I got sober at the Palmer Drug Abuse Program. My sobriety date is 1-18-93. My birthday is 2-28-70. My drug of choice was mainly heroin, but anything would do. I started using at the age of 9. I did my first shot of dope when I was 12, it was a birthday present from a friend of my parents. My parents got married when my dad was 17 and my mom was 14. The had me the following year. The first years of my life where spent in the Tuscon AZ area. My dad was gone alot due to the fact that he was prospecting at the time I was born, and finally patched out with a club in the Oakland CA area. I have spent most of my life around bikers, and I don't want it any other way. I love the brotherhood and the fellowship. Most of all, I love HARLEYS. : )
When I was around 5 my parents started getting very into religion. My dad basically packed it up with the club and they didn't come around much. I still know some of the people from my parents life at that time. BFFB. I have nothing bad to say about anyone from that time, even though one of my first memroies was someone getting shot in our backyard. That is how it goes, we all make our own paths, least, that is what I believe.
Around this same time my mom started getting weird. Seems that all she could do was cry. I remember being like 5 years old, and she would take me to the shopping center an send me in with a grocery list. She just couldn't go out in public much without having a break down. My dad worked alot so even though he wasn't in the club anymore to speak of, he wasn't around much.
Well, basically, both my parents drank a WHOLE lot. I ain't gonna say they was alcoholics, that ain't my place, but they drank alot!!! I don't really remember a time when they wasn't drinkin at home, or at someone elses house. I learned real young that if you fetched beers, you could pop the top an get a drink before you took it to them.
I guess the first time I was falling down drunk I was 6 or 7 years old. Of course, everyone thought it was kinda funny, specially since I did it to myself.
Well, I guess that is how it started for me. I pretty much started swipin booze from around the house. I was the only kid in elementary school with a hangover on Mondays. I didn't know it then, but it was a pattern I would repeat for many years to come.
By the 5th grade, I had discoved pot. Most of the people I knew were friends of my parents. My parents knew mainly dope dealers, even though, they supposedly didn't do any drugs themselves (I never have figured that one out). I was constantly around dope. I think that the first time I got high, I thought to myself, "This is what I want to do with my life". And for along time, it was what I did.
I left home at around 14, I had already started shooting speed, so I figured I had the world by the balls. I moved from Carlsbad New Mexico to right outside of Austin Texas. I have spent my whole life in the southwest, I love the desert. I love being able to drive through the desert and get to the ocean especially.
Well, the rest of it is pretty much like everyone else up until the point I joined the Navy. I sold dope to pay for my habit, and I eventually found that heroin got me to where I wanted to go faster than anything else did. So I stuck with the H. for awhile.
I joined the Navy in 1989. I thought that maybe that would get my life straight, you know, just run till you don't know anyone anymore. Well, I wanted to be a SEAL. I figured that I should kill people an get paid for it, since, you know, I was God and I could do anything. Well, after I had been training for awhile, I got leave. I was on my second wife by this time, the first one having died from a H. overdose, and so I headed to Albuquerque to see her. I got drunk on the way and I guess I finally made it to Albuq. cuz next thing ya know, I am throwin her out of a truck as I am headed the wrong way down I-25. Seems she didn't like all the cops that was followin us and the fact that I was drivin down the interstate the wrong way.
Well, before the night was through I had committed armed robbery, lead the cops of 2 states on a high speed chase, attemted to kidnap an entire family, stole a car and ran it till it caught fire, and ended up in jail along way from home. The worst part is, I don't even remember leaving Florida, and now I was in jail in AZ. Damn tequila an H. don't mix. I was bettin that if I could get off that shit, I would be alright.
Well, my little time on the town cost me 2 years, a Navy career and a wife. Not to mention $25,000 in restitution to the State of New Mexico.
When I went before the parole board they thought that maybe I had a substance abuse problem. I couldn't tell ya, I was too high to know what they was doin that day. But since my sentence had finally run out, they had to let me go anyways. They told me they was gonna release me to a drug re-hab program, seein as how, no one I knew would have anything further to do with me. Well, I got out on a Friday, had to report to my PO and to this Palmer Drug Abuse Program deal Monday, and all of it was about 500 miles away from where I was. I had 32c to my name when I got out, so I started hitchin outta town.
It took me till Sunday to pretty much walk all that way, when I got busted, all I had on me was a leather jacket, a pair of pants, and one shoe. For some reason, no one really wanted to give me a ride.
Well, I reported like I was supposed to. My PO told me that I better tow the line, and the druggies told me that I had a problem. My brain told me that they was all insane, and I would do what I wanted to in no time at all. My PO didn't drug test me for along time, today I know it was the grace of God given me a chance, then I thought it was because I was God and I controlled all things.
I decided that I would stay clean for 30 days and that would show everyone that I didn't have a problem. The first time I tried it, I made it about 4 days, the next time I tried it I made it a whole 17 days, and the next time I tried it I made it 29 days, and then I made it 28 days and figured that was good enough. So I hit the streets a runnin.
I didn't report to my PO, I didn't go to PDAP, I didn't do shit but shoot dope an chase girls. I got one pregnant and so I moved in an let her work for awhile an support me. Things was going good until I kicked in the walls of the apartment we was in and got us kicked out.
We moved into my connects house, kid on the way and all, then the house next to him became suddenly vacant. We moved into it an things was goin fine.
Then one day something happened. I had been shootin bout 3 grams of H. a day. That shit was gettin expensive for one thing, for another, I couldn't get off. No matter how much I did, I couldn't get off. I had done OD a few times in my life, so I figured that I was probably immune to diein. But one day, while everyone else was noddin, my girlfriend came home. She started packin the baby stuff and movin out. The baby was due in less than a month and I was really excited bout it comin, and that bout shattered me. After I got through breakin out all the windows of the house, I went to the counselor of PDAPs house. He was watching football, it was a Sunday and the Eagles and the Cowboys was playin. I just sat on his couch and cryed my ass off. He told me to come down to the office the next day and hang out. I haven't left since.
I work for the program now. The counselor that let me sit an cry on his couch became my sponsor. He is a good dude and even though I think he is kinda a goof ball, he helped me alot. He moved of to North Carolina, but I talk to him still when shit is messed up. He ain't my sponsor anymore, but he is still my friend. My sponsor now is an asshole. I don't like him very much and I think that he sometimes don't know his ass from a hole in the ground. But he has 27 years sober and rides a bike, so he has something I want, and I am willing to do what it takes to get it. Shit, you ain't gotta like your sponsor, I am glad I figured that out, cuz, I woulda never found one!!! But even if I was a people person, the one I have now would still be an asshole.
Today I am married to the greatest woman in the world. She is my fourth wife, but the first one I picked since I was sober. I think I wanna start counting here, cuz with the help of my Higher Power, she will be my wife forever. We work together, we play together, we stay sober together. She is truly a gift from God. Even after how many times I have turned my back on Him, he still gives me good shit!!!