“You have one of two choices you either take 10% of your savings account and go take that last hit you need to kill yourself or you go into treatment because we don’t want to worry about you anymore.” Said my father with a somber face surrounded by my mother and siblings.

“What about the rest of my money?” I asked.

“Well, we’ll use that for your funeral, because if you continue this way, that’s what is going to happen.” He replied.

Hmmm, who woulda thought that paper Mache could possibly get me here? I know this is out of context, so let me start from the beginning…..

Spinning, spinning, spinning, vomit, drop. I did it again; I was the last man standing on the school yard- just as it should be. Let me explain. I was around 4 and a few of us in art class had discovered that if we got real close to the paper Mache piñatas we were making and inhaled very deeply, we got the most amazing light headed feeling we’d ever felt. This feeling was enhanced by spinning around, usually in snow angel form, to keep balance. Now why did I vomit? Because I was the toughest guy in the group, while the others had decided to cop out, I kept turning until I couldn’t take it anymore. It’s crazy when I think about it- it’s very possible that paper Mache spurred my descent down the wrong street, well in addition to a few other factors.

My older sister was pretty near genius status and try though I may, I was never up to par with her intelligence wise, or so I thought. I mean, I always felt kinda intimidated by all the smart kids around…so I guess that’s why I had to be class clown, the funny guy, that way people would like me. I found another way to get approval around the age of 16, when my tall awkward frame made it possible for me to help my new “friends”. See, I started going into town on the weekends with some friend’s I’d made. The cool thing of course, was to drink and being that I was so much taller than everyone else, I was able to convince people to actually sell me alcohol. That stuff was great! I felt totally free to do and say whatever I wanted. Things got even better when my new friends introduced me to a nice girl called Mary Jane.

My introduction to marijuana totally blew all those rumors I’d been told about how bad drugs were. I mean the commercials on TV showed people who hadn’t showered for a week living in these run down houses….in real life drugs weren’t like that all! In fact, I thought the whole thing was rather sophisticated. So, in an effort to show how wrong these adults and educators were who had been lying to me all these years, I made it my duty, to try every possible drug there was. THAT would show them- lying to us kids and keeping all the good stuff to themselves- what nerve!

Some of the friends that I made got into a bind and I, being the good person that I am, decided to come to the rescue. So, I started doing my best to supply them with whatever drugs they needed and wanted. I wasn’t a drug dealer; I was just helping out some buddies. They loved me for it and so did the ladies. They thought I was the coolest guy and gave me tons of attention- it was great. The best part about this whole deal was I knew I wasn’t addicted; in fact, I was starting to believe there was no such thing as addiction. After all, heroin made me feel great. Truth was heroin was really a good substance- it made me feel more like myself than anything else. I even noticed it took away that pinching sensation in my shoulders that came every time I went a few days without taking a hit. Things were going great- I had tons of friends, a job, and I was in school. Then the drought hit….

“Are you s-s-s-sur-r-re you can-n-‘t get mee any?” I asked my usual heroin dealer. Apparently not. I suddenly couldn’t get any heroin from any of my suppliers and it was starting to affect me. I was shaking, I couldn’t sleep and finally, I woke up in my own vomit…it was reminiscent of my schoolyard days. It was the first time I had gone into withdrawal and I didn’t even know it was happening. I had lost my job because I missed so much work and I was moving back into my parent’s house. I was able to stop using cold turkey and I was fine. Well, at least for the first few months. In fact, over the 4 year period I tried to stop using in this manner, I relapsed 13 times. I had developed a pattern- just when my friends and family stopped worrying about me, just when they thought they could breathe easy, I would get what money I could and disappear for a few days and show up again having totally destroyed whatever progress I had made. It was fine with me if things continued this way forever, even after 2 of my friends died from overdoses; I saw no reason to stop.

That’s around the time that my father, fully backed by the rest of my family, gave me the little speech you read in the beginning. I think I picked treatment, not even because I was so concerned with my own life, but because of where my father told me I would be going for treatment. First, I was off to the island of St. Kitts where I was going to receive Ibogaine treatment and the second half of my treatment would be on the sunny beaches of South Florida. I was getting a vacation out of this thing!!! How much better could it get?

Turns out I was partially right….

I ended up at this treatment center called Holistic Addiction Treatment. This wasn’t exactly a vacation, but it turned my life around. I absolutely loved the program. I got back into karate, regularly visited a spa and really enjoyed group therapy…they were using this procedure they called transformational therapy and it worked great. I worked through a lot of the issues I had with my family and grieved for the friends that had passed away. Now, a year later I’m doing great and happy living a normal life, with normal dilemma’s…for instance, Chinese or Indian food for dinner?

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