"This life is exactly what you make it"

My battle with drugs and alchohol started at the age of 16 -which was the first time i was drunk. I knew the feeling, the escape, the high was something i had been searching for, and i also knew that i was not like many of my friends. I was the one who would want to go for a drug or alchohol run at 3 or 4 in the morning when everyone was passing out. I never wanted to stop- no matter the cost or consequence. I lived minute to minute and i would drink and do drugs until i had to go to school or work and then i would either crash and burn, trying desperately to keep it together until i could get more, or i would have my stash and continue to get high.

In the beginning i had a handle on the addiction, but as the disease progressed i got further and further out of control. many times i would do too much cocaine and go into work too high or have to call in at the last minute. I began losing jobs and friends. my friends who partied once and awhile did not want to be with me, because i was out of control and becoming more and more desperate to be high all the time, which frequently put me in dangerous situations.

What the hell was i hiding from? what was the problem with my life that i felt the need to have a mind altering substance in my body at all times? well, until i started the recovery process at the age of 30- i wouldn't figure it out, and even then it was painful, and numbing, and confusing. I didn't know how to feel about anything i had gone through in my life. i didn't know what i was suppose to be or how to act. i had been inebriated for 14 years and getting sober brought with it an emotional, very scary time for me- i had to face all the shit i had been hiding from my entire life.

Growing up i felt like an only child many times because my brothers and sisters were older. i tried to get involved at school and did during JR high, but high school would be the real test and i failed miserably. I never felt like i fit in and ended up hanging with the "druggies." at least with my new friends no one was judging me, and i felt like i belonged. I didn't graduate from high school because i met a transient and dropped out in April of my senior year-a decision that would haunt me and add to my self-loathing, lack of self-worth and total inability to see the destructive life i was leading. I was setting myself up for a very lonely, desperate time when i would spiral into a world that would leave me completely empty and not wanting to feel or face my own reality.