Get Clean. Get Sober.

Alcohol Abuse, Drug Addiction

Not a Success, a Work in Progress

By David B.

I believe I still have much work to do. I am fifty-five years old and I love the life I’m living.

I had my first experience with smoking pot, probably before I was ten years old. This affected my relationships even when I didn’t realize it. It works that way, we can be blindsided and caught unaware. My initial use of acid, as a teen, and meth, cocaine, and magic mushrooms, all of these I experienced before I was of the age of majority. I abused alcohol before I was probably fifteen.

I never did much with opiates, I never used any drugs intravenously. I tried crack about eight times and acid about eight times. My story is one of danger, trouble, and disappointment, as well as triumph of the human spirit, coming clean from all narcotics, and hope for a better tomorrow. This is not a success story, because I am a work in progress, I don’t yet consider my life successful. I don’t know if I ever will.

The day I got an eviction notice was the day I asked for help. I was sick, tired, ready to become clean and stay clean. I liked where I was living, I wanted to keep my apartment, I was willing to do almost anything to stay here. Even go to 12-step meetings and dual diagnosis groups for as long as it took. They wanted the pot smoking in my apartment to stop for a year. This was a tall order, but I was up to the task, and somehow did it within three years.

I haven’t picked up since. From the time I started going to groups and meetings, I quit all the other narcotics and I haven’t used since. That was 1996 and now we are in 2018. When I do drink, I only have one. My life has changed in many of the ways I would have wanted it to. I know how intelligent I can be. I can talk to my mother. When my father was reaching the end of his life, I could connect with him, go to lunch, go shopping, and hold conversations, tell fresh jokes, and when the time came to scatter his ashes, I was the one to do it.

I believe I still have much work to do. I am fifty-five years old and I love the life I’m living. I hope I have inspired you, I hope you aspire to a tomorrow you can’t foresee, with courage, irrevocable honesty, real hope, and something to look forward to.