My story...

[Bruce]

I hope this does not sound as tho I am blaming anyone for my life. I am not bitter, just trying to give an accurate portrayal...

I was born into an alcoholic family. I do believe I was genetically predisposed to it. I am certain I never saw my father sober. My mother had a life-long history of ill health, including having contracted polio in the 50's and suffering debilitating arthritis. She developed an addicts' flair for finding "pill doctors" and I grew up in an environment where "take a pill, it will solve everything" was the adage.
In my early childhood, we lived in a decent enough neighborhood. Our house stood out, tho...trash and tumbleweeds in contrast to the neighbors trimmed lawns. My mother was morbidly obese all of her life and my father had a volatile temper. My identity as a child was shame-based. I have 4 half sisters and one brother. I am the youngest of my mothers 6 children. The atmosphere at home was usually one of fear. My sisters all went to live with their father when I was, I believe, 7. My brother and I just never seemed to be able to get along. I was pretty much left to my own devices. My parents divorced when I was 8 and my mother, brother and I ended up moving alot-I always seemed to be the outsider in new environs. Not always friendly new environs. I did not develop healthy coping mechanisms, I think it is safe to say. In the 6th grade, I tried to commit suicide by taking handfulls of my mother's pills..the result of which was a bleeding ulcer to which the prescribed solution was valium and phenobarbitol. I had an open ended scrip, no supervision of it at all. I stopped going to school-I would stay at home and take a few valium. I would binge on the valium and then not take any for days and suffered acute anxiety-it wasn't until much later that I realized at least part of that was withdrawal. I remember one of my mothers doctors showing me how I could crumble a few phenobarbs in a spoon with sugar and place it under my tongue for instant effect. It was at this point that I also learned I could trade valium for marijuana or to procure alcohol. By this time we were living in almost entirely Hispanic, very gang oriented housing projects. I can see how I contributed to my mother's black depression. At 12 I was picked up for public intoxication and severly beaten by the police. A lawsuit was instigated, but my mother dropped it when officers of El Paso's finest visited my mom at work and asked her how safe she thought I would be should she pursue it. At 13 I was partying with some very hard-core sorts and was left in a ditch with a concussion and a ruptured bladder from being kicked, robbed of my coat and shoes 2 days before Christmas. Shortly after this, my mother suffered a heart attack and slipped into a few years long depression where she simply stayed in her room with the blackout curtains drawn. My brother and I rarely saw each other and when we did, a fight often ensued. All things considered, I wasn't a bad kid. I was simply a drug addict whose sense of self and worth came from being the guy that could cop anything...I went to great pains to get connected to area drug dealers. It was my identity. One result of the afore mentioned beating was that my father re-entered my life. I would describe my relationship with my father from that point until his death from chirosis when I was 16 as...we were drinking buddies. The legal age of imbibement in Texas at that time was 18, but I knew kids whose fathers bought them their own bars when they turned 18 and I could get served at 15. I also had an ID form a friend of my older bros and was used to being in bars. Then of course there was always Juarez where there would be all night parties in establishments where every customer was American and under the age of 16. It was a very different time in the 70's. I realized I was alcoholic then, but it never occured to me that this was a bad thing, if you can believe that. I moved out of my mothers house when I was 17 and moved around quite a bit on my own. I ended up in Dallas in 1980 and that is where I first used a needle. At 19. I was an immediate feind of both IV cocaine and meth. The only way I knew to ween myself of either was heroin or just staying drunk for very long periods of time. By the time I was in my early 20's, I stopped ever sobering upat all. I won't get into all the arrests or overdoses or assorted tragedies-there were many. You would think that any one of them might have indicated to me that I had a problem, but...I never knew what an outlaw I had become until later...just how divorced from society I was. At 23 I was arrested for killing a man, whom I had shot in self defense. I went thru my first acute withdrawal from alcohol in jail. And the first thing I did upon my release a few weeks later was go to the bar. In fact, I got more involved in my own destruction than ever before. The experience did affect me tho-I no longer sold drugs. I did not want to be responsible for anyone elses' misery any more. I had quite a bit of reserves, however...where I didn't have to work for a couple of years and just lived everyday like it was my last. Indeed, I would not have cared if any of those days were my last. I intended to be dead before I ran out of money. I was still using when I moved in with the mother of my step-daughter, who was 4 at the time. One day, I was minding her when a "bud" dropped by. We went into the bathroom, just to do one quick shot...and hours later I remembered I was supposed to be watching the child. In a panic, I threw open the bathroom door and there she was-unharmed- but with rug marks on her face from where she had been laying on the carpet, watching our feet thru the crack under the door as we spent hours shooting dope. That got thru to me...I threw my "bud" out and threatened his existence should he ever return. It was several years before I shot dope again. I did, however stay drunk for the next few years. The child had been sexually abused by her biological father....probably since birth. I took her and her mother to a small town in the Northwest where it seemed easier to get her help. I became very involved in her counseling, even going with her back to TX when she testified against her father(she was 8 by then-he got 10 years). All this while I was drinking very heavily-no one minded as it was definitely better than sticking a needle in my arm. I always managed to keep a job. Well, have a job...Then, one day, I became too sick to drink...this time, the withdrawal was life threatening....and all I wanted was to get well enough to drink again. Around this time, I was busted for pot. My only felony, an ounce of pot, but I think the local establishment was trying to make up for past, lost opportunities. I hadn't had a drink in 4 months at that time...no detox or treatment...at 28?..I went thru screaming dts with the childs mother wiping my brow...anyway, I