The Story of Aa_vark

[Aa_vark]

"I Left my shovel at the bottom"

Today is my 39th birthday. AS a child of December, my parents went out of the way to let me know I was special. I grew up in a relatively typical suburban area, near Detroit. I was the product of a keeping up with the Jones type upbringing, and only had to ask for what I wanted or needed, within reason of course. My mother had remarried when I was eight years old. She had divorced my father when I was five. From what I am told; people all really loved him. He was personable and outgoing. He was a respectable business owner, who had let the drug/lounge lifestyle that was emerging in the seventies ruin his business, his relationships, his family, and eventually his life. I had my first experience with marijuana at about 7 years old at my brothers house. My much older brother had been kicked out of the house, and had his own place, a crash pad that was popular with all of his friends. I was in my mid twenties before he told me that he was dealing heroin to half of the high school that he went too. My father had turned him into one of his dealing crew men. I have nothing of fond memories of Dad, though he was very loving. At 8 I learned the word hepatitis. My little sister and I both had to be vaccinated, in order to see our brother. My mom was a bit of a hypochondriac my whole life, with good reason. It was dads 9th heart attack that killed him. The lifestyle that had killed him. I suppose that I inherited the gene" do what ever the he77 I want whenever I want" from him.

At 9 years old mom remarried, and my step dad adopted my sister and I both that year. My big brother had moved to California to be near his mom and try to clean up his act. My step father is still married to my mother, they recently celebrated 30 years together. I was loved, and given every opportunity to succeed during my teens. New Dad is still a workaholic, and generous provider. I began smoking pot, and drinking at 14. My first drink yielded me an alcoholic black out. I was warned that my mothers side of the family had alcoholism, and even at that time they understood that it ran in families. I managed to avoid alcohol for the most part until 25.

I was a bright kid, called gifted. That added to my feelings of being singled out, and was only another reason to feel different from the other kids. I was tested, and my parents decided to put me into the private schools. At 15 years old, I already had acknowledged an obsession and insatiable compulsion to abuse drugs. At 17 I remember breaking up with my girlfriend at the time, because I was ashamed that I had once again been caught with drugs and grounded. I showed musical talent, and engineering and science ability. I made up my mind that I was going to follow a difficult path, and studied music production in college. I had more good grades then I ever needed, I thought. I began to live the drug lifestyle and culture, and was expelled from private school with enough credits to enter college still a junior in high school. My parents did not agree that that was a good idea, so I bided my time for another year and 1/2 doing acid, smoking weed daily, getting into more and more trouble. I was exposed to intensive outpatient as a condition of being allowed to live at home, and was first exposed to AA and NA for a short time. I wanted nothing to do with that, I knew better.

College was quite different then high school, and I was expected to practice as well as study. I still had little difficulty with grades, but smoked pot all day every day rather then practice. I met an older student, and fell in love and moved off campus at 19 years old. She actually had borderline personality, which pushed her into impulsive sexual situations. My heart was broken, and I had a nervous breakdown. After a vacation, and a psych evaluation, a course of xanax and psychotherapy was prescribed. At that time I made my first of many vain attempts to quit drugs. So I began drinking a little bit more in college, to fit in. This did not work out well, and I quit the whisky and picked up weed again.

After college, I went on to graduate work in my engineering discipline. Weed, which I still again smoked daily really got in the way of recording sessions. I had thought also to marry a girl I met in grad school, with the idea that I could be fulfilled and not get caught up in sex drugs and rock and roll. I was serious. Still taking myself quite seriously. The drug problem also became serious. I was suffering from paranoia and anxiety more and more. My ex wife did not like the fact that I worked all hours of the day and night, and smoked pot and drank and made music with my friends all the time. I continued to hide it, and got an engineering job full time nights, to support her while she finished business college. I managed to get some of my friends jobs, too, and we could party at 6am after work. Ex wife and I agreed that when she finished with school, I would get back to my serious work, and she would support us for a time. She was grateful for the first home I had bought us.

I went on my first drinking binge at 25 years old, for about 10 days. At the end, I first experienced DT's. That was my only experience with them, in fact. I swore off of alcohol, and concentrated on drugs, again. Ex wife had then graduated from college, but decided to start her own business instead of returning the favor and supporting my career that I had put on hold. I was livid. She had an alcoholic mother, and did not want her marriage to be that way. We entered consoling, me off the depend with a huge resentment. She would not let me drink and drug the way I wanted too, nor would she support my serious efforts. After a year of that I divorced her. She got the house. I got the empties and the scales. I had quit my night job around that time and maxed out the credit cards to buy equipment. My plan was to refinance this house that I no longer could keep to build my business. Again drugs got in the way. I was bankrupt financially, bankrupt morally, and alone.

