CMA Stories

Category: Our Stories

Added gift of freedom

February 24, 2018 / admin / Comments Off

Hi there, my name is Antonio. I am a 27 year old recovering addict.

Damn that sounds great to identify like that!

I wasn’t sure if I would be able to write something like this, to tell my story. I guess I was afraid that some people might judge me.

I’m a survivor of abuse and rape. I’ve been homeless and I’ve contracted HIV. I lost jobs and my home and I’ve done sex work just to make ends meet.

But it didn’t all start out this way. Maybe I should start at the beginning?

And please stay tuned because there IS a happy ending!

I don’t believe I was born an addict. My drinking started at about 14 years of age as a way to forget what I’d been through.

By 14 years old I was already a child abuse and rape survivor.

By 16 years old I was told to leave home. Nobody in my family wanted me in their life.

Leaving home at that age resulted in me being homeless. I spent months living on the street going to internet cafes to get cold drinks and a roof over my head.

One of these nights I met someone who I thought would be a part of my life for a very long time. This person had a dark side but I still loved him.

Isn’t that what you do when you love someone? You love them back?

This person did some terrible things to me. He bashed me and turned my life upside down.

We moved apart for some time but I took him back and the abuse continued.

I had a phone call from my mother asking me to move back home with her and I brought him. I thought the bashing would stop but it kept on going and got even worse.

My mother was even bashed by him and all I did was just watch, I couldn’t move.

Since that day I still can’t forgive myself for what happened as I know I should have done something to keep my mother safe.

The time came for him to leave but guess what? I went after him and moved back in with him. The whole cycle repeated all over again.

Eventually I cut contact with him and started dating someone else. At this point I had moved in with him but it too wasn’t a great relationship.

We had our ups and downs, and it was about this time I started to learn more about drugs, especially pills.

Both of us were sleeping around with other guys, till it was time for us to go our own ways and that’s when I met someone who to this day I call my best mate.

He had taken me in under his wing and looked after me. He even taught me how to drive.

I was only 21 years old by this stage. But now it was me who had a dark side – the drinking and taking pills was started to get out of control.

One day he took me to see my local GP who told me that I needed to stop taking pills and drinking, even if it meant moving away from Brisbane.

I agreed with him and decided to move down to Sydney where I could restart my life, get a job to pay the bills. But it all started again.

I downloaded an app on my phone and went out clubbing. I met someone who, once again, I thought I would love to spend my life with and call him my husband someday.

After a short time into our relationship we started trying out some new party goods I hadn’t heard of before – it was called crystal.

Things got out of hand so very quickly. One led to another and then another and that’s when crystal became a part of my life. At first I was just smoking it.

A couple of months later, on a day trip to the Blue Mountains my best mate warned me “I think something terrible is happening to you Antonio”.

It made me think ‘not again, I thought I’d gone past that life for good’. My mate booked me in for a check-up with the GP who ordered a blood test.

My results came back. It was worst day of my life. I was told I have HIV.

My best mate was with me that day and we had found out it was my partner who had given me HIV.

Over the following weeks and months I started injecting ice and ketamine.

I thought isn’t dying of an overdose better then dying of AIDS? I don’t want to have red spots all over my body from AIDS!

My life was again turned upside down.

Well one thing led to another and soon after my diagnosis I began escorting.

With the escorting I started taking even more drugs. My life was shit and couldn’t get over that I now had HIV.

I was still only 21 years old when I started living with HIV and thought people would judge me. I didn’t want to be on this earth anymore.

By 22 years old I had lost my job and my home and returned to living on the streets until my older brother found out and asked me to move in with him.

I was still using and due to this was regularly forgetting to take my HIV meds. But I still kept using drugs anyway.

This continued for about a year.

I was 23 years old when my brother took me to the hospital and I was told if I didn’t give up drugs and start taking my meds, I’d be dead by the end of the year.

For a couple of months I stopped taking drugs by myself but it didn’t last long.

Again I met up with the wrong people who just didn’t care about me. They just wanted to use me.

The cycle repeated itself, I ended up homeless again, moving between boarding houses and kept on picking up again.

I used and used and used and used some more until one early morning I got out my phone and searched for a 12 Step program that would help me. I decided it was the CMA Redfern Monday meeting I would go along to first.

After the meeting I was worried people there would judge me because I was an addict who was still using so I tried to stop.

But by the next Monday night meeting I was only a day and half clean. I didn’t know what I was going to say or if people would judge me or even if I would stay the whole time.

I was asked to share at that meeting and straight after I walked outside and started to cry. I thought people were judging me, didn’t like me and didn’t care what I had shared about.

But a member in that meeting came out and spoke to me. They gave me a hug and said “come back in honey you belong in this room”.

I did that. I went back into that meeting and noticed it was helping me.

I kept going to the CMA meetings and I got almost 90 days clean but for some reason I decided it wasn’t for me.

I still had the thoughts that people were judging me and didn’t care about me, so I went back out and got on and life got bad again.

I decided to go to a different 12 step program and try my luck there which also helped me but not as much. I lasted 30 days and left.

I came back to CMA and reached 30 days, then went out. Came back again and reached 90 days then left. I came back and this time I reached 8 and half months clean. I was 25 at that stage.

This was until I was asked to do a story about my HIV for a Worlds AIDS day event. It brought up so many issues from my past life and I busted soon after.

But I didn’t give up on doing CMA. I kept coming back.

On the morning of 9 October 2016 I said to myself I can’t keep on living a life like this.

From that day on I started a really great sober life free of all drugs.

I deleted people’s numbers who didn’t care about me and got involved in the program.

I put my hand up and offered to do service at CMA. At first it started with making sure there was tea and coffee and eventually I ended up becoming the secretary of one of the meetings.

I was still having thoughts of using and things were still tough at times but I was informed that if I put my effort in to the program and kept coming to meetings my life would get much easier.

And that was the truth!

I attended more meetings and I asked others in the program for help. I had everyone coming up to me and asking for my number and saying that if I ever need to just talk or need a shoulder to cry on they will only be a phone call away.

I did just that. Eventually my 1 year birthday arrived and I had seen by then that life is much better clean than using drugs.

Every day and night can be bright if I just put my effort in and get the courage to ask for someone in the fellowship for help.

I even asked someone to be my sponsor and worked the 12 steps!

Today, at this very minute, I am 1 year, 4 months and 14 days clean. And I can say I love this sober life for sure.

