What gives with this craziness????

Here we are.........Lost my job, broker than broke, and internally full of shame for what I had been doing to this point.   Remember, I was the guy that drank and smoked pot.    I would NEVER do THAT!   Never never never.  It was all over the news by this point.  The crack epidemic was ravaging inner cities right?   It wasn't a drug that someone who had a life did.   It wasn't a white man's drug.  Wrong wrong wrong.    Here I was, strung out on Crack Cocaine and desperate to end the madness.  

I finally opened up to Stephanie.   By this point in our relationship she had moved out.  Our relationship was having problems before crack came into the picture, but, my use of crack only furthered what was already having problems.  Thinking back to this time I remember that we were trying to keep it together, but, just like my marriage prior, just by a couple threads.  When I told her I was smoking crack she was shocked.   She had no idea.  

You might be thinking how could she NOT know?   I lost my job, my apartment had nothing of value left, and, physically, I didn't look so hot.   Yet, I had not said a peep to anyone about what I was doing behind closed doors all hours of the night.    Smoking crack isn't something that you can do legally.  It wasn't like pot that was somewhat socially acceptable, or, king alcohol...legal and acceptable.    I told  no one except the one person I was doing the drug with and my new "best friend" during the time ....the drug dealer.  She knew SOMETHING was going on, but, she just couldn't pinpoint it.   And, by this time, like I said earlier, our relationship was near dead.  

I completely broke down to Stephanie, Cyndi, my mom, and everyone.......I had to let it all out.  I was a complete mess and was a broken soul.   Cyndi's mom worked for the state and I went to her to get help getting into treatment.   Prior to this "ask for help" it wasn't something I EVER did.  I didn't need help from anyone.  Yet, after the one try of crack cocaine, I was crying out for help at the end of mere months of being addicted to this drug.  It wore me down fast.  

I took a break from writing this blog to go into my archives and pull out my treatment folder from my very first treatment.   What follows is my experience at Olalla Guest Lodge in Olalla, WA.   I found my date of graduation from treatment...August 11, 1993.   My recollection of dates isn't to bad!   Woohoo!!    Let's continue on.....

Stephanie drove me out to this place in Olalla, WA.   I lived in Tacoma my whole life and the only thing I knew about Olalla is it was a sign on the highway on the way to Bremerton.   I had a Tuesday route that took me to Kitsap County to service all the main banks while at Loomis.   I am sure I had this thought as we were driving out there.    As I am typing this I am welling up with tears.......I loved that job and I had screwed it up.  Yet another screw up in a long chain of screw ups in my life to that point.   It was the best job ever!!!

Olalla Guest Lodge is in a forested area in Kitsap County.   Off the highway several miles and at the end of a quiet residential street.   You turn into the open gate and see older looking buildings with a ton of green space around them.   All well maintained and a sense of calm all around.  I really don't remember a ton from my very first experience at Olalla.   I had two experiences there, the second one comes in a few years.   I know, I know, the madness will continue.  But, let's stay here for now, it is a amazing time in my life that shifts everything from that point forward.   Had I NOT had this first experience I may not have had a second.    Remember this about any treatment for substance use disorders:   They are ALL a success.

To jog my memory about this experience I pulled out my folder with papers I kept and have always cherished.    The very first thing you see is my folder is covered with writings.   I remember how everyone loved me.   I was close to the youngest guy out there and this my first treatment.   There was a lot of hope and promise for me at the end.  

This was the very first time in my life that I really opened up to anyone other than maybe a few select people.   I went to group counseling, individual counseling, and for the first time in my life......I started to feel free.    I shared things about my life that I had held onto since childhood and my early teen years.   There was that secret that I wasn't EVER going to tell anyone.  

My secret was something that I had been struggling with for nearly twelve years to this point.    It was confusing me, angering me, and it was something that was still an active part of my life to some extent.....

I was fourteen years old.  Still living at home.   We were living in Parkland at the time.   There was quite a bit going in our family at the time.   My older siblings were moving out, or, already moved out.   I had gained two step brothers....hang on to your seat......the two step brothers......they were previously distant cousins......but, hey, now I had two older step brothers.    Weird I know.  Imagine being a kid and trying to figure it all out.  Ok...that's for a different story.   Anyway, I was pretty much turning into a juvenile delinquent.    I had lost a step father in 7th grade, just a couple years earlier, and I gave up on trying to have a father figure in my life.  

Johnny was one of the first "dads" that actually gave a shit about me.   Mom married Johnny when I was about 8.   A good age for him to come in and show care and concern.   I latched on to him. He was amazing to me in every way.    Unfortunately Johnny was given a cancer diagnosis that was pretty much a death sentence.  This was 1979-80.......He was gone in less than a year.    Mom, doing the best she knew at the time, remarried fairly fast after that.    I gave up.    As a young boy I went from being a straight A student in 7th grade, to near failing in 9th grade.   I started smoking cigarettes, pot, and started drinking at 12-13 years old.  

