I've had addiction issues throughout most of my life. I probably posted in the addictions section, but I'll post here too. It used to piss me off, and it still bothers me sometimes, but I've come a long way from it.
I started drinking when I was about 12, in catholic school, stealing my parents liquor and wine. I couldn't sleep because of the ridiculous amounts of stress and depression, so I'd steal shots of vodka and take benadryl to finally get some sleep. Drank through most of high school, either hoarding leftovers from my parents or from friends. I also started taking painkillers, ADD medication, pretty much anything I could get a hold of. I used to be on a thyroid medication and needed bloodwork every few months, and have a horrible phobia of needles. They'd give me valium for it, so I'd hoard that too. The worst point was while I was in college. Everything in my personal life was going insane, my best friend had a lot of money he was willing to waste on me, and four of us pretty much took over my girlfriend's house while her mom was out of town for 6 months. I can't remember the majority of it, or my second year of college, because I was wasted or hungover all the time.
Probably the worst incident was after this three day drunk binge, I went to band practice completely wasted. Couldn't sing, couldn't even hold my guitar, I was being an ass to everybody. My drummer's girlfriend who I hated showed up, pissed him off, and I totally lost it. Threw my mic stand at him, totally destroyed the mic and a few other things, told everyone to GTFO and I hated them. Ended up giving myself a concussion from headbutting a concrete wall.
A few weeks later, drummer decided to make mixed drinks with about 5 different kinds of liquor and, of all things, Monster. I've got a high sensitivity to caffeine. I drank a lot. I don't remember how much, but I ended up in some kind of coma thing for 5-6 hours. They were pouring water on me, shaking me, about to call the ambulance, and the only thing I remember was being cold and so tired I just wanted to sleep forever.
My best friend got sacked with unexpected bills, lost almost all his money, and that more or less ended it. I was miserable for months, I started smoking constantly, but eventually got out of it. I drink occasionally now, nothing hard because I get sick as hell, and it's closely supervised by everyone around me. The only drug I do anymore is pot, because it calms me the hell down.
The scariest part to me is looking back at all the damage I did. There's some horror stories they've told me that I don't remember at all. I've seen the scars I left, the ->-bleeped-<- I've broken, woken up with swollen knuckles and bruises I don't remember. And yet, there's times where I almost miss that "To hell with everything". That terrifies me. I get money, even 20$, and my first thought is still liquor. Ben's helped me so much with it, giving me things to occupy myself and new hobbies and everything, but it's still always there.
