Hi Ho, I learned somewhere along the way the nature of this addiction? thing.? While everyone has their own journey there are some least common denominators that unite addicts.? I hope this can help some to find their way down the path to recovery..

I was probably in 6 th grade the first time I got drunk.? It was graduation of 8th grade for the first joint. Marijuana and malt liquor thru high school. College added a few lines of coke with the weed and liquor. It started with parties or the reward system. Then it became daily.? This may be a pretty universal story.? After 2 yrs of college real life in the big city and then came crack. I only spent 10 days in jail for a burglary I didn't even do, but it only balanced out all the shoplifting. To sum it all up I maintained being a functional addict for many years but the depression began to overwhelm me. After the loss of emplyment and 2 yrs of homlesness and bad health, I wanted another way. By now everyone I knew was a dealer or an addict, a convict or a criminal.? Life was an unbroken cycle of money, drugs, rest and over again, only My heart was dying of cocaine poisoning.

If you can call it luck my obsession lifted when I was was granted financial security. rent was paid and I was left with spending money..? My life during the homeless years was filled with uncertainty.? With my housing and finances taken care of and therapy.

I was brought to understand my life in these ways. ONE: we are like cake recipies flour, milk, sugar, eggs- vary the recipie from there but all addicts have the same principal emotional inadequacies that start the need for self medication.? There is a feeling of unmet expectations and the result is the feeling of being unloved. It varies but we feel like we should have meant more than we did to everyone.? We feel like it doesn't matter what we do cause no one will notice or care. TWO. We Isolate - why- in short while we were growing up we were never exposed to what would be called a healthy relationship.? If we don't know the proper healthy way to relate how can you have a relationship.? Does that give an answer as to why you have lost everyone that you had the deepest emotions for. THIRDLY - this is for me. Abandonment issues- that's why I think no one cares.? My father was a minister and we moved alot.? My siblings were 11,10, 9 years older than me, so as my family dispersed out of the nest and the family would move I learned that no one was permanent. I learned to live for myself and by myself.? With the addition of drugs and alcohol the depression set in and the more depressed i got, the more drugs. The more drugs the deeper the depression.

For me knowing where the pain came from taught me how to stop medication (along with psychiatric (depression) treatment.) I'll keep it short.? Nobody ever saiys I want to be a drug addict when I grow up..? I've been on the same rollercoaster for too many years.? I want too many other things, I want to be who I said i wanted to be.? There are too many other blessings and I deserve and want them all.? I hope this helps someone.