MY STORY

My name is John Day and I am 43 years old.  I would like to share my experience with those of you that may be dealing with alcohol or drug addiction, indirectly or directly.  I do not have all the answers all I can do is share my story.  I am the youngest of three boys and I grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  I never was exposed to drugs, my older brothers didn’t use drugs, nor did my parents. 

            I was raised to work hard and to go to school.  My two older brothers were my idols.  All three of us played sports, and some of my best childhood memories took place at the Middle Valley Ball Fields.  This is where my brothers and I played baseball from tee ball all the up to fast pitch.  The large parking lot is also where I learned to drive a car.  I loved the ball fields and I was always there, and I absolutely loved it.

            My mother balanced watching all three of us playing baseball and took care of the house.  This seemed to be the norm back then because a lot of dads were always working.  I was fortunate to grow up with my hero living in the same house as me, it was my dad.  Dad was a Full Blooded American Indian.  He worked as a chemical operator 12 hours a day 7 days a week swing shift for 33 years.  Work ethic was instilled in us at an early age.

            When you were a boy my age back then things were a lot simpler than today.  My childhood friends and I wanted to be one of the Dukes of Hazard or a member of the A Team.  Some of us kids thought we were real life cowboys and Indians at war with each other all over the neighborhood.  I grew up thinking it was the coolest thing to have a Full-Blooded Indian as a father.  Even though dad has passed on, I still am very proud of that fact.

            Alcohol was always an issue in one way or another in my family and growing up I seen some very scary things from my dad when he drank.  He never did hurt any of us, but I witnessed him hurt others on several different occasions.  My dad didn’t mess around and was prone to becoming violent even quicker when he drank. 

            I wasn’t allowed to drink wasn’t encouraged to drink, if alcohol was around my mother would watch us like a hawk to make sure none of us boys tried to be sneaky.  I was never exposed to drugs, I didn’t like people that used drugs, didn’t want to have anything to do with drugs growing up.  Many children are exposed to drugs at an early age that wasn’t the case for me.  As far as the alcohol goes it was never kept in are home, dad never drank at home either.  Looking back now, I have learned a lot about the way dad was raised, and I understand completely.  Alcoholism runs ramped on Indian Reservations and it still does today.  The conditions were horrible for my father when he was growing up and he didn’t want any of his kids seeing the same things that he did.

            When I was in school all I cared about was playing sports and girls.  I wanted to be a police officer after I graduated High School.  The back of my yearbook my senior year in my plans, it says I wanted to work for the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office after graduation.  The day of my graduation many my dads’ side of the family were making the trip from Michigan to Tennessee to attend my graduation.  I was very excited; all my friends were finally going to see the Native American side of my family! 

            There was a big party at my parents’ house after graduation and there was over 150 people there, plus a lot of alcohol.  It was the best day of my life at first, but later that night it turned into by far one of the worse!  That day was the first time I had ever gotten drunk and the was immediate consequences!  Everyone was having a good time, and the more I drank, the braver I became.  My oldest brother Tony was there, and he was 26 years old at the time, and when he drank, he had a very short fuse just like dad.

            My family always protected each other, but on that night all hell broke loose!  My brother and I started arguing and it caught the attention of my dad.  There were a few words exchanged between my dad and I, and he pulled a gun that he had is his pocket, pointed it at me.  There was someone watching over me that day.  I heard the gun click, dad lowered it and tried to get it un jammed.  I was terrified!  And when it comes to the term “Fight or Flight”, my family fought!  I attacked my dad, and then ran as fast as I could to the end of the driveway. 

            My oldest brother and dad fought over the gun, and Tony threw the gun in to the back yard.  My mother seen all of this, went to get the gun and came from the back of the house shooting at my dad for pulling the gun on me.  My mother has never used alcohol or drugs!  I say all of that to say this, Alcohol had immediate negative consequences the very first time I consumed it at the age of 18. 

            My plans didn’t work out the way I thought they would, I never did become a police officer.  I had already had a job lined up after graduation and started working as a corrections officer for Corrections Corporation of America right after graduation.  I was making plans to start taking courses for criminal justice at the local community college, this never did happen!  Over the next couple of years, I made a few more wrong choices that sent me down the wrong road and I am still trying to put the pieces together 21 years later!

            Over the next couple of years, I started drinking more and started using marijuana on a regular basis.  I had moved into an apartment with my high school sweetheart, but for over two years or so I hid from my dad.  I would worry about running in to him, so I would drink more, “It made me feel bulletproof!”  I had kept my job as a corrections officer, but my out of control behavior was starting to manifest.

