I Woke Up!! (Long)
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Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Orlando, FL
Posts: 8
I Woke Up!! (Long)
Today is April 2, 2014 and one week ago today, I woke up! I woke up to my new wife of just over 3 months yelling at me that the patio fire pit, in our first home that we just finished purchasing in early March, was still smoking and smoldering thus flooding our beautiful and prized patio with smoke. The nice neighbors from next door apparently had also been concerned and my wife observed them peaking over the fence to ensure our house or backyard wasn't on fire. Thankfully it wasn't as I was sure I had been responsible in the night before (make that early morning twilight hours) when I “went to bed.” So despite being still drunk as a skunk and coked beyond belief, I somehow mustered the strength to crawl out of bed, douse the fire, and placate her feelings some before she headed off to work and I enjoyed (if you can call being hung over and having to sleep all day enjoyment) my day off. No worries that she actually had to wake me up again to douse the embers one more time, it was all going to be fine, I was going to go back to sleep, wake up in a few hours, enjoy those amazing post partying cups of coffee, play basketball with my friends, and revel in the feeling of how awesome last night was. However this time, something was different, very different.
Before I go any further with what happened to me a week ago today, let me give you a little back story on me and a little more on my relationships with substance. And before you ask, yes this is going to resemble another one of those, “am I an alcoholic threads,” that I've read so many of in the week it’s taken me to collect enough reason and courage to write this post.
I grew up in a nice suburb, didn't really have a strong dad in my life and the one I did have did drugs, and drank, so my mom cautiously kept him pretty far away. My step dad was a great guy in many respects but had teenage and adult children who would always come over to our lake house and drink their faces off almost every weekend. They were the Miller Light till they popped crowd and today have the weight issues to show for it. No matter how bad their drinking would get (and I mean as a kid I witnessed grown women falling into the pool and having to be “rescued” by grown drunk men on the regular so it was bad), I and they would just assume it was social drinking aka partying gone too far. Needless to say, I got my boating license at an early age after many years of driving it for them without the law on my side, perhaps in retrospect this was my first experience with enabling and co-dependency but I’ll save that for my counselor if I ever talk with one.
As I got older I became interested in sports, youth group, and music. I never once touched substance in middle school, and for virtually every moment in high school till the end of senior year maintained that I didn't drink. I really believed that at the time, and as I went to college and learned to drink at epic levels, so it made what I later did recall as getting smashed in high school seem like child’s play in comparison. One time was my uncle’s wedding where the bartender let me consume too much of that god awfully sweet Arbor Mist. I was a 16 maybe 17 year old and I ended up being driven home, and tore apart my room and can remember laughing the whole time. Upon awakening I was mortified to realize the nightmare was for real, but quickly learned the positive power of shaking it off and “learning to laugh” about your mistakes. Had this been the only time something like this happened, maybe that idea would have been nice, but I can visually remember at least 2 other times something similar happened. The scary thing though is I found an old journal from my sophomore year and discovered an entry talking about my guilty feelings of getting drunk with a friend one night. Well I remember the friend, I remember some of the trouble we’d get into (ie: walking through the Taco Bell drive through to be funny while sober), but I didn't remember this. So this is where my brain learned to forget the things that might make me want to quit drinking. Great! But as it always does, it gets much worse.
Senior year flew by and now I've tried weed on limited occasion and made an effort to party a little bit whereas before it was almost happenstance that I was around alcohol. So now we enter the early college years where I’ll learn to drink “power hour” style with my dorm mates, smoke weed with towels under the door so we don’t get kicked out of school and thrown in jail, and I’ll even try some harder drugs like ecstasy and cocaine once in a blue moon, but they will honestly only become novelties for now. Did I mention that by graduation day in high school, I was no longer in youth group, no longer playing music with my band, and no longer involved with nearly anything I was before except my job. Of course at the time, and for many years later I thought this was simply me growing up or changing. I even painted the quote, “Not all who wander are lost,” on my room wall at my parent’s house so that everyone could see how unique I was to be experimenting with life so much. To sum it all up, I was a good kid, with a great childhood. I was raised right, and taught to love life. Unfortunately that doesn't protect you from yourself as it should I suppose.
Fast forwarding, my “changing/wandering” continued. I’ll spare you the play by play of what happened every year since then, but let’s just say I've had my times where I partied every night, times when I've stayed far away from any substance, and times when I would only drink or smoke on rare occasion like a family gathering, etc. Even though I don’t have a career path in life, and can honestly not even begin to imagine what that will be, I've always had a job, and great personal success despite the damage I've done in those departments as well. I seem to cycle in and out of usage and have been leery always of letting go too much, so I keep one foot firmly planted in Safe and I live my life in this state of limbo, telling myself that I’m a fully functioning person who just loves to party once in a while. I ignore the times I blackout over the years and my wife to be has to wrestle with a giant man-child to get him home from the concert we went to. I accept the awkward situations as just a part of the deal when it comes to going out. I subconsciously illustrate that I can control myself and it (if you know what I mean) by having many a fantastic dinner out where a glass or two (seriously not creative count) of red wine was enjoyed, and a true, pure good time had by all. I go through periods of a beer and cigar after work to relax and nothing more, and I even go through periods of no drinking or maybe twice a month where we go to the beach, sip a nice mixed drink, and enjoy the sun and that warm relaxed feeling. That soothing elixir, flowing through my bloodstream, brain and body, and a loved one lying next to me and the day being absolutely perfect, no joke, thus the seeds of confusion were sown deep into my soul over the years and water with some bittersweet denial. In reality, I’m really just a lucky bastard because all this was over the course of the last 6 years, since I’ve been with the woman who became my wife this past January, and it has been a walk in the park compared with the unbridled usage that led up to our relationship (actually a huge sober blessing in my life is she), which not even a potentially fatal car accident could curtail.
It’s March of 2007 and we’re in the latter college years that I've yet to speak about. I’ve been a server now for a few years and am no longer enrolled at the state university here in town but community college because my grades were garbage. Again I was “changing” and remember, wandering doesn't mean you’re lost. Also blowing my pre-paid tuition, state funded scholarship, and grandma’s, small but sufficient, inheritance is just par for the journey and not indicative of a control problem since I “chose” to do so (which is both true and false at the same time). By now, I party nearly every night as a server and about a year before this accident, I get so drunk while out with friends one night that they call an ambulance for me because I’m that crazy, and they are honestly afraid for my safety. The funny thing is I actually remember parts of this night despite acting like I was in total blackout mode, does anybody have any experiences like that? Please share them if you do.
The night of the accident the same thing happens. We go out to a huge dance club with some friends from work. Not my usual crowd, but a mix of everyone, including normal drinkers and career partiers like me. I remember getting to the club, parking my car for overnight storage since we were going to split a cab home and come back for it in the morning, and ordering my first 2 long islands of the night, then I woke up… in the Emergency Room at a hospital I had never even heard of on the extreme western edge of the metro area, where none of my life functions were located. The first thing I remember is a nurse’s voice saying something sweet to me and a clock showing a time that gave me the sense it was morning and many hours after the last thing I remember which was of course getting to the bar and buying drinks around 11pm. I remember feeling shocked that I was there and not sure of why, then it all came crashing (pun intended) back to me. Well not “it all” since I can only to this day recall 2 significant moments of what happened, a flash memory of my speedometer being above 80mph while nearing a curve of some sort in the road, and opening the door of the wrecked car, stumbling out, and trying to run from the situation when an angel of a bystander stopped his car, got out to help me, and must have phoned for help. Miraculously, the way the car rolled as I flew off what I would later come to find out was the turnpike on-ramp heading towards Miami, the driver’s side was the only area not smashed flat as the force was so great that even the tiny 4 cylinder engine was ripped from the frame and left lying in the grassy median. I literally walked away from this accident and was able the leave the hospital as soon as I woke up. The 2nd miracle of the morning for me was that the nurse said that a highway patrol officer waited for over 4 hours for me to awake so that he could legally collect evidence from me that would have surely landed me my first, only, and well overdue DUI. He had just left before I woke up and left contact info for the case, which after calling the next day I would learn was written off as a simple driver losing control accident so I even got a $6,000 check from my insurance company since I had paid the car off already. In that very moment I went from being the no-stick Prince to King Teflon.
The story continues after months of sobriety and going back to church, which will happen after you’re scared straight by a night like this. However, alcohol found a way to ease its way back into my life during a great and wholesome vacation to Cedar Point with some buddies. We had such a great time at the park all day, enjoying the natural highs of these extreme coasters that we decided to walk from our motel to a dive bar nearby. We shared some pitchers and enjoyed the night, where I’m sure I took it too far and such but managed to write it off as see look, I can drink in moderation again. Upon returning back home from that trip I went on a business trip to Phoenix with some people who would become my employers and business partners in 2009 and was treated to some pretty incredible meals and of course dinner drinks, again a sign that I didn’t have a problem (anymore) because if I did both Cedar Point and Phoenix would have been disasters right?
