RTD&U: Finding Reasons to Drink and Use? Don't.

This Memorial Day, the best advice I could give is “don’t drink or use at all.”  There are plenty of fun things to do without getting hammered and loaded.   More than anything we should remember that Memorial Day is about our fallen heroes who died so that we could be free and they deserve our respect.  We should also be mindful of veterans here in the U.S. who have been looking to the bottle and drugs to overcome war trauma.  Saying a prayer for them and their families is a prayer they surely can use.


People in recovery know, holidays should never be reasons to abuse and use alcohol or drugs.  But alcohol marketing is all about “this Bud’s for you.”  Some people are able to drink alcohol because they like it and nurture it like they might nurture a cup of tea.  But others find social acceptance by saying things like “I’m having this drink for you” even if they don’t really want to drink it.  And then they still drink it.

So please, don’t drink and drive and don’t drug and drive.  Try to have a safe and healthy, drug and alcohol free Memorial Day.

Rock Center Investigative Report Shows Pot Laws Being Badly Abused

For the full story click here

Recovery is about Conscience

When we get into the rooms of recovery or find the help we need with a therapist, social worker, a family member or within the faith-based community, we know while we were using and abusing drugs and alcohol, we have lived a life of getting away with things.  This has been the case for some of us more than others.  People who love us unconditionally and people who hate us for what we have become in our addiction, make us aware of this more than we care to remember. In recovery however, this becomes our "to do" list for making amends.

How do we pay it back, make it right and make the people we’ve taken things away from whole?  We know, forgetting about it and just moving on is not enough.  Clearing the path to a clear conscience is a humbling experience.  Not everyone wants to see us succeed or is ready for us to come back into their life to make amends and right the wrongs.  That is why we must remember that forgiveness is a process that in some cases can take a lifetime.

If we go on the path of making amends and we try to find the way back to a clear conscience, in the process we discover something else.  We discover the hurt that drove the addiction and we discover how and why we buried it deep inside ourselves.  Sometimes parents cause this hurt when we are small children and sometimes strangers or those close to us inflict pain and instill fear in us that we never let go of, until we learn how to ask for help. 

Sometimes we were victims and this later made us victimize others.  Drugs and alcohol use and abuse fuel our rage and in this clouded rage we wrongly try to make others understand our pain and desperation.  Drugs and alcohol bring about behavior that leaves us blind to understanding exactly why we act the way we do.  Other times we let go of a joyful life because we do not have the tools to cope with what happened to us.  In either situation, our perpetrators and drug dealers have us where they want us and while they know we are afraid of what drugs have done to us, they now become the people who try to control us so they can keep doing us harm and taking things from us. 

In recovery we learn to understand these circumstances in ways that are thorough, so that we can assess these events and find maturity and peace within ourselves.  Letting go is a slow and personal process but we find that by helping others and by making a difference in our community, the healing process back to a natural self, reflects well on our character.  We know we have arrived in recovery when we exercise a disciplined sense of conscience each day, for the benefit of others and the betterment of ourselves.

Why People See Rehab as a Joke

Every time we hear a celebrity say they are going to go to rehab we know, chances that this is not going to work are great.  This is a disturbing societal perception, but with all the people who have gone back out, can anyone be blamed for this perception?   Rehab for some, is like a way-station to stop family and loved ones from worrying about a drug or alcohol problem.  It’s used by some as a tool to shut people up for a while, which is a sure way to lose the respect from the few friends we still have left by the time we enter rehab.

What rehab should mean however, is to make a decision to be ready to ask for help and make real life changes.  This is a very sacred process.  We know we have to make these changes and letting go of our old life, means being ready to take direction and especially knowing when to ask for help.

When we end up in rehab, we are confused from drug abuse and we have developed a cycle of poor decisions that we take along with us into recovery.  The poor decision making process is something we are not fully conscious of, as our thoughts stay clouded for quite some time while we try to get sober.  It is in that time we are most vulnerable and it is this time that counts the most in terms of severing our ties with party friends who can make us not take our recovery seriously.  This does get better though and eventually our senses return and we are in charge of our life again.

But this can only happen if we are willing to make the commitment it takes to get sober.  And that means, before we go in to rehab, we must be committed to change once and for all.  We must also make clear to those closest to us, who look out for our wellbeing, that we are serious about our recovery and that we are not just going in to clean up so we can go back out.  Real recovery is a commitment, a life-long bond you make with yourself.  You must be accountable.  You must manage your life and if you don’t know how to live sober, you must be willing to ask for help, learn and do whatever it takes to stay sober.

Support The CASE Act, the Californians Against Sexual Exploitation Act

Just last week, a very important ballot initiative called the CASE Act, qualified for the November 2012 ballot.  The CASE Act stands for Californians Against Sexual Exploitation Act.  This law, if it were to pass, would protect young girls and boys from being forced into human slavery and sexual exploitation, creating harsh penalties for the evildoers who take advantage of children. 