Recovery has shown me how to live a sober life, free. While at the same time helped me grow as a person living with HIV.

The biggest part of being clean and sober for me is remembering to take my meds and understanding the type of person I am today. An added gift of freedom from addiction!

These programs do work and to tell you the truth, I’m glad I’m an addict, a recovering addict.

Thank you, my sober life has saved me.

Addicts helping other addicts

December 21, 2017 / admin / Comments Off

Hi. We may not know each other, but if you are reading this now there is a good chance we have at least one thing in common.

Just over a year ago, during a desperate search online for ways to “cure” an addiction to crystal meth, I found this site.

I read every last bit of information before arriving at this section – where people in the program told me about their experiences.

I read those stories several times over the course of a week before I finally accepted that I wanted what they had and the only way I was going to get it was to actually turn up to a meeting.

The first time I went I only got as far as the door because, when I looked in, I saw faces I recognised and the thought of them knowing that I was an addict was too much for my ego, so I turned and ran.

Which is silly right? Because if they were there, they share the same addiction, and the only difference was that they were actively doing something about it.

It was another couple of weeks of misery before I plucked up the courage to try again. When I arrived, I was again faced with people I knew but they all smiled and welcomed me.

There was no judgement. They seemed genuinely happy to see me there.

I can’t remember what was said that night, but I left with a sense of calm and relief. The people were nice, they were genuine, they told me to keep coming back. So I did.

I must admit I came in with a delusional fantasy that just turning up would be enough.

I thought all I had to do was come into that room and listen to people and then I would never use again. But that isn’t the case.

After several months of struggling to even reach ten days clean, I realised there was something I was hearing again and again: that this is a program of action.

This meant there is no cure to this disease, but if I wanted to arrest it, I had to put some work in.

Like many people who struggle in the grip of addiction, I had put my faith purely in doctors and psychologists who helped me to understand the basics of things like brain chemistry and triggers but, for me, this became as effective as asking for sex tips from a nun – they can give you the theory behind it, but they have never experienced it before.

Therein lies the difference with a program like this – it’s addicts helping other addicts.

So, I did the suggested things: I found a sponsor and started working the steps.

The steps have helped me gain an understanding of myself. I came in with no idea of who I was anymore but, over the course of the past year, I have pulled myself apart and started to rebuild.

I have better relationships (particularly with my parents, for which I am incredibly grateful), I am in gainful employment, I have a roof over my head, my bills are paid, I have food in the fridge, I have goals that I am working toward and, perhaps most importantly, I have people in my life now who genuinely care about me and love me for who I am because they understand me in a way no-one else can.

I also have a spiritual connection in my life and if, like me, you find that irksome, don’t let it put you off, ok?

I love what this program has given me. I get to connect with people from all walks of life.

We can listen to and support each other through the good times and the bad.

Now, when I see someone from my past walk into a meeting I am so happy and relieved because it means they are on this path as well.

I love what I have now, and I want them to have it too! And, even though we don’t know each other, the same applies to you, my friend.

I remember when I tried my first drugs I was told “try it, you might like it”. I can honestly tell you the same thing applies to the program.

A Woman’s story

July 3, 2017 / admin / Comments Off

Hi, I am a thirty-something woman and member of the CMA fellowship. I have been clean for three and a half years. During this time my world has changed more than you will probably believe.

This is my story of how I came to be a CMA member.

I grew up in the suburbs of Sydney. I was raised by both my parents. I have childhood memories of riding my bike and family holidays on the Gold Coast. I was carefree, playful, and was given the gift of a loving childhood.

My transition into a teenager was a bit more difficult. I started to struggle with who I was. I became uncomfortable in my skin. I lacked the voice to speak up and talk about how I felt. That feeling cemented itself into my soul and began to grow.

I learnt when I was 16 that if I binge drank alcohol I felt pretty good about myself.

I also learnt that if I worked a lot of hours at my part time job, I would have no time to reflect on how lost I felt.

So I stayed busy and binge drank on the weekend. This behaviour carried on after I left school and started working full time in an office.

The thing I never really liked about alcohol was the calories. So when I ran into an old friend who raved about the benefits of ecstasy and speed they had my interest.

I was promised no calories, dancing all night, and the smell of food would repulse me. In my eyes that was a WIN WIN WIN… So my experimentation with drugs began. I was 21 years old.

I still see those first few years through rose coloured glasses. I had a small group of very close friends and we went through this phase together. We went to raves, festivals, day clubs, kick-ons in hotel rooms.

I truly believed I was living this amazing double life, office worker by day, international women of mystery by night.

Week after week I went through the cycle of being awake all weekend, and then caught up on sleep during the working week.

It was tough but I managed.

On the dance floors I found a connection I’d never felt before. I’d never felt more myself, and more at ease.

The first time it was suggested to me that I try crystal meth I actually said no. My exact words were, “no, that’s a scary drug”.

But as often these things went for me, my rubber arm was twisted and 20 minutes later I was in the back of a car smoking crystal meth for the first time.

After using I returned to the club and it felt like I had electricity in my blood. And surprise, surprise, I really liked it…

From that moment on crystal meth had me. Not that I knew it at the time, but it already had me.

My weekends changed once I starting using crystal meth. I had less regard for work on Monday and didn’t want to attempt sleep on Sunday nights.

Coming down then became too painful so I just didn’t come down. I used crystal meth every morning; it was part of my morning routine.

I got away with being high at work for a long time.

I got to the point that having the drug in my system meant that I was acting “normal” – if I tried to not use I would stop functioning.

This is the belief that kept me in this cycle for many years.

I told myself that I needed to work, I needed to function, so I needed to use crystal meth every day.

They say that addiction is a progressive disease. And that is very true for me.

It got to the point that smoking crystal meth every day wasn’t enough. I became open to using in other ways. And as soon as I made that shift everything changed.

I became paranoid and dropped in and out of psychosis. I stopped going to work. I pushed everyone that loved me away; I didn’t want them to see what I had become.

I lost so much weight that my face was sunken and skin opaque.

The only thing I cared about was using crystal meth.

I had a thirst for the drug like I’d never had before, and I’d do whatever I had to do to get it.

My rock bottom came on my 30^th birthday.

I had told myself a lot of lies up until that day, but on that day I looked in the mirror, and I didn’t know who I was looking at.

For the first time I was actually scared for myself and I realised that if something didn’t change, I would die.

Six weeks later I admitted myself into rehab.