Months pass again and it’s Christmas time of 2007. I’m sneaking out of my folk’s house where I’m living again due to choosing to put that $6,000 down on a brand new car instead of buying a used one, and I’m meeting my new BFF the coke dealer at his current extended stay room for a holiday celebration, revolving around a transaction involving the sale of a protective device that I wish not to name on here. I would go into further detail about how this felt, about how my parting was every night but functional nonetheless, but I’ll just cut to the chase.
I’ve always struggled with substance, alcohol being the foundation and the root of that. Actually without it, cocaine and weed have little to no appeal to me. I was only a typical stoner during a few of those college years, you know the routine, wake up, smoke, watch some Family Guy, eat, smoke some more, skip class, etc. The older and more “sophisticated” I got with my partying, the more weed just became a spice or condiment for me. No longer would I do it just to be stoned and listen to some good music or whatnot, it had to be to mellow me out while coming down from coke, or to prevent a hangover while drinking (I think that’s a myth BTW). The same eventually applied to cocaine but in a different way, no drinky, no cokey, I had to have both, that combination of rushes. I actually believed that this was a sign that I was just a party animal or otherwise I’d just do the drug by itself like those people you see on Intervention. How could I have gone back to partying, and with such a vengeance that I would add the previously only dabbled with cocaine to the nightly playbill? How could I have actually enjoyed waking up on my dealer’s sofa, in debt to him for a gram, almost running late for work, and maybe $3 in my pocked which I saved for a little more than a gallon of gas to get me home, showered, and back to work so that I could make enough money to pay what I owed, and do it all over again. Thank god the bread and soda where I worked was free!
I stopped doing coke when I got together with my future wife in March of 2008, 1 full year after my accident in which I was maybe stone cold sober for a 1/3 of that time right afterwards obviously. I stopped everything and really made a change in my life. Moved to SC where she was from and with a newly rediscovered zeal for clean living, started a life. I actually considered myself an alcoholic then and didn’t drink at all but somehow slowly it crept back in, which brings me to the past 7 days in which I’ve had lots of time to think but am convinced of nothing. Even after writing all of this to you today, I’m still not sure of anything except the fact that I could drink right now if I wanted to and not endure a huge problem. I would not wind up tonight downtown Orlando looking to make a lopsided and dangerous street deal for the sake of partying. I really, truly could, drink in moderation any day or night of the week until I grant myself “permission” to go a little crazy and have a few extra like I did the night of the fire pit incident. See I had been really good lately and have only had a few glasses of wine on select nights since moving into the new house. No raging parties, no going out, actually my life has been pretty clean for quite some time which makes joining a recovery forum and speaking in AA terms a little weird. But last Tuesday I went to an NBA game with my best friend and we got a ride downtown from my wife. We took shots before (to save money at the arena) and had a few beers once at the game. We had failed to line up some coke ahead of time from either one of our connections which I still have from being in the restaurant biz. Since this was going to be a drunk night out only, we had to do it right. But around halftime I went into awake-blackout mode again, left the arena, and walked right into the ghetto to score, and did. Then called the troops from my work with the better coke connect and went and took out $200 from our joint accounts for the eight ball. We ended up back at my new house and kept the noise to a minimum and I kept the party on the porch since my wife was sleeping and had to get up at 5am for work. See look how courteous I was and I even came home with my friends relatively early since I didn’t feel a married man should be out all night making his wife wonder, so her knowing I was on the porch enjoying a buzz was my way of thinking about her in that moment (don’t worry I wanna barf too). I was having a great time since this was not the norm anymore in my life all night until about 3am when we did the last of the lines off my bedroom mirror I had brought out on the porch. We were taking shots of anything we had and packing weed bowls in preparation of the comedown and I was trying to source more coke. Then it hit me, I saw the faces of my friends, especially my best one, and guilt normally reserved for the next morning poured in. Not only was I feeling that miserable no more drugs and drinks feeling that many of you may relate too, but in an instant I recognized that this was no longer any fun. The party wrapped and my best friend stayed over for safety reasons in the guest bedroom. I left the empty glasses, bottles, and dusty mirror where they lay, watched the flames flicker out around 4am (let the smoldering begin), and joined my sleeping wife in the bed, laid my head down on the pillow, and the next thing I remember is…I WOKE UP!!
It’s taken me over a week to be ready to write this, and I didn’t think it was going to be this long. Thank you to anyone who even reads this, gives life to my words and feelings. As you can imagine I’ve been on a roller coaster of emotional thoughts this past week from, “I’m never touching the stuff again, not even a dinner drink of wine,” to “wasn’t that cool how I was comping from a homeless man when you pulled up to pick us up.” I have however confronted some serious truths regarding my drinking with my wife and she has been amazing in support and we are in a really good place. I’ve stated to her that I’m taking a break from alcohol 100% right now to evaluate its role in my life. I’ve wanted to state a little more due to my suspicions that this will have to be it for the rest of my life, but she is afraid that my extremist personality will do really well for a while and then the pendulum will once again swing ever so slowly to a place where I’m in trouble again, even if it’s just once random night while out with a friend. Which brings me to the “am I” or “am I not” question I told you was coming. Originally when I rough drafted this in my head I had a lot of leading questions I was going to leave you with that I believed would help me determine if I can ever have a glass of Merlot again with a steak on an Anniversary, but I think I’m just going to ask you for your reactions to my story. Just the act of typing this out has led me in a certain direction with my thoughts and truth be told, I’m not really begging for that glass of Merlot anytime soon. I actually don’t even like the taste of alcohol and really just enjoyed the party aspect of it which I know (and so does she) can and never will happen again (God willing of course). So out of respect for her feelings that swearing off alcohol 110% percent could backfire, I turn it over to you guys, my new friends at SR.
Before I go any further with what happened to me a week ago today, let me give you a little back story on me and a little more on my relationships with substance. And before you ask, yes this is going to resemble another one of those, “am I an alcoholic threads,” that I've read so many of in the week it’s taken me to collect enough reason and courage to write this post.
I grew up in a nice suburb, didn't really have a strong dad in my life and the one I did have did drugs, and drank, so my mom cautiously kept him pretty far away. My step dad was a great guy in many respects but had teenage and adult children who would always come over to our lake house and drink their faces off almost every weekend. They were the Miller Light till they popped crowd and today have the weight issues to show for it. No matter how bad their drinking would get (and I mean as a kid I witnessed grown women falling into the pool and having to be “rescued” by grown drunk men on the regular so it was bad), I and they would just assume it was social drinking aka partying gone too far. Needless to say, I got my boating license at an early age after many years of driving it for them without the law on my side, perhaps in retrospect this was my first experience with enabling and co-dependency but I’ll save that for my counselor if I ever talk with one.
As I got older I became interested in sports, youth group, and music. I never once touched substance in middle school, and for virtually every moment in high school till the end of senior year maintained that I didn't drink. I really believed that at the time, and as I went to college and learned to drink at epic levels, so it made what I later did recall as getting smashed in high school seem like child’s play in comparison. One time was my uncle’s wedding where the bartender let me consume too much of that god awfully sweet Arbor Mist. I was a 16 maybe 17 year old and I ended up being driven home, and tore apart my room and can remember laughing the whole time. Upon awakening I was mortified to realize the nightmare was for real, but quickly learned the positive power of shaking it off and “learning to laugh” about your mistakes. Had this been the only time something like this happened, maybe that idea would have been nice, but I can visually remember at least 2 other times something similar happened. The scary thing though is I found an old journal from my sophomore year and discovered an entry talking about my guilty feelings of getting drunk with a friend one night. Well I remember the friend, I remember some of the trouble we’d get into (ie: walking through the Taco Bell drive through to be funny while sober), but I didn't remember this. So this is where my brain learned to forget the things that might make me want to quit drinking. Great! But as it always does, it gets much worse.
Senior year flew by and now I've tried weed on limited occasion and made an effort to party a little bit whereas before it was almost happenstance that I was around alcohol. So now we enter the early college years where I’ll learn to drink “power hour” style with my dorm mates, smoke weed with towels under the door so we don’t get kicked out of school and thrown in jail, and I’ll even try some harder drugs like ecstasy and cocaine once in a blue moon, but they will honestly only become novelties for now. Did I mention that by graduation day in high school, I was no longer in youth group, no longer playing music with my band, and no longer involved with nearly anything I was before except my job. Of course at the time, and for many years later I thought this was simply me growing up or changing. I even painted the quote, “Not all who wander are lost,” on my room wall at my parent’s house so that everyone could see how unique I was to be experimenting with life so much. To sum it all up, I was a good kid, with a great childhood. I was raised right, and taught to love life. Unfortunately that doesn't protect you from yourself as it should I suppose.
