couldn’t go there because they had “pot parties” over there. Well, I thought she meant they were selling pots and pans over there, like a Tupperware party. I had no clue she was talking about marijuana.
    In school, halfway through the first grade, I was put up to the second grade. While this could be seen as a good thing, there was also a not so good thing. From that day on, I was tagged as the know it all, the professor, and other names synonymous with being intelligent. So, this combined with my super low self-esteem, made me a basket case. I was painfully conscious of my crooked teeth, my glasses, and my sometimes unwanted intelligence. For some reason, my classmates were only “nice” to me when they needed my help with their homework and other things that they could use my brain for. When they didn’t want something from me, there was usually somebody out of the bunch that would pick on me, and usually make me cry, which didn’t help my situation at all. This continued all the way through the eighth grade, from which I graduated in GA. What really hurt, was the fact that this same treatment followed me from GA to CA. It was like somebody called ahead and spread the word that an easy mark was headed their way. So it continued the same way through high school. I had to “buy” my friends. I tried to make them like me. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t.
    Now all this time, I was very afraid of drugs. I would walk into a restroom, and there would be people in there smoking pot, which would scare the crap out of me. I’m talking turn around and run kind of scared.
    I did manage to make a couple of friends, real friends, during the nearly four years I was there. I am still in contact with one of them.
    With about three weeks left before graduation, my grandmother got very sick. So, we moved back to GA right away. I was going to be the first in my family, on my mother’s side, or my father’s side, to graduate high school. I know it sounds selfish, but my mother wouldn’t wait until after graduation. She took that away from me. I wound up going to school in GA for another quarter to make up the difference in requirements between CA and GA. So I still graduated in 1982, and was still the first in my family to do so.
    When we got back to GA, I started hanging out with some of my old friends that I knew before the move to CA. The friend I had known the longest lived right across the street from my grandmother’s house. I had known this guy for practically my whole life, so I trusted him quite a bit. Well, when we get back to my grandparent’s, turns out Frank smokes pot. So, I thought, if Frank smokes pot, it can’t be that dangerous. That, combined with the anger I still had towards my mom, basically made me say, “SCREW IT!!!”, and I started smoking pot. Turns out I liked it. A lot!! I already had a taste for beer, so add in the pot, and you’ve got a match made in heaven, or so I thought.
    From that day on, every penny I made went to buying pot or alcohol, and eventually other, harder drugs, like Quaaludes, acid, cocaine and the like. My every waking moment was spent either getting high or finding a way to get high. I know this sounds unbelievable, but its true. Drugs were my only reason for existence. I sponged off my mom and my grandparent for the next 25 years. I would lie, cheat, and steal, from anybody, and everybody, including my family.
    I also lived in FL during this period of 25 years or so. That is where I got my first taste of cocaine. I was working for my dad at the time, and eventually became a very highly skilled upholsterer. Even then, I was still spending every cent I could earn on dope. I made very good money then, too. To hell with rent, to hell with food; these were things I could sponge off someone else during the week, so why should I spend my money on them. Eventually, I started stealing more to get high, or more often than not, I stole to keep from having withdrawals. Well, I stole some equipment from my dad’s shop and pawned them, which was really stupid, because that’s the first place the police would look. Well, they got me for grand theft, dealing in stolen property, and possession of cocaine. I only got 18 months probation for it, but I couldn’t pass a drug test. I also couldn’t pay my fines because that would cut into my dope money. My probation officer violated me more than once. She gave me every chance to make it on probation, but I just couldn’t do it. After I flunked my last drug test, I ran back to GA. to keep from going to prison. Eventually I was caught in Chattanooga and extradited back to FL, and had to do a year in prison. Not jail, but prison. When they released me in FL, I came back to GA and just picked up where I left off before I went to prison, and wound up going to prison in GA for grand theft. I got a five year sentence; one year in prison, and four years on probation. Just like before, I couldn’t make it on probation. I didn’t pay my fines, and eventually I got tested for drugs, and….. drum roll… yep I flunked it. I still had about two and a half years on probation. My P.O. told me I had to go to rehab, and stay clean, or I would finish my sentence in prison.
    Turns out, that was a blessing. At that point in my addiction, I was stealing money from my mom, stealing from anywhere or anyone I could. I was an absolute piece of s**t. My mom was already supporting me with just her social security check, and I was stealing from her, too. I never thought I could go so low, but I did. Nothing and nobody mattered to me. Just me, me, me, and dope.
    I got into the treatment program at the VA here in Murfreesboro, and have been clean and sober ever since. I got married. Married for the first time, and I was 42 yrs old. I am doing now, what I should have done 25 years ago. I’ve got my drivers license back after going without it for 14 years. I have a bank account,(that’s huge for me), I have an apartment in my name, which is something I’ve never done. Come to think of it, I’ve never had anything in my name until recently.
    I am now a contributing member of society. I have a life, a real life! I never knew life could be so, so, great. I’m barely scraping by to go to school. I’m broke with two dollars in my bank account, my rent is paid, and you know what? My life is awesome today. Whenever I start to think how bad I’ve got it, I just remind myself that there’s ALWAYS someone worse off than me, and I should count my blessings, which are many. I wouldn’t trade the life I have now for the life I used to have, for a million dollars. I can look at the guy in the mirror now. I’m going to school to become an addiction therapist, and give back what was so freely given to me. I’m still a little immature, but that’s something that only time can fix, and it will, as long as I stay on the road I’m on. And, for today anyway, I don’t see myself taking a detour anytime soon…….