I turned up that first morning full of fear. I didn’t know what was about to happen but I knew it was time to try and change.

In the rehab they spoke about funny things that didn’t make much sense at first. Things like going to meetings and being in an abstinence based program which included alcohol.

I was in that treatment centre for three weeks and a few miraculous things happened in that time. I came to understand that I have the disease of addiction and began to identify as a recovering addict. I started to function quite normally WITHOUT crystal meth in my system.

While I was in the treatment centre two members from the CMA fellowship came and told their story.

I related to both speakers and decided that when I left I would go along to one of their meetings. And I did. And I still do today.

My life has changed a LOT in the last three and a half years. And as I stated above, my world has changed more than you will probably believe.

I live a life today that is rich with joy and laughter. I am surrounded by people that love and support me.

It has taken time but I no longer think about using crystal meth.

I no longer want to put anything in my body which will cause me harm. I am close again with my family and I have mended the relationships that my crystal meth use damaged.

I have learnt to love myself and I am no longer confused about who I am.

Every day I stay clean I grow to be more comfortable in my skin.

I am just one woman in recovery who hopes to help other women. If you related to any of my story please come along to a CMA meeting, we are here, and we can help you.

Glyn’s story

June 23, 2017 / admin / Comments Off

So, I want to tell my story. I’ve never written my story before but I have heard other people tell me theirs and I hear mine so here goes….

My name is Glyn and I am a recovering Crystal Meth addict. This is easy for me to say today but that wasn’t always the case.

You see, before coming into the rooms of 12 step recovery I was just an addict. Using became my life. Everywhere I went Meth came with me, either in me or on me.

The relationship I had with Meth was one of using just here and there, I felt as though I could take it or leave it for a time, but then I began to use it more and more and looked forward to it.

When I didn’t use I began to miss it, like a friend you see often and you leave them thinking I can’t wait to hang out with that guy again.

This went on for a year or so until my using became more and more frequent.

Instead of using on weekends sporadically I began using every weekend. Months went by and I was able to recover from my jaunt and show up for work without a problem.

It wasn’t long before I needed to have a little smoke or line of Crystal in the morning, just to get me to work. I distinctly remember thinking once while I was preparing to use that I didn’t need any friends anymore, Meth became my best friend.

Within less than a year I was using every day. That to me sounds almost unbelievable as I am writing this but it is was true and this continued for another 2-3 years, EVERYDAY.

My life began to spiral out of control. I was taking lots of time off work and became very unpredictable. My moods were all over the place.

I made it impossible for people to see me because all I wanted to do was to be alone with my drug. I never called anyone even family and refused to answer calls.

I became withdrawn, emaciated, and completely deluded. I would have thoughts that everyone was against me and trying to trick me.

I believed that people had placed cameras and recording devices in my apartment and at times when I wasn’t searching for them I would be lying on my bed for hours and hours paralysed my paranoia.

I never felt safe, my best friend had become my worst enemy yet I still protected the drug!

No one knew the hell I was going through as I did a very good job of hiding my feelings in public. In a sense I became an automaton, soulless and expressionless outside the confines of my apartment.

One day, a really good friend sat me down and told me ever so sweetly that I was an addict. I broke down and cried. I knew it was true.

I had been lying to myself for years but I knew she was right. That was my first admission that I am an addict. I hated it!

I was walking along an overpass one day and seriously considered jumping over onto the oncoming traffic but as I was working out how to get over the railings I saw a treatment centre in Surry Hills to my left.

I thought to myself maybe I ought to try speaking to a drug councillor instead. I had nothing else to lose at that stage.

I began to seek help and for the first time I spoke to another person about my meth use. That was a huge start for me and I stopped using for six weeks, WOW!!!

When my six sessions had finished I was so pleased with myself that I wanted to celebrate. I used that night and so began the merry-go-round once again.

This time my using became ferocious. I very quickly got brought to my knees once more wanting to end my suffering.

I sat on my couch one afternoon and prayed. Not to God because I felt like He had forsaken me but to Crystal Meth.

I prayed that my life would end sooner rather than later. I give up!! Crystal Meth was now my God!!

Something very strange happened, I became happier and my using became less. I got a kind of strength from somewhere. I can’t explain this but I became lighter and brighter and went outside more and more.

I came across a guy who had spent two years in jail for being a drug dealer and as part of his parole he had to attend Crystal Meth Anonymous meetings.

He began to talk about CMA and thought maybe I could go have a look. I thought why not, at that point I believed I had tried everything else and CMA was one thing I hadn’t heard of.

I went and found it very uncomfortable, I’ve never been comfortable talking about what was REALLY going on for me, but there was something in that room that kept me coming back.

I now know that there is nothing more therapeutic than one addict helping another addict. That was in 2006.

I have to say that my journey fighting this disease of addiction hasn’t been easy nor has it always been successful but I had nowhere else to go.

Today I can proudly say that I have been clean from Crystal Meth and all other mind altering substances including alcohol since 12 May 2014.

Only through working this wonderful 12 step program to the best of my ability every 24 hours am I able to lead a happy joyous life.

I have had so many wonderful things happen to me that it is impossible to write them all down here.

I will share one though. I can walk down the street with my head held high and when I speak to people I can look them in the eye.

My only wish here is that someone reading this can relate. If you can, you need not be alone.

Glyn

Country Kid’s story

October 21, 2015 / admin / Comments Off

I grew up in a small country town in the heart of the Riverina (in the Murrumbidgee irrigation area). I grew up with both parents and four sisters.

When I was seven I was diagnosed with ADD. By the time I was nine it had been changed to ADHD where it stayed until I was 14, when I was finally correctly diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome.

Asperger’s made it hard for me to socialise and communicate with others. I never felt part of, or like I fit in.

I started drinking at the age of 11 and things went downhill pretty quickly.

By the time I was 12 I’d been asked to leave school and to never come back after yet another violent binge in which I had the assistant principle two feet off the ground. So all-in-all alcohol didn’t lead me to making my best choices.

After getting asked to leave school I focused my attention on my drinking and sports (golf and bull riding), both were great outlets for my anger and it helped me to relax a little.

This went on for a good five years until I met my girlfriend and we found out she was pregnant.

It was early in her pregnancy that we knew something wasn’t quite right with our child and these suspicions were confirmed within days after our daughter was born.

She was born with an extremely rare, painful disease that had no known cure.

