Drug (noun): A medicine or other substance which has a physiological effect when ingested or otherwise introduced into the body. Any mood or mind altering chemical.
Alcohol is a drug. And it is the first drug that I ever really had problems with. It was cheap, legal, and easily available. The first time I felt the effects of alcohol, I think I was 15, or was I 16? I’m not exactly sure, I think I touched on this in one of my previous blogs, but never really went any further into it, my main focus has been on my experiences as a Heroin addict. But I didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to mainline a Chicago dime of White China. Addiction is progressive, and my first major domino so to speak in the progression of addiction started with the liquid stuff. Alcohol. Booze, all forms of it are not only socially acceptable, but marketed. Our sporting events are sponsored by it, our NASCAR drivers endorse it, hell, even Peyton Manning endorsed it recently during a post game interview at the Super Bowl this year. It’s everywhere. The first time I got drunk was terrible, I embarrassed myself. I got loaded on Triple Sec with some high school buddies and threw up everywhere. I was a light weight, at first. I pretty much blacked out the first time I drank, and felt foolish and apologetic the next day. And my ball was rolling. The next time I drank was pretty much the same way, Absolut Vodka, drink, drink, puke, passout. I had a hangover for two days. And I loved it. I would walk into school on Monday morning in anticipation of the upcoming weekend. I was obsessed with mood altering. And alcohol fit the bill perfectly. The more frequently I drank, the more I could handle it, or so I thought. Yes, I could drink more and more, without embarrassing myself as often, but it was pretty much a coin toss as to who you were going to get each time I drank. What started off socially, with baseball buddies, became a deep mental obsession. I was drinking from right after school friday, all the way through sunday night. Every single week. Before long, I was smoking weed before school, and leaving school early, around third period to go and get drunk. We would drive around on the county roads on “booze cruises” and get hammered. I was like 17 now, getting blackout drunk in the A.M three or four days a week, and breaking my liver every single friday and saturday night. I had never had any real contact with the police, outside of a couple “kids” incidents ( a fist fight, and a vandalism deal) until I started drinking. The first time I was arrested was just over a month after my 18th birthday. A friend of mine and I had gone fishing down in south Porter County, and I had used my fake I.D to purchase some beers and a bottle of some cheap ass wine. We spent the afternoon catching nothing but a buzz and when the booze was gone, we were done fishing and decided to drive home. We made it about 6 miles before we were pulled over and jailed. My parents loved this one. After this, it was more and more of the same, fights, Public intox, minor consuming, D.U.I. I got into a fist fight with my own Dad one night and was thrown in jail. I once got a D.U.I when I was stopped and blew a .353 which I have absolutely no recollection of. I just came to in a jail cell, covered in my own piss and vomit. I had absolutely no idea how I had gotten there. One morning I came to in absolute panic, I woke up after a long night of heavy drinking and was freaking out, because I was at home, and had been drinking at a friends house. I looked out my window that faced my front yard to see my blue Buick parked in my yard with the driver side door still standing open. I was starting my days off by the time I was 18 with a fifth of flavored Burnetts vodka, yeah, I kept it classy. One day I drank four fifths in twenty four hours with a buddy of mine. He ended up with pancreatitis after this one. I was in complete downward spiral. My life was totally out of control and this was the first time I had ever tasted powerlessness in my life. But I still felt like I was in control. I could not, or would not function throughout my day to day life with out a mass amount of this drug flowing through my blood stream. And on I continued. I drank like this for about another year, same acts, same results, I was utterly insane and blind. I could not put the pieces together as to why my life sucked so badly. I was in the truest state of denial. I had no idea that I was feeding into a disease that was feeding off of me. It was killing me, slowly, driving me insane with every swig. The first bottom I hit in life came as a result of my alcoholism. I was 19. A friend and I had been partying at a lake out in Westville, and of course, had way too much. We were part of a large group out at Clear Lake celebrating the Fourth of July. We had met a couple girls at 7/11 the night before and invited them along for the festivites, and so we were coupled up. There were a total of maybe 20 of us out there this night, and things were going great. Barbecue, fireworks, and lots of booze. We partied well into the night, until the sounds of thunder, and the sight of lightning showed overhead. Rain started falling, and we were all marooned outside, because the owner of the lake house had gone home earlier, this place was actually her late father’s lake house, and we all just partied there on the weekends. We used the shit out of this girl, for her beachfront party spot. Everyone started making their ways to their vehicles and my friend, our dates and myself decided to hang back, we had a plan. Once the last leaving car had gone, we took matters into our own hands. We made our way up to the dark house on the hill that had been locked since our host had gone home. She did agree to allow us access to the beach and lake, since we had been drinking, and wanted to continue our holiday party. This was not enough for the four of us. It only took one strong hip slam into the garage door to seperate the old time slide latch from the trim, and we were in. And we made ourselves right at home. We continued to drink, smoke weed and do all sorts of things that 19 year old winos do. We trashed the place. I passed out in a bedroom upstairs, and was brought to life in the morning by loud shouts and arguing. It was our host from the night before, the daughter of the man’s lake house. She was not happy. We had broken into her father’s home, and trashed the place in a drunken stupor. Within ten minutes we were completely surrounded by county police. Roughly ten deputies had responded and were questioning us. We had committed a serious crime, and in my young age, had no idea just how major this was. We were taken to the sheriff’s department for further questioning, where we were then detained on Class B felony burglary. This crime’s potential sentence carries between 8 and 20 years. I was 19 and facing 20. This was not good. Since nothing was actually taken in the crime, however, the charge was dropped to residential entry, which is a major drop, to a Class D felony. This was going to be my first felony conviction, at 19 years old I was a felon. Alcohol is a drug. I’ve done things under the influence of this intoxicant that I would never do sober. In my opinion, alcohol is THE GATEWAY drug. It is so much more accessible to young people, and much more socially acceptable. It also has many more dangerous side effects, in my opinion, than marijuana. Alcohol is really the drug that paved my way toward opiate abuse.