Meth Takes One More..........

17 years ago, I met a sweet, innocent 18 year old fresh off the farm from Arkansas. She was from a town of about 100 people. She was raised with a strong work ethic, and a strong faith. Her family was church of Christ and they were pillars of their church. She was a really good kid. When she walked into Mesquite Charlie's, which was the restaurant I was currently the server manager and trainer for, she was like a shiny toy I wanted to make mine.

I was 25, had been out of prison for a couple of years, and was an alcoholic/addict involved in the manufacturing and distribution of methamphetamine. I was a functioning addict, if you want to call how I was living my life functioning. I worked 80 hour weeks a week. I worked open to close doubles 6 days a week and trained new servers as they came into work. I would wake up Tuesday morning with a shot of meth, go to work and not sleep again until Monday morning. I slept a day a week.

That was the person I was when she met me. She did not see that. After all, I was a chameleon from years of practice. I had learned how to read people from a very young age, and I took her inventory as soon as I met her. She was a little shy but extroverted and had pretty low self-esteem. All I had to do was show her positive attention and tell her she was pretty and she was as good as mine.

Everyone at work was told that she was mine, so she was treated with a "hands off" approach from the people we worked with. They listened to me, because I was the person who supplied most of them with speed and weed. She made it through the training class and was my star pupil.At Mesquite Charlie's, we were given call names. Mine was Desperado, and her call name after she passed the training class was Santa Fe.We went on our first date the day she graduated the training class.

Needless to say, our lifestyles were polar opposites. She was small town and I was big town at the time. She was a small fish in a small pond and I was a big fish in a bigger pond. Everywhere I took her, people knew  me. Every party we went to, people sucked up to me. That tends to happen when you make a lot of money and always have a pocket full of dope with access to all the other drugs people could possibly want.

I made drugs and the addict's lifestyle look very attractive, and she bit. It started slowly, with a couple of wine coolers. From there she moved up to marijuana, and then ecstasy. She enjoyed everything she ever tried. After being told how horrible and evil drugs were her whole life, she was finding them to be quite pleasurable. The hook was in.

She was a really good server, but wanted to be able to work the hours I did so she could make more money. It was impossible to work the way I did without meth, so about a month after working at Mesquite's she tried meth for the first time. As soon as she took her first line, I knew she was like me. I saw her eyes go glaze over and that smile of pure joy play across her face. She was hooked from that first bump.

For the next couple of years, we remained a couple. She went from snorting to smoking it while she was with me. Although I was shooting it at the time, I  never let her know it. I did not want her to ever get introduced to the needle. Back then, that was one of my last vestiges of humanity. If you had never shot up, I would not be the person to do it for you. I also put out the word that if anyone gave her a shot of dope, they would never get dope from me or any of the guys slinging dope for me.

We had our problems, that much is certain. I broke up with her twice before the final time. She met another dope cook, who happened to give her that first shot of dope during our first breakup. I still would not let her shoot up around me. I knew what shooting meth had done to me, and I didn't want it to happen to her. The damage was already done. Shooting dope changed her.

She got violent after her first shot of dope. I can still remember the first time she got violent with me. I pride myself on never having hit a girl, and she punched me. I was spun out, and I laughed at her. She punched me again, and I laughed again. She reached up and yanked my ear ring out. I looked at my shoulder, saw the blood flowing down it, and froze. I knew that if I moved I might hit her, so I just locked up.

That infuriated her, and she started screaming and punching me. One of our friends was walking by and heard the commotion. He had my sister who lived down the hallway unlock the door, thinking I was hurting Santa Fe. They walked in to find me covered in blood from my ear and my  nose with her still screaming and punching me.

There were other times, I would be sitting on the floor playing games and she would be on the bed coloring. I would be so zoned into the game I would not hear her talk to me, and she would kick me in the back of the head.She would fly off of the handle and start yelling about the littlest things, always starting fights with me. She started hanging out with the dope cooks I had nothing to do with because of their moral standards. These were the 30 year old guys who would give a 14 year old her first shot just so they could get their hooks in.

That was the person meth turned her into. I watched her change in front of my eyes. She went from one of the sweetest people I had ever met to a girl that was angry and trusted almost no one.

I did nothing about it. I could have cared less, honestly. I egged it on. The night that she ripped out my ear ring Santa Fe went down to Brian's apartment with Brian and my sister. They talked to her for several hours to calm her down. I slept with our next door neighbor, who Santa Fe was friends with.

The last time I broke up with her, I wanted it to stick. I slept with the person Santa Fe cared most about in the world, her sister. Santa Fe then promptly hooked up with one of the kids who I had slinging my dope, and just like that she was out of my life. When I broke up, I liked clean breaks. Generally I would make sure that I did something that guaranteed they would be out of my life for good. I still saw her boyfriend on occasion, as well as her sister, but she was gone and soon forgotten.

