I hope.... not something I was used to doing.... I hope this story can save someone elses life. I hope and PRAY that no one else has to see the thing I saw, do the things I did, or feel the misery I felt. Even if you see, do, and feel the following feelings... I want to tell you that you don't have to. Never Again... you are NOT alone.

I was a good kid, from a good family, with nothing but greatness in my future. We all go through things. Things we can't explain. Things we are afraid of. Things that change the corse of our lives forever. Sometimes it's something we did, sometimes things we have no control over or never saw coming.

I still don't know if what happened was my fault or just my destiny.

Fact is... it happened...

I was introduced to drugs and alcohol. For the first time in my life, I felt 'normal'. The pain and fear disappeared. I started just drinking and smoking at parties. Eventually, it wasnt enough. I needed something different. Something better, harder, faster, stronger.

I went on a little trip with booze... pot.... ecstacy... percocet.... oxy... heroin... straws... razors.... needles... coke... crack... dealing.... stripping... prostitution.... obsession and compulsion that grew and grew.

I didn't know how to stop.

I couldn't stop.

I may not have known who I was when I started. By the end, I hated the person I had become.

I was alone, desperate, and terrified. if you ask why I was so afraid, I still dont have the answer. All I have are the facts and feelings I attempted to live with.

I was so alone I called myself and left voicemails to make me feel like someone cared. i got high on the beaches of Florida with people walking around my car so that it seemed as though people were around.

I lied to myself and everyone around. I stole from everyone... including myself.

I stole my own life.

I thought it was funny... A huge joke in the name of humanity.

That joke got old and I wanted to die. I tried, not the normal slow death I was constantly injecting into my veins. I tried razors, bullets, street crime. I knew that I was a disgrace to society and I wanted to fix it. Me being dead seemed the only option. I failed.... I failed a lot. It made me more miserable.

Drugs consumed my life. The only thing I knew how to do was get high. I was very creative and good at getting high. But I hated it.

I wanted to do anything else, be anyone else. I just didn't belive it was possible. I had accepted that that was how I was going to die... just not soon enough.

I wrote myself letters, all the time ( I still have them to remind me ) I told myself things that I wanted to do instead of get high. These things included, but are not limited to...

eating

bathing

caring

brushing hair/ teeth

anything I tell you...

I couldn't do those things. Its really sad. And it's all because of drugs. I knew in my still beating heart that if I got the drugs out of my life, everything would be ok.

I had tried treatment before, but I wasn't willing to stop. I hadn't reached that point yet. I accidentally ended up in treatment 2,000 miles away from the house I was getting evicted from with no electricity or running water in tennessee. i detoxed for 2 1/2 weeks. I found people who cared about me on that mountain in southern California. The reason they cared, turns out, is because they had been where I was. They had felt what I felt, and somehow, they got through it. They had normal lives. They did those weird things that I didn't understand.

Im not going to go into the details, Im just going to say that I live a 12 step program. It saved my life. I put into this program everything that I had invested in my using.

I have a life, not just breath, I live. I have friends, family, love, care, compassion, responsibity, respect, self-respect, appreciation, patience, tolerance, acceptance, and the list goes on and on.

I AM NOT DEAD

i am grateful that I am not dead. I have a life worth living that I love. I wouldn't trade it for the best high in the world. And I don't have to do those low down dirty things I did for so long.

Without drugs, I can be ANYTHING

Every day that I don't pick up, my future grows brighter.



You too can have a life beyond your wildest dreams.

People do care

Life is amazing.