Saved from Addiction

Full of anger, self-hatred, pain and exhausted by life, I had come to the conclusion that it was time for me just to kill myself and end the suffering.

I looked around the little apartment I was in. Instead of a home, I felt like I was in a jail cell and the walls were moving in on me. Cheap furniture, the heavy smell of cigarette smoke, a TV, radio, a sixteenth of cocaine and an empty marijuana pipe were all I had left.

I had lost every job I had up to that point due to my drug and alcohol usage, but I usually found someone else to blame for my misfortune. At this point, it was my girlfriend’s fault, well, ex-girlfriend now. She had the clarity to get while the getting was good.

I was angry at her, angry at my dismal place in life, and angry at myself. I had sabotaged myself again. No one could mess up my life as much as I could.

I sold drugs to keep up with my habits, plus I was lazy and didn’t want to work. I ran in circles with others who only wanted easy money, easy highs, and easy… well, everything.

I was living for my own self-gratification, only it wasn’t so gratifying anymore. It had turned into a chore. It was hard keeping up with the lies, always trying to dodge the police, and I kept on imploding. I'd get ahead, and then I would go on another drinking or drug binge not thinking of the consequences until they caught up with me.

How many times does a person have to mess everything up before they get it together? I knew the answer. The answer is that some never do, and at that time I felt like I was one of them. I thought my entire life was just going to continue to be one screw-up after the next.

I had started over several times. It was a long hard road that I couldn’t seem to get off. The girl I was with left me for another guy. I can’t say that I blame her. All I had going for me was selling just enough drugs to survive and then I was getting high on the rest. However, at this point, I screwed up bad.

I had robbed Peter to pay Paul one too many times. I used the money that I owed the pot dealer to pay the cocaine dealer and get an advance on the next round, and now I was out of pot and almost out of cocaine and had nothing to show for it. Both of these guys were going to be ticked off at me. If I were them, I would have taken me to the woodshed. I certainly deserved it.

I was tired and just wanted a way out. As was typical for me, I wanted an easy way out and the best solution I could come up with was to kill myself. I had accidentally overdosed on cocaine multiple times in my life; a few times when smoking crack and several times while shooting up. That night, I knew I had enough cocaine left to get high one last time as I killed myself.

As I began to think about death, I wondered what it was going to be like. I wondered if it was going to be like falling asleep and never waking up, or was it going to hurt? Then I wondered if there was life beyond this world. Was there a heaven? Was there a God? Was I about to meet God? If so, what would God say to me? Was He going to be ticked off at me? Would He send me to hell?

I had certainly given God a lot of ammunition to use against me. At that point, I remember telling myself it was time to get out of this hell that I called life. I remember saying a short prayer. Something like, "God, forgive me for what I’m about to do." And then I took the shot.

So how did I get to this point? How does anyone get to this point? Or maybe the better question is, how do you recover and get your life back together after getting to such a dark place in one’s life?