Hello everyone! I want to thank my nephew Kevin for sharing this story. Since most of us started our addictions at an early age, and although our stories vary, I believe we can all relate to Kevin’s story. When we look back, we can see that our tendancies started with how we thought about things from the beginning. Even if there was a trauma, our beliefs about ourselves are what pushed us to medicate in one way or another to try to mask the pain. I honor his willingness to share his very well written and well thought-out story in the hope that it helps anyone who reads it. If you would like to share your story, please email us. We will be printing stories on the “Your Stories” page, as we receive them soon. If you need help, please feel free to contact us via email.
Yours in Recovery, Robin FounderRecovery MeansLife.com
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Kevin - My Story
I am finding now through spirituality that my story is just beginning and I am reminded of a quote from the movie Shawshank Redemption, “get busy living or get busy dying” and that is what in came down to in my life. I am an alcoholic and I have no problem admitting that today because without the struggle and pain that I have been through I would not have the opportunities for such growth and enlightenment.
My alcoholism began in high school with friends and fun. I started out by drinking a bottle of Yukon Jack out of my dad’s liquor cabinet and I was immediately hooked. Weekends became an adventure to get more alcohol and the hunt was half the fun. Standing in front of carry outs asking people to buy for us or finding, through word of mouth, places that would sell to us. My high school career became a fun and social event revolving around stories of blackouts, bonfires, crashed cars or who hooked up. We would find abandon houses, woods, or parentless houses to throw our parties and they seemed in endless supply. Who wouldn’t glamorize such a wonderful and carefree life that alcohol and parties gave me.
The partying didn’t stop with just alcohol and down the spiral I began to go. Drugs were another way to party and I loved just about every one. Weed, acid, cocaine and even cough syrup became a regular thing. We were no longer planning our weekends on what we were doing but what drug we were doing. Life became not so carefree because fun was dependent on the drugs and alcohol. I also found that there were consequences for my actions.
My first encounter with the law came when I threw a party at my moms’ house when she was away on vacation. This was my third big party of fifty or more people and never had a problem before. I had all the concessions; beer, liquor, weed and music, but all the cars and noise didn’t set well with the neighbors. The cops came and I was arrested for contributing to the delinquency of minors and underage consumption. The Judge took it easy on me and I got community service and 170 days suspended. I wore it like a badge of honor and took one for the team. Like the Beastie Boys say “You got to fight for your right to party.” It didn’t take me long to un-suspended my sentence though and things got a little unmanageable. I was again at my moms after school when she was at work and invited some friends over for beer and a “powwow” when out of no where a cop came around the back of the house and caught us red handed. I took the rap and got charged with the exact same thing again. This wasn’t funny anymore and I got seven days in jail, probation, AA meetings and had to pay a whole lot of money. Of course it wasn’t me that had the problem, the cops were just picking on me and so what if I was drinking and smoking weed, I wasn’t hurting anybody. In hindsight guess who was taking me to court and helping me with my fines, my mother. I had an excuse though, my father passed away the previous summer and I was doing drugs to cover the pain. This of course was bullshit, I was always chasing the fun I had when I was first drinking, carefree and no worries. Yes it did hurt when my dad died and maybe I did drink and drug so I didn’t think about it, but it was still my selfishness that motivated me to keep on my path.
I made it out of high school with a few blemishes and continued my life as if it was one big party. This is a mistake if you are going to try college. My dad left me with a trust fund to pay for college and I got all the amenities: a dorm, a food card and limitless opportunities for “higher learning.” It didn’t take me long to find friends just like me and class attendance became less and less. It soon got to the point of no return and I stopped going all together. I was good at drinking beer; it was my favorite past time. I had a bar for just about every night of the week and could out drink just about everyone. During the day I would smoke weed then take an afternoon nap and go to the bar at night. Consequences didn’t take long to add up. I got busted for drinking in my dorm and got another underage consumption but under the radar of my hometown and got a slap on the wrist. What a waste of money and talent and I couldn’t see past my own selfish conquest to get wasted every chance I got.