Most of the next couple of years were spent going from doctor to doctor, hospital to hospital, state to state trying to keep our daughter alive. But sadly, on the 5 May 2009 she passed away.

That day I can remember clear as anything I walked into her room to check on her and she wasn’t breathing, I resuscitated her, successfully bringing her back to life for all of 40 minutes. But she died again on the way to the hospital.

I took this extremely hard and I phoned one of my friends at the time knowing she used Crystal every so often and I wanted some. I was 19.

I asked her to get me some and she told me NO (I should have listened to her).

I rang her the next day and asked her again. She replied OK if that is what I wanted. That was the first day I started using Crystal and I didn’t stop using until 2 June 2014, six years later.

What followed from the first shot was daily using. I almost missed my daughter’s funeral due to despair, anger and most importantly to me… I was waiting for the dealer.

In 2012 while in the midst of my addiction I was blessed with another beautiful little girl. But even after being given a second chance, a fresh start, I couldn’t stop using.

I would take her to my dealer’s place from the day she was let out of hospital through to the day I stopped using.

Throughout my addiction I was always able to put food on the table, a roof over our heads and be there for the people who mattered to me. So I didn’t think I was an addict because addicts couldn’t do that (or so I thought).

It wasn’t until I came into recovery that I realised I was an addict.

I wasn’t addicted to just Crystal; somewhere along the line I became addicted to Oxycodone and Fentanyl. And there was always my drinking.

I remember in May 2014 I walked into the doctor’s office after coming off a bull and suffering three fractured ribs.

I asked for something to take the pain away but was only given Panadol because, and I quote: “if we give you anything stronger you’ll go and sell it or use it in an undirected way!”

After this happened I started to realise I needed help so I made a phone call to a rehab in Sydney and was told to come up in two weeks and they’d have a spot for me. I stopped using the day after: 2 June 2014.

While at rehab someone mentioned CMA, which intrigued me enough to get me to go to my first meeting. It was on a Friday night and I was scared because I didn’t know anyone there. But as I walked into the meeting I felt calmness come over me.

After a few weeks of regularly attending this Friday night meeting, I started to do others, met more people and soon began feeling like I belonged somewhere.

In recovery I have faced hurdles. I didn’t see my daughter for 12 months, I have had family members die, I have had friends die from this disease and another friend was murdered just two days after I last saw her.

But in recovery I can face these hurdles.

The one consistent thing that has been there for me has been CMA – whenever I needed a friendly ear, a meeting, or people who just get what I’m going through.

I am now over 16 months clean and wouldn’t change anything that I have been through because it has helped me become the person I am today.

Today I belong.

Chris’s story

October 4, 2015 / admin / Comments Off

My life is so full. I have freedom, hope and dreams and I wouldn’t trade it for any amount of drugs on the planet.

But that was not the case when I finally asked for help.

I was 22, unemployed, and attending a compulsory resume course for the government.

I was so angry about having to be there, I thought I was doing fine and looked great. I had my ‘business’ in my bum bag and they were just wasting my time.

In reality, I wasn’t doing too well.

I was 42kg’s; my jeans were hanging off my hips with my boxer shorts sticking out the top. I was missing all the buttons on my shirt, had a black eye and bloody nose.

My girlfriend had left me, my old friends were nowhere to be seen, I was homeless and my car had been repossessed.

I was doing things I’d never done before to get on and I was using more than ever. I was using even when I didn’t want to, I felt that I had to. I was using against my own will.

The trainer at the course was asking me all these stupid questions and I was firing back smart arse answers one after the other. I was convinced he was targeting me. I began screaming at him and in that split second I knew I wasn’t the person I wanted to be.

Out of nowhere I said “I need to talk to someone about drugs”.

It wasn’t even my voice, and it seemed to come from deep down in my stomach.

Within seconds two elderly ladies appeared and walked me away with their arms around me. They sat me down and got me to talk. I cried for the first time in years.

They walked me across the road to a psych’s office, I had been there before but this time was different. This time I wanted help, not just more drugs.

The doctor told me about rehab and gave me a stack of pamphlets. I read the first one and knew my way wasn’t working anymore, and I said I was willing to try and do what someone else suggested for the first time in my life. We called the rehab that day.

The lady who answered the phone asked why I wanted to go to rehab. I said, “I just want to be a better person”.

It took a few weeks before I met with a counselor at that rehab and unfortunately by then my desperation had faded.

I was back in the daily routine: an entire life about getting and using drugs. I would do anything to use more – lie, cheat and steal – I knew no other way.

I admitted to the counselor that I needed help to stop using meth, I was even willing to agree to stop smoking weed for a while but I struggled with the concept of not drinking alcohol.

I kept telling her I didn’t have a problem with alcohol, I only drank a few cans (more like a bottle a day). I thought she wasn’t listening to me. I didn’t end up going to that rehab.

As I slammed the counselor’s door she called out “Maybe you should go to a meeting!”

I opened the door and asked “What’s a meeting?”

The night I attended my first meeting I saw people outside laughing and chatting, I didn’t feel like I would belong. It was a dark and cold night in the middle of winter; I hid around the corner until they all went inside.

As they were closing the door to start, I walked in. I recognised the person standing on the other side of the door; his name was Brooke. He had grown up one block behind my parent’s house.

We had used together and had had some great times, but also some horrible times. The last time I saw him he threw a crowbar through my car window and I did a burnout in his front yard. We were fighting over a point of meth.

Brooke shook my hand and said “Welcome. You’re in the right place”.

I can’t remember feeling welcome anywhere before that night; I was touched and will never forget that moment.

It wasn’t the words as much as it was his smile. I had never seen Brooke smile like that, he looked happy and healthy and genuinely glad to so me.

The first person who spoke at that meeting told us about something that was going on for them. No one else was saying anything, just listening intently.

So I interrupted and said “You know what you need to do…” but I was asked to please be quiet and just listen.

Then they asked someone else to speak and I had some questions, so I interrupted again. I was again told to please be quiet and listen.

I didn’t understand how to sit still and listen, I didn’t understand how a group of people who were like me, who had used the way I had used, could all sit in a room together and not use any drugs!

I kept looking for someone in charge, someone who was stopping these people from using!

After the meeting Brooke answered a lot of my questions and people gave me their phone numbers in case I had more, or just needed to talk.

They all said the same thing: “Keep coming back”.

At the meetings I heard some suggestions from people about how I too could stay off drugs and get my life together.

