Changing my Life.

I'll soon have 32 years sober.  And it's a strange sensation because in my mid-30s I figured my life expectancy was at the most in my mid-40s.  I figured that was how long my body could hold up under the constant onslaught of alcohol and drugs I assaulted it with.  If I wasn't completely high or drunk, it was a bad day.

Yet one day in 1991 had what the Big Book describes as a "moment of clarity," and my life immediately made a small incremental shift toward the idea that I had to do something to change the trajectory I was on.

And that course I was on was to be under the influence of something anytime I was conscious.  Heroin was the first choice, then alcohol.  And of course anything else that would change my level of consciousness was also welcomed.

I don't recall where I was when I was weighing my decisions.  But I think I was on a park bench, sitting a few feet from a car I'd stolen the day before.  Continue using?  Keep stealing?  Continue to sleep in the stolen car?  Go to a hospital or detox?  Maybe commit a crime that would send me back to jail, which for many years had been my second home?  Maybe go to a mental hospital.

Finally, after a few hours, I opted to go to a detox that was a few miles away.  Although I didn't know it then, that was one of the best decisions I'd ever made.  I spent 11 days in that facility, then went from there to a halfway house, where I spent a year learning how to live without alcohol or drugs.

When I arrived, I had nothing but the clothes on my back.  No money.  No friends. No phone. The one thing I did have was a burning desire to change my life.  And that's all I focussed on.

I went to 12-step meetings.  Found a job with a company I used to work for.  Eventually I started my own business and the rest is a history that I'm not ashamed of.

In closing, we choose how we're going to live.  And, I finally made the right choice.

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