I never thought it was possible to reach that bottom…but alcoholism and compulsive gambling brought me down to my knees and finally, staring at all the wreckage, there were only two choices – let myself go for good, or ask for help.Īt around five days sober, I checked into a 28 day inpatient treatment program at Lakeside Milam in Kirkland, Washington. I just wanted to run away, and I had no idea what awaited me on the other end of it all. On my final day, I had to confess to my then-wife that everything was gone, and I sat at the airport waiting for a flight east to my family. The terror was something I only wish nobody ever had to go through. I spent four days lying, saying I had the flu, when in fact I was on a bender. My life had become one big lie, as I’d been hiding the extent of my problems from everyone close to me. I couldn’t stop drinking, and I couldn’t get enough booze in me to kill the pain anymore. I had lost it all – there was no money left of my own and barely any left to take. I discovered gambling along the way which undoubtedly sped my decline, as I eventually began embezzling money from my employer in order to get what I needed – my fix.
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What had started as nightly ritual of a few beers turned into, by the end, straight maintenance drinking, waking up to several shots of whiskey in my coffee, drinking beer all day and ending with more hard alcohol and marijuana at night. I ended up drinking two days early, and that set off a decade long journey that eventually brought me to a point where I feared living more than dying. So I swore I’d try a drink on my 21st birthday. It last 5 1/2 years, but truthfully, I never got truly honest with myself, and was only riddled with jealousy that, for my remaining high school years and the first three years of college, other young people could drink and I couldn’t. By 15, I found myself embarking on an initial journey into recovery. I’d shoplift booze from the local convenience store, hide it from my family and drinking alone became my regular getaway. But the thoughts of drinking and escaping never left my mind, and it became an obsession. It made the bad times tolerable, and the good times even better. It gave me all the confidence I’d never had. The taunts of kids in schools would grate on me day in and day out, but the moment I found alcohol, all of that changed. I was a kid who never felt like I fit in anywhere, and I struggled with anxiety and feelings of loneliness. I began drinking at an early age, taking my first drank around 7, and my drinking became regular by my early teenage years. Parents to Ph.Ds: Interviews by: Cathy Taughinbaugh.What Addicts Know By Christopher Kennedy Lawford.
#MY ADDICTION STORY HOW TO#
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Tips To Talk To a Friend About Drug Use.