They suggested I keep coming to meetings, one a day for the first 90 days.

They suggested I get a homegroup (a meeting that I would go to each week).

They suggested I do something small to give back, like help set up the chairs before the meeting or wash the coffee cups after it.

They strongly suggested I ask someone to be my sponsor; someone who’d worked this program before and could take me through it.

And most importantly, I heard that instead of trying to stop after two, six or 20 (which rarely happened), how about I simply don’t have the first one!

I don’t remember exactly when, but it started to work.

I had found new people who didn’t drink or drug and were enjoying life. It rubbed off on me.

I kept coming to meetings, getting more phone numbers and talking to people. Before I knew it I was no longer using drugs, one day at a time.

I was going for coffee and dinner before and after the meetings, I was making new friends and generally enjoying life but after a while a new problem appeared… me. I started to feel all the feelings I had been suppressing with drugs. I didn’t know how to deal with them.

That’s when I began writing on The 12 Steps with my sponsor.

Through The Steps I learnt that I’m a good person, worthy of a life full of joy and happiness. I just have this disease called addiction that means when I put drugs or alcohol into my system, my life becomes a mess and a life full of joy and happiness becomes impossible.

That disease tries to trick me into forgetting how much of a mess my life gets. Despite all evidence to the contrary, it tries to convince me that the next time will be different… that the next time I won’t be a mess.

But I learnt that there is help, I found hope for the future and faith that the program works.

I wrote about my life and with my sponsor identified the part I played. We identified my character assets, and my patterns of behaviour that cause me pain. With his help, I am working on replacing those behaviours with more healthy ones.

The feelings are still there sometimes but they don’t have the same power anymore and I’ve learnt that they pass.

I’ve also started doing service.

My first job at my homegroup was to make sure each week the meeting had enough tea, coffee, biscuits and milk for everyone. Seems simple for any normal person but I had never done anything in my life that required consistency!

After doing that for a while I became the secretary of that meeting.

They gave me keys to a building the meeting was in, and my job was to show up early and set up, as well as welcome everyone, clean up and lock up.

I was literally given the keys to freedom! Not just my own but others’. I had never been entrusted with anything so valuable in my life. I didn’t screw it up.

It was so nice to play a small part in helping other people get well, just as I was helped.

Since then I have held a variety of positions in the fellowship, I have greeted people at the door, organised activities, worked on the website, looked after literature sales, and even acted in a play in front of hundreds of people at a convention. We are people who live full lives!

Service helped me to feel a part of.

I had never felt a part of anything. I had never felt as if I belonged. I always had many friends but never felt safe being myself or being by myself.

I was kicked out of home at the age of 14, was asked to leave school at 15, have run away or been evicted from over 40 addresses and lost over 20 jobs.

When I started coming to meetings, I was on probation at the corrections office, not allowed to leave the state for two years and my passport had been cancelled for six. I was in so much debt I was looking at bankruptcy.

All of this changed in recovery.

I have received many gifts in my recovery. Today, I am living a life beyond my wildest dreams.

CMA has taught me it’s OK to be me. It has taught me how to be a part of a community and how to be an active member of society. It’s taught me that recovery is possible, people can change and things will be OK.

It’s taught me that no matter what happens, I never need to use drugs again.

While in recovery I completed my probation and have not had any trouble with the law since. I have worked for the same company for over eight years, returned to study and today am an engineer in an industry I love.

I have reconnected with my family, attended my sister’s wedding and have a key to my parents’ home. My three-year-old nephew video called me this morning dressed as Batman.

In recovery, I live where I want to live, with people I like and without fear of eviction.

I have a licence with all my points. My car has a spare tyre. I have hundreds of friends. I have a passport and take holidays. I have been on a cruiseship, sober. I currently have flights booked for Mexico next month to drive around the desert in a rented chevy.

Today I like myself and I love my life!

Not once have I woken up in recovery wishing I had had a drink or a drug the night before, and I can tell you the ride has been far from boring. As long as I live the CMA way of life I have nothing to fear and miracles keep happening.

Check it out for yourself. You have nothing to lose and a lot to gain.

I hope to meet you at a meeting one day soon.

Sparkle’s story

May 13, 2015 / admin / Comments Off

I have been in the program now for over 5 years.

About 18 months of that was a mess of regular relapsing, then I started actually putting in the work after a particularly nasty relapse and I’ve been clean for about 3 and a half years.

So I know compared to a lot of people in this room I’m still a baby.

I’m not going to spend a lot of time talking about the mess but in brief: I grew up in a good home with a great family. I was always a high achiever which unfortunately nurtured a huge ego.

In my 20s my life was on the up-and-up but then I started drinking more than most people and life started to splutter a little bit, then I finished university and was progressing up the corporate ladder when I started getting drunk even more and then life started to stall, then I started using drugs and life started going down the gurgler real quickly and I found myself in a very scared, lonely, isolated and dark place.

My life had gone from very big to very small. I’d gone from a billion possibilities to a billion impossibilities.

That’s my story before recovery.

What I really wanna talk about is what happened after I found this program. One promise of freedom from active addiction and a great deal of magic, sparkles and flaming colours.

Firstly, the disclaimer: It’s been my experience that I have to put in some serious repair work on myself before freedom from active addiction can happen, and only once that promise takes place do the gifts start to flow.

When I first came in I was just not willing to do the suggested things.

I would go to a meeting or two but I wasn’t living recovery. I wasn’t doing service, I wasn’t connecting with other addicts, I wasn’t using my sponsor or doing step work.

I really just wasn’t willing to go to any length, yet.

So I’d relapse again and again but my relapses were getting worse and my life getting darker until finally, the penny dropped and I found myself in that place that our literature talks about where we just felt deep down… ‘enough’, I’m done.

For me it was at a busy Central Train station on a Tuesday morning heading to work and I remember seeing around me the sea of humanity with all this energy and colour but feeling so alone and grey in my heart.

As I said, I found myself in recovery a very fearful and angry person, living in a very small world.

For the longest time I had this impending sense of doom that something terrible is just over the horizon and it’s coming to get me and everything in my world is gonna fall apart.

For example if I went into work and there was a note on my desk asking me to see the boss I would automatically think there must be something wrong.

Then I would start to think up all the hypothetical reasons why the boss might want to see me.

And then I start thinking up all the hypothetical excuses for myself so before I know it I’m caught in this ridiculous fear spiral where I’m imagining hypotheticals on hypotheticals on top of more hypotheticals.