I was kicked out of college and guess who I went running back to? -My mom. I met up with everyone else coming back from college and continued drinking and drugging almost every night. I got a job where I fit right in. I won’t be specific but drinking and smoking on the job was almost a job requirement. This lifestyle was fine for me but my mom soon got tired of it and I was out on my ass. I moved in to a duplex in a shitty part of town and this became home base for nearly everyone I knew to come and party. My roommate and I were professional drinkers and we took pride in that. Drinking games and beer bongs clouded my mind so much I was basically living to drink. One night I decided to go back to my college town and drink at a bar. We drank the whole way their and guess what I had to do when I got out of the car. Long story short I got another underage consumption and public urination. I violated my probation in that town and now had days in jail hanging over my head. I just decided to go back.
-Things start to change whether you are ready or not, and I am now a firm believer that things happen for a reason. I met my wife at a party at my house. She was a former girlfriend of my roommate and we hit it off immediately. I spent every minute with her and we both enjoyed partying except for the fact that she was able to put a drink down and not call it alcohol abuse. I really found true love and my life started coming together. I think for the first year I was on the pink cloud that is talked about in recovery. I had no need to go to the bar or hang out with friends because I wore off and I needed my own time to go out and “be myself.” Unfortunately beinhad her. This would soon change because of every alcoholic’s selfish nature. That pink cloud slowly g myself meant sitting at a bar till it closed and sometimes not coming home at all.
The words “sorry” and “I will never do it again”, became a regular thing. I would go out and suffer the consequences and with time things would smooth out. One day at work I got a call and it was a life changing experience. We were going to have a baby. I supported her but as usual buried my head in alcohol. She could no longer drink but I continued more than ever. The resentment of me being able to drink and hang out with friends really put a strain on our relationship. This up and down, the guilt and lies continued to pile up and there was no end in sight as long as I was drinking.
The thing about alcohol is that it is very patient. Alcohol can lie in waiting and it did for me. My life was a series of events that either led to drinking or was a result of drinking. It was no longer fun, those day were gone since the first couple of years when life had no responsibilities or worries. Life went on and I had three more children, got married and lost a leg in a work accident and drinking was my only outlet for the pain and struggles I was going through in day-to-day life. I was angry with the children, my wife and everyone who wasn’t a drinking buddy. My life was a series of lies and fronts to everyone that was important to me and it is very lonely living in a lie because you have no one that trusts you. My life was unmanageable and I couldn’t see that drinking was the problem; I thought it was the solution.
The good part about this story, like I said in the beginning, is that I am just starting to live life and recovery was and is the way for me. If someone had told me I could be happy and content not drinking I would have called him or her a liar. My life now has meaning and every day gets better and better because without spirituality my life was defined by making ends meet and going through the motions in order to please the ones I loved. I now only have to please my higher power and do the next right thing and all my relationships healed themselves in time. My Recovery For me Recovery was something you do after surgery; little did I know how much more it would mean to me and my life. To fully recover one must have or discover a certain ailment and I didn’t have a problem. My problem was my four children, my wife and my depression from losing my leg. They say in Recovery “live life on life’s terms” and I didn’t know what that meant until I got sober. The beginning of the end was about to happen. I was kicked out of my house because my wife had enough. I went out for some drinks because it had been a while and I deserved a break from the kids, house and wife. I ended up waking in a bar parking lot and didn’t know where I was or how I got there. Of course I didn’t call home all night and my wife was worried sick, but this was nothing new. She had enough and told me to get out until I can stop behaving like I was single and didn’t have a family that depended on me. I went to stay at my Mom’s house and lived life like I was back in action. With no responsibility, I went down hill fast. I would get the kids about three times a week and the rest of the time I was at the bar. It didn’t take long for me to end up passed out in a bar parking lot drunk and sick, again. My wife was waiting until something like that happened again and came to my Mom’s house to get me help. After being admitted to a hospital, and then with a little persuasion from the police and my Aunt, I finally agreed to go to a treatment facility –that day. Little did I know this was the best thing to happen to me in my entire life. Some might argue that my