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. Tha