That was, until this Saturday.I was contacted by one of my friends from back in the day with some news. Santa Fe was dead. She had died due to complications from an infection from IV drug use. She had gotten that infection from  her husband, who was the kid who used to sling dope for me years back. He also is deceased from the same infection. I guess that they had gotten married, and it had been chaotically every after. That is what drugs will do to your life.

They left behind 4 children, from the ages of 2-10 years old. What is sad is that the children may actually be better off without them, if they were unable to find their way out of addiction. At least the kids have good grandparents to live with that will allow them to stay together, from what I hear.

What I am reminded of  now is how our choices have long lasting effects. That, and there are two ways to live our lives once we get sober: abstinence and recovery. I chose recovery, and I will explain what that means.

As I reminisce on Santa Fe's life, I am reminded that if not for me she would not have been introduced to meth and the dealer's lifestyle. I have talked to multiple people, and they all tell me the same thing, "It's not your fault." That is then followed by several other statements, "If not you it would have been someone else" or "She made her bed" or "It was the disease, not you that caused you to make the choices you did back then." I abhor all of those statements, so I will address each of them in turn.

1. If not you it would have been someone else - That might be true, but the fact is that she did get her start from me. It wasn't someone else, it was me. She got her first taste of the lifestyle from me She get her first taste of drugs from me. She met her husband through me. I turned her out, and the drugs turned her into someone she never was.  
2. She made her bed - Her choices were all hers, and I can agree with that. My choices, however, were also mine. I chose to introduce her to the drug that would ultimately be her downfall. If she is responsible for her choices I should be held responsible for mine. 
3. It was the disease, not you that caused you to make the choices you did back then - I can't blame it on the disease. I know a lot of addicts that did not make the same horrific choices that I did back then. I ruined people's lives, and I knew what I was doing. I knew that once I got my hooks on someone they were seldom the same, and I chose to do it anyway.

Ultimately, I have found that holding myself accountable for my choices and actions is the reason I stay sober. I have what I consider to be great recovery for a completely different reason. I have made my life a living amends because I hold myself accountable for the collateral damage my past choices and actions have incurred. Because of that, my recovery is fierce. I refuse to go back out and use again because I don't want to hurt myself, the people who care about me, other people and the people that care about them. 

One of the best things about recovery is that you get your feelings back. One of the worst things about recovery is.......you get your feelings back. I am glad that I feel, and no one is going to take that away from me. Although everyone ultimately makes their own choices, I also made all of mine. Because of the damage those choices made both in my life and the lives of so many others, I care about outcomes now. I have a heart. 

I have a heart for the addict who still struggles, the person who has just started using but is not an addict yet, the individual who has yet to use but will as well as the former addict who faces stigma every day. I know the choices we make today come back to haunt us. I made a decision 17 years ago and today 4 children don't have a mother or father because of the damage that decision caused. 

Will I beat myself up about it forever. No, but I did for a day. Then I remembered that the louder my message of hope, the more people will avoid the dangers of drug use. When they say, "Not even once" they are not kidding. Drugs take no prisoners. In my addiction, I did not make friends; I took hostages. I will never live my life that way again. 

I know firsthand the dangers of addiction. I have been in and out of jails and prison, died more times than I can count on one hand just to be brought back. I also know secondhand the dangers of addiction. I have lost more friends than I can count on my fingers and toes either to addiction or the violence that comes from the addict's lifestyle. Because of that, my voice guiding people towards a different lifestyle is loud. I am tired of losing people I cared about to this disease millions of us share. 

If you have started using, there is still hope. I am living proof! There truly is a BETTER LIFE IN RECOVERY. Join me and BLiR as we share the dangers of drug use and the victories of recovery. We are TRANSFORMING LIVES THROUGH RECOVERY!!

You Think You High but You're Really Getting Low

I was listening to LeCrae’s song Blow Your High yesterday and there is part of his chorus that always catches my ear because of its’ truth, “You think you high but you really getting low.” Every time I hear that I am reminded of my own past, and the reality of addiction. I loved the way it felt when I first used, but by the end I hated it so much but could not quit. When I first used, bad things in life had happened to me. By the end, I was the bad thing that had happened to other people.

My first use was with a group of kids, and I instantly felt a connection to them. It was incredible. I had never really felt like I belonged anywhere and suddenly I was part of a group. All of the painful things I had been through and all the stress I felt instantly melted away.  I had always heard how horrible drugs were in school, and I knew that they had lied to me the first time I tried them.

Drugs were not horrible. In fact, they were quite the opposite. For once, I did not have to put up walls to hide my feelings from others. I could let them see how I really felt. I laughed, I lived and I loved constantly. I was using drugs, and the more I used the better I felt. The better I felt, the more social I became.  I was the life of the party, the center of attention. It felt great and I loved it.

