WHEN ALCOHOL ENTERED MY LIFE

I was raised by a great family in the San Francisco Bay area. Good parents, good school, good direction. I was 14 years old the first time I got drunk. I enjoyed the bond of people being drunk together. I liked

I was tripping so badly, my parents barely restrained me.

the attention of the older teens. I felt euphoric, excited. Then I puked.

MY FIRST TIME USING DRUGS

I was in 8th grade the first time I got stoned. I was alone after school, in the side yard of my home. I got weed from a friend whose parents smoked pot. I wanted to get high. I was curious about drugs and enjoyed my first time stoned. It was easy to buy, probably easier to get than alcohol.

WHEN MY PARENTS FOUND OUT

They found pot in my room and clothes pockets a few times my sophomore year in high school, and caught me drunk. They grounded me. They adamantly told me I should not smoke dope. I said I was just experimenting with the pot and that it was not mine (what every kid says when he's caught). They had no idea what I was getting myself into. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I was 15 when my drinking and drugging became a regular weekend habit. My drug use was gradual. If it had been an overnight transformation from fun and

Taken an hour before I landed in the psych unit.

exciting to painful and destructive, I would have stopped that very next day. But before I knew it, I had become a teenage drug addict.

All I did was lie, cheat, and steal. To pay for the drugs, I worked in a restaurant as a busboy; stole money from my parents and other people's parents. I used up my entire college savings fund before my parents knew that I had access to the account—about $25,000. My deceptions started small and grew, and grew, and grew; until everything out of my mouth was destructive and a lie. Once I reached that point, I no longer even believed myself or my own choices.

MY MANTRA

I loved drugs and drugs loved me. I was a dedicated drug addict. Nothing, but nothing would get between me and my drugs. Pot, alcohol, hallucinogenic mushrooms, LSD, crank, and coke were my riding companions. I loved being high, the feeling, the craziness of that lifestyle. Live hard, live fast, die young was my mantra. I was afraid of the calmness / boredom

On a glacier, Patagonia, Chile, 1996.

of sobriety. I understood what I would get when I used drugs, even though it was pain and misery. Sobriety and ‘being a good person' was a mystery. My family was amazed and shocked at my drug use. They had no idea how bad I had gotten until it was too late and I was addicted. Then it was a battle. It was Al-Anon that helped my parents. It wasn't necessarily the actions they took after their Al-Anon meetings, it was the look in their eye and their new dedication to letting me experience my own pain. They finally understood that it was not their fault.

MY WORST MOMENT

December 28, 1989. It was late one Friday night (early Saturday), 5:30 am. I had a lot of LSD in my system and things went really bad. I thought I had died and gone to hell. I saw the devil. I ended up running through the city streets to my friend's home. My friend's parents called my parents and they took me to the hospital and put my in a psych ward. My parents were petrified. I was petrified.

First day we saw sun in 4 weeks. Age 24.

It was the first real sign that my life was on the line. Directly after that experience, I went into my first outpatient rehab. I was afraid and I was out of control. It's not that I was afraid of the crazy partying and drug use, I was afraid of my own brain.

ON RELAPSING

I had many relapses. It took me 2 ½ years once I made my first attempt to stay sober. I was not ready to quit. I did not truly understand the true concept of my drug problem (that I was a drug addict, permanently, for the rest of my life).

MY LAST TIME

I was 20 years old. After another painful relapse and 3 solid days of really hard partying, I woke up one morning in foggy daze. I knew I had to make a decision to change my life. That morning, I vividly recall sitting on a bench in the sun and looking at the open palms of both my hands as I held them out in front of me. I visualized a good life in the palm of my right hand and a horrible life in the palm of my left. I

1998, I was 26.

held my palms up in the air, like I was offering God a brief glimpse at my options. Do I want to be a drug addict, which meant darkness and death? Or do I want a great life, which meant a happiness and a usefulness that I never knew existed? Obviously, I could not have both. Strangely the choice was not easy, but I chose life and life has never been so good.

MY RECOVERY

My last rehabilitation was at the Wilderness Treatment Center in Montana. That program changed my life. I am forever grateful. I learned that I was responsible for myself and the direction of my life. The program gave me the ‘tools' to deal with my drug addiction. The first 30 days were basic counseling sessions (group and individual), mixed in with outdoor recreation and ranch work. After 30 days at the ranch, a smaller group of 4 to 8 kids went into the mountains for 3 weeks of strenuous hiking. Later, when I was a wilderness instructor at the center, I saw more change in the kids

Celebrating our upcoming marriage, 2004.

during their 3 weeks in the woods than in any other aspect of their treatment. Kids sometimes would have a dramatic shift in their perception of the world. Twelve years later, I still regularly attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, as well as bringing Alcoholics Anonymous meetings into juvenile detention facilities and adult jails.

WHAT HELPED ME GET THROUGH IT

Deep down inside myself, I knew I didn't want to be a loser in life. I took a huge leap of faith and learned to take advice, plus help from other people who had more life experience than me. Before that, I never understood that adults, at one point in their lives, had also been teenagers. I loved adventure, and drugs were a crazy adventure. These days, I travel, climb mountains, run, and write. Once I learned I could substitute the positive for the negative, it became much easier to grasp and accept my sobriety.

THE WORLD IS WAITING

Through my sober 20s, and now, I get my adventure from

Stacy and me.

traveling and exploring. I've climbed icy peaks from Ecuador, to Morocco to Turkey. Last year I published my first novel, Cowboy Now, which directly correlates living the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous on a daily basis. Currently, I live and work in the San Francisco Bay area. On June 5, 2004, I married the love of my life, Stacy. I enjoy working with young people. I enjoy writing. I enjoy life. My goal is to open a drug treatment center for troubled youths in the Sierra Mountains.

TO PEOPLE READING THIS

Please, don't be fooled. I didn't go from a cute, soccer-playing, blond eight-year-old child to a diehard coke addict over night. It took time. It took dedication. It took near death for me to realize I was addicted. To be honest, I still love drugs. I should've been dead many times over — I drank and drove, I flooded my brain and body with insane amounts of chemicals. I was one of the “lucky” drug addicts, I was still alive, but my life lost all kindness and innocence. My dreams for my life became one long nightmare of day-to-day barebones survival.

Here's the honest truth — drugs can be fun; that's one of the reasons people get addicted to the high. Drugs also kill, maim, and destroy people, every day, all over the world. How much popping of pills, powders, and liquids can you do until your number is called? Using drugs is like playing Russian roulette. Every time you take a tab of ecstasy or pop a pill, you pull the trigger of that unknown gun and wait for a good trip — or a bullet to the head.

One last bit of advice — if you're a teenage drug addict and you die taking drugs, you can't blame anybody but the person who's dead. You! If you're addicted to drugs or alcohol, and you have a good family, ask them for help. If you're addicted to drugs or alcohol, and your family life is bad, ask them for help. If neither works out, use the Internet or phone and get help yourself. There is a way out. It's your choice. It's your life.