I stopped shooting up heroin when I was 18. It was not hard to quit, I just smoked a lot of joints and drank lots of gin. I first went to the hospital when I was twenty years old; the doctor told me if I did not quit drinking it would kill me. I knew it could not have been the drinking. Perhaps it was the thirty to forty hits of speed a day. It was easy to quit taking speed; I just smoked joints and drank lots of gin. At forty three, I called the ambulance to come and get me because I was dying. I had been praying to die and I knew it was happening for real. The ambulance came and got me, I told the medical technician that it was impossible to hold onto my bottle, my arms were numb from the finger tips up past my elbow. At the Emergency Room I was plugged in to tubes and machines. Over the course of thirty years I had transformed from a loving child of the universe into a grayish ashen yellow hulk of dying flesh. One of the nurses asked if I remembered her. I did, she was from high school, and it was the last real conversation that ever happened to me in that physical and spirit form. Before age fifteen I had moved from town to town eight times and went to twice as many schools; I never felt part of anything. As a young child I was basically a mama's boy, I cried every day in first grade. My dad was gone most of the time doing his job. When I was seven, I remember standing at our back gate and watching some guys from school playing ball with their dad and I felt out of place. I always felt out of place, like I did not belong. Later in life it felt like I was alone even in a huge crowd. I thought it was normal. By the time I was thirteen I had sent the little boy inside of me away. At thirteen I prayed I was forty-five. At forty-five, I had only really been alive for two years. I felt thirteen.
The foundational pain of feeling like I didn't belong would shape my entire life and my relationship with substances.
Family Legacy and Hidden Patterns
When he came home from traveling dad always brought a gift home. He was a pro baseball player and a forest ranger when he was young and I wanted to be like my dad. He was also a great public relations man and when he was home there were always big events and picnics to go to. Dad told great stories about his life when he was younger while he and my parents' friends sat around and drank beer. I was a little boy that wanted to become what was expected of him, a good student, successful athlete, honest, and a hard worker; a person who was well liked by all and stood out as an example of success. I could hardly wait until I was grown-up and be like dad. My dad's father made bathtub gin during the prohibition era in L.A., alcohol was a family tradition.
My father always bragged how they got the reverend drunk. When the wine bottling session was over, people from the neighborhood gathered together, drank some homemade wine and watched the Viet Nam war on television. Viet Nam was the center of attention when growing up. Those guys who went there were heroes to me and I wanted to be just like them.
The Path to Manhood and Addiction
Living in Wyoming I went to work on a ranch when I was thirteen. Dad by now was a division manager for his company; he and mom were worried that I might become a long haired freak. Never being at home dad figured that the ranch would teach me how to work hard and be a man. I was well on the way to manhood. I lived in the bunkhouse, did the chores, herded cows, helped put up the hay, drove tractors and pick-up trucks. The cowboys called me little dew-wad; I hated the name. The cowboys were always testing me out; I puked on Copenhagen, got the run-a-way horse, and smoked Prince Albert cigarettes. Then came the momentous test of manhood. The cowboys, four men aged twenty-four to thirty something; decided it was time to teach me how to drink.
This was my crowning moment; no longer would I ever be a boy again. I had already put away five cans of beer. The cowboys were snickering, and a few of them were beginning to slur their words and stagger around. I commented to Lee that those fellows were getting drunk. I had been sneaking booze since I couldn't remember when. Though I did not realize it I was already a full blown alcoholic. Those cowboys simply got drunk and I thought that they might have a drinking problem.
Thirty Years of Struggle
When I was younger I wanted to fight in Viet Nam. By age fifteen, I did not want to be a soldier anymore. All the guys were coming home from Nam; turning on, dropping out, and being loaded was better than fighting a war. By age seventeen, high school was not an option anymore. There was a big boom going on and I could make a thousand a week on a drilling rig and cash it on dope. When the money ran out it was easy to find another rig to work on. Soon my peaceful world turned upside down. Grass and booze was not enough for me anymore, I turned to uppers, downers, LSD, and the boys coming home from Nam were bringing back the best opiates in world. Drinking was the only normal thing that kept me from going out there to far.
At forty-five, I was in a nursing home, my body failing, my spirit broken. But even in that darkness, there were moments of hope.
The Gift of a Second Chance
I was in a haze but knew I was in a nursing home, alive with no earthly reason for it. My room was the last one on the right at the end of the hall, out of the way of everyday traffic and a straight shot from the nurses station. I had to have three nurse's aids, young women in their twenties, help me into a wheel chair with a hole in the bottom of it. The ladies would back me over the toilet and when I was through wipe me off and clean me up. Things were really looking up, I did not mess the bed anymore. People came to visit but they never returned. Only a few came back to see if I was still alive.
This testimony is about the pain of addiction, the strength it takes to survive it, and the mercy available to those willing to seek help. If you're struggling with addiction, alcoholism, or the weight of your past, know that recovery is possible. Your story doesn't end in a nursing home or a cemetery. It can end in healing, hope, and the love of community and the universe itself.
There is always hope. Always.