At this point in my life, I was flying high. I was in Junior High and then High School, using to escape my past and create a new reality. I was having fun, acting crazy outside of school and doing pretty well inside of it. I was happy, but only because I was not dealing with life’s problems. In addiction things are often not as they appear.

I went from a stoner in junior high while I was living in Highland to a partying prep when I moved to Eldorado for high school. My junior year I began to get into trouble, drinking too much liquor and smoking too much marijuana. I moved to Hollister for my senior year and was introduced to methamphetamine. It was by far the best thing I had ever done.

To this day, I have never felt anything that compares to the rush I got from doing meth. It was AWESOME!!!! It made me feel so great. I felt so great that I wanted that feeling all of the time. In my previous addiction I would sometimes skip classes so that I could get high. I would get drunk every weekend, several times. But I still had a semblance of a life. With meth, everything faded but the drug.

In my previous use, I vandalized and swiped money and credit cards from my dad. I kept my grades up and I was a prep at school. With meth, I dropped out of school and started stealing so that I could afford to continue using. From there I started dealing meth and marijuana so that I could continue to use meth.

I was in and out of jail 15 or 20 times. I eventually wound up in prison, where I turned 21. I was on probation, parole, in jail or in prison from 17 until I was 29. I hurt people I considered friends: physically, emotionally, psychologically, sexually and spiritually. I stole from people, a lot. I introduced people to methamphetamine and the drug lifestyle. Many of those people are either in prison or dead.

Mister social, with tons of friends at the parties every night, ended up unconscious in a pool full of my own blood after slashing my wrists. Luckily, someone found me before it was too late. The guy who always had parties at his house, ended up all alone locked up in his room with a  needle in his arm while everyone else partied because I didn’t want them to know I was shooting up. Then I only started hanging out with other people who shot up.  

I was no longer doing drugs, the drugs were doing me. I was no longer using to have fun, I was using just to feel less bad. That is the lie many who have never struggled with addiction believe, that we use because we are having fun and life is amazing. The truth is, we often start using to escape life and end up addicted because we can no longer function without it.

I needed drugs to get out of bed. I needed drugs to think. I was sluggish; operating at less than 50 percent and when I used it would lift me to 75 percent. I never felt great, I always felt bad. Using allowed me to feel less bad. Depression that I had once been able to escape and numb from returned and was even worse. Not feeling like I fit in was replaced by social acceptance and that in turn was replaced by paranoia and lack of trust for everybody.

What had started out as freeing in the end became my prison! LeCrae’s lyrics remind me of a saying I heard once at an NA meeting, “Drugs gave me wings, then they took my sky away.” That was the reality of drugs. I have seen that occur not only in my life, but in the lives of countless others. We continually make choices that we swore we would never make and cross lines we never imagined we would cross.

In order to avoid this, don’t use. If you are using, stop. Although this is easier said than done, it is not only  a possibility but a reality if you apply the 5 Pillars of Recovery to your life:

1.       Higher Power: Find something that gives you hope, validation, forgiveness and more. I found that through Jesus Christ, others have found it through the fellowship. Find something bigger than you!

2.       Meetings: Find a community of people who have struggled as you are struggling and have overcome it. This is another great place to gain strength, experience and hope. Some use AA, NA, Celebrate Recovery, Rational Recovery, small groups or an amalgam of the above.

3.       12 Steps: Find a game plan that will help you live your life better. I have found both the 12 Steps and the book of James have been great advice on how to remain sober while building a great foundation for my life as long as I apply them in my life and then follow them daily.

4.       Sponsor/Mentor: Find someone whose life you would like to have in 5 years and ask them to help you get there. If you are working the 12 steps, find someone who has applied them to their lives successfully and have them help you work through them.

5.       Accountability Partners: Put people in your life that will support your future goals and hold you accountable. They have permission to call you out and to support you, through the good and the bad and they are not afraid to do it.

So in closing, although drugs and alcohol may make you feel great at first, for many there are negative consequences down the road. When those occur, there is a solution that can help you get your life back on track and the 5 Pillars of Recovery are a great place to start. I have never seen someone who was actively engaging in all 5 who went back out and stayed there! Never forget, there is a better life in recovery!

X Factor's Chris Rene performs "Young Homie" & A Word of Advice

Just a quick blog about the X-Factor and an audition that I just saw. It was a kid named Chris Rene who stated that he was 70 days clean and that he had just got out of rehab. When he said that he was going to do an original song, I instantly smelled disaster. You never want to do an original song in front of the judges. LA Reid and Simon Cowell both turned and looked at each other with dread in their eyes. Simon turned back with a smug look ready to chasitise Chris when his audition was over. As it started you could see the looks change, and by the time he got to the chorus he had won over the judges completely.