Fast forwarding, my “changing/wandering” continued. I’ll spare you the play by play of what happened every year since then, but let’s just say I've had my times where I partied every night, times when I've stayed far away from any substance, and times when I would only drink or smoke on rare occasion like a family gathering, etc. Even though I don’t have a career path in life, and can honestly not even begin to imagine what that will be, I've always had a job, and great personal success despite the damage I've done in those departments as well. I seem to cycle in and out of usage and have been leery always of letting go too much, so I keep one foot firmly planted in Safe and I live my life in this state of limbo, telling myself that I’m a fully functioning person who just loves to party once in a while. I ignore the times I blackout over the years and my wife to be has to wrestle with a giant man-child to get him home from the concert we went to. I accept the awkward situations as just a part of the deal when it comes to going out. I subconsciously illustrate that I can control myself and it (if you know what I mean) by having many a fantastic dinner out where a glass or two (seriously not creative count) of red wine was enjoyed, and a true, pure good time had by all. I go through periods of a beer and cigar after work to relax and nothing more, and I even go through periods of no drinking or maybe twice a month where we go to the beach, sip a nice mixed drink, and enjoy the sun and that warm relaxed feeling. That soothing elixir, flowing through my bloodstream, brain and body, and a loved one lying next to me and the day being absolutely perfect, no joke, thus the seeds of confusion were sown deep into my soul over the years and water with some bittersweet denial. In reality, I’m really just a lucky bastard because all this was over the course of the last 6 years, since I’ve been with the woman who became my wife this past January, and it has been a walk in the park compared with the unbridled usage that led up to our relationship (actually a huge sober blessing in my life is she), which not even a potentially fatal car accident could curtail.
It’s March of 2007 and we’re in the latter college years that I've yet to speak about. I’ve been a server now for a few years and am no longer enrolled at the state university here in town but community college because my grades were garbage. Again I was “changing” and remember, wandering doesn't mean you’re lost. Also blowing my pre-paid tuition, state funded scholarship, and grandma’s, small but sufficient, inheritance is just par for the journey and not indicative of a control problem since I “chose” to do so (which is both true and false at the same time). By now, I party nearly every night as a server and about a year before this accident, I get so drunk while out with friends one night that they call an ambulance for me because I’m that crazy, and they are honestly afraid for my safety. The funny thing is I actually remember parts of this night despite acting like I was in total blackout mode, does anybody have any experiences like that? Please share them if you do.
The night of the accident the same thing happens. We go out to a huge dance club with some friends from work. Not my usual crowd, but a mix of everyone, including normal drinkers and career partiers like me. I remember getting to the club, parking my car for overnight storage since we were going to split a cab home and come back for it in the morning, and ordering my first 2 long islands of the night, then I woke up… in the Emergency Room at a hospital I had never even heard of on the extreme western edge of the metro area, where none of my life functions were located. The first thing I remember is a nurse’s voice saying something sweet to me and a clock showing a time that gave me the sense it was morning and many hours after the last thing I remember which was of course getting to the bar and buying drinks around 11pm. I remember feeling shocked that I was there and not sure of why, then it all came crashing (pun intended) back to me. Well not “it all” since I can only to this day recall 2 significant moments of what happened, a flash memory of my speedometer being above 80mph while nearing a curve of some sort in the road, and opening the door of the wrecked car, stumbling out, and trying to run from the situation when an angel of a bystander stopped his car, got out to help me, and must have phoned for help. Miraculously, the way the car rolled as I flew off what I would later come to find out was the turnpike on-ramp heading towards Miami, the driver’s side was the only area not smashed flat as the force was so great that even the tiny 4 cylinder engine was ripped from the frame and left lying in the grassy median. I literally walked away from this accident and was able the leave the hospital as soon as I woke up. The 2nd miracle of the morning for me was that the nurse said that a highway patrol officer waited for over 4 hours for me to awake so that he could legally collect evidence from me that would have surely landed me my first, only, and well overdue DUI. He had just left before I woke up and left contact info for the case, which after calling the next day I would learn was written off as a simple driver losing control accident so I even got a $6,000 check from my insurance company since I had paid the car off already. In that very moment I went from being the no-stick Prince to King Teflon.
The story continues after months of sobriety and going back to church, which will happen after you’re scared straight by a night like this. However, alcohol found a way to ease its way back into my life during a great and wholesome vacation to Cedar Point with some buddies. We had such a great time at the park all day, enjoying the natural highs of these extreme coasters that we decided to walk from our motel to a dive bar nearby. We shared some pitchers and enjoyed the night, where I’m sure I took it too far and such but managed to write it off as see look, I can drink in moderation again. Upon returning back home from that trip I went on a business trip to Phoenix with some people who would become my employers and business partners in 2009 and was treated to some pretty incredible meals and of course dinner drinks, again a sign that I didn’t have a problem (anymore) because if I did both Cedar Point and Phoenix would have been disasters right?
Months pass again and it’s Christmas time of 2007. I’m sneaking out of my folk’s house where I’m living again due to choosing to put that $6,000 down on a brand new car instead of buying a used one, and I’m meeting my new BFF the coke dealer at his current extended stay room for a holiday celebration, revolving around a transaction involving the sale of a protective device that I wish not to name on here. I would go into further detail about how this felt, about how my parting was every night but functional nonetheless, but I’ll just cut to the chase.
I’ve always struggled with substance, alcohol being the foundation and the root of that. Actually without it, cocaine and weed have little to no appeal to me. I was only a typical stoner during a few of those college years, you know the routine, wake up, smoke, watch some Family Guy, eat, smoke some more, skip class, etc. The older and more “sophisticated” I got with my partying, the more weed just became a spice or condiment for me. No longer would I do it just to be stoned and listen to some good music or whatnot, it had to be to mellow me out while coming down from coke, or to prevent a hangover while drinking (I think that’s a myth BTW). The same eventually applied to cocaine but in a different way, no drinky, no cokey, I had to have both, that combination of rushes. I actually believed that this was a sign that I was just a party animal or otherwise I’d just do the drug by itself like those people you see on Intervention. How could I have gone back to partying, and with such a vengeance that I would add the previously only dabbled with cocaine to the nightly playbill? How could I have actually enjoyed waking up on my dealer’s sofa, in debt to him for a gram, almost running late for work, and maybe $3 in my pocked which I saved for a little more than a gallon of gas to get me home, showered, and back to work so that I could make enough money to pay what I owed, and do it all over again. Thank god the bread and soda where I worked was free!
I stopped doing coke when I got together with my future wife in March of 2008, 1 full year after my accident in which I was maybe stone cold sober for a 1/3 of that time right afterwards obviously. I stopped everything and really made a change in my life. Moved to SC where she was from and with a newly rediscovered zeal for clean living, started a life. I actually considered myself an alcoholic then and didn’t drink at all but somehow slowly it crept back in, which brings me to the past 7 days in which I’ve had lots of time to think but am convinced of nothing. Even after writing all of this to you today, I’m still not sure of anything except the fact that I could drink right now if I wanted to and not endure a huge problem. I would not wind up tonight downtown Orlando looking to make a lopsided and dangerous street deal for the sake of partying. I really, truly could, drink in moderation any day or night of the week until I grant myself “permission” to go a little crazy and have a few extra like I did the night of the fire pit incident. See I had been really good lately and have only had a few glasses of wine on select nights since moving into the new house. No raging parties, no going out, actually my life has been pretty clean for quite some time which makes joining a recovery forum and speaking in AA terms a little weird. But last Tuesday I went to an NBA game with my best friend and we got a ride downtown from my wife. We took shots before (to save money at the arena) and had a few beers once at the game. We had failed to line up some coke ahead of time from either one of our connections which I still have from being in the restaurant biz. Since this was going to be a drunk night out only, we had to do it right. But around halftime I went into awake-blackout mode again, left the arena, and walked right into the ghetto to score, and did. Then called the troops from my work with the better coke connect and went and took out $200 from our joint accounts for the eight ball. We ended up back at my new house and kept the noise to a minimum and I kept the party on the porch since my wife was sleeping and had to get up at 5am for work. See look how courteous I was and I even came home with my friends relatively early since I didn’t feel a married man should be out all night making his wife wonder, so her knowing I was on the porch enjoying a buzz was my way of thinking about her in that moment (don’t worry I wanna barf too). I was having a great time since this was not the norm anymore in my life all night until about 3am when we did the last of the lines off my bedroom mirror I had brought out on the porch. We were taking shots of anything we had and packing weed bowls in preparation of the comedown and I was trying to source more coke. Then it hit me, I saw the faces of my friends, especially my best one, and guilt normally reserved for the next morning poured in. Not only was I feeling that miserable no more drugs and drinks feeling that many of you may relate too, but in an instant I recognized that this was no longer any fun. The party wrapped and my best friend stayed over for safety reasons in the guest bedroom. I left the empty glasses, bottles, and dusty mirror where they lay, watched the flames flicker out around 4am (let the smoldering begin), and joined my sleeping wife in the bed, laid my head down on the pillow, and the next thing I remember is…I WOKE UP!!
