The engine behind addiction is pain - pure, unadulterated pain. The drugs become both fuel and medicine; fuel for the engine and medicine for the pain; relief and poison. A disease that sustains itself by curing itself; a vicious cycle that never allows you to address the problem: the pain. After years of addiction the source of that pain can become very obscure. Life is reduced to a single goal: to get high. Everything else fades far into the background...everything, and the disease takes on a life of its own.
Your spirit screams for help. Silenced by drugs, eventually it steps aside. How else can you explain the inhuman behavior? But it waits patiently for an opportunity to step back in. The hope and the prayer is that it happens before it's too late. Drug addiction is fatal.
"Drugs are not always necessary, but belief in recovery always is". Norman Cousins
Christopher's Story:
(Transcribed between July 2008 and November 2009 and updated 7/2012)
I have traveled a very long road over the past 25 years to arrive where I am today. I thank God for keeping me alive long enough to "get it". It takes what it takes and it took me, off and on, until November 2004. I'm closing in on 8 clean years. But a tremendous amount of damage has been done, especially to my relationships with my kids. As much as I would like to, I cannot change the past. I can only live my life with humility and do better now. I have no illusions, I will spend the rest of my life asking and praying for forgiveness.
I started smoking pot in high school. I remember the first time I tried it. My nervousness, my insecurities seem to disappear and were replaced by an uninhibited excitement. It was almost instantaneous – I felt better about myself. But most important, when I was high, it was easier for me to talk to girls - and I liked girls. Back then, getting high and drinking; that's what I did. Was I doing it more than everybody else? I didn't think so but quite honestly, I never gave it any thought. Unfortunately, back then, I never gave anything much thought. Looking back, I probably was doing it more. What's clear now is that I was thinking about it more. But how did I go from being a garden variety pot smoker to practically destroying my entire life and wreaking unimaginable havoc on my family with drugs? I'd like to tell you it took a long time but in fact, it did not.
I guess you could say that my frequent pot smoking kept me from reaching my potential in high school and college but I did pretty well. In high school, I played baseball: MVP, name and picture in the paper, a local hero of sorts. I was a pitcher and just for the record, I was very good. It is probably fair to say that if I was able to keep my focus on pitching instead of getting high, I may have had a chance to play professionally. I graduated Pace University with a degree in Political Science. I worked and even maintained a relationship, albeit stormy. Right out of college, I got married and started a family while at the same time building a successful business with my brother-in-law: a gourmet food business that took off immediately. Life was looking good. All that changed with a small innocuous looking line of powder. After doing that one little line, absolutely nothing would ever be the same for me or anyone around me. Forget about not feeling nervous or insecure, I was king of the universe. Fearless, powerful, indestructible..... Indescribable, really. What nobody tells you is that exact feeling will never happen again.
For quite a few years I was excellent at hiding my drug problem, especially from myself. During that time my cocaine habit grew and was costing conservatively, $80.00 to $150.00 a day not including collateral damage. I was stealing from the business (which I eventually ran into the ground), my wife, my parents, in-laws and friends. I even stole from my children. I would steal their jewelry and pawn it - horrifying; a violation of my little girls that created a barrier I have yet to break. I will never stop trying. Don't let any junkie fool you; there are no depths so low that we will not sink. Believe me, in the throes of addiction, using drugs does not seem optional. I continued to spiral downhill. My cocaine habit turned into a crack habit and in May of 1990 my family did an intervention. The plan was to fly me out to St. Mary's in Minneapolis, where they had a cutting edge "relapse prevention" program for substance abuse. After the intervention, my entire family brought me to Kennedy and my brother-in-law flew with me to St. Mary's and checked me in. I stayed the 28 days, and together with 4 other guys I met there, stayed an additional 3 months to do the aftercare program.
In September, I was coming home to be the Best Man in my brother's wedding. After getting home and spending one bad night with my wife, I took the car and the money I had to get fitted for the tux, and disappeared into the Bronx for days. I missed the wedding and pushed my wife into getting a restraining order, making me homeless and broke. I went into the Westchester County Shelter System and was assigned to a shelter on Grove Street in White Plains. This was a recovery oriented shelter where we went to AA meetings daily but I had already decided to go into long term residential treatment as an indigent to a program called Daytop. I received a bed date at their entry facility in Far Rockaway for December 6, 1991. I then rotated to a long term facility they had in Nyack. I remained in this behavior modification treatment until September 1993. Between 1990 and 1993, I was in Silver Hill for 1 month, St. Mary's for 1 month and Daytop for 20 months.
I didn't know at the time that this was just the beginning of my journey. I was convinced after each treatment that it would be my last, and came out with a renewed vigor for life. I didn't know that things would never change for me unless and until I was willing to change the life I was rushing back to resume!
Unfortunately, the drama didn't end with Daytop. In September of '93, I didn't exit my Daytop experience as I had my first two rehabs. After the first two, I came home believing I had the enthusiasm and dedication to go to meetings every day, get a sponsor, work the 12 steps of AA and develop a relationship with God. I did, in fact, do this both times but only went to meetings for short periods before my attendance would become sporadic then not at all. Something would always become more important at home or at work, and, after all, weren't these the two areas I had shortchanged for so long, buried in a bottle, pile of powder and crack stem? In retrospect, the ending was always predictable. After months of vigorously rebuilding my life by getting a new and, most often, better job, catching up on all the bills, replanting all the flowerbeds, reading bedtime stories to the kids and making love to my wife, I would forget where I had been. Once everyone around me thought I was all better, I believed I was all better and no longer had to do a thing.
