A Peter Pan Creation
Most people grow up with similar ideas as I did. The fantasy of “never growing up” and “always being a kid” sounds playful and almost harmless. I certainly took these to the next level, graduating from fun and games to living my life on a critical edge.
My upbringing was somewhat privileged and I had all the chances to live a healthy and normal life. My parents divorced when I was nine, setting my view of the world to living fast and taking chances from doing high-risk activities like skating and racing motorcycles to using drugs and dating wild women. I always enjoyed going against the grain.
I began experimenting with drugs at the age of 11, smoking weed regularly by 13, and soon enough was shooting heroin daily. A life of apparently harmless goofing around can quickly escalate into the worst scenario, which is where I ended up.
I am 37 years old with two daughters, a four- and a six-year-old. I was married for 10 years and have had my own business for over six years now. Yet I’ve still never managed to fully grow up.
I had stopped my professional skating career and quickly replaced it with more dangerous habits. I was prescribed painkillers many times for broken bones and eventually, I began regularly using opiates from Vicodin to oxycodone and eventually to heroin. I went from popping pills to smoking and snorting them and eventually to injecting heroin. My habit spun out of control; I began selling my belongings and spending entire paychecks on it.
I was constantly trying to maintain my drug use while taking care of my family. I love my daughters as much as any father could. They mean the world to me and always have. But drug addiction is a very powerful thing. It can grab hold of the most stable person and turn their world upside down and I almost died from overdosing and from being shot.
I’ve also lost many friends from drug abuse. My so-called “harmless” independence and young-at-heart antics quickly turned into a deadly trap. No one could tell me I was wrong, and I had a sense of invincibility that could have killed me. Every day I would wake up with only one thing on my mind—getting high. Nothing else mattered.
“I am happier and more comfortable than I ever thought possible. Nobody is beyond saving.”
I began to neglect my family. I began hanging out with people I never would have hung out with before. I began to lose my personality and everything about myself I used to love. It was all replaced with hatred and guilt, with blame and defeat and with a complete loss of everything my friends and family used to love me for. I truly felt like I had gone off the deep end and past the point of no return. But no matter how far you fall, there is always hope for recovery.
After going to Narconon, I managed to regain my mental and physical strength. In fact, I have surpassed that and have become even stronger with more confidence in my abilities than ever before. I am happier and more comfortable than I ever thought possible. Nobody is beyond saving. Not even someone who didn’t want to grow up.
The tools were at Narconon. All it took was the will to be a healthy and happy person.
—B.L.