Well it happened. I finally did it. I checked myself into rehab (June 08). Despite my best efforts, I'm a moron. Not that we all didn't know that already. I guess it was no coincidence that my greatest accomplishments have happened when I was sober. So why not try it again. It's not easy though. I'm out of rehab and living in a small town - Woodstock, IL. I enjoy it. I have new friends. I'm still a clown. I still have fun, I just don't regret what I do or say the next day. I can even remember what I did. Sort of a new concept for "the Joe".
My problem has always been in my head. I have a thinking problem. I knew it from the start. When I was a kid my relatives would always tell me that my parents were both alcoholics and that I would surely have to “watch out”. However I figured that if you can’t beat ‘em – join ‘em. Not to mention, I was always uncomfortable in my “own skin”. When I drank, I had courage. I was funny, I could socialize, I wasn’t depressed. Like Bill said, that thing happened that made me “different from my fellows”, “I had arrived.” However my sick mind told me that since my parents were alcoholics, I should try drugs to get me to this stage but try to ease the alcohol consumption. Surely I could handle drugs. Ha!!! I smoked weed when I was 12 or 13 when we found some in a field. It didn’t really worked because we used the leaves not the buds! I never said I was the smartest kid. Then this guy got me and my cousin high when we were around 14-15 and he was probably 25-30. Bernie. Bernie did it right and we got f&*ked up! We worked at a roller skating rink and I think we ate the entire menu of the snack bar and laughed our asses off that night. I loved me some marijuana. I was all about it then. Every chance I had for the next year I would smoke your weed. Then I bought my own weed and continued that for oh maybe the next 20 years, unless I was using other drugs or in jail. Ill get to that in a sec. Once I decided marijuana was where it was at for me, I had to find places to buy it. In Chicago in the late eighties and early nineties and hell probably to this day, there were corners where you could go in the “black” neighborhoods to “get served”. So that’s what we did. Many, many times, during the day, at night, it didn’t matter. Then one night we went there and the guy asked how many, we said one, and he came over took my money and threw me the baggy. However it was really small and instead of weed had white powder in it.
I figured it was cocaine and me and my cousin stared it down for probably a half hour. I decided to try it. So I cut a line like I had seen in the movies, a small one, and scarfed it up. The first thing I felt was the rush in my head, the second thing was my nose burn, and the third thing, was my “thing” getting hard. I was 17 and had opened a whole new chapter in my life. We went back to that guy 3 times that night to get probably $200 (all the money we had) worth of coke. Over the next few months, my cousin didn’t care to partake but I sure did. I found new friends that used, and dealt. I found the scene. Within a year I was the scene. Using more and more, using my money less and less, and trying to be something I wasn’t – a dealer. That lasted til I was about 19 almost twenty.
I owed my new dealer, a great connection about $900 and I needed to make a “quick deal” to stock me up, pay me up, and put some coke and cash in my pocket. At this time a friend from high school, who honestly never really was much of a friend, was calling me. I knew he was a drug dealer. He was big time. He had the Porsche and all the materials things. But for some reason, he couldn’t get any coke. He partied with me and owed me $500 bucks. I wanted my money back, but he said he would have it and never paid me. He drove a Porsche but didn’t have the cash? Then he called me and said that he needed a half kilo and he would be able to pay me back and I could make some cash. So I should call my dealer and arrange the deal. It sounded great to me. After all they published an article in the Chicago Sun Times that this guy, my high school friend, was arrested but got “off on a technicality”. So although I didn’t like him, I thought the deal was airtight as long as he could get the money. $15,500 US currency. December 1, 1991 he called me that he had the money and he would meet me the next day in a Jewel parking lot. I called my dealer and made the arrangements. On December 2, 1991 the deal got together, and I met his “cousin” and as soon as I counted the money and walked across the parking lot with the 18 ounces or whatever it was of coke, I got in the car. The cousin gave the signal of the headlights, and a team of 25 DEA agents took me into custody. Lots of screaming and guns. I was carted off to federal prison for what would end up being 3 years a scared, scrawny, mixed up child.
I went to jail, very sorry, very scared and with many prison stories. I was never raped or beat up. I did get an Associate’s Degree in Business Administration and lot of schooling from the school of hard knocks. I saw guys kill and kill themselves in jail. I saw too many people get religion in jail. Others thought they were lawyers. Personally I did my time, worked on my self esteem and stayed clean. This was the first time I saw how productive I could be when I was clean and used my clean brain. I denied any treatment as I was still in denial of the addict part and didn’t want it on my record that I was in treatment. Jail was ok, but treatment would look bad! What a moron.
