- Alcohol
- Drugs
- Friends & Family
Submitted by: Susanne Johnson
As a young kid around age 14, it was easier for Jason to get weed than it was to get his hands on alcohol. Therefore, he started out with mainly the marijuana and alcohol when there was an occasion for it. First it was just experimental. He was into 60’s music, loved to listen to Jimmy Hendrix, The Doors etc. and he smoked pot while doing so. But it progressed from there. Later, during his teenage years he turned toward alcohol and as he graduated from high school he found himself doing pills and also selling them. “I had no clue about alcoholism or drug addiction at this time. All I knew was, that if you get caught with drugs you go to jail,” he says, and he received his first charges at the age of 19.
His mom paid for him to go to college, but drugging and drinking were more important in his life than studying and learning at that time. He dropped out of college, because he preferred to get high over learning, going to class and graduating. He attempted college twice, but failed both times to get any results.
The first arrest didn’t have bad enough consequences, he got out of it pretty easily and continued his life just as before. “I had two years of probation and nothing changed in my life,” Jason admits. “Two weeks out of probation and he received a trafficking arrest at the age of 21. That time, he got denied probation and had his first felony, which landed him in jail for a five month duration. A shock probation got him back out and he white-knuckled to stay clean for about a month.
Eventually he was selling again. He had a bunch of jobs, but was fired from every single one. They were mainly cover jobs, as he had his real income from the drugs. “I didn’t care about my life, had no goals in life. I was living with mom or girlfriends, living from one day into the next,” Jason mentions.
His next arrest in 2011 sent him back to jail and out of very lucky circumstances, he was offered treatment through drug court. He was very miserable at that time and was facing 20 years of incarceration. Since it was already his third offense, he was not supposed to be offered drug court. However, since the two other people involved in his case were first offenders, they had to offer Jason drug court as well. He took the opportunity.
The two years of drug court were difficult for Jason. He would have had to serve twenty years in jail if he didn’t and he was afraid to face them. He didn’t think that he was an alcoholic, he stopped the drugs but kept drinking at times. Eventually he got caught drinking and finally made the decision to turn his life completely around. It finally clicked in his head that “it is all the same, drugs or alcohol.”. It took him long to find out this truth. Finally, he took his program seriously.
After graduation from drug court he applied for a job as a case manager for a local treatment center in Kentucky. He is working there now on part-time basis and loves his new challenges. He is helping people who are newly admitted to the facility over the obstacles of their first days. Today, Jason is not forced to go to 12-step meetings anymore and does not need to get papers signed, but he comes even more often than before. “I have the opportunity to share my experience on the job today and help others to achieve sobriety, this is amazing. Life is good today,” said Jason during our interview.
Jason has over four years of sobriety today and doesn’t want to go back to his old life for anything. He is extremely grateful to the people who have helped him reach this point. His relationships to family are great and he has got a wonderful support there. Additionally, he now has a healthy relationship with a girlfriend for the first time in his life, as well as good friends in recovery.
“Open your ears and open your mind and you see that sobriety is working. It does not matter if in a treatment center, drug court program or a 12-step meeting. Just keep working it and you get more out of it than you can imagine,” concludes Jason.