It’s taken me over a week to be ready to write this, and I didn’t think it was going to be this long. Thank you to anyone who even reads this, gives life to my words and feelings. As you can imagine I’ve been on a roller coaster of emotional thoughts this past week from, “I’m never touching the stuff again, not even a dinner drink of wine,” to “wasn’t that cool how I was comping from a homeless man when you pulled up to pick us up.” I have however confronted some serious truths regarding my drinking with my wife and she has been amazing in support and we are in a really good place. I’ve stated to her that I’m taking a break from alcohol 100% right now to evaluate its role in my life. I’ve wanted to state a little more due to my suspicions that this will have to be it for the rest of my life, but she is afraid that my extremist personality will do really well for a while and then the pendulum will once again swing ever so slowly to a place where I’m in trouble again, even if it’s just once random night while out with a friend. Which brings me to the “am I” or “am I not” question I told you was coming. Originally when I rough drafted this in my head I had a lot of leading questions I was going to leave you with that I believed would help me determine if I can ever have a glass of Merlot again with a steak on an Anniversary, but I think I’m just going to ask you for your reactions to my story. Just the act of typing this out has led me in a certain direction with my thoughts and truth be told, I’m not really begging for that glass of Merlot anytime soon. I actually don’t even like the taste of alcohol and really just enjoyed the party aspect of it which I know (and so does she) can and never will happen again (God willing of course). So out of respect for her feelings that swearing off alcohol 110% percent could backfire, I turn it over to you guys, my new friends at SR.
Last edited by soberShane; 04-02-2014 at 08:16 AM. Reason: paragraph spacing
Forum Leader
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Wisconsin, USA
Posts: 16,945
Welcome and thanks for your story SoberShane. It could have been written by many of us, and take heard in knowing that you are definitely not alone.
To me it sounds like sobriety would be a good choice for you - but as you've most likely read you have to make that final determination.
If it helps, I had a similar upbringing and early adult life where I wasn't wealthy but I always had what I needed provided for me either by my parents or by having a good job despite my partying the entire time. Later in life it caught up with me though - drinking became a necessity rather than a recreation ( and a bad one at that ).
Another thing to keep in mind is that most of us have underlying issues that need to be dealt with outside our drinking/drugs. Some of them are componded by using, but they don't simply go away when we quit. A recovery plan has to include not only "not drinking" but also concrete plans to deal with those other issues - therapy/exercice/etc.
I use SR as my main support mechanism, there is a wealth of info here and a whole lot of people who have been ( or are ) exactly where you are now. So don't be a stranger and best of luck to you.
To me it sounds like sobriety would be a good choice for you - but as you've most likely read you have to make that final determination.
If it helps, I had a similar upbringing and early adult life where I wasn't wealthy but I always had what I needed provided for me either by my parents or by having a good job despite my partying the entire time. Later in life it caught up with me though - drinking became a necessity rather than a recreation ( and a bad one at that ).
Another thing to keep in mind is that most of us have underlying issues that need to be dealt with outside our drinking/drugs. Some of them are componded by using, but they don't simply go away when we quit. A recovery plan has to include not only "not drinking" but also concrete plans to deal with those other issues - therapy/exercice/etc.
I use SR as my main support mechanism, there is a wealth of info here and a whole lot of people who have been ( or are ) exactly where you are now. So don't be a stranger and best of luck to you.
as a sober contributor
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: California
Posts: 1,312
Welcome to SR, SoberShane. That is one heck of a 1st post man! I am glad that you have lived through all those incidents (you are 1 lucky dude!) but I hope you see that there is a very good possibility that the next time you might not be SO lucky.
From the tone of your last paragraph, I think you have figured out what you need to do. SAVE yourself, your marriage and your future Shane and put some serious thought into getting clean and sober for good!
I have used all those substances (and some you didn't mention....) and come out alive. I was lucky enough to never get a DUI or have a serious accident (came VERY close, several times...) or do any jail time before I ended my 40 year drinking career 20 months ago and gave up weed 16 months ago (today!). I also had a serious Coke problem way back when but I gave that up 33 years ago (along with LSD, Speed, Quayludes, Shrooms etc....).
Here is a list that I posted in my 1 year sobriety thread when I was asked for some tips. I hope that this is helpful to you.
My advice is this:
1. Admit to YOURSELF that you are the problem.
2. Remove all alcohol (and drugs) from your home.
3. Determine who your TRUE friends are. (hint: not your party buddies)
4. Distance yourself from anyone who is a threat to your sobriety.
5. Surround yourself with people who truly care about you.
6. Allow yourself to experience the emotions that will come about by making these changes in your life.
7. EXERCISE and drink lots of water.
8. Just DON'T DRINK. For the next minute, hour, day, week or month... whatever works for you.
It sounds like you have a lot of good things in your life Shane, please don't throw them away.
Good Luck!
From the tone of your last paragraph, I think you have figured out what you need to do. SAVE yourself, your marriage and your future Shane and put some serious thought into getting clean and sober for good!
I have used all those substances (and some you didn't mention....) and come out alive. I was lucky enough to never get a DUI or have a serious accident (came VERY close, several times...) or do any jail time before I ended my 40 year drinking career 20 months ago and gave up weed 16 months ago (today!). I also had a serious Coke problem way back when but I gave that up 33 years ago (along with LSD, Speed, Quayludes, Shrooms etc....).
Here is a list that I posted in my 1 year sobriety thread when I was asked for some tips. I hope that this is helpful to you.
My advice is this:
1. Admit to YOURSELF that you are the problem.
2. Remove all alcohol (and drugs) from your home.
3. Determine who your TRUE friends are. (hint: not your party buddies)
4. Distance yourself from anyone who is a threat to your sobriety.
5. Surround yourself with people who truly care about you.
6. Allow yourself to experience the emotions that will come about by making these changes in your life.
7. EXERCISE and drink lots of water.
8. Just DON'T DRINK. For the next minute, hour, day, week or month... whatever works for you.
It sounds like you have a lot of good things in your life Shane, please don't throw them away.
Good Luck!
Community Greeter
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Upstate New York
Posts: 51,560
It's very good to meet you soberShane - I'm so glad you wanted to share your story and be part of us. I've had similar horrific events - and many 'How Could I's'.
Because the normies in my life had no clue what I was going through - SR has meant the world to me. I can be myself and share things that others truly understand. The anxiety surrounding quitting was lessened greatly when I made my first few posts. I'm glad you lived to tell the tale of your awakening - it's wonderful to be free.
Because the normies in my life had no clue what I was going through - SR has meant the world to me. I can be myself and share things that others truly understand. The anxiety surrounding quitting was lessened greatly when I made my first few posts. I'm glad you lived to tell the tale of your awakening - it's wonderful to be free.
☀️⛳️
Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: Scotland
Posts: 1,506
Originally Posted by soberShane 
Today is April 2, 2014 and one week ago today, I woke up! I woke up to my new wife of just over 3 months yelling at me that the patio fire pit, in our first home that we just finished purchasing in early March, was still smoking and smoldering thus flooding our beautiful and prized patio with smoke. The nice neighbors from next door apparently had also been concerned and my wife observed them peaking over the fence to ensure our house or backyard wasn't on fire. Thankfully it wasn't as I was sure I had been responsible in the night before (make that early morning twilight hours) when I “went to bed.” So despite being still drunk as a skunk and coked beyond belief, I somehow mustered the strength to crawl out of bed, douse the fire, and placate her feelings some before she headed off to work and I enjoyed (if you can call being hung over and having to sleep all day enjoyment) my day off. No worries that she actually had to wake me up again to douse the embers one more time, it was all going to be fine, I was going to go back to sleep, wake up in a few hours, enjoy those amazing post partying cups of coffee, play basketball with my friends, and revel in the feeling of how awesome last night was. However this time, something was different, very different.
Before I go any further with what happened to me a week ago today, let me give you a little back story on me and a little more on my relationships with substance. And before you ask, yes this is going to resemble another one of those, “am I an alcoholic threads,” that I've read so many of in the week it’s taken me to collect enough reason and courage to write this post.
I grew up in a nice suburb, didn't really have a strong dad in my life and the one I did have did drugs, and drank, so my mom cautiously kept him pretty far away. My step dad was a great guy in many respects but had teenage and adult children who would always come over to our lake house and drink their faces off almost every weekend. They were the Miller Light till they popped crowd and today have the weight issues to show for it. No matter how bad their drinking would get (and I mean as a kid I witnessed grown women falling into the pool and having to be “rescued” by grown drunk men on the regular so it was bad), I and they would just assume it was social drinking aka partying gone too far. Needless to say, I got my boating license at an early age after many years of driving it for them without the law on my side, perhaps in retrospect this was my first experience with enabling and co-dependency but I’ll save that for my counselor if I ever talk with one.
As I got older I became interested in sports, youth group, and music. I never once touched substance in middle school, and for virtually every moment in high school till the end of senior year maintained that I didn't drink. I really believed that at the time, and as I went to college and learned to drink at epic levels, so it made what I later did recall as getting smashed in high school seem like child’s play in comparison. One time was my uncle’s wedding where the bartender let me consume too much of that god awfully sweet Arbor Mist. I was a 16 maybe 17 year old and I ended up being driven home, and tore apart my room and can remember laughing the whole time. Upon awakening I was mortified to realize the nightmare was for real, but quickly learned the positive power of shaking it off and “learning to laugh” about your mistakes. Had this been the only time something like this happened, maybe that idea would have been nice, but I can visually remember at least 2 other times something similar happened. The scary thing though is I found an old journal from my sophomore year and discovered an entry talking about my guilty feelings of getting drunk with a friend one night. Well I remember the friend, I remember some of the trouble we’d get into (ie: walking through the Taco Bell drive through to be funny while sober), but I didn't remember this. So this is where my brain learned to forget the things that might make me want to quit drinking. Great! But as it always does, it gets much worse.