            May of 1996 my daughter was born and at this point, I really thought I had it together.  I had an apartment, a car, job, and was actively taking care of my little girl.  The truth was I was drinking more and using marijuana more and more and was pushing my little girl and her mother away from me.  After about 3 years of me thinking I was doing so good, my girlfriend and daughter moved out.  At this point in time I was where a lot of addicts are in their addiction, I thought it was everyone else’s fault but mine!  I believed at the time that I had nothing to do with everything around me falling apart.

            I only was drinking, and smoking weed because of what my dad did to me, and I didn’t have a problem because I kept a job and paid the bills.  This was a turning point in my life, a turn for the worst!  That all too familiar phrase “Marijuana is a Gateway Drug” was true in my experience!  Slowly but surely everything around me was falling apart and I had nothing to do with it! My family avoided me, I was not allowed to see my daughter, and at this point I was introduced to cocaine.

            I thought of my marijuana use, “Just Say No” was huge back then!  In my mind I wasn’t doing so bad, weed didn’t cause me to do anything crazy, maybe cocaine isn’t that bad either!  The beginning of the year 1999 I snorted cocaine for the very first time, and I absolutely loved it! I enjoyed the way I felt and everything that came with it parties, clubs, and of course women.

            My childhood best friend Philip was my drinking and smoking weed buddy, but I quickly learned that there was something else going on with him.  He had become involved in something else and I wasn’t sure what it was!  I started following him and the people he was hanging out with.  I would follow the in to some rough areas of the inner city and found out that they were smoking crack. 

            On several different occasions I would assault the people he was with and take him home.  I spoke to Philip’s dad about this and he was convinced that all he was doing was smoking a little weed.  This went on for a few months until I became curious.  I thought to myself, crack is just cocaine that you smoke, and I really liked cocaine.  I eventually tried smoking crack cocaine and was immediately hooked.

            I had forgot about everything else in my life, my family, daughter, job I was completely consumed with the thought of smoking crack!  I learned that you might not experience problems the first time you use a drug, or drink alcohol, but eventually you will.  When it comes to this point in addiction, it’s too late to stop before the drug completely takes control of your life.  I quit my job started writing bad checks and stealing just to support my habit.  This eventually caught up with me and I was sentenced to 6 months in jail in September of 1999 one day before my 23rd birthday.

            My family knew about alcoholism, but this was the first time any of us was dealing with a full-blown crack addiction.  I’m not making light of alcoholism, alcohol is a drug too.  It was very embarrassing spending 6 months in jail where I used to be employed at even so, this wasn’t enough to make me stop! 

            I had gone 6 months without using crack, so I thought I knew better, I wasn’t going to let it happen again, so I thought!  One week after my release, I was off and running again and I had picked up right where I left off, and it quickly became worse!  I won’t go in to too many details, but I will say this, from the year 1999 to 2014 I spent over half of them behind bars.  I have done time in 2 different states, and 5 different counties.

            I didn’t care who I hurt or what I had to do to keep living the lifestyle that I was living.  I hurt a lot of people in the free world and while I was incarcerated.  I really didn’t care about anything but getting drunk and getting high.  I didn’t have a problem with what I was doing until the last 4 years or so.  I wanted to stop but I didn’t know how.  It got to the point where I would thank the police officers for arresting me and would get a since of relief when I would hear those heavy medal jail doors slam shut. 

            This obviously wasn’t normal, jail was supposed to be punishment!  And for me it became the only way to escape the drug addicted lifestyle I had created for myself.  Addiction is a disease, an individual disease, everyone’s’ life is different, and they become addicted in their own way.  This leads me to believe that treatment needs to be individualized also.  I also feel like long term treatment is needed for an addict to have any measure of success.  The truth is no one can even start making the needed changes to live without the control of addiction unless they have sincerely had enough!  Each person must hit their “rock bottom”.

            The loss of a job, loss of loved ones, broken homes, incarceration there is nothing that is going to be enough until you humbly throw in the towel and do whatever it takes to battle this lifelong condition they are faced with.  A judge cannot make anyone get sober or better yet stay sober!  Evidence has shown that a 28- or 45-day treatment is not enough for someone to completely change their lives, just look at the national success rates.  One of the biggest problems I had to overcome is trying to live a different way in the same environment.  You can go to treatment anywhere be in jail for any length of time and must return to the same environment that you were in when it all started its going to be tough. This is true for anyone that I know personally who has been faced with the same situation.