When I got out, I did well for while but started smoking weed on probation. I was pissed tested and got caught. My PO did not violate me but put me in a more comprehensive program – more piss tests. I found a solution. Alcohol was never in my file. So they had no restrictions on my drinking. Since I liked my weed, and couldn’t quit. I would smoke a bit, but when they called me to piss, I would slam about 9-12 beers on the way to testing site. (yes I did this while I was driving). I would stop on the way to piss in an alley twice and by the time I was there, I was pissing pure MGD. Or at least I thought. I could always handle that many beers or more. But once I pissed in the bottle, which had a lovely head on it by the way ;) , I was off to the bar. I finished probation barely and now was drinking as much as possible. I was a bar guy.
I love to socialize and tell stories. I knew people, and for such a young age, I knew some serious mobsters from jail. That got me some connections in my old neighborhood and before you knew it, I was working the door at the bar I hung at all the time. Somehow my drinking was on and off.
Then I met another guy, started a business on this new thing called the Internet. It turned into a big deal with lots of money changing hands and “so called” success. Just as it was picking up and there were other employees, I bought a new Jeep Grand Cherokee in 1998. I had 200 miles on it and got a DUI in Chicago for being shit faced and driving home. Two weeks later, I crashed said Jeep into a parked car at 60 miles an hour. Thank god it was a car and not a tree, and it moved to absorb the impact, otherwise I would have been dead, that and my airbag. (Big fan of the airbag and Jeeps) I called my brother and we went to my first AA meeting that night after the hospital and BSing the cops. You see my brother who is ten years older than me, had been sober for about 10 years then. We looked for a late night meeting. The Mustard Seed in Chicago was my first AA meeting that I wanted to go to. I forgot to say that before I got busted, my brother made me attend a few meetings at the age of 18-19 but I don’t even remember them. I do remember this one on Feb 20, 1998. The guy who was speaking had MS or something and was really hard to hear but I so badly wanted the message. I would that day begin 2 years of meetings and sobriety. Wait – not sobriety, but not drinking – dry time. I thought I had it though – the program that is. I looked at the twelve steps and did them in like and hour. All of ‘em. How easy was this. Im a smart guy. I have done lots of things. I checked off all the steps, never read the book, never got a sponsor but did go to one or two meetings a week, and at that point- for that long, it worked to keep me dry.
Well the business took off and so did my ego. By 2000 I had 3 locations and almost 45 employees. I had 16,000 visitors to search for apartments (that’s what we did) to my website every month, and had raised almost 2m in capital. We generated another 2m in revenues and really had some attention in our city. I was really turning heads. I spoke to the University of Chicago’s MBA program on being an Internet Pioneer. I was featured on Fox News for my business. If you were important I knew you and I vacationed in places like Puerto Vallarta for Christmas, and the Hamptons in the Summer. I avoided every family member I could and became married to my job, my business, and my success. This sounded great. People wanted me. Clearly I was fixed. I couldn’t be an addict anymore. I was successful.
I was on my way to a convention with my assistant and my marketing manager, another who’s who in Chicago, and the flight attendant told me that they had “Heineken in the can now”. Well.. that is earth shattering enough to give a try. So somewhere over Illinois headed for New Orleans, I had that, and 3-4 more Heinekens. I hit Bourbon street and don’t remember what else...other than winning $2500 at a slot machine at the Harrah’s casino across from my upscale W hotel where my associates retired to long ago. It was 4 in the morning and I was wasted. I returned to Chicago a little disappointed but hell it was fun. I then took another trip on Xmas to Puerto Vallarta and drank and coked again. My Spanish, that I learned in prison was enough to befriend the bartender in Mexico and got me past the tourist prices so I sat in my room and got coked up and drank. When I went home to Chicago to work, and not party, it didn’t work. I did party. Every day now. My disease had progressed. My life had progressed I had lots to lose and I did. My business partners decided that I needed to resign from my CEO position and take a break after totally missing a shareholder’s meeting where I took all my Xanex from a girlfriend, with hopes I wouldn’t wake up. I did though. Now I was pressured to resign with promises of money from stocks. When I resigned we were doing 100k a month. Within two months it was less than 10k a month. I was that business. But as a user, it wouldn’t work with me and it wouldn’t work without me. My whole life was crushed.
