- Drugs
- Faith
The powerlessness and unmanageability of addiction was devastating to me. I lost control of my life and was swallowed by the despair, loneliness and isolation a life of addiction caused me.
I was prescribed high doses of Prozac for depression, in denial about love addiction and in a romantic fantasy. I painfully stole and stole music to support my habit to crystal meth, Demerol, heroine, ecstasy and alcohol. One day rejection turned ideas of suicide into an immediate plan. I didn’t realize it at the time but this was my point of incomprehensible demoralization. Life was painful in addiction and I wanted out. I injected four balloons of heroin and woke up from a coma five weeks later, paralyzed. Luckily, I lived. Recovering and learning to walk and function again was hard, but I did it.
I got into a fistfight with the love of my life. During the fight I tossed a black candle at the living room mirror and shattered it. My love told me the light in my eyes was gone, so did my dealer. The spark extinguished. He said it was over, we were over, unless I got help. I fell down on the couch and called for a taxi to pick me up the next morning and take me to treatment.
I didn’t know it, but my sober journey with no return to active addiction had begun.
I decided to go to detox, treatment and long-term sober living. In sober living I embraced the 12-steps with a sponsor and spent the next seven months going through the textbooks on recovery. I learned that there are many volunteer opportunities, spiritual and religious organizations, the Bible and baptisms, vegetarianism, yoga and other New Age offerings, but they never helped me with my denial to my primary disease, because I wasn’t ready to be honest about everything in my life. Until I could be honest about my weaknesses and embarrassments, keep them present in my memory and help others, I could not stay sober. When I did, yoga, religion, volunteering, all these things have added richness to my new life.
Life today is incredible. After two years of recovery, I decided to walk the rainbow flag across America for equality and to address bullying in schools. I carried resentment about all the bullying and discrimination I experienced growing up. I was even blamed for being raped at 15, because the guy who raped me rationalized his actions by claiming to be controlled by Satan. There was immense fear in his life and in his eyes. I had to combat homophobia, and I did it in a pretty grand way. I carried the message of recovery all across America and am glad I did. Now we have states we can marry in, we can join the military and we can even become CIA officers. It’s a new life, and I owe that to the courage and honesty I learned to have through recovery. We no longer have to be victims.
I hope everyone continues to pray and meditate. My teacher in India used to call me an embodiment of love. It never made sense to me until I was in deep meditation and felt an ocean of love pouring from my heart. It was incredible. I now understand what he was saying. If I can leave any message to you, it would be that you are an embodiment of love. Recovery is worth it. There may not be a cure for this disease, but it is treatable. Give yourself a chance. You’re worth it. Be honest. Be fearless and all your wildest dreams, too, can come true.