Senior year flew by and now I've tried weed on limited occasion and made an effort to party a little bit whereas before it was almost happenstance that I was around alcohol. So now we enter the early college years where I’ll learn to drink “power hour” style with my dorm mates, smoke weed with towels under the door so we don’t get kicked out of school and thrown in jail, and I’ll even try some harder drugs like ecstasy and cocaine once in a blue moon, but they will honestly only become novelties for now. Did I mention that by graduation day in high school, I was no longer in youth group, no longer playing music with my band, and no longer involved with nearly anything I was before except my job. Of course at the time, and for many years later I thought this was simply me growing up or changing. I even painted the quote, “Not all who wander are lost,” on my room wall at my parent’s house so that everyone could see how unique I was to be experimenting with life so much. To sum it all up, I was a good kid, with a great childhood. I was raised right, and taught to love life. Unfortunately that doesn't protect you from yourself as it should I suppose.
Fast forwarding, my “changing/wandering” continued. I’ll spare you the play by play of what happened every year since then, but let’s just say I've had my times where I partied every night, times when I've stayed far away from any substance, and times when I would only drink or smoke on rare occasion like a family gathering, etc. Even though I don’t have a career path in life, and can honestly not even begin to imagine what that will be, I've always had a job, and great personal success despite the damage I've done in those departments as well. I seem to cycle in and out of usage and have been leery always of letting go too much, so I keep one foot firmly planted in Safe and I live my life in this state of limbo, telling myself that I’m a fully functioning person who just loves to party once in a while. I ignore the times I blackout over the years and my wife to be has to wrestle with a giant man-child to get him home from the concert we went to. I accept the awkward situations as just a part of the deal when it comes to going out. I subconsciously illustrate that I can control myself and it (if you know what I mean) by having many a fantastic dinner out where a glass or two (seriously not creative count) of red wine was enjoyed, and a true, pure good time had by all. I go through periods of a beer and cigar after work to relax and nothing more, and I even go through periods of no drinking or maybe twice a month where we go to the beach, sip a nice mixed drink, and enjoy the sun and that warm relaxed feeling. That soothing elixir, flowing through my bloodstream, brain and body, and a loved one lying next to me and the day being absolutely perfect, no joke, thus the seeds of confusion were sown deep into my soul over the years and water with some bittersweet denial. In reality, I’m really just a lucky bastard because all this was over the course of the last 6 years, since I’ve been with the woman who became my wife this past January, and it has been a walk in the park compared with the unbridled usage that led up to our relationship (actually a huge sober blessing in my life is she), which not even a potentially fatal car accident could curtail.
It’s March of 2007 and we’re in the latter college years that I've yet to speak about. I’ve been a server now for a few years and am no longer enrolled at the state university here in town but community college because my grades were garbage. Again I was “changing” and remember, wandering doesn't mean you’re lost. Also blowing my pre-paid tuition, state funded scholarship, and grandma’s, small but sufficient, inheritance is just par for the journey and not indicative of a control problem since I “chose” to do so (which is both true and false at the same time). By now, I party nearly every night as a server and about a year before this accident, I get so drunk while out with friends one night that they call an ambulance for me because I’m that crazy, and they are honestly afraid for my safety. The funny thing is I actually remember parts of this night despite acting like I was in total blackout mode, does anybody have any experiences like that? Please share them if you do.
The night of the accident the same thing happens. We go out to a huge dance club with some friends from work. Not my usual crowd, but a mix of everyone, including normal drinkers and career partiers like me. I remember getting to the club, parking my car for overnight storage since we were going to split a cab home and come back for it in the morning, and ordering my first 2 long islands of the night, then I woke up… in the Emergency Room at a hospital I had never even heard of on the extreme western edge of the metro area, where none of my life functions were located. The first thing I remember is a nurse’s voice saying something sweet to me and a clock showing a time that gave me the sense it was morning and many hours after the last thing I remember which was of course getting to the bar and buying drinks around 11pm. I remember feeling shocked that I was there and not sure of why, then it all came crashing (pun intended) back to me. Well not “it all” since I can only to this day recall 2 significant moments of what happened, a flash memory of my speedometer being above 80mph while nearing a curve of some sort in the road, and opening the door of the wrecked car, stumbling out, and trying to run from the situation when an angel of a bystander stopped his car, got out to help me, and must have phoned for help. Miraculously, the way the car rolled as I flew off what I would later come to find out was the turnpike on-ramp heading towards Miami, the driver’s side was the only area not smashed flat as the force was so great that even the tiny 4 cylinder engine was ripped from the frame and left lying in the grassy median. I literally walked away from this accident and was able the leave the hospital as soon as I woke up. The 2nd miracle of the morning for me was that the nurse said that a highway patrol officer waited for over 4 hours for me to awake so that he could legally collect evidence from me that would have surely landed me my first, only, and well overdue DUI. He had just left before I woke up and left contact info for the case, which after calling the next day I would learn was written off as a simple driver losing control accident so I even got a $6,000 check from my insurance company since I had paid the car off already. In that very moment I went from being the no-stick Prince to King Teflon.
The story continues after months of sobriety and going back to church, which will happen after you’re scared straight by a night like this. However, alcohol found a way to ease its way back into my life during a great and wholesome vacation to Cedar Point with some buddies. We had such a great time at the park all day, enjoying the natural highs of these extreme coasters that we decided to walk from our motel to a dive bar nearby. We shared some pitchers and enjoyed the night, where I’m sure I took it too far and such but managed to write it off as see look, I can drink in moderation again. Upon returning back home from that trip I went on a business trip to Phoenix with some people who would become my employers and business partners in 2009 and was treated to some pretty incredible meals and of course dinner drinks, again a sign that I didn’t have a problem (anymore) because if I did both Cedar Point and Phoenix would have been disasters right?
Months pass again and it’s Christmas time of 2007. I’m sneaking out of my folk’s house where I’m living again due to choosing to put that $6,000 down on a brand new car instead of buying a used one, and I’m meeting my new BFF the coke dealer at his current extended stay room for a holiday celebration, revolving around a transaction involving the sale of a protective device that I wish not to name on here. I would go into further detail about how this felt, about how my parting was every night but functional nonetheless, but I’ll just cut to the chase.
I’ve always struggled with substance, alcohol being the foundation and the root of that. Actually without it, cocaine and weed have little to no appeal to me. I was only a typical stoner during a few of those college years, you know the routine, wake up, smoke, watch some Family Guy, eat, smoke some more, skip class, etc. The older and more “sophisticated” I got with my partying, the more weed just became a spice or condiment for me. No longer would I do it just to be stoned and listen to some good music or whatnot, it had to be to mellow me out while coming down from coke, or to prevent a hangover while drinking (I think that’s a myth BTW). The same eventually applied to cocaine but in a different way, no drinky, no cokey, I had to have both, that combination of rushes. I actually believed that this was a sign that I was just a party animal or otherwise I’d just do the drug by itself like those people you see on Intervention. How could I have gone back to partying, and with such a vengeance that I would add the previously only dabbled with cocaine to the nightly playbill? How could I have actually enjoyed waking up on my dealer’s sofa, in debt to him for a gram, almost running late for work, and maybe $3 in my pocked which I saved for a little more than a gallon of gas to get me home, showered, and back to work so that I could make enough money to pay what I owed, and do it all over again. Thank god the bread and soda where I worked was free!
I stopped doing coke when I got together with my future wife in March of 2008, 1 full year after my accident in which I was maybe stone cold sober for a 1/3 of that time right afterwards obviously. I stopped everything and really made a change in my life. Moved to SC where she was from and with a newly rediscovered zeal for clean living, started a life. I actually considered myself an alcoholic then and didn’t drink at all but somehow slowly it crept back in, which brings me to the past 7 days in which I’ve had lots of time to think but am convinced of nothing. Even after writing all of this to you today, I’m still not sure of anything except the fact that I could drink right now if I wanted to and not endure a huge problem. I would not wind up tonight downtown Orlando looking to make a lopsided and dangerous street deal for the sake of partying. I really, truly could, drink in moderation any day or night of the week until I grant myself “permission” to go a little crazy and have a few extra like I did the night of the fire pit incident. See I had been really good lately and have only had a few glasses of wine on select nights since moving into the new house. No raging parties, no going out, actually my life has been pretty clean for quite some time which makes joining a recovery forum and speaking in AA terms a little weird. But last Tuesday I went to an NBA game with my best friend and we got a ride downtown from my wife. We took shots before (to save money at the arena) and had a few beers once at the game. We had failed to line up some coke ahead of time from either one of our connections which I still have from being in the restaurant biz. Since this was going to be a drunk night out only, we had to do it right. But around halftime I went into awake-blackout mode again, left the arena, and walked right into the ghetto to score, and did. Then called the troops from my work with the better coke connect and went and took out $200 from our joint accounts for the eight ball. We ended up back at my new house and kept the noise to a minimum and I kept the party on the porch since my wife was sleeping and had to get up at 5am for work. See look how courteous I was and I even came home with my friends relatively early since I didn’t feel a married man should be out all night making his wife wonder, so her knowing I was on the porch enjoying a buzz was my way of thinking about her in that moment (don’t worry I wanna barf too). I was having a great time since this was not the norm anymore in my life all night until about 3am when we did the last of the lines off my bedroom mirror I had brought out on the porch. We were taking shots of anything we had and packing weed bowls in preparation of the comedown and I was trying to source more coke. Then it hit me, I saw the faces of my friends, especially my best one, and guilt normally reserved for the next morning poured in. Not only was I feeling that miserable no more drugs and drinks feeling that many of you may relate too, but in an instant I recognized that this was no longer any fun. The party wrapped and my best friend stayed over for safety reasons in the guest bedroom. I left the empty glasses, bottles, and dusty mirror where they lay, watched the flames flicker out around 4am (let the smoldering begin), and joined my sleeping wife in the bed, laid my head down on the pillow, and the next thing I remember is…I WOKE UP!!