I stayed isolated, and out of bars after a 9 month binge. I needed to get my **** together. I was left facing a pile of ****, obviously at that point. I managed to get a job in a related boring field, and my arrogance and ego got the best of me for several years. Loneliness and a diagnosed depression drive me home at 29, to live with my family. I had a huge disposable income at that point, and became a fixture in the hipster bar/music scene in Detroit. Over the next few years I experienced complete loss of control with alcohol. Black out or pass out, despite my best efforts at control. Trying to moderate, or find the perfect balance with a combination of drugs. I was shaky, quite insane, and unable to focus on my serious efforts. I racked up 2 dui's, marijuana possession, and several driving on suspended charges. Again I was sent to AA, and managed to convince the diversion intake people that I did not have a serious problem with alcohol. I was let off with non reporting probation, and told aa meetings wouldn’t be necessary.

One night, while there was no weed, I suggested to a friend that we try crack. He was off and running, as he had been in the past. I never knew that about him. He was a smoking buddy. Over the course of the next three years, I rapidly hit bottom. At first, I thought I could stop. Soon later, I believed that I could get away with it. The last year was miserable. I pushed the line, thinking I hadn't crossed yet. I managed an excellent job in my serious career, and was using about 1800 dollars of crack on weekends. At the end of the summer concert season, I had a lot of free time and money to explore and party. I went through my last 18,600 dollars in 30 days. I didn’t see anything but alleys, now living in the worst area of Detroit. No, not 8 mile, but I did get arrested there once for crack possession. I was asked to perform community service as in informant. I tried to comply, it was managed in a suburban county, and they did not want me informing in the city. Thank GOD.

I was open and honest(ly completely F**ED UP) with my inner-city dealers. I never left the city for a time. Lost interest in bars, dating, weed. The dealers were captains, and offered me a sweet deal. For keys to My lease SUV and apartment, they would provide me with all I could smoke. At first they would only come over once a day with an 8 ball or so. Quickly I was earning extra money turning a blind eye to boxes of cash, bullets, bundles of baggies. I started to get rather uncomfortable, and had an awareness that I would be dead or worse, left holding the bags before too long. 5 years and one month ago, I told them I was checking into treatment. The next day as they cooked and packed a kilo for the first of the month, I sat on watching. Answering the door as lieutenant after lieutenant came to pick up his packages. I was off the grid. I was given a raw 1/4 and a cooked ounce of crumbs after the packs were done. This went on weekly for several weeks. I could not manage to get my car back to drive to rehab. I was terrified, and surrounded by quicksand. Hopeless, with more dope then I know what to do with. I was faced with a choice. Smoke it all and die, or if I lived be killed by the guys that I was protecting. Or get myself to my twice rescheduled detox.

This was 2 weeks after new years, and I had seen much. I had seen a woman shot for making a scene outside of one of the lieutenants houses. Seen hundreds of thousands of dollars, pounds of cocaine. I could not find the captains anywhere. I left my house keys with a lieutenant, and told him to ask them to clear their stuff out, I would be back in 30 days. If I hadn't been honest with them about my arrest and informant situation in the next county, I believe I would have been killed that night. I was straw man as it was already.

Without mi dignity, car, stuff, own dope,phone,basicly barely with my pants, I went to a local merchant and asked him to call an ambulance for me. When they arrived, a cop car also responded, and ran my id. I was off to jail rather then rehab. I do not know how many days I detuned in jail. At my arraignment my lawyer convinced the judge to let me follow through with my plans of rehab. I was charged with possession and intent to distribute in the suburban county, and allowed to go to rehab.
Several years ago i saw the faces of those dealers on a caught segment of the news facing BIG_TIME...

I finally slept a whole night in rehab, and had a chance to reflect on what my thinking and attempts at control had left me with. I was convinced of only two things after leaving rehab. The first one was if I kept doing the same things over and over I would get the same results. Secondly, I believed in my heart that I did not have a log chance in the fire of staying clean and sober on my own.

I wandered into AA and NA quite a bit different then everyone. I was sick, they were getting well. It took several years of going to meetings, and 2 brief unwilling miserable relapses to begin to work the steps. I've realized that I did not catch the disease of alcohol or addiction until I hit recovery. The rest was my idea. From my first drink and almost first drug I had been obsessed and sick. All attempts at control were always impossible, from the first go. My head suggested it. It’s a thinking disease. My ego still tries to tell me I'm doomed or miserable or hopeless why not drink and drug. Slowly the promises are coming true. Slowly step work is chipping away at my fears, and protestations of powerfulness.

It took me over two years to get a year clean and sober. I now have 41 months, and I'm sponsoring my first alcoholic. He's the same age that I was when I was first exposed to 12 steps. He wants it now. He is willing to put the shovel down. He understands that he doesn’t have to drink and drug to the bottoms that some of us had to in order to surrender. I had the privilege of telling him this past week that not only will the steps help him stay sober, but that he could continue through life without fear,anger resentment and lies. Its very rewarding to watch the lights come on with a newcomer.

My serious career is seriously fun. It's a shaky industry from time to time, and its also been
Tremendously rewarding, including tours with the most of the most famous. I'm looking forward to being able to fulfill my biggest dreams, and perfectly happy with a search for that boring job I was once too good for. Continuing to work through my fears and shortcomings with the twelve steps, live my amends and my first step, and carrying the message that recovery is possible allows me to stay alive and live today.

Turning my will and life over to my higher power, then working the rest of the steps has given me back a life full of happiness and meaning.

Thank you for letting me share

aardvark

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