The begining of addiction

Well hello again. Today I think I will fill you in on my back story on how I arrived at this cross road in my life. I've struggled for years with myself on whether or not I had a problem with drugs and alcohol. I grew up in a large family 9 kids, 7 brothers and 1 sister. We grew up in north Minneapolis, in a rough neighbor hood. When I hit the 6th grade my parents grew tired of all the violence on our block and decided to move us to Amery, WI. A small town of 2,000 people or so. It sucked a little bit leaving all my friends behind and going to a way different social setting. Right after we moved my father began to have trouble with heart disease and his health deteriorated fast. He was in and out of the hospital and he died a year later. All of this was a result of his alcoholism and addictions he struggled with for all his life. I've struggled with the loss of my father and probably will for the rest of my life. I was young and naive. I never thought of the reality of life and death and it kind of slapped me in the face. It threw me in a deep dark depression that effected me through the already tough time of puberty. Any ways on with my story. I had my first beer at 16. I can still remember the taste as that lemon flavored yellow belly beer hit my lips. The carbonation tingled in my mouth and my heart began to beat a little faster. In the back of my mind I was thinking how rebellious this act was adding a rush of adrenaline. All the while acting cool to my friends despite the foul flavor of it. I acted like a champion swigging it down in no time. Luckily we had to leave or otherwise I probably would of had another. I can remember that buzz. I know one beer? I was a scrawny kid. The temporary bliss it seemed to give me but yet that guilty feeling of my conscious I knew I was opening the door to something wrong. I had my first cigarette around that time too. I had stolen a pack from the local drug store. I remember coughing up my lungs but the whole time I thought I was pretty cool. Yet despite that I was a pretty good kid I went through High school without ever going to a party or drinking again. Although my mom always thought I was up to no good probably from her experience of my older brothers who partied a lot during their High School years. I graduated High School in 1998 with dreams of a big life. I decided to take a year off and work. I got a job at Target and got an apartment with a friend and began independent living. I made it to 19 years old then I moved back to Minneapolis and got a job at a restaurant and it was there that I met some people and where my partying began. I remember the first party I went to. It was a reggae party. I decided after a couple of captain and cokes that it would be a good Idea to polish off the bottle. I got pretty wasted pretty fast and my inhibitions were out the window. I remember standing in a group of people and getting passed my first blunt. It was my first experience with drugs but I really was to drunk to feel the marijuana. Not much later i began puking and passed out. When I had come to in the morning I noticed I had puked on myself during the middle of the night. I was lucky I didn't choke to death. After that party it was off to the races with me. Every weekend my friends and I would drink and party. As I look back now I can see I had a problem right from the get go. I was always the one drinking the most and doing the dumbest sh$t. I never knew when to stop when I started I can't tell you how many times I blacked out. I loved the buzz, the scene, my new "friends", and the bliss it gave me. It was an outlet for me. I would forget about all my problems and let loose. It seemed so fun. The hangovers sucked but they weren't bad enough for me to stop. Heck one beer in the morning and the hangover was gone and I was drunk again. But the more I partied the less frequent the hangovers and then pretty soon I would wake up without them. It got to the point where I would wake up go to work then go party. During this time I started smoking pot at 21 I loved the feeling of getting stoned. Felt like I was floating in a world where there were no problems and I would just kick back put on a record and smoke my brains out. I met some people and got a good connection and began selling pot. I thought it was so cool. The rush of doing something illegal and thought I was pretty popular. Everyone wanted to be my friend cause I had the good pot and I always had it. I sold pot for a couple years and did pretty good. It was during that time that I got introduced to cocaine. I remember the first couple of times I stayed away from it. I had a certain fear inside of me that I knew it would be bad if I tried it. But one night I got drunk and was around some friends and I hooked them up with some and was drunk enough to throw my inhibitions aside and snorted a good fat line up my nose. God what a rush it gave me. I felt like superman a huge rush of energy flowing through every part of my body and talking a mile a minute. I think that was the exact point of where I threw out all of my inhibitions and wasn't afraid of anything. So over the next few years I began to experiment with all kinds of drugs. Mushrooms, Ecstasy, speed, meth, crack, nitrous, heroin, and pharmaceuticals. Pretty much anything imaginable I got high on it. Add in some crappy girlfriends and I was a mess. I continued down that path for a few years. All the while I was slowly escaping more and more from life. Drugs were a big escape for me. I no longer had to feel emotions. I was running from hurt. From failed relationships, to the death of my father, and my own life. Yep that's right I was running away from me. I always battled myself with my addictions. I always thought I could control it. Stop when I wanted to and start again when I wanted to. I guess I didn't realize the depth of it until I started using opiates on a daily basis. Opiates are a drug that give you such a strong feeling of euphoria. They include vicoden, percocet, Tylenol 3, codeine, Oxycontin, morphine, and heroine among others. I started out small on Tylenol 3's then slowly worked up the chain to Oxycontin and finally heroin. But the thing about opiates is they are highly addictive and the withdrawal is terrible. I couldn't go a day without them. It got to the point that in order for me to get out of bed I had to have them. After 2 years of feeling like that I grew tired of it. Nothing before had taken a hold of me like that. I spent thousands and thousands of dollars on opiates. It became all that I thought of. I lost so many friends and relationships because of them. I spent all of my money on them. I pawned so many things in order to stay high. They made me feel so good. Nothing could hurt me or bother me when I was high on oxy's or heroin. I became an emotionless being. But they slowly took a toll on me. Pretty soon all those emotions I was running from began to beckon me. I missed feeling things. I missed happiness and sadness and all those emotions in between. I couldn't even sleep unless I was high on them. I totally withdrew from life and I wanted it to stop before it became too late. That's why I entered treatment and decided to put a fork in my road and head the other way. Through it all, over 10 years of my life, I missed being me the most.............