When I've been sharing at H&I (going to treatment centers with NA to share), I tell my story starting with how, now that I've had some time to learn about addiction, and myself. I understand that I am an addict who was an addict before I ever put drugs in my body.

I was looking for something to fill that crazy void a long time before I did it with dope. I was full of resentments, anger, fear, loneliness, depression, blame, and that whole song and dance where I'd go to almost any lengths to make others happy. This was from early childhood. I didn't really start using until I was in my 20s. But I was just in denial of the whole thing until then. I was full of self-pity, and a fabulous manipulator.

I swore I'd never take a drink, or do any illegal drugs!! *gasp* By the time I got done, I never turned down anything I was offered. In the NA preambles, when they say "in our addiction, most of us were slowly committing suicide", well, you could just take out the "slowly" for me. I was completely ambivalent about my life. If I lived, I could get high again, if I died, so much better.

After I quit meth, still had a long way to go. And, I still do. I'm grateful for my program of recovery, but I know it doesn't happen all at once, in a year, or even after a long while. It's a lifetime practice, man, longer than medicine, or lawyering....those guys can retire. I hope I get to go to those rooms until they put me in the ground, or scatter me somewhere beautiful. Some people in my life don't really get it...but I feel the most serene around other addicts. Ever since my first bunch of meetings, I thought, these people are getting in my head (not in a bad way!!) or in my heart, they know me!! Maybe I'm not a freak, or maybe we all are, and we're just in it together!!