Up in Smoke!

I have experienced the devastation of the manifestation of addiction both personally and with others throughout my life.Addiction to me is the symptom of a larger or underlying issue that has not found resolution.No I don't prescribe to the disease model of addiction.I do agree that we are all influenced by either genetics or environment, but find calling addiction a disease....something that someone can't do anything about.....a farce.This needless to say puts my concept against all 12 step...let go and let God practices.Sure I think it would be easier to say..."oh I can't help myself....I have a disease."But alas I believe strongly that I am culpable and it is my responsibility to get to the root of the discontent in order to produce a health productive response.I new from an early age what disfunction with addiction looked like.I vowed that I wasn't going to be like them (Dianna, Grandpa, Mom).So I was a square....didn't drink really until I turned 21.Drinking back then held no fascination and the thought of loosing control.....well to my control freak personality....wasn't gonna happen.I turned a cornerafter I came out as a gay man as I started dating Scott, my first adult boyfriend.He was a social individual and loved to dancing Thursday Friday and Saturday nights.I had NEVER danced with another man and found it quite awkward.Scott would buy me drinks, liquid courage, so that I would dance with him and it became a thing.Not out of control...but drinking for the wrong reason regardless. After Scott and I broke up I moved back East to continue working with the family I was a nanny for previously.I found myself going out the 2nd oldest gay bar in the US the Cedar Brooks Cafe in Westport CT.I tried new drinks and met new people...but ultimately created a bad habit of using alcohol to socialize....to feel worthy of being accepted.In the end of my 22nd year,I would have once again made an attempt on my life by overdose because I had ignored the underlying issues and mental illness that was not being managed.I did what I had learned early in life.....run.So I did.I ran to Minneapolis to start over again.In exploring what it meant to be an open gay man...I found myself in the Saloon, The Gay 90"s, The Brass Rail.I would spend endless time looking for what I thought was love in these establishments while feeding my habit of drinking more and more.This culminated in a drunken one night stand where I engaged in unprotected sex and two weeks later had acute seroconversion to HIV.A death sentence back then.....not even protease inhibitors had come along.The only drug available was AZT.I stabilize long enough to start drinking which led me to experience my first rehab, Pride Institute.I didn't stay short of 10 days.My recovery was going to be much more than I could understand.I come to terms with underlying mental illness and how to effective treat and manage it.So I jumped again.



To Be Continue:

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