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Nick’s Story My drinking started when I was about 14. I would just take a sip of my dad’s beer every once in awhile. But I never disliked the taste of it as most people do. Drugs and alcohol didn’t actually become a problem till the end of my 8th grade year. That’s when I started using pot. I always seemed to be in trouble for one reason or another. And I almost always got caught smoking pot. At the beginning of my 9th grade year I got caught drinking in school and that’s when I first started counseling (my parents wanted to know why I would drink when life was so good). The truth be known I really did have a pretty normal home life. By midway though that year I was drinking every weekend, this continued through that summer. In 10th grade I was pretty well known as a pothead and a partier. I was also one of the captains on the football team, the starting catcher on the baseball team, and the homecoming king that year. This is when I decided that selling drugs might be a good idea. Well, I got caught very quickly after I started, and that was the first time I was ever facing any serious consequences. I always got out of trouble so I didn’t worry too much. And as I thought, I was only sentenced to 1 to 5. I was out of jail in 90 days and only served 2 of the three years of my probation before being released. I was smoking pot and drinking the day I got of probation. That’s when I went wild. At this point I started drinking daily and using whatever drug was available but I preferred to drink. I knew I had a problem but because I could still hold a job I didn’t care. I got married at 22 and slowed down a little, but not enough to satisfy her. She put up with it for about 3 years and left me. I didn’t even skip a beat, I remarried six months later. After a short period of time she too started to complain about my drinking so I started going to treatment centers to get her off my back. But I would always go right to my old habits. I then started hiding bottles so she couldn’t catch me. The last two years of the marriage I was drinking in the morning to calm my nerves. That’s when my boss started to notice it and he started sending me to treatment. (In less than 7 years I had been to 4 psychiatric wards and about 9 treatment centers). At 32 my second wife left me and I got fired from the highest paying job I ever had. (I was a supervisor there). The next job they fired me in 90 days for drinking on the job. After that I couldn’t hold a job for more than 2 weeks. By now I can’t not drink, and I was living in my mother’s house (she is an addict). I know that I’m about to be homeless because I can’t stop drinking. In the past 15 years I wasn’t even able to stay sober for more than 30 days. I used detox units to get healthy enough to get back out and do it some more. I decided that if I was going to be homeless I wasn’t going to do it in my own hometown. So I took off for Florida, (my car had no tags no insurance and bad brakes). I ran out of gas and money in Lexington, Kentucky. I didn’t know anyone. This is where I finally became homeless. I was bouncing between homeless shelters and more often than not I would sleep at the railroad tracks or behind dumpsters or in an ally somewhere. At times I even ate out of garbage cans because I would spend what money I could get on booze. I dried myself up enough to get a job; I immediately was promoted to supervisor. I started drinking on a Friday and the following Wednesday I came in to a 30-day treatment center. A friend found me passed out in a cockroach-infested hotel and dumped me of at the Schwartz center. I couldn’t imagine never drinking again but at the same time I knew that I couldn’t drink safely. I didn’t know what to do. The therapist I had strongly suggested the Shepherds House. All I knew for sure is that I didn’t want to be homeless. I ended up at this 30-day center for 54 days. When I went to the Shepherd’s House I had no intention on staying there. I wanted a safe place to live to save some money and get to Florida. I thought if I just follow the rules and do what I was told I wouldn't be put out. So I did just that. After living there for about 2 months (about 4 months sober) I realized that I had saved enough money. I could leave if I wanted. But I then realized that I had been sober for 4 mos. I had a good job, I had a warm safe place to sleep, I was eating healthy, I had real friends that cared about me, and for the first time in my life I felt good about what was happening in my life. That’s when it hit me; the desire to drink or use any kind of drug was gone. For the first time in my life I was behaving responsibly. It just didn’t make sense for me to leave. I thought if my life can get this good without ever really trying I wander how good it can be if I really started putting effort into it by being honest with my therapist and the group of people I was living with. That’s when I started to learn about me. I was able to take the suggestions given to me by the group and my therapist. I was for the first time ever learning how to live life on life’s terms. I learned how to trust others. I genuinely felt loved, but even more important than that I started caring about other people. I started becoming what I always wanted to be, an honorable person. It was at the Shepherds House where I kept my word for the first time ever, I told James, (the house manager) that If I ever thought about leaving I would talk to him about it first, and I did. He was always able to talk me through my hard times. Talking to others became very important to me as a result of that. Because of the safe environment that the Shepherds House provided, I was able to learn life skills. The best way I can describe it is my life just stopped sucking. Life didn’t really get any easier, I still had and have problems; what happened is life got better, because I learned how to face my problems. I didn’t feel alone any more. Today, when I talk about home I’m talking about the Shepherd’s House. When I graduated, and moved out it was the first time I ever felt ready to live alone and deal with life. Note: Nick is presently employed as an alternate weekend and on-call house manager at the Shepherd’s House. |
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