It’s taken me over a week to be ready to write this, and I didn’t think it was going to be this long. Thank you to anyone who even reads this, gives life to my words and feelings. As you can imagine I’ve been on a roller coaster of emotional thoughts this past week from, “I’m never touching the stuff again, not even a dinner drink of wine,” to “wasn’t that cool how I was comping from a homeless man when you pulled up to pick us up.” I have however confronted some serious truths regarding my drinking with my wife and she has been amazing in support and we are in a really good place. I’ve stated to her that I’m taking a break from alcohol 100% right now to evaluate its role in my life. I’ve wanted to state a little more due to my suspicions that this will have to be it for the rest of my life, but she is afraid that my extremist personality will do really well for a while and then the pendulum will once again swing ever so slowly to a place where I’m in trouble again, even if it’s just once random night while out with a friend. Which brings me to the “am I” or “am I not” question I told you was coming. Originally when I rough drafted this in my head I had a lot of leading questions I was going to leave you with that I believed would help me determine if I can ever have a glass of Merlot again with a steak on an Anniversary, but I think I’m just going to ask you for your reactions to my story. Just the act of typing this out has led me in a certain direction with my thoughts and truth be told, I’m not really begging for that glass of Merlot anytime soon. I actually don’t even like the taste of alcohol and really just enjoyed the party aspect of it which I know (and so does she) can and never will happen again (God willing of course). So out of respect for her feelings that swearing off alcohol 110% percent could backfire, I turn it over to you guys, my new friends at SR.
Before I go any further with what happened to me a week ago today, let me give you a little back story on me and a little more on my relationships with substance. And before you ask, yes this is going to resemble another one of those, “am I an alcoholic threads,” that I've read so many of in the week it’s taken me to collect enough reason and courage to write this post.
I grew up in a nice suburb, didn't really have a strong dad in my life and the one I did have did drugs, and drank, so my mom cautiously kept him pretty far away. My step dad was a great guy in many respects but had teenage and adult children who would always come over to our lake house and drink their faces off almost every weekend. They were the Miller Light till they popped crowd and today have the weight issues to show for it. No matter how bad their drinking would get (and I mean as a kid I witnessed grown women falling into the pool and having to be “rescued” by grown drunk men on the regular so it was bad), I and they would just assume it was social drinking aka partying gone too far. Needless to say, I got my boating license at an early age after many years of driving it for them without the law on my side, perhaps in retrospect this was my first experience with enabling and co-dependency but I’ll save that for my counselor if I ever talk with one.
As I got older I became interested in sports, youth group, and music. I never once touched substance in middle school, and for virtually every moment in high school till the end of senior year maintained that I didn't drink. I really believed that at the time, and as I went to college and learned to drink at epic levels, so it made what I later did recall as getting smashed in high school seem like child’s play in comparison. One time was my uncle’s wedding where the bartender let me consume too much of that god awfully sweet Arbor Mist. I was a 16 maybe 17 year old and I ended up being driven home, and tore apart my room and can remember laughing the whole time. Upon awakening I was mortified to realize the nightmare was for real, but quickly learned the positive power of shaking it off and “learning to laugh” about your mistakes. Had this been the only time something like this happened, maybe that idea would have been nice, but I can visually remember at least 2 other times something similar happened. The scary thing though is I found an old journal from my sophomore year and discovered an entry talking about my guilty feelings of getting drunk with a friend one night. Well I remember the friend, I remember some of the trouble we’d get into (ie: walking through the Taco Bell drive through to be funny while sober), but I didn't remember this. So this is where my brain learned to forget the things that might make me want to quit drinking. Great! But as it always does, it gets much worse.
Senior year flew by and now I've tried weed on limited occasion and made an effort to party a little bit whereas before it was almost happenstance that I was around alcohol. So now we enter the early college years where I’ll learn to drink “power hour” style with my dorm mates, smoke weed with towels under the door so we don’t get kicked out of school and thrown in jail, and I’ll even try some harder drugs like ecstasy and cocaine once in a blue moon, but they will honestly only become novelties for now. Did I mention that by graduation day in high school, I was no longer in youth group, no longer playing music with my band, and no longer involved with nearly anything I was before except my job. Of course at the time, and for many years later I thought this was simply me growing up or changing. I even painted the quote, “Not all who wander are lost,” on my room wall at my parent’s house so that everyone could see how unique I was to be experimenting with life so much. To sum it all up, I was a good kid, with a great childhood. I was raised right, and taught to love life. Unfortunately that doesn't protect you from yourself as it should I suppose.
Fast forwarding, my “changing/wandering” continued. I’ll spare you the play by play of what happened every year since then, but let’s just say I've had my times where I partied every night, times when I've stayed far away from any substance, and times when I would only drink or smoke on rare occasion like a family gathering, etc. Even though I don’t have a career path in life, and can honestly not even begin to imagine what that will be, I've always had a job, and great personal success despite the damage I've done in those departments as well. I seem to cycle in and out of usage and have been leery always of letting go too much, so I keep one foot firmly planted in Safe and I live my life in this state of limbo, telling myself that I’m a fully functioning person who just loves to party once in a while. I ignore the times I blackout over the years and my wife to be has to wrestle with a giant man-child to get him home from the concert we went to. I accept the awkward situations as just a part of the deal when it comes to going out. I subconsciously illustrate that I can control myself and it (if you know what I mean) by having many a fantastic dinner out where a glass or two (seriously not creative count) of red wine was enjoyed, and a true, pure good time had by all. I go through periods of a beer and cigar after work to relax and nothing more, and I even go through periods of no drinking or maybe twice a month where we go to the beach, sip a nice mixed drink, and enjoy the sun and that warm relaxed feeling. That soothing elixir, flowing through my bloodstream, brain and body, and a loved one lying next to me and the day being absolutely perfect, no joke, thus the seeds of confusion were sown deep into my soul over the years and water with some bittersweet denial. In reality, I’m really just a lucky bastard because all this was over the course of the last 6 years, since I’ve been with the woman who became my wife this past January, and it has been a walk in the park compared with the unbridled usage that led up to our relationship (actually a huge sober blessing in my life is she), which not even a potentially fatal car accident could curtail.
It’s March of 2007 and we’re in the latter college years that I've yet to speak about. I’ve been a server now for a few years and am no longer enrolled at the state university here in town but community college because my grades were garbage. Again I was “changing” and remember, wandering doesn't mean you’re lost. Also blowing my pre-paid tuition, state funded scholarship, and grandma’s, small but sufficient, inheritance is just par for the journey and not indicative of a control problem since I “chose” to do so (which is both true and false at the same time). By now, I party nearly every night as a server and about a year before this accident, I get so drunk while out with friends one night that they call an ambulance for me because I’m that crazy, and they are honestly afraid for my safety. The funny thing is I actually remember parts of this night despite acting like I was in total blackout mode, does anybody have any experiences like that? Please share them if you do.
The night of the accident the same thing happens. We go out to a huge dance club with some friends from work. Not my usual crowd, but a mix of everyone, including normal drinkers and career partiers like me. I remember getting to the club, parking my car for overnight storage since we were going to split a cab home and come back for it in the morning, and ordering my first 2 long islands of the night, then I woke up… in the Emergency Room at a hospital I had never even heard of on the extreme western edge of the metro area, where none of my life functions were located. The first thing I remember is a nurse’s voice saying something sweet to me and a clock showing a time that gave me the sense it was morning and many hours after the last thing I remember which was of course getting to the bar and buying drinks around 11pm. I remember feeling shocked that I was there and not sure of why, then it all came crashing (pun intended) back to me. Well not “it all” since I can only to this day recall 2 significant moments of what happened, a flash memory of my speedometer being above 80mph while nearing a curve of some sort in the road, and opening the door of the wrecked car, stumbling out, and trying to run from the situation when an angel of a bystander stopped his car, got out to help me, and must have phoned for help. Miraculously, the way the car rolled as I flew off what I would later come to find out was the turnpike on-ramp heading towards Miami, the driver’s side was the only area not smashed flat as the force was so great that even the tiny 4 cylinder engine was ripped from the frame and left lying in the grassy median. I literally walked away from this accident and was able the leave the hospital as soon as I woke up. The 2nd miracle of the morning for me was that the nurse said that a highway patrol officer waited for over 4 hours for me to awake so that he could legally collect evidence from me that would have surely landed me my first, only, and well overdue DUI. He had just left before I woke up and left contact info for the case, which after calling the next day I would learn was written off as a simple driver losing control accident so I even got a $6,000 check from my insurance company since I had paid the car off already. In that very moment I went from being the no-stick Prince to King Teflon.