And it had been that way all my life.

And I didn’t know it at the time but that is self-obsession and fear, the core of my disease, manifesting itself long before I could say the words ‘I’m an addict’.

What those self-obsessed fears will do is they take my big world and everything in it and bit by bit, everything that causes me fear is jettisoned from my life and my life becomes smaller and smaller and smaller until it fits into this little tiny box.

And the life in that box isn’t a life worth living but I like that tiny box because it feels like I can control my life better. And the illusion of control is very comforting to me.

But a consequence of doing the 12 steps is the gift of a spiritual awaking whether you bloody-well like it or not, and I can’t have that spiritual awakening without first getting that other great gift of this program – faith.

And faith is the key.

Faith allows me to take that little tiny box, break it open and face my fears, and start doing those impossible things and start making my life big again.

BUT…

I am an evidence-based person – I love me some logic and if you’re gonna tell me that by working those 12 steps and this program that miracles can happen then you’re gonna have to prove it first. Otherwise you’re just talking shit.

And that’s exactly what people did for me until I could eventually see the miracles for myself: I have a friend who’s lost someone very special to them and they went through a hell of a lot of pain but they got through it without using.

That’s a miracle.

I have a friend who was told in grade 9 that they were too stupid to continue high school, so they dropped out and became a drug addict, then got clean and is now kicking goals at university.

That’s a miracle.

I have a friend who’s professional life fell apart in addiction, then they go clean, faced some serious fear and completely changed their career and now their working in a field they never thought possible.

That’s a miracle.

I have friends who were told they would never, ever have their kids back in their lives, then they got clean long story short and now they are.

That’s a miracle.

You ask these people if they think that’s a miracle, and they’ll say yes.

I have received many gifts in recovery.

Now when I take that leap, I don’t so much fear the fall as long as I can at least say I tried. Where the old me would choose to run, more often than not I choose to stay.

I have fallen in love with someone I consider my equal and not my hostage, and it is as terrifying as it is marvellous.

And I have people around me today who can celebrate all my joy, and who’ll be with me though any of my pain.

I have friends, family, career, and love all because I’ve allowed this program to take that little box and explode it into something amazing and I think I do a great disservice to myself and to my higher power if I treat my recovery as anything less than the miracle it is.

I don’t want a life today that is just different shades of monotones and monotony. I have tried that and it’s not worth it.

I want my life to sparkle and I want a life lived in screaming fucking colours! And you know what? I think that’s what my high power wants for me as well.

There is a lot of fucking colour and magic that happens in this thing I belong to called the fellowship.

There I was at Central train station… and for a longest painful time before that, stumbling around on the edge in a cycle of relapse about to fall off into jails, institutions or death (probably death for me).

When recovery reaches out and pulls me back and says ‘hey, I know you’re in a whole lot of pain right now and you want to leave, but why don’t you and I have just one more dance?

Just one more dance just for today?

And the magic is that three and a half years later I’m still here dancing, with you guys. And from that comes a lot of gifts.

This program has been like a lightning bolt to my chest, and it’s jolted me awake with just a little magic and sparkle.
It’s a magic that I cannot create of myself. I need a higher power to do that, and the fellowship that connects me to that higher power.

I am grateful for all the gifts. For all the magic and sparkle and colours I have in my life today.
By ‘Sparkles’ (Nickname)

Anonymous’ story

July 25, 2014 / admin / 3 Comments

My parents divorced when I was three and I grew up living with my mum and step dad. Every second weekend my older brother and I would stay at our dads place. My dad is an alcoholic and from my earliest memories he was smoking weed in front of us. He was always growing “pot” plants, sometimes the set up more elaborate then others.

At home with my mum and step dad we were brought up in a strict catholic house. My mum & step dad had three more children together. Mum suffered with mental health issues, which progressed into alcoholism.

When I was quite young I started battling with my body image an eating disorders. Other destructive coping strategies kept popping up, I started self harming and I remember I would force myself to stay awake all night and day while I was going to school.

I was 13 when I started smoking weed and 14 when I started drinking alcohol. It was horrible because I would always black out and get really sick. I didn’t realize that that wasn’t normal.

When I was 15 I was kicked out of home. I lived on and off the streets and in run down government housing commissions, that were over crowded with addicts. That is when I first had meth. I was over the moon when I found it because I didn’t black out or vomit and it made me feel important, strong and like nothing mattered. I could stay awake for days and it felt like I had a purpose and I never wanted to be without it. During this time my family cut me off. My mother told me that it was easier for her to pretend I didn’t exist than to worry about me taking drugs and dying on the street.

I moved to Sydney when I was 20 with my long term boyfriend, we needed to get away from some of the carnage caused from his drug dealing career. I had also gotten a really good job up there. We tried the clean thing for a while, it was really hard and we broke up after a few months of trying.
I started drinking and taking drugs again straight away. I was so lonely and frightened at that point. I remember sitting down and pressing a razor blade against my wrist as hard as I could, willing myself to end it. I barely broke the skin. I hated my self for being so pathetic and not being strong enough to cut deeper. I decided that instead I would kill myself slowly and painfully with drugs and that that is what I deserved for being so weak. So for the next few years, that is what I proceeded to do & I did a pretty good job of it.

I got really thin and sick. I had a severe chest infection that lasted for the better part of a year. When I would have a coughing fit it was like I was drowning and couldn’t take in a breath. I was so scared of these fits because I thought one of them was going to kill me. I am surprised I am still alive and in one piece today. I used wake up after a bender and my feet would be so swollen and sore and my toes would be numb from lack of blood circulation. Often when the drugs ran out, it felt like I had to fight with all my might to stay sane and when I would lose that fight, it just became a primal fight to stay alive. And for hours I would slip in and out of conciseness and all I was aware of was this intense pain and fear. The funny thing was I kept doing this to myself over and over. There were times when I suffered psychosis, sometimes the snap to insanity was eerily calm and quiet and I felt like I was floating in a different and better world. Other times the snap was so terrifying and I felt like I had to fight the world to stay alive. I remember one time I ended up cuffed by the police and I thought there were helicopters in the sky from different countries coming to save me and I kept shouting at the police that, “they are going to write about this, what do you want them to write about you.” That didn’t help my case and I ended up in hospital held down by a team of nurses and injected with sedatives and anti psychotics. I was living in constant fear of insanity and death.
When I finally realized that I was addicted to ice, I was terrified. I had no job, my family had cut me off from their lives again, I had no friends who I had known longer than a few months and no place to call home. I was high all the time, I loved the beach & I remember I couldn’t even be there with out using.

