I remember being about 12 years old and going to Catholic mass, taking Communion, and keeping the wafer in my mouth so that I could spit it out when I left church. You see, I had prayed and prayed that I wouldn’t be attracted to boys, but I was and there was nothing I could do to stop it. God never answered my prayers. He had made me gay, so I wanted nothing to do with Him. His church told me that who I am is wrong and sinful. I remember spitting the wafer out and waiting for lightning to strike me down or something.
I hated myself and wanted to be different—I didn’t want to be attracted to boys. I tried to date girls and even thought I had fallen in love with one when I was 14. Surprisingly, I got aroused when I kissed her, but she was the last girl I tried to date.
A couple years later, I was sort of forced out of the closet. I messed around with this kid named Mike while we were on a high school trip to Florida with the chorus. His girlfriend found out and started telling everyone what had happened. I had a choice: I was either going to kill myself or come out and face the consequences. So, I came out, and now everyone at my all-boy Catholic high school knew I was gay.
At 16, I started smoking a lot of pot just to deal with my uncomfortable feelings about my sexuality. Then, in college I started drinking daily. Eventually it was whatever drugs were on campus–weed, shrooms, acid, ecstasy, coke, hash, pills–whatever I could get my hands on. I never thought I had a problem because I was functioning. But I hated being sober. I hated myself and the thoughts I would have about myself. Drugs helped with these thoughts.
My liberal arts college in Vermont was anything but liberal. I was harassed constantly for being gay. So I transferred to a New York City performing arts school my junior year where basically every boy was gay. It was like I had arrived.
I met a boy who I fell madly in love with but we had a very dysfunctional relationship. Lots of drinking. Lots of fighting. Although we tried to quit drinking from time to time, I never thought I had a drinking problem. Even when we quit drinking, we still smoked weed.
We started a music project when we graduated, got signed to an indie label record deal and did some touring. But the fighting never ceased and I cheated on him regularly. I finally had enough of the arguments and hiding my infidelities. The relationship ended and the music project came to a halt. Making music together was nothing but drama.
I remember feeling like I had given up everything–my relationship, my music career. I was at such a low point that drugs became everything. I would go out after work with my friends and we would drink and do coke. We all knew coke was a problem and would swear that “tonight we are just drinking.” Then after a couple sips of alcohol, someone would call the dealer. It was too easy to get and too hard to stop.
After a couple of years of being miserable with the coke problem, I felt like I had to leave New York City in order to stop because it was everywhere. I got a job offer in San Francisco and left everything behind. A geographic cure!
I arrived in San Francisco and went to a bar, but I wasn’t used to drinking without cocaine. I was drunk and needed to drive back to Berkeley where I was staying. I got on the Bay Bridge and got pulled over for speeding–I was arrested for DUI. My first night in California was spent in jail. My license was suspended but you don’t need a car in San Francisco, so I moved to the Castro where I could walk to the bars.
I started dating a guy within a few days of moving to San Francisco. We would drink and smoke a lot of weed and do ecstasy on the weekends. I was just happy to be free from the coke problem. After a short time I realized I hated San Francisco and my job, so, I went looking for some cocaine, because fuck it! I went to the club and saw this guy chewing gum at the end of the bar and thought, he’s my guy. I asked him if he knew where I could find some coke. He said he didn’t have that but had something better. I bought my first bag of meth.
Meth was great in the beginning. I didn’t want to drink or smoke pot anymore and thought I had been fixed–that I’d found my answer. I could go to the job I hated and then write music all night. Me and the boyfriend said we’d only do meth on weekends but we didn’t even make it through the first week. We started using daily.
I had trouble showing up for work, and eventually I went on final notice. My solution was to escape to a new job in Los Angeles–another geographic cure.