The story continues after months of sobriety and going back to church, which will happen after you’re scared straight by a night like this. However, alcohol found a way to ease its way back into my life during a great and wholesome vacation to Cedar Point with some buddies. We had such a great time at the park all day, enjoying the natural highs of these extreme coasters that we decided to walk from our motel to a dive bar nearby. We shared some pitchers and enjoyed the night, where I’m sure I took it too far and such but managed to write it off as see look, I can drink in moderation again. Upon returning back home from that trip I went on a business trip to Phoenix with some people who would become my employers and business partners in 2009 and was treated to some pretty incredible meals and of course dinner drinks, again a sign that I didn’t have a problem (anymore) because if I did both Cedar Point and Phoenix would have been disasters right?
Months pass again and it’s Christmas time of 2007. I’m sneaking out of my folk’s house where I’m living again due to choosing to put that $6,000 down on a brand new car instead of buying a used one, and I’m meeting my new BFF the coke dealer at his current extended stay room for a holiday celebration, revolving around a transaction involving the sale of a protective device that I wish not to name on here. I would go into further detail about how this felt, about how my parting was every night but functional nonetheless, but I’ll just cut to the chase.
I’ve always struggled with substance, alcohol being the foundation and the root of that. Actually without it, cocaine and weed have little to no appeal to me. I was only a typical stoner during a few of those college years, you know the routine, wake up, smoke, watch some Family Guy, eat, smoke some more, skip class, etc. The older and more “sophisticated” I got with my partying, the more weed just became a spice or condiment for me. No longer would I do it just to be stoned and listen to some good music or whatnot, it had to be to mellow me out while coming down from coke, or to prevent a hangover while drinking (I think that’s a myth BTW). The same eventually applied to cocaine but in a different way, no drinky, no cokey, I had to have both, that combination of rushes. I actually believed that this was a sign that I was just a party animal or otherwise I’d just do the drug by itself like those people you see on Intervention. How could I have gone back to partying, and with such a vengeance that I would add the previously only dabbled with cocaine to the nightly playbill? How could I have actually enjoyed waking up on my dealer’s sofa, in debt to him for a gram, almost running late for work, and maybe $3 in my pocked which I saved for a little more than a gallon of gas to get me home, showered, and back to work so that I could make enough money to pay what I owed, and do it all over again. Thank god the bread and soda where I worked was free!
I stopped doing coke when I got together with my future wife in March of 2008, 1 full year after my accident in which I was maybe stone cold sober for a 1/3 of that time right afterwards obviously. I stopped everything and really made a change in my life. Moved to SC where she was from and with a newly rediscovered zeal for clean living, started a life. I actually considered myself an alcoholic then and didn’t drink at all but somehow slowly it crept back in, which brings me to the past 7 days in which I’ve had lots of time to think but am convinced of nothing. Even after writing all of this to you today, I’m still not sure of anything except the fact that I could drink right now if I wanted to and not endure a huge problem. I would not wind up tonight downtown Orlando looking to make a lopsided and dangerous street deal for the sake of partying. I really, truly could, drink in moderation any day or night of the week until I grant myself “permission” to go a little crazy and have a few extra like I did the night of the fire pit incident. See I had been really good lately and have only had a few glasses of wine on select nights since moving into the new house. No raging parties, no going out, actually my life has been pretty clean for quite some time which makes joining a recovery forum and speaking in AA terms a little weird. But last Tuesday I went to an NBA game with my best friend and we got a ride downtown from my wife. We took shots before (to save money at the arena) and had a few beers once at the game. We had failed to line up some coke ahead of time from either one of our connections which I still have from being in the restaurant biz. Since this was going to be a drunk night out only, we had to do it right. But around halftime I went into awake-blackout mode again, left the arena, and walked right into the ghetto to score, and did. Then called the troops from my work with the better coke connect and went and took out $200 from our joint accounts for the eight ball. We ended up back at my new house and kept the noise to a minimum and I kept the party on the porch since my wife was sleeping and had to get up at 5am for work. See look how courteous I was and I even came home with my friends relatively early since I didn’t feel a married man should be out all night making his wife wonder, so her knowing I was on the porch enjoying a buzz was my way of thinking about her in that moment (don’t worry I wanna barf too). I was having a great time since this was not the norm anymore in my life all night until about 3am when we did the last of the lines off my bedroom mirror I had brought out on the porch. We were taking shots of anything we had and packing weed bowls in preparation of the comedown and I was trying to source more coke. Then it hit me, I saw the faces of my friends, especially my best one, and guilt normally reserved for the next morning poured in. Not only was I feeling that miserable no more drugs and drinks feeling that many of you may relate too, but in an instant I recognized that this was no longer any fun. The party wrapped and my best friend stayed over for safety reasons in the guest bedroom. I left the empty glasses, bottles, and dusty mirror where they lay, watched the flames flicker out around 4am (let the smoldering begin), and joined my sleeping wife in the bed, laid my head down on the pillow, and the next thing I remember is…I WOKE UP!!
It’s taken me over a week to be ready to write this, and I didn’t think it was going to be this long. Thank you to anyone who even reads this, gives life to my words and feelings. As you can imagine I’ve been on a roller coaster of emotional thoughts this past week from, “I’m never touching the stuff again, not even a dinner drink of wine,” to “wasn’t that cool how I was comping from a homeless man when you pulled up to pick us up.” I have however confronted some serious truths regarding my drinking with my wife and she has been amazing in support and we are in a really good place. I’ve stated to her that I’m taking a break from alcohol 100% right now to evaluate its role in my life. I’ve wanted to state a little more due to my suspicions that this will have to be it for the rest of my life, but she is afraid that my extremist personality will do really well for a while and then the pendulum will once again swing ever so slowly to a place where I’m in trouble again, even if it’s just once random night while out with a friend. Which brings me to the “am I” or “am I not” question I told you was coming. Originally when I rough drafted this in my head I had a lot of leading questions I was going to leave you with that I believed would help me determine if I can ever have a glass of Merlot again with a steak on an Anniversary, but I think I’m just going to ask you for your reactions to my story. Just the act of typing this out has led me in a certain direction with my thoughts and truth be told, I’m not really begging for that glass of Merlot anytime soon. I actually don’t even like the taste of alcohol and really just enjoyed the party aspect of it which I know (and so does she) can and never will happen again (God willing of course). So out of respect for her feelings that swearing off alcohol 110% percent could backfire, I turn it over to you guys, my new friends at SR.
Member
Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: TN
Posts: 263
Welcome to SR - glad you are alive and well and actually able to be here and share your story!
I, too, have been lucky not to have killed someone or myself while driving around in black out mode. Alcohol was/is also my gateway drug. Without it, no interest in other substances, but with it, I have ingested a ridiculously long list of substances and many times over.
Whether you're an alcoholic or not, I don't know. It could have already taken everything from you. You may not have even been able to meet the woman that you love or have the things you have today. Sometimes labels aren't as important as we make them out to be.
Congratulations on waking up! I wish you peace and strength as you move forward day by day.
I, too, have been lucky not to have killed someone or myself while driving around in black out mode. Alcohol was/is also my gateway drug. Without it, no interest in other substances, but with it, I have ingested a ridiculously long list of substances and many times over.
Whether you're an alcoholic or not, I don't know. It could have already taken everything from you. You may not have even been able to meet the woman that you love or have the things you have today. Sometimes labels aren't as important as we make them out to be.
Congratulations on waking up! I wish you peace and strength as you move forward day by day.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Orlando, FL
Posts: 8
Thank you everyone for everything you said, it means a lot that you take my situation seriously. I'm away from my computer till evening at which point I'd like to reply to you guys properly.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Around and About
Posts: 1,254
Welcome SoberShane, and to be contrary to another post above, not all of us could have written that story. You are a fine writer and should take that into consideration in a desire to stop drinking. There is a book called: "Those Drinking Days" which talks about casualties of alcoholism among writers, and although many of them did very great work, it leaves us wondering what they might have done if they had chosen sobriety.
Think about it. You can go ahead and have the same experience a 1000 times (if you live through it) or you can choose sobriety and have a 1000 different experiences.
Think about it. You can go ahead and have the same experience a 1000 times (if you live through it) or you can choose sobriety and have a 1000 different experiences.
Forum Leader
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Wisconsin, USA
Posts: 16,945
Originally Posted by Pamel
contrary to another post above, not all of us could have written that story.
Member
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Wales UK
Posts: 859
Supportive wife.
It won't be long before you will be so much more than a husband that needs supporting.