            In my own personal experience, that thought that enters your mind just before you pick up and use again, when you convince yourself that everything is going to be different this time, to me that is my addiction!  Things continues to get worse, and the one thing that has caused you the problems to begin with, is the only thing that helps you forget about the mess you’ve caused!  This is a mental disease, and for there to be a change, there must be a change mentally and emotionally.  This change cannot take place physically something has to break the mental obsession.  I’m not suggesting that everyone must move away from the people that care about the permanently, but time away from everything that I know has put me in a place without any familiar outside influences.  My family turned their backs on me, my children are growing up without me, I’ve been homeless in 2 different states, and I have spent all together a little over 8 years of my life in jail, 22 months was in prison.  My so-called comfort zone was killing me! It has been very beneficial moving completely away from everything I know to give my brain a chance to heal.  Your brain doesn’t do much healing when your incarcerated, in a lot of ways I became worse!

            Jail is not treatment, although I firmly believe people should be punished for committing crimes whether you’re under the influence of drugs and alcohol or not.  I use this analogy when it comes to my importance of getting away so I could heal.  If a full-blown alcoholic is removed from their environment for a period and they return to the same bar that they did most of their drinking at they wouldn’t last too long.  No matter how good their intentions are, no matter what kind of important lessons they’ve learned this time, if the hang around too long times the influence will be too much for them.  If there was a complete change, they wouldn’t want to go back to the bar to begin with!

            I have lived in two different states before moving here to California, and I can promise you this a lot of the stuff you see here wouldn’t fly in the two other states I’ve lived in, especially Tennessee!  Its more laid back here drug use is in your face everywhere, people sit on the side of the road and use drugs, and it seems to be the norm here.  Why can someone with my history come out here and finally change my life around?  None of this is familiar to me! That’s why? We are creatures of habit, I created a lifestyle that was hard to break away from until I was completely away from it.

            Toward the end of my drug and alcohol use I was doing and consuming anything you put in front of me. Along with my crack use I started using crystal meth intravenously and didn’t stop until I was in handcuffs.  I truly believe that my early death was just around the corner!  My version of rehabilitation at the time was to rob every drug dealer that I knew, that way I couldn’t by any more drugs from anyone, “It made sense to me at the time!”  Looking back now I am very lucky to be alive!

            There was another turning point in my life, that made me really want to stop doing what I was doing, Valentine’s Day 2014 when my “hero” my dad passed away, and later that same year when I held my first grandbaby for the first time. Shortly after I checked myself into a drug and alcohol treatment facility in Michigan, shortly after I made the move to California to further treatment and “Here I Am!”

            The fact of the matter is there is no one size fits all cure for addiction, each person has their own history, what works for one, may not work for another.  The reality is that there are many that will die from addiction and they are every day.  I know 8 people that have died just this past year from this disease.  I have spent the last couple of months trying to relate my drug and alcohol addiction in a way that everyone can relate to.  This is what I’ve come up with, I hope you get something from it.

“Pennies”

            How many people have seen pennies laying around?  I think most of us have and thought “It’s just a penny!”  More times that not we just pass them on by, Afterall it’s just a penny!  Some pennies are out there a very long time, some never get found and are lost forever!  Some pennies are lucky and are found quickly!  The truth is that the longer they stay out there in the world the worse shape they are in! 

They are scared up, beaten up, stepped on, the basically they are helpless and forgotten about.  Most of us overlook pennies because let’s face it, “It’s just a penny!”, It’s not worth the time and effort to stop and pick up, clean them off so they can once again be used for what pennies were intended to be used for.  There are not too many of us that would pass up a twenty-dollar bill, a twenty-dollar bill wouldn’t be laying around for too long!  A twenty-dollar bill may be worth the time and effort to stop and pick up!

            All those pennies laying around out there are helpless unless someone takes the time to reach down and pick them up.  “I know what it’s like to be one of those pennies!”  I’ve been just laying there helpless and stuck watching the world just passing me by!  I was just wishing someone would pick me up clean me off so I can do what I was created to do!  “I just wanted someone to help me!” 

            When you are out there feeling stuck in your situation, know this we were not created to be held down, oppressed, or be addicted to anything!   If you are one of the fortunate ones that are given another chance, take advantage of it because there is no guarantee that you will get another one!   Remember this also, there are only certain people that will find certain pennies, there are pennies out there that only you can find! There are people out there that only you can reach!   I have a horrible past, but I know that today “It’s time for me to collect some pennies!”

            I just would like everyone to be aware that there are some things you just can’t learn from a text book, or by watching a movie.  You may know someone personally that is in the middle of an addiction.  There is no possible way you will ever know what it is truly like to be a drug addict or alcoholic, unless you’ve been there, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy!