Submitted by Vanessa, Heroes in Recovery lead advocate
The Sugar Game: selling boxes that presumably contain high quality electronics when in reality they only contain rocks.
This dangerous game was the manifestation of pre-recovery life for Michael Eugene Dolphin. Using the game to hustle funds to buy his next fix, Mike was a “student of concrete and pavement”—a by-product of the ghetto. Born in Harlem, NY, the youngest of five boys, he was raised to be “better than.” Better than the dope fiends in his neighborhood. Better than the hoodlums his grandmother so detested as she watched them from the window every day, pointing out to the child version of Mike all the ills of their downtrodden environment. To save him from his destiny, Mike’s mother gave him to God at a young age, grooming him to take over the role of minister at the church his family frequented. He was a studious straight-A student. Mike’s father having left home at an early age, his mother worked hard to support her family. She refused to take any support via welfare.
Mike was introduced to alcohol at a very young age and found the effects produced were to his liking. He drank to escape the realities of his current life. It wasn’t long after the first drink that he began to experiment with other drugs. His brothers were all into some kind of drug use, whether it was marijuana or heroin. Heroin called to Mike in his teenage years, and he answered. In and out of trouble, he used various form of drugs in order to get his high, always going back to heroin.
Mike was in his early 20s when he entered his first treatment program. It was an 18-month intensive program structured to create an entirely new way of living for the addict. He moved from the rough and tumble streets of Harlem to the sunny treatment center in California. There, Mike became part of a community. It was a place where people from all different walks of life, as well as all various forms of addiction, gathered to get well. Here Mike detoxed and lived in this self-sustaining community in harmony until his ego started to get the best of him. It wasn’t suggested to have relationships in this treatment facility, yet some people within it were married. Mike became involved with a woman within the facility who was married and was subsequently kicked out.
Mike headed back to New York after being kicked out and had his “runs.” He went in and out of sobriety for the next 8 years. He had relationships in and out of sobriety as well. Mike ended his final run March 9th, 1987, and celebrated 25 years of sobriety this past March.
Mike has taken his life in recovery to mean a “daily reprieve” and it is by the gift of a higher power that he is allowed to wake up clean and sober each day. Mike has dedicated his life to those who are suffering in and out of the rooms of his 12-Step program. He has sponsored hundreds of men and women around the world, armed with facts about himself. He frequents conferences and spreads his message of experience, strength and hope to those who would hear him.
If you call Mike and he is unable to answer, he has made it a point to create inspirational voice messages to those who would hear him. It’s his way of reaching out, even when he isn’t available. His messages have helped me immensely in times of need. Mike Dolphin is my sponsor.