My story starts off like I believe many do; with some sort of unresolved trauma or pain.
My childhood was great I had both parents who loved me without question. I was not underprivileged and I was always provided for. Of course other things happened to me as a child and a teen I had no control over, divorce, death, and my father moving away to another state.
Now let??s fast forward to the first time I used. I was fifteen; I had just shot myself in the hand with a pellet gun by accident and was taken to the hospital to have the pellet removed. I was given Percocet for the pain. The first time I took it I fell in love. The feeling was like nothing I had ever experienced in my life. This would be marked as the beginning of my addiction.
Within six months I was stealing medication from my mother, medication she needed for legitimate pain but I didn??t care for the self seeking, self centered behavior had begun. Within a year I was using prescription painkillers every day. Dope sickness would creep in to my bones, arms, and legs when I wasn??t using. I had become dependent and needed opiates no matter how they were procured. My actions thereafter became less than questionable; theft, anger, manipulation, and violence just as long as the ends justified the means.
At the age of seventeen I discovered Methamphetamines. Over the next two years my life spun out of control. I dropped out of school, could not hold a job, and, terrorized my family to the point that they were scared of me.
My first experience with rehab took place when I was twenty. The program was thirty days and not sufficient enough to do much good, although, it did curb my Methamphetamine habit. I stayed clean for close to five months before I began to use Opiates again. From the ages of twenty to twenty-five I managed to keep work for a year here and there but was eventually fired from every job and it was a direct result of my drug addiction.
A few days after my twenty-fifth birthday I was arrested and looking at 4-16 years prison; this was not a good place for me to be in but I was happy I had been caught and the madness was over. My first night in jail I hit my knees and prayed, I prayed my heart out to anyone who would listen. The difference between this prayer and the many before it was that I meant every word of it. I needed saved, I needed redirection, and I vowed to help others. This would be the night I met my higher power.
I was given a reprieve on the 4-16 years of prison for a extended rehabilitation stay at the Salvation Army. I stayed confined in jail for three months before being released into the program. I was introduced to the beauty and simplicity of the 12-step programs. The Salvation Army program would grant me a second chance on life and familiarize me with many other positive habits that had been lost along the way. I literally had to learn to live all over again.
Sobriety is not an easy road. If it were everyone would be doing it. I still have my ups and downs but now I have tools to fix those problems as they arise. One of the most valuable things I have learned throughout my journey is that we all have a choice. It??s beautiful isn??t it? Even the word itself is pretty ingrained to the psyche. If I constantly keep in mind that I must do the next right thing, make the next right choice, I can do this. I have slipped a few times but I??m still fighting the good fight and today, today I am sober.
To say yes to an instant is to say yes to all eternity.