After reconstructing the same life I had before, it was always only a matter of time before the uneasy, insecure, arrogant, egotistical and unfulfilled core of me would drift back to drugs and alcohol and sabotage everything once again. Always telling myself, "this time it will be different; this time I'll just do it on weekends"! Daytop ended with me doing drugs while on a weekend pass at home. After selling our house out from under my family and having a relationship while I was away in Daytop, my wife told me she was taking the kids and moving to Florida to live with her mom. I decided immediately to grab the keys to the car and run to get high. I'll show her! After 20 months of intense, and I mean intense, behavior modification treatment in Daytop, I still didn't have what it takes to deal with feelings of that magnitude. So I did the only thing I did know how to do: run. I was kicked out of Daytop, ran home to my parent’s house in Yorktown, and watched from my second floor bedroom window when my wife brought the kids to say goodbye to their grandparents. I can still see my 7 year old son walking around in circles in the driveway not really able to understand what was going on. I could not bring myself to go downstairs and face them all.
Eventually, I decided to move to Florida. I missed my kids and wanted to be closer to them even though I knew the feeling was not mutual. I situated myself a healthy distance away but I felt better knowing I was at least in the same state. Fortunately for me, I was always able to find work. Some jobs are definitely not well suited for addicts, like working for a moving company. It was much too easy to steal and I did, so those jobs never lasted long. In 2000, I caught a break. Don’t get me wrong. I know I have caught many breaks in my lifetime, many more then I deserved but this would really change my path. I got a job as a teacher in an Alternative Education School; a school for troubled kids. Imagine that, a troubled kid teaching troubled kids. But I can really identify with children who have major obstacles to overcome and who cannot even begin the battle until and unless they learn how to trust. I was teaching what I needed to learn. It’s a job that put me in front of kids who either do or sell drugs everyday!! Life is funny that way. This job would become a vital part of my healing. Regrettably, my drug addiction continued to flourish.
The fate of every junkie is loneliness and desperation. When you spend every penny you have on drugs, you would not believe what has to suffice as a meal. And ultimately, because you are constantly breaking the law, you get caught. In 2004 I was arrested. I will never forget the sound of that cell door closing behind me. I was facing 2 felony possession charges. My dad had recently been put in a nursing home after becoming incapacitated by a stroke and I was in the midst of my second divorce. On top of that, I was fired from my job after notifying them that I was going into rehab. But something happened while in rehab this time I can’t really explain or describe but I knew everything would be different. I now believe that 'something' is called grace; a gift from God; a moment of clarity in a life that had been spinning out of control for over 25 years. I started to "get it". I’m not sure how or why but over the next 7 months I was rehired as a teacher and all charges against me were dropped, the last on July 15, 2005. My dad died one week later, holding my hand, after I promised him I would take care of mom.
Once I allowed myself to become part of this Universe, to participate and contribute, good things came back to me. Once I began living my life with humility and dedicated myself to helping other people, somehow or another, whatever I needed kinda fell from the sky. Once I became willing to challenge my old notions of wealth and success and open myself to a new way of measuring, I realized how wealthy, successful and lucky I really am. This realization didn't, as you know, come cheap and the tricky thing about addiction is that it never leaves. It’s patient and so very seductive. My history has taught me that I can always reach a point where I forget, become complacent and try again. So, I go to AA meetings every day or night, sponsor other people and remind myself each day where I came from and who I am. I've been blessed in more ways than I know and I try to say "thank you" by the way I live my life.
The fact remains that without my complete downfall, without hitting rock bottom, I would not have; I could not have, rebuilt my life. I would have continued with my very marginal existence and ultimately, my addiction would have buried me. I was so limited before my recovery. Addiction hones selfishness and my ability to see past my own needs had become virtually non-existent. But in the “rooms”, in the confines of AA meetings, I found salvation. Who else could possibly help me other then someone who has been to hell and made it back; someone, like me, who felt death would have been a welcome relief from the nightmare they were living? Someone who has done the unimaginable to the people they love the most and found the courage to face them again? Someone who has had to deal with the agony of the people they love, but have hurt, not wanting any part of them. Only someone who has moved through their own pain, endured the consequences and was willing to share their experience could help me. The miracle of these rooms is that you are always in the presence of people who have done what you had come to believe was impossible; survive their addiction with all its aftermath, and found meaning in their life. I have discovered and experienced compassion, caring, acceptance and forgiveness for other people and for myself. Only then could I finally begin the process of healing. It has been a long, difficult and painful process but I am here and I am forever grateful and I am doing my best. With all the challenges I now face as a parent, I know I am at least capable of parenting. I wasn’t back then. I live with the reality that when my children needed me most, I was not available. But now I am really here for them. I think they know it. I hope they know it and I pray they let me back in.
Today, I am fully invested in my job a Substance Awareness Center and I am totally focused on restoring my relationship with my kids. I know, I have my work cut out for me. I thank God everyday for giving me another chance to get it right.
Postscript:
Chris tells his story with remarkable candor. He makes no excuses. He is remorseful about his past without being despondent. He is the father of four fabulous and very accomplished children. He lives in Florida and works as the Coordinator of The Substance Prevention Center; exactly where he feels he is meant to be.
The incredible thing about Chris's story is that it provides absolute proof that no matter how far you fall, you can get back up and start over. You can redeem and reinvent yourself. With enough determination and humility you can overcome anything.
Who am I to Chris? I am his best friend and his biggest fan. I pray for him every day.
When you look hard enough at addiction, you often find it is covering an extraordinarily tender and sensitive soul. More likely than not, that is how the whole problem starts. How many fathers know how to recognize and honor that in their son’s? Not many I’m afraid.
