Say No To Pot » My Addiction

Before I quit – Part 1

admin — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 23:55:02 +0000

This is a story of how drugs, particularly pot (Marijuana) came very close to ruining my life:

I was born to a good middle class family in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia in 1970. I was a one of 4 children and was raised modestly, but was loved and never abused. My parents were Christians and made sure that all of the children attended church every Sunday until age 16. Once you turned 16 years old and could drive, church became optional.
I know now that I had the potential and personality to become an addict from the beginning. As a young boy I experimented with alcohol and tobacco. I thought it was cool and felt it impressed my friends if I did so. I took my first drink when I was in the 6th grade. I believe that I was 11 years old. I did not get drunk the first time, but did get a buzz. I thought it was a lot of fun and wanted to do it again. The next time I drank was in the 7th grade and got really drunk. I was at a friend’s house and we got into his parents liquor cabinet. I completely blacked out and was told the next day that I was out of control and he was surprised that I didn’t wake up his parents. I also remember feeling very sick the next morning. I mean really sick.
Well, the drinking continued off and on until my senior year in high school. By then, I was known as the guy who liked to party. Which at the time I thought was really cool. I didn’t get into any trouble, but I definitely did plenty of things that I should not have been doing. Before graduating from High School we had a night where “Silly Awards” were given out to the seniors. I received the award “Most likely to buy a house next to a Miller Genuine Draft brewing plant”. My senior year in high school consisted of going to parties every weekend and even on weekdays. Honestly, I was very happy that year and still feel that it was the happiest part of my life. Soon that would all start to change. Click to Continue –>

Before I quit – Part 2

admin — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 22:56:35 +0000

High School ended and my friends went off to college. It was strange, because they had been talking about college our entire senior year. I never even seemed to think too much about what I was going to do. However; I did take the SAT and received a score high enough to attend a local community college. At the time, I do not feel that I was an alcoholic or addict yet. I was really still in the early stages. I went to college and finished my freshman year as scheduled. I was really proud of myself for this accomplishment. However; I started hanging out with a new friend “Rick”, who I knew from High School. Rick was a good friend but also liked to drink and do drugs. Mainly, his drug of choice was cocaine. Rick was able to get us a small quantity of cocaine to take on a trip with us to Cancun Mexico. By this time, I smoked a little bit of Marijuana off and on, but was not completely hooked. Again, I do not feel that I was an addict yet.
I have to admit that cocaine was a really interesting drug. To me, I found it highly addictive (I could feel the itch for more after doing it) but not worth the money. I should also mention that I was constantly going to the gym to try to improve my physical appear for women. Being a skinny kid, I was not interested in anything that caused me to lose weight because again I wanted to be “Buff”. With all of that being said, I will still never forget the first time I really got high off of cocaine. I was in Cancun Mexico and did a few lines before going down to the bar. At the bar, I sat down and drank 5 or 6 draft beers and walked away sober. That’s when I realized why it was called the party drug. You could get completely blitzed and do a few lines and were immediately sober again. But, I would never become addicted to cocaine as you will later see because of my desire not to lose weight.
Time went by and I started working at pizza delivery business. I started when I was 21 years old and was still a student at my local college. So, delivering pizzas was a part time job for me. Around this time I started smoking pot regularly. I would say by the time I was 22, that I smoked it every night. By the time I was 23 I was stoned all of the time. If I wasn’t stoned then I wanted to be. My first finance broke off our relationship at age 23. This was a blessing for me to say the least. However; I could not stop smoking pot no matter what happened in my life. Around this time I went to the doctor for some reason and he prescribed me an anti-depressant. He felt that I was depressed. Indeed he was correct and it made a huge difference in the way I felt about myself. Even though I was smoking pot all of the time, I felt so much better once I was given something to help with my depression.
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Before I quit – Part 3

admin — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 22:55:57 +0000

By age 25, I was really addicted to Marijuana. Anyone who tells you that Marijuana is not addictive is a complete liar. This was my drug of choice hands down. In fact, at the age of 25 I really didn’t drink that much or do any other drugs regularly. My one and only drug was Marijuana. Well, I tried and tried to quit on my own. My little brother who lived with me at the time was constantly trying to get me to quit. He said that he tried to be “Mean”, then he tried to be “Nice” and no matter what he did I kept on smoking pot. I used to write notes on my dresser at night when I went to bed title “DSP”. This meant, Don’t Smoke Pot. I lived in a garage apartment behind my parent’s house and did not want them to accidentally see the full writing, so I created this short abbreviation. I cannot tell you how many times I put this note on my dresser at night. It just didn’t matter; the mental obsession to smoke pot the next day was just too strong. No matter how hard I tried, I could not stop smoking pot.
Well, you can probably imagine what happened next. That little brother of mine had given up trying to help me in his own little way. So he finally told my parents about my problem. I woke up one morning to a phone call from my parent’s home (about 100 yards from our little apartment). I believe my sister was the one that called me that morning. She told us that we were all going to the doctor for an issue regarding my mother. Well, I gathered my things wallet, keys, half and once of pot, etc. and went to this doctor for my “Mothers” problem.
I noticed as we were pulling into this place that the name looked a little familiar. “Ridgeview” I thought to myself, why is my mother going to see a doctor out here. Of course, the entire family was with me and we all sat down in a circle with this doctor. The first thing out of his mouth was “You must be Steven”. That’s when it hit me that I had been intervened. Oh yes, just like the famous Drug Intervention show on TV today. Everyone went around telling me all these things about how I needed to quit. I should mention that my parents never even knew I had a problem until my little brother told them. They were absolutely clueless naive parents. Anyway, this circle of absolute humiliation and crying continued. The thing that still makes me a little mad to this day was that “I would have gone if they would have just asked me in the first place”. However; my parents were not willing to take any chances, so it went down as described and of course I went right into Drug Rehab “for a couple of days”.

At the time, I thought “How will they fix me?” I had thoughts like maybe they were going to just hold me there for a while and give me some medicine. I really didn’t know what was going to happen. The first day consisted of staying in cottage “C”. Cottage “C” was really for everyone including the mental patients that were entering the facility. I had to stay there for 24 hours. I guess you could say that it was also the detoxify room. Yes, on January 4, 1996 I was admitted to into drug rehab. This is where my story of recovery begins. I’m going to continue adding to my recovery story on a regular basis. Right HERE….
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