Am I or not, doesn't matter the sysmic shift caught you, and it'll help keep you straight enough till the joy of your life in sobriety takes off.
I often enjoyed the thoughts and some parts of getting ripped but the reality was a much darker confused and messy place!
Keep on here, and see where it takes you.
Hope next week is a good one.
John.
It won't be long before you will be so much more than a husband that needs supporting.
Am I or not, doesn't matter the sysmic shift caught you, and it'll help keep you straight enough till the joy of your life in sobriety takes off.
I often enjoyed the thoughts and some parts of getting ripped but the reality was a much darker confused and messy place!
Keep on here, and see where it takes you.
Hope next week is a good one.
John.
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,432
Welcome Shane
sounds like you're a pretty lucky guy
The thing I really like about recovery is now I get to be who I always wanted to be - I can look myself in the eyes in the mirror again and I know I'm always there for my loved ones my family and my community....
great that you found us. What kinds of things are you considering to help you stay sober?
D
sounds like you're a pretty lucky guy
The thing I really like about recovery is now I get to be who I always wanted to be - I can look myself in the eyes in the mirror again and I know I'm always there for my loved ones my family and my community....
great that you found us. What kinds of things are you considering to help you stay sober?
D
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Orlando, FL
Posts: 8
Originally Posted by ScottFromWI
Welcome and thanks for your story SoberShane. It could have been written by many of us, and take heard in knowing that you are definitely not alone.
To me it sounds like sobriety would be a good choice for you - but as you've most likely read you have to make that final determination.
If it helps, I had a similar upbringing and early adult life where I wasn't wealthy but I always had what I needed provided for me either by my parents or by having a good job despite my partying the entire time. Later in life it caught up with me though - drinking became a necessity rather than a recreation ( and a bad one at that ).
Another thing to keep in mind is that most of us have underlying issues that need to be dealt with outside our drinking/drugs. Some of them are componded by using, but they don't simply go away when we quit. A recovery plan has to include not only "not drinking" but also concrete plans to deal with those other issues - therapy/exercice/etc.
I use SR as my main support mechanism, there is a wealth of info here and a whole lot of people who have been ( or are ) exactly where you are now. So don't be a stranger and best of luck to you.
To me it sounds like sobriety would be a good choice for you - but as you've most likely read you have to make that final determination.
If it helps, I had a similar upbringing and early adult life where I wasn't wealthy but I always had what I needed provided for me either by my parents or by having a good job despite my partying the entire time. Later in life it caught up with me though - drinking became a necessity rather than a recreation ( and a bad one at that ).
Another thing to keep in mind is that most of us have underlying issues that need to be dealt with outside our drinking/drugs. Some of them are componded by using, but they don't simply go away when we quit. A recovery plan has to include not only "not drinking" but also concrete plans to deal with those other issues - therapy/exercice/etc.
I use SR as my main support mechanism, there is a wealth of info here and a whole lot of people who have been ( or are ) exactly where you are now. So don't be a stranger and best of luck to you.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Orlando, FL
Posts: 8
Originally Posted by Hope4Life
Welcome to SR, SoberShane. That is one heck of a 1st post man! I am glad that you have lived through all those incidents (you are 1 lucky dude!) but I hope you see that there is a very good possibility that the next time you might not be SO lucky.
From the tone of your last paragraph, I think you have figured out what you need to do. SAVE yourself, your marriage and your future Shane and put some serious thought into getting clean and sober for good!
I have used all those substances (and some you didn't mention....) and come out alive. I was lucky enough to never get a DUI or have a serious accident (came VERY close, several times...) or do any jail time before I ended my 40 year drinking career 20 months ago and gave up weed 16 months ago (today!). I also had a serious Coke problem way back when but I gave that up 33 years ago (along with LSD, Speed, Quayludes, Shrooms etc....).
Here is a list that I posted in my 1 year sobriety thread when I was asked for some tips. I hope that this is helpful to you.
My advice is this:
1. Admit to YOURSELF that you are the problem.
2. Remove all alcohol (and drugs) from your home.
3. Determine who your TRUE friends are. (hint: not your party buddies)
4. Distance yourself from anyone who is a threat to your sobriety.
5. Surround yourself with people who truly care about you.
6. Allow yourself to experience the emotions that will come about by making these changes in your life.
7. EXERCISE and drink lots of water.
8. Just DON'T DRINK. For the next minute, hour, day, week or month... whatever works for you.
It sounds like you have a lot of good things in your life Shane, please don't throw them away.
Good Luck!
From the tone of your last paragraph, I think you have figured out what you need to do. SAVE yourself, your marriage and your future Shane and put some serious thought into getting clean and sober for good!
I have used all those substances (and some you didn't mention....) and come out alive. I was lucky enough to never get a DUI or have a serious accident (came VERY close, several times...) or do any jail time before I ended my 40 year drinking career 20 months ago and gave up weed 16 months ago (today!). I also had a serious Coke problem way back when but I gave that up 33 years ago (along with LSD, Speed, Quayludes, Shrooms etc....).
Here is a list that I posted in my 1 year sobriety thread when I was asked for some tips. I hope that this is helpful to you.
My advice is this:
1. Admit to YOURSELF that you are the problem.
2. Remove all alcohol (and drugs) from your home.
3. Determine who your TRUE friends are. (hint: not your party buddies)
4. Distance yourself from anyone who is a threat to your sobriety.
5. Surround yourself with people who truly care about you.
6. Allow yourself to experience the emotions that will come about by making these changes in your life.
7. EXERCISE and drink lots of water.
8. Just DON'T DRINK. For the next minute, hour, day, week or month... whatever works for you.
It sounds like you have a lot of good things in your life Shane, please don't throw them away.
Good Luck!
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Orlando, FL
Posts: 8
Originally Posted by sugarbear1
lots of words, few paragraph breaks....
you found SR for a reason......whatcha gonna do now?
you found SR for a reason......whatcha gonna do now?
Originally Posted by songthread
Welcome to SR - glad you are alive and well and actually able to be here and share your story!
I, too, have been lucky not to have killed someone or myself while driving around in black out mode. Alcohol was/is also my gateway drug. Without it, no interest in other substances, but with it, I have ingested a ridiculously long list of substances and many times over.
Whether you're an alcoholic or not, I don't know. It could have already taken everything from you. You may not have even been able to meet the woman that you love or have the things you have today. Sometimes labels aren't as important as we make them out to be.
Congratulations on waking up! I wish you peace and strength as you move forward day by day.
I, too, have been lucky not to have killed someone or myself while driving around in black out mode. Alcohol was/is also my gateway drug. Without it, no interest in other substances, but with it, I have ingested a ridiculously long list of substances and many times over.
Whether you're an alcoholic or not, I don't know. It could have already taken everything from you. You may not have even been able to meet the woman that you love or have the things you have today. Sometimes labels aren't as important as we make them out to be.
Congratulations on waking up! I wish you peace and strength as you move forward day by day.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Orlando, FL
Posts: 8
Originally Posted by Pamel
Welcome SoberShane, and to be contrary to another post above, not all of us could have written that story. You are a fine writer and should take that into consideration in a desire to stop drinking. There is a book called: "Those Drinking Days" which talks about casualties of alcoholism among writers, and although many of them did very great work, it leaves us wondering what they might have done if they had chosen sobriety.
Think about it. You can go ahead and have the same experience a 1000 times (if you live through it) or you can choose sobriety and have a 1000 different experiences.
Think about it. You can go ahead and have the same experience a 1000 times (if you live through it) or you can choose sobriety and have a 1000 different experiences.
Originally Posted by ScottFromWI
To clarify, what I was intending to say is that many of us have had similar problems in our lives related to alcohol, and many of us are very lucky to be here today. I agree that it was very well written - I wasn't commenting on your writing style shane.
.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Orlando, FL
Posts: 8
Originally Posted by Spinach
Supportive wife.
It won't be long before you will be so much more than a husband that needs supporting.
Am I or not, doesn't matter the sysmic shift caught you, and it'll help keep you straight enough till the joy of your life in sobriety takes off.
I often enjoyed the thoughts and some parts of getting ripped but the reality was a much darker confused and messy place!
Keep on here, and see where it takes you.
Hope next week is a good one.
John.
It won't be long before you will be so much more than a husband that needs supporting.
Am I or not, doesn't matter the sysmic shift caught you, and it'll help keep you straight enough till the joy of your life in sobriety takes off.
I often enjoyed the thoughts and some parts of getting ripped but the reality was a much darker confused and messy place!
Keep on here, and see where it takes you.
Hope next week is a good one.
John.
Originally Posted by Dee74
Welcome Shane
sounds like you're a pretty lucky guy
The thing I really like about recovery is now I get to be who I always wanted to be - I can look myself in the eyes in the mirror again and I know I'm always there for my loved ones my family and my community....
great that you found us. What kinds of things are you considering to help you stay sober?
D
sounds like you're a pretty lucky guy
The thing I really like about recovery is now I get to be who I always wanted to be - I can look myself in the eyes in the mirror again and I know I'm always there for my loved ones my family and my community....
great that you found us. What kinds of things are you considering to help you stay sober?
D
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