Straight Stuff On Addictions

He came out of the gate angry and drinking heavily.  The environmental and genetic ingredients were all certainly present.  Fending largely for himself he was out-drinking his buddies at age 12.  Drinking, drugging and “supplementing his income” he managed to buy a house just after high school shortly after his Mom notified him she was moving to Florida and he should find a place.  He married a bartender with three kids in an attempt to have a “normal” family but it ended in an ugly divorce.  He decided that she needed to get sober and went to a treatment center to investigate and found that he needed to stay.  He’s been sober since.  Early sobriety wasn’t a bed of roses but the anger is gone.  Join us this week to talk to Phil J. 

Pete was a kid torn from one parent and then torn again.  He was moved from place to place with little supervision.  Angry and hurt he acted out and was seemingly arbitrarily institutionalized at an early age.  He would tell you that the youth homes and jails were “gladiator schools” where he learned the rules of the street and animal survival.  Leaning on his survival instincts and increasingly on booze and drugs Pete ended up in a California treatment center.  He will tell you that he has learned about humility, peeling away the layers and has a deeper understanding of what it means to have character defects.  He’ll tell you that he’s on his way back to innocence. 

Jerry, his brother and Mom spent a good deal of their life on the run from a violent Father; moving from city to city, changing names, schools, friends and keeping secrets.  He desperately needed a sense of belonging and found drugs, alcohol and instant friends at age 14.  His use was way short of normal right out of the gate.  By age 16 he had gone to his first AA meetings.  He left in a hurry and didn’t get back for close to twenty years.  In between were numerous disastrous relationships, experimentation with just about everything, crushing depression and a never ending search for that elusive sense of belonging.  After a number of attempts at sobriety he finally found his real home.  Join us this week to hear Jerry’s story.

Jeff started his journey after his parents’ divorce at age 13 with alcohol, weed and of all things, screwdrivers.  By high school he was living a double life, bi-sexual but hanging with the gangbangers.  Unable to manage high school behaviorally, heavy into pills and booze he disappeared to Nashville with an older lover.  He returned, confused and drug addicted with HIV.  He launched into a six year period of mental illness, delusions, hospitalizations and stints of 12 step sobriety. After multiple tries he has found a stable sense of self, some supportive friends and contented sobriety.  His Buddhist practice has helped him to understand the nature of his miraculous transformation.

She never felt like she belonged.  Gawky, pale and thin she never felt like she could compete with the “popular” girls.  By the end of high school she was a tall, shapely blonde with big blue eyes…the boys couldn’t get enough but underneath she still felt small, unlikeable and unloved.  Her quest for love started a long string of lies to herself which began to require more and more alcohol to assuage.  By the end of college the alcohol and drugs had overtaken the insecurity as problem number one.  Join us this week to hear Hilary’s story.