Hello, my name is Ed and I am and addict.

I just thought I would join in with you all this morning. I've been lurking for several months now. I am 92 days clean after a 25 year constant high. I started off with marijuana and it was my drug of choice until I entered the world of opiates. Yep......a couple of ruptured discs in my back was all it took. I started out with vicodin and when I needed 8 of them to get me moving in the morning I found something stronger. I also rationalized the need for a quick surgical fix instead of less invasive options. I just knew I could get something stronger if I had the surgery, so I did. I now had a reason to justify my addiction! You would be this way too if you were in as much pain as me, right? I sold my little sob story to a couple of different doctors and before long I was eating oxycontion and morphine. I spent 5 long years with my head up my arce. When the guilt and shame caught up with me I convinced another doctor that I suffered from extreme boughts of anxiety, hell, I did! I then found the perfect combination of opiates and benzos. Yep, I could now go through life cheating, manipulating, and lying.....and never even think twice about it. It was all about me!!!!

All good things must come to an end.....I lived in a place full of fear.....hell, the thought of living in my head scared the crap out of me. I was miserable and it seemed I could no longer live in my skin. I avoided people unless I could get something out of them.....drugs, sympathy, money...you name it if I stood to benefit from it. I thought I was honest.....I thought I cared about other people....I went to church....I thought I was a good father, son, and husband??? I was freaking lost. After several stints in the local hospital, and after showing up to my intensive outpatient session loaded out of my mind, so loaded that they told me they could not let me go due to fear of me harming myself or others, a seed was planted. I tried to deny the planting of this seed for a couple of more weeks but the damage was done. My wife kicked me out of my house and took my kids away from me. She even told me that if I did not enter rehab I would loose them forvever. I still continued to use....now even more but something was different. The drugs were no longer working the way they used to. I could not escape myself any longer so I entered a 30 day treatment center.....loaded out of my mind. I entered this wonderful place completly broken. I had no hope....no faith, yet somehow I drove myself there. 2 hours away from home...I cried the whole way. God willing, I will never forget this day!!

I never imagined what the future held for me. After five sweaty, shakey, and sleepless nights I was ready to go back to my old ways again, after all, I was in severe physical and emotional pain. I was unique, nobody understood me, you would use too if you were me I had my bags packed and was headed home but a little voice started speaking to me. It scared me.....I ran out to a tree and started talking to myself. I had nothing else to loose say I started praying and crying. After 30 minutes in this completely broken down state I heard the words.....where would you go??? It hit me then that I was at the end of my rope....I had nowhere else to run! And then the craziest thing happened. I got a sense of peace from knowing that I had to stay right where I was. I got down on my hands and knees and surrendered right then and there. I was powerless and my life had become unmanageable. I now see this as the greatest blessing of my life....the gift of desperation

I spent the rest of my time in treatment soaking up every little bit of information about myself and my addition that anyone would throw my way. I made friends.....real friends...friends that I talk with on a daily basis...friends that want nothing but good things for me. I saw a man that was happy, joyous and free. I wanted what he ahd and he gladly shared it with me. I learned to be honest with myself and others. I turned my life over to God as I understood him. I took an honest inventory...I shared it with another person and God. I am now starting to become the happy, joyous, and free man that I saw. 92 days into the journey and my loved ones are seeing an entirely different person. I see it too!! I am devoted to recovery and I give what little I have to others. The thought of me being of service to another person just blows me away.....how could anyone as selfish as myself have a genuine care about another person?

I'm running out of time here and I could babble for hours. One of the things I wanted to say is I have been going to AA since day one. I am also an alcoholic but my real demon is narcotics and I am very grateful to have a place where others speak the EXACT language as I do. I have not made an NA meeting because there are not as many meetings around me as there are AA meetings. I have lurked long enough. Thank you for having me.....Ed S