My Bio | Addiction | Friends | Places

The Cost of Addiction

Gilbert, AZ
2009

I’m at the airport. Johnny Appleseed sends me one more wave then disappears down the corridor to his plane. He’s going back to England where his mother is in failing health.

As he disappears panic rises, pressing on my heart. All of a sudden I’m ten again and standing in front of the neighbor who molestated me from then until I was thirteen.

It’s happened again. I’ve been abandoned, left vulnerable and alone.

Panic is followed by a completely new and unfamiliar feeling. What am I thinking? I’m not alone. I’m by myself. And being by myself is exactly where I should be.

I’m the only one I need, the only person in the world who will ever really be there for me.

I knew I had man-picker problems when I met Johnny Appleseed, but there was something about him from that first moment. Here’s the one, I thought. A guy near my own age looking for someone to settle down with, someone to grow old with.

Our first year together was great. There were no shouting matches, no girlfriends on the sides. He went to work, came home and spent time with me. Oh, there were a few things, like fruit and KY Jelly, but, hey, he was absolutely there for me.

Then the Wall Street house of cards came tumbling down, taking with it my fortune. At the same time the real estate market collapsed and my career was gone. In an instant I was poorer than I’d been since eighteen when I was still living at home.

Instantly, everything changed in my relationship. Johnny started drinking more and more. When he was drunk he complained about everything, but especially about me losing my money and being dependent on him. I let him browbeat me. I tolerated his rants and complaints. Worst of all, I worried that he would leave me and I would truly be destitute.

I took it and took it, until one day I woke up, just like I did on August 4, 1986 when I quit Heroin. I was living with my father. Worse than that, I had become my mother.

Just like that, things started to change. Slowly, steadily, I got clear. I was still addicted. I’d just shifted my addiction from drugs to men, men like my dad. Men like Steve. And I was still giving too much power to my molestation. I was letting what had happened to me as a child keep me trapped in a behavior pattern that hurt me rather than celebrated me.

From that moment on I knew what I had to do. I had to stop lying. . .to myself! I had to run my story, making sure I heard the shameful and degrading things I’d done. To myself. And, I had to help others.

So, right here, right now, I acknowledge that I slipped up. I faltered. Then, once again I found myself and said, “I’m done”.

So, welcome to my new life. I'm fifty-six years old and once again in therapy, because I will live my life, sober, and happy with myself. Even by myself if that’s what it takes for me to love me.

I deserve a happily ever after.

So do you.