I was a happy, happy boy. That’s all I knew. I had two parents who loved me, and two older, doting brothers who treated me like their prized possession. We lived in the suburbs for most of my childhood, but for two years in the late ’60s my parents worked on campus at a small […]
I didn’t think I’d ever be able to stop. I’d tried for 17 years and failed over and over and over. I could stop now and then, but I couldn’t stay stopped. I went to meetings, got a sponsor, worked Steps – but I kept relapsing because I wasn’t willing to let go. Did I […]
Family used to be a big deal for me when I was little. I loved visiting my brother and telling strangers that my cousin was my sister; we were as close as sisters anyway. But from the age of 12, it was just me and mom. She moved us out of state and away from […]
I came into CMA very much against my will after nearly 10 years of daily crystal meth use and living a life of insanity. Using had been really fun at first, but it soon became a daily repetition: using, looking for sex and more sex, more using and more sex, until I’d pass out. I […]
Life was a wonderful place, or so I felt as a child. Looking back on it with healthy, adult eyes, it truly was not a healthy place. Life felt wonderful because I spent most of my childhood away from the house participating in the normalcy and comfort of other people’s family environments. I did not […]
I didn’t know it then, when my room was being searched for drugs, but that event–my attempted jump out of a high-rise Casino window and being stopped by a battery of police and fire personnel–would be the last time I used crystal meth. I still remember the way the words of the paramedic hit me […]
“I wish I had never adopted you!” “I don’t love you!” “You make me want to kill myself!” These words made up a constant refrain that defined who I believed I was for most of my life. I was convinced that I was fundamentally broken and completely unlovable. Those beliefs would be what drove me […]
I’ve never lived in a gray area when I used or drank. Some people can say that they didn’t know that they were addicts or alcoholics, but I knew. At the age of 13, I had my first experience with alcohol. I was with my first boyfriend, my best friend and her boyfriend, and we […]
A Daughter’s Experience Sitting here on a Saturday afternoon with my mom, drinking coffee and reminiscing about our journey through addiction and recovery. As mother and daughter we feel we have a unique perspective on addiction. We are both addicts and we have both recovered in our own time. Looking at our experiences overwhelms me […]
The topic of family has always been a sore subject. It was an especially difficult one to discuss early on in recovery. There are a lot of deeply rooted issues stemming from my childhood and young adulthood that led me onto the road of my addiction. I’m the youngest of three boys, the baby of […]
Alright, long time ago (probably in 1980 I would say) there was a discussion about the fact that we could not talk about drugs. And so many of us, we were drug addicts and alcoholics, but they frowned upon us saying it; so you have to just slip it in or something like that. Well […]
My brother once asked me if I was on drugs. I replied, “No, Dan, I’m not on drugs.” He paused for a few seconds, looked at me and said, “you are the only person I’ve ever known who could look someone so honestly in the eyes and lie so deviously.” Towards the end of a […]
Dim red light shined down on my shame as I was again spending another Tuesday evening in a room full of naked men, undoubtedly high on meth as I allowed myself to once more be used by every single one of them. I didn’t realize that the clinking noise of the chains, the constant stream […]
When my oldest daughter was five our car broke down in the middle of town. We lived 20 miles away in the canyons outside of Redlands, California. I had no money or cell phone back then so I told her to stick out her thumb and we’d get a ride. Being the bright child that […]