When I was 16 years old, I was approached by a man who wanted to exploit me, who propositioned me to sleep with men for money.  I told him I was not about to do this kind of thing and even though I dodged a bullet for a little while, the fact that I was even propositioned was horrifying to me.  I was already an alcoholic teen and substance abuser at that time and I remember that night I went home, I looked in the mirror and felt a hopelessness and dark feeling come over me.  I remember saying to myself “is this really what it’s come to?  If someone thinks I should be a prostitute, I must look like and be a terrible person.”     


That day took away so much from me.  It was as if someone had stolen away my dignity.  From that day on, my self-esteem became lower and lower and the thought that someone believed I should be a teen prostitute, stayed on my mind and I never told anyone until I went into treatment years later.  What this indecent proposal did to my inner dialogue was horrific.  I used drugs over it, which lead me to further behavior that was to my near self-destruction.  Because I never told anyone as a teen and lacked counseling, my secret grew in the dark.  In my early 20’s I was again propositioned several times and by the time drugs and lack of good opportunity became the ill-conceived, self-rationalizing factor, I decided not to ask for help and give in to the pimps for a short while.  


At the age of 22, I took drastic measures to put a stop to the people who tried to sexually exploit me by assisting to turn them in to the authorities.  The CASE Act would help create preventative efforts to help law enforcement be trained to handle the sensitive issues that keep children in fear of their procurers and would get them into counseling early on.   Sexual exploitation of children is a psychological and sometimes violet game that will haunt a child into adulthood and can make it impossible for a victim to have a normal relationship with a partner, if left untreated.  It involves drug addiction, humiliation, degradation and the refusing of all rights a child has to a happy, healthy and natural childhood.  Please join with me and support this very important initiative to help stop child sexual exploitation, The CASE Act.

For more, please visit:  www.caseact.org

Addiction Took my Dreams and Turned them into Nightmares

This gallery shows images of me when I was between 20-24 years of age.  While I was very serious about perusing a career in modeling and fashion design, by the time these pictures were taken however, I had already been molested as a child, raped twice as a minor and had been assaulted.  While there was concern for me and advice for me to receive counseling, I never got the help I needed, not till many years later.  As a way to cope, I became an alcoholic and hard drug user. Even though these images may not show it, they are the halfway point of my 13-year drug and alcohol addiction. 

In those years, I was still able to drink and use on a semi-social basis, though things turned from “fun” to necessity quicker than I realized.  My whole world collapsed because of my own poor choices 
and because of the people I associated with.  Looking at these pictures is not easy because I see a person who really tried to succeed and wanted to get away from a bad life. 

Had I known how hard I had to work to get my life back and the struggle I would have go through, I don’t think I would have taken the chances that I have.  Drug and alcohol abuse destroyed all that I ever wanted to be in those years.

Today, I understand that I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude some really terrific people who took a chance on me and gave me a new start.  I keep those people in my thoughts and my prayers each day.  

Drug Legalization Would Condemn Addiction and Recovery

It is quite unsettling how in the last few years the voices of the drug legalization movement have been making every argument in favor of drug use, while ignoring the consequences of addiction.  At the same time those opposing drug legalization have also let their voices be heard in opposition to this and rightly so.  Yet there is still a major void in the discussion in terms of recovery and most people in recovery with the exception of an uncounted few, have decided that it is best to stay out of such a complex and messy debate.  


Additionally, it is quite troubling that while we lack real solutions to the problems of addiction that can work for everyone, there are those who turn a blind eye to this reality.  Make no mistake about it; addiction is pure hell and in the mind of an addict, the language of our disease has nothing to do with whether drugs are legal or illegal.  We wrongly think about whether our drugs are easy to get, if we can afford them and whether and for how long we can hide our drug use from those we love.


The most tragically convenient thing that could happen to a drug addict, would be that drugs were legal.  Legal drugs would feed the addiction and would keep an addict afflicted, numb and out of touch, which is most simply put, part of the nature of addiction.  That is until the addiction kills because we can be sure about one thing:  A real addict is not someone who sees him or herself actually quitting.  Ever. It takes serious measures and even consequences to change the way we see things. 


Our greatest social problem is that addiction has it’s own dialogue and is in part socially condoned.  Take for example so-called “Medical Marijuana.”  People who know they do not meet the criteria of a seriously ill cancer patient, that “just want to get high”, are willing to call themselves patients, lie about aliments so they can obtain a doctor’s recommendation and have not a moment of conscience about it.  By condoning this behavior, we are raising a new breed of liars who are not willing to own up to their behavior.  


If we don’t draw the line and send a message that this is not acceptable, we will keep on condoning drug abuse through inaction.  Legalization of drugs would be the ultimate condoning of such inaction and would reward the disgraceful behavior of those breaking drug laws. 


Owning up to drug use means calling things what they are.  Owning up to our behavior in recovery means surrendering to the game of drug abuse and stepping into life on life’s terms.  In recovery we have to own up to who are, who we were, what we were and who we have become because of it.  As we grow, people in recovery find that there is a worthwhile life waiting for us if we are willing to take charge of our life and grow towards becoming mature human beings with a purpose. Drug legalization crushes such promise.