AN ADDICT'S STORY

Learning To Live: The Fight Against Addiction

It was making life enjoyable," Will said. "Sometimes it was just making life
tolerable, but mainly it was just making me feel whole."

Will (not his real name) stares out the window as he tries to remember the
details of the years he spent addicted to drugs. It began as a teenager.
Occasional drinks in a social atmosphere. Then marijuana.

"It really wasn't a big deal to me because I didn't get high," Will said.

But eventually he did get high and from that first high his thoughts focused
on not losing that feeling. He was sure this is what he had been waiting
for. Within a couple of months he was trying to get high before school and
as soon as school was out.

"That gave me the thing I had been looking for most of my life," Will said.

Will grew up in what he calls a good home in Wise County with parents who
love him and he was never abused.

"I was a pretty good kid," Will said. "I never really got in trouble."

But three months into using, Will found himself in trouble. He got caught
smoking pot -- marijuana -- for the first time. Will stayed clean for two
months before he slipped into his old patterns. He returned to what made him
feel good. Being under the influence chased away the fears of life and the
feelings of inferiority.

"It took all those things away," Will said.

He quit smoking pot from time to time, usually when he got caught, but
alcohol became his crutch.

"One of my big misconceptions was that alcohol was harmless because it was
legal," Will said. "Once I started drinking I'd spring a leak and here would
come the rest of it."

Drinking opened the door for his obsession.

"Every time, the using got longer and the stopping got shorter," he said.

When Will was smoking pot he was telling himself he would never do any other
drugs. He did not feel that marijuana and alcohol were harmful. A year into
drug use, Will tried his first illicit drug -- speed. This was followed by
all the other mainstream drugs -- pharmaceuticals, hallucinogens, cocaine.

"But I still wasn't using intravenous and I still wasn't going to use
heroin," Will said. "Those were bad."

Will felt in control. He was deciding what he wanted to use and how much.
The progression was never apparent to him.

"I believe I have this disease that tells me I don't have a disease. It
tells me everything is OK," Will explains.

Will continued to tell himself it was all for fun and that using drugs was
just what he did for a good time.

"Some people like to ride horses, some like to play baseball and I liked to
do drugs," Will rationalized to himself. "I liked all of it except some of
the consequences."

His addiction was progressing in every area and Will never felt like anyone
understood him. No one could see life the way he did. He began to notice the
void the drugs had once filled was only growing.

"That hole was opening more and more and it was getting harder and harder to
feel," Will said. "The physical effects were still there, but it wasn't
filling that void quite as well and it was leaving me more empty every
time."

Two and a half years into his addiction the consequences were beginning to
catch up with him.

"I started to see that maybe I couldn't control it as well as I thought," he
said.

For the first time Will tried to quit using drugs on his own and he stayed
clean three months, but he began drinking about 20 days into his clean time.

"I thought my problem was with drugs and that alcohol was OK because it was
legal and socially acceptable," he said.

He knew if he tried drugs again once that it wouldn't be enough. He knew he
would use again and again and he did not want to return to that lifestyle,
but he did so, feeling driven by his obsession. Will returned to his drugs
in hope that he would receive the same satisfaction he got before.

"The hope of getting that ease and comfort back would be worth all the
consequences," Will told himself.

Will graduated from high school and even made it through his first semester
of college with a 4.0 GPA, but the majority of his time, he was high.

"I always seemed to somehow get by," Will said.

But the time came when Will didn't care. The second semester of college, he
surrendered to the drugs. "Needles. Heroin. It didn't matter," he said.

He knew he had a problem, but even after being kicked out of school, being
in and out of jail and undergoing treatments he did not want to admit his
problems to anyone.

"All I could do was use," Will said. "I accepted that I wasn't going to quit
using and I couldn't die, I couldn't commit suicide."

Will saw that he was the one responsible for the low point of his life, but
he realized he was spinning on a merry-go-round. He could not see any hope.

"I thought it was going to keep going in the same downward spiral," Will
said. "I could not by my own power stop myself from doing what I was doing."

He thought he was the only person in the world who felt the way he did until
he met people during a court-ordered treatment who felt the way he did about
life.

"It was the first time I didn't feel alone," Will said. "Previous to that I
felt like I didn't fit in any situation."

Once he heard the solution that worked for him, it was just a matter of
being willing to follow the steps in order to gain control of his life.

"Once I accepted that I did not have the answers to everything I was able to
listen for something I hadn't heard yet," Will said.

Will believes part of life is spent looking for something and that some
people look in the wrong places. Giving up, becoming sidetracked, or
settling for instant gratification causes people to miss true satisfaction.

"It was all just a search to give me something I was lacking emotionally,
spiritually, whatever you want to call it," he said. "Drugs for a while
worked better than anything else."

Becoming clean began one day at a time. It was a reverse of the progression
of his addiction. He used to think about using drugs everyday and now it is
only some days.

"Today I've learned how to handle it when I think about it," Will said. "I
don't have to act on everything I think of today."

Will describes a craving for drugs as an urge so strong that it will make
you sacrifice the thing most important to you because you believe the drugs
will give the only way of handling life as you know it.

"For me, anything can trigger it, or nothing can trigger it," Will said.

The assumption is that addicts are bad people who enjoy hurting those around
them and they do not care about life. According to Will, most addicts never
learned how to live and are powerless against their disease. The stereotypes
and judgments surrounding who and what an addict is fail to consider the
situations.

"Most people look at addiction as a moral deficiency," Will said. "Until
you're in somebody's situation you never know that you wouldn't react the
same way given the certain circumstances."

Will has no regrets. He knows he might not be where he is today if something
was changed in his past. "You never know what affect things had on the
moment or the future," he said.

Will feels obligated to use what he has to offer, but it is his hope that
not everyone can benefit from his story. "To really benefit from my story
you'd have to have been in my situation or have a family member who is," he
said. "Experience is something that can't be duplicated and all I truly have
to offer is my experience."

Will's experience is ongoing. Each day that he lives without the use of
drugs and alcohol is another day he can add to his clean time.

"There's no easy way to talk about what life is like now," Will said after
being clean for three years. "I can accept life today. I learned to look at
some of the positive things. Really I just learned how to live and that was
something I never really learned before."

Being free from drugs gave him the freedom to make choices concerning his
actions rather than being driven to fill an emptiness inside him.

"That freedom of choice unlocked the door to life for me," he said. "I'm
then free to really be the person that I want to be."