The Fun Only Lasted For a While

When I was in high school my main focus was on girls and parties. It didn’t really matter to me what order they were in, just as long as I had both. There’s a reason I didn’t mention grades, they simply weren’t that important to me. Although I don’t have any regrets about my past, perhaps I could have made some better decisions. However, if everyone had a crystal ball, we would probably all make different decisions. Even though I had a lot of fun, my decision making came with a big price; I became an alcoholic and a drug addict. For the next twenty-two years, until I finally sobered up in 2008, I was drunk, high, scared, sick, and very lonely. Back in high school, I guess one could have classified me as the class clown or perhaps even the life of the party. I wasn’t interested in joining a club or being part of a social clique. I hung out with everyone: “jocks”, “nerds”,” potheads”, “farmers”, “rednecks”, and “druggies”. I was the type of guy that was interested in golfing, bowling, billiards, playing saxophone, hunting, and fishing. I was raised with good morals and values. For example, “stick up for the little guy”, “don’t kick someone when their down”, “open the door for a woman”, and well, you get the point. At that time, my mom was a stock broker and my dad a truck driver. Both weren’t home very much, which was wonderful because I had a lot of freedom. Back then, one of the standing rules in our household was, if we were going to drink alcohol, my parents preferred that we did it at home. They said this way we wouldn’t be drinking and driving and they could keep a better eye on us. Obviously, their reasoning didn’t work out. This “magical rule” of course made me extremely popular with many other students. In fact, this household rule opened up a whole new world for me. Suddenly, I no longer had to hide what I was already doing behind my parents’ back; DRINK ALCOHOL! I’m not quite sure how or when it happened, but at some point I went from drinking socially to needing alcohol, cocaine, or both to function. I was on the fast-track of being out of control. All of a sudden everything I did, I did under the influence of some type of chemical. Most of the time that chemical was alcohol. Before I played my saxophone, I would soak my reed in whiskey. I would have a bottle of whiskey in my car in the school parking lot. I drove while intoxicated on a regular basis. I had a bottle of whiskey between my mattress and box spring. I had several bottles of whiskey hidden around the house and garage. Everything included a bottle of whiskey -- everything. The strange thing is I was winning pool tournaments, I was all-state soloist with my saxophone, I took second place in the state tournament for bowling, and I was a varsity golfer. So, not only wasn’t I experiencing any consequences, it seemed like things were actually getting better for me. I finally found the secret to success. Somehow this chemical I was ingesting on a daily basis was improving my life in amazing ways. Well, as you may have guessed, my lifestyle was bound to catch up to me. Things started to go in a terrible direction. Actually, a better way to describe it is that things started to go in a potentially fatal direction. The foundation that was supporting my amazing world of no consequences had finally started to crumble. Over the course of the next twenty-two years I was married and divorced three times, I was stabbed, shot at, lost the company I owned, had two minor heart attacks, esophageal varices (which is a condition where the veins in the esophagus start rupturing from drinking too much), a collapsed artery in my back due to excessive use of cocaine, two DUI’s and driving after my license was revoked, and spent several nights in jail on numerous occasions including a total of eighty-one days in the infamous “tent city” in Phoenix, AZ. I was at a point in my life when no matter how many people were in the