Residential drug treatment works. After about three years of regularly using drugs, while denying I was an addict, I wanted to break free from the bondage of addiction. However, the addiction had already taken complete control over my life. I needed to use in order to "function" normally. I had to have my fix in order to eat, use the bathroom, go to work, or even just leave the house. The physical aspect of my addiction had become greater than psychological. I was constantly in a state of pain that could only be cured by a fix. I had accepted this as my daily routine, like someone diabetic needing insulin. Drugs "cured" everything for me. Whether I caught a cold, if I was somewhere I didn't want to be, or couldn't even deal with the basic struggles of life, the drug was my answer. I could not see myself as an addict. I could not admit my problem, nor seek any sort of residential drug treatment.
I had heard about Yellowstone, a Residential drug treatment program, but I thought it was not for me. I was not interested in residential drug treatment either. The idea of "rehab" was appalling. Most important, I didn't think any treatment program, especially a residential drug treatment program, would work for me.
This progressed for another three or four years. I so desperately wanted to end this addiction, to get recovery, to find treatment but I had no idea how to live sober. I tried suicide, I ended relationships and began new ones, I even kept moving away from where I knew the drugs were, but I always managed to find more. I tried to quit using by wearing Phetynol patches and shooting Dilaudid, but that didn't work. Whenever heroin was around, I still used it. I had no defense. I could not even admit that I was an addict. I was "ok" with being a junkie. I didn't care about myself anymore, and I didn't have the ambition to change a thing. I was like a frog swimming in a pot of water on the stove. No matter how high the water temperature rose, I wouldn't jump out. I knew the water would eventually boil, and I would die. I wanted to enter a residential program, but knew in the back of my head that I didn't want to be sober and clean. I needed to relearn how to live, how to live without drugs. This is exactly what the addiction treatment program has taught me.
Because I refused any form of recovery program, including a residential treatment; I had finally got to a breaking point. I had made forty dollars in tips at work one night, spent it all on heroin, went home and shot up. My cat was crying and looking up at me with despair. I noticed she was out of water and food in her dish, and her litter box was overflowing. I had no more food for her or clean litter. I broke down in tears. Like an addict I had spent all my money on dope, and she would have to wait until tomorrow to eat or have a clean litter box. I couldn't explain it to her. What have I become, a hopeless, helpless drug addict? I had always been a loving and caring person. I had taken her in two years prior, when her owner was sentenced to prison on drug charges. Her owner before that had abandoned her because it was too hard for her to take care of a cat while using drugs. Now, once again, this was going to happen to her. I couldn't do this to her, I needed that unconditional love she gave me. That meant more to me than "needing" heroin. Drugs couldn't fill the hole in my heart like the true feelings of love. My addiction had become the problem, rather than the solution. It was ugly and destructive and I had become a horrible drug offender.
My family held an intervention at home. It was not quite a 12 step call, but still we decided I needed to be enrolled in a residential drug treatmentprogram. I didn't want to admit I was suffering from drug abuse, or someone who needed addiction treatment, but I knew that everything else I had tried didn't work. I had to do something different. While using, I was always up for trying new things, I never enjoyed the monotony of a "normal" life.
My family wanted me to seek help. A residential drug treatment program was something new; I never thought I would get sober in California. After the first three weeks at Yellowstone Recovery, I realized I needed more than just a 90 day program. I needed it all: Detox, Treatment, Transitional Living, Sober Living and ongoing counseling, besides a sponsor, the fellowship and sober friends. I've been using drugs for over fifteen years, ninety days was just the beginning of my recovery. I need to be working on myself for at least that long, in order to make up for that time lost. I am so grateful that I have found the 12 steps through residential treatment. They are not some one-time, quick fix for my problems. I will be continually working these steps throughout the rest of my life.
As an addict, I have applied these principles learned from the 12 steps in many other aspects of my life. I am using them to help overcome my eating disorder. While using heroin, food became an enemy. If I ate, I usually threw up. Spending money on food cut into my heroin "budget". And when people told me that I was getting too thin and needed to eat, my head would say, "You can't tell me what to do, watch how thin I can get." My resistance to recovery from my drug addiction left me very depressed.
After I quit using drugs I still felt like I didn't want to be sober and not eating was a way to change how I felt.
My eating disorder, another disease of addiction, got worse. I enjoyed the hunger pains in my stomach; they out-weighed the pain in my heart. I didn't want to properly deal with my emotions, not eating became a form of self-punishment. Starving my body of nutrients really spun my head. I was constantly having dizzy spells, and even blacking-out. I needed a 12 step program for all my addictions.
I am now learning to forgive myself for the poor actions in my past, and I am able to amend the wrongs I have done to others as I progress in my addiction treatment. Cleaning up this wreckage is exactly what I need to keep moving forward. Everyday has been progress towards a happier and healthier life. This is the true feeling I have been searching for, sobriety.
Residential drug treatment programs in California are available for drugs and alcohol. The 12 step program at Yellowstone help me over come my addictions and become a sober man. I sought out residential drug treatment and found more than that, I found a place where I belong. Residential drug treatment has shown me what it means to be sober. It has taught me how to live a better life. Today I have a happy and fulfilled life.