The morning that I realized I was an addict I conjured up an image in my head of my boyfriend and I drug free and playing in a rock pool. I wanted it so much and I could see it so clearly but it seemed so far away and unattainable. In my mind that is were my journey of recovery began.

I tried many things to get clean. I did the geographical move back to my home town and I white knuckled it down there, I managed to get Ice out of my life for two years and for that first year I was able to not use any drug, other then alcohol, for up to a month at a time. I seemed to only get sicker though and in this period I ended up in hospital more times then in all of my using. With every hospital episode another type of therapy was enforced on me to help me get better. It wasn’t until I found CMA 9 months ago and I started working with the 12 step program, that I really started to make leaps in my recovery and that I was able to start living a life free from drugs and alcohol.

Since being in recovery my life has become very full! I am doing things that I have always wanted to do, like starting hobbies, volunteering & success in my work. I have been able to start building an adult relationship with my family, which I really cherish. I feel like I have more awareness around my behaviors and their consequences and with that I feel growth. I feel like I am starting to learn what my needs and wants are and with the support around me, I am slowly starting to learn to overcome my fear around asserting myself. I have more motivation and energy to do things, without drugs, than I have my whole adult life. I am learning that I can be kind to myself and when things are hard I practice saying a few kind words to myself and doing something for me that I enjoy. This has felt very empowering to learn that I can do nice things for me!

Life in recovery has been challenging at times and I have battled with difficult feelings, but they haven’t got out of control and on the whole Ihave stayed pretty safe and sane. And you know what – I am starting to fear my self less and less.

CMA has helped me make new friends, who love and care and support me. I have done the things suggested, I got a sponsor and I stay in regular contact.

I got phone numbers of other recovering addicts and I used them. I go to regular meetings. I went to a meeting nearly every day for the first 6 months and I am still at one most nights. I am working the steps with my sponsor. I am involved in doing service work. I do fellowship with other addicts regularly and “I don’t pick up one day at a time.” Doing all of these things not only has helped me stay clean but has helpedme feel connected and a part of CMA.

We have a lot of fun together too! I believe that for me, a big part of my recovery and healing is to learn how to socialize and have meaningful relationships without drugs or alcohol. We regularly go out for dinner and coffee. We have a different activity once a month. We have gone bowling and to the mountains for a hike and we have had a number of beach trips! The love and support that I have received in this fellowship is the reason I am clean today. I have CMA to thank for the life that I have today. I aim to show my gratitude, by giving back the same love and support that I have received.
Anonymous.

Brad’s story

July 25, 2014 / admin / Comments Off

How it was
I grew up in a small town in North Queensland with a mum who is a paediatric intensive care physician and a dad who’s both and an electrical engineer and mechanical engineer. I also have two younger brothers who are both electrical engineers. So I come from a nice family of high achievers and hard workers. Growing up, family life was pretty good.

Intimacy
My mother and father both had difficulty showing intimacy with us kids, but for different reasons. My mum had a violent alcoholic father, and my father came from a broken home which deeply affected him.

Because of mum’s upbringing she didn’t drink, and really hated having it in the house or seeing my father drinking. Dad, not being an alcoholic, could take it or leave it, and he left it, other than the odd after-work drink or snifter of Port at Christmas.

First drink
I remember my first drink. It was one beer at my parent’s beach house and I shared it with my cousin. I was around 16 and we both hated the taste but we didn’t want the other one to think we weren’t cool so we forced ourselves to finish it, which took the two of us about an hour so I didn’t get drunk and I thought “why the hell do people do this?” and pretty much left it alone until I went to university.

I left home at 17 to travel away to another city for university. Looking back, it feels like a big deal now, but back then I just thought it was what was expected of me. At university alcohol was everywhere. And when I turned 18 it also made it easier to get hold of.

I had to do more

So I went to university and a big part of my mother came out in me in that nothing’s ever enough and you can always do more so I decided to study two degrees at the same time, one in journalism and another in communications.

Then a big part of my father came out in me. Dad came from a very poor upbringing and didn’t always know if he’d have food for dinner. My mother came from a big farming family and they had money. But my dad refused to take any money from my mum’s family, everything they had they worked for it.

I decided I wanted to work rather than rely on my parents during university so I got a job to pay the bills so on top of my studies I ended up working around 35 hours a week. On my holidays I would also do work experience at media companies so I could have a portfolio of work to go with my degrees and hopefully get a job in media, which were very hard to come by. Of my graduating class of 150 kids, I was only 1 of 4 that got jobs as a journalist and from that point I have had a very successful career in journalism and politics.

On top of all this I was partying most nights and I think in total I was sleeping about 4hrs a night.

I loved getting shitfaced! I loved the confidence it gave me, the happy feelings that I could do anything, it just gave me wings to fly in a world where I felt deeply that I didn’t fit in. I had a general unease about myself that had always been there, and was going to get worse…

I came out

Around my second year of university I came out as being a gay man in north Queensland was is pretty conservative, and not really having the internet chat thing yet, or having any gay friends, booze and drugs gave me the courage to go to the gay bars for the first time, or kiss that boy for the first time, and feel comfortable in my own skin. God I just wanted to feel confortable in my own skin.

I found I could have a drink and it would make me feel just that little bit more confident. And so on the next occasion I would do it again, and again, and again until I found that my confidence had completely left me in social circumstances, like a plant I’d stopped watering or a muscle I’d stopped exercising – It had just withered and died. I could not be social without having something in my system.

Loneliness

This compounded a deep sense of loneliness that had plagued me my entire adult life. I’d spent so much of my life either working or smashed with people I only knew by first name that I wasn’t cultivating any real friendships and the ones I had cultivated were dying on the vine from neglect.

So when something huge like a relationship breakup comes along, I didn’t feel like I had the support network around me to deal with it. It was classic addiction – it isolated me from everyone.

Finding Crystal Meth

Then at about 28-years-old I found Crystal Meth and I thought it was just amazing. It made me confident in social situations and whereas alcohol had stopped working for me, the drugs made me happy. But I wanted more, and more and more, and what was a progression into alcoholism that took about 10 years took only 1 year into full-blown drug addiction. Within 12 months I went from using ecstasy, then cocaine, then GHB, then meth, and others and it got out of control. I still thought I was ok though. I thought I was having an amazing life with heaps of fun but I didn’t see the complete destruction I was causing to my life. My first sponsor and I worked out that in that one year of using drugs I spent at least $40,000. In this madness I was still holding down my job and paying my bills.