got probation and they told me I would have to go to AA...and I absolutley refused...would not do it....I transfered my probation to NE, started drinking again-lost everything...had the PO there come to the exes house one morning, where I was staying and where I was forbidden from being, take the beer from my hand, the beer from my-her- fridge and tell me to meet him at his office post haste, which I did...after procuring and consuming more alcohol...this is getting overly long here....suffice to say, I ended up at my first meeting later that night...very, very drunk...and crying....it was not appreciated but my first sponsor was there, got me into detox and gave me the old twelfth...talked me into going to 30 day treatment, then the first half way...that lasted 6 months, heavy drama, becoming involved with people in that atmosphere, watching them go back out and die...going back myself only to be back in treatment a year later, into another 1/2 way-major, major stories involved in all of this...made it to within a week of a year sober and when I relapsed it was on tweak....how screwed up do you have to be to shoot dope in the bathroom at the 1/2 way, then go chair the NA meeting downstairs? Pretty much. Kept that run going for almost 2 years before I was escorted off the property at work and then had to have an ex I hadn't seen in those 2 years drive a couple of hours to come get me because, even tho the Sherrif was coming to evict me in the morning, I was crawling the carpet, picking up lint balls and putting them in a spoon...I had put a packing box in the middle of the floor, but every time I put anything into it, I would take it back out and spend God only knows how much time pondering it...then I'd do some more....then I'd put something back in the box....Anyway...a few years later....I had managed to complete culinary school after withdrawing several times to detox(wine class was a bitch!) and I was starting to truly recognize my problem...at one point, I had managed a cessation of several months...I had been going to alot of meetings, acupuncture therapy for cravings, counseling for PAWS, PTS...general inability to cope...I landed a gig as Executive Chef at a nice hotel, but lost it-even sober-can you imagine...I had stopped going to meetings, stopped all manner of anything good...relasped again on tweak, then coke, then alcohol...ended up living on the beach and was visiting a friend when I saw the whole 9-11 saga on tv....it was emotional for her...and it did not register with me...I did not feel...I sensed her disgust with me(might have had something to do with her tearful fit, her hitting me and telling me she did not recognize me anymore...this from one of my choice enablers) she talked me into going to detox again, where I agreed to go to a year-long, lock down hazel nut farm work oriented treatment...I did agree to go...but the reality of it scared me....so I was sitting watching the planes crash into the building over and over again on tv, and feeling very sorry for myself(detox IS very taxing at this stage) when I decided that I did not need the treatment...what I needed was to go to NY and join the Red Cross! I would stay sober! Hey! It actually made sense at the time. I checked out of detox and was drunk 15 minutes later such was my resolve....more much drama and oh the stories I could tell, but suffice to say, I did not make it to NY...ended up in serious dts(hallucinations are a real drag when you are ALONE) at a rest stop in ND..where I PRAYED...and made it to a hospital and was released a few days later...and found myself many miles from anywhere I had ever been before....decided I needn't go back....so was heading in the general direction of NY, very near broke and not nearly detoxed enough.....stopped at a library in WI just to check my email...and I just knew I would nevermake it to Chicago....having had a history of suicidal thoughts and attempts since the age of 5...I had a decision to make...go out the door-death...pick up the phone..?....so...I picked up the phone and called AA...I was picked up and taken back to a hospital for a bit more librium treatment, heavily and very artfully 12th stepped again..deposited in the local homeless shelter and so began the road again...I stayed in that town for almost 3 years...was not sober the whole time, have a real penchant for self sabotage....moved out of the homeless shelter and in with my therapist and AODA counselor...her a raging active alcoholic who would pick fights and then bring up things I had told her in confidence when she was my therapist to use against me..and oh, we mustn't tell a soul...you can't call your sponsor, he knows who I am and you could get me in SO MUCH TROUBLE...I got drunk then as it was the only way I could see out of the relationship....and because then avenues other than homelessness again were open to me....I admit I went to treatment that time and then to my 3rd 1/2 way simply to get off the street....I was SO suicidally depressed that I was able to just detach and go thru the motions until AA and antidepressants were able to reach me again.....trying to be helpfull to people who were at where I had been so many times...it started getting thru to me.... I started feeling again...good thoughts, bad feelings....it was weird....at the house we all had to be home for a meeting before dinner, where we had to identify honest emotions for the day....and I wasn't even able to tell what I was feeling...I did not know! "Hmmm...D got his 90 day chip...I am genuinely happy for him"...ya know? "Well I guess I'm angry"...and then learning that that was Ok...It was very hard indeed at first...I had a really good therapist(male this time)working there and had a couple of Angels for sponsors...took the program seriously...lived at the Genesis House for a year...got my own place...as part of my service work(personal, not program), I took a job as caregiver for a group of schizophrenic adults for a year...more big time drama, more life changing stories I could tell...a very spiritual time for me..if you want to get out of yourself....be responsible for the welfare of others for a time, my advice....I became somewhat active at SC during this time, and it is amazing to me that I still know anyone I knew even a year ago(Say CapnChris!..still with me here?) because I still have a thing with staying put or keeping in touch...very hard for me having any sense of continuity...lifes biggest challenge today...I have been sober for...geez in July it will be four years!!!! since my last drink...I slipped with pot and had to relearn that I am an addict, so my honest sobriety date is Nov 15 of 2002...anyway....the reason I am sober now, is because I am not the man I was then....to anyone who has been told that they need to change, Baby I am your proof it can be done...bless you anyone who has made it this far...and thank you for listening
love-B