Cigarettes, to alcohol, to pot, to speed, to acid, to crack and meth

(7th grade photo, pre-start of drinking/using)

I didn't start out as a daily drinker. Smoking pot everyday didn't start right out of the gate. I also didn't start out in addiction with meth or with crack cocaine. I don't know many people who start with heavy drug use or being daily drinkers. My path to heavy drinking and drug use was one that took a bit to get to the point where I was homeless, in and out of jail, laying in bed being dope sick, and simply having a daily wish that I would just die. 

My use started when I was 12. I grew up in home where I would see my mom drink a lot through periods of her own life. It would depend on the man she was with and how much they drank. We certainly witnessed a ton of drinking from our different dad's of the week. I remember many nights with mom coming home after the bars closed.  She would be drunk with a man in tow who was in the same state of mind.  We did have a few periods with men mom married who didn't drink, or, didn't drink much. These were short periods of time. I don't remember much drug use from my mom outside of pot and personally, I didn't see this until after I had started smoking pot myself. 

I walked in on my mom getting high one day when I was about 15 and we both agreed to not tell her current husband. I had unofficial permission from the point on to smoke pot. Drinking was fairly acceptable for us as we got older. I say fairly because I don't think mom liked that we drank, but I also don't remember it being highly discouraged or maybe she just didn't think she could do anything about it. 

I am the youngest of four and I remember my brother, the oldest of us four, doing a lot of partying in his youth. He had big parties with lots of alcohol and pot. I always say I started drinking, smoking pot and cigarettes at 12, but, I also know I took drinks of beer when I was a lot younger at a couple his parties.  I was attached to my brother as much as he would allow me in his teen years and the side effect is my access to alcohol and pot. I know my oldest sister did some partying in her teen years but not a lot that I remember.  I don't remember my other sister doing much partying. She married young and I remember her first husband being a heavy drinking. He gave me alcohol when I was young.  Same with my other sisters first husband....a lot drinking and I had access to alcohol through him. 

I had a step-father I was close to; Johnny Revell. He was the first male in my life, a father figure, who took a genuine interest in my well-being. I was about 8 when he and Mom married.  He actually gave a shit about me and gave me stability and structure at a time when I was desperately craving it. The sad reality is it didn't last due to an accident he had while working and a cancer diagnosis not long after that.  At this point I am about 11 and we moved back to Tacoma from Casa Grande, AZ. Everything changed in a small window of time.

Within six months of his cancer diagnosis and just a few months after we moved back from Arizona he died. I was in the 7th grade at this time. I was getting straight A's in school and had plans to go to law school after I graduated high school. I will never forget getting called to the office and told I needed to go home.  Johnny had died. What I needed at that time was time to grieve and process the loss of the first man who took a positive interest in me.  What I got was mom moving another man in not long after Johnny's death and remarrying the man who I knew as my Uncle.  He was my oldest brothers biological father's brother. Yes, it was weird.  It was at that point that I was done. 

That marriage gave me two immediate older step-brother's (who were my cousins). I lathced on to Kenny who was just a year older than me. Kenny smoked cigarettes, pot, and drank.  Mom was busy being re-married and paid little attention to what was happening around her. That was the point where I began smoking cigarettes, pot, and drinking. Please note I certainly don't blame Kenny for my venture into using, it's just what happened in that space and time for me. With that came a shift in my desire to focus school. With that shift followed skipping school and no desire to be a good kid anymore. 

Prior to this period, while I was getting good grades in school, my junior high experience was not going well. I was a scrawny and shy red headed kid. It was a regular thing for me to get beat up on my walk home from school from the same group of kids. I didn't fight back and really feared the walk home daily. My days in school were just getting by. I was able to focus and do well in the classroom, but, outside it wasn't anything I liked at all. There was a guy in a grade or two ahead of me who used to use me as a punching bag every day before choir class. I let him do it because I had no defense to it at all. My self confidence in this arena was low. 

When I started use this all changed. My clothing changed, my look changed, and who I spent time with changed. I started hanging out with the stoners (early 80's time period).  We went to school mostly just to see our friends and find ways to sneak outside and smoke cigarettes and plan for things to do after school.  This period of time also was when I began going through girlfriends like crazy.  The first time I had sex with a girl was at about 14. I had a highly unhealthy way of being in a relationship from this point. If I dated a girl and she wouldn't have sex with me, I would either cheat on her or leave. It's what I knew to do, it's what I learned from growing up with a mom who went through men fast. All of us kids witnessed shit as kids we wouldn't ever wish on any other kid.  So, when I started dating girls I did what I learned as a kid. 

I was smoking cigarettes daily from day one on.  Me and Kenny used to write our own notes to buy cigarettes, or, we would go to stores where we knew they would sell them to us.  I stole cigarettes for mom and Tom and from stores.  Cigarette smoking was daily almost from day one. Mom and Tom knew but mostly said it wasn't allowed, but we did it anyway. 

Drinking took a little more time to get to a daily drinking stage. By the time I dropped out of school at about the 10th grade it was for sure every weekend. And when I did drink it was heavy drinking.  Not just a beer or two. I loved Jack Daniels and it did the trick pretty fast. I didn't drink because I wanted to enjoy the taste, I drank because I wanted to to be drunk.  I wanted the feelings I had inside to go away. When I went in the military at the age of 17 and my first duty station was in Germany, where I could legally drink, it was every weekend and near daily by the time I left Germany and came back state side.  I was nearly medically discharged for my drinking behavior in Germany. Not sure how I made it through.  In my early 20's I drank alot.  During the years 20-23ish I had extended periods of daily drinking. I was kind of the classic picture of a "functional alcoholic".  From the outside in one would say he has a job, he goes to work most days, he has a family that seems ok, must be fine.  The reality was I was going right from work to the bar, and, on some days, right to the night club after the bar. This was when I had a wife at home and about to be a father. My behavior was atrocious in my first marriage when I was drinking. I was unfaithful, a liar, and terrible with anything one might consider a good husband and soon to be father. 