children and my marriage were the best thing that happened in my life but once I got into Recovery, I learned that when I was drinking these relationships were damaged and broken and couldn’t truly be appreciated until the alcohol was gone. I entered a ten day inpatient rehab open and willing to try anything to make my life better and with time it did get better. I slowly started to feel physically better within the first three days. I was given three meals a day, on a schedule, -something I wasn’t used to for at least fifteen years. I was given a lot of information about the effects of alcohol on the body and mind and slowly learned that most in Recovery are dealing with these issues -the same as me. I was learning to be accountable for myself and to wake up with a goal and purpose. This was all well and good but -where was the spark that would light the fire under my ass to want to get sober and stay that way? It wasn’t until that Saturday when I awoke and was told to meet in the meeting room that the spark was fully lit. This was the same as most mornings but it was full of people I didn’t know, laughing, smiling and joking around as if they didn’t have a care in the world. I was nervous thinking it was going to be some sort of intervention with people whose lives were destroyed by an alcoholic. The truth was that these were Alumni of the program and this was their AA meeting to share their experience, strength and hope with us. These were all people that have been through the treatment program and are succeeding. They weren’t miserable without alcohol; they were happy and enjoying life. I thought: “Wow, what a concept! Normal people can be happy without alcohol and it looks like there is a way for alcoholics to be happy and succeed without it as well”. That was the turning point for me and my Recovery and I thought: “Why not give it a fighting chance”. They gave me simple steps and anyone in recovery can tell you there are a lot of simple steps and sayings that sound so unimportant but turn out to be just the thing we need to succeed. I got out of the in-patient and immediately started attending AA meetings just like they said. The main thing that AA did for me was gave me hope and strength to get through one day at a time and it worked. I slowly started to see the benefits of not drinking; some I had to work for, but others came with no work at all. The lying and constant guilty feelings went away because I was no longer covering up my drinking and drugging. I began to replace anger with serenity and bitterness with contentment and I really liked it. I now was attending the Alumni meeting at the treatment center and this quickly became my favorite meeting. These were not people that had 25 years of sobriety, but were just starting -and we had a lot in common. Every week I wondered who would show up so we could talk about our week and our progress. Not only were we helping each other, but also the people currently in treatment were sitting in hopefully getting the same out of the meeting that I did when I was in treatment. Things went well for a while like that, but I was procrastinating on the steps and I was coming down from the “pink cloud” that is talked about in Recovery. I needed something more, and like an Act of God it was placed in my lap. My Aunt, who is the founder of Recovery Means Life told me she was sending me to Austin, Texas for a four-day recovery session, to participate in what would be a life changing experience. I was of course, worried about her paying for such a trip but she was adamant that I needed it and I would come back a new man. I now see why she was so excited about sharing this with me because it was truly unbelievable. I flew down to Austin and met Liliane and Gilles who were retired from a very successful treatment and recovery center in Canada called the Pavillon. The Four-day Higher Power Recovery education is a culmination of things that they learned from treating addicts over thirty years and it really changed my perception of Recovery. They taught me that stopping drinking was only fifteen percent of my problem and eighty-five percent is getting to the root of why I was drinking. Through the four days they went back to my childhood and relationships that left imprints on me and shaped the way I reacted to life. This is all part of the Steps, and making that fearless and searching moral inventory was done before I even knew I was doing it. Things were really making sense and I also found my Higher Power, which I choose to call God. Knowing that I can turn my will over to God and have him guide me every day to do the right thing really took the pressure off. It really was a life changing experience and I came out of the four days feeling refreshed and ready to take on any challenge that came my way. I was now through the steps but I also learned that everyday is a chance to get better at actually living them out. Recovery is a beautiful thing and is still to this day the most important thing I have. Learning to live life doing God’s will, has limitless possibilities and with His help anything is possible. I am proof that miracles can happen because if anyone said I would be happy not drinking I wouldn’t have believed them. I challenge anyone to try recovery because misery can be refunded at any time. Support delivered to your Inbox
My profound Thanks to Kevin for sharing his story with all of us –Aunt Robin