So, back to the time I was living in Parkland......about 14 years old.     I was walking down 138th street in Parkland.....I will never forget the day.    This guy stops and starts talking to me.   He seemed like a nice enough guy.   At this time he had to have been near 40 years old.    Recently retired from the military and working for the post office.   He was very friendly.    He asked if I was interested in earning some money doing yard work.    Yeah!    I was 14, of course I wanted to have money in my pocket.   I wouldn't have to shoplift cigs or alcohol.....wait, screw that, I would still shoplift, but I could use the money to buy pot......adding a little humor to what was a sick scenario developing.   I accepted his offer and got in his car.

That one decision would change me in many many ways for years to come.   We go to his house and it is nice.    He's driving a nice car, he has a nice house, and he had money.........though he has very different ideas of how he want's me to earn that money.  I don't remember if it was the very first time, or the second or third time....but pretty quickly he put his hands on me.    He started making sexual advance.   Mind you I am 14 years old.  I am from a crazy life as it is, I am already confused and broken, and this son of a bitch somehow is able to read all this in his weird and convoluted way.   The sexual abuse starts then and I finally am able to let him out of my grips many years later as an adult.

He caused me to question so many things about myself.    He was really good at showing me care and concern.  It was what I needed at the time.  He ALWAYS threw me a 20, or, if I was real lucky, two 20's.   This is 1982.  That was a good chunk of change for a kid at the time.    He ALWAYS kept in contact with me.  Know other male adult did that prior to him.   He always knew how to say the right things at the right time to make me feel good.   And, I know this may be tough for some to read, but the sexual crap, it felt good.  I was so confused.......I didn't have anything against someone being gay, but, I loved women.   This, for me, was really confusing.

Why did it feel good?   Why, when I would try to question him about it did he say things to refute what I was feeling?  Was I wrong in my head?   Did my own thoughts and feelings about the whole situation not mean anything?   From the very beginning I remember asking him to just be my friend....I didn't want to do the sexual crap.   But, he would always persist in his weird ways.   Just typing this I get angry......it would take me until that very first treatment at Olalla to get confirmation for what I carried inside me for years to that point.......I was sexually abused at the hands of a predator.

Being able to share this with another male was massive, huge, monumental.  My counselor at Olalla was the first male I EVER told about this and what pisses me off right now as I am typing this is I can't remember his name........yet, he was amazing.    He listened and showed genuine concern.  No judgement, no weird looks, just love and concern.     I opened up at Olalla like never before.  I opened up that wound, and many others in one on one sessions and, an even bigger risk, in group settings.  It was my very first step in a years long process of healing.    

I left Olalla on August 11, 1993.   I didn't remember this date, I found my "graduation card" in my folder from that time.   It was the start of my journey in recovery.   A journey that would prove to be one that has brought me right to where I am today.    Right here, typing this.   This journey of recovery, well, it isn't all pretty.   My return to use will get real ugly.   Much worse than I could ever have imagined on that day I left Olalla in 1993.  

What I was able to do at my very first treatment was to start peeling the onion of my life to that point.    I wouldn't wish on anyone, at the age I was at the time, 26yrs old, to have gone through what I had to that point in my life.  What I would wish is the same I wished for myself at that time....healing.    I had hope when I left Olalla.   I had the beginning of set of tools to use to start healing.    Remember, that this was just a month long treatment process.    One month to address years of use and issues for a 26yr old man.......really, just a kid wrapped in a man's body.

My support during this time was Stephanie, Cyndi, and my son Tyler.   Stephanie, while I know full of frustration and sadness due to a multitude of things that had happened in our relationship.....she was there for me.  Even after our relationship ended...and to this day, she has always been there.   Cyndi I have known since I was 12yrs old and the mother of my only child.  It was her, and her family during this time that embraced me getting the help I needed.  

And Tyler....my boy Tyler.  Prior to the use of Crack Cocaine I was the definition of a "Dad".......I never knew my biological father.....hell, I found him later in my story when I was 29.    I had many dads along the way, and the one dad that cared about me, Johnny, was ripped from this world way to early.    So.......me, being a Dad, is something I take very seriously.   Me and Cyndi split when he was just a baby.   Yet, throughout those early years I was always there.   Prior to crack I had him every other weekend or more.   I loved my boy.   He was a huge support to me......massive.    

I wish I could say my walk in recovery was easy and clean from the time I left Olalla in August of 1993.    It wasn't.   You will want to stay tuned for more.   If you think what I have shared this far has been interesting....well, hang on.   There's more.    It DOES get better, I promise you that, but, the next couple years get real ugly.     Real ugly.






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