- Drugs
Interviewed by Wendy Lee Nentwig
How Berkeley ended up working in treatment and recovery – how he’s even still alive, for that matter – is a story with more twists and turns than a murder mystery. But he not only lived to tell the tale, he’s a walking, talking testament to the power of a second chance.
Berkeley’s story starts at the tender age of eight, in southern California, when he met his father for the first time. Whether awkwardness or addiction was to blame (probably both), father and son started getting high together. By the time Berkeley finished elementary school, he was smoking weed every day and drinking. In junior high, he graduated to mushrooms, dropping acid and abusing Wite-Out. Freshman year of high school found him doing his first line of cocaine. By the time he was 16 (and continuing the theme of bad role models), an employer introduced him to crack, handing him a glass pipe. Immediately, he was hooked.
Berkeley was a full-blown addict by 16 and he knew it. He was still a teenager when he first blacked out while driving, sideswiping another car and having no memory of the accident. It scared him into AA, but sobriety didn’t take. He managed to stay dry, but Berkeley wasn’t ready for the hard work of recovery or willing to open himself up to spirituality.
A stint in the Navy followed, but some bad news received at sea left him desperately seeking chemical solace. Drinking was out, so he did the next best thing: he faked a back injury on the ship to get meds. Berkeley ended up eating half a bottle, which landed him on suicide watch. Disenchanted with the ship and eager to continue using, he said he was suicidal. He was discharged and immediately returned to smoking crack.
Through all the craziness and dark days – selling to support his habit, stealing from other drug dealers, running from the law, relocating to Canada and Hawaii where he continued to spiral, bartending, dating a stripper, living in a house furnished with inflatable furniture, burying money on the beach, losing custody of a daughter – there were a few moments of clarity. Berkeley started working on some of the steps but was still closed off to spirituality. He was skeptical, and even wrote off 12-step programs as cults.
Wherever Berkeley went, his problems followed. A routine traffic stop finally brought all the running to an end. Berkeley was facing 22 years. He agreed to a plea that included five years with no long-term criminal record, a year in county jail and credit for time served. All he had to do was stay clean and sober for four years during that suspended sentence.
That was easier said than done. After about a year of being on probation, Berkeley found himself in a Ventura, CA motel, totally lost. He called his sister, who reached out to someone in a 12-step program who welcomed Berkeley into his home and helped him detox. That man became his sponsor and helped him face his legal issues head on. Not that there weren’t relapses along the way. A seemingly innocent glass of red wine with a steak taught him that drinking any kind of alcohol at all caused what he calls his “dope horns” to pop out. From there it was a quick slide back down to meth, heroin, Oxycontin and shooting speed.
Then, Berkeley’s body just shut down. He woke up in the intensive care unit. Even in that dire condition, he still tried to manipulate the situation, insisting he needed to go find the girl he’d left with his drug money. He made it out, but wound up back in the ICU the next day, this time handcuffed to the bed. After more running, he ended up on the floor of a Van Nuys, CA jail cell and he gave up. He didn’t even fight the charges.
He went to prison when his second daughter was five months old. He learned to work the system, faking a back injury and selling the meds he scored out in the yard. But prison gives you plenty of time to think. Messages from jailhouse church services and 12-step meetings began to finally sink in. He actually started paying attention.
On May 13, 2008, Berkeley was reading about the agnostic in the big book when suddenly it hit him. “Who am I to say that there is no God when it’s working for all these other people?” Right there in his cell, he fell to his knees. He looked in the mirror and made a conscious decision to change everything.
“I had a spiritual awakening right there in my cell,” he recalls. “I’d never felt freer in my life. I had been running with skinheads and I walked away and just wasn’t worried. I started working my steps in there. It was all about making small changes. Instead of waking up mad, I woke up and thought, ‘How can I make it easier for someone else in here?’”
He finished his sentence in a rehab facility with other convicts where he looked at all the counselors and realized that he could do that too. He enrolled in college, riding a secondhand women’s bicycle to class before graduating up to a bus pass. He took it one step at a time, studying and working hard. As the years passed, and he continued his recovery path, Berkeley reunited with his second daughter and her mother. He finished his program and became a State Certified Addiction Specialist in California. Today’s he’s working full-time in the field of treatment and recovery, inspiring others with his story. He’s also back in school, pursuing a master’s degree.
“I wake up every morning and count my blessings and I go to sleep and count my blessings,” Berkeley says. He’s even opened his own sober living facility in Ventura County, CA called The Fellowship House. “I decided to do this because the ninth step says to go back and make amends. I can’t find them all, so this is a living amends to all of them.”