- Alcohol
Interviewed by Michael, Heroes in Recovery Lead Advocate
Several days ago, I spent two hours interviewing Peter who I consider to be a Hero in Recovery. The following is an excerpt of our conversation:
Question:
Can you tell me a little bit about your childhood and your years in high school?
Answer:
When I was a kid, I always felt scared, weak, stupid, hopeless, worthless and never really fit in with any particular group of friends. My father was very combative and my mother was extremely controlling and manipulative. I took in these qualities as my own, which would of course have a negative impact on my future relationships. Somehow I managed to graduate high school, even though I skipped class many times. I was actually surprised to be handed a diploma at the graduation ceremony.
Question:
What happened after high school?
Answer:
I moved to Venice, California and drank six days a week, needing only the seventh to recover. I passed out on several occasions, crashed cars and was a menace. Girls and sex became so unimportant. The drink and the drugs became more important than any meaningful relationship or sexual activity. My roommate at the time used our apartment as a revolving foreign exchange student hostel. Shortly thereafter, he was evicted and within six months I was charged with my first driving while under the influence charge.
By the time I was nineteen years old, I somehow managed to put together one year of sobriety and began attending classes at Santa Monica College. I loved my philosophy class. It was an excellent introduction to the power I refer to as God and the meaning of existence. After I completed one of the class’s more significant essays, I relapsed and totaled my car. I was what someone would refer to as a “dry drunk” and was constantly enraged. I wanted to kill!
Due to some of my childhood traumas, I believed the only way to win in the game of life was to be more cruel, more dishonest and more selfish toward others in the same way I had experienced in my life.
Question:
How did you choose to cope with these events and did you make any career decisions?
Answer:
I worked out and exercised a great deal and started setting up my own meetings with modeling agencies. I really just wanted to travel and so, with only $1,500 in my pocket, I moved to Europe. Success in the field arrived quite quickly. I ended up as a runway model for some of the world’s top designers and modeled in Paris, Italy and Germany. The work lasted for six years and I was considered to be in upper 1% of male models. I was sober up until the very end when I started to question my faith and belief in a Higher Power. The power I had come to rely upon no longer seemed to exist. With that connection shattered and feeling the need to now find a new type of faith, I drank again. I was in Hamburg, Germany at the time and specifically remember this moment. The God and Higher Power of my understanding had disappeared and I couldn’t get it back!
Question:
How would you describe your life and sobriety today and what message would you want to pass along to the reader and or those who also seek recovery?
Answer:
Today, I have been clean for almost three years and believe that support is required to help us take the actions necessary to change our occurring world. I prefer the term “occurring world” rather than “perception” because it seems to have greater depth and meaning. With that leap of faith, I continually put my trust in another.
I am aware that my faith is a daily surrender of my will which allows me to experience the grace, beauty and magic of the world. The most difficult task I have is to stop letting my mind drive me away from God because it is my ego that blocks this conscious contact. When I am in alignment with my Higher Power, I can make better decisions make proper use of the will which to me brings about the question, “How can I help you, not me?”
With practice, I can find the answers to all those baffling questions and recognize that truth and nature exists in all of us. To the reader, I would say, “use your mind, don’t let it use you.” I would also add that there is no amount of knowledge or any number of schooling degrees necessary to have such a freeing experience.