I personally was delighted to have been wrong. Instead of hearing what I expected, I was blown away. It was original, it was fresh and it was relevant. It was a song about him changing his life and seeing how the using and the violence of the streets solves nothing, it only hurts us, keeps us seperated from and shortens the time we have on Earth to spend with the one's that we love. 

In the intro he talks about how he started with THC, moved to alcohol and then to coke and meth and from there it was all over. It is a progression that I have seen often in clients and in myself. By the time you realize that you are an addict and that using sucks it feels like it is too late to quit.

Chris also spoke of the guilt and shame that broke him. That is a familiar story in addiction circles. Often the drugs, alcohol, food, money (insert your what here) is simply a symptom of the real problem. The real problem is often us trying to numb and escape from the shame, guilt, trauma, depression, anxiety, loneliness, self-loathing, etc that we are experiencing. Once we realize that it helps temporarily we begin to use more and more until eventually we are always numb.

Once this stage is reached, it is nearly impossible to make the change alone. We need to seek help from people who have fought this demon and can relate to us. If I want to learn to fight, I learn it from people who have experience fighting and know how to win. That is found in recovery groups all over the world, a brotherhood of people in recovery willing to share their strength, faith and hope with us.

You can tell that LA Reid has obviously worked with people who have been in addiction. When he says that if he calls he better not talk to sister or mother or girlfriend, but it had better always be Chris who answers that phone and talks to him to let him know that he is okay you know what LA Reid has experienced before. You know that he has had one addict or another having someone who loves them lie for them. Funny how we make the people who love us lie for us over and over again. We drag them down to our own spiritually sick level. We basically attempt to destroy their spirituality as well as our own in our addiction.

All that said, I wish Chris the very best. This will be a long road and one that is impossible to accomplish without a brotherhood of people in recovery that have his back. He will need to stand strong and create some very firm boundaries with people. You know that if he wins $5 million, all of his old playmates (druggin' and thuggin' buddies) are gonna come hunting him down. His "homies" will be right back in his face, trying to romance him with thoughts of the good old days and how they were always there for him.

I hope that his sober support system and his love for his little boy are enough to bring him through the rough times, and that he always remembers where he once was. Playmates and playgrounds are dangerous. If he hangs out with his old "buddies" the question is not IF he will relapse, but WHEN he will relapse.

My advice to Chris Rene would be to continue doing three things. First and foremost are one form of 12 step recovery meeting; whether it is NA, AA, Living Free or Celebrate Recovery keep attending those meetings 2-3 times a week. The second thing is having a sponsor and accountability partners that will be there for and with him to watch his back, give him sage advice and positive support on a daily basis. Third is that he continue to work the 12 steps on a daily basis for the rest of his life. When he says that there is always a chance, and always a choice he is absolutely right. But in the end, it is up to you to make the right choice. Narrow is the road to recovery, and broad is the road to relapse. That is why the daily working of the 12 steps is so important.

The 12th step is the most important step in the road to overcoming the guilt and shame that he says broke him. It allows us to turn all of the negative choices that we and the people in our lives made around and find a positive purpose for them occurring. By his owning his addiction and talking about it on a platform as big as the X Factor stage shows that he is unafraid to work his 12th Step. I only pray that he set him self up for success and have the ability to continue rocking that 12th step, and never forget the first 11.

 So, here are the lyrics to Young Homie followed by the audition. This is my shout out to a song about recovery from one new to the fold! God bless you Chris, stay strong and stay sober!!

I open up my mind with these spoken words,
Let this music heal like an overture,
She’s the only one,

And so I roll with her,

That’s how it’s supposed to be,
Living life with loved ones close to me,
Shh, this is the remedy,
And I got the recipe, I don’t need no Hennessy,
Yeah, it’s been two months now,
Haven’t had a drink and I’m starting to see clear now,
I’m putting all my fears down,
I can hear the cheers now,
Seeing peace signs when I look around,

Hey, young homie what you trippin' on
Looking at life, like how did I get it wrong,
But life’s too short, gotta live it long,
To my brothers and sisters when will we get along,
Hey, big homie what you trippin' on,
What you really trippin' on,
Life’s too short, gotta live it long,
To my brothers and sisters when will we get along

Give peace to the war in the streets,
Give peace to the evil that creeps, yeah,
It takes education, to change your reputation,
From good to bad, you're even better now you’re elevating,
They be singing, family singing, everybody’s chilling,
Not gonna stop this, living on the feeling,
Man this is the real thing, tell me can you feel me,
So wait until they drop this, dancing on the ceiling,

Hey, young homie what you trippin' on
Looking at life, like how did I get it wrong,
What you really trippin' on life’s too short, gotta live it long,
To my brothers and sisters when will we get along,
They never thought I'd make it this far
Look now here we are,
See I never thought I'd take it this far.

VIDEO WITH HIS STORY AND SONG

JUST THE SONG