My Story, pt. 1

[Htownnofrown]

It's been about a year since I've told my story, either on here or at a meeting, so I guess it's time to do it.

My name is Ross. I'm 24 years old and I am two weeks shy of having two years free of all mind altering substances. I have a strong connection with my higher power and wonderful people in my life today. I've been managing at an upscale Mexican restaurant here in Houston, Tx for about 3 months now and I'm loving it. Sometimes it's longer hours than I would like, but I love the food industry, my restaurant is something I take great pride and ownership in. We have a large "regular" base that comes in often, which includes Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top. I've got about 1 year left to finish my college education; I just finished my Political Science degree and now am working solely on my Business Management major. I've got a nice new loft and a lot of material things that I can look on with pride. I don't tell you any of this to try and impress you, and while it impresses the hell out of me, I tell you this to show you how it is now as opposed to how it used to be. It was definitely not always this amazing.

I started off drinking when I was young. My family is populated with a lot of heavy drinkers, if not alcoholics. I can remember getting drunk for the first time at the age of 13, in the 7th grade. Me and a friend watched a lot of wrestling and, in the image of Stone Cold Steve Austin, we chugged down beers in his garage. I remember I loved the feeling. Even though I got sick and threw up after about 7, I remember wanting to do it again. It's the classic alcoholic reaction to drinking: after an experience that would make most normal drinkers say, "hey, I don't want to do that again!", I wanted more.

My parents separated when I was at the end of 7th grade. I can't blame anyone but myself for my disease, but shortly after this is when I started drinking more, and more often. By the time I was entering high school, I was binge drinking 3 or 4 nights a week. I got to high school and drinking changed from something I had to hide, to something that was "cool" in the eyes of the students there. My grades were average, mostly B's and C's, but my drinking was progressing even further at this point. The first real high school party I went to I got blood alcohol poisoning as a result of drinking the better part of a bottle of Everclear. I had never been so sick in my life as I was the next two days, but again, I didn't have the normal reaction to stay away from alcohol, I wanted more. The feeling that it gave me was that of invincibility and total freedom from inhibition. My drinking, by the end of my freshman year had progressed to 4 or 5 nights a week.

I took great pride in my athleticism, and although drinking did somewhat detract from my performance, I was a very skilled baseball and football player. I was playing on both varsity teams as a freshman, and was having a good deal of success for having such little experience. At the beginning of my sophomore year, I injured myself while lifting weights, tearing my Trapezius and Lateral muscles away from each other in my back. I was told I would be in tremendous pain if I chose to play football that year and it would be almost inevitable that I would hinder the healing process in the process. I was not willing to give up my season, so I sought out one of the well known drug dealers at my school and asked if there was anything he could do. I feel like at this point I should explain something; up to this point, and even after, I had always looked down on drug users. While I was proud of the fact that I could drink ridiculous amounts of alcohol and preserve consciousness, I looked at drug users with much contempt, so it was not easy for me to make the decision to use drugs. He supplied me with a fairly large amount of Norco 10/325 Hydrocodone pills for cheap, since we were football buddies. I can remember the first day I took them and the incredible feeling they gave me and when I coupled them with alcohol, I fell in love. I used them for about 3 weeks until I was notified by my head coach (who often tipped players who he "couldn't afford to lose" of drug tests) that I would be tested sometime in the next few weeks. I was terrified that I would be found out if I continued to take them, so I stopped. I had not yet crossed into the realm of addiction because a good reason to stop came along and I was able to. I did not, however, stop drinking.

Rather than bore you with more stories of drinking and occasional drug use throughout high school, I will just sum it up. By the end of my high school career, I was drinking at least 5 nights a week, sometimes till I blacked out. I did average in my studies while excelling at my football career and was awarded a scholarship to play football for one of the top 3 schools in the state of Texas for Pre-Law and Pre-Med studies. The school was a few hours away from where I lived and I was happy to get away as I had already encountered some consequences and broken relationships as a result of my drinking.

College, for me, was quite an experience. Actually, the first semester of college was virtually identical to high school. I was now drinking hard liquor every night of the week, pulling B's and C's in my classes, and excelling at football. I refrained from using drugs during this first semester because of the NCAA's drug testing policy. I started to get some playing time as a freshman, which is not a very typical occurrence, and did well. About half way through the season, I began to notice that my knee was hurting terribly almost every day. I went to the team doctor to get checked out, and he in turn recommended me to an orthopedist in the area who worked with players from our team almost exclusively. He did an MRI and after a day or two longer than I would have expected, called me and told me that it was nothing more than a very severe "bone bruise" and that I would have to play through the pain, but that he could give me something to take after practice. He prescribed me Norco 10/325 again. I looked into the NCAA's testing policies and found that as long as I was prescribed the drug, I could not be penalized for testing positive for it, so I began to take them. He prescribed me 120 pills for 30 days and I managed to take them basically as prescribed, since I had such a large allowance. I played through the season this way. By Christmas time, I was still having a large amount of pain in my knee. When I came home to Houston for the holidays, I saw my orthopedist here, and got another MRI. He told me that I had been playing on a serious injury that would require surgery if I was to heal, and that basically only an idiot could have missed this on an MRI so he thought the ortho from school was telling me what I needed to hear so that I wouldn't miss playing time. He told me that if I wanted to walk after the age of 40, I would have the surgery and end my football career. As painful as this was, I agreed. I had the surgery and was given a large amount of painkillers to deal with the pain.

[Htownnofrown]

Thanks!

[Punkinhead75]

Just keepn the two posts together.