Sex

Importantly for me, I liked the release that meth gave me during sex. I was confident and dominant and got to experiment with different types of sex that I would never have been able to try otherwise. And again I wanted more of it. Towards the end I wasn’t able to have sex at all unless I was drunk or high.

First meeting

Eventually, my partner at the time forced me to go to meetings otherwise he’d leave me following a particularly nasty bender which involved drugs and alcohol, thousands of dollars and a prostitute. So I was pushed kicking and screaming into the fellowship out of that fear of being alone and not because I thought I had a problem. So because of this, I relapsed constantly for about 2 years even though I was still going to meetings. I could mange to get one month, I could sometimes manage to get two months, but that was it, I always relapsed and I relapsed because I wasn’t prepared to put in the hard work, yet.

Rock Bottom

Then came what I hope is my rock bottom and I’m not going to go into it because we all have our war stories but it involved me once again being in the emergency ward of a hospital after a binge with my life hanging in the balance and I remember asking god to keep me safe and to protect me. I could handle all the consequences of yet another relapse but if god kept me safe this time I would give the program a real crack and actually start working the 12 Steps. I had found that point of desperation. And in that emergency ward I had puzzled doctors and nurses telling me I should be dead, but I wasn’t and I really should have been and they couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t. It reminds me that every single time I have humbly asked God for protection – every single time – I have been protected. And again I can’t explain that.

What it’s like now

I came so close to total disaster. It was like I was walking blindfolded towards the edge of the cliff, about to fall into oblivion when God put people in my life to get me into these rooms. I will be forever grateful to my now ex-boyfriend for getting me into these rooms, and thankful to god for helping me stay here.

This program has completely changed me. I came into this program just wanting to figure out a way to manage my using so I could get a boy back. Since then though I have learnt to be OK by myself, and developed a relationship with a higher power of my understanding. That very real and deep loneliness I have felt for years has left me. I get pangs of it from time to time, but it’s just a passing thought now it doesn’t consume me.

Interacting and sex

I feel comfortable enough in my skin now to interact with people on a social level without needing something in my system to feel comfortable. And I can have sex now without being high and still feel comfortable – I like sex and I’m good at it!

Impending sense of doom

What has also left me is an impending sense of doom that something terrible is just over the horizon and it’s coming to get me and everything in my world is going to fall apart. For example: if I went into work and there was a note on my desk asking me to see the boss I would automatically think of all the reasons he might want to see me and start making excuses for myself because I knew there was something terrible about to happen. And it had been that way all my life. I felt like the world was watching me and judging me. And I didn’t know it at the time but that is the bondage of self right there.

What that bondage of self, and those fears will do is make me take my world and everything in and shrink it down smaller and smaller and smaller until it fits into this tiny little box. What fits into that box is nothing – maybe a job and sleep – but that’s not a life. And what this program does is it takes that little tiny box and breaks it open and pushes out the boundaries that you thought you had set for yourself so you can experience a fantastically-amazing life that you deserve and do things that you never dreamed. I have friends, family, career, love all because I’ve allowed this program to take that little box and explode it into something amazing.

Relapse

I want to talk about relapse for a second – I’ve seen too many people die because they thought they were exempt from the consequences of their using. But that is something that has changed in me. I always thought it would be OK to bust as long as I kept coming back. And while coming back is important, it’s not OK any more for me to relapse. Relapses kill people – they have killed my friends – and it might kill me next time.

Similarities not the differences

Something which has helped me is looking for the similarities not the differences. We can get into this program and think ‘I didn’t do that, that’s not part of my story’: Like I didn’t go to rehab, I didn’t lose a job, I didn’t use every day or whatever but if you start looking at the way we felt, and thought, you’re going to notice a lot of similarities.

Building a new person
I work in Martin Place in Sydney’s CBD. It’s a place with lots of people in suits busily weaving in amongst each other. For anyone not familiar with Martin Place, if you have watched the Matrix movies there’s a scene where the main character is learning about the Matrix in a simulation called “the woman in the red dress”. Well that’s Martin Place – The scene, and all those people, were filmed there.

It’s a great place to work. Just down by the water of Sydney Harbour with the Opera House and Harbour Bridge and plenty of pretty buildings – some old renovated heritage buildings made of wood or sandstone like Parliament House, the Supreme Court or the Commonwealth Bank Building, mixed with very tall newer buildings made from glass and steel like the huge MLC Centre.

But amongst all this there was an ugly duckling… it wasn’t an old colonial and it wasn’t one of the new pretty ones either. It was just unimpressive and dull. It was a couple of buildings over from mine. One day I was walking past it and I noticed signs had gone up saying it was being demolished and a new building would be put in its place. So for whatever reason the owners of that building decided it wasn’t worth saving – A fresh lick of paint and new furniture wasn’t going to be enough – a brand new one was coming…

The signs said the demolition and rebuild would take about a year.

Being Martin Place the buildings are all very closely packed in together and to protect all the pedestrians from the debris during the demolition and construction up shot these huge five-story-tall walls around the site.

The demolition was relatively quick and I could see the building coming down in only about three months.

But for the longest time after that it looked like nothing was happening – with those big walls up I couldn’t see on the inside. Every now-and-then a construction team would come and go but largely I seemed like work had stopped entirely.

But what I didn’t know was that over the next 6 months work on the inside of those walls was progressing in earnest, and on the most important and lengthy part of the build – the foundations.

Then, after about a-year-or-so from the day those signs first went up, it seemed as though almost overnight this amazing new building of glass and steel shot up.

I see that building every day and it reminds me of my journey from active addition to recovery: There have been plenty of times when it’s seemed like none of the work I’d been putting into my sobriety was paying off, because I’m always the last person to see any changes in me. But then after laying a strong foundation in sobriety up shot this brand new shiny person – a person that was built with the help so many people.

And I’m grateful that this program does not give you your old life repackaged – it does not slap on a fresh coat of paint, rearranges the furniture, and sends you on your way. It takes your life, clears away the wreckage of your old life, lays a solid foundation and gives you a BRAND NEW life. And for that I’m very grateful. My old life was crap, compared to this new one I live today.

Crystal Meth Anonymous

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