Getting clean is one of the best things I’ve done for myself. Too much drugs and too much alcohol is a dead end. It will definitely catch up to a person some day, in some way… When I got addicted to crack it just took over my life. I hung out with people I had no business hanging around (the hookers, the ex-cons, the hoods, the drug dealers etc.) I hung around bad places I had no business being in. And doing stuff I had no business doing.
Lots of stuff that people do while addicted is common in alcoholism too. Many similarities. But yeah, for four years my life revolved around using and getting drugs. Then I found recovery (or maybe I should say, recovery found me.) I was in and out of AA and CA a year before finally getting serious about it. At first I went to meetings but used in between. I found a sponsor early and he was a good guy. He was always friendly to me when I saw him at meetings but I thought he was just acting friendly and I thought he didn’t like me and he was just acting like he liked me.
Anyways, I was a using crack addict from 1986-1990. I was in a temporary crisis home in 1990. I didn’t smoke crack while I was there but I was drinking. One night I wandered downstairs from my bedroom and discovered there was an AA meeting going on downstairs in the dining room. I decided to sit in and there was only about 7 people there but they were all fairly friendly and it was a good atmosphere and nobody bugged me. So I started going regularly and it was mostly the same people each week.
The meetings were interesting and the people were interesting and I liked their stories. I got the feeling the guy running this particular meeting didn’t, like me but he was always respectful and cordial. But anytime you go to a meeting you are going to hear some crazy stories about guns and bars and jail and women etc. It’s amazing what people survive. To make a long story short. I started finding other meetings and I even shared in meetings.
I started this one meeting in the group home and eventually I was walking or taking the bus to 5 or 6 meetings a week except for rare occasions when I went out of town to visit my dad or had a commitment I couldn’t get out of. But that was extremely rare. So I stopped smoking craft and pretty soon the craving and obsessing about drugs left me and has not come back once in 28 years.
I don’t miss drugs or alcohol at all. I do not miss the lifestyle at all. I don’t miss all the lying and cheating and violence and poverty and just the most messed up situations where I could have gotten seriously, seriously hurt. I don’t miss crack houses, I don’t miss getting pushed around and threatened by cops, I don’t miss having to go to the police station three different times to pick up my car because it got stolen by people I lent it too for a piece of crack.
I often sold possessions dirt cheap to get money for crack. or traded stereos, or TV’s or my tools or the clothes off my back for crack. Yeah, this is the tip of the iceberg. Other addicts know what I’m talking about.
AA is proven to work, the members often say, “It’s a simple program but not an easy one.” There are the basics: go to meetings, get a sponsor and work the 12 steps, share as often as you can and do not hang around people who do drugs or do not hang around places where there’s drug being used. This is just a small outline of what my drug use was like and what my recovery is like. Many books have been written about addiction or alcoholism but this is a small example of my experience and many people have similar stories.
Epilogue: After I got clean I got a job. I went to college, I started doing fun things, I started going to AA or CA functions, I made a friend. My life blossomed once I got clean, I just had so many great experiences. And I have AA, CA and NA to thank but of course I was the one who put in all the footwork.
I’ll leave you with this: it is not impossible to get clean and stay clean. It takes effort but the rewards are many.
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