33 years ago, when I was 51 years of age my life was at the crossroads. I was addicted to heroin and alcohol. I was homeless. I was living in a stolen car. I was stealing every day to get enough money to supply my drug and alcohol habit.
My drug addled brain was going round and round. I had no goals except for one: and that goal was to stop the pain of the useless life I was living.
I weighed my various options. I could keep doing what I was doing and go back to prison. I could end up in a mental hospital where I had been before. Or I could get sober and try to do something different with my life. For some reason – may be a push from God – I decided that I would try to live sober for the rest of my life.
Now I knew that that was something I could not do on my own, that I was powerless over any kind of drugs or alcohol. So I decided to find a detoxification facility where I could get the drugs and alcohol out of my system.
The detox facility accepted me after a brief interview. They fed me. They assigned me a bed. In the following days they began to educate me about my disease. I attended counseling groups and 12 step meetings. I was willing to do whatever they asked of me because I was sick and tired of the pain that I had been going through for the past several weeks of my disease. After 11 days at that facility the staff determined that I was well enough to leave. They found me a local halfway house here in Mesa, Arizona and I began to look for work, attend meetings, and also participate in groups at the halfway house.
My idea when I got there was to spend 30 days and then leave. It didn't work out that way. After 30 days I realized that I did not have a good foundation in recovery and decided to stay for six months. Then at six months I realize I still didn't know enough about my disease so I made a commitment to stay for one year, which I did.
While in that recovery program I decided that I would go into a field where I could help other people get sober because I was so grateful for the help I had received, help that had changed my life. So I made a decision to start my own halfway house once I finished my year. I started planning and looking for a place where I could put 50 beds. Because I had no finances and no credit it was not easy to find a location. But I did.
It seemed that once I decided to get sober everything started going my way. In closing, I want to encourage anyone who is having trouble with alcohol or drugs to get sober and pursue their dreams. If it worked for someone like me I know that it'll work for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment