- Drugs
In March of 1975, when I was 12 years old, I started using speed in one form or another. The coach of the sports team I was on handed me some tiny white pills and said “Here, take these, you will perform better.” I did. He was right! I loved the way they made me feel! That day my life was over. For the next 33 years almost everything I did was driven by that drug. I gave away my first wife, my two sons, three homes. I did all that for the next high. My life became a living hell.
I was six times in prison, running with a gang and committing almost every crime there is to get my drugs. I spent from 1996 to 2008 basically homeless in a tent in the Mohave Desert when I was not in a prison cell.
My bottom was not prison or losing my homes, but I knew I had hit bottom when I was sitting ALONE in my tent. I was crying because I did not want to get high anymore, yet loading the pipe and doing it anyhow again. One day my girl told me that I needed rehab if I wanted our relationship to work. I figured that I would go and get a tiny bit of clean time to make her, the judge, parole and probation happy. I had already planned then to get out and start all over again.
While I was in treatment, my best friend on the streets got off parole and decided to get high one more time. He died in his truck in that desert and his wife pushed his body out of the truck just to get more dope before she called the police and told them he was dead. Two days later my bunkie (roommate) in treatment went home and was found dead in a fast food restroom with a needle in his arm. That was just two hours after he got released. Somewhere along this time my sister drank herself into a coma that she never recovered from. That was when I decided that I did not want to go out that way!
I owe my life today to my higher power who had a better plan for me, my sponsor for taking me through the twelve steps and the men in the rooms of my 12-step program who taught me how to live. And also, I owe my life to everyone who prayed during that moment of silence for the addict who still suffers.
Today I have a bit over five years clean. This is a lot for someone who could never manage to stay clean 15 minutes before coming to my support group.
LIVE FREE, LIVE CLEAN, A BETTER LIFE IS JUST 12 STEPS AWAY!
Earl F.