Step 1

I admitted that I was powerless over my addiction, and that my life had become unmanageable...

My life unmanageable? Surely not! Just because I became so consumed about getting high doesn't make it unmanageable does it? Just because I could not get out of bed every morning (if I even went to sleep) without getting high, just because I went from smoking dope to shooting up dope, that doesn't mean my life was unmanageable. It just meant I was...okay, maybe it was a little unmanageable

You know, several people asked me why I couldn't just stop using. Lord knows how many times I had tried. I think the longest I went without drugs was 4 days, and those days I spent in bed crying because I couldn't handle the withdrawals, or I was asleep. That was the only way I could deal with it, or so I thought.

People who have never been addicted to anything, never understand. They think it was a choice for someone to start using drugs. They are right. It was my choice to start using, but it wasn't a choice to get addicted. It just happened.

Life as a drug addict is horrible. My days consisted of running around all day trying to find drugs when I wasn't selling drugs, or running around selling drugs all day and night so I could make money, get more drugs, use more drugs, and start all over again the next day. I knew what I was doing was wrong, but it was what I knew. And it made me feel like I belonged. That's a horrible thing to say, but I felt like I had a ton of friends, and that they liked me a lot. I felt like I belonged. Truth of the matter is, the only reason they wanted me around is because I either had drugs, and they wanted them, or I was buying drugs, and they wanted my money.

Talk about insane? I remember one time, I went to a "friends" house, and some guys broke into the house and pulled guns on us. I ran into a bathroom to hide, and they found me. They pushed me into the living room and made me lay down on the floor with a gun to my head. I moved and scared one of the guys and he fired his gun. The bullet went into the floor about a foot away from my head. After the men got the drugs and money that they had come for, they left. As soon as we thought they were gone, we got up and got in the car to go to my house because I knew I had more dope at my house, and they didn't know where I lived.

Unmanageable? Not at all. Insane, unmanageable, crazed, psychotic, unimaginably out of control? Yes.

Every day that I am clean, I thank God for my life. I am not perfect, and I am not curred, but I am better than I was 18 months ago.