I used up all my money became a complete loser. I ultimately had to lose everything. Then I decided to move out to Colorado and figure out what to do. I did manage to get away from cocaine and the nightlife scene, but cried in my beer the whole time. I had numerous friends in Colorado as I moved from town to town, bartending and working for newspapers. I ruined every opportunity I had. I burned almost every friend I made. Finally in 2003 I came back to Chicago for a month or so, chasing a love interest who later left me, and I caved in. I was a full blown crack head now and alcoholic. Oh not to mention I found meth in Colorado and was full blown meth addict there for a year. I was a shell of a human. So fragile. So bitter. Somehow I found the strength to load up my pickup and move to Aspen where I continued to be an alcoholic but dropped the drugs, except weed. Then in Aspen at the end during X games, I started the coke again. I was working, and tripped and broke my foot.
God had literally slowed me down. I had to stop. It was time to rebuild. I knew I had to come home to Chicago. I called my sister and told her I had a problem – my brother had heard it before and was over it – and I got on a train and headed for Chicago. Once I got home I realized I needed surgery, it was March of 2008. I started receiving work comp benefits and found my crack habit again. This time really bad. I drank every day still. I was looking for a “program” to check into. But had not insurance and no money. A family member helped me find a state run program after my surgery on my foot. I checked in there on June 26, 2008. I lasted 2 weeks and checked out. I had a new check come and I left rehab…didn’t even wait for the traffic light to change, jaywalked, and went into the bar across the street and got drunk. By that night I was with a prostitute on the north side of Chicago walking the streets buying crack. I ran out of dope still had money, got on the el, went home to my dad, who could not even look at me. I partied my money away for a day, drinking and smoking, and went to sleep. Before I went to sleep, I asked this God out there to please if there is another way, show me. Open the door and I will walk through it.
I somehow remember my mother’s phone number that I hadn’t talked to in years. Not one word. She told me how she had just had a nervous breakdown and quit drinking and smoking and had almost a month. She told me she would give me money to go to Colorado if I wanted, but she couldn’t have me around if I was using. She did say that if I wanted to be clean, I could come live with her. So on July 13, 2008, I got ten bucks from my dad, and boarded a Metra train for the suburbs. I was waiving the white flag. I had finally surrendered. I arrived at my mom’s at about 4pm. I got on her computer looked up the AA meetings, and there was one blocks from her house. I went to the 8pm meeting at the Woodstock, IL Alano Club. I have been sober since. I had surrendered. I had given in to the obvious. I also wanted to find a god, some spirituality that could define me, not a substance, a job, or a piece of ass. I am grateful for this chance.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not about to get all preachy. Not my thing. Hell I really wish that I was able to drink like a normal person. I just can't. Its like those guys that just won't admit they are going bald or are bald. So instead of just dealing with it they do the comb-over, or wear a toupee and look like a total ass. Or the girl that gets fat and can't deal with buying close that fit her cause "she can't possibly be that size". So she looks like 200lbs of shit in a 100lb bag. That is what I was doing with my alcoholism. So if you can drink and be normal - God bless you! I just will have to limit the amount of time I spend with you and you may find me abruptly leaving when these events go down. Since I got sober, I have been going to a lot of "meetings" and have met many people like me. Imagine that - people like me. Scary. But life is coming together for me. I have all kinds of amends to make and I'm in process. So please be patient with me. Another thing rigorous honesty is my main mantra right now. I have much clean up to do in my life, at home and in CO. I have turned my nose up at many opportunities and don't care to do that anymore. I no longer care to be anyone's version of me than my own. I have also let spirituality into my life. I pray every day. I'm not religious and and I don't drop J bombs and quote the bible. I believe Christianity works great for those that can't grasp the concept of spirituality as a poetical expression of God. Life is my religion and respecting it is my church. But since Im not preachy, that's about all I have on that. So this is Joe 2.0 or really more like 4.0. But who's keeping count. Ok wait, I am counting. I have 87 days clean today. I did my 90 meetings in 36 days. I have done almost 200 meetings in these 87 days, I have thrown my old cell phone away and got a Walmart one with all new numbers. I have many people to call, a magnificent, caring, and loving, but real sponsor who also shares his growth with me. I get to help others, and have actually had a few people to pay me a very good respect, in telling me that I have the "program they want". It works. So God bless and peace, cause I am finally getting some in my life. So "GET SUM!" for yourself and let me enjoy the ride with you. Thanks for allowing me to share my story and thanks for reading it all!