I started using substances at age 12. I have overdosed many times and should be dead by now. During the course of my addiction I contracted HIV and Hepatitis C. In 1984 I went to drug rehab and got clean and remained clean for 12 years until I went to the hospital for surgery the pain medication woke up my disease and eventually I was on the methadone program. The next six years were hell I lost my self-respect, my family and eventually my soul. I went to the best hospitals in Los Angeles, New Jersey and Philadelphia where I was told that because of my physical condition, my body would not make it through another drug detox. I made one last effort to find a place to get clean. I thank God I found a wonderful drug addiction treatment center in Malibu, CA. With care and genuine respect, they nurtured me through a very long detox process. I am now at peace with myself, my family and my God. Not only did my rehab center help me get sober; they also helped my wife get clean. Today my wife and I reside in a halfway house and my sons and I are working on our relationships. Now I follow the suggestions of the professionals here and it is working. I am coming up on six months clean.

I live in Los Angeles, where there’s a lot of cooky, funky, twisted people. And, unfortunately, there’s a tremendous amount of alcohol addiction. Once, when I was in Malibu, CA. I was all alone, on the beach, during the day, drinking this nasty old vodka. It was one of those times I wanted to cry, but felt like too much of a loser to even do that. This woman came up to me, out of the blue. She looked down at me, and my bottle. Immediately, I just wanted her to go away. But she smiled, then sat down next to me. She asked me my name, then what I did, and then she started telling me that she was sober. She told me how she had been sitting on this exact beach twenty years ago, with a bottle, all alone. Something inside of me wanted so badly to listen to this cool older woman, and I did. She told me how she stopped drinking, and how sobriety had changed her entire life. Then, she turned and pointed up the beach, towards a nice house. She told me it wasn’t where some movie star lived, but that it was the residential alcohol treatment center where she had gotten sober. I stared at it for a long, long time, then started to cry. I knew I needed help with my alcohol addiction. When I turned back, she was gone. And I’ve been sober ever since.