Lesson One

We will talk now a little about how addiction and recovery was a big part of my life.  What you should know though is that my last use was almost seven years ago. No one, not even my mother, thought I would ever get a handle on drug addiction. I had spent the last ten years of my life homeless or in jail and strung out on heroin and meth.  Heroin being my drug of choice.  I knew, shortly after starting the use of heroin, that I was in real trouble and that my chances of a normal, or semi-normal life, was pretty much non-existent. Yet, I never stopped trying to find a way out by going to meetings once in a while, reading everything I could get my hands on about drug addiction, talking to all the other successful addicts that had been clean for several years and how they did it.  You need to know as much as you can about your enemy and how to defeat it.  More than likely, you will try time and again to quit - just to start using again.  DON'T GIVE UP.  It can be done.  Remember how many treatment and detoxes I went through until I found that combination of things that worked for me.  So for the rest of this post, and the next, we are going to talk about addiction, a few of the obstacles you are going to have to overcome, where and who to turn to, and how I took all these things I'm talking about and turned them into a working Recovery for Success story.

1. You need to understand it isn't your fault you're addicted, but you are responsible for your recovery.  I don't think there's one person out there that at ten years old told their parent, "I want to grow up to be an addict."  As a matter of fact, when I used to see an addict on the street, I would tell myself, "that will never be me, I will never do that, I would never stick a needle in my arm."  That person on the street that I just spoke about would years later become a reflection of me.  I would often wonder how many people walking by would say exactly what I had said years before. "THAT WILL NEVER BE ME".
2. You need to make a conscious choice, look in the mirror (and yes looking in a mirror is a must) and don't tell yourself that I want to quit, but that I will quit. No matter what it takes or how long it takes, "I WILL NOT FAIL."
3. Find something, some sort of higher power, to believe in.  Take my advice, don't make it another person just to be reminded later of that old saying, "We're only human".  People are prone to letting other people down. 
4. And once again...read and learn.  I left links below to some books that have helped me.  Remember what I said, "If you read a book and walk away with only one piece of information that might help your recovery, then that was a good choice of a read."

Take care until my next post, and "Don't Ever Stop Trying."

A few books or choice:

       

   

       
 

The Disease of Addiction

The first time I used drugs was like most of us, in high school.  Back then the drug I'm referring to was cross tops or speed.  It was at a home football game.  It was raining and my best friend TB was with me.  I remember feeling all tingly, and of course I was wide awake.  Not long after that I found out that it made me quick.  Call it stupid or what ever you want, but back then I did a lot of fighting.  At first it was just to fight.  Later on, it was in self defense because everyone wanted to be the top dog when it came to fighting, and unfortunately I was the top dog.  For a long time, all I wanted to do was take drugs, fight and listen to good old rock and roll.  

I had a massive stereo system, and I use to put on all the dances at school.  At one dance, I noticed that all of a sudden I had lost all sound coming out of the speaker on the right only to find another one of my friends had the speaker leaning back and was proceeding to rip out the center of the speaker. He told me there were bugs or something coming out of it, and he wanted to take care of the infestation.  This little show was due to having too much alcohol and three hits of acid.  The next day he felt bad about what had happened.  To show me just how bad he felt, he gave me a couple hits to take at my next dance (what a pal, right?)

After that it was a common, or should I say mandatory, thing for me to be high on speed and acid at those occasions. All in all, I thought I was just having fun.  What I was really doing was laying a good foundation for drug addiction and a life full of problems, disappointments and unachieved goals. But I was having fun, right? At least that was what I kept telling myself. The use of drugs finally led to me dropping out of high school and the loss of my dream to join the Navy, but until someone told me about the military equivalent exam.  By joining the Navy, I thought I was finally turning my life around, and I didn't care how long it took me. I was going to become a Teams Man (frogman)   Life was finally starting to go the way I had always dreamed.

My point is that no matter what type of drug it is, even if you walk away from drugs for a short time, like I did by joining the military, you have started to lay that foundation for the disease of drug addiction.

And one more little tid-bit, it has been proven numerous times in study after study that as soon as that first drug is taken your maturity growth stops and doesn't start again until you quite using. I will say this thousands of times on this blog. It you are thinking of quitting, even if you are still using, go to meetings, seek help and educate, educate, educate yourself on drug addiction, and how to conquer the beast within.

And that's where I will leave off for this post...