Straight stuff on addictions

He came out of the gate angry and drinking heavily.  The environmental and genetic ingredients were all certainly present.  Fending largely for himself he was out-drinking his buddies at age 12.  Drinking, drugging and “supplementing his income” he managed to buy a house just after high school shortly after his Mom notified him she was moving to Florida and he should find a place.  He married a bartender with three kids in an attempt to have a “normal” family but it ended in an ugly divorce.  He decided that she needed to get sober and went to a treatment center to investigate and found that he needed to stay.  He’s been sober since.  Early sobriety wasn’t a bed of roses but the anger is gone.  Join us this week to talk to Phil J. 

Pete was a kid torn from one parent and then torn again.  He was moved from place to place with little supervision.  Angry and hurt he acted out and was seemingly arbitrarily institutionalized at an early age.  He would tell you that the youth homes and jails were “gladiator schools” where he learned the rules of the street and animal survival.  Leaning on his survival instincts and increasingly on booze and drugs Pete ended up in a California treatment center.  He will tell you that he has learned about humility, peeling away the layers and has a deeper understanding of what it means to have character defects.  He’ll tell you that he’s on his way back to innocence. 

Jerry, his brother and Mom spent a good deal of their life on the run from a violent Father; moving from city to city, changing names, schools, friends and keeping secrets.  He desperately needed a sense of belonging and found drugs, alcohol and instant friends at age 14.  His use was way short of normal right out of the gate.  By age 16 he had gone to his first AA meetings.  He left in a hurry and didn’t get back for close to twenty years.  In between were numerous disastrous relationships, experimentation with just about everything, crushing depression and a never ending search for that elusive sense of belonging.  After a number of attempts at sobriety he finally found his real home.  Join us this week to hear Jerry’s story.

Jeff started his journey after his parents’ divorce at age 13 with alcohol, weed and of all things, screwdrivers.  By high school he was living a double life, bi-sexual but hanging with the gangbangers.  Unable to manage high school behaviorally, heavy into pills and booze he disappeared to Nashville with an older lover.  He returned, confused and drug addicted with HIV.  He launched into a six year period of mental illness, delusions, hospitalizations and stints of 12 step sobriety. After multiple tries he has found a stable sense of self, some supportive friends and contented sobriety.  His Buddhist practice has helped him to understand the nature of his miraculous transformation.

She never felt like she belonged.  Gawky, pale and thin she never felt like she could compete with the “popular” girls.  By the end of high school she was a tall, shapely blonde with big blue eyes…the boys couldn’t get enough but underneath she still felt small, unlikeable and unloved.  Her quest for love started a long string of lies to herself which began to require more and more alcohol to assuage.  By the end of college the alcohol and drugs had overtaken the insecurity as problem number one.  Join us this week to hear Hilary’s story. 

He was a lost child…on his own in many respects. He felt alienated and not a part of anything.  It was a perfect set-up for addiction.  He was always searching for meaning…for something bigger but the bottle became his higher power. Even before recovery started he’d had a spiritual experience, in fact he’d had several and thought seriously about the ministry but once again, the bottle stepped in and short-circuited the process.  Needing to shed his “judgmental God” and sick of his own alcohol fueled negativity and judgmental attitude he found AA.  Join us tonight to hear Jeff’s story.

Within months of his first go around with Vikes he knew he needed more.  Later a shady Doc gave him a prescription for 240 Norco a month and he managed to use that in two weeks.  He knew he was out of control and it went on for another seven years.  He graduated to oxy somewhere in that time span and had to hustle to manage enough of it to avoid getting sick at $80 a pill.  Stealing, “borrowing” from friends and hocking valuables became a way of life.  He needed to get off the merry-go-round and promised himself every day for the last three years he used that the pills he took that day would be his last.   Join us this Sunday to talk to Dan about how he finally got to his last pill.

She finally got sober in her home area of South Bay.  She went to somewhere around 700 meetings in the two years that she slipped, slid and hid her drinking before she found solid ground.  Weathering the shame and embarrassment she continued to “keep coming back”.  After a beautiful sober retreat weekend with her sponsor she went home and got loaded.  Scared and unable to stand her husband’s disgust she asked a treatment doc for Antabuse.  She came to realize that she had lost the power of choice and had no control over her drinking.  Join us this Sunday to hear Cathy tell her story of perseverance and recovery. 

We’ve had a couple years now to allow the drug court process to mature.  We’ve had several “graduating classes” and a very good track record.  We talked to the initial sitting drug court judge to get the framework of the court’s operations so now, let’s talk to several recent drug court participants and hear their stories from the inside.  Join us this Sunday evening as we speak to Dan and Kurt and one of their biggest supporters, Blu.

More than a few years ago a small group of parents began to meet in a therapists office.  They talked about their struggles to stay sane while living with the insanity of their behaviorally or addictively challenged kids.  They shared their fears, their shame, their struggles with difficult decisions and their small victories over staying out of the destructive vortex.  Some of these folks started their own self-directed support group for parents and it has grown exponentially.  Meet Marcia, Jeff and Beth to talk about the desperate need for parent support and recovery.

You could call our show this week a love story of sorts.  Mary and her husband adopted a beautiful baby girl they named Kellen at 8 days and although her childhood was in some ways idyllic she started “cutting” by 6th grade.  By college there were serious alcohol and relationship problems that resulted in the early termination of her college career and a stint in rehab.  A medical evaluation revealed that Kellen had been a a crack baby before there was such a designation.  A relapse and a near-fatal car accident resulted in her sobriety since 06.   Her Mom would say she been from elation to hell and back.

Ibogaine is an extract from an African plant.  It produces a number of effects that we’ll find out about tonight but among them is the elimination, for most clients, of cravings and even desire for addictive substances.  Ibogaine came into mainstream view in the last decade  through its use as an alternative to largely unsuccessful attempts to help heroin addicts.  The drug and its use are banned in the US but unscheduled in other countries including Mexico and Canada.  We’ll talk tonight to Dr. Martin Polanco the founder of Crossroads Clinic Treatment Center and colleague, Recovery Coach, Deanne Adamson.

Meet one of the most alive and articulate guys around.  Father Jerome is a well-known and well-loved Catholic Priest.  He’s full of contradictions; gregarious, gentle, caring, opinionated, humble and strong.  Join us as we cover his own struggle with addiction; his recovery process and how he blends his religion with his recovery.

She went to church, got good grades, was popular and funny but…her Mom was a “full blown alcoholic” and her Dad had an anger management problem.  Ann would say her family lived lives of “quiet desperation”.  She was always the first to start drinking and the last to stop.  She had her first “honest” drunk at 14.  Her management of her drinking during her first pregnancy brought up feelings that funneled her into Adult Children of Alcoholics groups.  They helped her but the drinking caught up some years later and she found AA.  After a lengthy AA vacation and an emotional nosedive she found her way back to serenity. 

Tonight’s show is an unusual opportunity to look inside the world of young people; a glimpse into how kids experience life.  Our panel will be composed of high school aged people who are not actively involved with the drug culture.  They may be able to give us some perspective on what parents should be concerned with and what is hype.  They may be able to give us some perspective on today’s “normal.  Our goal is to confront the “everybody does it” myth with a real view of teen life and to honor those kids who value healthy, “normal” living.