This is when things got really bad. My bosses lived in New York City, and I was running their store in Los Angeles so I had minimal accountability. I gave keys and the alarm code to my employees in case I was late or a no-show. I tried to show up for work and even had a system in place. I’d work a full day and then come home and make music. I had to get to the bathhouse by 2 am so even if I passed out, the staff would kick me out by 10 and I could make it to work by 10:30. Keeping this routine was very hard and I didn’t always succeed.
Even through all this chaos I felt like I was better than all the tweakers I knew, because they were homeless and jobless, and I wasn’t–I must have my shit together. But I was miserable. The meth didn’t fix my depression like it used to and I had to do it all day, every day just to function. I never felt high anymore.
Eventually, I got 12-Stepped at the bathhouse. A man gave me his card and told me he had been sober from meth for 6 years. I recognized the card, it had been on the bulletin board over my desk at work. He was the guy who did our landscaping. It was a God shot! Then I started dating another guy I met at the bathhouse who was a sober member of AA. Maybe I was trying to find my way out of addiction, I don’t know. Maybe I believed in God after all. I started to pray for help.
I dumped all my meth in the toilet and cried and cried. I went to the Hollywood Young People’s AA meeting that night. That was June 30, 2008. I have never used again.
The next day I overslept. I woke up at 4 pm, clearly late for work. I had many missed calls from my employer in NYC. I admitted that I was a drug addict and was getting help. They told me to take the week off and get help. So, I did. I went to meetings every day. I even Googled to see if there was a Twelve Step group for meth addicts. I found CMA. There was a meeting within walking distance from my apartment.
I am so grateful that I had my God shot moment so that when I got to CMA and saw the word God on the wall, I wasn’t resistant. I was open. Praying to God to help me with my demons got me to admit I had a meth addiction.
The next week, I went back to work, but I was asked to resign. Still, I felt like God was with me and looking out for me. I was so afraid of getting high again that recovery became my full-time job. I got a sponsor and worked the Steps. I would go to two, sometimes three meetings a day for that first year. At 6 months sober, I became a GSR for my homegroup which was magical. Through that commitment I learned the importance of service. In 2011, I was taken to Phoenix for my first General Service Conference and gained deeper appreciation for the benefit of service.
I then began the process of learning how to navigate intimate sexual relationships without meth. For my first year in recovery, my sponsor suggested that I not get into a relationship. But he did encourage me to explore sex while sober. So, I did! After a few months of casual sex, I realized that it left me feeling empty. I wanted to treat myself better and become someone datable.
I finally started dating. My plan was to not have sex until after five dates. I dated a sober guy who wanted me to put out right away so that relationship ended after the third date. My feelings were hurt but my self-respect was intact.
For the next several years, I dated a series of men which didn’t work out well. Some of them were emotionally and physically abusive. There was one man I dated who may have been an alcoholic. We dated for 3 1/2 years. It was another emotionally abusive relationship. He would withhold sex and accuse me of cheating. I thought I was in love with him and if we just tried harder, we could make it work. We even went to therapy and Recovering Couples Anonymous, but our relationship finally ended and thank God it did.
Just before I was seven years sober I moved to Atlanta. I immediately got involved in CMA service at the local level and took a commitment. Then I was elected as Delegate for my Area and got to go to the General Service Conference. What an amazing experience! It’s God’s work that is done by our trusted servants.
I also started going to Al-Anon which has turned out to be my recovery grad school. Because of my recovery in CMA and Al-Anon, I was quick to see where unhealthy dating patterns would crop up and was able to end these relationships relatively quickly.
My journey in recovery, and the personal growth I’ve made has led me to the relationship I am in now. We’ve been together for over four years. He is not an addict–he has about one drink a year–which, as an addict, I don’t understand. This is the healthiest and strongest relationship I’ve ever been in and I am grateful.
I attribute my serenity in recovery to being of service in CMA—and also my side gig of Al-Anon. The work I’ve done and continue to do has helped me with all my relationships. God is definitely willing, so if I’m willing, I will celebrate 16 years of sobriety this year.