Voices of Discovery, Derek - 44 Days

I’ve struggled with addiction for most of my life, starting sometime during

highschool. It started with peer pressures to smoke cigarettes, then progressed

to alcohol and pot. It eventually turned into a daily ritual and ended with me

skipping classes, dropping out of sports teams, and some trouble with the law.

At first, this didn’t seem to be a problem because I was able to hold a job, I fell

in love, and started a family. After my relationship ended, I started to make bad

decisions.

Depression, anguish, anger, and self-pity became my best friends. I tried to live

with these feelings, trying to drink away the emotions, falling deeper into

alcoholism. Having no inhibitions, I discovered a new, better way of taking my

feelings away, I found heroin. Long story short, 10 years went by where I

basically lost everything in my life that made me happy. My career, my

possessions, almost all communication with my children and family, my self-

esteem, my pride, but most of all, my will to live were gone. I had become a

slave to my addiction that was leading towards one result…a slow, miserable,

and lonely death.

In a prayer of desperation, I asked for help and made the call to Discovery

House. Thankfully, by the grace of God, they called me back with a bed and the

opportunity to save my life. For the first time in many years, I finally have hope,

a chance to recover from addiction, and to learn to love myself once again.

Derek - 44 days in the house