Lost Lives, Lost Chances

THE TALE OF TWO ADDICTS

OCEAN SPRINGS - For Rebecca and Joseph, finding their way to sobriety
meant the difference between life and death.

Though the Ocean Springs couple, now sober for two years, didn't know
each other while they were using, their paths to addiction started in
much the same way.

"My drug of choice was more, more of anything," said Joseph, 29, and
now a recovering addict who celebrated his second year of sobriety in
August. "It started out drinking... not necessarily because it made me
fit in but it made me forget that I didn't. I started drinking...
pretty much three or four days a week, mostly beer and occasionally
whiskey, either Southern Comfort or Wild Turkey."

Over the next 15 years, Joseph's addictions grew to include not only
alcohol, but also marijuana, cocaine, both powdered and crack, and
prescription narcotics.

He would become a gambling addict and thief before he got the help he
needed to stay clean.

Like Joseph, Rebecca took her first drink at 15. She never liked
prescription drugs but she loved her alcohol, slamming down beers from
the time she got up every morning to the time she passed out every
night. She also used crack and smoked marijuana occasionally.

Rebecca would end up with an eating disorder, an arrest record and the
threat of losing her firstborn son to the state before she would find
the courage to get sober.

For Joseph and Rebecca, sobriety had taken on a new meaning. It simply
meant no more alcohol or drugs.

"I probably would have died if I hadn't done something," Joseph said.
"I'd be dead or either in prison. I was in bad shape. I'm happy now."

Joseph Shares His Story

Joseph started out drinking with friends in Vancleave, mostly hanging
out in the woods. In a matter of months, he was drinking up to a case
of beer a night.

By the time he was 17 and attending Ocean Springs High School,
drinking had become a daily habit.

He'd started buying 3-liter soda bottles, emptying half and refilling
them with vodka or some kind of Schnapps, and heading to school.
During breaks between classes, he was filling empty soda cans with the
cocktail he'd smuggled onto school property.

"The first time I did it, I was in second period Spanish class," he
said. "I ended up getting sick by fourth period. I threw up in the
bathroom and went back to class.

"My eyes were watery, but no one knew. I pretty much did that every
day. It felt good keeping that buzz. And I thought it made me feel
comfortable. I'd felt awkward the rest of my life. So I thought why
only drink alcohol on the weekends when I could feel good all the
time? I always wanted to be popular."

Joseph got his wish his senior year when he and a friend were drunk
and hit by a car outside a bar in Biloxi.

"The whole year, I was known as the guy who got hit by the car," he
said. "I finally got popular. My friend could've died. His arm went
through the (car) window. He was drinking a lot. He was bleeding a
lot. I imagine he had to go to the hospital."

Joseph can't remember. But he moves on to his life after high school
at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College. It was there he met an
old high school running buddy and started smoking marijuana and crack.
Before long, he was shooting up the prescription narcotic Dilaudid.
What is it? Upper? Downer? Pain medication?

"He had the marijuana," Joseph said. "I started buying it on a regular
basis. I was working at the mall. We'd work high. It wasn't a problem
because the guys I worked with got high, too."

At 18, Joseph's drug use had grown even more and he was using LSD and
prescription narcotics, taking as many as six painkillers a week that
he mixed with his alcohol and anything else he could find. "I'd try
anything," he said.

After junior college, Joseph moved to Hattiesburg to attend William
Carey College. By then, he knew his life was spiraling out of control,
and he tried to stay clean.

"My family was a strong Christian family," he said. "I thought if I
could hang with some good Christian kids, I would do good. That lasted
about three months."

Joseph met the man who would be his roommate and drug dealer soon
after he moved to Hattiesburg. Soon after, Joseph started using again.
He quit going to class and within a year was asked to leave the
campus. He couldn't keep a roommate and had gotten caught tearing up
school property when he was driving drunk.

Joseph dropped out of school, cashing in on the tuition money his
parents had sent for school to move into an apartment with a man that
would become his dealer.

He was using a lot of cocaine and other drugs, taking as many as 120
hits of LSD in a 10-day span - all by the time he reached the age of
22.

"I was shooting up Dilaudid about three or four times a month," he
said.

His parents would learn that their son had dropped out of college, had
been arrested for shoplifting and was using a laundry list of
narcotics and alcohol.

Joseph said he was high on cocaine when he was arrested in 1997 and
charged with misdemeanor shoplifting. His parents learned of his
arrest after they received a notice in the mail to remind Joseph of
his upcoming court date.

"My mom was all crying," he said. "My dad wanted to kill
me."

He moved back to South Mississippi when he was 24, only after police
officers started watching his apartment in Hattiesburg because Joseph
and his roommate were letting a drug runner stay with them on his way
from Texas to Florida.

Joseph lived with friends and his parents off and on after his return
to South Mississippi.

He went through several jobs, working at one car dealership after
another and spending an estimated $2,000 on drugs a month and gambling
away the rest.

He eventually was arrested for drunk driving and charged with
possession of drug paraphernalia and other moving violations. By then,
he also was stealing items to help pay for his addictions.

"I always thought that alcoholics lived under bridges in cardboard
boxes," he said. "It's not true. It (the disease) doesn't
discriminate."

Joseph had lost another job when he found himself telling his family
the truth about his life.

"For some reason, at that time, I couldn't decide what to do," he
said. "I needed to find a job, and I was sitting on my parent's couch.
That was the first time I admitted I couldn't control myself. I told
my parents I didn't even think I could get a job. I was brain dead, I
told them.

"I knew I was killing myself with the drugs and alcohol, but I didn't
care. I wasn't going to put a bullet in my head so I went the slow
route."

Joseph, whose mother was at one time the director of a drug
rehabilitation center for addicts, went through a detox in Biloxi
before heading to a treatment center in Phoenix to become sober.

His wife would get sober about two months later. They didn't know each
other at the time.

"We didn't meet each until after we got sober," Rebecca said. "We
didn't meet through AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) or NA (Narcotics
Anonymous). We didn't know each other when we were using. Thank God
for that."