Hello Im Ryan and I am an addict.
I realize now that my story started very young. When I was growing up I never really felt right about myself, never really was comfortable. I can remember that I always felt different than everyone else, never felt that I could find my place to fit in. When I had my first drink at 12 I finally felt that I had found what I was missing, the thing that made me comfortable and complete. I remember feeling like shit the next day but it didnt matter, I couldnt wait to do it again. My life went on this way for a long time. I jumped from drug to drug trying to cover my real self because I felt that people wouldnt like what they saw inside me because my reality was so distorted even before the drugs. I came from a loving family but yet felt unloved and out of place. I never felt that I was good enough so I wouldnt even try. I realize now that by covering up my true self I got to the point that I didnt even know who I was. I felt ok with my new identity. I was known as Ryan the drunk or the pothead or crack head. I think that was what I was holding onto for so long. During the time that most people were forming their own identities, and their sense of who they were that would shape them for their adult life I was covering every feeling that I could by using. I didnt know how to feel anymore. After using for so long so that I wouldnt feel I would use sometimes just so that I would feel. I knew long ago that I was an addict but I didnt care. Thats just who I was. I knew no other way. There was no way out for someone like me. I married a wonderful woman who means the world to me. Kept using anyway. I have two beautiful little girls who mean more to me than everything. Wasnt enough to make me stop. I would look at them and wonder what the fuck is wrong with me? What else do I need to be happy? Why were these poor children born into this mess that Im putting them through? still couldnt stop. I would think to myself in the mornigs what part of last night was acceptable not only a married father of two but for a human being to act that way? Eventually it got to the point that I would be up all night smoking crack and waiting for that last death hit to come so that the pain and fear would finally stop. I would drink with all intents of dying. My last weekend active I honestly said goodbye to my wife and kids with no plans to see them again. This was it, my last time, I was going to die this time and nothing could stop me. Somehow I made it through. Even 9 liters of vodka wasnt enough to kill me. All I wanted to do was die. I had one more drink left in the bottle but for some reason for the first time I said no ill drink it tomorrow. This is something I have never done before. I now feel that it was my Higher power, my Gaurdian Angel watching over me saying not yet The next day I was brought to the hospital and agreed to go into detox. Im starting to realize while doing my steps that I was trying to kill myself all along but couldnt bring myself to do it because of the stigma of suicide that I would leave behind for my family. I figured that for someone like me (an addict) to die from an overdose or even my body just giving out was ok. Because in my mind I would have died from natural causes. Yes my thinking was so twisted that I compared that to an old man dying in his sleep or something like that. That was how I was meant to die. Im an addict so that is the natural end to my life. A lot of the things that I thought, I am now realizing was wrong and not how it really was. My reality was so skewed that I dont think I ever saw things as they really were. After my rehab I started going to NA. I started to realize that I am not uniquely fucked up in the head. I went from being the only one that feels this way to seeing and understanding that I am not alone, I am cared for and I can be more than Ryan THE addict. I am now Ryan an addict. I now have almost six months clean and am working the steps. I finally feel hope which is something new for me. One day I was reading and I came upon the line in the text that says that I no longer have to use again. For the first time I felt comfort in that. I have read that a lot of times before but have never felt that before. It seems like it suddenly got a lot less scary than I cant use again. I cant even begin to tell you how much my life has changed since I started the steps. I was a real sick person but now Im on my way to getting better. This is the beginning of my story and thankfully its not the end. Thank you for letting me share.

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