As I was born depressed and had few friends cause I was "no fun" and my older sister came home from college one summer and asked me if I "...wanted some of..." I immediately said yes and I smoked pot for the first time. I didn't know it was marijuana, but it made me feel "different"! Plus, as I got drawn into the partying crowd I finally had who I thought were friends. I had thought that I had found the answer to all of my life's problems.
Years later, still smoking pot I made the Dean's List in Engineering and it quickly grew into a run-away freight train of heroin/cocaine/pcp addiction and even in the act I hated it and couldn't quit. Not until a " friend" put a lot of LSD in my fruit punch drink and I was gone for three months...I think.
Soon after I went inpatient for drug rehabilitation and years later I figured out that I was also an alcoholic and had schizophrenia/bipolar disorder/panic attacks.
What I have not mentioned is that before my drug habit increased from three times a year to three times a day I had Miss Right/was able to work day and night to achieve what I wanted and was a quite honest man which drugs/booze/drugs/mental and emotional disorders made me into what became the small town character. I lost everything near and dear to me and have not...even with a Recovery birthday April 28, 1984...I have not been able to get a job (I am now on Disability Entitlements due to schizophrenia and panic attacks) not been able to attract another Miss Right and am a mere shadow of the achiever that I had once been.
I will say that I am mostly happy today in Recovery, but everyday I understand that I lost all of the things a man wants out of life! One thing for sure, Recovery beats having to go to jail/paranoid about cops and the fact that I have gotten to age 56 whereas those I've known who do not stay in Recovery die near the time they relapse!
What I am doing these days is that I'm writing the true story of my 7+ years of schizophrenia - caused hallucinations that were actually kind of "fun" to live through. I am not/do not beg for sympathy, but write my novels to entertain and inform my audience. Also, I am trying to help knock down the wall of stigma which often isolates us who have mental illesses from the rest of the world. Not to mention alcoholism and drug addiction.
Though I have a lot to complain about I do have a life that's actually fun and as free as a man could ask for!
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