Pot was always in my life. I used to have the saying that I would never quit smoking pot. I smoked pot from the time I was twelve, all the way through the military, and near daily until I found a life in recovery. I put buying pot before paying the bills many times. In my view pot was just as important as cigarettes. I was a daily smoker nearly all of my using years. I always had a dealer and even tried my hand at dealing, The truth was I was never successful because the more I had on hand the more I smoked. Let's just say smoking pot was probably number one for me of all the drugs and alcohol included.  I was the guy who said I would never give up pot. 

I have to talk about speed. In the 80's speed and old school crank was big. In high school speed pills were popular. I don't remember the many names for these piss but one that come to mind was cross tops.  There we many others. In the late 80's and early 90's I did old school crank.  Not the meth of the early 90's, it was before.  This stuff wasn't quite as potent as that. I would snort it on the weekends only and would work during the week. I am pretty sure I was turned on to this stuff by a buddy I knew during this time and I remember doing it with a woman I had cheated on my wife with. For those in my age group and who are in recovery, or who have knowledge of what was going around you will know what I am talking about. I would meet the Meth of the 90's later, but this wasn't that....not yet.

I will never forget the day I used crack cocaine for the first time. I was about 23, I had an apartment, a fiance, a good job, and you know it was a pretty decent period of my life all in all. I was drinking, smoking pot and cigarettes, there was some stuff going in with the relationship and I had been through a messy divorce, but it wasn't the worst time period of my life. I had a son now with Tyler being born in 1990 and I was being an involved dad. I had a neighbor who I would smoke pot and drink with and I went to his place one day and he was holding a different looking pipe. It wasn't a pot pipe that I knew.

To this point, I was drinking, smoking pot, doing speed here and there, and oh shit, I forgot about acid! I did acid along the way from my high school years, to my time in the military, to the years after. Not a lot, but I did do acid and mushrooms.  These drugs were common during this time period also.  Not a ton I would say, but it was around. Ok, so primarily in this time period it was cigarettes, pot, alcohol, and some speed. I know seems alot when even I type it.  With that said I had a job, I was fairly functional, and I was trying to live a good life. I was a guy who said I will smoke my pot and I will drink my beer, but, I would never do that!  The crack epidemic had been all over the news by this point.  I looked what the media was showing and said maybe them, but never me. No way.

Well that one day I went to my neighbors house and he had in his hand I tried it. That would begin period of time where I DID do that and I did a lot of it. From the first hit until going to treatment less than a year later my world would spin completely out of control.  At the beginning I remember thinking how amazing a drug this was. In the initial month or two I would get high after work and on weekends, stay up most or all night, and would still make it to work. I didn't tell anyone I was smoking crack outside of my neighbor who was already doing it with.  I managed to keep it a big secret from most everyone for near the entire time. Things started to change the more I smoked, the more I spent, and the more I stayed up all night long with this drug.  I sold everything I owned for this drug just to get more. I lost a great job because of this drug. I remember my boss who was noticing something was going wrong because I was missing work and showing up late all the time trying to get me to talk but I wouldn't, I couldn't, I didn't dare say I was hooked on the very drug I said I would never ever do.  Yet, I did and it ended up with my first time going to treatment.  Crack was a highly addictive drug. For me, to that point, the most addictive I had ever done.

To keep this focus on my history going from smoking pot and drinking to doing meth and crack I won't spend much time on treatment and my short time in sobriety afterward.  I remember that first time in treatment and I remember being told I should quit it all. I remember well thinking I for sure need to quit smoking crack but the idea of quitting pot and alcohol seemed stretch.  I returned to drinking within six months of leaving that first treatment.  Partly due to my internal belief that I didn't need to quit it all, and partly due to not even touching the surface of why I started drinking and doing drugs when I was 12 years old. It was all to much to bear at that time in my life.

This was about 1993 and I remember it will when I returned to drinking. It was at sports bar in Federal Way while watching the Sonics in the playoffs. I would find pot right after that, dabble in more crack again, and, would find the meth of the mid-90s'.  Meth would take me to places and worlds I would never imagine I would go. If I thought crack was bad, I really had no idea how bad Meth was going to be.  I stayed up for days and weeks at a time with this drug.  When on this drug, getting and doing more was the only thing I thought about. Yes, crack was like this to, but meth, hah, it put crack to shame with how it effected my brain and behaviors that followed.   

So, really, there you have it.  This is how a kid, at age 12, who starts smoking pot and drinking and follows an uncertain path to meth and crack. If you would have asked me at 12 if I would go through this all I am certain I would have said you were crazy.  Yet, with life, different paths and encounters along the way, I did go from alcohol and pot to crack and meth. 

I live a fortunate life. This month, on March 25th I will celebrate 15 years without the use of any drugs or alcohol. Prior to that 15 years, with a short return to use in 06-07 I had ten plus years without any drugs or alcohol.  After about a two year wild and crazy ride with meth I would return to treatment and stick to what I needed to not go back to those times.  Each time I write about my crazy wild ride of life story I know I am lucky to be alive period.  Everything that follows that, for me, is really a bonus. 

Recovery works, lives change.