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 –>

Being an addict, I’ll be the first one to say that we’ve screwed it up for all of the “normal people” in the world. We are the ones that run over people, hurt others and generally do bad things because we drink and use too many drugs. But, that’s the way of the world. Sometimes the bad apples ruin it for everyone else. I guess you could say the same for the health care industry. If it wasn’t for those people who got sick all of the time then it would be cheaper for the rest of us.

I am also firmly against putting “most” people in jail for selling drugs. The judges need to send people to rehab and not prison. Just because I don’t think we need to add another drug to the “OK LIST”, doesn’t mean I feel people should be put in prison for selling drugs. Each case needs to be evaluated separately and fairly.

Yes, drug abuse does effect everyone. However, many books in the past decade have pointed out both positive and negative effects of drug abuse on children of drug abusers, and even spouses. How does that work? Actually, negative consequences are far more common, but in the hearts and minds of children is the capacity to see good in the bad, to survive. After all, no one has had the perfect life! Drug abuse and addiction … does … affect everyone within society, within the family, and within major systems which fight the war on drugs. It comes not from a doctor or counselor, but from someone who experienced drug addiction for many years. There is a road to recovery and a lot of lives have been spared through the help of 12 step programs, family, friends and doctors.

I had a great time using drugs and alcohol when I first started using them. But eventually I no longer got very much enjoyment from them and felt I had to use them to feel “normal”. As you can tell from the name of this website and the other statements I’ve made, my drug of choice was marijuana. Most alcoholics and addicts have a drug of choice; this is the “standby” or one they cannot go without. Most of the people I meet in AA stated that their drug of choice was alcohol. There were several times when me and my friends tried to get cocaine or other drugs and were unsuccessful. But, marijuana was always there and it was our drug of choice.

By age 25, marijuana was no longer working like it used to. Really all I wanted was to be comfortable in my own skin. My psychiatrist stated (years after I got sober) he thought I eventually would have switched over to pain pills. I guess he took note of all of the statements I made regarding how this type of drug made me feel. Pain pills were definitely one of my favorites because of the energy and overall good feeling they gave me. I used to tell my friends that I could be at work “Smiling” as I was taking out the trash.

If you’re an addict like me and you’re pretty young, the odds of me convincing you that you have a problem are pretty slim. It’s very difficult to convince us addicts that we have a problem when the drugs are still working for us. After you finish reading this article I would like for you to take a few minutes and really think. Look back on your life. When you were 10 years old did you think this was how your life was going to turn out? Are you living up to your full potential or is something holding you back? This was the case with me. In my early teens I was on the computer all the time and at age 16 I had a bulletin board system running at my parents’ house. Once I started using drugs and alcohol heavily, I lost all interest in the thing I loved the most (the computer). I was definitely not living up to my potential and I definitely didn’t think by the time I was 25 that I would be smoking pot all day long and using other drugs just so I could get through the day. Take some time to think.  Think back to when you were 10 years old.