One day at a time

A bunch of people have been instrumental in my sobriety. To name just one wouldn’t be fair. They know who they are. I have a great support system.

It’s been nice to gain a little bit of trust back from people. Before, you couldn’t trust me with anything. But now, if I say I’m going to be somewhere or do something, I’m going to do it.

Sharing my experiences with others helps. I've been talking to a group of adolescents at Recovery Resources. Some of them are too hardheaded. They think what happened to me won't happen to them, but I keep telling them if they keep doing what they're doing, they'll end up in prison one day. I may not get through to all of them, but if I can make one or two think a little more about the choices they're making, I'll have done my job.

One day a time. That’s how I have to look at this whole disease. So what if I only have one day? I just strung a bunch of them together to get to today.

Looking to the future

My short term goals are to stay sober one day at a time and to rebuild relationships with my family and loved ones.

I have an opportunity to go back to school. There’s an organization that helps ex-felons and drug addicts go back to school. I’d like to become a counselor or social worker and work with adolescents. They wouldn’t get away with anything.

The obsession to use has left. Now it's more of a thinking problem than a drug or drinking problem. I could think myself out of this room, back to using drugs.

People say I’m in the right place. It just takes time.

Day by day

I don’t like to live in the past or the future. Day by day, I take it as it comes. At the beginning of September I completed my fifth step: admitted to God, to myself and to another human being the exact nature of my wrongs. It took two days and six hours to admit everything and not feel judged for it. My sponsor said, “Bryan, you were a drug addict. That doesn’t make you a bad person.”

Sobriety hasn’t been too much of a struggle. My biggest struggle was being in jail and admitting I had a problem. Once I admitted my powerlessness, things fell into place.

Real friends, not using buddies

Everywhere I go, I’m surprised at the people I run into. I lost acquaintances—I wouldn’t call them friends—when I became sober. They were just using buddies. Some of them are still out there. I don’t have anything in common with them anymore. There is one girl I used to use with. She’s the only one I know who turned her life around.

I’m grateful for many, many things. I’m grateful to be alive and be sober today. It’s a daily struggle, but people have shown me that there’s a lot of fun in sobriety. You can make friends you can seriously count on.

One year and counting!

December 15, 2009. That’s my date of sobriety. It took a lot to swallow my pride and get humble. I had to get on my knees and pray. But then, sure as sh** these little miracles started happening. I should be dead, in prison, anywhere but here, but I’m here today. Slowly my relationships with my daughter, with my parents and with my significant other and her son are getting better.

Chris told me, “It’s about time you started making some right choices.” She’s working her own program and doing well. I was always bringing her down. I didn’t realize how much my using affected a whole circle of people. And even my recovery affects a whole circle.

Doing the right thing

It’s so much easier to make the right decisions now. I don’t have to be selfish and self-centered. It’s not all about me. It’s about doing the right thing, and the next right thing falls into place.

I did some work for my in-laws at the end of summer, and they wanted to pay me for it. The old me would have taken the money and used it to get high, but I told them to use the money to buy Katherine what she needed for school.

They showed me the receipt of all the stuff they got her. “This is what you did,” they told me. It felt good. This way of living is all new to me.

Celebrating sobriety…with my dad

Around the time I started drinking, my dad stopped drinking. I’ve been an alcoholic for 27 years, and he’s been sober for 27 years. Since I’ve been sober, we’ve gotten really close. We talk in depth about our struggles, and sometimes we go to meetings together. He splits his year between here and California. When he’s in CA, I talk to him every weekend.

I don’t see my mom as much as I’d like to, but it takes two people to make a relationship work.